He glared at her, then stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door.
She leaned against it, breathing hard. “Jail,” she thought.
CHAPTER SIX
Despite the sleepless excitement at the thought of going to jail for her principles, Bertie made it to work on time. She wended her way circuitously through the desks to Shawn’s, avoiding the glass wall of editors’ offices.
As ad revenues and subscriptions declined in newspaper across the country, positions weren’t being filled as people retired or landed another job and that left a lot of empty desks in a newsroom that used to be filled with good reporters, some of them Pulitzer Prize winners. Bad for the paper and bad for Bertie: It was harder to keep a low profile in a half-empty room.
Shawn was packing up his laptop and notebooks before leaving for the courthouse, where he planned to dig into Bellingham’s public records. He stopped long enough to listen to her encounter with Detective Madison, then laughed. “You really don’t think he’s going to subpoena your notes, do you? C’mon, Bertie, what could you possibly have that he would want?” Shawn was a nice guy, but his piggyness banged the gong when it came to her work.
“He must think I have enough to threaten me with jail,” she said heatedly.
What kind of business was this where a person got angry at not going to jail?
“Don’t worry about it,” Shawn said. “He’s really a nice guy. They’re under a lot of pressure to nail someone for Bellingham’s murder. Somebody that rich counts for a lot in this city, even if he was a total creep.”
Bertie started toward her desk, then turned back to ask him what he knew about the strange woman at the Bellingham mansion yesterday, but he was already gone.
Settled in at her desk, she picked up where she’d left off on the story about the latest Mamie Eisenhower-inspired fashions, but her mind was all wrapped up with the Bellingham case, so she phoned Monica Griswold, a mover-and-shaker in the city’s billion-dollar design industry, and asked her to lunch. The official reason was to pick her mind about the latest trends in furniture (was the lip-shaped sofa or the hand chair hot this season?), but she was also tied into the Bel Air gossip. Bertie was in the Bellingham story and she was going to stay there.
A chi-chi outdoor cafe on a chi-chi street, an understanding with the hunky waiter for separate checks, and Bertie was ready. Monica ran a chicken-claw hand through her waterfall of blonde hair, and straightened the firehouse red silk blouse that bared the abyss between her breasts. She was 55 trying for 25. After several minutes of blah-blah about furniture, Monica surprised Bertie by asking about the Bellinghams. Wait a minute, who was pumping whom?
“I saw your story about Robert Bellingham the other day, Bertie. Ve-r-r-ry nice,” Monica said. Translation: I didn’t think you had enough clout to land an interview with him.
“I’d been putting it off for awhile, but his people kept calling me, and it was just easier to say yes,” Bertie said. Translation: I’m lying but take that, bitch.
“Well, the timing was sooo fortuitous. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen your name out in front of the paper like that. Your story was very... um, careful, that’s the word I’m looking for. What did you really think of Bel Air’s first family?” Acid dripped off the words.
“R1 is, was, an interesting man.”
“Oh, puhleeze,” Monica peeped at Bertie over the rim of her large sunglasses, which she’d slid to the tip of her artificially aquiline nose. (Rumor had it that Monica Griswold had started life as Myrtle Chivetzsky from Altoona, Pa., but if she didn’t lay off the plastic surgery, her coffin would be filled with a Michael Jackson named Monica.) “We’re off the record, right?”
Bertie loved it when people flung that phrase around as if it was secret code for “I’m going to commit slander, but you won’t say anything, will you? Even though it’s your business to tell people things?”
But Bertie was willing to go off the record to hear what Monica had to say.
“Sure,” Bertie said.
“He was an absolute nightmare and so is that family. Did he grab your ta-ta’s, dear?”
Bertie froze briefly, wondering how much to tell, but Monica said, “Don’t bother to answer, I know he did. Every female within pawing distance was fair game. He wouldn’t leave ME alone. Such a horror.
