Survival of the Fittest (41 page)

I saw her neck muscles tighten and loosen.

I was dealing with something fragile, easily bruised, maybe more dangerous because of it.

“Take me back, asshole.”

“Zena—”

“Fuck
off
!”

“Suit yourself.” I stood, hot-faced, teeth clenched, not having to fake it. She started to slide out of the booth but I blocked her exit, leaning over the table, glaring down at her.

“Get the hell out of my—”

“Ms. Third-of-a-Percent,” I whisper-growled. “Because I don’t feel like creaming my slacks right here, I’ve
failed
you? Shouldn’t the elite be a little more
secure
?”

My tone made her flinch. She was trying to outstare me but little things gave her away—nostrils flexing, spots of color sprouting on her face.

Pink spots, like a mild case of eczema. Her mouth trembled. Her nipples were bigger than ever, poking at the pink fabric.

I threw cash on the table. “It’s been an experience. Let’s go.”

“I’ll leave when I’m ready.”

“Suit yourself.” I began walking out.

“Where the
fuck
do you think
you’re
going?”

“Somewhere without pressure, Z.”

“Can’t handle pressure?”

“Can but prefer not to.” I kept going. Suddenly, she was at my side, grabbing my bicep with both hands, clawing through tweed.

“Hold
on,
dammit, or I’ll rip your shirt off right here!”

I stopped.

She moved around and faced me, reached up and cupped my chin in one hand. When Robin stands on tiptoe she barely brings herself to eye level with me. Zena missed by several inches and her breasts were up against my abdomen, our faces nearly touching. Someone watching might have thought it affectionate but she was squeezing my face too hard for affection and as I felt her nails graze my jawline, I prepared to bleed.

“Such a tough boy,” she said. “Such a tough, tough boy—when’s the last time you were laid?”

“I don’t keep records.”

She laughed. “Exactly as I thought. Okay, I’ll attribute your lack of manners to drive level. You deserve release. My place. I’ll show you how to get there.”

I drove back to Apollo with her sitting as close as the gearshift would allow, one hand around my neck, caressing idly as she hummed along with the Bartok she’d found on the radio. Her singing voice was coarse, off-key. I wanted to tell her to shut up.

“Tough boy,” she said. “Obviously, I need to be
tender
with you.”

I smiled. Thinking, what the hell am I going to do?

For all Milo’s and Daniel’s cautiousness, nothing had prepared me for this.

I thought of Robin’s good-bye, two hours ago.

How far was I willing to go?

I tried to put it in perspective by picturing Irit’s body among the trees, Latvinia hanging in the schoolyard, Raymond’s bloody shoes, the pain Melvin Myers had felt. But what if this creature
hadn’t
been part of that—nutty but not dangerous—

“Lyric’s the next corner,” she said. “Make a left.”

As I turned, I allowed myself another look-around for Milo. Once again, moderate traffic, but no one followed me up the steep, shady road.

Lyric offered barely enough room for one car and I drove slowly, trying to sort out my thoughts. Zena began to drum her fingers on my thigh.

“Keep going to the top.”

I checked out the neighborhood. Houses to the right, dry embankment to the left. Draped with cactus, of all things. Between the homes was an eastern view that would have been stunning but for a saucer-shaped suspension of airborne filth hovering over the skyline.

“All the way up,” she repeated, sounding impatient. “Right here—okay, now turn left over there—that’s Rondo Vista. I’m a block up—pull in right here.”

The Karmann Ghia came to rest on a cracked cement pad. It could have been any L.A. hilltop neighborhood, silent, hot, precarious, houses of all sizes and designs, unevenly tended.

Facing the pad was a closed double garage, next to that, a flat-roofed white box with blue wood trim in need of touch-up. Leading to the blue door was a short walkway topped with corrugated fiberglass panels and lined with hanging spider plants, most of them dead. Pink geraniums in a window box set on the ground weren’t doing well, either. A rusting hibachi sat near the front steps, leaking orange onto the cement.

“Ma maison,”
she said. “French
is
the language of physicality.”

She kissed my cheek, waited for me to open the passenger door, then jumped out and marched ahead, as she had in the restaurant, bare arms swinging, narrow hips swaying, pink heels clacking.

