Amateur Night

by K. K. Beck

  “Would you mind if I drank my coffee at your table,” he said with a tasteful touch of reticence, as if he were presuming but couldn't resist asking.

  “Of course not,” she said, as if she were somehow remiss in not having invited him sooner.

  He moved over to her table with his coffee cup in his hand, stepping over a chair that was wedged between the tables. He did it with grace, but the informal gesture convinced her he was American. Only Americans used space like that. Almost anybody else, she felt, would have slid out the other side and gone around the table.

  “You're American, aren't you?” she said.

  “That's right,” he said. “From San Francisco. Where are you from?”

  “Up from Seattle.”

  She didn't notice any flicker when she said Seattle. If he'd strangled someone there recently, it might have meant something to him. Unless, of course, he was one of those charming and remorseless sociopaths. He didn't seem to be. He seemed to be just a nice guy with a smooth manner.

  “Nice town,” he said. “How can you tell I'm American?”

  “The accent,” she said.

  “You mean the one I don't have?”

  “That's right. More open vowels mostly. Less precision, flatter inflection.”

  “You must have a pretty good ear,” he said with a disarming smile.

  “And the way you stepped over that chair,” she added. “It seemed sort of direct and American.”

  “Do you think Canadians are that different?” He frowned a little as if he were concerned he might have missed something.

  “They're a little more circumspect,” she said. “Wary of offending.”

  “You're right. And formal. They say 'Pardon?' instead of 'What?'”

  He leaned back in his chair and put one arm around the back of it. “So are you all set up for your whale watching?”

  Jane frowned. “I'll set it up tomorrow,” she said.

  He leaned over confidentially. “Word is there's just one lousy whale in the whole place, and they drag all the tourists over in a Zodiac at great expense to see the same one over and over again.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Jane, smiling. “They have a whale museum and everything.”

  “They have whales all right. But only in the spring when they're passing through. Except for this one. I swear to God.” He held up his right hand. “They have her on retainer. It's a female who doesn't want to go down to Baja and have babies.”

  Jane laughed, and he looked pleased that she did. They were silent for a moment, then she gazed at him more appraisingly.

  The waitress appeared, breaking their locked gaze with a plate of prawns.

  Jane decided she liked him. Jane believed that most men who looked as good as this one didn't work very hard to be charming, but he seemed to be that rare exception. He seemed rather sweetly pleased he'd made her laugh, which pleased her in turn.

  She took another sip of wine, and wondered if he were an exception to her rule it meant he was dangerous.

  But she didn't think he was dangerous. He probably had absolutely nothing to do with Brenda or Jennifer at all. She had been imagining things.

  She had a brief fantasy wherein this nice man, thrilled to meet a mysterious adventuress like Jane, helped her track down Brenda, to be companionable and because he admired her. The whole thing would be more fun with a little romance interjected into it. Maybe Uncle Harold wouldn't have approved, but Uncle Harold was dead, and she was out of town anyway. She looked down to see if he had a wedding ring. He didn't.

  “I really recommend the hot springs,” he said earnestly. “And I'd hate to see you get ripped off by the local whale shell game.”

  She sipped her wine. “Are you one of those people who arrives in a new town and knows all the angles in the first ten minutes?” she said gravely.

  “Yes,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “I am.”

  “Well it is a real whale,” she said. “So it isn't really a rip-off. It's not as if they dragged you by some large piece of flotsam or jetsam and told you it was a whale.”

  “No, but it's sort of a tame whale. For all I know they feed her donuts to keep her here. That takes all the excitement out of it. Like Marine World or something.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “We can probably work a deal for the hot springs and slip them an extra ten to rendezvous with the whale on the way out there.”

  “And ten's only eight-fifty American,” she said.

  “I hate to see a fellow American get suckered by slick foreigners,” he said with a melancholy shake of the head.

  He was interrupted by the arrival of the hostess. “Mr. Johnson, there's a lady to see you.”

  “Yes,” he said in suddenly businesslike tones. “I was expecting her.” Jane looked over his shoulder and saw a young woman with short red hair and freckles coming toward them. She was wearing jeans and a cotton sweater, and looked slightly nervous.

  Her companion rose. “I've got a kind of a business meeting right now,” he said. “But maybe later we could have a drink or something.”

  “I'm tucking in early,” Jane said, but with a slow smile that meant she wasn't brushing him off. She couldn't bring herself to seem too eager. She realized that she'd now removed him from the category of a suspicious character to investigate and recast him as a man she was actually interested in. Which meant taking one tangolike step back in order to be able to go two forward later. “Maybe I'll see you around.”

  “Sure,” he said—looking not discouraged but amused at her ambivalence. Jane congratulated herself on how the rhythm of the thing was developing.

  Then the red-haired woman came up to the table and threw it all off. She looked curiously at Jane, and said to him, “I'm Brenda MacPherson.”

