Old Hondo. Ha-ha. I asked him, “You find out anything?”
Hondo said, “The Sarana Corporation is partner in twenty-two pieces of property in the LA area, everything from buildings to warehouses to vacant lots.”
“Who owns Sarana?”
“Other corporations, about a dozen of them, and those corporations are, in turn, owned by other corporations. We didn’t have time to run out the trail to a person’s name.”
“So they’re covers.”
“Can’t be anything else.”
“You copy down the lists of the properties?”
He gave me a paper and said, “Hunter and I have copies, too.” As I looked over the list, I saw The Caspian Diamond listed. Hondo said, “How about you, you do any good?”
I told them what happened, and for a few minutes, we discussed how it all fit together, then decided we needed some Chinese for brain food. I volunteered to go and slipped on my Patagonia. I was two steps from the office door when it opened and Mickey flew in and hugged me tight, her face going like a magnet to my jacket as she bawled her head off and said in quivering, muffled sobs, “She-she fired me, she fired me.”
“Who?”
“Bond.”
“That’s Landman’s office.”
“Sh-she ran me off, told me I had no more business in Bob’s office or his life or on the studio lot.” Mickey hawed and rolled her head back and forth on my chest.
I patted her back and said, “Hey, we got fired, too. Don’t worry.”
She looked up at me and I felt my eyebrows rise. I hadn’t seen but a blur of Mickey’s face when she ran in, and this was the first real look. Frankenstein would have been proud. Mickey had used some sort of pea green eye shadow and overdone clumpy mascara that mixed with all those tears to form a gloppy paste that obscured one eyebrow and coated half her forehead and one ear. Yummy.
She said, “You’re fired, too?” I nodded and she wailed again, “Oh noooo! Now Bob’s got no one to help him.”
“Mickey, we got fired, but we haven’t stopped looking.”
“Y-you haven’t? You’re going to find Bob even when you’re not being paid?
“Uh-huh. Just makes it easier since we don’t have any Meadows people telling us what to do.”
Mickey hugged me harder and said, “You are so noble. Like a chivalrous knight from the old days.” That got an eye roll from Hunter. Mickey sniffled and pulled back. I handed her my handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes and touched her hair, aware for the first time of Hunter in the room. “I’m sorry, I must look a mess.” I pointed to the bathroom and she disappeared behind the door.
Hunter said, “You as Sir Galahad,” she shook her head, “God-o-mighty.”
Hondo said, “That windbreaker will be so threadbare after another cleaning you’ll be able to see through it.”
I took it off, careful to keep my fingers out of the wet spots and dropped it on the floor by my desk.
When Mickey came out, her eyes were red and puffy and she looked a little pale. She said, “I’m glad you’re still on the case. If you don’t find Bob, no one can.”
I said, “Tell me what happened.”
“Well, I was at my desk and was through with everything I could do, so I went into Bob’s office and looked around for anythin
g that might help us. There wasn’t anything startling, the last thing he made notes on was the need for preparation for Ninety Notches.”
Hunter looked at Hondo, who said, “A Border Patrol movie that’s in the works.”
Mickey said, “Bob made several notes about immersing himself in the role, of getting the feel of what it’s like.”
Hondo said, “Like the picture we found, the one Valdar was painting.”