SIPPING CHARDONNAY, BERNHARDT LET his eyes wander idly around Pamela Brett’s apartment. The building was a restored turn-of-the-century San Francisco mansion that had been remodeled into apartments. Her living room was vintage Victorian, featuring a cupola with three curved glass windows that offered a sweeping view of downtown San Francisco, with the bay beyond. The high ceilings were coved; the woodwork was intricately carved. The floors were parquet. The fireplace was framed in marble, its mantel supported by plaster cupids. The kitchen was small but efficient, built in a room that might once have been a wardrobe closet. The bedroom had a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Like the kitchen, the tiny bathroom had been fitted into a small space that had originally served another purpose.
Rent, Bernhardt estimated, at least fifteen hundred a month. Maybe more.
If the apartment was classic upscale San Francisco, the modern, squared-off furniture was typically Los Angeles: Coldwater Canyon, Bernhardt guessed, or Malibu. The chairs and tables were made of oiled teak or rubbed walnut; the covering of the sofa was expensively nubbed, probably handwoven, aggressively natural. The coffee table was fashioned of thick glass, magnificently supported by a weathered, twisted crotch of mountain juniper. On Rodeo Drive, Bernhardt calculated, the table would cost thousands. A small Danish teak dining table stood in an alcove. The table was set for two, with sparkling glassware and gleaming silver.
“Can I come in the kitchen and watch you cook?” he called. “Carry anything in?”
“Actually,” she called back, “it’s almost ready. Why don’t you open the wine?” She appeared in the doorway, bottle in one hand, corkscrew in the other. As he took the bottle, their eyes met—and held. Slowly, gravely, they exchanged a smile. It was a serious smile, both tentative and trusting, a smile that neither asked a question nor offered an answer. As Bernhardt worked with the bottle’s lead seal and the corkscrew’s stubborn levers, he considered the significance of the smile they’d just shared.
Reduced cues…It was one of those half-remembered phrases left dangling in his consciousness, a leftover from some long-forgotten course in elementary psychology. Yet, over the years, the phrase had constantly recurred as he’d tried to pick his way through the thickets of human relationships, personal and professional. In the mating game, the suggestion of a smile could mean everything—or nothing. In the theater, his stock in trade was subtlety: raised eyebrows, deep sighs. Working the streets, sorting out the good guys and the bad guys, an uneasy glance could make a case—or break it. Reduced cues, then, were what his life was all about.
Bringing him here, now, to Pamela Brett’s apartment, struggling to draw a reluctant cork as he remembered the smiles—his smile, and her smile.
What had she seen in his face, exchanging their smiles?
What had he seen in her face? Did she—
In the doorway again, smiling a hostess’ smile, no longer a tentative lover’s smile, wearing two oven mittens, she held a steaming casserole in both hands. Stepping back, giving her and the hot dish room, he watched her set the casserole on an ornamental tile. She returned to the kitchen, came back with a salad bowl. As she left the kitchen, she switched off the light behind her.
In the mating game, light management was important, too—another reduced cue. A darkened kitchen, softened light in the dining alcove, it could all mean something—or nothing.
As she sat across from him, he raised the bottle of wine. “Shall I pour?”
“Please.”
Forgetful of cork fragments, he filled her glass first, then his. She raised her glass. “To the play.”
“The play.”
They drank, smiled companionably, served themselves, began eating. The September evening was warm, and he’d taken off his jacket. With her fork in her hand, she pointed to his waist. “You’re not wearing your pager.”
“I turned in my pager today.”
“Meaning?”
“I quit. It’s a long story. And not very interesting.”
“Oh.” She nodded, dropped her eyes. He’d said it too abruptly, then, shut her out too harshly. He could see it in her eyes, the same vulnerability he’d seen Monday night. She’d picked up on the hostility he felt for Dancer, transferred it to herself—the actress’ sensitivity, misdirected, turned inward.
Watching her, he sipped his wine. Then: “But if you’re interested, I’ll tell you.”
She smiled, lifted her shoulders. The smile said she was interested, the shrug said she didn’t want to pry, didn’t want to intrude.
“I’ve quit before,” he began. “We’ve always had our differences, the boss and I. But this time it’s serious. This time he screwed me good.”
“Was it money?”
“It’s not the money.” He let a beat pass. Then, because the alliterative line was too good to waste, he said, “It’s murder.”
Yes, her eyes were widening—those dark, solemn eyes, the eyes he’d been thinking about, these last several days. And, yes, on cue, she was swallowing. “Murder?”
“He sent me to Santa Rosa, to find a woman. Her name is Betty Giles. But I think I was really hired to set up a man for murder. His name was Nick Ames, and he was traveling with her. I’m not sure that’s what happened. There’s no real proof. But Dancer—the boss—won’t tell me what I need to know, to make sure I’m in the clear. So I quit. I should’ve done it before. Long before.”
