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  “It’s possible they haven’t gone anywhere. Why don’t we check?”

  “How?”

  “Beverly has the number of the place they’re staying. We can call and find out if they’ve checked out.”

  “Play detective—yes, why not? Call her in.”

  “Be civil to her, Raoul.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  I beckoned the social worker away from a powwow with Valcroix and Ellen Beckwith, who gave me the kind of look usually reserved for plague carriers.

  I told her what I wanted and she nodded wearily.

  Once in the office she avoided looking at Raoul and silently dialed the phone. There was a brief exchange with the motel clerk, after which she hung up and said:

  “The guy was real uncooperative. He hasn’t seen them today but they haven’t checked out. The car’s still there.”

  “If you’d like,” I offered, “I’ll go there, try to make contact with them.”

  Raoul consulted his appointment book.

  “Meetings until three. I’ll cancel out. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t think you should be there, Raoul.”

  “That’s absurd, Alex! I’m the physician! This is a medical issue—”

  “Only nominally. Let me handle it.”

  His thick brows curled and fury rose in the coffee bean eyes. He started to say something but I cut him off.

  “We have to at least consider the possibility,” I said softly, “that this whole thing may be due to a conflict between the family and you.”

  He stared at me, making sure he’d heard right, purpled, choked on his anger, and threw up his hands in despair.

  “How could you even—”

  “I’m not saying it’s so. Just that we need to consider it. What we want is that boy back in treatment. Let’s maximize the probability of success by covering all contingencies.”

  He was mad as hell but I’d given him something to think about.

  “Fine. There’s no shortage of things for me to do anyway. Go yourself.”

  “I want Beverly along. Of anyone she’s got the best feel for the family.”

  “Fine, fine. Take Beverly. Take whomever you want.”

  He straightened his tie and smoothed nonexistent wrinkles in the long white coat.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friend,” he said, straining to be cordial, “I’ll be off to the lab.”

  The Sea Breeze Motel was on west Pico, set amid cheap apartments, dusty storefronts, and auto garages on a dingy slice of the boulevard just before L.A. surrenders to Santa Monica. The place was two stories of pitted chartreuse stucco and drooping pink wrought-iron railing. Thirty or so units looked down upon an asphalt motor court and a swimming pool half-filled with algae-clogged water. The only breeze evident was the steaming layer of exhaust fumes that rose from the oily pavement as we pulled in beside a camper with Utah plates.

  “Not exactly five star,” I said, getting out of the Seville. “And far from the hospital.”

  Beverly frowned.

  “I tried to tell them that when I saw the address but there was no convincing the father. Said he wanted to be near the beach where the air was good. Even launched into a speech about how the whole hospital should move to the beach, how the smog was harmful to patients. I told you, the man is weird.”

  The front office was a glass booth on the other side of a warped plywood door. A thin, bespectacled Iranian with the numb demeanor of a habitual opium smoker sat behind a chipped, hinged plastic counter poring over the Motor Vehicle Code. A revolving rack of combs and cheap sunglasses took up one corner, a low table covered with ancient copies of throwaway travel magazines squatted in the other.

  The Iranian pretended not to notice us. I cleared my throat with tubercular fervor and he looked up slowly.

  “Yes?”

  “What room is the Swope family in?”

  He looked us over, decided we were safe, said, “Fifteen,” and returned to the wondrous world of road signs.

  There was a dusty brown Chevy station wagon parked in front of Room 15. Except for a sweater on the front seat and an empty cardboard box in the rear deck, the car was empty.

  “That’s theirs,” said Beverly. “They used to leave it parked illegally by the front entrance. One time when the security guard put a warning sticker on the windshield, Emma ran out crying about her sick child and he tore it up.”

  I knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again harder. Still no response. The room had a single grimy window, but the view within was blocked by oilcloth curtains. I knocked one more time, and when the silence was unbroken, we returned to the office.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “do you know if the Swopes are in their room?”

  A lethargic shake of the head.

  “Do you have a switchboard?” Beverly asked him.

  The Iranian raised his eyes from his reading and blinked.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” His English was heavily accented, his manner surly.

  “We’re from Western Pediatric Hospital. The Swopes’ child is being treated there. It’s important that we speak to them.”

  “I don’t know anything.” He shifted his glance back to the vehicle code.

  “Do you have a switchboard?” she repeated.

  A barely visible nod.

  “Then please ring the room.”

  With a theatrical sigh, he dragged himself up and walked through a door at the rear. A minute later he reappeared.

  “Nobody there.”

  “But their car’s there.”

  “Listen, lady, I don’t know cars. You want a room, okay. Otherwise, leave alone.”

