Try Fear - By James Scott Bell Page 0,44
was only room for one superhero here, so I walked down to Skooby’s and ordered a hot dog with kraut, and fries. I sat on one of the sidewalk stools and called B-2 at his office.
He told me there was nothing on the e-mails. Whoever the guy was, he was careful not to leave a trail. I asked him if he could get one of his guys to identify a man named Nick who worked for Ezzo Cement, that I had to track him down, and he said he would.
I ate my dog and listened to swing era music being piped out of one storefront, and acid rock out of another. What happens when swing collides with acid rock in the middle of Hollywood? Maybe it rains Perry Como.
Just as I was about to run my last fry through its ketchup bath my phone bleeped. A private number.
“Mr. Buchanan?” The voice was male, soft and articulate.
“Yep.”
“My name is Turk Bacon. I understand you’ve been looking for me.”
I sat up. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Where are you now?”
“Hollywood.”
“Then it should take you about half an hour to get here,” he said.
64
THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY and Botanical Gardens is out in San Marino, named for a Huntington named Henry, a train man who made a fortune in L.A. Had this idea that you could link the city with train and trolley lines. So he did it, and it all worked beautifully. The city was a model of urban transit.
So naturally the oil companies and local politicians on the take choked off the system so everybody would have to drive cars. There is a documentary about this conspiracy, called Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Bacon said he’d be waiting by a painting called The Long Leg by Edward Hopper. I asked one of the staff where it was, and got directions.
When I got there I saw a lanky man with silver hair standing in front of the painting. It’s a seascape, East Coast, with a lighthouse and three quaint homes on the shore. A sailboat is churning past, leaning with the wind.
I stood next to the man and looked at the painting.
“Everyone prefers Nighthawks,” the man said. “Do you know Nighthawks?”
“Is that the one in the diner?”
“Very good. I’m impressed. Yes, that’s the famous one. But this is the Hopper I like. It’s hopeful, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” I said. “Unless the boat is about to capsize.”
He looked at me with questioning gray eyes. “Are you Mr. Buchanan?”
“That’s me,” I said.
“I’m Turk Bacon,” he said. He shook my hand. He was dressed in an Italian-cut blue suit and a cerulean silk tie. “Walk with me.”
We walked. And ended up in the gardens. The desert section. He stopped at a spike of pointed green leaves, shooting up about thirty feet, like a fuzzy telephone pole.
“Agave vilmoriniana,” Bacon said. “It’s Mexican. It’s drought tolerant. A hardy plant for a desolate landscape. But it is also opportunistic. It will seize upon any water it finds and use it to grow faster. And it can bloom in all kinds of soil. It’s an all-purpose plant, you see. That’s why I like it. That’s how I view my own work.”
“You bloom where you’re planted.”
“Something like that. Mostly it’s about survival in any environment, and not just surviving, but prospering. I’ve managed to prosper, sometimes in very forbidding circumstances.”
I cleared my throat. “Okay, I’ve enjoyed the metaphors. Can we do clichés now? Like getting down to brass tacks?”
“You’re well educated for a lawyer.” He laughed. “I like that. I’ve dealt with too many legal chuckleheads who are all costs and benefits, no poetry.”
“I once memorized ‘Casey at the Bat,’ ” I said. “Does that count?”
“I prefer Robert W. Service myself. ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’ is a particular favorite. About death. Over a woman. Isn’t that always the way?”
“Now that you mention it, there’s a woman involved in the case I’m defending. One I am trying to find.”
“And that concerns me how?”
“I understand you are a dealer of certain services, the escort variety.”
“Why am I talking to you, Mr. Buchanan?”
“You can help a man accused of murder. If he was with a woman at the time, he’s innocent.”
“A rarity among defendants these days.”
“So what about it?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I am a gardener and a businessman, Mr. Buchanan, and when it comes to flowers—”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s cut the poetry and posing, okay? I want you to produce the hooker.”
“That’s an odious term.”
“Will you?”
“Your request is