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and left.
    Maybe I could find Mort by next Thursday. Maybe I could find him this afternoon. There would be advantages. No more trips to Encino. No more Ellen Lang. No more depression. I would be The Happy Detective. I could call Wu and have him change the card.
Elvis Cole, The Happy Detective, specializing in Happy Cases
. Inspired.
    I went down to the deli, bought an Evian water, drank it on the way back up, then went through Mort’s finances. As of two weeks ago Monday, Morton Lang had $4265.18 in a passbook savings account. There was one three-year CD in his name worth $5000 that matured in August. I could find no evidence of any stocks or other income-producing investment in either his name, Ellen’s name, or in the names of the children. Irregular deposits totaling $5200 had been made into savings over the past six months. During the same period, $2200 was transferred to checking every two weeks. Figure $1600 note and taxes, $800 food, $500 cars, another $200 gardener and pool service, another $500 or $600 because you got three kids and you live in Encino. Forty-five hundred a month to live, next to nothing coming in.
You only start dealing with a Garrett Rice when you’re scared
.
    I dialed ICM. They gave me to someone in the television department who had known Morton Lang when he workedthere fourteen months ago. He had known Mort, but not very well, and if I was looking for representation perhaps he could help me out, ICM being a full-service agency representing artists in all media. I dialed Morton’s Lang’s clients. Edmund Harris wasn’t home. Kaitlin Rosenberg hadn’t spoken to Mort in three weeks, and I should tell him the play was going fine. Cynthia Alport hadn’t heard from him in over a month and why the hell hadn’t he returned her calls? Ric-with-no-K Lloyd hadn’t returned Mort’s call of six weeks ago because he’d changed agents and would I please pass that along to Mort? Darren Fips had spoken with Mort about two weeks ago because the contracts had never arrived but Mort hadn’t gotten back to him and Darren was getting damned pissed. Tracey Cormer’s line was busy. Fourteen minutes after I started, the rolodex cards were back in their stack and I still had no useful information. I dialed Kimberly Marsh, thinking maybe she hadn’t run off with Mort after all, and got her answering machine. I called Ellen Lang, thinking maybe she’d found something in the phone bills, or, if not, maybe she just needed a kind word. No answer. I called Janet Simon, thinking maybe Ellen Lang had gone over there, or, if not, Janet might know where she had gone. No answer. I got up, opened the glass doors, and went out onto the balcony to stand in the smog.
    All dressed up and no place to go.
    The phone rang. “Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Top rates paid for top clues.”
    It was Lou Poitras, this cop I know who works out of North Hollywood Division. “Howzitgoin, Hound Dog?”
    â€œYour wife’s here. We’re having a Wesson oil party.”
    There was a grunt. “You workin’ for a guy named Morton Lang?”
    â€œHis wife. Ellen Lang. How’d you know?”
    It got very still in the office. I watched Pinocchio’s eyes. Side to side, side to side. “What’s going on, Lou?”
    â€œBout an hour ago some Chippies found Morton Lang sittin’ in his Caddie up near Lancaster. Shot to death.”
    There was a loud shushing noise and my fingers began to tingle and I had to go to the bathroom. My voice didn’t want to work. “The boy?”
    Lou didn’t say anything.
    â€œLou?”
    â€œWhat boy?” he said.
    After a while I hung up and took out the photo of Morton Lang. I turned it over and reread the description his wife had written. I looked at the picture of the boy. Maybe he was with Kimberly Marsh. Maybe he was fine and safe and away from whoever had shot his father to death. Maybe not. I