Jury wondered if perhaps she thought he’d missed it. “I’ve noticed.” He was pulling out his police identification.
“You’re registering, Mr.—?” Her well-tended eyebrows rose in a question.
“Jury. It’s Superintendent Jury, actually. Scotland Yard CID.” Here was something new! He was rather pleased when the woman looked startled; he held up the warrant card so that both of them could see it, flashy as a press pass. The first woman seemed to be primping her hair as she looked, as if the little square of plastic were a pocket mirror. “I’m making some inquiries,” he explained.
The second woman, Patsy, was a bit quicker off the mark than the first. “Angela Hope. You’re here about Angela Hope, aren’t you?”
“Did you know her, then?”
Patsy shook her head. “Not really. I mean, yes, I’d seen her. In that shop she had on Canyon Road. Didn’t really know her, though.”
“I was here, actually, about these two women. They stayed, we think, at the La Fonda. At least for a day or two.” Jury lined up the two photos of Fanny Hamilton and Nell Hawes. “It’s possible, though, one or the other might have stopped somewhere else, too.” The Rancho del Reposo would have been way beyond Nell Hawes’s means, but not Frances Hamilton’s. “Do you recognize either of them?”
Patsy tapped the photo of Fanny Hamilton. “This one, yes. She stayed here. You remember her, Em? American but with an English accent?”
Em squinted at the photos. Needed glasses, probably, and probably too conscious of her looks to wear them all the time. She slipped a pair out of a cowhide case and put them on. Then she nodded. “Yes. She was here—let’s see—October? November? Yes, it was before Thanksgiving. Had one of the casitas. Don’t recall offhand which. But I can get that for you—” She turned around to the shelves where Patsy had been dealing with the registration cards.
Jury asked Patsy, “Did she have any visitors you remember?”
“Oh, well, that’s a tall order. My memory’s good, but not that good. Let me think . . . ” She seemed sincerely to be doing so, her eye straying again to the snapshots. “Wait a minute—yes! It was this other woman who came here; they had lunch or dinner together. I remember because they both sounded English.”
Em held up a large white card, waved it like a handkerchief. “I’ve got it here. Mrs. Frances Hamilton, Belgravia, London SW1.” She placed it before Jury.
“You remember this other lady, Em? The two of them dined here.”
“Um. No, I don’t think I was on duty.” She shrugged.
Jury was writing on the back of one of his cards. “If you should remember anything about either of them, would you get in touch with me? I’m staying at the La Fonda.” Em took the card and nodded. Jury thanked them, turned away, turned back. “Could you give me the hotel’s phone and fax numbers? Probably you’ve more than one of each.”
Patsy plucked one of the hotel’s cards from a holder, turned it, and wrote a couple of numbers on the back. “The main number’s printed here—” she indicated the face of the card—“with the fax number. I put the others on the back.”
Again, Jury thanked them, gave the card a look. Not the number in the address book, but he hadn’t thought it would be. “I wonder, if they had a meal here, could I talk to your dining-room staff. Perhaps I can find the person who might have served them.”
Patsy looked again at one of the slips stapled to the card. “It was a Friday night, so it could have been . . . let’s see, table thirteen, that’d be either Johnny or Sally. I think they’re both here if you want to check with Chris. She’s the hostess.” Patsy nodded toward a wide arch across the tiled hallway.
Chris—who was extremely attractive, probably a needful thing in a dining-room hostess—was bent slightly over the lectern-like post that held her reservations book. The bottom of her face was bathed in the light from the small lamp that arched over her book. At Jury’s request, she seemed fairly thrilled. “Sally Weeks? She’s here, somewhere.” Chris peered into the soft, dark depths of the dining room and finally pointed toward a girl at the far side wiping off a table. “That’s Sally, there. Yes, she might have been working that Friday night. I mean, that’s her schedule, unless she was sick or something.”
Sally Weeks was on the thin side and quite young. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown uniform—like a dry leaf. But this desiccated, autumnal look was quickly dispelled by the energy of her expression. She had a boyish torso and Jury thought that might be the reason she held the small tray close over her chest, arms crossed on the tray’s back, hiding her own flatness in this relative sea of actressy bosoms.
Since the lunch service hadn’t yet started, and the dining room was empty, she said it was all right for her to sit down (in the smoking section, for she was dying for a cigarette). And as Jury lit it for her, she said that that was one of the reasons she remembered them—the two women—because they were the only smokers, the only ones sitting in the smoking section here.