“And those poor children! They’re both so unattractive and so odd, they were just targets—absolute targets—for him. Did you meet the daughter? Bella!” she snorted. “Italian for beautiful. I wonder who came up with that one! She was always a … a … lumpy little thing. And did I say odd? When anyone spoke to her she’d either stare off into space or say something so strange that people would just gawp at her. R1 used to tell people that she’d had a touch of Ebola as a child.”
“I did see her,” Bertie said. “She lives at the mansion, right?”
“No. They keep it quiet, but R1 moved her out a few years ago. She’s a packrat, filled her room with the most appalling piles of junk that she refused to throw out. When the housekeeper found crawly things she started tossing stuff in the trashcan. Bella threw an absolute fit. Quite frightening, I heard.
“Now she lives in one of the buildings her father owns. It’s a nice place, one of those retro-hip back-in-style mansions that he cut up into apartments. He’s having trouble keeping tenants, though, I understand. Cockroaches and rats will do that to property values, you know.
“But Bella’s happy. She collects all the junk she wants, the other tenants be damned, and she’s out of the family’s sight.” Monica slid her sunglasses back on to cover the deep crow’s feet etched around her eyes as the waiter-wannabe-actor served their salads.
They both watched as he walked away, then Monica leaned forward, giving Bertie a look at the silicone inlays she could’ve done without. “She’s the ‘brains’ behind the company’s ‘limited edition’ product line.” Monica blew out a fart-like laugh.
“Ha! Some products! Giorgio-scented dishwashing liquid. I mean, really, who wants their dishes to smell like Giorgio? And have you heard the latest? They’re working on monogrammed air bags for ‘the crash with panache.’ “
Another snort. “She might’ve made the money for the rest of them, but they not want her around. Too weird. She didn’t get along with GiGi or the staff, including the gardener, Mr. Gardener.”
Monica suddenly got conspicuously casual. “So, what’s happening with that, dear? Have they discovered his motive for murdering R1 yet?” Bertie realized Monica hadn’t read Shawn’s story in today’s paper about Gardener’s release. She gave Monica the official story: He had an alibi for the murder, but not that it came from Delia (or—God forbid—that R1 might have sponsored the affair). Bertie nattered on for several minutes without giving away anything that wasn’t already public knowledge.
“I suppose that means he’ll be at his usual spot in the bar tonight,” Monica said. Bertie looked at her with a question in her eyes. “The gardener … he’s quite a rake. Oh, ha ha, I made a joke … gardener—rake, get it?” Monica brayed, snorted several times, then wound down.”Where was I? Oh, yes, the gardener is quite notorious in the neighborhood,” Monica said. “Spends a lot of his evenings at the Chadwick Arms bar where he makes himself, shall we say ‘available’ to the lonely wives of Bel Air. He’s considered a perk for women who have everything.
“I don’t know if he actually gets paid … I mean, how would I know? But I’m sure that he receives ‘gifts.’ I’m also quite sure a lot of hubbies look the other way just to keep their little women happy. As long as it’s kept quiet, and it is, believe me.”
The gardener hangs around in a bar? Bertie majored in hanging around in bars in college. Time for a refresher course.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bertie felt conspicuously alone sitting at the bar in the Chadwick Arms. The slightest noise created an echo and it was so “intimately lit” that Bertie felt like she was in a cave. If she had to go to the bathroom, she was in big trouble b
ecause she couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of her.
There were flickering candles on the small tables stationed around the cavernous room giving the white tablecloths a surreal look in the gloom, as if they were floating in air. Way up on the dim ceiling, there were mahogany half-beams and on the walls hung pictures of dead ducks—yet another confirmation that money didn’t automatically confer good taste.
She had to admit, though, that the lack of light gave her reflection in the mirror over the bar an ethereal look. Her bare shoulders in the little black dress she’d borrowed gleamed as white as the heroine’s in a bodice-ripper. She wasn’t used to being this dressed up, and after the first 15 minutes she felt that everyone must be thinking she was a hooker. She hoped no one called the Vice Squad. “Or offers me anything less than a hundred,” Bertie thought.
