“IN SOME CULTURES,” BERNHARDT said, appreciatively pushing his plate away, “it would be considered polite to burp after an omelette like that—a long, loud burp.”
She laughed: a full, rich chuckle, a ladylike belly laugh. Bernhardt nodded to himself. A belly laugh was propitious, a sign of confidence. And he’d need it badly, her confidence.
“Cooking eggs right is an art,” he said. “My mother always said so. And now I see what she meant.”
“It just takes lots of butter and high heat, at least initially. There’s no mystery to it.”
“For Horowitz, there’s no mystery to piano playing, either.”
This time, responding, she only smiled. The belly laugh had been an aberration, then, only fleetingly erasing the sadness, the wariness that still shadowed her dark, searching eyes. Yet, if she didn’t trust him, didn’t believe what he’d told her, beside the swimming pool, they wouldn’t be here, in this tiny kitchenette, sitting at this platter-size Formica breakfast table.
“So you’re just starting your own business, is that right?” She spoke conversationally.
He nodded. “Right. At age forty-three, I’ve decided I’m probably not very employable, not a very good team player, I guess.”
“I saw you writing. All afternoon. You looked very serious about it.”
“Do you ever go to little theaters, in San Francisco?”
Puzzled, she frowned. “Sometimes. Why?”
“The Howell Theater?”
She nodded. “A few times, yes. Are you—?”
“I direct at the Howell. And act, too, sometimes. And I write plays.”
“So—” She moved her head in the direction of the pool. “You were writing a play.”
“That’s not something I always admit, at least not to strangers.”
“Have any of your plays been produced?”
“One was produced off-Broadway, years ago. So far, that’s it. So, to keep from starving, I moonlight.”
“As a private investigator.”
He nodded. “Right.” He smiled across the table. “That’s my shameful secret.”
“I still don’t know why you’ve come here—all this way, at your own expense.” As she said it, he saw the suspicion return to her eyes, heard the caution in her voice.
“I’ve already told you—I want to find out whether I was used to set Nick up. And, frankly, I thought you might be in danger, too. I wanted to tell you that it could’ve been a professional, who killed Nick. Apparently you thought you were in danger, too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t’ve run away from Santa Rosa.”
He watched her eyes drop, saw her head lower—saw the sudden agony that bore down her, a palpable weight. She sat like some hopeless penitent in the confessional, all hope abandoned. “I shouldn’t’ve done it,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t’ve run away. I—I’ll always regret it.”
He let a long moment of silence pass as he watched her. She was vulnerable now, burdened by a sad, nameless regret, by a deep, festering guilt. This could be his chance, his one chance to press, to finally open her up. This one moment, these next few words, they might be all he’d have.
“Who’s DuBois?” he asked. “Why would he have done it—hired people to find Nick, then hired someone to kill him?”
Still sitting with her head bowed, hands lying inert in her lap, she spoke softly, with infinite regret:
“It was me, really. It was what I did—what I knew, that’s how it started—how everything started.”
Aware that he must prod her gently, cautiously, he said, “Why don’t you start at the beginning? That’s the easiest.”
She sat silently for a last, long, lost moment. Then, as if she were exhausted by the effort it took to keep her thoughts secret, she began speaking in a low, lifeless monotone:
“I suppose it started about three years ago. I was working for Standard Oil, in San Francisco. I was an art major in college, and I got a job as a curator, with Standard. That was the job description, ‘Fine Arts Curator.’” Briefly, she smiled: a wan, resigned twisting of her mouth. “It was a wonderful job, a better job than I ever thought I’d have. Because Standard encourages art, you see—all kinds of art. They have a two-million-dollar-a-year budget, just for art. They encourage the executives to hang paintings in their offices, and all their architectural specifications include statuary, or whatever. They encourage local artists, too—sponsor exhibitions, things like that. And I did it all. I arranged for the art to be rotated, and I did the acquisition, too. And after a while, when we had a piece for a certain length of time, I’d sell it, and buy something else. So I was a trader, too, just as if I’d been running my own gallery. It was wonderful, just wonderful—” She said it wistfully, regretfully.
“And then,” she said, “I got a call from Justin Powers.”
