Emerald

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I stopped where I was, staring up at him. “How did you know? How did you get here?”

  “You came by the scenic route. There’s a shorter way up. And I knew because Linda phoned this morning and asked me to come.”

  Wally led us into the dining area, and while many of the tables were occupied, obviously no large affair was in progress that would take all of Alva’s attention. From across the room, she saw Wally and came toward us, her manner cheerful but a little forced.

  She must have been a very young woman when she’d worked at Monica’s studio—younger than Monica or Saxon. Now she was frankly plump, and her hair, twisted on top of her head, was an interesting shade of near-red. Her face seemed more youthful than her years, and her manner was vigorous, lively, uninhibited.

  “You weren’t supposed to come,” she told us frankly. “But since you’re here, we have a table for you.” She greeted Jason, whom she knew, and then led the way to a table beside a window overlooking the tops of pine trees.

  “Mind if I join you?” Wally asked, clearly acting under instructions not to let us out of his sight. There was nothing we could do but accept his glowering presence.

  As I studied the menu, Alva bent to speak to me. “Nicos is out right now, but he may be back before you leave. When you’ve finished lunch we can talk about Monica a little.” Wally scowled and she grinned at him. “With certain guidelines, of course.”

  I was inclined to like Alva, even though she was bowing to Saxon’s wishes.

  The restaurant offered Greek and Mideastern dishes, and I ordered felafel and a salad with feta cheese, while Jason asked for something exotic wrapped in vine leaves. It was hardly a festive occasion.

  Jason, as I was coming to realize, could be a quiet, listening presence, not demanding attention, but missing nothing. When we’d ordered, he spoke directly to Wally.

  “What’s this all about? Why are you really here?”

  “Believe me, I wish I wasn’t. I’ve got other things to do in Palm Springs. Monica sent word through Linda that I was to get up here pronto and keep an eye on things. I’m supposed to make sure Alva doesn’t get carried away and talk too much.”

  “About what?” Jason asked quietly.

  “I’m not sure. Just no talk about El Mirador. That’s what Linda said.”

  “And no talk about Peggy Smith?” I put in.

  “Right. But I’ve been handed another mission as well. As it happens, I was having breakfast with Owen Barclay at Saxon’s restaurant when Linda tracked me down.”

  I could feel the fine hairs rise at the back of my neck. I’d felt earlier that there might be some connection with Owen, and this was disturbing. I didn’t want my perceptions to be so right.

  “Why were you seeing him?” I demanded.

  Wally grinned at me, almost amiable now. “Because he invited me. I may be leaving Saxon’s employ, you know, and Mr. Barclay pays rather well for—well, you might call it messenger service.”

  Jason put a quieting hand on my arm. “You’d better explain, Wally.”

  “I couldn’t just run off when word came from Linda, leaving Mr. Barclay without an explanation, could I? When he knew I’d see you, he asked me to give you something from him, Carol.”

  Wally reached into his pocket and drew out a thick envelope, handing it to me across the table. When I didn’t reach for it, Jason took it from him.

  “Do you want me to open it?” he asked me.

  I answered quickly, “No! Whatever it is, I don’t want it. Just take it back to him, Wally.”

  “Oh, I can’t do that,” Wally said airily. “Mission unaccomplished? Never! Not for Owen Barclay.”

  I took the envelope reluctantly and slipped it into my handbag. I had no intention of opening it while Wally watched—and could report my reaction to Owen. The fact that Owen knew I was up here in the mountains was more disturbing than ever.

  “I want to make a phone call,” I said.

  Wally indicated a public telephone, and I dialed Smoke Tree House. When Linda answered, I told her that Owen had been able to reach me through Wally, and that he knew I was away from the house without Keith.

  She spoke soothingly. “Don’t worry, Carol. Everything’s fine here. Keith is having a wonderful time with Monica, and Owen won’t be allowed into this house again. You really can trust me on that, Carol dear.”

  Perhaps I could. But how could I trust Monica, who often seemed motivated by sudden impulses that she followed on the spur of any moment?

