Smart girl like that, I'm sure there's an explanation. Here, let me write those professors' names down for you. Ronninger's on sabbatical, but the others are teaching all year. By this time I doubt they're in, but good luck."
"Thanks. You'd make a good detective."
"Me?" she said. "Never. I don't like surprises."
She locked up, and I walked her through the lobby, both our footsteps echoing on black terrazzo. When she was gone I strode back to the elevators and read the directory. Simon de Maartens's office was on the fifth floor, Stephen Z. Hall's and Gene R. Dalby's on the sixth.
I pushed the button and waited and thought about Lauren's lie to Andrew Salander. No research job. Probably covering for her real employment. Stripping, hooking, both. Resuming her old ways. Or she'd never stopped.
Runway modeling. Another lie? Or maybe gigs at the Fashion Mart were just another way to cash in on her looks.
Smart kid, but enrollment in college and good grades weren't contradictory to plying the flesh trade. Back when Lauren had worked for Gretchen Stengel, the Westside Madam had employed several college girls. Beautiful young women making easy money—big money. Someone able to compartmentalize and rationalize would find the logic unassailable: Why give up five-hundred-dollar tricks for a six-buck-an-hour part-time bottle-washing gig without benefits?
Salander had said Lauren was living off investments, and I wondered if her body was the principal. If so, her disappearance could be nothing more than a quarter-break freelance to accrue spare cash.
No car, because she was flying—jetting off somewhere with a sheik or a tycoon or a software emperor, any man sufficiently rich and deluded to fall for the ego sop of purchased pleasure.
Lauren serving as amusement for a few days, returning home nicely invested. But if that was the case, why had she raised her mother's anxiety by not providing a cover story? And why hadn't she packed clothing?
Because this particular job required a new wardrobe? Or no clothing at all beyond the threads on her back?
She had taken her purse, meaning she had her credit cards. What did a party girl require other than willingness and magic plastic?
Maybe she was punishing Jane by slipping away without explanation— letting Jane know she wouldn't be controlled.
Or perhaps the answer was painfully simple: rest and recreation after grinding away for grades. Cooling out in one of the places she'd used before—nice quiet Malibu motel—if that was true.
Maybe Lauren had done the L.A.-to-Reno shuttle, found her old stomping grounds lucrative, decided to stay for a while. . . . The elevator doors wheezed open, and I rode up to five. Professor Simon de Maartens's door was decorated with Far Side cartoons and a newspaper clipping about moose deaths from acid rain. Closed. I knocked. No answer. The handle didn't turn.
I had no more success at Stephen Hall's unadorned slab of chartreuse wood, but Gene Dalby's door was open and Gene was sitting at his desk, wearing a rumpled white shirt and khakis, bare feet propped, gray laptop resting on a skinny stalk of thigh. He typed, hummed tonelessly, wiggled his toes. A pair of huarache sandals sat near the legs of his chair. Coffee bubbled in an old white machine. A single window to his left framed rooftops and the northern edge of the campus botanical gardens. From a boom box on the ledge came supernatural guitar licks and a bruised voice. Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Crossfire."
I said, "Uh, hi, Professor Dalby. Could we talk about my grades?"
Gene's head turned. Same bony pencil face and jug ears and rebellious ginger hair. His temples had silvered. Black-framed half-lens reading glasses rode the center of a swooping, askew hook of a nose. He grinned, placed the specs on the desk, did the same with the laptop. "No way. You flunk."
Jumping up to his full, ostrich-necked six-four, all loose limbs and oversized hands and bobbing head, he clasped my shoulders and shook
"Thanks. You'd make a good detective."
"Me?" she said. "Never. I don't like surprises."
She locked up, and I walked her through the lobby, both our footsteps echoing on black terrazzo. When she was gone I strode back to the elevators and read the directory. Simon de Maartens's office was on the fifth floor, Stephen Z. Hall's and Gene R. Dalby's on the sixth.
I pushed the button and waited and thought about Lauren's lie to Andrew Salander. No research job. Probably covering for her real employment. Stripping, hooking, both. Resuming her old ways. Or she'd never stopped.
Runway modeling. Another lie? Or maybe gigs at the Fashion Mart were just another way to cash in on her looks.
Smart kid, but enrollment in college and good grades weren't contradictory to plying the flesh trade. Back when Lauren had worked for Gretchen Stengel, the Westside Madam had employed several college girls. Beautiful young women making easy money—big money. Someone able to compartmentalize and rationalize would find the logic unassailable: Why give up five-hundred-dollar tricks for a six-buck-an-hour part-time bottle-washing gig without benefits?
Salander had said Lauren was living off investments, and I wondered if her body was the principal. If so, her disappearance could be nothing more than a quarter-break freelance to accrue spare cash.
No car, because she was flying—jetting off somewhere with a sheik or a tycoon or a software emperor, any man sufficiently rich and deluded to fall for the ego sop of purchased pleasure.
Lauren serving as amusement for a few days, returning home nicely invested. But if that was the case, why had she raised her mother's anxiety by not providing a cover story? And why hadn't she packed clothing?
Because this particular job required a new wardrobe? Or no clothing at all beyond the threads on her back?
She had taken her purse, meaning she had her credit cards. What did a party girl require other than willingness and magic plastic?
Maybe she was punishing Jane by slipping away without explanation— letting Jane know she wouldn't be controlled.
Or perhaps the answer was painfully simple: rest and recreation after grinding away for grades. Cooling out in one of the places she'd used before—nice quiet Malibu motel—if that was true.
Maybe Lauren had done the L.A.-to-Reno shuttle, found her old stomping grounds lucrative, decided to stay for a while. . . . The elevator doors wheezed open, and I rode up to five. Professor Simon de Maartens's door was decorated with Far Side cartoons and a newspaper clipping about moose deaths from acid rain. Closed. I knocked. No answer. The handle didn't turn.
I had no more success at Stephen Hall's unadorned slab of chartreuse wood, but Gene Dalby's door was open and Gene was sitting at his desk, wearing a rumpled white shirt and khakis, bare feet propped, gray laptop resting on a skinny stalk of thigh. He typed, hummed tonelessly, wiggled his toes. A pair of huarache sandals sat near the legs of his chair. Coffee bubbled in an old white machine. A single window to his left framed rooftops and the northern edge of the campus botanical gardens. From a boom box on the ledge came supernatural guitar licks and a bruised voice. Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Crossfire."
I said, "Uh, hi, Professor Dalby. Could we talk about my grades?"
Gene's head turned. Same bony pencil face and jug ears and rebellious ginger hair. His temples had silvered. Black-framed half-lens reading glasses rode the center of a swooping, askew hook of a nose. He grinned, placed the specs on the desk, did the same with the laptop. "No way. You flunk."
Jumping up to his full, ostrich-necked six-four, all loose limbs and oversized hands and bobbing head, he clasped my shoulders and shook
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