The Old Silent

her from dying of thirst.

'Mary Lee?'

That did surprise her out of her rotten mood, at least long enough to ask, 'Who're you?'

Instead of answering, Jury walked over to the machine and with a hand on each side tried to sway it a little. The can plonked down into the opening. Mary Lee made a little sound, popped the cap, and then arranged her miniskirted thighs and scoop-necked sweater to their best advantage. 'Well, wherever'd you learn that?'

'From when I was broke.'

'How'd you know me?' Mary Lee glanced up from the Coke can she was licking her tongue around and slowly blinked her sand-colored lashes.

Poor girl, she could have done with a bit of lipstick for some color. But at least there was some glitter in the hoop earrings and the rhinestone-studded locket that lay strategically placed above the cleavage. 'Friend told me you more-or-less managed the place. I just wanted a look round.'

From the way she ran her long pearlescent fingernails through her half-cropped hair and tried to look like a manager, it was clear she hardly knew what to do with this information-she certainly didn't want to out-and-out deny it. 'Well, I expect I wouldn't say that, exactly. I'm more his assistant. I can't auth-or-ize you going over the place. In-side's about as pretty as an airplane hangar. Whatcha want to see it for? The roadies are in there anyways, setting up. For Sirocco.' Her eyes glinted like the shiny aluminum of the can. 'All I want's to meet Charlie.'

'Do you get to meet the stars who come here?'

'I did Eric Clapton. I nearly shook for a week.' Realizing the persona might be slipping, she added, 'Of course, there aren't many like him. Most are pretty run-of-the-mill.'

The door to the auditorium opened and the young man, one of the 'roadies' upon whom she cast an experienced and disdainful look, came through and walked over to the soft-drink machine.

As he was about to put in a coin, she called, 'That's for staff, if you don't mind. You got your own up in the dressing rooms.'

He turned, surprised, looked a little helpless, and Jury recognized him as the same person who'd passed by them under the marquee. 'Sorry,' he said and retreated into the auditorium.

'I don't know why they're mucking about here a day ahead of time.'

'Do they use the place for practice sessions?'

'Them? Wouldn't be caught dead outside their suiteat the Ritz. I expect when you're that famous you don't need to do sessions. Ever so handsome, ihn't he?'

'Who? The chap that just walked out here?'

'No. Charlie Raine. He's single, too.'

She sighed, looked down at her obviously new shoes, and lifted an ankle. 'Do you like them? Paid nearly thirty quid for these ones and thatwas sale price.' She brought the ankle down and drew the other one in straight and bent her head to stare at them appreciatively. 'Look like glass, don't they?'

Not precisely. More like acrylic, the uppers clear, the high heels smoke-toned, and the ankle straps thin slivers of acrylic dotted with tiny beads to match the heels. 'Beautiful,' said Jury. 'They're very smart; you'd have to pay twice that for the ones I saw in the window of-' Jury thought for a moment. '-Fortnum and Mason.'

'You never.' Mary Lee breathed this out in a whispery way.

Jury couldn't, actually, remember the last time he'd looked in the windows of Fortnum and Mason. Much too pricey. Yet people actually bought produce there: carrots, lettuces, cabbages, kings, no doubt. But he merely nodded his head solemnly.

Mary Lee turned at the sound of the telephone, disgusted, and started off on swaying ankles to the ticket window to answer, then came back quickly and whispered, 'Look, you just want a deco, go on in. But don't tell no one, okay?' She gave him a wink and hurried toward the repeated brr brr.

That morning, before taking the tube to Hammersmith, the first thing he had done was to start his search for the copy of Time Outthat he hadn't been able to find before he went to sleep on the sofa, fully clothed.

Jury fingered through stacks of spilled magazines and papers, turned over cushions, flayed the sheets on the bed, vandalized drawers and cupboards. If the place had been a mess before, it was now a shambles. And he knew all the while the search was useless; the magazine had been on top of that pile… Carole-anne… of course.

Jury yanked off his jacket and pulled a heavy sweater over his head, dark brown with a sort of lopsided loose woven into its woolly strands. It was a present from Carole-anne, who seemed to be as interested in dressing him down as she was in dressing Mrs. Wassermann up.

Down the stone front steps and right to a smaller set of steps leading to Mrs. Wassermann's basement flat Jury ran.

At his first knock, she opened the door and threw up her hands as if she'd just been delivered from a family of thieves. 'At last, at last you are back.' The hands then clasped beneath her chin in a gesture of thanks to the angels.

But this Mrs. Wassermann was not quite the one he'd left. Her gray hair was frizzed out with a new perm that did not strike Jury as a viable alternative to the ordinarily neat, pulled-back hair tucked in a bun at the nape of the neck. Carole-anne had obviously been raiding his flat and commandeering Mrs. Wassermann round the beauty salons. But he merely smiled and complimented her on the wave.

'No, no. Not a perm, Mr. Jury. It's scrunched.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Scrunched. Sassoon. They only scrunch and diffuse.' She waved her hand back and forth slowly, in simulation of a hair-dryer. 'No brushes, just diffusion. Sassoon believes in letting the hair be natural.'

Jury leaned against the doorjamb. 'Tell me, did Carole-anne sit in for some scrunching, too? Or some diffusion?'

'Oh, no. Not with her hair. Sassoon said it was so glorious just to let it be.' Mrs. Wassermann made it sound as if Vidal himself had been in attendance.

'Of course. Well, do you think I could have the extra key to the Glorious One's flat?'

'Of course, of course.' She turned to her bookshelves. 'It's right behind Mr. le Carre.'

Mrs. Wassermann always referred to her books by the surnames of the authors. Miss Austen. Mr. Dickens. Miss Krantz.

She placed the key in his hand and asked for no information in return. It was Mrs. Wassermann's great virtue; she never intruded with questions. She was the greatest respecter of privacy he had ever known. Too bad Miss Palutski didn't take a page from that book.

'I wish she'd stop using my room as if it were a waiting lounge between flights.'

'Ah, yes, but you know she cannot afford to be on the phone.'

'Why should she? She's on mine. And I wish she'd stop taking things. I had a copy of Time Out and I need it.'

'Oh, that I have it right here…' She swept away again. 'She thought I should know what's going on around town.'

That boded ill. 'Thanks, Mis. Wassermann…'

'Do not be too upset with Carole-anne, Mr. Jury. You know she's been under great stress lately.'

Jury turned back, his foot on the steps leading upward. 'Yes, she was going totally crazy when I left.'

Mrs. Wassermann lowered her eyelids and made a tch-tching with her tongue as if he were speaking ill of the dead.

Looking grave, Mrs. Wassermann said, 'No, she does not read her maps-'

Her maps? Everything seemed to come under Carole-anne's provenance, including the Atlantic. She shouldn't be reading the Tarot and telling fortunes down at the Starrdust; she should join up with whatever Balboas and Byrds were still around.

'-and she has grown very dismal.'

'Dismal. No, that I'll never believe.' Crazy, yes. Dismal, no. He was happy her obsession was only with maps and the schedules of the ferries from Cork and Belfast. What dangerous waters she