Chin nodded, sampled the soup. “Ah. Excellent.” He looked at Fabrese. “It’s bird’s nest soup, you know. Wonderful.”
“Jesus.” Fabrese stared down at his soup. “I thought it was a gag, bird’s nest soup.”
Chin’s smile was subtly amused. “Many people think that.”
“Well …” Tentatively, Fabrese sipped a spoonful, then looked surprised. “Well, it’s great. Just great.”
“This surveillance—would it be on some of your people?”
Fabrese had prepared himself for this question. “Tony Bacardo came to San Francisco yesterday. He could’ve come here because of some money that can’t be accounted for. I’m not saying Tony’s skimming, that’s not it. But Don Benito, well, he sent me out here to keep track of Tony, make sure there’re no loose ends when it comes time for Don Benito to take over the five families.”
“So Tony Bacardo doesn’t know you’re in San Francisco.”
“God, no. That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Perrone—he doesn’t know you’re here, either.”
“Perrone is what you might call a diplomat, coming to town to shake hands, do a lot of smiling, mend a few fences. I’m undercover. Like I said.”
Chin waited for the waitress to serve the next course, then said, “You say you’ll need four or five of my people.”
“There’s two women, a mother and a daughter. They live on Thirty-ninth Avenue. I need to have them watched.”
“Ah—good. They live out in the avenues, as we call them. A lot of Chinese live out there. Do they live in a house?”
“Right. A row house.”
“You’ve been there, then. To their house.”
“I was there today.”
“You talked to these two women. They know you.”
Fabrese nodded. “They know me. Which is why I need you.”
“And the other people?”
“There’s just one more, besides Bacardo—a man. Tall, kind of stooped, early forties, I’d say. He wears gold aviator glasses. You know, stylish. But he’s not much of a dresser. Corduroy pants and sweaters, like that. Tweedy, maybe. He’s a friend of the women.”
“You have no name for him.”
“No.”
“License plate?”
“I forgot that part.”
“Does he live with the women?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Chin allowed a reflective silence to pass before he said, “That’s all, those four.”
“That’s all.”
“And when should these stakeouts start?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Tonight?”
“That’d be great.”
Once more, Chin sampled food from the several small plates placed on their table. Then: “My people—should they be armed? Is it that kind of a job?”
Promptly, Fabrese shook his head. This question, too, he’d expected. “It’s not that kind of a job. I just want answers, that’s all. No guns.”
“If there are guns, then I would double the number of my people.”
“No guns. Period.”
“Then I can’t see any problem, once we decide on how payment should be made.” Now Chin’s face was impassive, as if his entire attention was focused on the prawn he was conveying to his mouth.
“Well, there’re two ways to go,” Fabrese said. As he spoke, he touched the breast pocket of his jacket, where he carried an envelope fat with cash. “I could give you something up front, right now. Say ten thousand, to show good faith. Then you could tell me whatever you figure, after everything’s finished. That’s one way.”
Chin turned his attention to the small task of blending seasoned snow peas with rice as he asked, “And the other way?”
“The other way, after everything’s finished, and I’m back in New York with Cella, I tell him that I never could’ve done it without you. When he mentions money, how much you charged us, I tell him that you wanted to do him this favor, a little something from you to him, one top guy to another top guy. You know.”
“Ah, yes,” Chin said. “Yes—I know.”
11 P.M., PDT
THEY LAY AS THEY always did in the afterglow, her body finding the full length of his, the fit that had never failed. It was the prelude to pillow talk, for Bernhardt the most meaningful moments.
And it was now, in these moments, sooner rather than later, that he must ask her to move in with him. “You’re here all weekend,” he would begin. “So why shouldn’t we—”
No.
More than mere logic was required. This overture must come from the heart: “The more we’re together, the more I want us to be together. So why don’t we—”
He’d done it again, lapsed into logic, mere argumentation.
He’d written plays, one good enough to be produced off Broadway. But he couldn’t find the words to begin.
Had it been this way with Jennie? They’d been walking from the town up to campus, he and Jennie. The distance had been less than a mile. It had been early in May, only a month before graduation. Before them, life had spread out with infinite promise, a magic tapestry woven just for them. Of course, they would go to New York. He’d already had a play produced at the Yellow Springs Area Theater. And an off-Broadway company was interested. So they would go to New York, the two of them. His mother, who’d lived in the Village and who’d taught modern dance in her loft, would help them find a place to live. Then, full of hope, they would begin making the rounds. Of course, they would expect rejection at first. But they would sustain each other until their turns came: bit parts for Jennie, an off-Broadway production of Victims, the play he’d begun writing while he was still a senior at Antioch.
And, incredibly, hope had burgeoned, become reality. Jennie began getting small parts. And, yes, Victims had run for three solid, successful weeks at the Bransten Theater.
But they hadn’t known it would happen like that, not when they were walking up to the campus on that soft, warm night in May. Then, that night, they could only hope—and plan.
And part of the plan, it turned out, had been marriage.
They’d seen Two Women at the movie theater in town. As they’d walked up the gentle hill from the town to the theater, talk about the film had turned to talk of the future—their future, in New York. Together they would pursue their dreams, hers to act, his to write and direct.
