something weird. She said that Don Vargas wouldn’t let her move in until she turned eighteen.”
Jendrek laughed as the doors opened. He spoke in a loud whisper as he stepped out into the lobby. “Well, you gotta be of age to be in porn.”
The words stunned me for a moment as I thought of her sitting on the deck in the lounge chair. It hadn’t occurred to me that she was part of Don Vargas’s business. I felt both repulsion and fascination come over me and the elevator nearly closed with me still inside. I jumped out and caught up with Jendrek at the desk.
The receptionist told us Stanton would be with us in a minute and Jendrek and I strolled over to the floor to ceiling windows. The view west was unobstructed. The Hollywood Hills, with the famous sign and the white dome of the observatory in the foreground, stretched off to the ocean, disappearing into a distant blue haze. The grid of Los Angeles crisscrossed through mid-Wilshire, Beverly Hills, Westwood, and on into Santa Monica, which sat in the distance like a handful of white pebbles next to the glimmering Pacific.
Then a man spoke from behind us. “Mark?”
We turned to see Max Stanton smiling at us. He was tan and fit. Six feet tall and perfectly groomed. Handsome, but not too handsome. And dressed in a casual shirt and slacks that must have cost a grand if they cost a dime.
Jendrek shook his hand. “Thanks for seeing us, Max.”
“No trouble at all.” Then he turned to me. “You must be Mr. Olson.”
“Good to meet you.” I smiled and shook his hand. He wore an Omega watch that could easily be mistaken for a Seiko by someone who didn’t know what they were looking at. I noticed because it was the same watch I wore. The same watch I’d bought for myself the summer I worked there. I now wore it as a talisman to remind me why I’d left the rarefied air of K&C so far behind. “Nice watch,” I said.
He smiled and said, “Yours too.” Max Stanton wasn’t the kind of guy who needed to impress people, because he was impressive. It was just a simple fact. The fact that he came across as a decent guy only made him more impressive.
We followed him back to his corner office and sat in the leather chairs in front of his desk. Stanton eased into his own chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “So, Mr. Olson,” he began, making small talk. “I’m sorry we didn’t have a chance to work together when you were here.”
I was caught off guard by the comment. I smiled and shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, I was pretty busy that summer.”
Stanton laughed at the understatement and said, “So I’ve heard. Well, Jim Carver still speaks highly of you, if it’s any consolation. And at any rate, I’m glad the Vargases will have someone like you working on this for them. Ed Vargas called me in the middle of the night last night and asked me to take the case, but, as I’m sure you can understand, a firm like ours doesn’t make a habit of suing the city. Too many conflicts of interest.” He grinned.
Jendrek said, “I understand. We’re happy to take work away from you guys any way we can.”
Everybody chuckled at that, and then Stanton leaned forward against his desk, resting his weight on his elbows, hunching toward us, signaling that chitchat time was over. “I gotta tell you, I was absolutely shocked last night when I got that call. I’m still reeling from it. It’s unbelievable.”
“Everyone out at the house is still in shock as well,” Jendrek replied. “It’s understandable, of course. Ed Vargas seems convinced that the police don’t have a leg to stand on. I tried to talk to him about the difficulty of these kinds of suits, but I’m not sure he understood what I was saying.”
Stanton said, “Well, Ed’s a smart guy. He’ll understand once his mind gets focused, but frankly, I’m not sure Ed’s the one you need to be dealing with.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Ed wrote me a retainer check from some company called Good Times, Limited. Since a wrongful death suit belongs to the next of kin, I assume it’s the wife I should be dealing with. But she was completely out of it. Is she just going to let Ed run the show?”
Stanton cleared his throat