  “Call the police, Bev,” I said.

  Somehow he must have sneaked in a hit of amphetamine because his face came alive suddenly and he spoke and gesticulated with renewed vigor.

  “What for police? What for you cause trouble?”

  “No trouble,” I said. “We just need to talk to the Swopes.”

  He threw up his hands.

  “They take walk—I see them. Walking that way.” He pointed east.

  “Unlikely. They’ve got a sick child with them.” To Bev: “I saw a phone at the gas station on the corner. Call it in as a suspicious disappearance.”

  She moved toward the door.

  The Iranian lifted the hinged counter and came around to our side.

  “What do you want? Why you make trouble?”

  “Listen,” I told him, “I don’t care what kind of nasty little games you’ve got going on in the other rooms. We need to talk to the family in fifteen.”

  He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket. “Come, I show you, they not here. Then you leave me alone, okay?”

  “It’s a deal.”

  His pants were baggy and they flapped as he strode across the asphalt, muttering and jingling the keys.

  A quick turn of the wrist and the lock released. The door groaned as it opened. We stepped inside. The desk clerk blanched, Beverly whispered Ohmigod, and I fought down a rising feeling of dread.

  The room was small and dark and it had been savaged.

  The earthly belongings of the family Swope had been removed from three cardboard suitcases, which lay crushed on one of the twin beds. Clothing and personal articles were strewn about: lotion, shampoo, and detergent leaked from broken bottles in viscous trails across the threadbare carpeting. Female undergarments hung limply over the chain of the plastic swag lamp. Paperback books and newspapers had been shredded and scattered like confetti. Open cans and boxes of food were everywhere, the contents oozing out in congealing mounds. The room reeked of rot and dead air.

  Next to the bed was a patch of carpet that was clear of litter, but far from empty. It was filled with a dark brown amoebalike stain half a foot across.

  “Oh no,” said Beverly. She staggered, lost her balance, and I caught her.

  You don’t have to spend much time in a hospital to know the sight of dried blood.

  The Iranian
’s face was waxen. His jaws worked soundlessly.

  “Come on,” I took hold of his bony shoulders and guided him out, “we have to call the police now.”

  It’s nice to know someone on the force. Especially when that someone is your best friend and won’t assume you’re a suspect when you call in a crime. I bypassed 911 and called Milo’s extension directly. He was in a meeting but I pushed a bit and they called him out.

  “Detective Sturgis.”

  “Milo, it’s Alex.”

  “Hello, pal. You pulled me out of a fascinating lecture. It seems the west side has become the latest hot spot for PCP labs—they rent glitzy houses and park Mercedes in the driveway. Why I need to know all about it is beyond me but tell that to the brass. Anyway, what’s up?”

  I told him and he turned businesslike immediately.

  “All right. Stay there. Don’t let anyone touch anything. I’ll get everything moving. There’s gonna be a lot of people converging so don’t let the girl get spooked. I’ll crap out of this meeting and be there as soon as I can but I may not be the first, so if someone gives you a hard time, drop my name and hope they don’t give you a harder time because you did. Bye.”

  I hung up and went to Beverly. She had the drained, lost look of a stranded traveler. I put my arm around her and sat her down next to the clerk, who’d progressed to muttering to himself in Farsi, no doubt reminiscing about the good old days with the Ayatollah.

  There was a coffee machine on the other side of the counter and I went through and poured three cups. The Iranian took his gratefully, held it with both hands, and gulped noisily. Beverly put hers down on the table, and I sipped as we waited.

  Five minutes later we saw the first flashing lights.

  6

  THE TWO uniformed policemen were muscular giants, one white and blond, the other coal-black, his partner’s photographic negative. They questioned us briefly, spending most of their time with the Iranian desk clerk. They didn’t like him instinctively, and showed it in the way L.A.P. D. cops do—by being overly polite.

  Most of their interrogation had to do with when he’d last seen the Swopes, what cars had come in and out, how the family had been behaving, who had called them. If you believed him, the motel was an oasis of innocence and he was the original see-no-evil, hear-no-evil kid.

  The patrolmen cordoned off the area around room fifteen. The sight of their squad car in the center of the motor court must have ruffled some feathers—I saw fingers drawing back corners of curtains in several of the rooms. The policemen noticed, too, and joked about calling Vice.

  Two additional black and whites pulled into the lot and parked haphazardly. Out of them stepped four more uniforms, who joined the first two for a smoke and a huddle. They were followed by a crime scene technical van and an unmarked bronze Matador.

