At the agreed upon halfway point, Sarah and Max stopped. She felt reinvigorated. Puffed with life. Her veins pure and free from the opium. She didn’t acknowledge the spectators. That was part of the game. The distance was the fascination. She thought about her agenda to quit that she had concocted while back at the hotel, and smiled to herself. In a million years, Max would never believe her if she was to turn to him and say that she wanted out of the business. He would probably give her one of those Molly kisses, stretching on his tiptoes for no real reason and grasping both her shoulders while gracing her cheek with stiff lips. He would be right. Sort of. There were two things she did refuse to do: fade away or be shoved away.
Sarah looked up at the bar, letting her gaze follow the piano’s melodic breeze along an empty dance floor big enough for two, then over to the bar where a slouch-shouldered bartender in a false black vest and white bow tie made time with a resentful cocktail waitress. Otherwise she didn’t see anybody else up there, least of all the gentleman host. “And do you see anything?” she asked Max.
“Not even an empty table.”
“We must remember to ask that concierge for your tip back.”
They turned in choreographed precision. Max took her arm as a gentleman escort, and they descended the stairs as the genuine article, misplaced in this faux proscenium summer stock one-act of a restaurant. Shoulders back. Chins arched slightly. Eyes above the crowd. “I really did just feel like having a croque monsieur,” she whispered, frowning in mock royalty to ensure a sense of mystery for all watchful eyes.
“The closest they have in America is a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“That will do.”
They walked down to the main floor and through the foyer without acknowledging or honoring any part of the surroundings. They didn’t even notice the sound of the potted palm falling over upstairs. Or the spray of coins hastily tossed on the bar. Nor the awkward stumbling behind them on the stairs they had just left. Or even the slamming door of the cab behind them as Vince Baker directed the driver to “catch that cab.”
MOST REPORTERS only get one chance. They get a single shot to pose their questions and establish their rapport. Unpreparedness. Boredom. Ignorance. Aloofness. Any combination of these integers will not only kill a story, but will also kill a reputation. There are no apologies. No second chances. Editors lose faith. The cubs on the dog watch start picking up the assignments, and you spend most of your days looking for some kind of dope that will lead you into the good fortune of a story that will reestablish your credibility on the street and in the newsroom. The bottom line, the lesson: Be prepared. Otherwise the business will eat you alive from the inside out.
VINCE BAKER HADN’T CONSIDERED IT irony but rather coincidence that Bernhardt’s cab turned down Broadway and stopped in front of Ralph’s—just around the corner from the Cathedral of our Lady of Angels—the very diner where he had drafted the beginning of the League of Decency boycott piece. He told the driver to keep the motor running as he watched Bernhardt get out of her car. She stood on the curb, looking into the Ralph’s window while her slightly younger companion fumbled through his wallet, no doubt calculating the worth of his bills and exchanging the rates in his head. It was clear to Baker that Bernhardt’s escort served in a professional capacity. He had a look of servitude in his posture. Confident and sure of himself. Poised to accommodate her in a way that only a smitten man who rarely saw night except for outside his window would behave given his one shot with a beautiful woman. But this man was no smitten agoraphobic. He stood a head taller than his mistress did, with a jacket cut so splendidly to his physique that neither he nor the jacket could be from anywhere else but the most sophisticated metropolises of Europe. His hair was dark, combed back slick and dapper. And he moved with a sophistication that seemed to transcend grace to the degree that Baker immediately pegged the man as being as queer as any of the swishy downtown types. Bernhardt and her escort were obviously familiar with each other. It was clear through the comforts of their smiles and their relaxed shoulders. They touched each other like it was common, unlike the consciously perpetrated brushing of potential lovers. Baker watched the man hold the door for her as she walked into that greasy dive with the same elegance and sophistication that she had just conferred on Al Levy’s.
They disappeared into the back (though they were certainly not seeking an out-of-the-way table for clandestine purposes, rather from celebrity habit). Once their cab drove off, the street scene in front of Ralph’s looked as lonely and desolate as the rest of the post-nine-o’clock downtown, where only a few windows were made alive by sickly yellow bulbs, and a wind that didn’t seem to be there in daylight wound the streets like a scrounging snake kicking up stray sheets of paper that whipped through two or three violent somersaults before settling somewhere else up the sidewalk; where the scraping of trash and a whistling wind that was paradoxically silent were the only sounds other than that of a bum’s cough or sneeze that echoed through the concrete canyon in such randomly acute angles that it was nearly impossible to pinpoint its origin; and where the purity of a desolate temperate night smelled both pungent and fragrant.
The cabbie said, “I don’t meant to…” He looked straight ahead. Didn’t bother to crane his neck.
Baker was still staring out his window. The rumbling of the cab vibrated his hands. “Don’t mean to what?”
“You know.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
The cabbie paused. Then spoke as though he had carefully chosen his next word. “Meddle.” His pronunciation divided the word by its two syllables.
“Meddle?”
“You know, get involved. Tell you what to do.”
“I know the meaning of the word.”
“Then why ask?”
“I didn’t mean to imply that I didn’t know the word meddle. It was more of what you meant by it.” Jesus, his head was too bloated by scotch for this. And just the realization of that sent a fierce wave of nausea tiding up his throat.
“You know,” the cabbie said, “the Chinese do crazy things in this kind of situation. I lived up in San Francisco—let’s just say that I’m glad that I got out before the quake. But I know the Chinese. I know the crazy things they will do.”
Baker was barely listening.
“They’re very private people, they are. Very private.”
“Who is that?” Baker gave partial attention.
“The Chinese. The Chinese is who I’m talking about. They are private people.”
“What about them?”
“I’m just saying that they are private people. Chinese handle things their own ways.”
“Well, thanks for telling me that.” Baker needed to decide what to do. He had Bernhardt back at the vicinity of his crime. Every reporter on the police beat knows that that is the first place the cops go in a manhunt—back to the scene of the crime. Some think it is to relive the power and the glory, others think it is to try to make peace with the violence. For Baker it could have been either. It didn’t matter. His assignment was sitting in the exact chair where he had sorted his notes from the bishop’s interview. They wouldn’t have to turn up the wattage of the electric lamp to get him to spill his guts. He’d cop to it. Rat himself out. He was there. Part of the plan. An accomplice. And that’s murder by the legal definition.