'Help me.'
I helped her. Once her arms were free she stopped struggling. Stopped moving. Unconscious. On top of the bedclothes. I found a blanket in the closet and placed it over her. Then I headed for the door.
'Wait.'
She wasn't quite unconscious. I hesitated. Somehow, she managed to turn over onto her back. She performed an acrobatic routine under the blanket with her eyes half-open. Then the blanket came flying off her, along with her dress.
Arrow lay on her back, quiet again, wearing only black pantyhose.
'Don't you like my body?' she asked.
'It's…it's fantastic,' I said, truthfully.
'Then don't go.' Her voice became louder.
I mumbled something inane about both of us needing to get some sleep.
'Come here.' Louder yet.
I walked carefully to the edge of the bed, wondering how to get her quiet again so that people in nearby rooms wouldn't hear her.
She grabbed my arm and said, 'Kiss me.'
I was afraid she'd yell if I pulled away. I sat down on the bed and leaned over to give her a brotherly kiss, but her tongue got in the way.
I knew there were at least six good reasons why we shouldn't have sex, none of which I could remember. Then I thought of one. She was going to regret this in a big way tomorrow morning.
In desperation, I put my hand on her stomach and then slid it under her pantyhose. She closed her eyes. Soon she began to moan. She was asleep in five minutes.
Chapter 13 THE PARTY
Arrow slowly became a human being again as I drove our rental car south on 101 toward the airport. Before leaving San Francisco she had drunk black coffee in her hotel room and then orange juice (my idea) at the restaurant next door to the hotel. She also managed to eat some French toast.
Her short hair didn't need much maintenance, and she looked surprisingly good, if a little pale, in a sweatshirt and jeans. I wondered how much she remembered about our adventures at the casino-and the hotel.
Now, almost her first coherent words were, 'I'm sorry about last night.” And then, fiercely, almost to herself, “It’s not going to happen again.'
What was not going to happen again? My first thought was egotistical-it must be something to do with me. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that she was speaking about all her actions. She had lost control. She had not acted like a business executive. And executives, as I knew from observing my father, always had to be in control.
I was not blameless. I shouldn’t have used liquor to try to get Stan to talk. That had backfired on us. The best thing to do was to forget about last night altogether. Write it off as a bad dream. Of course, women with bodies like Arrow's didn't appear in bad dreams. Did I screw up by not taking advantage of her? If I had, she would hate me now. And, as I firmly reminded myself, I was going with Esther.
To get the look and feel of Arrow out of my mind, I mentally reviewed what had happened before we left the casino. I congratulated myself on being able to walk away from the blackjack table. A few years ago I might not have been strong enough.
But my gut told me that something bad had happened also. What was it? After some thought it came to me. I said to Arrow, 'Stan said something to me as we left.'
'I'm never going to speak to Stan again,' Arrow groaned. 'I thought he was my friend.' She ransacked her purse for a headache remedy.
'He said, 'Do you know what happens to welshers? Remember what happened to Ned.'' I changed lanes to pass an 18-wheeler while I waited for her reaction.
She found some pills and swallowed a couple, without water, an ability I envied. She didn't speak for a minute. I couldn't tell whether she had heard me and I was about to repeat Stan's statement when she said, almost too softly for me to hear over the road noise, 'That bastard.'
I assumed she was talking about Stan. I said, 'What do you think he meant by it?'
Arrow pondered. Or maybe she was just trying to clear her head. 'I guess it could have been either a threat or a joke. Knowing Stan, I think it's more likely it was a joke-an unfeeling joke. He's got a weird sense of humor. But he's not a very threatening person.'
'I'm beginning to suspect that Buchanan is. And Stan works for him.' I had another thought. 'What if it was a slip?'
'A slip? You mean as in 'slip of the lip?''
'Yes. What if Buchanan was somehow involved in Ned's murder?'
'That's…hard to believe. He's a business man, not a member of the Mafia.'
'Maybe there's a Scottish Mafia.' I drove and thought. 'What are we going to tell my father?'
'About what?'
'About James. About last night.'
'Nothing.'
'Nothing at all?' Didn't we owe him some sort of report?
'Look,' Arrow, said, speaking carefully and not too loudly, 'we didn't learn anything he doesn't already know. And we didn't cover ourselves with glory. At least, I didn't. If Richard asks what we did after you talked to the police, I plan to tell him I visited one of our customers. That should keep him happy.'
I drove the Jaguar to the Emerge fundraiser that evening. Even though I was going as a volunteer and not one of the 950 paid supporters of Emerge, I would be hobnobbing with the cream of Los Angeles society, thanks to the connections of the Board of Directors and the hard work of Esther and her staff, and I wanted to look the part.
I drove confidently into the Paramount lot at the Melrose Avenue entrance and flashed my invitation at the guard. When he found out I was a volunteer he told me to make a U-turn and park in the garage across the side street from the studio.
So much for being a part of high society. I found a space on the second level of the garage next to a concrete post and snuggled the car up close to it, leaving plenty of room for someone to park on the other side. Someone who hopefully wouldn't inflict any dents on the Jag.
I crossed the street and went into a side entrance of Paramount. This time my invitation got me waved through and onto the lot. Dressing-room trailers lined the studio streets, while the large hanger-like buildings containing soundstages, somber and plain on the outside, restricted my view.
I rounded a corner and a huge sky-wall loomed up into the real evening sky, painted blue with white fluffy clouds. Why was it necessary to have fake blue sky in Los Angeles, where the sun shone almost every day?
The Paramount water tower also broke the skyline, white with a blue Paramount logo on the top of the tank, complete with stars. Stars, the symbol of Hollywood.
Past the sky-wall I came to the New York street set, where the party was. A red carpet with a theatrical rope on either side guided me to the festivities. Facades of brownstone row houses made the scene come alive, while a four-story brick building with concrete crests under the windows looked real until I got close enough to look in those windows at the barrenness within.
Two of the New York streets, which intersected in a V, were filled with 95 round, white-clothed tables, each with 10 chairs around it. Waiters bustled from table to table, setting the necessary utensils and dishes. A centerpiece of cut flowers adorned each table. Esther and her crew had thought of everything, even the weather, which was unusually warm for an evening in Los Angeles.