  “I won’t stay away too long,” I promised Linda. “We’re finishing lunch, and as soon as I’ve talked to Alva, we’ll start for home.”

  I went back to our table, and when we’d finished a pastry of sesame seeds and honey, Alva invited us to have coffee in the living quarters back of the restaurant.

  The big, slightly shabby room was done in soft shades of green and yellow that matched the outdoors with its pines and patches of sunlight. Nicos had not yet returned, and I sat down uneasily and tried to relax enough to conduct a sensible interview.

  Jason stood near a window, leaving the floor to me, but I sensed gratefully that he was listening and would be ready to step in if I needed help. Wally hovered restlessly, never out of earshot.

  Alva remembered well the old, great days, and if part of me hadn’t been preoccupied I’d have enjoyed her stories more. The package from Owen was always there in my mind.

  I hadn’t expected her to show the warmth of affection she revealed in talking about Monica Arlen. Perhaps she had made a separation between the time she remembered and the present. Saxon came into her stories too, though here she hedged a bit delicately, as though her own more personal memories might get in the way. Listening, I found myself wondering if she’d ever really fallen out of love with him, and if Monica had always stood between them.

  “You’ve probably no idea how strong it was—the Arlen-Scott wave that swept the country when those films were new,” she said. “Young men began to dress casually like Saxon Scott, and they tried to imitate that macho image he projected on a screen. Women copied Arlen’s hair, even to the way it swept over those marvelous cheekbones when she turned her head. And of course they copied its color. There was a company that put out Arlen wigs long before Eva Gabor wigs came along. They even tried to imitate that exotic tilt of her eyes that came off so well on the screen.”

  “Her eyes still look like that,” I said, “but I understand you helped them along for the camera, Alva.”

  “I never wanted to do that. I thought she was perfect the way she was. But she insisted, so I did the best I could to gild the lily. They never make pictures like that anymore, and something’s been lost to America. The magic is gone. What we have is teenage stuff—horror and occult and space. Sex and brutality and violence. Dreadful pictures!”

  “There are good movies being made today—a few,” I said. “Though of course they’re different. The make-believe glamour is gone. The myths aren’t accepted anymore. When we look at the old pictures on television now, we know they’re make-believe.”

  Alva almost snapped at me. “We needed the relief of make-believe when the country was in a terrible depression. And when the war came along. We needed heroes and heroines! We could come out of a movie house with a lift to our spirits, instead of feeling depressed.”

  Jason turned from the window. “But didn’t that sort of make-believe do a lot of damage too? Kids grew up expecting life to be like the movies.”

  “Yes!” I said. “I went a long way down that road myself. If all those silver dreams hadn’t been in my eyes, perhaps—” I didn’t finish the thought out loud—that perhaps I’d never have married Owen Barclay.

  “You really are going to write about Monica Arlen, aren’t you?” Alva said, as though she hadn’t quite believed, even while she was telling me stories.

  “Of course I am. That’s why I must talk to a great many different people.”

  Alva shook her head. “It’s a wonder she will
let you go ahead.”

  “She can’t stop me.”

  “What’s she like now—the woman she’s turned into?”

  I hesitated, and Jason spoke from his place near the window. “She’s still living her make-believe. Smoke Tree House is her fantasy now—cut off from the real world.”

  “Yes. I suppose that’s the only way she could live.”

  I had to protest. “If she comes out for this benefit appearance, she may surprise everyone. She’ll give them her special magic and make them believe whatever she wants them to believe.”

  “I hope she doesn’t do that. It’s too risky. I mean Saxon—” Alva jumped up to run across the room. She picked up a framed picture—an enlarged shot of herself and Monica, and brought it over to me. “Nicos took this a year or so before Mirage was made.”

  Monica wore pleats and a cashmere sweater, with a scarf tied jauntily at her throat. She had been hamming a little, the smaller Alva exaggeratedly adoring beside her.

