"Better looking though."

"Thank you."

Sam Felton's house was the last one on the street. Beyond it the hills terraced back down toward L.A., and the city spread out below it. There was a stucco wall with an iron gate in it. When we rang, a voice came out of a small speaker in one of the gateposts.

"Who's calling, please?" it said.

"Candy Sloan to see Mr. Felton."

"Mr. Felton is not home now. Would you leave a message?"

"We'd prefer to come in and wait," Candy said.

"I'm sorry, that isn't possible. I don't know when Mr. Felton will be home. If you'll leave a message, I'm sure he'll be in touch."

"No thanks," Candy said. A small sign beside the speaker said PROTECTED BY THE BEL-AIR PATROL. "We'll wait."

There was a click from the speaker and then silence. Candy shrugged. "He'll have to come in or go out sometime," Candy said.

"Back way?" I said.

"Not in these hills," Candy said. "You'd have to drive over someone's roof."

I nodded. We waited. We ate our picnic. At ten of seven a dark green BMW sedan drove into a turn in front of Felton's house and stopped. A man peered out at us through the front windshield.

"Felton," Candy said.

He got out of the car and waddled toward us. "Something I can do for you?" he said.

"Mr. Felton, it's Candy Sloan, KNBS, remember? I spoke with you before about movie racketeering."

"I remember. I thought that was finished."

"There's been some new developments, Mr. Felton. I'll need to discuss them with you before we broadcast them."

"I don't believe I know this gentleman," Felton said.

"Mr. Spenser is helping me with the investigation."

Candy said.

Felton nodded at me. I said, "Glad to meet you." Felton looked at the gate and then looked at us and then looked at his car. If he opened the gate to go in, would we go in with him? It would be embarra.s.sing to get back in the car and drive away. Could he stall till the Bel-Air Patrol galloped by? He looked at me again. There was nothing he could do with me. I was twenty years younger and four inches taller. He opted for dignity.

"Come on in," he said. "We'll have a drink and I'll tell you what I can."

"Thank you," Candy said.

Felton unlocked the gate with a key that hung on a retractable key chain, attached to a clip on a big wide Western-style belt. He had a large stomach, and the belt was cinched right across the middle so that there was an unseemly bulge both above and below the belt. The belt held up some brand-new baggy jeans and was supplemented by wide red suspenders. Glamorous. He had on a white collarless shirt with a pleated front. His hair was shoulder length. On his feet were sandals. No socks. He held the gate open, and we went through and preceded him up the path. At the front door he used a different key, and then we were inside.

The house was cool, elegant, and expansive, gleaming with bra.s.s and ebony, filled with Oriental objets d'art, with parqueted and marble floors and floor-to-ceiling windows providing a view from almost every room.

An aging Mexican woman in a green housedress and a white ap.r.o.n appeared in the foyer. She stood quietly by an arched entry that appeared to lead into a dining room.

"What will you drink?" Felton asked us.

"White wine," Candy said.

"Beer," I said.

Felton spoke to the woman in Spanish. She smiled and disappeared.

"Come on in the living room," Felton said. "We can get comfortable and then we can talk."

There was an enormous black marble fireplace in the far wall of the living room. On either side were French doors, thinly curtained, through whose translucence the lights of Los Angeles glittered in the gathering evening.

Candy and I sat together on a huge white couch highlighted with bright green satin casual pillows. I tucked two behind me to keep from sinking into the quagmire of cushions. The Mexican woman brought in a large silver tray. On it were a gla.s.s of white wine and a bottle of Carta Blanca beer and a gla.s.s, and what I took to be a gla.s.s of tequila on a saucer with a wedge of lime and a small dish of salt with a silver spoon beside it. She placed the tray on a low gla.s.s coffee table and smiled and left.

I poured my beer. Felton picked up the lime wedge, sucked on it, put a little salt on his hand, drank the tequila and lapped the salt. He smiled. "The only way to go," he said. Jolly.

Candy sipped her wine. I drank some beer.

Felton said, "If you'll excuse me, I'll wash my hands and then we can talk."

Candy said, "Of course."

Felton left the room. The Mexican woman came back in with a fresh gla.s.s of tequila and a fresh lime and smiled at us and left.

The room was still. There were Oriental rugs on the floor. Opposite me, on a tapestry that ran from floor-to-ceiling, an Oriental warrior on a horse gazed into a distant valley where peasants worked fields with water buffalo. My beer was gone. Would the Mexican woman know without being told? Would she simply appear without a sign? No. No one appeared.

"Do you suppose he's run off," Candy said.

I shrugged. Candy drank some wine. Then Felton came back. He kicked off his sandals, picked up his second tequila, and polished it off with some more lime and salt. Then he sat cross-legged on another large white couch across from us. The Mexican woman appeared in the door. Felton spoke again in Spanish, and she disappeared.

"Now," he said, "how can I help?" He leaned forward slightly. It was as far as he could, and rested his elbows on his thighs. The Mexican woman brought me another beer and Felton another tequila.

Candy said, "Do you know Mickey Rafferty?"

There was a bowl of popcorn on an end table beside Felton. He took a handful. "Rafferty," he said and put some popcorn in his mouth. He chewed the popcorn. "Sure," he said, "doesn't he do stunt work?"

"Not anymore," Candy said. "He's dead."

"Oh, my G.o.d. Really? What happened? Was it a stunt?"

"No," Candy said, "he was shot to death in his room at the Marmont."

Felton raised his eyebrows and formed a silent wow with his lips.

We were quiet. Felton ate some more popcorn. He ate rapidly, taking a handful and pushing it all into his mouth with his flattened palm. He drank his tequila.