“Murder…” She spoke incredulously, her food forgotten.
“Am I spoiling the dinner? I don’t want to do that.”
“No, it’s just—I mean—” At a loss, she shook her head. “I mean, murder is something you read about, hear about. It—somehow it doesn’t seem real.”
“It happens, though. People are murdered every day. Usually it’s pretty elemental stuff—a wife hits her husband with a cast-iron skillet during their standard Saturday night fight, or one dope pusher shoots another dope pusher, for business reasons. But other things happen, too—more complicated, exotic things.”
“This murder in Santa Rosa—what’ll you do? Tell the police?”
“I’ve already told the police. Maybe they’ll find the murderer, maybe they won’t. But there’s more to it than that.” Once again, he was self-consciously aware that he was building the suspense, playing the role of the grim, stoic private eye. Leaning across the table, she waited for him to go on.
“What I’ve got to do now is find her.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to find out what happened—what really happened. That’s the only way I’ll know for sure whether Dancer used me to set this guy up. I’ve got to see Betty Giles, talk to her. I’ve got to know.”
“It could be dangerous, though, couldn’t it?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so, though.” He smiled. “If I thought it was dangerous, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t believe in looking for trouble.”
“Do you—” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you carry a gun?” Her voice was hushed, as if the answer could frighten her.
“Pam—come on—” He gestured to her plate, then ate a large forkful of the casserole: seafood and artichokes in cream sauce, delicious. “Eat your dinner. Drink your wine.”
“You do carry a gun. Don’t you?”
“Usually not, as a matter of fact. Someone carries a gun, he gets shot at. Now come on. Eat. Drink.”
Obediently, she sampled the salad and the casserole, then sipped the wine. But he could see determination in her face. She wasn’t through with him, wasn’t finished asking questions. He couldn’t deflect her, not permanently. Since they’d been talking, he’d seen the two sides of Pamela Brett: the hesitant, sometimes vulnerable, often pensive side, and this quiet, willful, determined side.
“I have another question—” She looked at him, tentatively smiling: that small, shy smile, the one he’d remembered last night, just before he went to sleep. “It’s a—” She hesitated, visibly embarrassed. “It’s an impertinent question, this one.”
“Shoot.” His smile, he knew, was free and easy, gently teasing her. “No pun intended. You talk. I’ll eat.” As he spoke, he lifted the lid of the casserole, ladled out another serving for himself, replaced the lid. The ladle was heavy: sterling silver, probably, not stainless. The place setting’s pieces were heavy, too. Later, he would check the trademark.
“The question is,” she said, “won’t it be expensive, trying to find her? Won’t it cost a lot of money? Or is someone retaining you?”
“No one’s retaining me. And, yes, I suppose it could get expensive. But the fact is—” Now it was his turn to hesitate. Should he tell her the whole story? Everything?
He drained his wineglass, reached for the bottle, topped off her glass, refilled his own.
Yes, he would tell her. Last night, just falling asleep, he’d thought of her, thought of her smile. That was reason enough to tell her.
“The fact is, I’ve got a secret stash, in the bank. I’ve never touched it, until now.” He sipped the wine, finished his salad. Now he reached for a French roll, which he would break in pieces and use to sop up the sauce left on his plate from the casserole. “Would you like to hear about my stash? If you’d like to hear about it, I’d like to tell you. But I warn you, there’s an introduction. A long introduction.”
“I’m crazy about long introductions. Ever since I first read Shaw.”
“Well, I told you, I remember, that all my family’s gone. My father was killed in the Second World War, and my mother died of cancer, several years ago.” As he spoke, he saw remorse shadow her eyes; she hadn’t meant to reopen these old wounds, the same wounds he’d already revealed to her Monday night. Briskly, he continued: “My mother was a dancer. That’s all she cared about—modern dance, and left-wing politics. If she wasn’t dancing, she was marching, or volunteering to lick stamps.”
“The way you talk about her,” she said, “it sounds like you cared for her.”
“I did care for her. She was a standard type, I guess you’d say—a typical New York Jewish intellectual, very serious about everything, very intense. She was also very well informed—a Vassar graduate, in fact. And she was a very passionate person, a real rabble-rouser, when she got started. She could’ve been a politician, if she hadn’t been so hooked on dancing.”
“Did you live in Manhattan?”
“Sure. Greenwich Village, of course. In a loft, naturally. It was great, I loved that place. I could fly model airplanes, in there. And my grandfather—my mother’s father—owned the building, which obviously helped. Which brings me to the stash—my grandfather. He was a clothing manufacturer—and my mother was an only child, a much loved only child, maybe a Jewish princess, let’s face it. From the time my father was killed, my grandfather subsidized my mother—and me, too, later. I don’t mean he completely supported her. She always taught dance, always had all the students she could handle. But my grandparents took care of the big ticket items—my schooling, vacations, trips to Europe, things like that.”
