expensive nut shop in Costa Mesa. Whatever her choice of the day, she consumed it with care and slow delight, in tiny bites and small sips, relishing every nuance of taste and scent and texture.
She was a “present-focused” person.
Benny Shadway, the man Eric had thought was Rachael's lover, said there were basically four types of people: past-, present-, future-, and omni-focused. Those focused primarily on the future had little interest in the past or present. They were often worriers, peering toward tomorrow to see what crisis or insoluble problem might be hurtling toward them — although some were shiftless dreamers rather than worriers, always looking ahead because they were unreasonably certain they were due for great good fortune of one kind or another. Some were also workaholics, dedicated achievers who believed that the future and opportunity were the same thing.
Eric had been such a one, forever brooding about and eagerly anticipating new challenges and conquests. He had been utterly bored with the past and impatient with the snail's pace at which the present sometimes crept by.
A present-focused person, on the other hand, expended most of his energy and interest in the joys and tribulations of the moment. Some present-focused types were merely sluggards, too lazy to prepare for tomorrow or even to contemplate it. Strokes of bad luck often caught them unaware, for they had difficulty accepting the possibility that the pleasantness of the moment might not go on forever. And when they found themselves mired in misfortune, they usually fell into ruinous despair, for they were incapable of embarking upon a course of action that would, at some point in the future, free them from their troubles. However, another type of present-focused person was the hard worker who could involve himself in the task at hand with a single-mindedness that made for splendid efficiency and craftsmanship. A first-rate cabinetmaker, for example, had to be a present-focused person, one who did not look forward impatiently to the final assembly and completion of a piece of furniture but who directed his attention entirely and lovingly to the meticulous shaping and finishing of each rung and arm of a chair, to each drawer face and knob and doorframe of a china hutch, taking his greatest satisfaction in the
Present-focused people, according to Benny, are more likely to find obvious solutions to problems than are other people, for they are not preoccupied with either what was or what might come to pass but only with what
“You're the best kind of present-oriented woman,” Benny had once told her over a Chinese dinner at Peking Duck. “You prepare for the future but never at the expense of losing touch with
She had said, “Ah, shut up and eat your moo goo gai pan.”
Essentially, what Benny said was true. Since leaving Eric, Rachael had taken five courses in business management at a Pepperdine extension, for she intended to launch a small business. Perhaps a clothing store for upscale women. A place that would be dramatic and fun, the kind of shop that people talked about as not only a source of well-made clothes but an experience. After all, she'd attended UCLA, majoring in dramatic arts, and had earned her bachelor's degree just before meeting Eric at a university function; and though she had no interest in acting, she had real talent for costume and set design, which might serve her well in creating an unusual decor for a clothing store and in acquiring merchandise for sale. However, she had not yet gone so far as to commit herself to the acquisition of an M.B.A. degree nor to choosing a particular enterprise. Rooted in the present, she proceeded to gather knowledge and ideas, waiting patiently for the moment when her plans would simply… crystallize. As for the past — well, to dwell on yesterday's pleasures was to risk missing out on pleasures of the moment, and to dwell on past pains and tragedies was a pointless waste of energy and time.
Now, resting languorously in her steaming bath, Rachael drew a deep breath of the jasmine-scented air.
She hummed along softly with Johnny Mathis as he sang “I'll Be Seeing You.”
She tasted the chocolate again. She sipped the champagne.
She tried to relax, to drift, to go with the flow and embrace the mellow mood in the best California tradition.
For a while she pretended to be completely at ease, and she did not entirely realize that her detachment was only pretense until the doorbell rang. The instant the bell sounded above the lulling music, she sat up in the water, heart hammering, and grabbed for the pistol with such panic that she knocked over her champagne glass.
When she had gotten out of the tub and put on her blue robe, she held the gun at her side, with the muzzle pointed at the floor, and walked slowly through the shadowy house to the front door. She was filled with dread at the prospect of answering the bell; at the same time, she was irresistibly drawn to the door as if in a trance, as if compelled by the mesmeric voice of a hypnotist.
She paused at the stereo to switch it off. The ensuing silence had an ominous quality.
In the foyer, with her hand upon the knob, she hesitated as the bell rang again. The front door had no window, no sidelights. She had been meaning to have a fish-eye security lens installed, through which she would be able to study the person on the doorstep, and now she ardently wished that she had not procrastinated. She stared at the dark oak before her, as if she might miraculously acquire the power to see through it and clearly identify the caller beyond. She was trembling.
She did not know why she faced the prospect of a visitor with such unmitigated dread.
Well, perhaps that was not exactly true. Deep down — or even not so deep — she knew why she was afraid. But she was reluctant to admit the source of her fear, as if admission would transform a horrible possibility into a deadly reality.
The bell rang again.
3
JUST VANISHED
While listening to news on the radio during the drive home from his office in Tustin, Ben Shadway heard about Dr. Eric Leben's sudden death. He wasn't sure how he felt. Shocked, yes. But he wasn't saddened, even though the world had lost a potentially great man. Leben had been brilliant, indisputably a genius, but he had also been arrogant, self-important, perhaps even dangerous.
Ben mostly felt relieved. He had been afraid that Eric, finally aware that he could never regain his wife, would harm her. The man hated to lose. There was a dark rage in him usually relieved by his obsessive commitment to his work, but it might have found expression in violence if he had felt deeply humiliated by Rachael's rejection.
Ben kept a cellular phone in his car — a meticulously restored 1956 Thunderbird, white with blue interior — and he immediately called Rachael. She had her answering machine on, and she did not pick up the receiver when he identified himself.
At the traffic light at the corner of Seventeenth Street and Newport Avenue, he hesitated, then turned left instead of continuing on to his own house in Orange Park Acres. Rachael might not be home right now, but she would get there eventually, and she might need support. He headed for her place in Placentia.
The June sun dappled the Thunderbird's windshield and made bright rippling patterns when he passed through the inconstant shadows of overhanging trees. He switched off the news and put on a Glenn Miller tape. Speeding through the California sun, with “String of Pearls” filling the car, he found it hard to believe that anyone could die on such a golden day.
By his own system of personality classification, Benjamin Lee Shadway was primarily a past-focused man. He liked old movies better than new ones. De Niro, Streep, Gere, Field, Travolta, and Penn were of less interest to him than Bogart, Bacall, Gable, Lombard, Tracy, Hepburn, Cary Grant, William Powell, Myrna Loy. His favorite books were from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, hard-boiled stuff by Chandler and Hammett and James M. Cain, and the early Nero Wolfe novels. His music of choice was from the swing era, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Harry James,