She got to the door when I was ten feet behind and opened it. Then she stopped, stared inside, gave a small wave—greeting someone—and closed it.

“
Merde,
Andrew. We are stymied.”

“What’s going on?”

She touched my face gently. “Tsk-tsk, the poor lad is suffused with lust and nowhere to spend.   .   .   . Guests, Andrew. Friends staying over. They were supposed to be gone all day, they’ve changed their plans.
Le grand dragorama,
but such is our reality.”

I frowned. “So much for spontaneity.”

“So soddy, my dear.”

I kept the frown going. She put a finger to her lip and looked at her watch.

“I suppose,” she said, glancing at the garage, “I could take you in there and give you a nice quick suck   .   .   . but, such a shame to reduce our first collision to that—where’s your place?”

“The Fairfax district.”

She studied me. “A taste for bagels?”

“A taste for cheap.”

“Do you live alone—of
course
you do—but, no, it would take too long to get all the way to Semite-town and back, and I really must return to the shop.”

The shop.
As if she were selling dainty things.

I said, “Great.”

She stood higher and pulled me down at the same time. Kissed my nose.

“Oh, Andrew, I’ve done you
wrong.
Obviously, it just wasn’t meant to be. Thanks for lunch.”

“My pleasure.”

“Was it?”

Another kiss, softer, on my chin.

“Yes,” I said. “Very much so.”

“That’s
nice,
Andrew. You’re being so
gallant
about this—look at us, standing here being so civil. Aren’t we both being wonderfully
decent
?”

I laughed and she joined in.

“I tell you, dear,” she said, placing a hand on my chest. “If the erotic moment hadn’t passed, I
would
have dragged you into the garage, laid you across my friends’ car, and sucked you to the root. Alas.”

I drove her back to the store and this time she opened the door herself and jumped out.

“Bye, Andrew,” she said, through the open window.

“Shall we meet again?”

“Shall we, shan’t we   .   .   . that depends upon whether or not you’ll settle for less than all of me.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, in the very immediate future all I can offer you is social contact, dear. Meaning, the closest you’ll get to my precious parts might be a surreptitious grab punctuating the chitchat.”

“Chitchat with your houseguests?”

“And others.” She gave a happy-kid grin. “I’ve scheduled a soiree, Andrew. Tomorrow night. Cocktails at nine o’clock, casual dress. And you are now invited.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion, Andrew. A carpe-diem kind of thing—good fellowship and social intercourse. Fun. Surely you remember
fun
?”

“With the top one-third of a percent? Are you sure I qualify?”

“Oh, Andrew, is this all too diffuse for you?”

“Diffuse?”

“Sharing me, after we’ve worked ourselves up.”

She squeezed her small torso farther into the car window and put my hand on her left breast. Pressing down so I squeezed. The mound was unfettered, small, very soft, the nipple a weapon piercing my palm.

“I suppose I’ll have to take what I can get, Z.”

She took the hand, flung it off. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Nine tomorrow. Bye-bye, A.”

Chapter

48

“The old charm works its wonders,” said Milo, stretching in the car. Not the unmarked. A brown Honda I’d never seen before.

Pine boughs darkened the car’s interior. He’d pulled up next to me at Sunset and San Vicente and told me to follow him.

The place he chose was in Beverly Hills, the alley behind Roxbury Park’s western border. Lots of toddlers and mothers and nannies, the ice-cream man playing his jingle while dispensing popsicles and drumsticks, plenty of parked cars, no reason to notice ours.

“If I needed an ego boost, this wouldn’t be it,” I said. “She’s beyond aggressive.”

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short   .   .   . Little Miss Sex Pistol, huh?”

“Both guns blazing. Ponsico must have been a trout in a bathtub. It’s a good bet it was him she meant when she talked about brains without spine. The DVLL murders probably originated at a Meta meeting—maybe not the whole group, just a splinter. The scenario I like is that Ponsico was enthusiastic in theory but when it came to action, he got cold feet and disappointed her and her friends. Some of whom are staying over, will probably be at the party tomorrow night. Add Sanger’s trip tomorrow and it smells like a big night for Meta. And Andrew’s invited.”

He frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“I worry when things go too well.”

“Don’t you think we’re finally due for some good luck on this one?”

“I suppose.”

“There’s no way she’d suspect anything, Milo. The time we spent together was divided between intellectual pretentiousness and sex talk. The sex came from her. I played Morose Andrew as hard as I could without turning her off. At one point, I thought I’d gone too far.”

I described Zena’s rage at perceived rejection. “Lots of talk about how wonderful she is, but at the core she’s fragile.”

“Fragile?” he said. “Or just a rotten temper?”

“The two often go together. The point is, for all her posturing about being brilliant and sexy and slender and peppy, she lives in a shabby house and runs a bookstore with very few customers. The whole femme-fatale bit had a pathetic edge to it, Milo. It didn’t take much to touch a nerve. She also called high school a “crucible of cruelty,’ meaning she probably
hadn’t
been Miss Popular Cheerleader. She was so upset when I moved her hand away, it actually blemished her face. That kind of volatility could have spelled bad news for Ponsico. Other people, too.”

“Now you’re saying Ponsico was killed because he offended her personally? I thought it was because he betrayed Meta.”

“Maybe it was both,” I said. “Someone like Zena might not separate the two. One thing’s for certain: She’s a eugenics fan. My buying the books is what caught her attention and it didn’t take long before she offered her views on the elite and the masses.”

My two purchases were on the dashboard. He’d thumbed through them.

“Mr. Galton and Mr. Neo-Galton,” he said. “Nasty stuff.”

“Nasty store.”

“Speaking of which, we can’t find any business partners. Sharavi managed to trace her parents. Lancaster. Mother’s dead and her father’s a groundskeeper at Santa Anita racetrack, has a drinking problem. No trust fund.”

“She said her folks were educated, brilliant. More posturing.”

“She may be smart but she’s not too educated, herself. Lancaster High, less than a year of junior college, then she worked at Kmart before getting the job at PlasmoDerm. And listen to this: When she was in JC, she signed up as a police scout with the Lancaster sheriffs. She wanted to join the force but was too small.”

“Anything weird on her academic record?”

“No. She spent half a year, dropped out.”

“Underachiever. It fits our profile,” I said. “So does her being a police wanna-be. I’d never have thought of a woman in those terms.”

“A woman with pals, Alex. No way would she have been physically able to pull off any of the murders by herself.”

“Maybe the pals who’re staying at her house.”

“Yeah   .   .   . and maybe pals who fund the store.”

“The Loomis Foundation?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“What if, after the flap about Sanger’s article, Meta shifted its emphasis to L.A.?” I said. “Sanger could be the group’s bagman and he’s flying out tomorrow to deliver cash.”

“Mr. Mossad’s working on untangling their accounting, we’ll see what he comes up with.”

“Heard from him on the trade school, yet?”

“Nope.” He blew smoke rings out the window. The ice-cream man drove away; lots of pint-sized satisfied customers. So cute   .   .   . everybody starts off cute   .   .   .

I said, “I skimmed as many books as I could but found nothing on DVLL. But some of them had no index and I couldn’t cover everything in detail. If I stay friendly with Zena after the party, I’ll have an excuse to get back to the store.”

He flicked ashes and rubbed his face. “You’ve done good work, Alex, but there’s a bad smell to this. You’re sure you want to stick with it?”

“If it means getting a closer look at Meta, I do. My main concern is how to avoid Zena when she decides she does want to take me into the garage and yank down my pants.”

“Tell her you’ve got herpes.”

“It’s a little late for that and besides, this woman would check. I’ll figure out something.”

“Well, don’t do anything you’ll regret. Even LAPD has its standards.”

I thought of Nolan Dahl’s time-outs with teenage hookers. “How close were you following me?”

“I was at the store before you got there, parked two blocks up Apollo, used some Zeiss binocs Sharavi gave me and had a clear view of you going in and coming out with her. She looks a lot different than the picture Sharavi gave me—the hair—but her size was the tip-off. Her body language was affectionate, so I figured it was going well. When you left for the restaurant, I was four cars behind you. While you ate French food, I had a bad burrito in the car.”