“Did you go to private schools?”
He nodded. “Not fancy private schools. But good private schools. My great-grandfather was a tailor who lived over the shop, and my grandfather started out selling women’s wear. So even if I’d wanted to go to Choate or Andover or Exeter, which I didn’t, they wouldn’t’ve let me in, probably—not without a pedigree. And, for sure, my grandfather wouldn’t’ve paid, even if they had let me in. He was a rabble rouser, too—one of those vintage Max Lerner-style left-winger Jewish intellectuals. To him, the Choate crowd was the enemy, oppressors of the working class.”
“So where’d you go to school?”
“The Bancroft School, in Manhattan. And then Antioch College.”
“Antioch—impressive.”
He smiled, nodded, shrugged.
“Theater arts?”
“English. But I spent all my time in the theater. And writing, too. I wrote a lot of short stories, started a couple of novels—the usual.” He hesitated, then decided to say, “Mostly, though, I fell in love, when I was in college. Every three months, regularly, I fell in love.”
“You, too?” Remembering, she shook her head. For a moment they held each other’s gaze, silently confirming that, yes, they’d both loved often and well, in earlier years. Then, dropping his eyes, he spoke more concisely, finishing the story:
“I got married, two years out of college.” Because he didn’t want her to think that the horror of Jenny’s death still possessed him, he said it calmly, dispassionately. “We both wanted to act. We lived in New York, not far from my mother’s place. We made the rounds, hit the casting calls. Finally we started to connect. Jenny connected first, then I started to get small parts. And I started writing plays, too, learning the craft, learning how tough it is.
“And then, Jesus, my grandparents died, in a car wreck. I think my grandfather had a heart attack. By that time, his business had started to go sour, no one knows why. There was still some money left, but nothing like he used to have. He’d even had to put a mortgage on his house, to keep his business going. But, anyhow, he left my mother about fifty thousand dollars—and he left me twenty thousand. And, like a fool, I used the money to back a play. It was a can’t-miss play, supposedly. And there were other backers, too—big-time Broadway backers. The deal was that even if the play didn’t do more than make expenses, I’d still get my money back. But it didn’t even come close to making expenses—plus there was some pretty creative accounting, I’ve always suspected. But, basically, it was my fault. I was twenty-five—I can’t believe it, how dumb I was about the world—how naive I was.”
“Actors are innocents, most of them. Either innocents, or sharks—the successful ones, I’m beginning to suspect.”
Nodding reluctant agreement, he refilled their glasses, finishing the bottle. He could feel the mild buzz of alcohol beginning. His speech, he knew, was slurring slightly.
“The reason I’m telling you all this, giving you all this background, is that when my mother died, sixteen years ago, she left everything she had to me—mostly the fifty thousand, from her father. And the memory of the twenty thousand I’d lost was so strong that I decided—swore—I wasn’t going to touch any of the money she left me until I was forty, at least. I didn’t even put it in stocks, blue chips or otherwise. Because I swore, you see, that I wouldn’t speculate with it. I put it in the bank—right in the bank, at six percent, or whatever. And it’s been there ever since—compounding. When I turned forty, I thought maybe I’d buy a house, take some of the money for a down payment. But instead I bought a car—a second-hand car, for fifteen hundred dollars, which was more than I’d ever paid for a car in my life. I bought the car, and then forgot about the money—until now, today.”
“So the money’s been compounding for years,” she said thoughtfully. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
Gravely, he nodded. “That comes to a hundred thousand, now.”
“So now you’ve quit your job…”
He nodded. “You’ve got it. I hadn’t gone farther than the elevators before I’d decided to go in for myself—start freelancing, doing investigations. I’ve had lots of chances in the past. A lot of people—friends, acquaintances—have asked me to work for them. But, like a fool, I always passed them along to Dancer. He charges fifty dollars an hour, and pays me thirty. So I’m going to charge thirty-five, maybe forty. I’ve already ordered the calling cards and stationery from one of those quickie overnight printers. I’ll get a permit from the state, no sweat. And I’ll be in business.”
“You won’t be getting forty dollars an hour to find Betty Giles, though.”
“That’s unfinished business.”
She raised her glass. Over the rim, her eyes came alive. Her voice was richer now, lower, more intimate. “Here’s to business, unfinished or otherwise.”
He smiled, sipped the wine, then raised his glass to hers. “Here’s to friendship. Ours.”
He’d expected her to drop her eyes: the maiden, demurring.
Instead, meaningfully, she let her eyes linger with his.