“Okay, okay. There’s good news and there’s bad. I got to thinking about that portfolio you told me your old pal Clarence dropped outside the Brown Derby. I called the Derby, said I had lost a portfolio. Of course, Mr. Sopwith, the lady said, it’s here!”
Sopwith! So that was Clarence’s name.
“I was afraid, I said, I hadn’t put my address in the portfolio.”
“It’s here, said the lady, 1788 Beachwood? Yeah, I said. I’ll be right over to get it.”
“Crumley! You’re a genius!”
“Not quite. I’m talking from the Brown Derby phone booth now.”
“And?” I felt my heart jump.
“The portfolio’s gone. Someone else got the same bright idea. Someone else got here ahead of me. The lady gave a description. It wasn’t Clarence, the way you said. When the lady asked for identification, the guy just walked out with the portfolio. The lady was upset, but no big deal.”
“Ohmigod,” I said. “That means they know Clarence’s address.”
“You want me to go and tell him all this?”
“No, no. He’d have a heart attack. He’s scared of me, but I’ll go. Warn him to hide. Christ, anything could happen. 1788 Beachwood?”
“You got it.”
“Crum, you’re the cat’s pajamas.”
“Always was,” he said, “always was. Strange to report the folks down at the Venice station expect me back to work an hour ago. The coroner phoned to say a customer won’t keep. While I’m working, you help. Who else in the studio might know what we need to know? I mean, someone you might trust? Someone who’s lived the studios’ history?”
“Botwin,” I said instantly, and blinked, amazed at my response.
Maggie and her miniature whirring camera, trapping the world day after day, year after year, as it reeled by.
“Botwin?” said Crumley. “Go ask. Meanwhile, Buster—?”
“Yeah?”
“Guard your ass.”
“It’s guarded.”
I hung up and said, “Rattigan?”
“I’ve started the car,” she said. “It’s waiting at the curb.”
36
We rioted toward the studio late in the afternoon. With three bottles of champagne stashed in her roadster, Constance swore happily at every intersection, leaning over the steering wheel like those dogs that love the wind.
“Gangway!” she cried.
We roared down the middle of Larchmont Boulevard, straddling the dividing line.
“What,” I yelled, “are you doing?!”
“Once there were trolley tracks on each side of the street. Down the middle was a long line of power poles. Harold Lloyd drove in and out, cat-cradling the poles, like this!”
Constance swerved the car left.
“And this! and this!”