Hearing the name, Bernhardt realized that he’d suddenly tensed. But if she’d noticed, she gave no sign. Once she’d found the strength to tell her story, the release that confession could confer had become its own impetus. Having started the story, she must now finish it:
“It was a Thursday afternoon, I remember, that he called. He asked me if I ever got to Los Angeles. I told him that I’d only been in Los Angeles three times in my whole life. So then he told me that he had an opening on his staff that he’d like to discuss with me. It was the same kind of work I’d been doing, he said. Which meant, of course, that he knew something about me. But I didn’t want to ask him about it, I remember. I mean, he called me at my office, and I didn’t want to talk about another job, not then. So he asked me if I’d like to come to Los Angeles some weekend, all expenses paid. I agreed to it, right on the spot. Which isn’t like me, not really. I’ve always been cautious, slow to make up my mind. But he asked me if I could come the weekend after next, which meant that I’d have time to check him out, check out Powers, Associates. Which I did, with D and B. And I was impressed. Amazed, and impressed. And flattered, too. And, besides, he laid on the whole package: Friday night and Saturday night in a suite at the Century Plaza, a rental car reserved for me—everything. He was even smart enough not to send a limo to the airport, because that would’ve been too much, too soon.”
“He wanted something from you, then.”
“He wanted something from someone like me. Not me, necessarily.”
“But Powers, Associates isn’t anything like Standard Oil. I mean, a two-million-dollar budget?” He let the skeptical question linger between them.
For the first time since she’d begun her story, she looked at him directly. “You know about them, then—about Powers, Associates.”
“I talked to Powers in Los Angeles, just before I came down here.”
Plainly curious, obviously tempted to question him further, she was nevertheless driven by some inner compulsion to continue: “I thought about that Standard Oil budget, too,” she said, “when we talked on Saturday, in Powers’ office. But then I decided that he must be thinking of a philanthropy, establishing an endowment, something like that.”
“But that wasn’t it.”
“No,” she answered, “that wasn’t it.” Eyes hardening now, mouth tighter, she spoke grimly.
“It was DuBois.”
“Yes,” she answered, “it was DuBois. You knew.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t know. You mentioned DuBois a few minutes ago. Is it the zillionaire? That DuBois?”
“One of the ten richest men in the world. Right. And Powers, Associates fronts for him, handles all his business dealings. Ostensibly, you see, Powers, Associates are investment bankers, venture capitalists, whatever. Actually, they’re in the business of investing the DuBois billions.”
“They’re a front, in other words.”
“Yes.”
“And DuBois is an art collector.”
“Yes,” she answered, still grimly. “Yes, DuBois is an art collector. I found that out on Sunday, when Justin Powers and I went to see him. He’s got one of the finest collections in the world, as you might expect. And Powers was fronting for him, as you say—screening people until he found someone he thought was right for the job of curator.”
“And you got the job.”
She nodded. “I got the job. Powers left us together, Mr. DuBois and me. We spent hours, looking at his collection. And it was wonderful, seeing it—wonderful talking with Mr. DuBois, about art. He’s seventy-six years old, and he’s had two strokes. He’s an invalid, in a wheelchair. His mind is alert, though—incredibly alert. But all he cares about, the only thing that means anything to him, is his art.”
“It seems strange, though, that he’d need a curator, just for a private collection.”
“I thought so, too. I told him that I doubted whether I’d find enough to do. But he explained that he did a lot of buying and selling. It was part of his passion—buying and selling, manipulating the markets, and the dealers. It was all that was left to him, you see. All those energies—that genius for timing and bargaining—everything that made him one of the ten richest men in the world, it was all concentrated on art, on collecting. And obviously, he can’t get around, except with great effort. So it seemed reasonable that he’d need someone to act for him, especially at auctions. That’s what it’s all about for the collectors—the auctions. And, even if he could get around, he wouldn’t want to go to the auctions. They’d see him—recognize him—and prices would soar. So that part of it made sense, allayed my suspicions. And, besides, the money he offered me was more than I made at Standard—a lot more. And there were bonuses, too. If I found something good, a bargain, and we turned it over at a profit, I got twenty percent. But if it happened the other way—if we lost—he absorbed it. So it—” Sadly, she shook her head. “It sounded wonderful, a dream come true. And it was wonderful, too. It was a dream come true. At least for a while.”
