evening patients to go see her in a play. For an opening night in Philadelphia, he had to miss much of the afternoon as well; he’d complained about it the next day. She hadn’t been at all surprised that he didn’t even consider giving up a three-day conference in Toronto to be there at her first screening. Often when she was alone in the evenings she dreamed about being a rich movie star, and buying some of Jason’s hours so he wouldn’t always feel he was losing something when he was with her.
Apprehensively, she flipped through the envelopes, mostly bills, a few invitations to events they would never in a million years attend. Nothing dangerous so far. Maybe she was just being nuts, afraid of success, afraid of making things worse with her husband, like Ronnie suggested.
“Everybody goes through rocky periods in the business, you know that,” Ronnie said.
Emma nodded. In marriage, too.
“Look, better face it now. Success is harder to manage than failure. The
Emma came to the last envelope. It was from Save the Wilderness. Maybe Ronnie was right and this thing with the letters had played itself out. No more were coming in. The incoming fire was over. She picked up her jacket from where she had tossed it on a chair and wandered around the apartment, checking to see if it was in order. Everything was exactly as she had left it.
She was feeling all right and then without warning, anxiety about Jason welled up in her again. Where was he and why hadn’t he called her all day? It wasn’t like him. Was he just so mad at her he finally turned to one of his many fans, some woman, like himself terminally nice and comforting, from the ‘caring profession’? Someone who both sympathized and empathized with his needs?
That’s what they always asked her whenever she met one of them. “Are you in the ‘caring profession’?”
“No, I’m in the uncaring profession,” Emma was always tempted to retort. For Jason’s sake, she never had.
In the kitchen she found the slip of paper Jason left for her with the hotel number in San Diego on it. She never called him when he was away. He frequently made her feel guilty, but he didn’t like it when she made him feel guilty. She studied the number for a minute. Then she dialed it to see if he was really there.
The operator at the Meridien said there was no answer in his room. In a moment of pique at his secrecy, Emma didn’t care about the probability of bringing on his guilt. She left a message asking him to call her right away.
39
Jason had his hand on the doorknob and was desperate to get away when Bill Patterson offered to call Technical Drafting and tell the guy a reporter from New York wanted to talk to him.
“No. Thanks anyway,” he said as casually as he could. “I’m sure I can find it.”
Patterson crossed his legs the other way and did some more scratching of his short brown hair. “Not a chance. You won’t get anywhere near it. Security is pretty tight over there.”
“Oh.” Jason fell silent.
“They don’t let anybody wander around asking questions.” As he said that, Patterson’s eyes became suspicious for the first time.
Jason looked at his watch. It was way past time to get out of here. This was a defense company. Of course there would be security. Of course they wouldn’t like reporters. He cursed himself for not thinking of a better cover story. The last thing he wanted to have to do was say he had left his press card home.
“Well, I’ve got to get back downtown. I’m running late. Thanks for your help. I may give this guy—what’s- his-name—a call later.”
He swung the door open, and once again Patterson delayed his exit.
“Grebs,” he said, halting Jason’s progress.
Jason stopped and nodded. “Yeah, Grebs.”
“I’ll write it down for you.” Patterson picked up a pen and neatly printed the name and number on a piece of his monogrammed memo paper, then handed it over. He was right-handed.
“Thanks.” Jason returned to the desk to get it. “Thanks a lot.”
“You’re not going to try wandering around here, are you?” Patterson said. “You reporters—”
“No, no,” Jason assured him. “It isn’t that kind of story.”
“Well, good luck then.”
Jason found a telephone in a restaurant a few blocks away and dialed his hotel to see if there were any messages. There was one from Emma. He called his office answering machine and took some notes of the messages left there. Nothing that had to be responded to immediately.
He looked at his watch, then dialed the home number and waited. On the fifth ring Emma’s voice told him she was not available to take his call, but if he would leave his name, his number, and the date, she would get back to him very soon.
His shirt was soaked and he was getting a headache. It wasn’t a lot of fun pretending to be a reporter. He wondered what time Emma had tried to reach him and what she wanted.
She knew he had a policy of checking in every few hours. If she wanted to talk to him, why couldn’t she stay put and wait for him to return the call?
He punched his telephone credit card number into the phone and dialed the number Patterson had written down for him. It took a long time for someone to answer the phone.
“Drafting,” a woman’s voice finally said.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Troland,” Jason said.
“Who?” she said.
“Troland Grebs.”
“Oh, yeah.” Pause. “He’s not here.”
“Not here forever?” Jason asked. “Or out to lunch?”
“He wasn’t here yesterday. He’s not here today.” The sound became muffled as she called out, “Anybody know where Willy is?”
She came back on the line. “He’s sick,” she said.
“You have an address for him?”
“You kidding?” There was a pause. “Who is this anyway?”
“Friend of a friend,” Jason said. “I have a gift for him.”
“Well, that’s a first. Can’t help you.” She hung up.
Jesus, he thought everyone in California was supposed to be so friendly. He tried Information. Nobody listed by that name in the San Diego area.
Shit, the San Diego area was a big place. Where else could Grebs be? He tried dialing Emma in New York again. She still wasn’t there.
The cashier frowned at Jason when he asked for the phone book, so he had to sit down and order a cup of coffee and a corn muffin to appease him. He realized as he studied the book and ate the muffin that he was hungry.
There were only two Grebses in the phone book. Gloria Grebs was way north and west according to Jason’s map. And the road going there was the merest squiggle that actually looked like it thinned out to nothing in places. It didn’t seem worthwhile going all the way out there first, when Esther Grebs lived on Twenty-eighth Street, right in the heart of the city.
Jason nodded absently at the offer of another cup of coffee. It was only one-thirty. He still had all afternoon. He wrote down the two addresses and studied the San Diego map he had bought in the hotel gift shop. Twenty- eighth Street was not far from downtown. It was on the west side of the highway, at least in the direction of his hotel. He paid the cashier the dollar fifty for the coffee and muffin and left two dollars on the table for the use of the phone book.
Before he went out into the sunshine, he tried Emma one more time. Still no answer. He shrugged. Couldn’t have been too important if she didn’t leave a number. He got back in the car, all too aware that he was wandering
