He nodded listlessly. “I can imagine how many petty thefts you have to deal with every week,” he muttered.
She looked down at him. “I won’t lie and say they’re a priority, Mr. Parker. This is Los Angeles, after all. At least they didn’t get away with anything irreplaceable.” Recognition brightened her expression. “Parker, Parker. Maxwell Parker? Don’t you write for that newspaper, the Investigator?”
He offered a wan smile. “That’s me.”
“I remember reading your story on the Mexican Bermuda Triangle and how it was all tied in with those descendants of the Aztecs who are still living up in the mountains. You’re a good writer.”
“Thank you. That story took a lot of research.” To be precise, ten minutes with a little-used library copy of DeSoto, he remembered.
“Yeah, I could tell. I read a lot, and you can always tell when a writer’s done their homework or not.” Frowning, she pulled the pad and pen back out and returned to her note-taking. “You’re sure these three guys all looked alike?”
“I told you.” He looked up tiredly from where he was seated. “They didn’t just look alike. They were triplets. For all I know, all their talk about not knowing each other was part of some demented routine they use to disorient their victims. Or amuse themselves. There are a lot of frustrated stand-up comics in this town. Maybe these three hope that someday they’ll be robbing someone in the entertainment business who’ll hire them to appear at the Comedy Club.” He eyed the vacant shelving where his stereo had previously reposed. “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Instead of the Brothers Karamazov we’d have the Brothers Sutton.”
“The brothers who?” The cop gave him a blank look.
“Forget it.”
She scratched at the back of her blond crew cut and shrugged. “Triplets, huh? Well, that’ll save space on the duty board. One artist’s rendering will be enough.” She grinned and turned toward the bedroom as her partner emerged. “Find anything, Remar?”
“Cigarette butts.” The cop held out a palmful of crumbled debris. “Three of ’em. Same brand, all smoked down to the same length before being discarded.”
“Well, that’s it, then. We’ve got them now,” Max muttered.
“There’s no call for sarcasm, Mr. Parker.” The female and senior half of the investigating team eyed him disapprovingly. “Don’t knock the evidence before it’s processed. You never know what’s going to give the bad guys away. Neither do they, or they’d be more careful. The department recovers stolen property all the time. You might get lucky. Of course, you’ve used an electric engraving pen to mark all your valuables in an inconspicuous place with your driver’s license or Social Security number or some other easily recognizable code.”
“Uh, no,” he confessed, his self-righteous sardonic condemnation of metropolitan police procedures instantly deflated.
The officers exchanged a knowing glance. “Citizens always do all they can to make our jobs easier.”
“There were three of them!” Who was the victim here? he reminded himself. “Triplets! They ought to be easy to find.”
“Only if they hang out together when they’re not working.” She put away her notebook. “We’ll call you if we have any news or make any progress, Mr. Parker. Meanwhile, keep on writing. I’ll look forward to more of your articles. Oh, and I suggest you contact your insurance company if you haven’t already.”
With a tip of her hat she followed her partner out the door, thoughtfully closing it softly behind her. Max was once more alone in his apartment, sans stereo, Sony, and computer. The emptiness he felt was not internal.
Sitting and brooding would get him only an ulcer, and he did not need to add to the aggravation he received daily in the course of his work. Taking the departed cop’s sound advice, he called his insurance representative, explained what had happened, and detailed the thievery. The agent promised him a check to cover his losses within two days—minus his deductible, of course.
Muttering under his breath about the injustices life visited on the virtuous, he made ready for bed. It was the first time he had ever been burgled, and living in Los Angeles, he knew it would likely not be the last. Not as long as he lived in a nice place at the beach.
The beach. Silent recitation of the very word seemed to soothe him. He had notes enough for two stories in the can, both safely stored in the laptop computer locked in his car. He’d work on them in the morning and take the afternoon off. The weather was predicted fine, the sand shouldn’t be crowded, and he would let the afternoon sun melt away his trauma. He went to bed feeling better than he had anticipated. What the hell, his deductible was reasonable and he’d been wanting to get a new stereo anyway.