“So, what happened? What went wrong?”
“What happened,” she said, “was that a month or two after I started working for him, I began to suspect that he’d lied to me. Or, at least, that he hadn’t told me the truth. Not the whole truth.”
Knowing that, now, nothing could keep her from finishing the story, Bernhardt decided to say nothing. He watched her as, visibly, she took the final decision, crossed her final bridge.
“There’s a man named Edward Frazer,” she said. “Ned Frazer. And it’s a known fact that Frazer deals in contraband art.”
“Contraband?”
She nodded. “Most of it comes from Mexico and Central America—Mayan statuary, primarily. Stuff that’s smuggled out of the country illegally. Some of the pieces are actually national treasures. In Mexico, you see, if you bribe the right official, you can get anything.”
“So DuBois has a collection of contraband Mexican art?”
She shook her head. “No, not Mexican art. DuBois only collects painters. As far as I know, he’d never talked to Ned Frazer, never dealt with him. But when Frazer arrived, DuBois was expecting him. Someone had apparently called DuBois, and told him that Frazer was coming. That’s the first suspicion I had, that something was going on behind my back. Frazer and DuBois talked for almost two hours, privately. They talked on the deck that adjoins DuBois’ study. Later I learned that when DuBois wants absolute privacy, he goes out on the deck. I’m not really sure why, maybe he thinks there’s less chance of electronic eavesdropping, out there. Anyhow, when Frazer left, DuBois sent for me. He was excited. He—” Incredulously remembering, she shook her head. “He seemed to glow from within, that’s the only way I can describe it. His eyes—they were on fire, it seemed. Obviously, it had something to do with Frazer, with his visit. And, of course, I was terribly curious. But I’d learned not to question him—about anything. And, besides, it was clear that he was going to tell me about it, about what happened, with Frazer. And he did tell me—eventually. He started out by saying that he had something very important for me to do, a very important acquisition. There’d be a bonus, he said, for doing it—a huge bonus. Which made it pretty obvious that he was talking about stolen art—a very valuable piece of stolen art.” She broke off, let her eyes wander thoughtfully away. “I can still remember the thrill I felt, when I realized what was happening. I’ve often thought about that, about the thrill I felt. Part of it, certainly, was the thrill of actually coming into contact with a major work of art. Because that’s what he was talking about, obviously—a major work of art. But I think there was also the thrill you feel when you do something illegal, something dangerous—that forbidden thrill a child feels when he steals a piece of candy from the candy store. I think it must be built in, that thrilling sense of sin—part of all of us, deep down.”
“I think you’re right,” Bernhardt said, matching her speculative mood. “It’s there, somewhere, in all of us.”
“And, of course, there was the bonus,” she admitted. “That’s there, too, in all of us. It’s called greed.”
Ruefully, Bernhardt nodded. “I agree with that, too.”
She sat silently for a moment, idly tracing a pattern on the tabletop with her forefinger. Plainly, she was recalling her meeting with DuBois, the meeting that must have taken place more than two years ago.
“As I look back,” she said, “it was obvious that he was manipulating me—the way he’s always manipulated people. It’s incredible, really, how he does it. He’s like a—a wizard, an ancient wizard, a sorcerer. He seems to be able to see deep inside people. He knows what they’re thinking before they know themselves. I’ve seen him do it, time after time. He knows just which buttons to press, like a—a consummate musician. He doesn’t bully people, either. That’s not it. He doesn’t use fear, either—at least not at first. He’s actually very polite. Almost courtly, in fact. But, of course, there’s always the stiletto, hidden in the sleeve.” She paused, bitterly smiled. “Whenever I think of him, especially these last few days, I think of medieval imagery: wizards, Byzantine plots and counterplots—murders in dark castle corridors. And all of it’s an extension of that wizen, corrupt little man in his electric wheelchair. He’s a—a presence. An evil presence.”
“So you took the deal,” Bernhardt prompted. As he spoke, he looked at his watch. The time was eight-thirty; a moonless desert night had fallen. And somewhere in the night, a murderer could be waiting—watching—planning. Bernhardt had arrived late yesterday afternoon. Since then, he’d kept Betty Giles under constant surveillance—sometimes from across the swimming pool, sometimes at a distance, driving more than a mile behind her over the straight, flat, empty roads that led out from Borrego Springs into the desert. In all that time, he’d seen nothing suspicious—
—except the black man in the black Camaro.
