Hondo took the little angelfish, the Nemo character, from my arms and tossed it back in my pickup. He said, “For good luck.”
I narrowed my eyes to give Hondo my mean look, then took the rest of the toys into the office and put them in my drawer, covering the little Walther PPK I kept there for emergencies.
Hondo drove us southeast along Lincoln Boulevard and kept on it as it turned into Sepulveda while I called Sergeant Vick Best of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and asked him if he could find out a little about our John Wesley character.
Sepulveda was still really the Pacific Coast Highway, but in certain cities, they have to rename things for one reason or another. We started asking questions in Hermosa Beach where Hondo had a few contacts and knew people-who-knew-people who knew Magilla.
People seemed to have two responses when asked about Magilla: One was to look over their shoulder before saying they’d never heard of him; the second was to ask for money. The old barter system, money for information.
After paying out somewhere around two hundred dollars and following leads to other areas as directed, we narrowed Magilla’s whereabouts to an area about the size of Australia.
It seemed he was everywhere and nowhere. Yeah, they knew he was around, mostly Torrance or Downtown LA or San Pedro or West Hollywood or Compton or Hermosa or Inglewood or Pasadena or Brentwood or Palm Springs or somewhere in the western half of the United States and yeah, they’d heard he was just there last week, or two days ago, or ten days ago, but no, not lately. Maybe he moved, they would add with their hand out, just in case we were motivated to slip another five or ten onto their palms.
“At least nobody has said he’s in Nova Scotia,” I said. “We can cross that off our list.”
“Nothing like knocking a big portion of geography off our search,” Hondo said.
I held my hand up like a student asking for permission to speak. Hondo said, “What?”
“Do you think we could eat? I think better if I eat at least once every couple of days. My stomach thinks my throat has been cut.”
“Any particular cuisine?”
“Nope. If you see a herd of cattle, stop and I’ll drag down the slowest one and eat it on the spot. I’m starving.”
“The Galley in Santa Monica okay?”
“That sounds perfect. Get a steak, eat at the bar where those bartenders can keep the glasses full.”
The sun had set on a long day, leaving only a thin line of red sky on the horizon as we drove on the Santa Monica Freeway. It was a lot of work for nothing to show, but that’s how it went sometimes.
The next morning we walked from our office to The Cow’s End for coffee and breakfast. The usual crowd of locals and a few visitors were there, bantering with the friendliest staff in Los Angeles.
I ate my pastries and drank as Hondo said, “Got a couple of calls last night. One of them said that John Wesley’s cruising around, asking kids on the street about the girl.”
“We might be able to find him pretty quick if he keeps that up. What was the other call?”
“Emma wants me to work in an indie she’s directing.”
“What’s it called?”
“She didn’t say. She wants me to come over tonight to talk about it.”
“Ahh, a couch audition,” I said. Hondo grinned and drank his coffee.
When we returned to the office, there was a package from Hunter Kincaid waiting for us. Insid
e the big cardboard box were five bags of Julio’s chips and a small Styrofoam box with five jars of Julio’s Salsa. We could live for a month on that. Hondo put the bags in the closet and the salsa in the small refrigerator. He sat down just as Sergeant Vick Best walked into the office.
“I smell chips,” he said.
“Hey, Sergeant Vick,” I said. “Yes, we’re doing just peachy. Thanks so much for asking.”
He made a face like tasting something sour. “Ronny, if you were half as smart as your mouth…”
Hondo got up, went into the closet, then the refrigerator, and returned with a bag of chips and a jar of salsa. “Here you go, Vick.”
Vick snatched them up. “Keep your hands off, Ronny.”