“I found myself running over the hillside away from the fire. Got a lift, hid out at a filling station in El Segundo. Stole money and clothes from a motorist who stayed over.”
Jennie had worked with me the full twenty-four hours.
“And where are you heading?”
“For Manhattan. I’ll stay with Melodie van Cordlant on Madison. If not her, then with Mrs. Brandau. Should I check Jim Bethune out?”
“Bethune died in the fire.”
Another. I didn’t sigh, just nodded and quoted the contact numbers Jennie’d drilled into me.
“Good, Lovejoy. You’ve got it. Contact in emergencies.”
So they’d come and save me? Like they did Bill? Like Sokolowsky? Tony?
“You’ll take over the antiques place, tie in with Busman like you did. Peel off the auctioneers, same as you suggested. Then you’ll big-buck buy, establish the chain of selling through the international art market…”
I went along, listening to her gunge. Loony tunes, for a bloke like me. I’m the one who thrills to a single Chelsea porcelain figurine sold over a nosh bar counter in a Suffolk village. This scale of things was money madness, coin crazy. I only felt right at a village jumble sale, with one woman whose eyes I could safely look at, playing that most ancient of all games.
“Sure, Jennie,” I said most sincerely. “Exact. I got it exact.” God. I almost sounded right.
“You establish contact first from here. They’re still in L.A.. We got their numbers, okay?” She passed me a typed list. They were all there. Sophie, Melodie, Kelly Palumba, Moira Hawkins. I was into a winner here—as long as I loved what I was to do. “You arrange to meet them here, play them along. They’re in separate hotels.”
“Gimme the phone, hon.”
Jennie frowned. “Try to keep that Limey talk, okay? It kinda pleases, y’know?”
“Very well, love.”
I spoke to Melodie, Kelly, and Sophie Brandau in that order. Melodie was over the moon, thrilled I should be desperate to check she wasn’t injured in the fire.
“I’ve been worried sick, Melodie doorling,” I said, almost starting tears at my deep sincerity. “How soon can I see you, sweetheart?
“Come right away, Lovejoy! We can have dinner, and —”
“I’ve very little money, honey.”
“What’s a dollar?” she screamed softly. I swore I was on my way, and dialled Kelly.
She was more difficult.
“Is that goon Epsilon with you, Palumba?” I demanded, “If so I hang up.”
“Yes, but don’t,” she said, thinking with a woman’s natural alacrity when deceiving by phone. “It’s my financial advisor, Eppie. I have to see him tonight. You go to the premier, I’ll follow on, okay?”
We fixed for eightish, her place.
Sophie was circumspect, very Grace Kelly, polite and distant.
“You weren’t at the Revere, love,” I accused. “I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known you weren’t going to come. Though it’s marvellous that you didn’t. I’d have been frantic you might have been hurt.”
“Denzie?” I heard her call. “A woman’s guild want me to speak on political family life tonight. Will that be… ?”
“Nine o’clock, Sophie Brandau,” I told Jennie curtly. “Pencil her in. Any more?”
“No, lovejoy.” Her mouth was set into severe disapproval, squared. “Go whenever you must.”
“Can I get a lift?”
“Cab it, Lovejoy. You’ve enough. Expenses.”
“So I have!” I said brightly. “See you back at the precinct house.” We’d arranged weekly reports to begin with.
I got a taxi from the rank six blocks along. I walked in the fading sunlight, which slanted across the boulevard from the lovely western horizon. You don’t get horizons like those in California for colours. I strolled, looking out for muggers, sidestepping rogue joggers, watching for falling meteorites. I was learning American vigilance.
“Where to?”
It seemed an age since I’d been elsewhere, in the East, telling a Chinese cabbie to take me to America, fast as he liked. I watched the lovely curved shore line recede as we turned inland and joined the flood of traffic. God knows where everybody was going, but they were all on the hoof.
The central station wasn’t quite so crowded.
TWENTY minutes to six when I reached there. I’d hung about as distantly as possible—not difficult in such a whopping place. I had coffee for ease of lurking, and stayed off centre until I saw them.
In she came, cool and swinging, being eyeballed and ogled as she entered. Zole was with her, yo-yo zipping to everyone’s annoyance, Sherman trotting.
It was a hard choice to make, really, for somebody like me. I’m my own worst enemy, always have been. The choice is always made for you, my old Gran used to say. You think you choose, until you see what there is. Then