  The man who got out of the Matador was in his midthirties, big and heavily built, with a loose, ungainly walk. His face was broad and surprisingly unlined, but bore the stigmata of severe acne. Thick drooping brows shadowed tired eyes of a startling bright green hue. His black hair was cut short around the back and sides but worn full on top in defiance of any known style. A thick shock fell across his forehead like a frontal cowlick. Similarly unchic were the sideburns that reached to the bottom of his soft-lobed ears and his attire—a rumpled checked madras sportcoat with too much turquoise in it, a navy shirt, gray-and-blue striped tie, and light blue slacks that hung over the tops of suede desert boots.

  “That one’s got to be a cop,” said Beverly.

  “That’s Milo.”

  “Your friend—oh.” She was embarrassed.

  “It’s okay, that’s what he is.”

  Milo conferred with the patrolmen then took out a pad and pencil, stepped over the tape strung across the doorway to room fifteen, and went inside. He stayed in there awhile and came out taking notes.

  He loped over to the front office. I got up and met him at the entrance.

  “H’lo, Alex.” His big padded hand gripped mine. “Hell of a mess in there. Not really sure what to call it yet.”

  He saw Beverly, walked over, and introduced himself.

  “Stick with this guy,” he pointed to me, “and inevitably you’re going to get into trouble.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Are you in a hurry?” he asked her.

  “I’m not going back to the hospital,” she said. “All I’ve got, otherwise, is a run at three thirty.”

  “Run? Oh, like in cardiovascular stimulation? Yeah, I tried that but the chest began to hurt and visions of mortality danced before my eyes.”

  She smiled uneasily, not knowing what to make of him. Milo’s great to have around—in more ways than one—when your preconceptions get overly calcified.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be out of here long before then. Just wanted to know if you could wait while I interview Mr.—” he consulted the pad, “Fahrizbadeh. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “That would be fine.”

  He escorted the desk clerk outside and over to fifteen. Beverly and I sat in silence.

  “This is horrible,” she said, finally. “That room. The blood.” She sat stiffly in her chair and pressed her knees together.

  “He could be okay,” I said without much conviction.

  “I hope so, Alex. I really do.”

  After a while Milo returned with the desk clerk, who slunk behind the counter without a glance at us and disappeared into the back room.

  “Very unobservant guy,” said Milo. “But I think he’s on the level, more or less. Apparently his brother-in-law owns the place. He’s studying business administration at night and works here instead of sleeping.” He looked at Beverly. “What can you tell me about these Swope people?”

  She gave him a history similar to the one I’d received in the Laminar Airflow Unit.

  “Interesting,” he reflected, chewing on his pencil. “So this could be anything. The parents taking the kid out of town in a hurry, which might not be a crime at all unless the hospital wants to make a thing out of it. Except if that was the case, they wouldn’t leave the car behind. Hypothesis B is the cultists did the job with the parents’ permission, which is still no crime. Or without, which would be good old-fashioned kidnapping.”

  “What about the blood?” I asked.

  “Yeah, the blood. The techs say O positive. That tell you anything?”

  “I think I remember from the chart,” said Beverly, “that Woody and both of the parents are O. I’m not sure about the Rh factor.”

  “So much for that. It’s not a hell of a lot anyway, not what you’d expect if someone got shot or cut—” He saw the look on her face and stopped himself.

  “Milo,” I said, “the boy’s got cancer. He’s not terminally ill—or wasn’t as of yesterday. But his disease is unpredictable. It could spread and invade a major blood vessel, or convert to leukemia. And if either of those occur, he could suddenly hemorrhage.”

  “Jesus,” said the big detective, looking pained. “Poor little guy.”

  “Isn’t there something you can do?” demanded Beverly.

  “We’ll do our best to find them but to be honest it won’t be easy. They could be just about anywhere by now.”

  “Don’t you put out A.P.B.’s or something like that?” she insisted.

  “That’s already been done. As soon as Alex called I got in touch with the law in La Vista—it’s a one-man show run by a sheriff named Houten. He hasn’t seen them but he promised to keep a lookout. He also gave me a good physical description of the family and I put it over the wire. Highway patrols got it, as well as L.A. and San Diego P.D.s and all the decent-sized departments in between. But we’ve got no vehicle to look for, no plates. Anything you’d like to suggest in addition to all of that?”

  It was a sincere request for ideas, devoid of sarcasm, and it threw her off guard.

  “Uh, no,” she admitted, “I can’t think of anything. I just hope you find him.”

 
; “I hope so, too—can I call you Beverly?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “I don’t have any brilliant theories about this, Beverly, but I promise to give it a lot of thought. And, if you think of anything, call me.” He gave her a card. “Anything at all, okay? Now, can I have one of the men give you a lift home?”