"Isn't that terrible," he said. "Isn't that terrible. Awful."

"Can you tell us anything about it?" Candy said. Felton's upper lip looked a little moist. It might have been tequila. But it might have been sweat. He ate some more popcorn.

"How on earth could I tell you anything?"

"I have information," Candy said, "that you were the last person he saw before he died."

There was a little moisture now on Felton's forehead. It wasn't tequila. He looked at his watch. "That's insane. I barely knew him. I hadn't seen him for weeks. I wouldn't remember if I had seen him. I've never had two words with him."

I thought about him looking at his watch. "No," Candy said. "I know better."

I thought about him leaving after we got here to wash his hands.

"Now listen, Candy, I know you think I'm involved in some crazy shakedown, but this is going too far. I'm willing to help. I know you've got a job to do. But..." He gestured futilely with both hands.

I slid my gun out of the hip holster and held it in my right hand down between the couch cushion and the arm of the couch. Felton didn't see me. He looked at his empty tequila gla.s.s. Then he looked toward the front hall.

"I mean are you saying I killed him?"

Candy had no expression on her face. She stared straight at Felton.

"You probably didn't kill him," she said. "Did you have it done?"

Felton slapped both hands palm down on the tops of his thighs. "For G.o.d's sake, that's enough," he said.

Candy continued to look at him. I continued to keep the gun concealed down between the cushions. Felton looked toward the front hall again and his hopes were realized. Franco had arrived.

Chapter16.

HE WAS DEFINITELY fat, probably two hundred and fifty on a frame no more than five feet nine. On the other hand Vasili Alexeyev is fat too. The thought was not comforting. Franco was balding and he hadn't fought it. What was left was cut very short, so that he seemed to be balder than he was. The Vand.y.k.e was black and so was the mustache. He was wearing a flowered shirt and green knit slacks and dark brown moccasins. The shirt hung outside the pants. Probably to hide a gun. Or maybe he thought it was elegant. I looked at Candy. Her face was frozen, without expression. She looked at Franco and was perfectly still.

Behind Franco was the blond charmer I had rousted in the parking lot at the Farmers Market. He'd never wear a flowered shirt. He wouldn't let it hang outside. He'd hide his gun in a shoulder rig under an unstructured linen jacket with the collar turned up.

I looked at Felton. It was as if he didn't have to pretend anymore and his glands could relax. His face was now shiny with sweat, and some had beaded on his upper lip. His expression was a mixture of grat.i.tude and terror.

Franco looked at Candy and said, "Well, well, newsbirdie. You thought I didn't mean it last time?"

Candy was quiet. There was a faint sense of a foreign accent in Franco's voice, too dim to identify, merely the echo of a distant birth.

"Huh?" he said. "Did you think I didn't mean it?"

"I thought you meant it," Candy said.

"Then what are you doing here, birdie, huh? If you thought I meant it, what are you doing here?"

"My job," Candy said. There was no affect in her voice.

Franco looked at his helper. "How about that, Bubba. Her job, you hear that? She's doing her f.u.c.king job. Huh? You like that, Bubba?"

"Yeah," Bubba said. "Yeah, that's good."

Felton said, "What are you going to do, Franco?" Franco looked at him for a moment and shook his head. "Look at the sweat," he said. "Give fat a bad name, guys like you."

Felton wiped his hand over his face. "Well, what're you?" he said.

"You called us," Franco said. "What'd you have in mind?"

"They were talking about me killing Rafferty," Felton said.

Franco made a sound between a grunt and a laugh. "You ain't got the 'nads to kill anything, except maybe a quart of tequila," he said. Then he looked at Candy and said, "Come on, you and your date take a ride with us."

Candy looked at me. I said "Nope."

Franco looked at me for the first time. "I wasn't asking," he said. "Get moving, huh?"

I said "Nope" again. It had a nice rhythm to it. Bubba had moved a little to Franco's right, but neither showed a weapon yet. That's one of the mistakes tough guys make. They overrate how tough they are. They aren't careful.

I took the gun out from the cushions and pointed it at them. No harm in being careful. I said "Nope." Franco and Bubba looked at the gun. So did Felton.

His face got sweatier. Candy didn't move. She seemed inside a kind of deep stillness.

"We have here," I said to Candy, "persuasive evidence of complicity between Felton and Franco, and of course the legendary Bubba. Bubba is on hourly wage, I suspect, and doesn't count for much. But I think we could make something pretty good out of Franco and old Sammy."

"What can we really prove?" Candy said.

"We can prove Franco beat you up. We can prove when we came here to talk with Sam Felton about Mickey, he called Franco, and Franco came and attempted to remove us. The threat of force was clearly implied."

"I want it all," Candy said.

"Cops can get it all if we give them this," I said. "Old Sam here will melt like b.u.t.ter on a flapjack when Samuelson gets him down to the Hall of Justice. So would Bubba, but he probably doesn't know anything."

"Don't get to feeling too good about that gun, huh?" Franco said. "I seen guns before. It ain't going to buy you all that much."

"If you do anything incautious," I said, "it can buy you the farm."

Candy seemed not even to hear Franco. She barely heard me. She was way inside somewhere. "I want it all," she said again. "I want to get it myself."

"You've got enough," I said. "You've broken it, let the cops clean up. They're good at it. They've got the personpower for it."

She didn't even smile at "personpower." No one else did either. No accounting for people's sense of humor. She was looking right at Franco now. "Did you shoot Mickey?" she said.

Franco made a small grin. "Sure," he said.