Fugitive Nights(13)

"Don't be stupid."

"It wouldn't work anyway. My second and last-ever wife insisted I get a vasectomy. My little swimmers're in dry dock. One look under a microscope and he'd wonder what's up."

"Okay, I guess I can still use you on a surveillance. I've got a couple other cases going or I'd do it myself. How are you at surveillance?"

"I can cope."

"Tomorrow morning," she said. "Mrs. Devon said her husband leaves the house at seven a. M. and doesn't come back till four-thirty. He wears hiking boots and takes a canteen. When she goes to L. A. he doesn't seem to go on these hikes. So maybe he can't stand his wife and gets the hell out when she's at the Palm Springs house."

"Seven a. M.!"

"Hey, you don't make a thousand bucks tax-free by staying in bed unless you're working at one of those chicken ranches in Nevada."

"What if he really goes hiking? You don't expect me to tail him out on the open desert without being spotted?"

"Just stay with his car and wait," she said. "I've got some good binoculars I'll let you use. Never let the car get out of sight till he goes home."

"How about after momma goes back to L. A.?"

"Same thing. We'll tail him in the daylight hours and in the evening if he goes out. When he goes nighty-night we go home."

"What if he goes out later in the night?"

"Where?"

"I don't know. Maybe to a hot little sperm receptacle for another donation. How do you know he can't get it up? Maybe with his wife he's limp, but with his private squeeze he's Rasputin."

"Why the need for a sperm bank then?"

"Why not? Maybe his friend can't conceive in the normal way. Maybe they decided that test-tubing's the only way to go."

"Let's try it for a few days and see how it goes, okay?"

"If I wasn't totally bankrupt I wouldn't touch this crap," he said. "That'll teach me to let Charles Keating do my income tax."

"Do you go around just pissing off people on purpose? Are you tough enough for that?"

"Yeah, I'm a tough guy," he said. "Except on Tuesdays when I have to get my legs waxed. Is this Tuesday, by the way?"

Breda Burrows' office consisted of a pair of rooms on the second floor of a commercial building just off Indian Avenue. The other tenants included a children's photographer, a C. P. A., an optometrist, and an office for the landlord, who used the digs as a place to clip coupons and get away from his wife, who'd become as touchy as cholla cactus after turning seventy.

The anteroom of Breda's office was really a cubbyhole with a couple of chairs, a small table, and a lamp, all bought at a second-hand store. Her inner office wasn't much more posh. She had an inexpensive computer, a typewriter and a phone with two lines. On the wall behind a desk of oak veneer were several framed law enforcement certificates-of-training from her police days, as well as her B. S. degree in police science from Cal State Los Angeles. It had taken her eight years of part-time study to get the degree.

Lynn slumped on one of the two chairs in front of the desk, and when Breda sat, she put on Yuppie eyeglasses with strawberry frames.

"I been thinking," he said. "Clive Devon oughtta get a splint for his member. I hear they got electronic implants. Only trouble is, if your neighbor hits his garage door-opener you might get a bulge in your shorts."

While Breda was rummaging in her desk drawers for her binoculars and the file on Clive Devon, a shapely young woman entered the outer office and tapped on the open door. She wore jeans and a white cotton turtleneck with a gold Rolex worn over the cuff. She had a raging auburn dye-job.

"May I help you?" Breda asked, and to her astonishment, Lynn Cutter actually stood up. Maybe he wasn't quite as crude as a Hell's Angels' picnic.

But then he reassured her by leering at the young woman's tits, saying, "Dazzled to meet you. May I be of service?"

"I'm looking for. . . Ms. Burrows. Is the first name Bretta?" She had a little voice that Lynn Cutter thought went well with big bazooms.

"I'm Breda Burrows. It's pronounced Bree-da. An Irish name."

"I got referred by a friend of a friend. I have ... a problem I'd like to discuss."

Lynn took his cue and said, "I'll wait in the outer office."

Breda knew he'd scope out the woman's booty before closing the door, and he did. After which, Breda peeked at his booty and hated to admit that it wasn't bad.

When they were alone, the woman said, "Before I tell you any names I wanna know how much a certain job'll cost me."

"Let's hear your problem," Breda said.

The young woman said, "I got this boyfriend who's married, see. Met him over at a hotel where I used to do nails. We been going together for three years and he promised he'd divorce his wife and marry me but he keeps making excuses. Now I know he's a cheat and a liar."