At 8 p.m., she was the only one sitting at the bar. A young, extremely well-dressed couple huddled together at a table across the room.
The minutes ticked away tediously. Really, she was getting too old for this … what did people get out of it? The bartender, a very good-looking guy in a town of good-looking guys, introduced himself as Jeff Dromgoll. He was going to be an actor (in L.A.? stop the presses) and Bertie listened to him natter on about his latest audition and what TV shows he thought were best, and should he change his name to Guilliard, you know, like Juilliard but with a “guh” and how an agent had told him he had the talent of Brando and the looks of... did he say Mickey Rooney? Bertie realized she’d dozed off with her eyes open. George Clooney, not Mickey Rooney.
His limited vocabulary and even more limited conversational skills reduced Bertie to staring alternatively into her drink, and then into the mirror in front of her to see who came in behind her. Eventually, he drifted away.
For a Friday, the place was amazingly empty. Maybe things heated up later in the evening, but if this was a big night in Bel Air it was a bust. After an hour on the padded bar stool her rear-end was starting to hurt and she had to go to the bathroom, as she’d feared. She’d have to borrow a flashlight from the bartender to light the way. She was ready to give up and go home.
She was looking through her purse for a fiver to tip Dromgoll/Guilliard/ Brando/Rooney/Clooney when he came in. She recognized him from the garden fisticuffs yesterday. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize her because he’d had his face buried in a bed of purple pansies under a pile of R2 and Delia.
He made quite a physical statement in the staid bar. The bartender was better looking, but he didn’t put out the laser beams of sexuality that Gardener did in a black leather coat, black T-shirt and black jeans. Her heart beat faster, but he ignored her for the first 20 minutes, propping up the bar, downing a drink, and bantering with the hunk behind the bar. Apparently they were old friends because the guffaws were hearty and the chortling frequent. A round of high-fives was going to break out any second.
Eventually, the bartender nodded slightly in her direction and after a few more minutes of overly casual conversation, Gardener came her way carrying a fresh drink. Bertie didn’t see him pay.
“Hi,” he said. “Slow night, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s way better than it was a minute ago.” The flirting felt wrong, especially since she wasn’t sure what she was doing there. Unless he confessed in front of the bartender, she couldn’t use anything in a story, but pursuing the philosophy that any information was good information she hung in there. As long as she didn’t actively misstate her purpose for being there, she was OK with the ethics of the situation.
They started chatting, Bertie trying to create an opening to talk about the Bellinghams. After a couple of more drinks, which Bertie bought, he was throwing out double entendres and leaning slightly against her. She grasped his hand, moving it out of her lap where he’d casually left it.
She was exasperated and a little bored when he said, “You know, you remind me a little bit of my mother.” If that was a come-on line, it was one of the worst she’d ever heard.
“That’s flattering,” she lied. “How’s that?”
“You have kind eyes, and there’s just a way about you.” He moved away from her, put his elbows on the bar and stared down into his empty glass. She ordered them another drink and he took a big gulp. Bertie let the moment simmer then asked gently, “Where is your mom?”
“She’s dead.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too. She was a good lady. She didn’t deserve to be treated the way she was.”
“Bad situation at home?”
Bertie’s sympathy wasn’t feigned at this point. He seemed like a nice guy, despite everything she’d heard. She wondered at how lonely he was that he had to talk to a complete stranger in a bar.
“It was OK between my mom and dad. He’s dead, too. She told me something right before she died.” He stared down into his drink and stopped. “Look, you’re not interested in this. I can’t believe I’m telling you this stuff.”
“No, I really want to hear … tell me. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. Who better to tell your troubles to than a stranger in a bar? Please, I’m interested.” She meant it.
