Bernhardt's Edge (15 page)

“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.

B
ERNHARDT SWITCHED OFF THE
engine and sat behind the wheel for a moment, looking across the street at Betty Giles' apartment building. The building was almost exactly what he'd expected: probably about ten years old, plainly planned for profit. The construction was stucco, three stories high. The color scheme was beige and pink.
La Canada Arms,
in raised letters, was featured prominently above the lobby's aluminum-framed glass doors. Three palm trees were planted in a small grassy area in front of the building. White-painted rocks described a circle around each tree, and redwood chips filled the circle. Three spotlights sprouted from the redwood chips, one spotlight for each tree. The grass was improbably green, immaculately trimmed. A small vacancy sign was propped on the low brushed aluminum sill of the lobby's plate-glass window.

He locked the car, walked across the street, and studied the apartment listings. There were twelve apartments in the building. Opposite number nine, “B. Giles” was listed. Opposite number one, he saw “E. Krantz, Mgr.” After a moment's thought, he pressed the button for number nine. He waited, tried again, then pressed number one. Standing in the midday heat of hazy, smog-sulphered September sunshine, he took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his damp forehead. The handkerchief came away wet and grimy, one infinitesimal tracery left by millions of automobiles confined in an airless basin of land that should have been left a desert.

“Yes?” It was a woman's voice, loud and brassy, coming from a small speaker set into the wall beside the building directory.

“My name is Alan Bernhardt,” he said, speaking into the perforated disc. “I'm a private investigator, and I'm inquiring about Betty Giles. I'll just take a few minutes. Ten, at the most.”

“A private
investigator
?” She spoke on a sharply rising cadence, as if she were registering a complaint.

“It won't take long. I promise.”

“Just a minute.”

The glass door allowed him to see into the ground-floor hallway, where the first door was opening. E. Krantz was a small, thin woman. She was middle-aged—and desperately resisting. Her hair was dyed a dark, muddy brown. Her purple toreador pants were skintight. Her face was aggressively overdrawn: too much bright red lipstick, too much iridescent purple eye shadow, too much eyebrow pencil. Over the toreador pants she wore a large, loose-fitting, off-the-shoulder sweatshirt that fell to her mid-thigh, according to the latest teenage fashion whim. As she came closer to the outside door, the penciled eyebrows drew together in a suspicious frown as she looked Bernhardt over twice, head-to-toe. Finally, grudgingly, she half opened the door. Bernhardt was ready with an outdated plastic identification plaque and a business card. She examined the plaque, squinting suspiciously as she compared Bernhardt's face with the picture. Next she examined the business card, newly printed.

“You can keep the card,” Bernhardt said.

“About two months ago,” she answered, “some guy came around saying he was a private detective. It turned out he was a bill collector.”

“Some private investigators collect bills,” Bernhardt answered. “I don't.” He smiled.

Still studying him, transparently suspicious, she stood with her thin body aggressively blocking the entrance. Plainly, E. Krantz was a person who would welcome a confrontation. But when Bernhardt continued to simply smile, offering no resistance, she finally asked, “Is Betty in some kind of trouble? Is that it?”

“No,” he answered, “that's not it. But she's traveling, and apparently can't be reached. Her employer's got some questions—things they need to know, about her job. They want to talk to her, but they don't know where to look.”

Accusingly, she raised his card. “This says you live in San Francisco. So what're you doing in Los Angeles?”

“The last contact we had from her was in San Francisco. Her mother lives there.”

“Hmmm—” As E. Krantz pondered, a man and a woman, laughing together, excused themselves as they left the building, walking between them. The diversion seemed to help E. Krantz come to a decision. Grudgingly she stepped back into the foyer, gesturing for Bernhardt to enter. The all-glass entryway was decorated with a life-size pink plaster Venus and a white-and-gilt Grecian-style bench. E. Krantz sat on one end of the bench, abruptly gesturing Bernhardt to a seat on the other end.

“I haven't got much time,” she said. “The pool man's coming in about a half hour. And an upholsterer, too.” She shook her head. “It's always something with a job like this. There isn't an hour, I swear to God, that there isn't something to do. Yesterday one of the tenants asked me to walk her dog. Honest to God.”

Projecting a broad, bogus sympathy, Bernhardt dolefully shook his head. “People take advantage, there's no question. Aren't there dog walkers? Have you looked in the Yellow Pages?”

“In Van Nuys?” Scornfully, she snorted. “You must be kidding. Beverly Hills, maybe. Malibu. But not Van Nuys.”

“There's nothing wrong with Van Nuys,” Bernhardt protested, keeping the smile resolutely in place. “It's nice, here. Very quiet.”

She snorted again, shrugged, laid his business card on the bench between them, absently plucked at the folds of her sweatshirt. “Personally,” she said, “I've about had it, with L.A., I mean, everywhere you go, you've got to drive. And I've got asthma, too. When there's smog, I can't breathe. Like now. Today. There's a first-stage smog alert, today. Or hadn't you noticed?”

Elaborately sympathetic, Bernhardt fervently nodded. “I noticed, all right.” Then, tentatively: “About Betty Giles…Do you remember how long she's lived here?”