A Flower in the Desert by Walter Satterthwait

actors and actresses here in town, the big stars, they’re not the shallow, superficial beings you may think they are. Oh, they may blow thousands of dollars on real estate and Ferraris and nose candy, but deep down, you see, they’re deeply committed human beings. Every one of them—above a certain tax bracket, anyway—has a charity of his own. Usually he’s the spokesperson, and usually it’s a disease of one kind or another.”
    He inhaled on his cigarette. “Well, by the time Alonzo was making enough cash to afford a charity of his own, all the really good diseases were taken. About the only thing left was postnasal drip. Alonzo decided to go with Sanctuary instead. It firmed up his standing in the Hispanic community, and it put him in solid with the Hollywood young guard.”
    I had asked him, “Sanctuary is a bit leftish?”
    Smiling, Ed exhaled cigarette smoke through his nose. “In a very civilized, socially conscious way. Somewhere slightly to the right of Greenpeace, maybe.”
    â€œBeing involved didn’t hurt Alonzo’s career?”
    He smiled again. “So long as the receipts keep coming in, it’s perfectly okay for you to dabble in lefty politics. Or in witchcraft, for that matter. The bottom line in this town, Joshua, is the bottom line.”
    I smiled back at him. “I hope I never get quite that cynical.”
    â€œThen maybe,” he had told me, smiling, “you’d better head back to Santa Fe as soon as you can.”
    Over the next few years, Ed said, Melissa had gone, usually with other members of the group, on fact-finding missions south of the border: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala. She had continued her work with them after her divorce. It was, in fact, just before her most recently scheduled trip, back to El Salvador, that the appellate court had decided in favor of her ex-husband and his visitation rights. Melissa had gone anyway, two days later, the second of August, leaving her daughter, Winona, with her sister in Brentwood. She returned to Los Angeles on August 17, picked up Wynona, and disappeared the next day.
    I had asked Ed, “Bank accounts, credit cards?”
    â€œShe closed out her accounts on the eighteenth, checking and savings, for a total of about five grand. Converted some stocks into cash, another four grand. She left all her plastic behind. No action on any of her cards since she left. Left her driver’s license, too, and her passport.”
    â€œHer car?”
    â€œShe left it at the airport. Took a cab home, took another cab to her sister’s house.”
    â€œShe’s being careful,” I said.
    Ed nodded.
    â€œShe was able to raise only nine thousand in cash?”
    â€œHer lawyers, the trials, ate up most of what she had.”
    â€œShe couldn’t borrow a ruble or two from Mom and Dad?”
    â€œDad stopped paying her an allowance after she married Alonzo. He disowned her after she went to the police with the story about Alonzo’s sexual abuse.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Ed shrugged. “Bad publicity?”
    â€œAlonzo told me that the P.I. he hired had been able to put her with a woman named Elizabeth Drewer, a lawyer.”
    Ed nodded, inhaled on his Marlboro, exhaled. “You know anything about Drewer?”
    â€œAccording to Alonzo, she’s a connection to something called the Underground Railroad. People across the country who help women and children who’re running from the kind of thing Melissa Alonzo was running from.”
    Another nod from Ed. “Drewer doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t admit it, either. But she’s an industrial-strength feminist, and she’s very vocal about the way the courts have handled child abuse.”
    â€œYou think Alonzo could’ve disappeared down their pipeline?”
    â€œIt’s possible. They’d be able to provide her with papers, a new name, safe houses.”
    â€œSeems a rough