He looked up, looked into her eyes and sighed. “Before I was born, my mom worked as a maid for some married rich guy.” His tone turned bitter. “A real creep, but he was nice to her, at least at first. She was married to my dad, who was the gardener on the guy’s estate. She was just a young kid and she fell for the crap the rich guy was handing her. She said she gave in to him once, just once.”
Bertie doubted it but wasn’t going to dispute a story told by a dying mom to her son.
“She told me they made it in the garden of the guy’s mansion, in the lavender.” He stopped again, draining his drink. Bertie ordered him another. He didn’t notice, just picked it up and started drinking.
“In the lavender! In the garden my dad took care of! And my mom was his maid, she had to wash the clothes he was wearing when … when he... She said she could never get the smell of lavender out of the knees of his jodphurs.
“I hate that guy, I hate him! And I hate the smell of lavender.”
His hands were flexing, and his breathing was heavy. Bertie realized how easy it would’ve been for him to kill Bellingham. He had the physical strength and his rage was scary. “She would’ve never told me, she said, but she wanted me to know that I’m really the rich guy’s kid. That my dad was never my dad. She never told my dad, he thought he was my father and so did I.
“But she wanted me to know so I could get my share of the rich guy’s dough. That he owed me, and he does! He let us live in a cottage on the estate and he paid for me to go to rich kids’ schools. He said it was just to help out the gardener’s kid, but I know it was because of what would happen if he didn’t fork over something.
“He owes me more than a two-bit education I’ll never use. Robert Bellingham owes me more than that! I deserve his money after the way he treated my mom.”
“Why don’t you sue him?”
“My mom was a good woman, she had a lot of friends, she went to church. I didn’t want to drag it all out in public if I could’ve settled it on my own. I was trying to get proof, but now it looks like I will have to sue. SHIT!” he said, hitting the bar with a clenched fist. Glasses rattled.
She jumped at the violence, and the bartender shot a disapproving look their way. They sat quietly again while he drained his drink. How many was that? His third or his fourth? He turned again to her and almost fell off the stool. He was sloshed. He opened his mouth to say something when a short slender man in an expensive suit entered the bar, spotted them, and took the shortest distance between two points to stand between them.
“Hey, John-boy, who’s your friend?” The man was drenched in cologne, one of Bertie’s pet peeves. His hair was goopy with pomade and he stood too close to Bertie, close enough to look down her dress. She tried to hitch it up, but he was right on top of her and she decided to let him look rathe
r than let him know he made her nervous. “This is Birdie,” Gardener said. “Birdie, this is my lawyer, Lester Lomax.” “It’s Bertie, with a T, and hello, how are you?”
“I’m a lot better than I was a minute ago,” he said. Bertie couldn’t believe he’d thrown a variation of the same line she’d used on Gardener at her. She made her living with words; she’d really have to do better.
“Hey, Bertie’s a nice person, don’t give her any of that, Les.”
“I can see that she’s nice.” Lomax leered at her.
Bertie started making I’m-leaving-now movements, stretching a toe to the floor from the high stool.
“Oh come on, don’t leave yet. I just got here,” Lomax said. He moved even closer and then squinted at her face.
“Wait a minute, I know you, don’t I? I know you, you work for the paper. You wrote a story about the Beverly Hills Preschool Fashion Show my daughter was in.”
She remembered. He and his pushy wife had paraded their little girl in front of her, introducing her, spelling her name. Bertie hadn’t included the toddler’s name in her story, even though she was a cute little thing, because of the parents’ obnoxiousness.
“John, what have you been saying to her? You haven’t been telling her anything about our little matter, have you? What did you ask him, did you tell him you’re a reporter? I can make all kinds of trouble for you if you misrepresented yourself to my client.”
His voice was rising and the couple huddled at the table were staring. She got up, threw some money on the bar, and said quietly to John. “I’m not going to write anything. I’m sorry about your mother.”
Lomax followed her out, berating her loudly the whole way. People stared, but no one intervened. “What’s your editor’s name? I’m going to call him first thing Monday morning. You’re in big trouble, you know that, don’t you?”
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