Betty Giles’ blue Nissan had been parked at a grocery store. He’d driven past the store and parked well beyond the entrance, so that he could see her car in the mirror when she emerged from the store, all according to accepted surveillance technique. She’d stayed in the store for more than a half hour—while he’d stayed in his car, baking in the afternoon sun.
About fifteen minutes into the stakeout, he’d seen the black Camaro approaching from the opposite direction, coming sedately toward him. As the Camaro drew even, he’d glanced at the driver—and then looked more sharply. Had it been the same black man he’d seen in Santa Rosa, following Betty Giles and Nick Ames as they left the Starlight Motel? He didn’t know, could never be sure. If the witness at Santa Rosa hadn’t said the murderer was black, he’d never have even speculated.
But he had seen a black man, following Betty Giles and Nick Ames.
And a witness had said the murderer was black.
And there had been a black man in a black Camaro, driving west on Palm Canyon Road yesterday evening.
“No…” She spoke slowly, pensively. “No, I didn’t take the deal, not right then, not when we talked the first time. He’s not as direct as that, it’s not his style. He’s a master of indirection, of timing. That first time, he just planted the barb, sowed the seed—” Impatiently, she gestured. “Whatever. Looking back, of course, I realize that he was far from calm. Because, behind that facade, he was possessed. Really possessed—a madman, almost, where art’s concerned.”
Impatient now, anxious to hear the end of her story, then excuse himself and reconnoiter the motel grounds, he nevertheless realized that he must not press her too closely. Instead, he must continue to methodically prompt her: “You did buy the painting, though. Didn’t you?”
As she’d done before, she looked at him for a long, resigned, deeply decisive moment before, trusting him, she finally nodded. “Yes, I bought it.” Another moment of silence passed before she said, “It was Renoir’s ‘Three Sisters’. It had been stolen from the Louvre almost a year before Ned Frazer showed up.”
“My God—” As memory of the news stories slowly crystalized, he shook his head in amazement. “Renoir?”
Once more, solemnly, she nodded.
“But it—” He realized that he was leaning across the small Formica table, gripping the table’s edge with both hands. “But it’s worth a fortune. And it’s stolen.”
She made no response. Instead, as if to punctuate the conversation, perhaps to demonstrate the release she felt, having revealed her secret, she rose, began clearing the table, putting the dirty dishes in the sink. “Coffee? I’ve got some instant. Decaffeinated instant, actually. I can’t drink real coffee after four o’clock.”
“Wait. Wait—” On his feet, facing her as they stood a few feet from each other, he raised his hand, as if to physically compel her to stand still, pay close attention. “Are you saying that this—this whole thing is about that—the ‘Three Sisters’?”
“Partly that. And partly—”
“It’s missing? Is that it?”
“No. It’s hanging in DuBois’ house right now—in a secret room, a room nobody’s ever seen but him and me—at least, not after the first painting went up.”
“You mean—?” He realized that he was gaping. Helplessly gaping.
“Basically,” she said, “that’s why he hired me. He didn’t need a curator for the paintings he has all over his house. Everything I did was either make-work, or else I was essentially running errands for him. There wasn’t anything I did for him that he couldn’t have done for himself, or had his servants do—except take care of that room, that tiny gallery within a gallery. He’d done it for a while, even from his wheelchair. He even cleaned the room, and serviced the humidifier. But he knew it was a lost cause, a rearguard action. Because, when he acquired a painting—a masterpiece—there wouldn’t be anyone to take it to the room, no one to hang it. That’s what was happening when he decided to buy ‘Three Sisters’, you see. Before he could buy it, he had to tell me about the room. There wasn’t any other way.”
“There’re other paintings in the room, then.”
She nodded. “Five. There’s a Goya, and a Van Gogh, and a Reubens, and a Braque—and a Rembrandt, too. A Rembrandt self-portrait, the one that was stolen from the Hermitage, six years ago.”
