One Grave Too Many Read Online Free Page A

didn’t like Danny’s smile either.” He put the folder away. “Got an address on her?”
    “Not a current one. I don’t imagine a prominent industrialist like Goffman is listed in the phone book, but I can dig up her address,” promised Hagopian. “Thing is, I can’t do it until after sundown. Right now I’ve got to run over to the Me & Jesus Commune.”
    “Which is?”
    “John, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t know anything about the main currents of life in LA and environs,” said Hagopian. “ TV Look wants me to interview a new pea-brained and sparse-titted starlet and at the moment she happens to be a Jesus freak, living out in the Valley with a clutch of Jesus freaks who call themselves the Me & Jesus Commune.”
    “Well, maybe they’ll have a pool table.” Easy headed for the door.

CHAPTER 5
    T HE MAN NEAREST THE door was barking. The man next to him on the low black sofa shook his head. “Pretty piss poor,” he said. “It’s no wonder you haven’t been getting many calls. You got no believability. Like this …” He wrinkled his nose and commenced yelping and howling.
    Easy walked by them, and by the other five actors waiting in the outer office of Marks & Feller. It was a black and white room, chill, with high walls of eggshell white, black chairs and sofa. He stopped before the white desk and asked the black receptionist, “Is Feller in?”
    The slim black girl looked up at him. “Let’s hear you bark.”
    “Woof,” he said.
    She frowned, poking one long finger into her afro. “That’s godawful,” she decided. “And yet there’s a kind of zany downbeat quality about it … it’s so rotten it’s almost good. Do it again, will you?”
    “I won’t bark any more unless I get some money in front,” said Easy. “Meanwhile, would you tell Feller John Easy’d like to see him. I’m a private investigator, working for …”
    “Shit,” said the receptionist, “you mean you ain’t a voice man?”
    “Nope.”
    “And you aren’t here to audition for our Kane’s Kanned Kanine Burgers spots?”
    “I’m looking for Gary Marks, his sister hired me to find him.”
    The girl poked all five fingers of her left hand into her hair. “You think something bad’s really happened to Mr. Marks?”
    “That’s what I’m here to talk to Feller about.”
    The black girl got up from behind her desk. She was nearly six feet high. “It would be grotesque if Mr. Marks were lying dead somewhere and us here doing a dog food commercial. Come on, I’ll take you to Mr. Feller’s officer.”
    Glancing at the girl’s extremely long bare legs, Easy followed her into a black and white hallway. “What makes you think he might be dead?”
    “Mr. Marks is so gung ho about this outfit … he’d have to be dead or dying to stay away,” she answered. “He’s usually here day and night.”
    “I hear he’s been taking some time off to see one of your television spot girls.”
    The receptionist said, in a very flat voice, “I wouldn’t know about that.” They reached a white door with six STP stickers and a picture of a plaster hot dog stuck on it. The black girl knocked.
    “Yo?” said someone inside.
    The receptionist opened the door. “A Mr. John Easy to see you, Mr. Feller. He’s working for Mr. Marks’ sister.”
    “Goodo,” said Feller. “Come on in, Easy.” Feller was perched on the edge of a large black metal desk. When the girl had closed the door and departed he said, “Isn’t that the greatest ass you’ve ever seen?”
    “Nope.”
    Feller was a small man of thirty-one, very tan. He was almost completely bald. He was wearing white bellbottom trousers and a candy-stripe body shirt. “Really? Is it because it’s a Negro ass that you don’t like it?”
    “It may be that I’ve seen a lot more than you have and have more to compare it with.”
    Feller chuckled, and appeared to be tickling himself in the ribs as he did. “Neato,” he said. He bounced off his desk, went