And so, by the time they got to the campus, they’d agreed that they would be married. There’d been no proposal, no acceptance. There’d only been a few quiet words spoken between them. They’d—
“Hey.” With one finger, Paula was poking him in the ribs. “Hey, you’re off somewhere.”
It was a standing joke between them. If he was uncertain about a business decision or searching for a line of dialogue that would illuminate a scene, he often drifted off. In the light of day, Paula could clearly see the preoccupation in his eyes. In bed, in the darkness, she could feel the change in his body, their flesh in intimate contact.
He drew her closer, kissed the point of her chin, then lightly kissed her lips.
“Sorry.”
“It’s those ladies, isn’t it—those ladies in distress.”
He knew where the conversation would go. Paula was determined to work with him, doing investigations. He needed help, she reasoned, and she needed something to do. She was very quiet about it, very patient—but very determined. Meaning that now, in the afterglow, she would persist. “I have the feeling,” she said, “that you’ll take them on.”
He considered. Then, somewhat to his own surprise, he heard himself say, “There’d be money in it. A lot of money.”
“Like, five figures?”
He calculated. “At least.”
Now she was calculating, too. “After five figures, you realize, comes six figures. As in a hundred thousand dollars.”
“I know …”
“You sound a little—” She broke off, searched for the word. “
You sound a little apprehensive. But maybe a little tempted, too.”
“My car needs a new set of tires.”
“Alan …” Now she traced a light line with a forefinger that began at the base of his throat and then ventured down. Meaning that, this time—this six-figure time—Paula would stop at nothing to get the story from him. Thank God.
11:45 P.M., PDT
WHEN HE’D FINISHED THE story, he realized that he was no longer turned toward her. Instead, even though her head was still cradled in the crook of his arm, he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He’d been talking, uninterrupted, for more than a half hour.
“Are you telling me,” Paula said, her voice rising incredulously, “that you’ve got five thousand dollars of this guy Bacardo’s money? This—this hood?”
“He’s not a hood.” Reacting to her criticism, he spoke sharply. “He’s a big shot.”
“Okay. So he hires hoods.”
Bernhardt made no response.
“Jesus, Alan.” She raised herself on one elbow to look down into his face. “Jesus, if something should go wrong, you’d be in trouble with both the goddam Mafia and the goddam law.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
“Oh?”
“I told Bacardo that I might give the money back. I’ve got a number to call.”
“Then for God’s sake do it. Make the call.”
He studied her face in silence. Two months ago, give or take, Paula had begun pressuring him to let her work with him. “You’re turning down business,” she’d said. Adding fervently: “You don’t have enough time to direct, worse yet. Or write. Or even act.” In the end, Paula had prevailed. She’d started doing surveillance, fifteen dollars an hour. He’d charged the client forty—for surveillance jobs imaginatively, conscientiously well done. It was another reason, come to think of it, why she should move in with him.
“Alan?”
“Hmmm.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Of course not. I’m just trying to decide.”
“I don’t see what there is to decide.”
“I’ve already looked at this from your point of view, which is the worst-case scenario. But there’s another scenario.”
She lowered her head back into the crook of his arm. With both of them staring up at the ceiling, she said, “And what’s that?”
“Now you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“That’s the way you always talk when you’re mad.”
“And how’s that?”
“It’s—” He hesitated, then ventured, “It’s haughty.”
“Haughty?” Suddenly she laughed: a sharp, sudden peal. “Haughty?”
He lay in silence—waiting. Finally, as he knew she would, Paula said, “Okay. So what’s the best-case scenario?”
“It’s interesting, you know …” He spoke reflectively, subtly teasing her. “You’ve only been doing surveillance for a couple of months. But already you’re talking different. You act different, too. Do you realize that?”
“Different in what sense?”
“For one thing, you swear more.”
“Hmmm …” Paula was considering the point.
“Back to the best-case scenario,” he said.
“Hmmm.”
“Tomorrow I call C.B. I tell him there’s a thousand dollars in it, win or lose, for a day’s work. I’ll tell him it’s dangerous, that he should bring his guns. For C.B. that’s a come-on. Next I’ll buy a shovel. Then about, say, eight o’clock tomorrow night, we get under way—me and Louise in my car, C.B. in his car. We start out for the delta. Of course, C.B. and I’ll have walkie-talkies, homers, the whole thing. Louise will give me directions as we go. We’ll get to the appointed spot about ten, ten-thirty. We’ll check it out very, very carefully. If there’s a problem, we’ll leave. Run, in other words. If there isn’t a problem, we dig up the jewels. Maybe we take them to a hotel, a suite, so we can all keep track of each other. Then, Monday morning, we take the stuff to the bank, put it in a safe-deposit box. In due time, with me riding shotgun, Louise sells some of the jewels. That’s when I get my ten percent.”
“If you and C.B. got greedy, what’d prevent you guys from taking the jewels away from Louise?”
“Nothing. But she’s got to trust someone. And she knows it. She also knows that time is of the essence.”