“Jesus—” Once more, he shook his head. “It’s incredible. It’s absolutely unbelievable, that he’d put himself in that position, a man like that, with so much to lose. He’s—Christ—he’s receiving stolen goods. He’s a common crook.”
“No—” Infinitely weary, she smiled. “No, not a common crook. He’s Daniel DuBois. And ordinary laws, meant for ordinary men, don’t apply to people like him. You must know that.”
“But the risk—”
“He’s been taking risks all his life. Laws mean nothing to him. Stock market manipulations, currency violations, it’s all part of the game, for him.”
“That’s white-collar crime—dummy companies, numbered bank accounts, money laundering. I can understand that. Whole countries do that. Panama and Colombia, for instance. But to actually—physically—take possession of a stolen painting, something worth millions, to put himself at that kind of risk—” Bernhardt spread his hands. “I can’t understand it.”
“It’s a compulsion, like drugs. An addiction. That’s the only way to understand it. He’s possessed by the idea that no one—ever—will be able to see the ‘Three Sisters’ but him—at least, not during his lifetime. It’s like he possesses a part of Renoir, you see. It’s power—the ultimate power, the ultimate possession—better than oil wells, or a few castles. They’re just steel and stone, after all. And he—”
“But it—it’s sick.”
“Sure, it’s sick. But also understandable, at least to me. The first time I went into that room—the first time I saw those paintings—I was overwhelmed. Physically overwhelmed. There’s a small bench, there, in the center of the room. And I had to sit down. I really did.”
“You said no one will see the paintings as long as he’s alive. What happens when he dies?”
“He’d written out instructions for me, and checks. We’d talked about it, too. For a year after his death, I was to have possession of his house, according to the terms of his will. During that time, I was to make arrangements for the paintings to be sold anonymously, back to the companies that insured them. From there, they’d go to museums.”
“Are there other collections—other secret collections?”
“I’m sure there are. There’s got to be. I don’t know how many major art thefts have been committed over the past ten or twenty years. Let’s say fifty. And out of that fifty, I’ll bet that less than half were recovered, either by law enforcement or by ransom—insurance settlements, at fifty cents on the dollar. So that leaves twenty-five unaccounted for.”
“It leaves twenty,” Bernhardt said softly. “If we deduct DuBois’ five.”
Wearily, she smiled, gestured to the other room. “Do you want to sit in a softer chair?”
Shrugging, he followed her as he said, “There’s something I want to do, something you can help me with. But first, tell me about Nick. How’d he fit into all this?”
She had gone into the other room, and was standing beside the queen-size bed. She was looking away from him, her back half turned. Bernhardt saw her shoulders sharply rise and fall as she sighed. Still looking away, she said, “We were together for a year, Nick and I. For whatever reasons, good or bad, we needed each other, depended on each other. I doubt that it would’ve lasted, though. I don’t think we ever would’ve actually gotten married. Not unless one of us changed, anyhow—or both of us, maybe. But, anyhow—” She sighed again as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning against the frame, watching her from a distance. “Anyhow, we were together. We ate together, slept together, did things together. And when that happens—when one person lives with another person—they tell each other things. And—” Once more, she broke off. Her arms were folded now; she was standing with her leg touching the bed, as if she needed support. “And so I—I told Nick what I did, what work I did. I didn’t tell him right out, not all at once. Because DuBois insisted on secrecy, absolute secrecy. Even before I knew about the ‘Three Sisters,’ about the locked room, he swore me to secrecy. But Nick kept asking me, over and over, about DuBois, about what kind of a man he was, how he made all that money. It got to be a fixation, I think, about DuBois, about his money. And the more I put him off, the more insistent he got. Once he even asked me to introduce him to DuBois. And I—” Slowly, she sank down on the edge of the bed. Despite his instinctive urge to reconnoiter, explore the darkness outside the cabin, Bernhardt nevertheless realized that she was saying something—confessing to something—that was important to her, and therefore perhaps important to him.
