Double

Well, why not? It wouldn’t be working, but then I had no work to do. A few hours at Valdene’s house would appease him, relax me, and maybe kill enough time for Lauterbach to show up at his trailer or office or here at the hotel, and for Eberhardt to come up with the background information I’d requested.

Valdene was still lurking on the mezzanine, standing with an ear cocked near the partially open door to one of the meeting rooms. The last of the panels was going on inside, the jazzy one called “Seidenbaum’s Method of Directive Interrogation: A Creative Debate”; somebody was taking Seidenbaum’s name in vain, whoever the hell Seidenbaum was, as I approached. Valdene seemed happy to see me, and happier still when I told him the movie date was still on and suggested we get to it right away. He offered to drive me out and back, but I said no, I’d better take my rental. That way I could come back early.

I followed him out to his house in Pacific Beach. He got beers for us and set up his projector and put on his video tape of Sleepers West It took me a few minutes to get into it, through no fault of the film, but then it held my interest. Lloyd Nolan was an underrated actor and made a pretty good detective. Most of the action took place on a train; I’m a sucker for trains. And the story was based on a novel called Sleepers East — leave it to Hollywood to turn things ass backward — by Frederick Nebel, one of my favorite pulp writers.

It helped to relax me, all right. So did the beer: I accepted Valdene’s offer of a final one before I headed back to the Casa del Rey. He got it for me, and when he sat down again he said, making conversation, “You find that fellow Lauterbach?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, he’ll probably be at the banquet tonight.”

“Maybe. I’ll look for him.”

“Sure wish I could go,” he said wistfully. “You know, I’m kind of surprised they didn’t cancel it, after what happened to that Picard woman yesterday.”

“Nobody pays much attention to death anymore, Charley.”

“I guess not. All those people outside after it happened, staring at the body... it was pretty gruesome.”

“Yeah.”

“That guy who manages the hotel... what’s his name, Beddoes? He sure seemed upset. You hear him yelling at people to break it up?”

“I heard him. Look, Charley...”

“He’s weird, that guy. I mean weird.”

I had been about to ask him to drop the subject, but there was something in the way he said the word “weird” that made me change my mind. “How do you mean?”

“I ran into him once in a place out by Balboa Park, a couple of months ago. He was there when I got there, buying some stuff.”

“What’s weird about that?”

“This place... well, it’s a specialty shop. I mean, real specialty items. Exotic stuff. You know what I mean?”

“Pornography?”

“Right. But high class. Books, mostly, but also artwork — statues and paintings and curios.” He looked a little sheepish. “I’m not into that kind of thing, in case you’re wondering. The guy who runs the place, Max Littlejohn, is a friend of a friend and he got me some pornographic private-eye books. I didn’t even know they existed, but Max told me about ‘em and I had to have ‘em for my collection.”

I nodded. “What was Beddoes buying?”

“Some books. Looked pretty old. But the really weird thing was this carved statue of a bunch of naked people, guys and women, all tangled up together... you know, having an orgy. It was made out of marble or something. Christ, it didn’t leave anything to the imagination.”

“You’re sure the man was Beddoes?”

“Positive. The way he and Max talked, I figured he was a regular customer. Like I said — a weird guy.”

In more ways than one, I thought.

And then I thought: Pornography. Now what, if anything, could that mean?

Lauterbach didn’t show up for the Society banquet that night. I hung around on the mezzanine during the cocktail hour, talking to Brock Callahan and Miles Jacoby and an old friend from Hollywood, Ben Chadwick, just to make sure. McCone was also a no-show. I wondered if she was finding out anything useful.

There was no way I was going to sit through the rubber chicken and the speeches and the awards ceremony, not to mention the postprandial champagne party and the Latin melodies of the Mexican Bandit Band. I went away as soon as the banquet started, ate a hamburger in the coffee shop, and then retreated to my room to call Eberhardt.