  I looked sadly at Monica’s laughing face. “There isn’t much fun left in her. I wish I could have known her when she was like this. Why did you say it might be risky for her to appear at the benefit?”

  Alva took the picture from me and replaced it. When she spoke it was over her shoulder, not looking at me. “Legends should be allowed to stay legends. Besides, I don’t like cruelty under any circumstances, and I think Saxon is being cruel.”

  “I think so too,” I agreed. “Just the same, Monica has decided to go through with it, and perhaps she’ll fool him, if he thinks he’s going to humiliate her. Tell me why you think he’s being cruel?”

  Wally came to life. “Saxon said there was to be no talk about the benefit.”

  “But why ever not?” I demanded.

  “Yes, Wally”—Jason backed me up—“why doesn’t Saxon want any talk about the benefit?”

  “How do I know?” Wally sputtered. “He never tells me anything. And it was Linda he talked to.”

  “We don’t owe Saxon anything anymore!” Alva was suddenly vehement. “We can talk about anything we please!”

  “No, we can’t.” A man’s voice spoke from the doorway. “We still owe Saxon plenty! More than I like to owe him. You’d better remember that, Alva.”

  Nicos Leonidas had come into the room. He was a lot bigger than his wife—massive in an overpowering way. He wore a full black beard peppered with gray, and his gray eyebrows made tremendous overhangs above dark eyes that seemed to challenge whatever he saw. I found it difficult to imagine him as the young photographer who had known better than any other how to bring out Monica’s beauty with his camera.

  “Now then,” he boomed, “what’s all this about? You weren’t supposed to let them come, Alva.”

  “Hello, Nicos,” Jason said. “Carol’s a free agent. She can go where she pleases. Scott has nothing to say about that.”

  “I’ve only told her about the way it used to be,” Alva assured her husband. She hurried to introduce me, sounding like a child caught out in some misdeed, clearly ready to be submissive, now that Nicos had appeared.

  He shook hands with me stiffly, and I made a small effort to disarm Alva’s husband. “I’ve seen every one of those Monica Arlen pictures when you were the cameraman. You made that camera love her.”

  He stared at me somberly, and I was startled to see moisture in his eyes. “Everyone loved her,” he said, and the angry boom was gone from his voice.

  “Will you tell me about her?” I asked.

  He sat down across from me and began to talk quietly about Monica Arlen, reminiscing with affection.

  I made notes until he paused. “I wish she could hear you,” I said. “It would do her good.”

  His emotional shifts could be immediate, and he was at once brusque again. “All that’s over! What she used to be. You shouldn’t have come here at all.”

  “But we are here,” I pointed out. “And I’m glad you’ve both shared some of your memories with me. I’d like to do her justice—as honestly as I can.”

  He only scowled. The interview was at an end, and it was time to go. I thanked them both, and Jason came with me to the door.

  Wally followed as we left, as though he didn’t mean to trust us from his sight until we were safely on our way. When we drove toward the road, he stood staring after us.

  Out of sight of the Lindos, Alva Leonidas was waiting near the road. Jason braked beside her, and she handed me a slip of folded paper.

  “Take this, Carol. And don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.” Her words came out in a rush. “Go and see this man in Desert Hot Springs. Maybe he can tell you more about what you want to know. I can’t talk, because Nicos would have a fit. He’s the reality I must live with. The Monica Arlen part of our lives was so long ago, and we can’t get involved now.”

  I thanked her, and as we drove away I opened the paper and read aloud what she had written:

  You must try to see Henry Arlen. He’s Monica’s cousin, once or twice removed, and he knew her when she was growing up on her parents’ ranch near where Desert Hot Springs became a town. He still lives there, and he works part time at Cabot’s pueblo.

  Saxon and Monica are trying to bluff each other, and you’d better be prepared. Henry should know. I’m sorry I can’t talk to you.

  Alva Leonidas

  “I suppose you’ll want to see him?” Jason said.

  “Yes—though I didn’t know Monica had another living relative. That means I do too.”