He left the doorway, went to the room’s only easy chair, sat so that he could see her face. As he did it, she began speaking again: “I realized then, when he said he wanted to meet DuBois—I realized how far apart we were, really. Our tastes, our interests, everything—they were so different. Because, you see—” Helplessly, she gestured. “Because I couldn’t imagine ever introducing them. It—it would’ve been ludicrous, the two of them, together. But then, of course, as soon as I realized that, I tried to deny it to myself. Maybe that’s why I told Nick about the ‘Three Sisters.’ Subconsciously, anyhow, maybe that’s why I did it. Maybe it was guilt—atonement, for what I was thinking about him. Or maybe it was just a slip of the tongue, that started it all. Or maybe, subconsciously, I wanted to confess to someone, to ease my conscience. Because, you see, I’d broken the law. I could’ve gone to jail, for what I did. When the ‘Three Sisters’ transaction was actually concluded—when I took possession—there were two men with me, to carry the money. And they both carried guns. One of them had one of those small machine guns, in an attaché case. It—it was like one of those dope transactions, from TV. Except that it was happening to me. Me.” Hopelessly, helplessly, she shook her head. Sitting forlornly on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped, hands limp, she was staring down at the floor, her eyes empty.
“So you told Nick the whole story.”
She shrugged: an exhausted, defeated lifting of her slack shoulders. “I think, actually, that it started with a slip of the tongue—about the men with guns, in fact, something about them. Nick picked up on that—and guessed some of it, too. So once he knew part of it, there wasn’t any point in not telling him the whole thing. And it was a relief, to tell him—tell somebody, anybody.”
“Did you tell him about the secret room?”
Numbly, she nodded. “Yes. It was all a—a package deal, really. Once I’d told him about the ‘Three Sisters,’ the rest came out—spontaneously, it seemed. And, of course, Nick could guess a lot of it. He was very perceptive, really. A lot of people didn’t realize that about him.”
“So what happened next? Did he try to blackmail DuBois? Is that what happened?”
“Yes—” She nodded once, then nodded again, in another direction, as if she were including a third party in the conversation. Repeating: “Yes…”
“And then what happened?”
“Then they tried to kill him. It happened in a shopping mall, in Los Angeles—just a mile or two from my apartment. Incredibly, there were undercover policemen there, on a burglary stakeout. That’s all that saved Nick. It was one of those terribly confused scenes, with everybody shooting. It was in the papers, in fact—except that Nick’s name wasn’t mentioned. But he had to stay overnight at the police station, because they thought he might’ve been a lookout, for the burglars.”
“Did he tell them any different—tell them that he was a target?”
“No. He didn’t tell them anything. He played the part of an innocent citizen who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which, of course, he was. And the man who tried to kill him was killed by the police, so that was the end of it. I was frantic, of course, wondering about him, where he’d gone, what happened. I thought he’d been in a traffic accident. They didn’t let him make a phone call for hours—not until three o’clock in the morning.”
“Had you known, then, that Nick was blackmailing DuBois?”
“No. I didn’t know until he came home the next morning, from the police station. He woke me up, and told me to start packing. It—it was a terrible shock. I’ll never forget it, those first few minutes, with him hanging over me, shaking me, telling me that they’d tried to kill him, that we had to leave, before they tried again—before they came there, to the apartment, after him. And I—I couldn’t seem to understand it, understand what he was saying. I’d only been asleep for a few hours, and I—I felt like I’d been drugged, and he was trying to revive me, get me on my feet. It was unreal. Totally unreal, the whole thing. And all the time I was trying to understand it—why anyone would want to kill him. So then—God, I can still see him—he sat on the foot of the bed, and he told me the whole story. Everything. And then he said that I had a choice—that I could either stay, or I could go with him. I had to decide. Right then.”
“Jesus—” Sympathetically, Bernhardt shook his head. “Talk about pressure.”
“Yes.”
For a moment Bernhardt made no response. Then, taking a calculated risk, he decided to say, “You shouldn’t’ve gone. When you ran, you looked like an accomplice.”
“I knew I’d lose him, though. If he left, I knew I’d never see him again. And I couldn’t face that. Besides, I thought that, after a few days, I could talk sense into him. Because he was never sure, never absolutely sure, that DuBois sent the killer after him. It could actually have had something to do with the burglary gang—a coincidence, in other words.”
“Did he believe that—believe it could’ve been a coincidence?”
“He—” She bit her lip. “He was starting to believe it, I think. In Santa Rosa, he was starting to believe it. And then they killed him. He got careless—got cabin fever, had to go out, have a few drinks. And they killed him.”
