“Why now?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she finally passed into stage three.” Out of anger and on to slutting? I could not imagine my sister, Emily… But who can imagine a sibling in bed?
With Lupe looking over my shoulder, I used the kitchen telephone to try the obvious approach to Celeste Baldwin Smith first. It took a few calls, but I managed to wheedle Celeste’s home phone number out of an old contact in the capitol. He seemed very nervous about giving it to me, and asked me three times not to snitch him off.
Celeste seemed to have a mania for privacy. Or someone else very much wanted to keep her out of the public eye.
Celeste’s banker husband, T. Rexford Smith, had long been part of the California power-brokering elite, a back room advisor. Smith had done a courtesy stint in the Reagan administration, but scuttlebutt was that he would never expose himself to the scrutiny that comes with a run for public office. It did not take much imagination, however, to picture him in a few years plugged into the ambassadorship of some plum nation, wearing knee britches and satin sashes. The pomp and circumstance would suit him.
About Celeste’s career after she left the Movement, I knew nothing. As far as I could remember, her only foray into the public spotlight had been a plea for legislation to purge the contents of rock lyrics. Celeste had de-evolved a long way from the Free Speech Movement. Certainly a long way from the firebrand of easy virtue I remembered. There was never halfway with Celeste.
Emily and her friends were great discoursers on the meaning of life and other trivialities. One afternoon in my parents’ back-yard, during a heated debate about the political implications of existentialism, I had accused Celeste of mistranslating Camus to fit her arguments. I spoke with all the authority of a third-year high school student, while she was working on a master’s in French lit. I was simply throwing barbs into the wind, but that one found home.
Humiliated, Celeste flashed out angrily at me. She threw a heavy paperback in the general direction of my head. The book’s title wasn’t lost on me: The Complete Guide to Homemade Explosives.
“I’ve read the book,” she said. “Watch yourself.”
I believe that was our last conversation, because Marc died shortly after. I was never afraid of Celeste, or so I thought. Still, I had to take a deep breath before I could dial her number in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.
“Smith residence.” The female voice was too crisp to be domestic help, which was a shame. So often an overworked maid will let through the odd annoying call just for the hell of it.
“This is Margot Duchamps MacGowen,” I said. “May I speak with Mrs. Smith?”
“Mrs. Smith isn’t taking calls.”
“It’s a matter of importance.”
“Do you wish to leave a message?”
“Yes,” I said. “Tell her Maggot called. Tell her I said, `Aujourd’hui, Emily est morte.’ “
I see.” I wondered whether she had written down anything, or whether she had read Camus. She didn’t ask me to repeat the opening line from The Stranger. I will tell Mrs. Smith that you called.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I hung up and moved on to Plan B.
Jaime was still with his patient. I left a note for him on the kitchen table and drove off in Max’s car toward Palm Springs.
I had told Jaime that I had connections in town. But they were old connections, left over from the three years I was evening news anchor at KMIR-TV, a local Palm Springs station with a network affiliation.
My best hope was Garth Underwood, my co-anchor then, station manager now. Garth and I had worked well together and had parted under friendly terms. We keep in touch the way old colleagues do: now and then, when favors are needed or a bottle of wine brings on a bout of nostalgia. I knew Garth would go to the ends of the earth for me, as long as there was the prospect of a good story in it for him.
I called the studio from the car and was told that Garth wasn’t coming in until late. I headed for his house.
From Indio, where Jaime lived, Palm Springs is a forty-minute drive along the base of the San Jacinto mountains. Though rain clouds hovered along the crest of the peaks ahead, the sky was a clear, diluted, blue. I rolled down the car window and breathed in a mixture of the fresh-cut golf course and Mercedes exhaust that scented the air.
Garth still lived in the same condo on the ninth hole of the Thunderbird Country Club. The same housekeeper let me in.
I walked through the house and found Garth on the patio, brunching with an ornamental blonde: she was tall, hard-bodied, big breasted. Her looks had a sharp edge that her careful makeup couldn’t dull. She had sharp breasts, too, and they seemed to point daggerously toward the green, where Bob Hope was sinking a birdie. As soon as Hope’s foursome drove off, her chest seemed to deflate.
Garth was watching her with open glee. He may be an incorrigible womanizer, but he’s no fool.
“Good morning,” I said.
My voice startled Garth. He turned, and when he got over his initial surprise, he flashed me his on-camera smile.
“Maggie, honey, you look great.” He got up from the spread of bran muffins and sliced papaya to fold me in his arms. He seemed a whole lot happier to see me than she did.
“It’s been too long,” he said.
“You look good,” I said. And he did, slim in his tennis whites. He had trimmed and darkened his Afro since I had seen him last. I had liked the gray.
“What brings you out here, baby?” he asked. “You in trouble?”
“Worse than usual.”
“So, you need some help from your old Garth.” I saw him signal the housekeeper, and a fresh round of Ramos fizzes appeared on the tray. “I heard about Emily-terrible tragedy. I want you to know that I’ll do anything, anything. Have you had breakfast?”
“What I need, Garth, is access to Celeste Baldwin Smith.”
“Whatever for? I’m nicer. I’m cuter. And you can use all the dirty words you want to when you sing in my ear.”
“Can you help me?” I asked.
“Celeste Smith is a tough one to crack,” he said. I may be able to get you access, but I can’t make her talk to you.”
“Access is all I ask.”
“All right, then,” he said. “There’s a little benefit party at the Century Plaza tonight. Celeste and His Nibs will be there.”
“You can get me in?”
“Hell yes. You’ll be my date. We’ll get so bombed and obnoxious that unless Oprah goes on another diet, we’ll headline The Inquirer for weeks.”
“You’re driving all the way into L.A. for this gig?”
“Why not?” He glanced at the blonde, caught her yawning. “Nothing doing around here.”
“Black tie?”
“Always.”
“What time?”
Garth reached out and smoothed the lapel of my jacket. “Can you spend the day? We’ll relax a little, go out to the Orchard for lunch. Drive in later together.”
“I wish I could, Garth. But there’s so much I have to do. I’ll meet you in town tonight, around eight, Emily’s apartment. You remember where it is. Is that okay?”
“If it has to be,” he said. “Anything I can do for you in the meantime?”
“Maybe. How complete is the film library at the station?”
“For local news, excellent. Anything beyond the Coachella Valley, I can get from the network. What do you want?”
“1969. Nightly news reports from early August until Christmas day.”
“Sports and weather, I assume.”
“The Peace Movement. War news.”
He nodded. “Emily and Marc.”
I handed him a list of the people indicted with Emily. “Anything you can find.”
“Sure,” he laughed. “What are friends for, except to abuse?”
“You take abuse so well,” I said.
The blonde stood up and stretched to her full, and impressive, height.
“Are we going to play tennis or what?” she demanded. “Let’s ‘or what’ for a while.” Garth grinned. “We can play tennis anytime.”