every minute of it. Why wouldn't she? She didn't know Karen Moffit Beaumont Livingston. I did.
Expecting the immediate outbreak of World War III, I wasn't willing to use a public pay phone to call Rancho Cucamonga. After the play, we took the Porsche, drove to a shady parking place near a park, and called on my cellular phone. I did try Dave's number at work but ended up with voice mail. Taking a deep breath, I dialed the Livingstons' home number.
I hoped Dave would answer, but of course he didn't. 'Hello, Karen,' I said. 'it's Beau.'
Her guard came up just like that. 'What do you want?'
Karen didn't used to be that defensive, and I don't blame her, not anymore. It's a perfectly understandable device to keep from being hurt again. Since she wasn't that way back in the old days when we were first married, I have to accept some of the responsibility for how she is now. Being married to an alcoholic isn't a bed of roses, so I'm willing to shoulder some of the blame. Some, but not all.
'I've found Kelly,' I heard myself blabbing into the phone. 'She's in Ashland, Oregon, and she's okay… No, she's fine, really. Karen, listen to me. No, I'm telling you, she's all right.'
Karen was crying into the receiver so hard I wasn't sure if she heard a word I said. I looked over at Alex for help and encouragement. She nodded, urging me forward, but she didn't offer any other help. In this deal, I was strictly on my own.
I forged ahead. 'Karen,' I said reasonably, 'calm down and listen. This is important. Kelly is getting married on Monday. Tomorrow. I'm calling to see if there's any way you and Dave and Scott can make it up here on such short notice.'
The words had the same effect as a bucket of cold water. 'Married?' Karen sputtered. 'She can't do that.'
'Yes, she can.'
'Who's she marrying?'
'A boy named Jeremy Cartwright.'
'When?'
'I already told you. The wedding's set for two-thirty tomorrow afternoon here in Ashland, Oregon.' I paused and took a deep breath before I said the rest. 'Kelly's pregnant, Karen.'
I held the phone away from my ear during the angry tirade that followed, but sooner than I would have expected, Karen grew oddly silent.
'Look,' I said. 'I know this hurts like hell, but you'll have to decide whether or not you want to be part of it.'
Seven hundred and fifty miles away, the telephone receiver clattered noisily onto a tabletop in Rancho Cucamonga. That in itself was a pretty definitive answer. I figured it was a final one, but a moment later Dave Livingston came on the phone.
'Thanks for saving my ass and not letting her know I called you,' he said. 'I'll handle things on this end. Where can I call you once she comes around?'
'You think she will?'
'Yeah,' Dave said. 'I'm sure of it.'
I looked down at the phone in my hand. There really wasn't any place for him to return a call. Alex and I had play tickets for the Elizabethan. I had no intention of spending the remainder of the afternoon and evening in the car waiting for the telephone to ring.
'Call my home number in Seattle,' I said. 'Leave a message for Ralph Ames.'
'Who's he?'
'My attorney. If you have trouble with airline connections or anything like that, call Ralph and let him go to work on it. He'll sort it out.'
'You have an attorney who handles airline arrangements?' Dave asked. 'It must be nice.'
'He's a friend,' I explained. 'Call him if you need help.'
I hung up and looked at Alex. 'Way to go,' she said.
Then I dialed my home number in Seattle. Ralph still wasn't there, but he would be soon. He'd pitch in and do whatever needed doing. I left a message. Maybe voice mail isn't all bad. After that, I put down the phone and turned to Alex. 'Okay. I've done my duty. Now what?'
She glanced at her watch. 'We've just got time to meet Dinky for dinner.'
'Where?'
'It's a surprise.'
'Great. I love surprises.' I turned the key. 'Which way?'
'Back through town then north past the light. Stop at the phone booth.'
'Stop at a phone booth? Are you putting me on?'
'That's what the directions say,' Alex said. 'I've got them written down right here. It says there's no sign outside, just a three-by-five card on the door. Dinky says it's an old gas station, but the food's great.'
'Sure it is,' I said, unconvinced. 'Every old gas station serves great food. They've all turned into AM/PM Minimarts. What are we having? Ho-Ho's?'
'Beau,' Alex declared firmly, 'Dinky would never steer us wrong.'
At the intersection, I turned left on Siskiyou Boulevard. 'Wanna bet?' I said.
Fortunately, we didn't bet. The food at Cowboy Sam's New Bistro probably would have been excellent, if we had actually stayed around long enough to eat any of it. We drove to an ancient, porticoed gas station north of town. The only distinguishing feature visible from the road really was a phone booth, but the inside of the building had been remodeled into a series of small, intimate lace-curtained dining rooms. The several glossily enameled wooden tables-I counted only eight-were already filling up.
The proprietor, who must have been Cowboy Sam himself, led us to a table where Dinky Holloway was already seated and waiting. Even to someone who had only seen her once, she didn't look quite right. To Alex it must have been even more apparent that something was dreadfully wrong.
'Dinky, what's going on? You look terrible.'
Dinky gave Alex a wan smile. We started to sit down. The way the table was arranged, I headed for the chair that was next to the wall, but this was a very old gas station. The low, sloping ceiling was too short for me to stand upright next to the wall. There seemed to be a lot of that going around in Ashland: first the sloping bathroom ceiling at the Oak Hill B now the same kind of construction at a converted gasoline station. I was beginning to think Ashland was built by and for midgets.
Alex and I quickly traded seats while Denver Holloway studied me with a frankly assessing look. 'Are you really as trustworthy as Alex says?' she asked.
I glanced at Alex. 'I'd like to think so, why?'
Dinky reached into a cavernous purse and extracted a semi-clear plastic container, the kind you get from video stores.
'What's that?' I asked.
She put it down on the table and then pushed it to the center as though she didn't want it too near her.
'Just what it looks like,' she answered. 'A videotape. It showed up in my inter-office mail this afternoon.'
Since Denver Holloway was regarding the container with the kind of guarded wariness most people reserve for a coiled rattlesnake, it seemed possible she was leaving something unsaid.
'What kind of videotape?' I asked.
'Filth.'
'Filth?' I repeated, not sure I had heard her correctly. 'As in porno flick?'
She nodded grimly. 'It came today along with this.' She pushed a piece of paper across the table. Typed on it was the following: Dinky, Someone like this is a liability to the Festival and will drive away donors. Get rid of her as soon as possible. Monica.
'As soon as I read it, I went storming down to Monica's office and bitched her out. I'm a director with some artistic integrity. I'll be damned if I'll be threatened by some hotshot golden girl pulling the purse strings.'
Alex looked at me and rolled her eyes. 'That's one meeting I'm glad I missed. What happened?'
'Monica denied it,' Dinky continued. 'Said she'd never seen any videotape, and that she hadn't sent the note, either.'
'What happened then?'
