A Flower in the Desert by Walter Satterthwait Page A

wore.
    As though reading my mind, she smiled her memorable smile when I sat, and she said, “This isn’t what I’d usually wear to a place like this. I was working on something when Ed got in touch with me. He had to run up to La Jolla, an emergency, and he couldn’t get through to you.”
    I’d been on the phone most of the evening, trying to reach Melissa Alonzo’s parents, and then talking to Rita.
    I said, “So Ed sent you instead?” Your professional detective is trained to make these startling intuitive leaps.
    She nodded. “I’ve got some of the information you asked for. Edie Carpenter, the Underground Railroad, Elizabeth Drewer.”
    A cocktail waitress materialized to my right. “Can I get the lady something?”
    I was a tad disappointed to see that Bonnie Nostromo smiled as genuinely at the waitress as she’d smiled to me. She ordered a club soda and lime. Not a designer water, I noted, and I was vaguely, irrationally pleased. I ordered another Jack Daniel’s.
    As the waitress left, Bonnie opened her purse, took out some folded sheets of paper, opened them. “Can you read shorthand?” she asked me.
    I shook my head. “I sometimes have trouble with basic English.”
    She smiled. I noted that she wore no ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. “I’ll translate,” she said. “Which first? Carpenter?”
    â€œWhy not?” Her breasts, firm and round beneath the taut red fabric, had almost certainly never been touched by a surgeon. Except perhaps by an off-duty surgeon, and then, no doubt, with enthusiasm and a sense of enormous good fortune.
    â€œDo you want it all?” she said. “History? Career?”
    â€œNot unless it connects to Melissa Alonzo.”
    â€œYou want the dirt, you mean.”
    â€œI collect it. I’ve got a big ball of it at home.”
    She smiled. “I know the feeling. You never know what you’re going to find under the rocks, do you?”
    â€œExcept that it’s almost never gold.”
    Another smile. I noticed that she had an attractive overbite, just like the women on “Valdez!” I wondered if she had a boyfriend. Did women still have boyfriends these days, or only Significant Others? Did they keep secrets from their Significant Others? “No gold here,” she said. “The story is that Carpenter’s a swinger, kinky, into S and M, very big time.”
    â€œWe’re talking what?”
    â€œLeather. Whips. Private parties. Mistresses, masters, slaves. The usual sad nonsense.”
    I remembered Edie Carpenter’s smile when she told me she’d met Melissa at a party. I remembered the handcuffs I’d found in Melissa Alonzo’s dresser.
    I said, “The usual?”
    â€œIt’s not that uncommon here. L.A. La-la Land. Everything and anything is possible. These people, Carpenter’s playmates, they’re all rich. Upper-upper-middle class, lower-middle age. They’ve got all the toys they’ve ever wanted, and they still feel hollow. Some of them try to fill up the hollowness by acting out their sexual hangups. They have get-togethers. Parties. They play whatever role turns them on.”
    The waitress brought our drinks and I asked her to put them on my tab. She was agreeable.
    As she left, I asked Bonnie, “Carpenter organizes these?”
    â€œSometimes, so the story goes. Sometimes she’s only a participant.”
    â€œAnd what role turns Carpenter on?”
    She sipped at her soda. “Mistress. Dominatrix.”
    I nodded. “She’d look good in leather.” She certainly looked good out of it. And so, it occurred to me, would Bonnie Nostromo. “Is there anything to tie Melissa Alonzo to these soirées?”
    â€œNothing definite. This is all gossip, Mr. Croft. Gossip is one of the major currencies in this town. But a lot of it is counterfeit.”
    â€œJoshua. Please.