  Chapter 17

  Earlier that day, back in Seattle, Calvin Mason had taken a slight dislike to Dr. Carlisle immediately. First of all, he was late, but he didn't apologize, striding into the waiting area where Calvin had spent half an hour reading People magazine and trying to flirt with the humorless receptionist. Secondly, the dentist was very good looking and had a breezy air of confidence.

  “Mr. Duffy here wanted a word with you before his appointment,” said the receptionist, using the phony name he'd given her. Calvin had tried to cultivate this woman, because she probably knew all of her boss's personal business, but she wasn't buying any of Calvin's friendly overtures. In fact, she glanced over at him with contempt. He says he's very concerned about pain. I've scheduled a little consultation time.”

  It isn't my fault she's so cold, thought Calvin. She'd respond to the real me, but she's under the false impression I'm a wimp.

  “Hey,” he said to her now, “it's the only thing that scares me, really. Needles, heights, enclosed spaces-no problem. I even beat up a mugger once. But this dentist thing—”

  She interrupted. “Just follow the doctor back to his office,” she said.

  Sitting in Carlisle's office, watching him busy himself with a few papers on his desk, Calvin began earnestly. “You see, I've always been simply terrified of dentists. I think it started when I was just a little kid. Old Dr. Philips was a sadist, a real sadist.”

  This was a lie. Dr. Philips had been a nice old guy who always gave him a lollipop after a session.

  “Maybe it was because he reminded me of Uncle Wendell,” added Calvin, who always injected some truth into a lie. Now Uncle Wendell had been a real sadist. Calvin remembered being lured to his side with the promise of being allowed to examine his old-fashioned pocket watch, then having Uncle Wendell seize him and pin his arm behind his back until he squealed “Uncle,” a pun that Uncle Wendell found witty.

  Dr. Carlisle seemed very uninterested in the source of Calvin's dental phobia. “We can give you some Valium,” he said. “Or nitrous. It's great stuff, actually.”

  “Yeah?” said Calvin.

  Dr. Carlisle gave him a knowing look, rather reminiscent of a sixties college doper. Calvin wondered if the
dentist took the edge off with a hit now and again.

  Calvin put a hand to his jaw. “I've been putting it off so long.”

  “Open your mouth,” said Dr. Carlisle bossily.

  Calvin cringed and feigned reluctance, then opened his mouth and leaned back.

  “You've got a lot of fillings in there. You must have had plenty of work done over the years. A nice porcelain crown too. What kind of anesthesia did they use then?” He was starting to look puzzled.

  “They knocked me out completely,” said Calvin. He closed his mouth and allowed his eye to gaze over at the family picture behind the doctor.

  “Nice-looking kids,” said Calvin. “He supposed the boy was Sean. He was getting absolutely nowhere.

  Carlisle didn't seem to want to talk about his family. “We'll put you in a chair, have the girls take a look in there. You're not afraid of a little flossing, are you?”

  “It's dentists in general that scare me,” whimpered Calvin.

  “Well relax,” said Dr. Carlisle, flashing a smile. “I have the girls do ninety percent of the work. I just come in and take a quick look when they're through. They're not dentists.”

  “I see,” said Calvin. Not a bad gig. He probably got his assistants for practically nothing, then managed to have half a dozen chairs making money for him at once while they did all the work.

  Calvin supposed that his admiration for this lucrative business plan, not unlike that of a successful street pimp, had crossed his features, because Carlisle frowned, and said rather defensively, “Of course I do all the drilling and filling.”

  Calvin went back into his phobic persona and managed a realistic shudder. “I just can't go through with it,” he said, rising hastily. “That word—”

  “You mean 'drilling'?” said Carlisle. “We have high-speed drills these days. And I'm telling you, that nitrous...” He leaned forward. “When you're on nitrous and you get one of these girls' nice soft tits up against the side of your face, when they're leaning over adjusting the clamps on that rubber dam—you're in heaven.”

  The pimp analogy had been very apt. Calvin momentarily considered a quick flossing from one of the girls in Carlisle's stable. Even without the nitrous, it sounded worthwhile. This guy was a good salesman. Calvin summoned up some sales resistance.

  “I can floss my own teeth,” he said, still thinking in sexual terms. “Why should I pay for it?”

  The dentist shrugged and consulted his watch. “Go home, think it over, make an appointment if you think you can take it,” he said. “I'm not going to argue with you.” He shook his finger. “But I'm telling you, dental neglect is just going to make it worse.”

  Calvin crept out of the office underneath the withering gaze of the receptionist. Carlisle really was kind of a jerk, he decided. The slight dislike had turned to something deeper. Calvin thought indignantly that he hadn't been sympathetic enough. What if he'd been an actual phobic patient?

  It was with some satisfaction that he pulled out of the parking space with Dr. Carlisle's name painted on it. He hadn't been able to find one when he arrived this morning, and Calvin figured the customer should be king and deserved the parking space.