“And then you ran.”
“Yes…” She said it stoically, as if all guilt had been drained, leaving her empty of emotion.
“If you’d been in danger, though—if they’d wanted to kill you—they could’ve done it. Both times, in Los Angeles and Santa Rosa, they could’ve done it.”
“Logically, you’re right. But I wasn’t thinking logically. I’m still not.”
“What would happen,” he asked, “if you were to call up DuBois, tell him that you want to make it up with him?”
Answering, she spoke in a dull, dogged monotone: “He had Nick killed. I can’t forget that. I won’t forget that.” Her eyes were lusterless, cast down. The angle of her head, the set of her shoulders, both revealed a malaise that must surely numb the depths of her soul.
“Nick was threatening DuBois,” Bernhardt said. “It figures that DuBois would react, do something. He couldn’t very well call the police. And he’s not the kind of man who’s going to roll over and play dead. Besides, paying blackmail is usually a losing proposition. The blackmailer runs out of money, he makes another phone call. Nothing changes.”
She made no response, either by word or gesture.
“So what now?” he asked. “What’ll you do?”
She tried to smile—unsuccessfully. “Do you mean tomorrow? Or for the rest of my life?”
“Take your pick.”
“No need. The answer’s the same to both questions. I don’t know. I haven’t got the faintest idea.”
“You’ve threatened DuBois. Is that right?”
“I said I’d make him pay, for having Nick murdered.”
“How do you plan to do that? Are you going to tell the police? The papers?”
“I’m not really sure.” She said it thoughtfully, speculatively. “I guess, originally, I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to think about what he’d done—and worry, too, worry about what I’m going to do. He’s someone that can’t stand uncertainty. He’s got to hear the other shoe drop. If it doesn’t, he suffers.”
“So, in fact, you might never actually tell the law what you’re telling me.”
“I—I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“If you did tell the police, you’d be taking a chance. Technically, you’re an accessory to receiving stolen goods.”
She made no reply, gave no sign that she’d heard.
Bernhardt glanced at his watch. The time was eight-thirty. He’d done what he’d come to do—what he’d come six hundred miles to do, what he’d probably spent four hundred dollars to do. He’d found Betty Giles. He’d made sure she knew she could be in danger. He’d consulted with her, advised her. And he’d offered her his protection.
No. Not really. He hadn’t really offered her protection, or help. He’d been playing the part of the grand inquisitor, comfortably above the fray, the amiable moralist.
But he hadn’t offered to help…
…and he hadn’t told her about the black man in the black Camaro, proceeding so sedately down Palm Canyon Road.
At the thought, he rose to his feet. “Listen, I want to take a look around. And then—” Speculatively, he eyed her as she sat so forlornly on the bed. Earlier in the day, before he’d spoken to her, he’d thought of a strategy, a diversion that might determine whether, in fact, she was really in danger.
“You have a suitcase, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes. Certainly.” As if the question surprised her, she raised questioning eyes. “Why?”
“I think there’s a way that we can tell whether you’re in any danger—any immediate danger.”
As if she were indifferent to the possibility, she let a few seconds pass before she said, “How’s that?”
“Before I answer the question,” he said, “let me give you a little background.” He paused, to organize his thoughts. “Now, there’re two possibilities. Either there’s someone here, watching you—or there’s not. Right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“Okay. So the first thing we’ve got to discover is whether it’s true—whether someone’s here. Right here. Right now. Agreed?”
“I suppose so.”
“Okay. Now, here’s my idea—see what you think of it.” To compel her attention, he let a beat pass, waiting until she raised her eyes to meet his. “Let’s suppose,” he said, “that there is someone. Let’s say he’s been in town for a whole day, watching you. Okay?” Encouraging her to join in the game of Let’s Pretend, he smiled: a director now, trying to put the novice at her ease, trying to loosen her up, get her smiling, get her mind off herself, off the lines she might fluff, the mistakes she might make. Grimly repeating: “Okay, Betty?”
And, yes, the corners of her mouth had twitched. And, yes, a pale animation had kindled, far back in her dark, somber eyes.
Finally, she nodded. “Yes. Okay.”
