BERNHARDT ANSWERED THE TELEPHONE on the second ring.
“How’s it going?” Dancer asked. “Any change?”
“No change. Why?”
“I’ve just heard from the client. You can come in. Have you had dinner?”
“No.”
“Well, have a good dinner, on the expense account. Then come in.”
“Maybe I’ll stay here tonight, come in tomorrow. There’s something I want to see on TV. And the room’s paid for until noon tomorrow.”
“Suit yourself,” Dancer answered. “Got to go. Shall I wait for your expenses before I authorize the check? Or would you rather have your time now, and your expenses later?”
Bernhardt smiled. To Dancer, he would always be a charity case. So, to make a statement, he answered, “Why don’t you wait, write one check? Make it simple.”
“Fine. Got to go, another call.” Abruptly the line went dead. As Bernhardt cradled the phone, he looked out across the courtyard of the Starlight Motel. Dusk was falling: a soft, warm September evening. The Toyota was parked in front of unit twelve, where it had remained since noon, when Betty Giles and Nick Ames had driven to a nearby Mexican restaurant for lunch. Bernhardt had parked around the corner, walked to the restaurant, and sat at the counter, covertly watching them while he ate a taco and drank dark Mexican beer. Added to the few times he’d seen them together during the past twenty-four hours, and remembering Tuesday’s conversation with Nora Farley, the half hour’s surveillance in the restaurant had solidified Bernhardt’s estimation of Betty Giles. Certainly, she was intelligent. The economy of her gestures, the quickness of her glance, everything about her suggested a high level of intelligence, of awareness. But her gestures and her glances had also revealed a certain tentative uncertainty, a failure of essential self-esteem. Somehow, somewhere, Betty Giles had been damaged. She’d lost her way, perhaps permanently, become one of those women who didn’t think she deserved better than second best. Because, certainly, she and Nick Ames were a mis-match. Her mannerisms were reflective; his were abrupt, often truculent. She dressed with conservative good taste; he dressed to imitate the macho male. She was quietly polite; he sometimes sulked, sometimes blustered.
But, with all those obvious dissimilarities on one side of the equation, there remained on the other side the sexual component, nature’s wild card. And whether or not he would have picked up on it without Nora Farley’s cues, it nevertheless seemed clear to Bernhardt that Nick Ames was a bad habit that Betty Giles couldn’t break. So she—
Across the courtyard, the door to number twelve was swinging open. Wearing a gray sweater and navy blue slacks that clung to the contours of her hips and buttocks, Betty Giles walked to the passenger door of the Toyota—and waited while Ames got in behind the wheel, finally reached across to unlock her door from the inside.
Tempted to get into his car and follow them to dinner out of simple curiosity, Bernhardt decided instead to walk to the entrance of the motel’s driveway. He watched them as they turned north, toward downtown Santa Rosa. Seeing the Toyota slow for a stop sign at the first corner, he was about to turn back to the motel when he saw a maroon Oldsmobile approaching from the south. Years of surveillance suggested that the Olds was following the Toyota: Dancer’s anonymous client, taking over the surveillance—or the pursuit. Instinctively, Bernhardt stepped into the deepening shadow of a huge Monterey pine that grew close beside the motel entrance. To his left, the Toyota was still stopped, for cross traffic. Meaning that, yes, the maroon Olds was slowing to a crawl as it passed the motel entrance. Even in the gathering twilight, still standing in the shadow of the pine tree, Bernhardt had a clear view of the driver: a young black man, remarkably good-looking, his profile classically Negroid, his manner suggesting a certain pride of bearing, even arrogance.
Thoughtfully, Bernhardt watched as the driver of the Oldsmobile allowed another car to turn behind the Toyota before he proceeded across the intersection.
If Bernhardt had been conducting a single-handed moving surveillance, considering the hour of the day and the frequency of the traffic, he would have done exactly what the black man was doing.