  He hadn't come up with much, other than a good long look at the picture of Sean, which he tried to memorize. He figured a drive by the house wouldn't hurt. Maybe he'd find some reason to go knock on the door, get a feel for the situation.

  If Sean was your basic adolescent lowlife, living at home and not going to work or school, he'd still be asleep at this hour, maybe just waking up and watching old “Gilligan's Island” reruns or something.

  Calvin parked in front of the house, but he made sure his car was obscured by some shrubbery and couldn't be seen from the house. No point letting them know anything more about him than they had to.

  The prosperous, old-fashioned neighborhood was quiet. There was no sound except a power lawn mower a few houses away where some gardeners were at work. Calvin had noticed their truck as he'd driven by and seen a big strapping guy, looking vaguely Polynesian, working with a delicate little edger, clipping the border of a lawn, while a tiny dark woman tried to control the massive power mower.

  Calvin walked up the front path, forming a brace of stories. The one he chose would depend on who answered the door and what he thought they would buy. If Sean was the loser Calvin thought he was—after all, any friend of Kevin's had to be a loser—and Mom answered, Calvin was ready. He thought she'd like to hear someone had a job for her son. Maybe even that someone believed in him and his sincerity. Calvin tossed some dialogue around in his head. “Yes, ma'am, the young man seemed eager to work, and we sure could use a smart young kid like that. He told me he was ready to make some changes in his life, get some college money together.” She'd probably hand him right over-or at least give him a phone number where the kid could be reached. It was a variation on the shabby and transparent “I'm looking for him because I owe him some money.”

  But Calvin never got a chance to use this story or any other. He heard feet running, barely had time to half turn and get the impression of a big, heavy man before he felt an explosion on the back of his head and fell forward onto the concrete path.

  Chapter 18

  After Brenda MacPherson had announced herself to Jane's companion, he rose immediately, took Brenda's arm and glided off with her with just a perfunctory nod to Jane. She was glad he'd moved fast. She was pretty sure he hadn't seen her shaking.

  She managed to eat a few more prawns, knocked back the rest of her wine, signed for the meal and went up to her room.

  Was he out strangling Brenda somewhere? The hostess had called him Mr. Johnson. Who the hell was Mr. Johnson, anyway? She cracked open the mini-bar and poured herself a brandy, adding a splash of soda. Was that girl in danger, while Jane was dithering around flirting?

  She stood by the window, arms crossed tightly against her body. No, she decided. Brenda wasn't in danger because he'd met her right there in the dining room in front of her and the hostess and a roomful of people. If Brenda turned up strangled— Jane saw a vivid Ophelia-like picture, her pale body gently lapping up on the beach of smooth stones across the street from the hotel—everyone would know where to look. He couldn't have been that dumb. Or that nervy.

  But maybe he could have. After all, he'd asked Art Deco for directions, hadn't he? On that occasion he might well have gone up and strangled Jennifer. The police must have thought so.

  Maybe Jane was imagining the resemblance to that police artist's sketch, but he had sought out a Brenda MacPherson, and it was clear they hadn't met before. And someone else was looking for Brenda, she'd learned that in Victoria.

  What was puzzling was that he had the wrong Brenda. Art Deco said she was brunette and small. This one was tall and gingery-looking. Her red hair was real—it matched her freckles. And she wasn't a dancer. Jane saw that by the way she walked—a kind of meaty, slouchy, earth-bound walk.

  Jane took off her shoes and lay down flat on the bed, her arms and legs stretched out. She was wired from the long drive, and now she was slightly sedated from the wine and the brandy. She was too tired to take the bath she'd planned.

  Everything had become more complicated. Now, besides finding Brenda, she had to find out who Mr. Johnson was and what he wanted with Brenda. She should have arranged to meet him for that drink he'd talked about. Now she'd have to make sure their paths crossed again. Had he said how long he was staying in Tofino?

  Maybe she should call Calvin Mason. Maybe he knew more about the investigation. She rejected the idea. She was so tired, and besides, he might scold her for leaving town.

  She fell asleep lying there with all her clothes on, with the lights on. Later, around four in the morning, she woke up, feeling seedy. As soon as she remembered where she was, she undressed, set the alarm for seven, turned off the light, and fell asleep again.

  By morning, she felt reasonably energetic again, but the mirror told her she was pushing it. Her eyes looked puffy. Damn
. She couldn't coast on youth anymore.

  She showered and dressed in a big T-shirt and jeans and went down to the desk. She was sure she had the wrong Brenda, but she had to see her anyway—she wanted to find out what she could about Mr. Johnson, and a story designed to elicit that information from Brenda was forming in her mind.

  At the desk, she asked for directions to the address she had for Brenda MacPherson. The clerk took out a map that looked as if it had been hand-drawn and run off on a Xerox machine. Jane leaned over it, pushing her hair out of her eyes and behind one ear as the woman drew an arrow down the main street, then a curving line off to one side, then an X where the house was. “You shouldn't have any trouble,” she said.