LITMIR.BIZ

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was a problem. If the city kept the car, they had to make it available to anyone who wanted to use it. Or else keep it for civic parades, special events, you know. It turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.”

      “I can see that. So, what did they do?”

      “The city sold the car to the club. Let somebody else worry about what to do with it. Let them worry about Mr. Kleiner, too.”

      “Mr. Kleiner? You mean—” He paused and studied his notes. “I still don’t—”

      There was a stirring from another room.

      Jayjay Smith stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to see if he’s all right.”

      “Can I help?” He expected her to say no, but he’d get some points anyway. And points might lead to information.

      He was right. She disappeared through a dark wood doorway. He stood up and walked around the room, picking up porcelain figures and display china dishes with Eighteenth Century ladies and gentlemen painted on them, done up in their satin clothing and powdered wigs.

      He heard Jayjay Smith’s voice, a pleasant contralto. He couldn’t hear her words, but the tone was warm, coaxing. She sounded the way a mother ought to sound, not the way Lindsey’s mother did.

      And in the pauses, the hint of another voice. An old voice, thin and dry and weak. Mr. Kleiner. That had to be Mr. Kleiner. Mr. Kleiner, and the Duesenberg stolen from the Kleiner Mansion. The story of the house deeded over for taxes, and the clause about the chauffeur.

      Why in the world had Mr. Kleiner insisted on that odd arrangement, living in cramped quarters in the mansion that he’d once owned, and caring for the Duesenberg and acting as chauffeur of the car that had been his personal property? Did he really love his lifestyle that much? Surely he could have found a better job and a nicer place to live, even after the Kleiner fortune was gone.

      Did that make sense?

      But the Dusie was the property of the New California Smart Set. Probably, Kleiner had been unable to interfere when the city sold the car, for all that he might have disapproved. But the club was also tied into the mansion. But, but, but, his mind was starting to feel like an outboard motor. Lindsey shook his head and tried again to get a grasp on what was going on.

      It was like something out of an old movie. Good gosh, how many of the things had he seen since he’d bought the VCR and the cable started bringing in those old movie channels. But there was a particular one, he could almost see it. Yes, with Gloria Swanson and William Holden and the young Jack Webb. But who played the chauffeur? He had it!

      Erich von Stroheim!

      He ran back to his pocket organizer and scribbled: Sunset Boulevard!!!

      Jayjay Smith’s voice still came from the other room. Lindsey heard the distinctive sound of a telephone hitting its cradle, and Smith came partway back into the room where he was. She stood in the doorway. She looked pale. “I just called for an ambulance. I hate to send the poor man to the hospital. He doesn’t want to go, but he has to.”

      Lindsey stood near her and she put her hand on his cuff as if she could draw strength from him. He said, “What is it?”

      She said, “Since Saturday. He’s been beside himself. You don’t know how much he loves that car. He hasn’t been eating or sleeping right, he won’t get dressed.”

      “How old is he?” Lindsey asked.

      She calculated. “He was born the year after the Wright brothers flew. He used to talk about that all the time. He always said he could remember the ’06 earthquake, but I never believed him. The Wright brothers flew in 1903, so he was born in ’04 and he would only have been two years old. That makes him eighty-five now.”

      “And he was still working as a chauffeur?”

      “He still has a license. And he’s always been spry. Sharp as a tack. Until Saturday. He just changed. He used to spend every day working on the Duesenberg, polishing it up, cleaning the engine. He has a full set of tools in the garage, all sorts of old Duesenberg manuals and spare parts. When they stole that car, it was like they killed him.”

      “But—I can’t see an eighty-five-year-old man working as a chauffeur.”

      Jayjay chewed her lower lip. “Well, in fact he only drove the car once or twice a year. The night of the 1929 Ball and maybe another occasion, maybe in a parade. I worry about him myself, I’ll admit. But he never so much as scratched a fender. He was like a man twenty years younger. Until now.”

      From outside the Kleiner Mansion, Lindsey heard an ambulance whooper. The whooper stopped and there was a pounding on the mansion’s front door.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Lindsey stood with Jayjay Smith, watching the ambulance disappear along Lakeside Drive. The old man hadn’t wanted to go, but he didn’t resist the two attendants for long. He could barely have weighed a hundred pounds, Lindsey thought. They hadn’t exactly overpowered him, just taken him by the elbows and muscled him onto a gurney and strapped him down, and he was on his way almost before he knew what was happening. A metaphor for human existence.

      Old Mr. Kleiner was hardly an Erich von Stroheim, after all.

      Lindsey looked at Jayjay Smith. Her eyes were bright with tears, and even as he watched, a tear spilled over one eyelash and made a streak down her cheek. She dipped her head, lifted her shoulder, blotted the tear on her shirt without lifting a hand.

      Lindsey didn’t know what to do. How could he comfort Jayjay Smith? He hardly knew the woman. Should he put his arm around her, offer her his handkerchief, look away and pretend not to notice while she composed herself?

      Jayjay Smith solved the problem for him.

      “God damned sons of bitches!” She turned toward Lindsey. “God damned fucking sons of bitches!”

      “Who?”

      “Whoever stole that Duesenberg! They didn’t know they were killing that man, but they were. Murderers! I hope they shoot the bastards when they catch them!”

      She stared at Lindsey as if she were seeing him for the first time. “Come on,” she commanded.

      They went inside the mansion.

      Jayjay Smith led Lindsey into a room he hadn’t seen before, opened a liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Johnny Walker black. “Drink the good stuff or don’t dilute your water,” she said. “My mommy told me that. You want some?”

      Lindsey shook his head.

      Smith filled a squat glass with scotch and drank off a hefty portion of it. She put her glass down and wiped her eyes with a cocktail napkin, holding the bottle by its neck all the time. “You don’t do that to an old man,” she said. “You don’t do that. Let him live out his damned life, let him die in peace. I hate this town and the thieves and whores and pimps and pushers! Bastards, doing that to an old man.”

      Lindsey made an incoherent sound, something vaguely intended to let her know that he was still there and paying attention to what she said.

      She raise the bottle toward him. “You sure?”

      He shook his head. “I really, ah, have to.…”

      “Sure.”

      “You’ll be all right? I mean, there’s nobody else here now.”

      “Thanks a lot. No, we don’t seem to have any serial killers in the neighborhood this month.”

      “Uh, will you have dinner?” He looked self-consciously at his digital Seiko. It wasn’t quite mealtime but it was getting there. “Do you have food?”

      She put the bottle down and raised the glass to her lips. Lindsey heard her laugh into the scotch, worrying for an instant that she would choke, but she lifted her face again. “I’m really all right,” she said. “Thanks

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