“All right, then. Now; if he’d been watching you today, he’d’ve seen you go into town, a little after noon. He might’ve seen me in town, too, seen us both at the store—you shopping, me parked outside. Of course, actually, I was following you, but he didn’t know that.
“So then, he’d’ve seen us come back here—separately. He’d’ve seen us hanging around the pool, me writing, you reading, swimming, whatever. Then he’d’ve seen me making a move on you—introducing myself, smiling, trying to ingratiate myself to you, gain your confidence. The mating game, in other words.”
Hesitantly, she nodded.
“He could be watching us right now. If he is, he’s probably trying to decide about us, trying to decide what we’re doing in here. Let’s say he’s a hit man, sent by DuBois to kill you.” As he said it, he looked carefully at her face, calculating the effect of what he’d just said. There was no visible reaction, no sign of anxiety. Was it the numbness of loss, grief for a dead mate? Was it a death wish, an indifference to death? Or was it simple exhaustion, compounded by loneliness?
Probing, he said, “It’s possible you know, that someone’s out there. We’d be foolish not to consider the possibility. You must think it could happen. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here—running.”
“I guess I was running when I left Santa Rosa. But I wasn’t running when I came here. I was looking for—” Searching for the word, she hesitated. Then: “I was looking for peace. That’s what I get from the desert. Peacefulness.”
“But what happens next, after you leave here?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “San Francisco, maybe—Mother. She’s all I’ve got, really. But wherever I go, I won’t be running. That’s over.”
“What you should do is go back to Los Angeles. You should write a longhand account of what you just told me. You should date it, and get someone to witness it—me, for instance. You should put it in a safe deposit box, and you should give your mother one key. You should tell her to open the box in the event of your death. Copies of your statement should be addressed to the police in Santa Rosa, and the D.A. in Los Angeles—plus a copy to me, maybe all of them in the box. Then you should tell DuBois what you did. And then you should get yourself a job in a museum, or whatever. You should get on with your life.”
“You’re probably right.” Predictably, she spoke without conviction, without interest.
Compensating, he spoke briskly, with forceful animation: “In the meantime, though, I want to make sure that you’re safe, at least for tonight. Tomorrow, if you want to, we can work on that written statement. Then we can leave. Or, at least, I plan to leave. But now, tonight, we’ve got to take out some insurance. Okay?”
“I—” She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I want to try and find out whether there’s anyone out there. I figure it’s maybe twenty-five percent that there is someone there. And I don’t think four-to-one odds are good enough.”
As he’d spoken, her eyes had sharpened, her mouth had tightened. But there was no fear visible in her face. Only a kind of resigned curiosity.
“Twenty-five percent?” she repeated.
“According to a witness, Nick was killed by a black man. Call that a fifty-fifty certainty. That’s about what witnesses average, especially when they’re describing a street crime that took place at night. However, when I was tailing you and Nick, I saw a black man following you in Santa Rosa. It could’ve been a coincidence, of course. But it changes that fifty-fifty probability, I think, makes it more like, say, seventy-five percent, that a black man killed Nick. Plus—” He hesitated, reluctant to alarm her. But her calm, stolid expression hadn’t changed, hadn’t faltered. “Plus, this afternoon, while you were shopping, I saw a black man driving a black Camaro. He wasn’t following you, but in a situation like this, in a town this size, in the middle of the desert, he wouldn’t have to stay on your tail. He wouldn’t have to—”
“Was it the same man you saw in Santa Rosa?” Now, perceptibly, she’d grown anxious, apprehensive.
Ruefully, he smiled, shook his head. “I don’t know. I hate to say it—because, literally, one of my best friends is black. But the truth is, in a surveillance situation, when you’re talking about seeing someone passing in a car, I have trouble identifying a particular black man, distinguishing one from the other.”
“‘They all look alike.’ Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m afraid that’s what I’m saying.”
As if to excuse his lapse, she nodded. Then: “How’re you going to find out whether—” As her eyes shifted involuntarily to the door, she let it go unfinished. Whether there’s someone out there who might kill me, was the sentence she was finishing in her thoughts.
“It’s simple—” Involuntarily, he lowered his voice, leaned forward in his chair. “It’ll just take a few minutes.”