As they were leaving Hondo asked them, “Is he going to get stopped for driving his truck like this?”
The older officer said, “No, but he’ll get a lot of looks.”
The officer was right.
**
I dropped Hondo at his car and had him follow me to the local garage. The body man wiped his hands on a red rag and said, “You take a left through a firing range?”
Everybody’s a comedian. I said, “Can you fix it up?”
“I can if the store’s got enough Bond-O, that’s a lot of holes. The windows are no problem and nothing hit the engine, so you’re okay there. You want me to paint over that white so it doesn’t look like a fish?”
“It’s not a fish, it’s a mammal.”
“You want me to paint it all black or not?”
I had a chance to end the ridicule, but this was becoming a point of honor. “Paint it like it was,” I said.
Hondo grinned, shook his head and walked to the Mercedes.
At the office, we decided we should split up and work two things at once. Hondo would go to Landman’s office and get with Mickey to go over records for the weeks preceding Bob’s disappearance, and I was going to check around on the Valdar connection. Hondo left and I went through the side door and into the gym. My friend was behind the juice bar drinking something that looked like a half-gallon purple milkshake.
“Arch, what is that?” I asked.
Archie swallowed and grimaced at the taste, “My own recipe. Keeps me going all day.”
I said, “You know, at your age prunes will keep you going all day, too.” Archie was eighty years old, a bodybuilder from the golden age of Muscle Beach who’d placed second in contests a half-dozen times to Steve Reeves and John Grimek. He still does a thousand sit-ups a day and can bench press three-fifty. Archie bought the building thirty years ago and had part of it converted into an apartment, where he now lived, and the remainder into a gym and our office. Archie finished the drink in six huge swallows, burped and said, “You must want something with all that flattery you’re throwing at me.”
I put my hand over my heart, “Archie, how can you say that?”
“Your ass. Now, what do you need?”
“My truck’s in the shop-”
“What’s the matter, it get harpooned?” Oh, he thought that was funny.
“Nooo. I’m having a little body work done, so I don’t have any wheels.”
He walked to the front desk, reached behind the counter and pulled out some keys. He tossed them to me and said, “The Vette’s around back. Don’t wreck it.”
Archie’s Corvette is a mint condition, candy apple red sixty-three convertible. He’d bought it new after some friends got him speaking parts in several of those late fifties-early sixties motorcycle gang movies.
It was a fine feeling to drive along Santa Monica Boulevard with the top down. I slowed as I passed the Beverly Hilton, getting waves and smiles from three young women getting into a Bentley. I took a left on Wilshire and a few minutes later passed Sotheby’s and turned onto Dayton Way. Pelson’s Galleries, LLC was up on the right and I parked beside a baby blue convertible Ferrari 360 Modena Spider. On days like this, convertibles seemed to sprout like mushrooms.
Inside, I told a willowy young man with blinding white teeth who I was and asked him to tell Harold Pelson, the owner, that I would like to have a minute with him.
Harold came out and shook my hand as he led me to his office. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and I got to the reason for my visit.
“What can you tell me about an artist named Valdar?”
Harold pursed his lips, thought a moment and said, “I read something the other day about possible foul play. I believe it said there was blood found in the home he was living in at Malibu.”
“I read it, too. But what I’m interested in is his history, that sort of thing.”
“Well, he’s originally from the former Soviet Union, a town on the Volga River called Samara, where the Samara and Volga join. He was discovered while working at the big prison there, and he developed a quick following in Europe and over here. He made his first show in the United States three years ago, in New York. It was some of his best work, very primitive and powerful. He’s gaining fame because of his outlaw personality and raw talent. But he’s very uneven. I’ve seen several of his paintings that were extraordinary, very bold and powerful, and others that look like they should have been painted on velvet and sold in Mexico.”
“That bad.”