get in?”
“You in or out?”
“In.”
“Good.” Steve took out a pen and wrote the name Dr. Walker C. Phillips on the back of brown Starbucks napkin. “Here’s a clue. Temecula or Tehachapi.”
“That’s a clue?”
“He may be in one of those two places.”
Norm ran his hand over his face, his chin, the back of his head, over his nut-colored hair. “Fine! But I don’t want any nickel-and-diming after this, are we clear?”
“Clear, Norm. You’ll be doing a big favor for society.”
“Yeah right. I need to sell this series as a favor to myself.”
Steve nodded. “You’re exactly right, Norm. We need a television show about a boy who becomes mayor. World peace to follow.”
“You know,” Norm said, “if I didn’t know lawyers better, I’d say you were making fun of me.”
38
Wednesday morning, Steve ordered a dozen red roses to be delivered to Sienna Ciccone at her apartment on Vermont. Then he went down to the bench in the courtyard of the apartment building and fed Nick Nolte a small bowl of milk. Mrs. Stanky yelled at him from her window. She didn’t want that cat around. Steve smiled and waved, like someone who spoke English as a second language.
The boy from number ten, on the other side of the courtyard, was pedaling his tricycle around the perimeter, going for a land speed record. His name was Ramon and he lived with his mother. His mother was gone a lot. Ramon was too young to be left alone. Steve checked the apartment every now and then. Ramon was usually glad to see him, unless cartoons were on TV.
He thought about going into the office and doing what one of his law professors had described as making a noise like a lawyer.
Then he heard: “Hey, what up?”
It was the kid from number seven, the white bread who fancied himself a gangsta. He was smiling stupidly at Steve, his eyes with the red rims of the newly high. Short, maybe five seven in his socks, the kid wore an oversized jacket and low-riding jeans that bunched up over his white Converse sneaks.
Just shoot me now, Steve thought.
“Lissen up, we got to talk.” Number Seven sat on the bench.
“Who invited you to sit down?” Steve said.
Seven’s stupid smile melted into attitude. “What up with you?”
“Why don’t you quit pretending you’re from Compton?” Steve said.
“Oh man, you be trippin’.”
Steve slapped his hand over his face.
“You don’t even know what I want,” Seven said. “I can take care of you.”
“Excuse me?”
Seven looked around, then whispered, “Set you up. Get you what you need.”
A skin-tightening jolt hit the back of Steve’s neck. “You have no idea what I need.”
“I do, my friend.”
“I’m not your friend.”
Seven wrinkled his nose and made a sniffing sound.
Steve jumped off the bench. His foot hit the dish of milk. Nick Nolte jumped a foot into the air.
Grabbing two handfuls of Seven’s jacket, Steve pulled the kid to his feet. “Who told you?”
“Get your hands—”
“Who?”
“I don’t’ have to tell you nothin’.”
“Stop that right now!” Mrs. Stanky yelled from the window.
The distraction got Steve to loosen his grip enough for Seven to jerk free. He stepped back, bumped into the bench, recovered and pointed at Steve. Didn’t say anything. Just tried to screw his face into a menacing expression.
Then he turned his back and went off toward his apartment.
“That was a very bad thing to do!” Mrs. Stanky said.
Steve picked Nick Nolte up by the scruff of the neck, walked to Mrs. Stanky’s window. Before he could say anything Nick put his paws out and clawed the screen. Mrs. Stanky yelped and took a step away from the window.
“Get him away from here!” She said.
Steve pulled Nick Nolte to his chest, where the cat relaxed. “Don’t get excited, Mrs. Stanky. Breathe easy.”
“Don’t tell me how to breathe!”
That wasn’t all he wanted to tell her. He walked away before he lost it completely.
He’d cooled off by five o’clock. All seemed quiet for once on the apartment grounds. Nobody screaming at him or getting in his face. He was getting tired of the flotsam and jetsam of society floating into the Valley, into his very apartment building.
He missed the Altadena house. It was a place, with a lawn, his own place. He and Ashley hadn’t been too unhappy together, had they?
Yeah, they had, thanks to him.
With the LaSalle money, if it kept up, maybe he could put a down on another house, or at least a condo. He had to get out of the Sheridan Arms before he went