“He said she was still visiting her family in Virginia.”
“Funny, he told me she was staying with a friend in the Valley.”
“This is all so weird,” she said.
“Did you pick up on anything helpful today?”
“He talked with both Lou Regenstein and David Sturmack this morning.”
“Did you overhear any of it?”
“No.”
“Hear anything about Ippolito?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t mention that name to Vance.”
“Okay. What did you find out today?”
“Well, I came within about a minute of seeing Arrington.”
“Come again?”
“I had lunch with a cop friend, and he put out a bulletin on her car for me.”
“Jesus, I hope Vance never finds out you went to the cops.”
“This was all very informal, just a favor. Turns out Arrington was at the same restaurant-Spago Beverly Hills.”
“And you didn’t see her?”
“Nope; I went to a bank across the street to cash a check, and when I came back, I got a call from my cop friend that she had just left the restaurant. I tried to catch up, but a motorcycle cop pulled me over for a bad turn.”
“So she’s not in Virginia with her family, and she’s not in the Valley, either?”
“Right. And she’s not in the storeroom at Grimaldi’s or at a table at Spago.”
Betty shook her head. “This is all too much for me, after a martini and a half.”
Dinner came, and they ate slowly, enjoying the very good food.
“Where are you from, originally?” Stone asked.
“A small town in Georgia called Delano,” she replied.
“What brought you out here?”
“Fame and fortune; I wanted to be an actress. I even was an actress, for a while.”
“Why didn’t you keep at it?”
“I wasn’t good enough, and I knew it. There were an awful lot of girls who were better than I who were out of work. If I’d kept it up I’d have ended up giving producers blow jobs for work, and I wanted to keep my private pleasures private.”
Stone smiled. “How did you meet Vance?”
“I had a little part in one of his pictures; it wasn’t much, but it kept me on the set for a month. Vance and I had our little fling, and I started helping him on the set-answering the phone, that sort of thing. He didn’t like his secretary, so he offered me her job.”
“Did you find it easy to give up acting?”
“Vance sat me down and talked to me like a Dutch uncle,” she said. “He told me that I didn’t have any sort of real career ahead of me, and when I thought about it, I realized he wasn’t being cruel, he was right. I took the job and never looked back.”
“You never married?”
“Nope. It doesn’t appeal, really. I mean, I couldn’t get married and keep the job with Vance; he’d drive any husband to the wildest kind of jealousy; I’d be dead in a month.”
Stone laughed. “I guess I’m a little jealous myself.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” she said. “You’re just like me; you like your independence and take your sex where you find it. And you’d make a lousy husband.”
“I would not!” Stone said. “I’d be a very good husband.”
“Oh, come on, Stone; you’re still in love with Arrington, but you’re fucking me.” She smiled. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“What makes you think I’m still in love with Arrington?”
“A woman’s intuition.”
“Let’s just say that Arrington and I never had the kind of closure we should have had. I’d have felt better if we’d had a fight and she’d walked out. And there are other reasons I’m…” He stopped himself.
“Not to pry, but what other reasons?”
“Don’t pry.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll find out eventually anyway.”
“Probably.”
“Well,” she said, putting down her fork, “that was an excellent dinner. Now would you take me home and do lascivious things to me?”
“Love to.” Stone signaled for the check.
They pulled away from the restaurant, which was in a residential neighborhood, and as they did, Stone caught sight of another car pulling in behind them, halfway down the dark block. He thought nothing of it until after a couple of turns, when it was still there.
“I don’t think we should go directly to your house,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Not to get all dramatic, but I think we’re being followed. Don’t look back.”
“Who would be following us?”
“I don’t know, but I’d rather not have them follow us to your place.” They crossed Santa Monica Boulevard and drove up Beverly Drive. “Is there such a thing as a cab stand in this town?” he asked.
“The Beverly Hills Hotel is a few blocks ahead.”
“That’ll do. Why don’t you take the scarf you’re wearing and put it on your head, just to hide the red hair.”
She did as instructed.
They crossed Sunset Boulevard and turned into the driveway of the hotel. “Okay, here’s what we do; there’s only one car and they can’t follow us both. I’m going to drop you at the entrance to the hotel. You go inside, use the ladies’ room, then get a cab and go straight home. I think the car will stick with me; I’ll lose him and turn up at your place later.”
“Whatever you say,” she said as they pulled under the hotel’s portico. “I’m off.” She jumped out of the car and ran inside the lobby.
Stone drove straight through the hotel drive, and his tail picked him up again on Sunset. He caught a glimpse of the car under a street light; it was a Lincoln town car. He devoted himself to losing it.
19
It was late now, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic on Sunset. Stone drove quickly along the winding road, up and down hills. When he reached the freeway he turned south toward the Pacific; the Lincoln stuck with him, a discreet distance back. Stone turned onto the Santa Monica Freeway, then onto Santa Monica Boulevard, driving right down to the beach. He turned left and, glancing at the rental agency’s map, saw he was headed for Venice. The Lincoln had closed to within half a dozen car lengths, which bothered him. Apparently his pursuers didn’t care if he knew they were following him.
He was on a broad street that was nearly empty of traffic, and he began to get annoyed, so he decided to do something he’d been taught years before in a police driving school. He checked his mirrors for traffic, then stomped on the emergency brake, locking the rear wheels, and spun the steering wheel to the left. The car traded ends, then he released the emergency brake and stood on the accelerator. The car behaved impeccably, its three-hundred-plus horses rocketing its small mass back down the street.
The Lincoln blew past in the opposite direction and, simultaneously, the two men in the front seat raised their left hands, blocking his view of their faces, as if they were accustomed to doing it. A moment later, Stone checked
