the pier. They walked slowly, lingering now and then in dark alcoves and shadowy places where the last light of the darkening sky did not reach.
They both saw him come out a rear door of the next building in the dusk, stop on the low step for a moment, then turn to walk toward them. Sylvie felt the gentle pressure of Paul’s hand on her back, the firm touch she felt when they were dancing. She yielded and took a step forward.
And then she was alone.
JIMMY POLLARD kept his head down, looking at the uneven, cratered pavement of the alley as he walked. People insisted on keeping dogs in the city, and there was a certain group of them who didn’t want to walk their dogs out front where they had to obey the ordinance and dispose of their messes. They walked them in alleys, so a person had to watch where he set his feet.
The thought pushed Jimmy Pollard into one of the moments, once rare but now becoming disturbingly frequent, when he stepped outside himself and saw himself from somewhere above, as an objective observer might see him. His past was all stretched out behind him and leading here, to this moment.
He was sneaking out the back door of a woman’s apartment building in the twilight and making his way up an alley. It was the time when other men were coming the other way, arriving from their day’s work, opening the front door and seeing the women they were doing it for, some of them even smelling dinner cooking. But maybe that was a dream image left over from his childhood. Maybe nobody did that anymore. The women were mostly out all day, too, because nobody had any children now. The ones who did put them in some kind of day care and picked them up around now. Maybe the whole world was sneaking along some alley. “Here I am,” he said to himself. That was all.
Jimmy had a wife, three kids and a job. He and Connie had grown apart over the years, a pair of roommates who had things they held against each other. But Emma, Ben, and Melissa were on his mind every hour. Thinking about them made him feel happy and terrible and lost all at the same time. And here he was.
He heard the light sound of footsteps on the pavement, looked ahead in the dim light, and saw the shape of a woman—the hips, the narrow waist, the shoulders. He drew in a breath—Connie? Would she come here?
The woman’s strides brought her closer, and as she stepped into a strip of light that reached the alley between two buildings she was illuminated for a second. No. Even from this distance, it wasn’t Connie. Thank you, Lord. He knew that confrontation was going to happen someday, but not here and not now. He still had time. Even as he thought that, he knew he would not use the time, if it were fifty years. He would never be a faithful husband again. He would never break off the affair, or use the reprieve to go to Connie and tell her. He quickly recited the reasons, an inventory that included the children, the house, the job, the money.
Unexpectedly, in the inventory was something new; a piece of unintentional clarity. One of the reasons why these afternoons with Sally were so irresistible was that they were forbidden and secret.
Jimmy kept his head down, concerned to be sure this woman in the alley didn’t get a look at his face. Women didn’t walk alone in alleys. If she was walking a dog, he hadn’t seen it. She was probably a neighbor who had come down to toss something in the Dumpster. She could be one of Sally’s friends who would remember seeing him here, and could easily be present some other time and recognize him. Still, he couldn’t resist the impulse to look.
He glanced up and then down again, and brought back an impression that was favorable. She was tall—too tall for him, but very slim and graceful, like a dancer. If she could afford a beachfront condo in Santa Monica, she was more than a dancer. She was probably a party girl who lived with some rich guy. He took another glance, and he found he didn’t want to take his eyes away. He began to think about her. She wasn’t really that tall, just straight.
He was about ten feet from her when he met her eyes, and smiled respectfully. He said, “Hello,” with just the right combination, he thought, of friendliness and perfunctory politeness to reassure a woman alone in an alley. She reached into her purse, probably to put her hand on her canister of pepper spray, but she smiled. Was that mischief?
“Hi, Jimmy,” Sylvie said.
He gaped. Who was she? She took her hand out of her purse. There was a gun. He knew he didn’t have time to turn around and go back, so he kept walking. If she was scared of him, then in a few seconds she would see he’d meant her no harm. There was a flash-bang, he felt pain, and he began to run. He ran hard, past her. He heard the gun again, but he could still move, still make his legs take step after step toward the opening to the street. There would be people. He could run to them and yell and make a scene.
A man stepped out of the shadows ahead, already aiming a gun at him.
He knew he would never get there.
4
PAUL AND SYLVIE TURNER took the crowded elevator to the eighth floor of the tall gray-white office building on Wilshire Boulevard. The building housed busy lawyers, accountants, and medical specialists, so the Turners had to stand in the back of the elevator and sidestep out when they reached their floor, and then pass several people in the carpeted hallway. They entered the door marked DOLAN, NYQUIST, AND BERNE, ATTORNEYS.
The waiting room was empty. Behind the glass in the reception window was a woman in a stylish gray skirt and jacket. She displayed her professional smile to the Turners when they entered. “Mr. and Mrs. Turner. Good afternoon.” Then she glanced at the appointment sheet on her desk and said, “Come in.” She pressed a switch and there was an audible click as a bolt in the big wooden door disengaged.
Paul opened the door and held it for Sylvie, then let it click shut again behind him. The woman said to Sylvie, “He’s in Four.” They went farther into the suite past doors with numbers on them until they came to Four, a conference room with natural-wood chair rails, credible-looking antique portraits on the walls, a long table with twelve padded chairs around it. Michael Densmore sat in one of them.
Densmore was vain about his clothing. He was wearing the pants from a charcoal suit, but the coat was draped on the back of the chair beside him so the shoulders were filled out and the arms hung naturally, like a headless scarecrow. His shirt was pure white with a starched collar and a fine silk tie with a subdued pattern of very small blue squares. He stood when Sylvie walked in. He had a slight belly that caused him to make nervous, ineffectual attempts to tuck his shirt in to cover it. His smile was youthful, but showed wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and the forehead. He closed the door after them and flipped a lock lever below the brass knob. “Sylvie, you look lovely.” He grasped her hand, and then shook Paul’s. “Good to see you both.” He sat down, so his belly would be hidden by the table. “Everything’s okay?”
“Sure,” said Sylvie.
“Very smooth,” Paul agreed. “I’m sure you saw it in the paper.”
“Of course. I was very interested to know.”
“Nice little .32s. Pop-pop-pop,” Sylvie said.
Densmore held his hand up. “No details, please. Nothing specific. I don’t want any information. I represent the widow, and I’ll be talking to the police. I don’t want to have something incidental slip out in conversation, and then find out I’ve incriminated myself.”
“Sorry,” said Sylvie. “Forget I said anything. He died of infidelity. Did Mrs. Pollard happen to leave anything for us?”
“Yes, I have it right here.” Densmore lifted a briefcase from under the table, opened it, and displayed a row of stacked bills.
“The money is clean, right?” Paul asked.
“This isn’t her cash. I deposited her checks and took the cash from several of my own accounts as I always do, so there’s no chance bills are marked or anything like that.” He smiled. “I’ll get my cut by overcharging for settling the estate.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Sylvie said.
“What about her? Is she a problem?” Paul said.