“What about—”
“Let me finish this. I’m making it up as I go along, but so far it sounds pretty good.”
In spite of herself, Paula chuckled. “The creative mind at work.”
“Let’s say,” Bernhardt went on, “that something goes wrong. You talked about the law. Okay, let’s say we get picked up by some deputy sheriff on suspicion. What’s going to happen?”
“I hate to think.”
“What’s going to happen is that I tell him the absolute truth. I say that Louise hired me to help her dig up an unspecified item at an unspecified location somewhere in the San Joaquin delta. Period.”
“That’s the law. What about the Mafia? If Bacardo is scared enough to run, then—”
“I don’t think Bacardo’s scared. He’s just being cautious. He wants to check out this Profaci guy.”
“Who’s probably a hoodlum, after the jewels.”
“I don’t think that’s what worried Bacardo. He’s got politics on his mind. Job tenure.”
“Mafia politics.”
Bernhardt considered, then decided to say, “Don’t knock Mafia politics. They play rough—but they play by the rules.”
“Mafia rules.”
“Naturally.”
They lay silently for a moment. Finally Paula said, “If you’re going to ride with Louise, then I should ride with C.B.”
Bernhardt snorted. “I knew you were going to say that. I knew it.”
She made no reply.
“If there’s any danger, it’ll come from the Mafia. We’re agreed on that. And if that should happen, then guns are the only way out. And Louise, unarmed, becomes a liability. The same thing would apply to you. You’d be a liability, just like Louise. If C.B. and I were alone, and something went wrong, we’d fire a shot over their bow and run—probably for the police. But if we have to hang back to protect the womenfolk—” Aware of the risk, he let the image dangle.
A mistake.
“The womenfolk, eh?” Her voice was grim. “I assume that, as always, you chose your words with care.”
“A little joke. Frontier humor.”
“I know how to shoot. You taught me, if you’ll recall.”
Now they lay neither together nor apart. Finally Bernhardt ventured, “If you really want to help, there is something you could do.”
“Oh? What’s that? Load the flintlocks?”
“If it plays out according to the script, then we’ll have to leave Angela behind. Louise’s orders, no compromise.”
“And you need a baby-sitter.”
“This is no kid. She’s twenty, at least. And beautiful. One of those blond California beauties.”
“Long-legged, I suppose. Great boobs. A world-class ass. Right?”
Bernhardt decided to make no reply, a tactical withdrawal in the face of unpredictable hostile action.
SUNDAY, APRIL 22nd
8:30 A.M., PDT
AS HE ATE THE last of his croissant, Bernhardt said, “Why don’t you take Crusher to the beach for an hour or two?”
“Crusher gets in fights at the beach,” Paula said. “You know that.” It was a cool response. Between them, the question of the treasure was still unresolved. It had been unresolved when they’d gone to sleep last night, a mistake that still hung heavily between them in the cold light of morning.
“Crusher gets in fights everywhere. That’s what Airedales do.”
She considered the answer, then decided to say, “If you had it to do all over again, would you still adopt him?”
“I never did adopt him. I was only supposed to keep
him over a weekend, while his master arranged bail. So then the guy jumps bail. The last I heard he was in Majorca, having a ball.”
“Let’s say you knew how it would happen. Would you still take Crusher?”
“No comment.”
In a voice that was carefully pitched to the neutral, Paula said, “Are you going to call C.B.?”
“Yes,” he answered, meeting her gaze squarely. “And Louise, too.” He let a beat pass. Then: “Dammit, Paula, I’ve—”
From the front of the flat Bernhardt’s office telephone warbled. After the fourth ring the answering machine’s message began, followed by a woman’s voice. As the message went on, Bernhardt saw amused resignation register in Paula’s face as she poured herself a second cup of coffee.
“There she is,” Paula said. “One of your ladies in distress, I’ll bet.”
“Is that small, resigned smile meant to suggest that we can resolve this thing, resume our previous relationship?”
“The Mafia’s man in San Francisco …” Now reluctant amusement touched the corners of her mouth as warmth began to glow in her eyes. In the office, the caller’s message was ending, followed by a tone, then silence.
“You know you’re going to call her back.”
“But not until I’ve finished my coffee.” As he spoke, he raised the cup, drank the last of his coffee.
“Make the call,” Paula said. “I’ll put the dishes in the sink.”
“You’re a good sport.” Smiling, he rose, went around the table, kissed her meaningfully beneath her ear. She smiled in return, briefly stroked the inside of his thigh.
“Hmmm …” It was a sensual murmur, soft and interested. Should he lift her to her feet, kiss her in earnest, suggest a Sunday morning change of plans, a detour to the bedroom? Was that her meaning?
“Make the call,” she repeated.
“Hmmm …”
“Then we’ll see.”
He smiled, kissed her again as, sensing the change of mood, Crusher had come to stand close beside them. Whenever they made love, it was always easier to close the bedroom door on Crusher.
He kissed her neck again, straightened, smiled, and walked down the flat’s long hallway to his office, the room that was originally a front bedroom. As predicted, the voice on the tape was Angela Rabb’s. Would he please call her? As soon as possible?
Find Her a Grave Page 14