  Now, however, something else was uppermost in my mind. The thought of it had never been far away, nagging at me ever since Wally Davis had handed me the package from Owen. As Jason turned the car onto the highway, I took the envelope from my bag and opened it. I found it filled with tissue—and suddenly I knew. I knew before I unwrapped the protective packing that Owen had sent me Monica’s emerald ring.

  FIFTEEN

  I took the ring from the tissue and slipped it onto the fourth finger of my right hand. All the ramifications of what this meant were springing at me.

  I knew Ralph had pushed me into the pool, even though he denied it. So it must have been Ralph who had stripped the ring from my finger and taken it to Owen. Perhaps as proof of what he’d done? If this was true, he could very well be in Owen’s pay, and my last shred of safety at Smoke Tree House was shattered for good. To close the circle, knowing how it would devastate me, Owen had used Wally as his messenger and returned the ring.

  Jason glanced at me. “Do you want to stop for a while, Carol?”

  “No—I must get back to Smoke Tree House as quickly as possible!”

  “We’re taking the route along the top,” Jason said. “It’s a lot shorter. So just hang on.”

  The sound of his voice, calm, reassuring, helped me. I found myself watching his hands on the wheel as he drove—brown hands with long fingers, squared at the tips. Exciting hands. But I didn’t dare think about that.

  “I haven’t any commitments right now, so I can drive you to Desert Hot Springs tomorrow, if you like,” he offered. “Then you can talk to Henry Arlen—if you think that will help. We can bring Keith with us. I know he’ll like Cabot’s Hopi pueblo. I took Gwen there a couple of years ago and she decided that was where she wanted to live.”

  I knew how he felt when he spoke of Gwen because I’d been where he was, and was terrified of being there again. Jason’s words had drawn me back from the edge of horror that the ring had brought me to, and I knew that I must go on with what I needed to do, and somehow protect Keith at the same time. It would be better to have him with me tomorrow.

  The miles went by and we descended once more to the desert, to meet the highway cutting through the pass from Los Angeles. Mt. San Jacinto stood apart from the mother range, dominating it in height, but separate from it. Named, I’d been told, by the Spaniards after a St. Hyacinth. The White Water River rushed along it course beside the road, and wind tunneled down from the pass, pushing at the car from behind. The gale was so fiercely
habitual here that signs had been posted to warn of high winds. As the road turned south around the mountain’s flank, we were once more in the valley, approaching Palm Springs.

  Its palm-lined avenues were a welcome sight in my eagerness to reach the house. No blue car waited at Monica’s gate, and the guard waved us through.

  Linda came hurrying out to greet us, her expression anxious. “You shouldn’t have gone!” she wailed. “Monica is furious!”

  I got out, not stopping to argue with Linda. “Where is Keith?”

  “He’s all right,” she said impatiently. “Monica kept him busy all morning, and this afternoon Helsa went up to the pool to watch him swim. That’s where they are now. Keith isn’t the problem—you are!” She turned to her brother. “Will you stay, Jason? I need to talk to you both.”

  He shook his head. “Thanks, not this time. I want to get back to the ranch. Will you be all right now, Carol?”

  “I’m fine.” I had to be fine, for Keith’s sake.

  “Then I’ll pick you and Keith up around nine in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Jason. For everything.”

  He seemed to understand, and he held my hand for a moment, as he’d done before. “We’ll see it through, Carol,” he said, and I knew he had come completely over to my side. This comforted me a little as he drove away.

  I turned back to Linda. “I’ll go talk to Monica at once.”

  “No, you won’t, because she’s not here. Ralph has driven her into town to see Owen Barclay and his lawyers. About the sale of Cadenza, of course. She wouldn’t let me go with her, but I got hold of her attorney and sent him over right away. So she can’t do anything foolish.”

  I held out my hand with the ring for Linda to see.

  “Oh, good—you found it!”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “Wally had breakfast with Owen this morning, and Owen gave him the ring to return to me.”

  Linda’s eyes widened. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. I’m sure Ralph is behind this.”

  “Oh no! I can’t believe—” She sounded shocked.