Many of the city’s residents kept an earthquake emergency kit handy in their homes. Drinking water, food bars, medical supplies, and so on. Max maintained an equally compact beach emergency kit: suntan lotion, towel, Walkman, and so on. Thus equipped, he exited the building the following afternoon, crossed Ocean Avenue, hotfooted it across the already baking asphalt parking lot, and trudged past the steel swings and monkey bars until he found a spot where the sand began to slope toward the water.
The ostinato pounding of the surf was already relaxing him as he spread out his towel, pinned one corner down with the compact chilled cooler, adjusted his shades, and took a seat. By the time he started slathering on the tanning lotion he was feeling no pain. He’d spent the morning polishing the story on Mrs. Collins’s medium and the conversation the two of them (leaving himself out of the equation) had had with her recently deceased offspring. Tonight or tomorrow he would bestow equal treatment on the amiably mad Barrington Boles and his colorful if impotent parallel-world machine. Two substantial stories in twice as many days would net him a nice paycheck in addition to Kryzewski’s grudging compliments.
Meanwhile he could spend the rest of a truly fine day lying back and watching the gulls, pelicans, joggers, and surfers. The rewards of the righteous, he told himself without a hint of false modesty.
When the bounty presented itself, or rather herself, he knew for a certainty that God was Just.
She was not simply pretty. Los Angeles was overrun with pretty girls. No, the visitant was drop-dead gorgeous, a fully-matured member of the migratory species instantly identifiable to those who did their socio-scientific homework as Starletus californicus. As matters developed, it was not his irresistible good looks that had drawn her to him, nor his instant recognizability within his singular profession, but something much more prosaic.
“It sure is hot today,” she said musically, her words drifting down between her ample breasts. “I saw your cooler. Is there any chance I could have a sip? Just water would be fine.”
Pushing his shades rakishly up onto his forehead, he smiled up at her. “Sorry. Can’t help you there.”
“Oh.” Her expression fell and she started to turn away. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No, no.” He sat up so fast he nearly lost the shades. “I mean there’s no water.” He fumbled with the cooler’s latch. “What would you like: RC, Sprite, or beer?”
She knelt down next to his beach towel, an altogether enchanting series of movements that he perceived as one. “An RC would be great.”
He handed her the chilled can, wishing he had an insulating jacket, and ice, and a glass. Not to mention champagne. “My name’s Max. Max Parker.” He gestured toward the parking lot and the street beyond. “I live here. My apartment’s right across the street.”
“Hi—I’m Sherri.” She followed the gesture. “You live right here? At the beach? Cool!”
If he had scripted the encounter himself it could not have been going any better. “Yeah, I’ve been here for a couple of years now. I’m a reporter.”
“Really? Television?” Bright blue Midwestern eyes sparkled.
“No. Newspaper.” He sipped his own soda.
“Oh.” Her disappointment was as palpable as her pout was lubricious.
“Nationally distribu
ted,” he added hopefully.
The addendum still did not carry the cachet of television, but some of the initial sparkle returned to the visitant’s eyes.
“You ever do any stories on the entertainment business, Max?”
“All the time,” he replied offhandedly, as if Hollywood were his daily beat.
Her full interest returned. “That’s great! You know, I’m an actress, like my sisters. We’re from—well, you wouldn’t recognize the name of the town, but it’s west of Omaha. Would you like to meet them?”
Before he even had time to consider a reply, she was standing and waving, shouting up the beach. He looked in the direction she was facing, but the sun was in his eyes and he was loath to pull down the shades lest it minimize his view of even the tiniest part of her perfect figure.
Several shapes rose from the distant sand and came running, laughing and chattering as they approached, a tripartite cornucopia of irrepressible young feminine beauty. Like the redoubtable Sherri, two were blondes. The third was a redhead. The sisterly similarity was immediately noticeable. Remarkable, even.
