#011: Rendezvous

"When you think of LA, think of a nation." Someone once said that in print, I don't remember who, but the reference was to life-style, multiplicity of cultures and industries, the human equation.

When I think of LA, I think of a county, because it is literally impossible to separate the city proper from the sprawl of neighboring communities that crowd the coastal plain from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific—and, actually, I guess I think of two counties, because Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm and the charming beach communities of the south coast are in Orange County—well, really, four, five, or six counties when you start trying to make the cut, because you have to also include parts of San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, and Ventura counties to really think LA.

But if you just consider LA County by itself, we are talking more than seventy-five incorporated cities encompassing some four thousand square miles and a population that exceeds that of more than forty of our states, seventy-five miles of coastline, nine hundred square miles of desert. Forget all the bad press and one-line jokes, it's the most interesting big city in the world; smog and freeway jams are a small enough price to pay for the privilege of calling this area home. But I guess it's the geographical contrasts that I like best: mountains, valleys, canyons, beaches, deserts, all intermingled like disparate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle yet so harmoniously blended into urban/suburban environments.

I give you this not as a hype to immigration (one of the more common bumper stickers lately seen on local freeways reads: Welcome to California—Now Go Home), but to relate you properly to the scene of Karen Highland's disappearance.

If you have been thinking of Bel Air as a typical urban neighborhood but just a bit richer than most, then you cannot really visualize the problem. Bel Air is a jumble of hills and canyons, twisting roads and near-vertical lanes and driveways set into the Santa Monica Mountains. Leave one of the main drives, of which there are very few, and you are in a maze of rambling, twisting, plunging, sometimes corkscrewing country lanes with no apparent logic and often no obvious way out.

It can be trying enough feeling your way through Bel Air in broad daylight and with a neighborhood map; try it on a moonless night with the wind beginning to whip a bit and scudding clouds cloaking the hilltops and misting the roadways.

Yet Beverly Hills is a stone's throw east, UCLA and Westwood just across Sunset Boulevard to the south, the San Fernando Valley with its million-plus population over the hills to the north. Due west is absolutely zilch, though—nowhere, nothingness, the great spine of the Santa Monicas—wilderness.

Kalinsky was understandably upset. A person could disappear into that nighttime environment and never be seen again except as a pile of bleached bones accidentally discovered months or years later by a backpacker.

I was upset, too, primarily because of the questionable emotional state of my client. But there are crazies in the land, too, and no one likes to think of any woman wandering around alone in the night in any part of LA.

I had no idea whatever as to where the other searchers were looking, how many were looking, or if there was any particular logic to the search. Apparently Kalinsky was remaining on the premises, both to anchor the party, which was still in progress, by now loudly so and centered around the lounge off the patio, and to serve as headquarters contact for the search operation.

I later learned that the security force numbered a dozen men and that they were in constant radio communication with each other, so I assume in hindsight that some concerted plan of action was in place.

I didn't know about Doc Powell. He was off and running even before I cleared Karen's apartment, which I abandoned wrapped in a towel. By the time I got to my room and into my own clothing, he had a good five-minute jump on me.

So, as I said, I didn't know what the hell was really

happening around me. I went straight to the Maserati, liberated a Walther PPK 9mm pistol, which I customarily store in a trick floorboard compartment and which I now placed on the seat beside me, and went cruising with no particular route in mind.

Don't ask why I wanted the gun. It was a dark, misty night and I was in alien territory seeking a needle in a haystack; maybe the Walther gave me a feeling of power, a refutation of the impotence creeping through me.

I was worried, yes. But I tried to focus the emotion and put it to work for me, maybe to highlight and sensitize some vaguely realized aspect of consciousness—or, to put it in popular lingo, I was "going for vibes."

Trouble with that is, you seldom know which "vibes" to trust. I cruised aimlessly along Bellagio Drive for a couple of wasted minutes, then just gave the Maserati her head. Almost instantly she did a U-turn in a broad driveway and went back past the Highland estate and onto Stone Canyon Road.

But hell, it was pitch black out there, the headlights forming a well-defined cone extending into mistville. The compass was showing a heading of generally north with an occasional swing to NNW. I had gone several minutes past any lighted structures when suddenly we veered up a little lane and, seconds after that, into a dead end.

I sat there for a moment, wondering just what the hell had brought me there, then I got out and walked around the car a couple of times before venturing on.

I was in the wilds, pal, pure wilds, and in a stygian, vapory darkness that hungrily swallowed the pathetic little beam from my pencil-flash. But I had found a trail, and it seemed to be curving gently upward along one of the many canyons that characterize the topography of that area.

I paused a couple of times to wonder if I was nuts or what to be out there staggering about the darkened countryside—this, to show you how fine and uncertain the extrasensory influence can be—and wondering how much more rope I was willing to give this particular vibration.

But then I had a rush and a wild chill tickling my spine, and I knew that I was on target.

I found her a moment later, crumpled across the trail, weeping like a lost child, something wet and sticky and odorous soaking the chiffon dress.

I found the doc, too, in her arms, his head bashed in and obviously all the life bashed out of him.

No psychic killing, that one.

It stunned me, I mean really stunned me in all the fine ramifications of the event.

I have told you that I was no more than five minutes behind Powell, then I had wandered for maybe another two or three minutes before finally homing-in on this very spot with no dallying along the way—but there had been the sensation, at least, of covering quite a bit of ground in a vehicle during that brief travel.

So where the hell was I?—and how the hell had Powell gotten here so fast?—for that matter, how the hell had Karen gotten here so quickly, on foot?—and how the hell had Powell known exactly where to find her for this rendezvous with death?

Besides which, I felt such an overpowering sadness over the death of this man with whom I had felt so close in such a short time.

And I had this equally overpowering sense of sadness for Karen and the terrible goddamn mess her life seemed to have fallen into.

I felt for life signs, even though I knew there would be none. The whole front of his skull was crushed in and blood was everywhere.

All the while Karen was rocking him in her arms and sobbing over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry ..."

It took me a while to pry her loose and disentangle her from the still-warm corpse and get her onto her feet, then I half carried, half led her back along the trail and put her into the car.

Then I put myself in and cranked up the mobile phone and called the cops. I did not know exactly where I was, but I gave the location as best I could and told the dispatcher I'd leave my headlights on.

Next I called Kalinsky, briefed him, suggested he call his lawyer, and hung up on his spluttering.

Then I lit a cigarette and settled in for the wait. Karen was into a blank stare. She had not uttered a word except for the automatic speech noted above.

It took about ten minutes for the police response. An LAPD black-and-white rolled up as I was finishing a second cigarette. I had not thought of the Walther again until that very moment, but decided then and there to slip it onto the floor and kicked it under the seat as I got out to meet the cops.

Two other cars came screeching in before the cops hit the ground.

Kalinsky and troops.

It was going to be a long night.

It was, indeed, a very long night.