Butterfly (43 page)

where she was partially hidden by plants and a single candle illuminated her face.

Although white women weren’t usually to his taste, he saw that she was quite good-look-

ing, and he wondered if the platinum hair was natural.

The man’s name was Jonas Buchanan, and he wore a gun in a holster underneath his

jacket.

Buchanan was the only person at the bar. Later, he knew, this place would be packed

with people lined up three-deep. But it was just past two; the pickup crowd wouldn’t be

arriving until four o’clock.

He slowly sipped his drink and kept a surreptitious eye on the young blond woman.

She ordered something from the waitress, then pulled a notebook out of her purse and

started writing. He saw that she glanced at her watch now and then.

When he finished his drink, Buchanan left money on the bar, buttoned his jacket,

making sure the bulge of the gun didn’t show, and moved slowly in the direction of the

corner table.

Concealed by the profusion of ferns and pothos, he was able to approach her unseen.

He studied her, watched the bent head catch white-gold glints of candlelight, saw the

hand move rapidly over the notebook. She had a quiet intensity about her, as if she only

barely sat on the chair, as if she were coiled to jump and run.

And he wondered if, when she saw him, she would.

Finally he was at the table. Sensing him, she looked up. Their eyes met.

“Miss Highland?” he said.

He hadn’t told her on the phone that he was black. He never did. It was a test he put

prospective clients through. Frequently, they would take one look at him, at his blackness,

and leave.

But there wasn’t a single flicker in her eye as she said, “Yes. Are you Jonas Buchanan?”

He nodded.

“Please sit down. Can I order something for you?”

“No, thank you. If we could just get down to business, Miss Highland—”

Beverly produced a large envelope and placed it in front of him. “This is all the infor-

mation I have. I’m sorry, it isn’t much.”

185

186

Kathryn Harvey

“You said on the phone that you have already used the services of three private inves-

tigators. Couldn’t they come up with anything?”

“This was all they found.”

He looked at the envelope. It was disappointingly thin. Then he studied his client.

Jonas Buchanan wondered how much she could afford. She looked rich, but he had

learned never to go by looks. However, when he had explained his fees to her on the

phone, she hadn’t balked.

“All right,” he said, opening the envelope and spreading out the paltry contents. He

was beginning to feel irritated. When he had left the police force to open his own private

detective agency, he hadn’t dreamed that cases like these—locating the runaway kids of

rich white folks or the missing relatives of rich white girls—would make up the bulk of

his caseload. He didn’t like dealing with white people in general, which was one reason he

had quit the force. But unfortunately they were the ones with the troubles and the money.

“Tell me what you know.”

“The men I hired over the last few years, from three different agencies, found nothing

on my mother at all. She disappeared nearly twenty years ago. I’ve written everything I

can remember about her in the letter you have there. Place of birth, maiden name, schools

attended and so forth. I believe that when she left New Mexico she might have come back

to California.”

“But the men you hired before me found no trace of her?”

Beverly shook her head. Her eyes were damp, Buchanan noticed. But he had also

learned not to be deceived by tears.

“I have to tell you, Miss Highland,” Jonas said, feeling his irritation rise, “I can’t prom-

ise anything. Especially where three other investigators have failed.”

Now he waited for the crumpled look, the tears on the cheeks, the pleading that he

just had to find her mother. Instead Jonas was met by a steady gaze and a voice that said

quietly, “I understand that, Mr. Buchanan. I will appreciate anything you can do for me.”

He tried to categorize her. These days Jonas found it fairly easy to sort out white peo-

ple and lump them into two groups. There were the hippie/liberal types who marched for

the cause of black people and genuinely believed themselves to be color-blind and were

anxious to be his friend to prove it, and then there were the racists who found themselves

out of style and adopted a phony liberalism to prove they thought black people were okay.

Over the past ten years Jonas had found himself the target of many such, those anxious to

be seen with him, to have one of his kind at their parties, or just the curiosity seekers,

women mostly, who wanted to know if what they had heard about black men was true.

Jonas didn’t have a handle on Beverly Highland yet. But he would.

“You said you want me to locate your sister as well,” he said, shifting in his chair. Jonas

was a big man; he had been a star on his college football team. Ordinary chairs were fre-

quently uncomfortable.

“My twin,” Beverly said. “She was adopted when we were born, thirty-three years ago.

I believe I actually found the attorney who handled the adoption, a man named Hyman

Levi, but at the time I was too young to realize it. Since then, I’ve gone back, but the

offices are no longer there and I found no trace of Hyman Levi Senior or Junior.”

BUTTERFLY

187

Jonas sniffed. Not only was this turning out to be a typical run-of-the-mill case, but it

was an impossible one as well. A baby given up thirty-three years ago to persons unknown

and the lawyer out of the scene, and an adult woman who walked out on her husband

twenty years ago, no doubt having no desire to be found. Well, Jonas figured he could

always do with the rent money, and he wasn’t particularly busy right now—white folks

might want him at their parties, but they didn’t rush to do business with him.

“I can’t make any guarantees, Miss Highland. Locating your sister could take a long

time and a lot of legwork—”

“I’m prepared to pay, Mr. Buchanan.”

Rich kid,
he thought. Maybe a spoiled Beverly Hills brat who never had to work a day

in her life.

“And you must bear in mind that your mother is an adult and might very likely not

want to be found.”

“I know she doesn’t want to be found, Mr. Buchanan. In fact, she will be working very

hard at not being found.”

