“I keep running into dogs every time I go through a door,” I said.
“This is Montana,” she said. “He’s very well trained and very friendly, as long as you don’t do something stupid.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“He’s a dear. You’ll grow to love him, just like Rosebud.”
“I’m calling him Rosie, after a prizefighter.”
“I know who Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom is,” she said with fake exasperation.
“How come you call him Montana?”
“Because that’s where he came from. Dad has a little spread out there, uses it for hunting. His caretaker’s dog had pups and I got the pick of the litter.”
A little spread. For hunting. With a caretaker. In Montana. What am I doing here?
I walked past her into a wide hallway that went all the way through the house. There was a staircase on the right side that curved around to the second floor, where what looked like two rooms were tucked into the eaves of the otherwise A-frame structure.
“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” she said, trotting up the steps. “Make yourself at home.” She stopped about halfway up, leaned over the banister, and pointed out directions to me. “The bar’s to your left at the end of the hall, sitting room to the right, terrace straight ahead. Montana will show you around.”
And she disappeared.
Montana stood up and walked slowly toward the rear of the house as if he understood every word. I followed him.
There were archways on both sides of the hall. To my left was the kitchen and to the right, a library, which smelled of leather, its shelves jammed with books. One chair, enormous with an equally enormous ottoman, held down a corner of the room, with a coffee table on one side of it, an unruly stack of magazines on the other side, a floor lamp behind it. The record player and her records filled almost an entire bookshelf behind the chair.
The main room was at the end of the hall and ran the full width of the place. It was huge. The fireplace, an island of brick and brass, served as a room divider, separating the barroom on the left from the sitting room on the right. The ceiling soared above, forming the back side of the A-frame. Skylights made both rooms bright and inviting.
The sitting room was furnished with white goose down sofas and chairs. It was a room decorated for comfort. On a table at one side of the living room were a dozen or so photographs: pictures of Millicent as a child in riding clothes on a black horse; family groups; Millicent on graduation day with her father standing proudly beside her. And one photograph of a roguish-looking young man in an RAF uniform with the insignia of the Eagle Squadron-a group of Americans who, in 1940, had formed their own flying squad within the British Air Force. Scrawled across the bottom was: “To my dear heart, Mill the Pill. Keep the faith. Hugh. 11/14/40.”
An enormous window faced the terrace, with French doors on either side.
And what a terrace.
I followed Montana onto a length of neatly mowed lawn, twenty feet I guessed, up to the swimming pool, which stretched the length of the terrace and looked at first like a reflecting pond. I walked around one end of it out to the edge of the terrace and watched a broad facade of water, almost as long as the pool itself, pouring like a solid sheet straight down on rocks a dozen feet below and, in turn, running into a small pond surrounded by wildflowers. Then there was a tennis court, and beyond it the forest sloped down to a natural stream that tumbled down the hillside. The stone wall ended five feet from the stream, with a gate at its center. On the other side of the creek, nothing but trees. A sudden breeze took the heat out of the air and brought with it a guarantee of rain.
I was in a place far, far away from the L.A. I knew.
“So this is where Adam bumped into Eve,” I said to Montana.
“I assume from that remark you like it,” Millicent said, behind me.
I turned and walked back to the doorway. She was dressed in a pastel blue, lightweight cashmere blazer, white blouse, a pleated yellow silk skirt, and a matching silk scarf around her long, aristocratic neck. She was so chic she embarrassed the word.
“If Eve looked as good as you, Adam wouldn’t have been interested in apples,” I said.
She blushed, her lips parted slightly, and she stared up at me for several seconds. Then she smiled and said, “Wasn’t it Eve who was interested in apples?”
We stood a foot apart, staring at each other, until she broke the spell. “Come on, we’ll be late,” she said. And to Montana, “Alert, Monty.” His attitude changed. He suddenly got serious. He pranced around one corner of the pool and off into the woods.
“He’s beautifully trained,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said brightly. “When he’s on alert, he gets very officious.”
“I can tell. Shall I close this door?” I said as we went back into the house.
“No, leave it open for him, he likes to patrol the place when I’m not here. Or take a swim. Or chase a rabbit. I lock the front door but it’s for show. No thief in his right mind would take him on.”
She turned on a couple of lights and we headed for the door.
“I’ve always had shepherds,” she said, leading me toward the door. “My first was Buck. I named him after the dog in Call of the Wild.”
“Buck was a malamute,” I said.
“Not in my head he wasn’t,” she said with an arrogant lift of her chin.
When we got outside, she turned toward the carport and tossed me her car keys.
“Let’s take the Phaeton,” she said. “You drive.”
“Aww,” I said, “and I’ve got the company’s best car.”
“How did you swing that?”
“I have to go up the coast early in the morning.”
“Is this about Verna?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll be back tomorrow night late.” And dropped it at that.
We made small talk as I kept the car in third gear and wound our way down to Sunset Boulevard, where I turned left, heading up to Hollywood. A block or two from Grauman’s I pulled down a side street and parked in front of Harry’s Absolutely Genuine New York Delicatessen.
British sink Bismarck
And the subhead:
Nazi juggernaut blown from sea;
ENGLISH fleet avenges hood loss
I threw a dime in the cigar box on top of the papers and took two.
Harry’s was just what it claimed to be. Black and white tile floors, red leather booths, white linoleum tabletops, wooden chairs with heart-shaped backs. Lots of light. The smell of salami and pastrami mixed with the rich aroma of the bakery.
Harry, at the front counter slicing turkey, looked up and yowled, “Hey, Zee, where ya been? I thought you died.”
“I’ve been busy, Harry.”
“So, you don’t eat when you’re busy?” He shook his head in disapproval. “Better not let Mama hear.”
“Where is she?”
“Home with the grandkids. It’s Tuesday. Who goes to the deli on Tuesday? Sit anywhere, Zee. Menus on the tables tonight.”
We sat across from each other in one of the front booths and I gave Millie one of the two newspapers I’d picked up by the entrance. Her mouth was agape as she scanned the headline about the Bismarck.
I started reading the story. British dive-bombers had jammed the rudder of Germany’s proudest battleship and it had circled helplessly while the British closed in and blew it to bits. According to the account, the Bismarck lost 2,400 men in its final battle.
Harry came to the table and read the headline over my shoulder.
“Harry, this is my friend Millie,” I said. He stepped back, looked her over, and put his hand over his heart.
“Beautiful, exquisite,” he said, rolling his eyes. “My heart goes pitty-pat. What you think, Zee. You think we
