'Once in a while I'd find myself in a situation. You know, but it was never serious. Like you and the chick from the insurance company.' She sipped her drink and then finished it. 'I'll tell you the truth, Joe, I miss him. Sid was good to me.' She got up with her empty glass saying, 'You're ready, aren't you?'
'I thought you were going out.'
'I changed my mind.'
Watching her cross to the bar he said, 'Tell me something,' and watched her looking in the mirror, staring at her image, her pale skin tan in the tinted glass.
'What do you want to know?'
'Why you burned your house down.'
Robin didn't answer until she was coming back with the martinis, her raccoon eyes in the dark liner holding on Canavan.
'Why would I?'
'That's what I'd like to know.'
She gave him his drink and placed a hand on his shoulder as she edged past the coffee table and sat down again.
'You tell me,' Canavan said, 'you'd have nothing to gain, you were gonna sell the house. Now you don't have it to sell, but you get two and a half million when they pay the claim, plus the value of the contents.'
'I could've sold the house for more, easy.' Robin sipped her drink and said, 'But what if . . . This is hypothetical, okay? What if a person does actually burn down her house? She owns the property, she can rebuild if she wants. She might even tell the insurance company to forget the claim.'
'They'd want to know why.'
'Because they piss her off acting so suspicious, dragging their feet, sending out adjusters and investigators instead of paying the claim. She's above dealing with people with small minds.'
This was one Canavan hadn't heard before. He said, 'Tell me how she starts the fire.'
'She rolls up the Wall Street Journal and lights it with a match. The point I'm making, Joe . . .'
'She starts the fire inside the house or outside?'
'Inside. The point I'm making, they can pay the claim or not. If they choose to, fine. If they don't, who's out anything?'
'She's already out the Mediterranean villa.'
'And doesn't care.'
'What makes it Mediterranean, looking down at the Pacific Ocean?'
'Tile roof, big oval windows and doors. The outside wasn't bad, even though pink's not one of her favorite colors. It's the inside of the house she can't stand. The decor throughout, the furniture, the art, floor to ceiling everything's Chinese. And she doesn't even like Chinese food. Listen, I can roll us another one if you want.'
'Not for me.'
'It's local, Malibu Gold, but pretty good, huh?'
Canavan said, 'Yeah, great,' and asked Robin, 'Why didn't this hypothetical woman change the decor?'
'Her husband loved it. He knew what everything was and where it came from. It was like a culture thing with him. He becomes an expert on something besides picking hits. Incidentally, not one of the artists he represented ever made a record that stiffed.'
'He bought all the Chinese stuff?'
'His previous wife, the second one. They redecorated completely after a trip to China.'
Canavan said, 'You couldn't . . .' caught himself and said, 'She couldn't get used to it?'
'Joe, it was like living in a fucking pagoda. Jade figurines, Tang horses and tomb figures, that honey-colored huanghali furniture, blue-and-white Ming garnitures, they're vases, Ming kesi panels on the walls, ink paintings, opium beds, snuff bottles, ivory carvings, coromandel screens, Quing dynasty court rugs . . .'
'She could've sold it.'
'Cloisonne enamel incense burners, Sung dynasty Buddhas. Five years,' Robin said, 'she lives with all this Chinese shit cluttering up the house. Big, heavy pieces, the tomb figures almost lifesize. Five years, Joe. She begs her husband, 'Please, can't we try something else?' No. 'A Mediterranean house, why don't we do it Mediterranean?' No. Not 'No, and I don't want to hear any more about it.' Her husband was a cool guy for his age, never raised his voice. But, really, it was all she thought about. She'd smoke a jay and scheme. Like hire a burglar; he takes it out a piece at a time. Or have it done all at once while they're in Cabo, or Maui.'
'Once her husband's gone,' Canavan said, 'why didn't she get an auction house in and sell it?'
'She felt it would be disloyal to his memory and it would be on her conscience.'
Canavan thought that was interesting. 'But it's okay if something happens to it.'
'Yeah, like an act of God.'
'Or a fire, in an area known for its fires. You know who you remind me of?'
'Linda Fiorentino.'
'You look just like her.'
'I know.'
'That movie where she goes in the bar . . . ?'
'The Last Seduction. She wants a Manhattan and the bartender won't look at her. So she goes, 'Who does a girl have to suck around here to get a drink?' '
That was it. Not who do you have to blow.
'But as I was saying, when you come right down to it, Joe, who's out? Who's hurt? Who gives a shit outside of this person who owns the house?'
'I'll tell you who,' Canavan said, 'if you really want to know. The law. Arson's a second-degree felony. A conviction can get you two to twenty years. There's a death as a result, it goes up to five to ninety-nine.'
Her reaction: 'For Christ sake, Joe, come on. You want to put me in jail?'
'I'm not the law. All I'm supposed to do is let 'em know when I see a crime's been committed.'
She said, 'Joe, come on, you're not a snitch. I can tell you're a very practical guy. How much you want?'
Like that, ready to pay him off.
He said, 'What's your best offer? So we don't waste time.'
'How about fifty grand?'
'You can do better'n that.'
'A hundred?'
He said, 'Mrs. Harris,' and paused. 'You mind if I call you Robin?'
Sounding formal now, and he could see she didn't know what to expect, hesitating before she said, 'Sure, why not,' in a kind of vague tone of voice, her mind looking ahead.
He said, 'Robin, you've talked to a lot of people. Fire, law enforcement, insurance company stooges . . . One of 'em even brought a dog out to sniff around. But no one's accused you of burning your house down, have they?'
She shook her head and brushed that soft, dark hair away from her face.
'You drive up to the house, the sky's full of smoke. You've already seen houses burning on the TV news, and they're right over in the next canyon, not half a mile away. You're thinking, Damn it, why can't my house catch on fire?'
She was nodding, staring at him with a thoughtful expression, following every word.
'You go inside and stand there surrounded by all this oriental stuff you hate.'
'You don't say oriental, you say Asian.'
'Either way, you hate it. You stand there looking at all that lacquered stuff, Buddhas and dragons, and you light a joint.'
He watched her raise her eyebrows.
'The joint is to take the edge off, calm you down. But now you look at the match in your hand. It goes out and you light another match and look at the flame.'
She was nodding again, staying with him.
'All that smoke, and remembering what you saw on the news, you're convinced sooner or later your house will catch fire.'