“But mostly,” she added, thoughtfully, “it’s because they’d been travelling around, and not with a tour group, and not with a man. It was because they really seemed to be enjoying themselves.” She made a comment about there being more smokers in England and asked Jury if he didn’t smoke. He told her he was trying to quit.
Immediately, she stubbed out what was left of her cigarette. “I’m really sorry, you should have said.” Jury was startled by such consideration. Now she was looking around the room. “You want to sit somewhere else?” It was as if the whole area might be contaminated for him.
He laughed. “No, Sally, this is fine. Go on with what you were saying.”
“Well, it’s not often you see two ladies, almost elderly—I think they were in their sixties, at least—travelling around on the loose that way. If you’d been working here as long as I’ve been, you’d know what I mean.”
Jury couldn’t imagine she’d been working anyplace for very long. She didn’t look much over seventeen. But he didn’t say so. “Tell me what you mean about enjoying the travelling.”
Sally rubbed at her temples in an old lady’s gesture of trolling for memories. “Well, they really wanted to see things.”
“Isn’t that why most people travel?”
“Oh, no. For most people it’s just a way of—doing something together. I don’t mean being together, I get the impression a lot of them couldn’t care less. I don’t mean they really like each other. Families—well, it’s the same thing. ‘We’re a family; we must be, we’re travelling out here together.’ ”
Jury smiled. “Fine distinctions you’re making. Did you overhear anything they said about their plans?”
“Well, they were talking to me sometimes, actually. They were talking about Mesa Verde, that was one place, and I told them it was worth seeing.”
“It is; I just got back from there.”
“It’s really kind of mystical. Not like Sedona. So I told them not to bother with Sedona. I was serving their soup. Pumpkin.”
Jury was silent. He didn’t want to disturb that deep look of concentration. Finally, he asked, “Why did you tell them that?”
Her answer was indirect. “I told them to go to Utah instead. Maybe to Canyonlands. Utah has all of that red rock, more than Sedona does, certainly, and it doesn’t have people. You can drive and drive for miles and not see anyone, not a person, not a car. I’m pretty sick of Sedona.” She topped this declaration with an emphatic nod and a look at Jury of shared sympathy: he must be pretty sick of Sedona, too.
He smiled. “Never been there.” Jury gathered up his coat.
“Don’t go—” She might have been directing this to Jury as well as speaking of Sedona. “It’s just an ordinary town that’s really built up because everybody keeps telling everybody else how spiritual and mystical it is. A real New Age place, you know. Crystals, rocks, vortexes. A vortex is supposed to be a place in earth where there’s a lot of concentrated energy.”
As he rose to leave, Jury was thinking t
hat Sally herself was better than any vortex, the way the brown eyes beamed.
He walked out through the glass doors and looked around for an empty table, didn’t see one. He did, however, see Malcolm Corey, remembered that Corey had told him he was “on call” today. Corey signed to him with a little wave and pointed to a chair beside him. “I’m just waiting for them to call me.”
Jury sat down. “Nice to see you. Have you done your bit yet?”
“ ‘Bit’ is the word. Mine is one line. I’ve been waiting in this fucking makeup for two hours now. Probably, they’ll call me back tomorrow. How do I look?” Preening, he turned his face toward Jury.
Actually, except for the slight rouging of the lips, it wasn’t all that easy to tell he was wearing makeup since he was ordinarily that polished oak color anyway. “Marvellous,” said Jury.
“I’m waiting for a friend. My agent,” he explained. “Supposed to meet me here. Benny Betts. Know him?” Malcolm craned his neck, scoping out the room.
“Don’t think so. What’s the film they’re shooting, then?”
“It’s called The Sun in the Morning. Terrible title.” Malcolm Corey yawned and shrugged. Then he wiggled his fingers at someone across the room, a woman dressed in frills and sequins that looked out of place with the rough clothes of the others. “It’s one of those ‘revisionist’ Westerns. Copying Clint, of course. Ever since Clint—ah! Here he is!” He nodded toward a man who was coming their way.
Even as he walked toward their table, Benny Betts was talking on a cordless telephone and carrying a second one on a leather thong slung over his shoulder like a camera. He wore a suit so fine and so loose it looked fitted by the wind; a dusty blue shirt with a roll collar that, oddly enough, went with the expensive suit. No tie, of course. Shoes with a mirror polish.
Benny Betts punched off the phone and punched into his client—“Mac, how goes it?”—and his client’s friend, thrusting out his hand and gripping Jury’s in a handshake that was surprising in its strength. Even more surprising was the feel of a callused palm. If he’d expected anything it would have been a hand slightly moist and almost downy in its softness. He swiveled into a chair, said to Jury, “You represented?”
