The waiter said, “Rare. Very good, sir.” He went away.
The middle-aged man was with a smooth red-haired young woman in a low-necked green dress and a younger man in a gray three-piece suit and a striped tie. They were all drinking red wine.
“Wait’ll you see the piece of beef Frank’ll have for me,” the middle-aged man said. He looked around to see if I was impressed. He had a diamond pinkie ring on his right hand. “You shoulda had a piece, honey,” he said to the woman beside him. She smiled and said yes, she probably should, but she could never eat all that. The guy in the gray suit drank his wine rapidly.
I said to Candy, “Would it violate the terms of my contract if I told that guy to shut up about his goddamn roast beef?”
Candy smiled. “I think you’re just supposed to concentrate on protecting me. I think you’re supposed to give etiquette instructions on your own time.”
When we left, the middle-aged man was eating a piece of rare rib roast and talking with his mouth full about the weaknesses of French cooking, and the problems he’d had with it on his last trip to Europe.
With a little pull from the Sound of the Golden West we had gotten Candy, under a phony name, the room adjoining mine at the Hillcrest. As we drove, the streets in Beverly Hills were as still as an empty theater in the night. The lobby was deserted.
We were alone in the elevator.
At her door I took her key and opened the door first. The room was soundless. I reached in and turned on the light. No one was there. I opened the bathroom and looked behind the shower glass. I opened the sliding closet door. I looked under the bed. No one was there either.
Candy stood in the doorway watching me. “You’re serious, aren’t you.”
“Sure. Just because it’s corny to hide under the bed doesn’t mean someone wouldn’t do it.”
I slid open the doors to the small balcony. No one there either. I went to the door connecting my room with hers. It was locked. “Before you go to bed, remember to unlock this,” I said. “No point me being next door if I can’t get to you.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ll unlock it now.”
“No,” I said. “Wait until I’ve checked out the room.”
“Oh,” she said. “Of course.”
“I’ll go over now. Lock the corridor door behind me and chain it. I’ll yell through the connecting door if it’s okay.”
She nodded. I went out, went into my room, and made sure it was empty. The connecting door was bolted from each side. I slid my bolt back and said, “Okay, Candy.”
I heard her bolt slip and the door opened. She was on the phone, the phone cord stretched taut across the bed as she had to reach to unbolt the door. As she opened the door she said, “Thank you,” into the phone and hung up.
“I just ordered a bottle of cognac and some ice,” she said. “You want a drink?”
“Sure,” I said. “Your place or mine?”
“This isn’t a pass,” she said. “I’d just like to sit on the balcony and sip some brandy and talk quietly. I’m a little scared.”
I thought about the balcony. We were seven floors up, on a corner; there was no balcony beyond us. The one next to us on the other side was mine. The ones on the next floor were directly above. It would be a hard shot. And you’d have to have been smart enough or lucky enough to get a room above us with the right angle. I said, “Okay, the balcony is good. But we’ll turn the lights off. No point in making a better target than we need to.”
The bellhop brought the bottle of Remy Martin, a soda siphon, two glasses, and a bucket of ice. I watched while Candy added in a tip and signed the bill. Then we shut off the lights and took the tray out onto the balcony.
Lights speckled the Hollywood Hills. There was a faint sound of music from the rooftop lounge above us. On Beverwil Drive a cab idled. I opened the bottle and poured two drinks over ice with a small squirt of soda. Candy took one and sipped it. She had kicked her shoes off and now she put her stockinged feet up on the low cement railing of the balcony. She was wearing a plum-colored wraparound dress, and the skirt fell away halfway up her thigh. I stood leaning against the doorjamb and watched the other balconies. Mostly.
“Tell me about yourself, Spenser.”
“I was born in a trunk,” I said, “in the Princess Theatre in Pocatello, Idaho.”
“I know it’s a corny question, but it’s still a real one. What are you like? How did you end up in such a strange business?”
“I got too old to be a Boy Scout,” I said.
I could smell flowers in the soft California evening. Candy sipped her brandy. The ice clinked gently in the glass as she rolled it absently between her hands. Mingled with the smell of flowers was the smell of Candy’s perfume.
“That’s not an entirely frivolous answer, is it?” she said.
“No.”
“You want to help people.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Makes me feel good,” I said.