Now where, he thought, had he recently encountered a similar situation?
While part of him was becoming distinctly warmer, and not from the broiling rays of the Southern California sun, the rest of him was growing cold. The internal conflict left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
The four giggling Omaha sisters looked enough alike, from their Kewpie-doll faces to their lush figures to their petite feet, to have sprung from the same floating scallop shell. One pair were clad in identical bikinis while the other two wore, respectively, a third identical swimsuit but of a different color, and the fourth a one-piece net outfit that was more not there than there. Two were slightly taller than their siblings, one had a mole on her left thigh, another green eyes instead of blue, and Sherri herself wore the only piece of jewelry among them: a black coral necklace. The slight differences were almost as disturbing as the astonishing similarities.
He found himself wondering wildly if they by any chance happened to be dating three contentious cat burglars, and were they interviewing him because they needed a fourth to complete the ménage?
He swallowed hard. The part of him that had been rapidly warming was quickly turning cold. “Let me guess: You’ve never set eyes on one another before today?”
The radiant sisters exchanged a look and laughed. Simultaneously, of course. “Don’t be silly!” Sherri admonished him. “Girls, this is Max. He’s a reporter.”
Questions flew at him, none of which he heard. Searching faces and bodies for distinctions, he found only enough to emphasize their similarities. The four were not quadruplets, but they were far more alike than mere sisters. A growing unease was blossoming in his gut.
“Actually, we’re staying in the hotel down the street,” one of the girls told him. “It’s pretty amazing. It’s funny what you just said, because until we ran into each other in the coffee shop yesterday, we actually never had met before.”
The ascending chill was spreading from his belly to the rest of his body. “How interesting,” he commented flatly.
“I mean, it just blew us away,” declared a third member of the quartet. “We’re still trying to work it out. Our mother died two years ago, and all we can figure out is that we were separated at birth and raised by different families.” She adjusted her position on the sand. “It’s just like something you’d see on one of those tabloid news television shows.”
“That’s right,” added the one red-haired member of the group. “Isn’t it amazing that we could have all grown up in the same general area, near Omaha, and never run into one another until we met up right here in Los Angeles?”
“It’s remarkable, all right,” he agreed weakly.
“Of course,” Sherri pointed out, “we’re all trying to get into the movie and television business. Except Shari.” Her mouth wrinkled up delightfully. “She wants to be an auto mechanic.”
“That’s right,” chirped one of the blondes, who was equally as attractive as her three sisters.
“We all sat up most of the night talking,” Sherri informed him. “It seems that even our families were a lot alike.”
“Just fascinating.” He fought not to back away as they pressed close around him. He noted that even their body odors were slightly different, not quite identical. He was afraid he was going to throw up, but not from the collective feminine aroma.
“I think you’re kind of fascinating yourself, Max.” The redhead sidled close until her arm was pressing against his side. “I’m not doing anything tonight. You live here, so you know the city. How would you like to take me out and show me around?”
“Well, I don’t…”
“And me,” declared the blonde next to her. It developed that all four of them had a sudden urge to go out with him.
“All of you?” he stammered. “Simultaneously? Like in, together?”
The sisters exchanged looks. “Why not?” Sherri wondered. “If we all want to go out with you why shouldn’t we all go out with you?”
“That’s right,” agreed blonde number three. She smiled invitingly. Corn-fed and fresh the four might be, but they were not shy. “Don’t worry, Max. We’ll go easy on you.”
The redhead was shaking her head. “That’s just what I was going to say. Honestly, it’s amazing how alike we think.”
“Yeah.” Max rose quickly to his feet, nearly losing his footing in the soft sand. He fumbled with the contents of the cooler. “Here, each of you take a soda. I’m sure you’re all equally thirsty.”
