Chapter 11

I veer off Sunset, cut up Marmont, behind the huge billboard hailing the latest music sensation, Cool Band Puke. The Honda stays with me. I go fast and he goes fast too because he thinks he's in a chase sequence, he's watched so much TV and his nerves are running hot, and I jam the brakes and wrench the wheel when the traffic is scant and aim for him so he feels no doubt and he might bravely call the bluff if I had given him time but his flesh wants to survive and puts him in a skid so he slashes into a ravine, and I cruise sedately out of that scene, slide my ride back to Yucca.

Chapter 12

All is quiet on the home front.
I dig for data on Leslie Montague. There is not much to be dug. Contrary to Yvonne's information, he was not a British citizen. INS has him as a DP in 1948. Naturalized. He paid some income tax.
Surfo, ergo sum.
I can hit any government database.
I don't want to think about it.
So, I think, I won't think about it.

Chapter 13

"This is Harry Tanner, Investigators Association. You may not be aware that membership in our association entitles you to a professional discount at any of almost fifty Sneaky-Is-Best spy shops across North America. Stop by my office and we'll get you signed up."

Chapter 14

I just got in, but I've just got to get out. It's L.A. I drive. East on Sunset. I turn left, then another left on Hollywood. I go up the Rock Block. The usual suspects are making spectacles of themselves, desperate to get noticed, get an agent, get auditions, get famous, get rich.
L.A. drives me. Hooch and hookers. Mars Bar has a spacey look. Whoop Dee Doo. Jack of Clubs. Spades. This month the Old West motif is going big, and so is the Confederacy. Stars and Bars. Rebels. I stop at a saloon called the Bar X Bar to see who is hanging out. I see one ready for the branding iron.
"Name your poison, pod'nuh."
"Rotgut."

Chapter 15

Alison Barton is a dancer at the Ho-Ho-A-Go-Go, a jiggle joint on Melrose. She is a model-actress/prostitute. Her stage name is Marina. She starts her act dressed in USMC utilities.
I lean on the bar. The bartender cocks his head.
"What'll you have?"
"Jack on the rocks."
Alison won a beauty contest, moved to L.A., went to parties at Hub's Mansion in Holmby Hills, met some people, did some people, made some money on Asian junkets, blew it on cocaine and cosmetic surgery.
She gives me the eye. I don't give her any encouragement. I don't want what she's got. There's no telling what the package contains under the pretty wrapping.
The bartender looks at me, looks at her, looks back at me.
"You got something going?"
"No," I say. "I'm just going."