The Face Read Free

might have been peppered chicken breast with Swiss cheese on whole wheat with mustard; and Channing Manheim would have been watercress on lightly buttered toast.
        Ethan didn’t actively dislike his employer, and he didn’t need to like him in order to want to protect him and keep him alive.
        [10] If the eye in the apple was a symbol of corruption, it might represent the star’s ego inside the beautiful fruit.
        Perhaps the doll’s eye didn’t stand for corruption, but for the downside of fame. A celebrity of Channing’s magnitude enjoyed little privacy and was always under scrutiny. The eye in the apple might be symbolic of the stalker’s eye-always watching, judging.
        Crap. Cheap analysis. For all his somber brooding, in weather conducive to contemplation and to dark speculation, Ethan’s every observation seemed obvious and useless.
        He ruminated on the apple-damp words: THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?
        Stumped, he was grateful when the phone rang at a few minutes past ten o’clock, drawing him away from the windows and to the desk.
        Laura Moonves, an old friend from the LAPD, had been tracking down a license-plate number for him. She worked out of the Detective Support Division. Only once before in the past year had he presumed upon their friendship in this way.
        “Got your pervert,” Laura said.
        “Suspected pervert,” he corrected.
        “The three-year-old Honda is registered to Rolf Herman Reynerd in West Hollywood.” She spelled each name and gave him an address.
        “What kind of parents Rolf a kid?”
        Laura knew all about names. “It’s not so bad. Nicely masculine, in fact. In Old German, it means ‘famous wolf.’ Ethan, of course, means ‘permanent, assured.’ ”
        Two years ago, they’d dated. For Laura, Ethan had been anything but permanent, assured. She’d have liked permanence, some assurance. He had been too wounded to provide what she wanted. Or too stupid.
        “Looked him up for a rap sheet,” Laura said, “but he’s clean. DMV says ‘hair brown, eyes blue.’ Says ‘sex male.’ I like sex male. I don’t [11] get enough sex male. Height six-one, weight one-eighty. DOB-June sixth, nineteen seventy-two, which makes him thirty-one.”
        Ethan had it all on a notepad. “Thanks, Laura. I owe you one.”
        “So then tell me-how big’s his charlie?”
        “Isn’t that in the DMV file?”
        “I don’t mean Rolf’s charlie. I mean Manheim’s. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?”
        “I’ve never seen his charlie, but he doesn’t seem to have any trouble walking.”
        “Cookie, maybe you can introduce us sometime.”
        Ethan had never known why she called him Cookie. “The man would bore your ass off, Laura , and that’s the truth.”
        “Pretty as he is, I wouldn’t need conversation. I’d just shove a rag in his mouth, tape his lips shut, and off we’d go to paradise.”
        “Basically it’s my job to keep people like you away from him.”
        “Truman derives from two Old English words,” she said. “It means ‘steadfast, loyal, trustworthy, constant.’ ”
        “You can’t get a date with the Face by making me feel guilty. Besides, when wasn’t I loyal and trustworthy?”
        “Cookie, two out of four doesn’t mean you deserve your name.”
        “You were too good for me anyway, Laura. You’ve got more to give than a shlump like me can appreciate.”
        “I’d like to see your old Ten Card,” she said, referring to his record of service on the force. “Must be more brown stars for ass kissing on that baby than any hundred other cards in the history of the job.”
        “If you’re done dissing me, I’ve been wondering… Rolf. Famous wolf. Does that make sense? What’s a wolf have to do to get famous?”
        “Kill a lot of sheep, I