Jury nodded and reached once more for his wallet. “By the CID.” He smiled.
“That like ICM?”
“Not unless it’s criminal investigation.” He shoved his ID toward Betts.
Benny narrowed his eyes as if trying to comprehend. Then widened them. “Jesus! You’re a cop?”
“So I’ve been told. Some might dispute it.”
Malcolm Corey laughed. “Too bad, Ben; you can’t sign him.” To Jury, he said, “Benny misses nothing, nothing. I love him.”
“Love me, you may well. But you’re not positioned right, not for a package. I’m looking at cable options sans cesse, excuse me—” He plucked up the receiver of one of the phones before it had barely registered a ring. “Betts. . . . Yes. Put him—Bobby, Bobby, Bobby! You heard. . . . I’m talking Wizard, Bobby. A remake— . . . What the fuck do you mean, like redoing Casablanca? Hell, I’ve already got ’Blanca packaged. I figure Alec and Isabella; nice touch, the daughter, you know. So what do— . . . Sacred?” Benny pinched the bridge of his nose, made phony weeping noises. “Sacred. This is Hollywood you’re talking about, Bobby, not Lourdes or the Luray Caverns, so what—” For a few jumpy moments, Benny listened and sighed, then cut into what he clearly thought unenlightened comments with, “Bobby, Bobby, what do I do with you? . . . Okay! Okay! I’m not pushing, why should I? Even Woody’s interested. He’s great with this noir stuff. . . . Noir, that’s what I’m saying. Downbeat, definitely downbeat version. No yellow brick, no emeralds. So think about it, all right; but I won’t wait until you get the shit off your camera lens— . . . All right, all right . . . Yeah. . . . Um. . . . Bye.” Benny plunked down the phone, picked it up again and punched in numbers. “Can you believe that guy?” he asked earnestly, looking from Jury to Malcolm. He shivered, clamped the phone to his ear, asked for Jim. “Jim, Jim, Jim, long time. . . . Yes, I told you I’d get back to you. So what I’ve got here, definite, is Neil doing the script, Sean and Miranda are begging for it. . . . Uh-huh. Three weeks he’ll be done, that’s a promise. . . . Neil. . . . Yes. . . . Read it?” Benny laughed soundlessly. “You don’t need to read it, fella, . . . Three weeks, I told you. Done, fini, and we’ll have it on the table. And I’m considering Vanessa for the mother. . . . Of course there’s a mother. This is Ireland we’re talking about; there’s always a mother. . . . No, I can’t promise her; she’s not one of mine. Personal favor to you. . . . Jim, look, if I run I stumble. . . . Breathe blue, will you? . . . You don’t want much, do you? . . . I’ve got to have a total lock before I approach—look, these people turn down scripts like you swat flies, you know—” Benny sighed, leaned back, seemed to be gazing off at the Sangre de Cristos, shaking his head. “Jim, this package is beauty personified; it’s like—” He squinted his eyes, as if reaching for a metaphor; then he shrugged, gave up and returned to the literal. “I can’t wait forever. Mamet’s talking about a collabor— . . . okay. Great. . . . Great. . . . Fantastic. . . . Absolutely. . . . Tomorrow. . . . Bye.” Benny picked up the portable phone again, dialed, and there was more patter with somebody’s secretary.
Jury looked round the patio, which had been for some time now in a state of flux, movie folk moving off, coming out through the big glass doors as if they were being cued. Or, at least, Jury presumed them to be film people, given they were either holding walkie-talkies or travelling with long wires looped about them or else in costume. He thought the clothes were costumes, clothes suggestive of the old West, a lot of grimy jeans, muddy boots, neckerchiefs, mustaches, muttonchop whiskers. Most of the women were wearing long worsted skirts, dull browns and grays, but with the occasional flash of a satin gown in ripe colors . . . such as the one rustling by the table right now of warm apricot and brilliant blue shot through with silver, which was adorning a blond woman so flawlessly beautiful that Jury stopped breathing for a few heartbeats just to hold on to the vision. No one else seemed to be paying attention to her. Was beauty really so common out here that no one else would even bother to look up? Now through the glass doors walked a redhead in velvet burgundy, the equal in looks of the statuesque blonde, followed shortly by a brunette in lavender taffeta. These dance-hall headliners (for that seemed to be what they were costumed as) gathered back by one of the stone pillars like a huge bouquet. And no one noticed.
