“Alright. I’ll be in touch later today. Thanks a lot, man.” Ed patted the file on the seat. “Good thing you got this to me. It’s always best to spread information around. And besides, it’s never safe to keep all your eggs in one basket. Know what I mean?” I nodded, unsure but playing along.
“We’re gonna blow this thing wide open.” Ed laughed as I closed the door and stared at a long row of identical four-door sedans.
26
I didn’t want to go alone. Fortunately, I caught Liz on her cell and convinced her to go with me. I picked her up in front of a coffee shop in Westwood. She was still lugging her backpack, in addition to a large iced latte.
“Nice ride.” She smiled, as she threw the backpack in the back seat and climbed in the front. “Did you get rid of the Beemer? Did you finally come to your senses and reclaim your soul?”
“Don’t start.” I smiled. “It’s been a rough day. I can’t believe we’re even doing this.”
I told her all the details of my meeting with Ed. We drove out on Sunset, through the Pacific Palisades and continued past Temescal Canyon and on toward the ocean. The road descended away from the shops and restaurants in the village, down the final tight curves to where Sunset suddenly burst around a corner to reveal the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Sunset Boulevard finally butted up against the Pacific Coast Highway at an intersection perpetually clogged with traffic. On the ocean side of PCH sat a parking lot for a seaside restaurant and little else but sand, surf, and the jagged rocks of the breakwater. We turned right and headed up PCH toward Malibu.
The Topanga Canyon road winds its way through the part of the Santa Monica mountains that sit between the Palisades and Malibu. Though only twenty minutes from the city, it is one of the final vestiges of rustic country living to be found in the area around Los Angeles. Countless smaller roads barely wider than a single lane angle off the main road and up the steep mountainside, ultimately disappearing into the wilderness of low trees, sage brush, and rocks that line the canyon walls.
We went through the small collection of buildings that functions as the town of Topanga, with its odd shops and quaint restaurants, and then turned left up a small drive with a cluster of rusty mailboxes gathered along the main road.
What had for many years been a hideout for artists and other rustics who fancied a rugged, pastoral life, was rapidly gentrifying into a neighborhood of wealthy businessmen, lawyers, surgeons, and the ubiquitous movie people who seemed to run like lemmings into every place considered hip or cool. This left the canyon with a strange mix of lone holdouts, still living the country life but finding it more and more difficult to pay their property taxes, and the wealthy interlopers only interested in the appearance of country living without the attendant hassles.
“Do you really think it will be there?” Liz asked, more to herself than to me.
“Who knows. It looks like a real deed, doesn’t it? Murdock said she’d bought a place.” I studied signs at the ends of the driveways as I drove. They were difficult to read. “I just hope the place is still empty.” I added.
The road was steep and only a single lane. We passed old homes with old cars in the driveways that were decorated in the bohemian style one expected in Topanga Canyon — hand painted murals, yards colored brightly with shimmering glass and metal sculptures, dogs everywhere. But interspersed with these were the new homes, built with new money by people who did not care to blend into their surroundings. They were monstrosities piled high and to the edge of their lots with manicured lawns and Mercedes SUVs in the driveways. Homes built by and for obnoxious people who had even less sense than they had taste.
The numbers on the houses climbed as we ascended the hill. I slowed the car as the addresses got close and stopped completely when we reached a number that was too high. For a minute I felt slightly deflated, disappointed at the prospect that the deed was inaccurate, or that the house was no longer there.
“Maybe we missed it,” Liz said, leaning out the window and looking back down the road behind us.
I backed up slowly and we examined the driveways one by one. We came