“Why is that?”

“She killed a man. That’s why she ran away.”

He stared at her. “Who?”

“My father. She stabbed him to death. The police never found her.”

Suddenly everything was different. And half an hour later, after he had heard all the

details of the Dwyer family and Beverly’s itinerant childhood in the Southwest and

received his first check from her, Jonas Buchanan found himself reassessing this new client.

“I’ll do my best,” he said as he stood.

Beverly also stood and held out her hand. “I know that, Mr. Buchanan.”

He looked down at the slender white hand. He took it. Her grasp was cool and firm.

“May I ask,” he said, “why you picked me?”

“You were one of several on my list. I liked your ad in the Yellow Pages.” She smiled.

“I then made a few inquiries about you. I decided that since you’re black, maybe you’ll try

harder.”

He looked at her smile. And then, despite himself, Jonas found himself smiling back.

It was a hot day, and nearly three hundred people were packed into the auditorium for

the general meeting of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Beverly had never

attended before, but she had decided that since she was a member, because of Eddie, and

since she continued to pay the annual fees, it was time to come to a meeting and see what

it was all about.

Of the nearly three hundred people, Beverly was one of only a dozen or so women

present. One of them she recognized as owning a string of beauty parlors in Hollywood.

Another, she learned, was a widow who had inherited her husband’s business. Still

another was a tax preparer who was struggling to make a go of it on Fountain Avenue. All

were much older than Beverly. And they had all probably attended these meetings before.

As she sat listening to the opening report being given by the president of the Chamber

of Commerce, Beverly thought about her interview with Jonas Buchanan four weeks ago.

She had read the look in his eyes:
Hopeless case,
it had said.

188

Kathryn Harvey

In fact, that was what the three previous investigators had concluded. “Give it up,

Miss Highland. Your mother doesn’t want to be found, and it’s impossible, without some

sort of lead, to trace your sister.”

The first private detective had come up with the most. Naomi Dwyer, he had reported,

had changed her name back to Naomi Burgess and lived for a while in a small town in

Nevada before moving on, witnesses believed, to California. She spent some time in

Redding, working as a cook in a nursing home, and there her trail disappeared. That was fif-

teen years ago. On the twin sister, all he had been able to learn was that Hyman Levi, Sr.,

was deceased and that the son was no longer practicing law in California. Presbyterian

Hospital had no records and no witnesses who could give any information on the adoption.

The second investigator had done nothing, Beverly suspected, except take her money.

She had fired him after two months.

The third had looked promising, but all he had been able to do was duplicate what the

first had done. Also taking her money.

And now she had hired Jonas Buchanan. But he had several things going for him that

his predecessors did not: he was a former cop, he was a man to be trusted (so a colleague

on the force had reported), and he was black.

A hopeless case,
his eyes had said a month ago. But Beverly didn’t believe that. Nothing

was hopeless. Not as long as you kept trying.

And now he had called her, after four weeks of silence. She had gone to her office to

find a message from Jonas Buchanan. He was on his way back to L.A. and would meet

with her tonight.

He had new information on her mother and sister.

The report being given by the president of the Chamber of Commerce was regarding

“Hollywood’s most serious problem. A problem we must confront immediately and find

solutions for. If not, business will suffer and the city will also suffer as a result.”

Beverly watched and listened.

There was a small stage at the front of the auditorium, and several men sat at a long

table, facing the large gathering of Hollywood business people. The panel wore expensive-

looking suits and had, Beverly thought, impressive titles such as Chief Executive Officer,

President and Chairman. Hollywood was a town of name and wealth, albeit now faded

from glory under a seedy veneer, and these men were the power in that city. Beverly, who

had lived and worked in Hollywood for eighteen years, and who cared very much about

its future, paid careful attention to what the president had to say.

He was talking about parking. That, according to his report, was Hollywood’s biggest

problem. This town was becoming congested and overcrowded, but there were no provi-

sions for expansion of parking facilities. As a result, by day the main boulevards were

clogged with business and tourist traffic, by night the streets were filled with teenagers

cruising in their cars. There wasn’t a person in this room, the president asserted, who

could not attest to the fact that the bad traffic and lack of parking were adversely affecting

business. He himself, in fact, was hurting.

Beverly knew who this man was. His name was Drummond, and he owned the

largest department store in the city; it was located right in the heart of Hollywood’s

BUTTERFLY

189

business district. His store owned four parking lots adjacent to the building, but as they

had been put in twenty years ago, they could not now accommodate the traffic of the

seventies.

Beverly thought about that store and its parking lots. She and Carmen and Maggie

sometimes shopped there. The lots were chained off and guarded by attendants. You

parked for free if you bought something in the store; if not, or if you went to do business

elsewhere on the Boulevard, you paid a steep price. All of which money went into Mr.

Drummond’s pocket. Since he owned the busiest parking lots in the vicinity, Beverly was

wondering how he could be “hurting.”

Seeing a few people nod in agreement with him throughout the auditorium, Beverly

realized that she was lucky. When the gas station next to the diner had gone out of busi-

ness, she had been able to buy it, tear it down, and make a parking lot out of it. In the two

years since she had inherited Royal Burgers, Beverly had enlarged the diner. The new

parking lot accommodated the heavy day and night business the diner brought in.

The president was winding up his report and coming to his proposal—the reason for

calling this meeting. “We in the business community have a responsibility to commit