that, just before Kefauver, when I had the photo concessions and the horse book operation. I'll tell you a secret. You want to know who one of the broads I was getting into her pants was at the time. Evelyn, at the gallery. She was in love with me.'
'I don't think you've introduced me to any who weren't.'
'What can I say?' Maurice said.
'How old's the woman we're going to see?'
'Jeanie? She's not too old. Lemme think, it was '58 I gave her a piece of the hotel. Or it might've been '59, they were making that movie on the beach. Frank Sinatra, Edward G. Robinson... Jeanie was gonna be in the picture, was why she came down. But she didn't get the part.'
'Wait a minute--' LaBrava said.
'They wanted her, but then they decided she looked too young. She was in her twenties then and she was gonna play this society woman.'
'Jeanie--'
'Yeah, very good-looking girl, lot of class. She married a guy--not long after that she married a guy she met down here. Lawyer, very wealthy, use to represent some of the big hotels. They had a house on Pine Tree Drive, I mean a mansion, faced the Eden Roc across Indian Creek. You know where I mean? Right in there, by Arthur Godfrey Road. Then Jerry, Jerry Breen was the guy's name, had some trouble with the IRS, had to sell the place. I don't know if it was tax fraud or what. He didn't go to jail, anything like that, but it cost him, I'll tell you. He died about oh, ten years ago. Yeah, Jeanie was a movie actress. They got married she retired, gave it up.'
'What was her name before?'
'Just lately I got a feeling something funny's going on. She call me last week, start talking about she's got some kind of problem, then changes the subject. I don't know if she means with the booze or what.'
'You say she was a movie actress.'
'She was a star. You see her on TV once in a while, they show the old movies.'
'Her name Jeanie or Jean?'
'Jean. Jean--the hell was her name? You believe it? I'm used to thinking of her as Jeanie Breen.' Maurice pointed. 'Atlantic Boulevard. See it? Mile and a half. You better get over.' Maurice rolled his window down.
'Jean Simmons?'
'Naw, not Jean Simmons.' Maurice was half-turned now, watching for cars coming up in the inside lane. 'I'll tell you when.'
'Gene Tierney?' Laura. He'd watched it on television in Bess Truman's living room. 'How's she spell her name?'
'Jean. How do you spell Jean? J-e-a-n.'
Jean Harlow was dead. LaBrava looked at the rearview mirror, watched headlights lagging behind, in no hurry. 'Jeanne Crain?'
'Naw, not Jeanne Crain. Get ready,' Maurice said. 'Not after this car but the one after it, I think you can make it.'
Chapter 3
THEY PARKED IN THE REAR and walked around to the front of the one-story building on Northeast Fourth Street, Delray Beach. From the outside the place reminded LaBrava of a dental clinic: stucco and darkwood trim, low-cost construction; a surface that appeared to be solid but would not stop a bullet. A laminated door that would not stop much of anything. LaBrava, former guardian of presidents and people in high places, automatically studying, making an appraisal. Oh, man, but tired of it. In an orange glow of light they read the three-by-five card taped to the door.
CRISIS CENTERSouth County Mental Health EMERGENCY SCREENING SERVICE
They had to ring the bell and wait, Maurice sighing with impatience, until a girl about twenty-one with long blond hair opened the door and Maurice said, 'I come to get Mrs. Breen.'
'You're Mr. Zola, right? Hi, I'm Pam.'
She locked the door again and they followed her--broad hips compacted within tight jeans--through an empty waiting room and hallway, LaBrava looking around and judging this place, at the low end of institutional decor. He had never seen so many stains and burns. Like people came in here to throw up or set the place on fire with cigarettes. There were cracks and broken holes in the dull-yellow drywall, fist marks. He could see people trying to punch their way out. They came to a doorway, the room inside was dark.
'She's in here. Asleep.'
Maurice stuck his head in. 'She's on the floor.'
'There's a mattress,' Pam said. 'She's fine, didn't give us a bit of trouble. The cops that brought her in described her condition as staggering, speech slurred, I guess she didn't know where she was.'
Maurice said, 'Was there a problem, a disturbance of any kind?'
'Well, not really. I mean there's no charge against her. She was walking down the street with a drink in her hand.'
Maurice frowned. 'A drink? Outside?'
'They said she came out of a bar, on Palmetto. They saw her on the sidewalk with the drink and when they pulled over she threw it at them. Not the glass, the drink. I guess she was, you know, so bombed they thought they better bring her here.' Pam looked at the doorway. 'Why don't you go in with her? Let her wake up to a familiar face.'
'Why don't I get her out of here,' Maurice said. He went in the room.
LaBrava followed Pam. They came to a room filled with fluorescent light that was about fifteen-by-twenty: a metal desk standing between two mattresses on the floor, a line of metal chairs along the inside wall and a back door wtih double locks. The stains and burn marks seemed magnified in here. LaBrava saw skinny legs with dried sores, a light-skinned black girl asleep on the mattress in front of the desk. He saw a drunk, dirty from living in doorways, that familiar street drunk, soft mouth nearly toothless, cocking his head like a chicken. The drunk sat in the row of folding chairs. Next to him an elderly man sat rigid, his shirt collar buttoned, hands flat on bony thighs. He said to LaBrava, 'You ever see an eagle?'
Pam, sliding behind the metal desk that was covered with forms and scrawled notes, said, 'Walter--'
LaBrava said, 'Yeah, I've seen an eagle.'
The rigid man said, 'Did it have hair?'
'The one I saw had feathers.'
The rigid man said, 'Oh.' He looked at Pam now. 'You ever see an eagle?'
Pam said, 'Excuse me, Walter, but I have to finish with Earl first. Okay? Be nice.' She glanced down at a clipboard. 'Earl, if I call this person Eileen, will she come and get you?'
'She don't keep up her house,' the drunk said. 'You go in the kitchen... I tell her, Jesus Christ, get some wash powder. I can't live in a place like that.'
Pam looked up at LaBrava in the doorway. 'Sit down. Make yourself at home.'
He took the end seat, two metal chairs away from the drunk hunched over his crossed legs, the drunk staring, trying to focus, saying, 'Do I know you?'
'I don't know,' LaBrava said, 'we might've met one time. How you doing?'
'See, I don't want to go to court drunk. I don't want to go in there, maybe get sick.'
Pam said, 'Earl, I told you, there no charges against you.' She said, 'You ever drink anything like aftershave?'
'No, not ever. Just some home brew, some wine. Eileen, if I'm staying over there, she fixes these toddies are nice. Bourbon and ice cubes, you sprinkle some sugar on top. 'bout a teaspoonful's all...'
A scream came from a room close by, a wail of obscenities that rose and died off, and LaBrava looked at Pam, expecting her to get up.
'It's okay. One of our consumers,' Pam said. 'She's catharting, sort of working it out on her own. But there's someone with her, don't worry.'
