Bruce cried that the information fascinated him. How clever those ancient people were! And how clever the ones who were now so carefully reconstructing all that lost marvelous history!
And he kept him going a little while until it was time for dinner. I said we had to leave just to see how much he would protest. And he did, with an earnest vehemence, because it was obvious that if there were just the three of them, he couldn’t focus on David.
So we, with show of reluctance, accepted the warm invitation.
Five
THE FOOD was excellent. Candles flared and flickered in the night breeze. He served a good and heady Greek wine.
A round table. Superb silverware, table linen, glassware, pottery. Muted music from a good tape system somewhere in the house. Bundy had Lady Rebecca at his right, David at his left with me at Becky’s right, and Meyer between me and David.
Rebecca had begun to make an elegant presentation of herself to me, managing in her casual careless way of handling herself, to artfully establish all the sensory awarenesses-of vision, of scent, of apparently inadvertent touch. But more importantly, she knew well that most important ingredient of all charm, all seduction, the art of so listening and responding that she made me feel as if I were the most exciting and rewarding and important man she had met in untold years, that if I had not come along, her life would have continued in its drab and dreary pattern. It requires not only the ability to listen so carefully no word, no nuance, is missed, but also the ability to sense when a contrary opinion will further the growing sense of closeness. I knew what she was doing and knew some of the devices she was using, but that awareness did not prevent my growing feeling that this was, indeed, one hell of a lot of extraordinary woman and nice to be with and worth arranging any further closeness possible.
Bruce Bundy, in another way and on another level, was targeting in on David Saunders. And it was interesting to see how much more masculine Bruce had become, in voice, gesture and opinion. And both Bruce and Becky were using Meyer as that necessary little dilution factor to mask their acquisitive intensity, directing questions and comment to him in much the same way the stage magician makes a great show of letting you look up his sleeves and into his top hat.
Their eyes gleamed in the candlelight, and their faces were smooth and youthful and animated, and their voices were clever, articulate, and amusing. The pretty predators, using their tested skills for the newest stalk.
David Saunders seemed to make, at table, a slightly porcine prey. He would dip his head almost to the plate, shovel in a heaping forkful, chew heavily with rolling bulge of muscle at the jaw corners, and then slosh it down with a gulp of wine, the throat bulging and shifting with the bulky swallow.
So, half in self-defense, half in the interest of moving ahead with the mission, I found a hole in the conversation and ran it off at a new angle. “I’d like to meet and talk to Eva Vitrier. Can you arrange it, Bruce? Becky?”
An instant of wary stillness, such as might happen to the smaller scavengers when they hear the carnivore coming back through the jungle toward the kill.
“Oh, it would have to be Bruce. He seems to get along quite smashingly with the creature. And by the way, dear, her first name rhymes with favor rather than with fever. Shockingly rich, that one. And she doesn’t, as we say, mingle.”
Bundy said, “I really don’t see very much of her. She comes and goes without much warning-I should say with no warning. She’s not a very social animal. Even were she here, Travis, it would be quite a feat to arrange an introduction. But I understand she left right after identifying that ghastly body. I could hardly blame her for wanting a change of scene.”
“Where would she have gone?”
“She’s never given me any other address,” he said.
“But,” said Becky, “it’s rumored she has several of her little fortresses scattered about the world. The woman has this secrecy thing. Absolutely barmy.”
“But she had those two girls at her place as house guests,” I said. “Seems like a sort of friendly sociable act.”
“On the same order, one might say,” said Becky, “as that touching friendliness and sociability in a dinner invitation from the Borgias.”
“Wear the big ring,” said Meyer, in nostalgic tribute to Lenny Bruce. It drew blank looks.
I took a sneak shot at Bundy. “Didn’t you say you had to protect yourself from something Rocko dreamed up?”
He pressed his gray-brown bangs with the palm of his hand. A ring fashioned of gold mesh gleamed in the candlelight.
“Why do you strain so hard to be clever, McGee?” he asked.
“Answer a question with a question,” I said, “and you buy time to sort things out.”
“I used the name Rocko in a generic rather than a particular sense. The Rockos of the world are always scheming, aren’t they? Just as you were when you first arrived. I merely said that I feel. competent to protect myself against the schemes of… the Rockos and the McGees.”
“But you met the girl, didn’t you? Bix Bowie?”
“Should I have?”
“Through Rocko or through Eva Vitrier, one or the other. Why not?”
He smiled. “I went through deep analysis ages ago, my dear man, with a very fashionable New York shrink. He had this quaint trick of trying to stir up guilt by asking questions in exactly that manner. One does lie to one’s psychiatrist, you know. The truth is so utterly rancid sometimes. One wants to look better. But with all that endless talking, it is terribly difficult to remember what one might have said a dozen afternoons ago. No, I did not meet the lass. Nor do I see any reason why I should be expected to have met her, or have any memory of her if I did. What are you really looking for?”
“All the reasons why the girl drove off the mountain in your car, Bruce.”
“I shall never never forgive the little bitch. That was a marvelous little car. Very loyal and dependable.”
David Saunders yawned, belched, reached for the wine bottle.
“See?” Becky cried. “We’re boring poor David. A lovely meal, Bruce. Do you have any of that marvelous brandy? The kind I like? I can’t remember the name. Good! Just a tiny bit, no more than a tablespoon. And can we leave the table? Thank you, darling.”
As we got up, Meyer said, “Mr. Bundy I appreciate your hospitality and your kindness, but I think that I am beginning to feel unwell. The altitude and the wine, I think. The best thing for me would be a walk in the fresh air. I can walk down to the plaza and take a cab back up the hill to the hotel. No, Travis. Don’t bother. I’ll be fine.”
Gracefully and shrewdly done, old friend. After he left the brandy was served, and I noticed that Bruce gave David Saunders the opportunity to pour his own, and a snifter that gave him enough scope to be foolhardy. They went off into the house. Bruce wanted to show David some of the artifacts he had collected.
Becky and I went into a far corner of the patio, sat together on a stone bench near a small, persistent fountain.
“You were very naughty Travis, really.”
“What did I do?”
“Ah! Such innocence. It was a lovely little party and then you made poor Bruce so awfully uncomfortable and nervous. He was terribly upset by that whole Rockland affair. Actually, it’s the last thing he wants to have mentioned.”
“And you know all about it?”
“He talks over his problems with me. He asks my advice. He’s not a bad sort, you know. Sometimes he is quite foolish and impulsive and he encounters… problems that are typical of the world he lives in. I think that because I never condemn him, we’ve been able to become friends.”