A waitress brought over one of the house extensions, trailing a cord behind her, and set it before Benny Betts. He signed off the portable and snatched up the other one. “Neil, Neil, Neil! You hate me. You hate me, don’t lie. But you won’t when I tell you this: I’ve got a definite from Jim to produce and Sean and Miranda for the leads. A definite. But they won’t do it unless you do the script. David wants it but of course I said no, you could hear weeping all the way to Killarney, right? . . . Of course, you’re overcommitted, you always are, why the hell do you think these people are thrashing around trying to work with— . . . Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh . . . That’s right. And Vanessa for the mother. . . . How do I know there’s going to be a mother?” Benny clamped the receiver to his chest and looked quickly from Malcolm to Jury: “Get that?” Back to the phone: “Neil, this is Ireland; there’s always a mother. . . . Uh-huh. So how long do you think? Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh. . . . Three months? A tad long, mon cher. Not that everyone won’t wait, of course. It’s just that Sean has another commitment— . . . Two months? . . . Uh-huh. Think you could pare that down to, ooooh, let’s say six weeks? . . . You’ll try.” Benny gave Jury a broad wink. “You’re my fave, Neil, as per always. . . . Okay. . . . Right. . . . Later.”
His eyes shut, face turned up in that light-worshipping way, Malcolm Corey said, smiling, “I love you, Benny, but you have no ideals. None whatever.”
“What’s to idealize? That shit down there?” His eyes were on the crew moving in unison along the distant
road. Then, back to the telephone: “Belinda, my sacred one, where is he? Uh-huh. Lunch? Sal’s? When back?” Benny checked his Rolex, shook it, as if in so doing he could move lunch along. “Okay, just tell him I’ll call back.”
In the silence that befell them, the air still hummed. Jury asked, “You wouldn’t be interested in police work, would you?”
Benny Betts, swivelling his head, apparently looking for action, replied, “God knows I wish I could get something challenging.” He clamped Malcolm on the shoulder, said, “Okay, Mac. Now. We’ve got to get repositioned and cable is it. That, or a series. And we’ve got to reimage, okay?”
“I say shit to TV, Ben.”
“Who doesn’t? That’s a reason? I’m working on it. Exploring cable options, like I said.”
“What about that other business?”
“The deal will happen when it happens. You know me. I wait. I bide my time.”
“I’m not doing sitcom, Benny, that’s all. You may not believe it—” here Corey smiled to show he didn’t really believe that Ben didn’t believe it—“But I consider myself an ac-tor.” He made the word sound like Benny’s French. “An ar-tist.”
“Well, I suggest you get your artistic ass into this series I’ve got lined up if you want to do the Clint flick. You’re part of the Tooley package, and I told him if he wants Clare Tooley, he takes this incandescent new talent I’ve just found. And he really wants Clare Tooley.”
“And has Clare Tooley agreed to do this part?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know it yet.” Benny was tattooing numbers again.
A gentle laugh from Malcolm Corey. “You’re so louche, Benny.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m rich and louche which is more than can be said pour vous.” He repunched his number, got Belinda again, who connected him. “Stevie, Stevie! Where the hell—? . . . You can’t lunch at Sal’s anymore, not after that last— . . . Yeah. . . . Yeah. . . . Uh-huh. . . . I’ve got a project on a silver platter for—what? . . . Wizard? Where’d you hear—? . . . No, no, no. Not a remake, for God’s sake. Is nothing sacred? A prequel. . . . Right. Maybe when she’s eight, six, even. I’ve got an amazing new talent, no names, now.” Benny waggled his finger. “You think I want her snatched out from under me? Before the hurricane . . . Tornado? Okay, before the tornado, before the big wind fucks with Kansas. . . . Right. Delve into character shaping, a pièce noire— . . . Whaddaya mean, the dog? The fucking dog’s not even born yet, Steve. . . . So? . . . Well, a puppy then, it could be. Am I a scriptwriter? I’m not saying— . . . Wait, wait, man! I didn’t call you to talk about this; this one’s wrapped. You want a piece, down on your knees, mon cher.” Benny chuckled. “It’s the ’Blanca deal, you remember. I’ve got a natural for the Bogey part—new face, awesome talent. For Ingrid’s, well, Isabella wants it, of course. But I was thinking Melanie. . . . I know she can’t do accents, but who’s talking accents? Besides, I’ve got a real ac-tor for the Louis role.” Here, he pointed at Corey and winked. “Where am I? Santa Fe. . . . Santa—you know, it’s that suburb of L.A. . . . I don’t know; wait a sec.” He cradled the phone again, asked Corey, “What’s the name of this dog they’re shooting?”
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