The Last Cheerleader. Meg O'Brien

it last year, he liked his little hideout. He said it helped him to stay focused. And sober. In the early mornings, before most people were up and while there was little traffic along Imperial and Vista Del Mar, he would run down to the beach and do his yoga there.

      He’d made his stay in El Segundo sound like an adventure, and it didn’t seem too bad a deal, I thought. Until I saw the Lazy Sands. It was several blocks up from the beach, on a lot that looked like a junkyard. Rusted-out, abandoned cars were everywhere, and there was even a junkyard dog—a mix that looked like part Lab and part wolf. I parked as close to the lobby as I could get, but Wolf still managed to get between me and the door, his fangs bared and a warning growl deep in his throat.

      I use the word lobby loosely, because the windows were covered in graffiti and dirt that looked as if it hadn’t been washed off since the seventies. The room had the shape of a lobby, and the usual kind of entrance to one, but I couldn’t even see through those windows enough to tell if there was anyone in there.

      I don’t have a dog, but I love watching shows about them. So I smiled at Wolf and spoke in a high, soft voice, just like Uncle Mattie, the dog trainer to the stars, had said to do on PBS.

      “Good boy, good boy!” I said cautiously, moving a foot forward. But Wolf came toward me and bared his fangs as if he really meant business this time.

      It was then, fortunately, that the lobby door opened. An old man with gray stubble stood there, looking at me. “Tinkerbell!” he cried.

      “Uh, no…it’s not Tinkerbell,” I said, bemused. “Just me. Mary Beth Conahan.”

      “Damn you, Tinkerbell!” he yelled. “Get away from the lady!”

      Wolf—or Tinkerbell, as I now realized—backed off. She didn’t go far, though, standing her ground about ten feet away. I calculated whether I’d be able to make a run for the inside before she could reach me.

      “Don’t worry, she’s harmless,” the old man said. “She just likes to let people know she’s on the job. As long as you don’t look her in the eye, she won’t hurt you. If you look her in the eye she’ll see it as a challenge.”

      “And then?”

      “Well, then, God knows what she’ll do,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s not mine, she’s just been here forever. Some bum left her behind one day.”

      I carefully kept my gaze on the man. “I’m looking for a friend,” I said. “Craig Dinsmore. Can you tell me what room he’s in?”

      “You mean that writer fella? Crazy as a loon, he is. In there all hours of the day and night, typing away. Have to charge him extra for lights if he stays here much longer.” He peered at me. “You say he’s a friend of yours?”

      “Yes. I’m just checking up, making sure he’s all right.”

      The old man didn’t look impressed.

      “He asked me to,” I added.

      “Well…it’s no skin off my back. Paid his room through the next week, after all. Number twenty-six.”

      “Thanks,” I said. “Can I get there without Tinkerbell here biting my leg off?”

      “Like I said…” The man replied with a shrug.

      “Yeah. Don’t look her in the eye.”

      Relieved to get back in my car, I drove to Craig’s room, parking in the space in front of it. Stepping out, I looked for Tinkerbell but didn’t see her anywhere. As I stepped out of the car, though, I heard a growl. Startled, I looked around and saw that she was right behind my car, and had probably followed me from the office.

      With more fear than I wanted to admit, I looked away and crossed over to Craig’s room. I love dogs in general, but I don’t like being around big dogs who take eye-to-eye contact as a challenge to ravage my neck.

      I knocked several times on the green, peeling door of number twenty-six, and when Craig didn’t answer I went to the window. It had six square-foot panes, and one of them was broken. It had been covered from inside with see-through plastic wrap, something I hadn’t noticed when I’d parked. Curtains were closed across the entire window.

      I wondered if the place had a repairman, then realized that repairs were probably done by the old man. He’d looked besieged by arthritis and possibly osteoporosis, as his back was badly stooped. Add to that the dirty lobby windows, and I doubted that he kept up with anything here. He probably got free rent for acting as “manager” for a slum landlord who never came around and didn’t care. That would leave the tenants to make their own repairs. A sort of DIY motel.

      Craig no longer owned a car, so the fact that his old BMW wasn’t here didn’t tell me anything. I finally decided that he must run to the beach in the afternoons as well as the mornings, since he wasn’t hunkered down at his computer—as he’d sworn he was doing 24/7.

      Unless he’s hitting the bars again.

      I took out my cell phone and called Nia. “He’s not here,” I said. “Have you had any luck?”

      “No, I’m sorry. I gave his description to the bartenders at all the bars around there, from Playa del Rey to El Segundo, then to Manhattan Beach and LAX. Even the bars that are probably too expensive for his budget. No one’s seen him for a couple of days.”

      “Does that mean he has been in some of those bars recently?” I asked.

      “Two of them,” Nia said. “I wondered if he’d been drinking, and I asked if they’d had any trouble with him. Both bartenders said that the times they’d seen him he was drinking only coffee. They said he drank a lot of that. Also—you’ll like hearing this—he always had paper and pencil with him, and spent a lot of time there writing. That’s when he wasn’t talking to customers or the bartender about writing, of course. He did a lot of that, too.”

      I relaxed a bit. “I’ll go down to the beach and look for him,” I said. Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was one-fifteen. Less than an hour left now to present him with Paul Whitmore’s “final” offer.

      “Tell you what, Nia. How about if you call Whit-more right now and tell him the story about Maui. It’ll sound better if we get back to him before his so-called deadline, and that could give me more leeway. I’m willing to bet that if he thinks Craig is in a beach house in Hawaii, pounding away at his computer, he’ll give me more time.”

      “He does seem to want Craig real bad. Funny, don’t you think?”

      “Funny how?”

      “Well, word gets around real fast in the writing community, especially here in L.A., and especially if it’s news about a writer going downhill. Wouldn’t you think Whitmore and Bronson & Bronson Publishing would have heard about it by now?”

      “As a matter of fact, I have thought of that,” I said, “which is why I’ve been doing damage control with Whitmore. But he really likes this book of Craig’s, and he doesn’t seem too concerned about a long-term contract. Which, in itself, makes me wonder. The book I sent him doesn’t, in my opinion, call for that kind of money or commitment. It’s almost as if something’s going on that I don’t know anything about.”

      “You know,” Nia said, “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Craig’s always been a good writer, but this mafia book isn’t anything new, is it? Just the same old, same old?”

      “I found it gripping when I read it,” I said. “But I’ll admit to being a bit stunned that Whitmore offered six figures for it, let alone seven. Listen, I’ve got to run. So call Whitmore and tell him the Maui story, but tread easy…oh, hell, you know what to do. You’ve got great diplomatic bones.”

      “Thanks,” Nia said, chuckling. “Are you still going down to the beach, then?”

      “Yes. I’ll let you know how it goes with Craig.”

      I closed my