“As a matter of fact …” admitted the redhead as she reached for the proffered can, “I am. You’re so thoughtful, Max. It’s like you just knew.” Her eyes glittered in the bright sunshine. “It’s almost like you’re part of the family.”
“Oh, don’t say that.” Sending sand flying, he hurriedly snatched up his towel and snapped the cooler shut. “Look, I’m really sorry. I may even be really crazy—but I can’t go out with you. Not individually or together.” He took a step backward and nearly fell on his butt.
“But why not?” The redhead rose from her crouch like a speeded-up stop-motion film clip of a blossom opening, a svelte vision of down-home Great Plains loveliness. “We all like you. Don’t you like us?” The four of them were staring at him with the same wistful, slightly hurt expressions. It was comely. It was intriguing.
It was downright creepy.
“Sure I like you. Who wouldn’t.” He spoke a little too quickly as he continued to back away. “It’s just that I’m not too sure about some things going on in my life right now and it wouldn’t be fair to lay it off on you ladies. Maybe another time, when I’ve got my head in order.”
“Whatever you say, Max.” An obviously disappointed and not a little confused Sherri concluded with a full-figured parting shrug, a gesture that did nothing to diminish his libido. Then her three sisters shrugged, in precisely the same manner, and that fully accomplished anything that the first shrug had not. Abandoning all pretense at politesse, he turned and ran.
“That’s a very nice but very flustered young man,” the redhead insisted.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” added the sister on her left.
“Of course,” agreed Sherri, and with that the four of them once again fell to giggling, an a capella chorus of unrestrained feminine amusement.
Heedless of the heat, Max ran through the sand, across the parking lot, and nearly managed to get himself run down by a cable-company service truck while sprinting across Ocean Avenue. Taking the outside access stairs two at a time, he did not slow down until he was inside the familiar confines of the elevator. Fighting to catch his breath as it ascended, he bolted through the open door the instant the lift reached his floor. The hall was empty, but he ran anyway. He did not stop running until he was back inside his apartment with the door locked and securely bolted behind him.
Any other time, any other place, he would have gladly sacrificed
the balance in his bank account for a date with any one of the Omaha sisters. The opportunity to go out with two of them would have made him wary. In his current state of mind, the presence of four nearly identical, interchangeable lovelies constituted incontrovertible overkill. They were not quite as indistinguishable as the three burglars had been. The differences were slight but noticeable. But the similarities were too similar, the duplication too uncanny. Considered in the light of the previous night’s intruders, they constituted a coincidence the likes of which made him want to run screaming, and not with unrequited passion.
It was bizarre. It was frightening. It was weird. And the only situation in which he had recently found himself that equaled it in weirdness was the evening he had spent in the company of a certain Barrington Boles, gentleman surfer and would-be mad scientist. Good ol’ Barry Boles and his parallel-world Lego set. Focusing on Boles and his abortive demonstration was a hope, not an explanation, but at the moment it was the only one Max had. Other than the possibility that he needed glasses, of a very special and unimaginable type.
He needed some answers, and he needed them fast.
Abandoning the apartment, he risked traffic citations several dozen times as he raced up the Pacific Coast Highway and through Malibu, putting the Aurora through some maneuvers the engineers at GM had never envisioned. There was a different guard at the compound gate. Patient and skeptical, he refused to buy any of Max’s stories. Nor did the reporter’s obvious agitation help any. But the guard did agree, despite his better instincts, to ring Boles’s house. Evidently he was having a good day, or was in a particularly benign mood—or maybe it was the desperate, panicky look on Max’s face, the expression of a man drowning out of water.
Be home, Max implored the unseen inventor. Don’t have run off to Madagascar or someplace. Be home.
Still dubious, the guard put down his receiver and looked out at the distraught visitor. “He says to go on up.”
Max barely restrained the Aurora long enough for the electric gate to swing aside and admit him to the private compound. He forced himself to take it slow climbing the winding road through the preserve of expensive homes lest some idle matron call Security down on a visiting reckless driver.