“Down the hall,” Vines said as he dropped ice cubes into the glasses, added whiskey and went into the bathroom for water. When he came back Dixie Mansur was seated on the bed, leaning against its headboard. He handed her a drink and said, “Tell me about it.”
She tasted her drink first. “When we got back to Santa Barbara this afternoon, Parvis started working the phone. He made about a half dozen calls, maybe more, and was about to make another one when the other phone rang-his really private phone.”
“And?”
“And it was them or him. Whoever.”
“You listened?”
“He shooed me out.”
“But you listened to those other calls he made.”
“I got to listen to what he said but not to what the people he called said.”
“What kind of pitch did he use?”
“I only heard one of them.”
“You said you listened to them all.”
“He only spoke English once. All the other times he spoke Farsi-you know, Persian.”
“What about the call that came in on his really private line-the bingo call?”
“It started out in English.”
“And switched to Farsi?”
“I don’t know. He was still talking English when he shooed me out.”
“But you did hear that one call he made in English, right?”
She nodded.
“What’d he say?” Vines asked. “I mean, did he start off, ‘Hey, Al, have I got a sweet one for you’? What I’d like to know is exactly what he said.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you trust him?”
“Since it’s my neck, I’m curious.”
“I can’t remember exactly what he said. Nobody could.”
“As close as possible.”
“Well, he didn’t ask for anybody after the call was answered. He began by saying this is me-except he said, ‘This is I’ or maybe ‘It is I, Parvis.’ Then he said something about having extremely valuable information about certain officials in a southern California community, well known for its isolation, who were willing to part with two of their-I think he called them ‘guests’-providing they-and I guess he was talking about B. D. and Sid-were reimbursed for their effort or risk or something like that. Then Parvis listened for a while and said, ‘One million firm.’ Then he said, ‘Please see what you can do’ and good-bye.”
“What about when the bingo call came in?”
“He shooed me out, like I said. But when it was over he called me back in. He told me he’d made contact and it was important that you and Adair know so you could get ready. But he didn’t want to call you and go through the hotel switchboard. And since he had to stay by the phone, he told me to drive over and tell you and Adair that he’d made contact. I asked him what if I couldn’t find either of you, and he told me to keep looking till I did. Where is Adair anyhow?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Doing what?”
“Seeing some people.”
“When’ll he be back?”
“Late.”
“Mind if I wait for him?”
“Where?”
She patted the bed. “Here-unless your landlady objects.”
“She won’t.”
“When’ll she be back?”
“Around two-thirty.”
“Then we’ve got plenty of time, don’t we?” Dixie Mansur said, putting her drink down and slipping the dark blue cotton sweater off over her head and dropping it on the floor.
Convinced, for some reason, that she had never worn a brassiere in her life, Vines sat down next to her, put his own drink on the bedside table next to the small radio and kissed her. After the long bourbon-flavored kiss finally ended and Vines was unbuttoning his shirt, he said, “Is this also Parvis’s idea?”
“Would you care if it was?”
“Not in the least,” Kelly Vines said.
Chapter 28
After the Cessna landed on the private dirt airstrip a mile or so south of the Ventura Freeway near the Kanan Dume Road in Agoura, Jack Adair decided it was best not to ask who owned either the strip or the fancy new Land-Rover that was waiting for them, its ignition key tucked behind a sun visor.
“Don’t suppose you know where this Altoid nut farm is?” Merriman Dorr said as he started the Land-Rover’s engine.
“I gave you the address.”
“Out here in the boonies, an address seldom does much good.”
Adair shrugged. “We could ask somebody.”
“I never ask directions.”
“Why not?”
“Because where I’m going’s never anybody’s business.”
When Dorr finally found the road they wanted on a Thomas Brothers map, they crossed over the Ventura Freeway, heading north. A mile or so farther, Dorr turned left onto a narrow asphalt road with no shoulders that snaked up into some round drought-seared hills. The tan hills were sprinkled here and there with clumps of green oaks. But even the deep-rooted oaks, Adair thought, were beginning to look thirsty.
Adair was surprised that there was no chain-link fence surrounding the Altoid Sanitarium. At first glance, the place resembled an exclusive country club that somehow had misplaced its tennis courts and golf course. There was a fence of sorts that ran around what he guessed to be fifteen acres of rolling grounds, but it was a benign split-rail fence, useful for decoration and property lines, but useless against humans, rabbits, coyotes or reasonably determined deer.
Whoever had designed the sanitarium had managed to save many of the oaks. The gravel drive that went between a pair of fieldstone pillars and on up to the sanitarium’s main entrance took sudden zigs and zags to avoid at least nine of the old trees whose trunks had been whitewashed.
The Land-Rover stopped in front of the recessed entrance door that was the size of a small drawbridge and fashioned out of thick redwood planks bound by hammered iron bands. Next to the door was a polished brass plate, no larger than an envelope, with small engraved black letters that read, “The Altoid Sanitarium.” Below that, in smaller and, if possible, even more diffident letters, was the mild request, “Please Ring Only Once.”
“How long d’you think you’ll be?” Merriman Dorr asked.
“An hour. Not more.”
Dorr looked at his watch, a workmanlike stainless-steel affair with a sweep second hand that Jack Adair somehow found reassuring. “It’s six fifty-five now,” Dorr said. “I’ll be back for you at eight sharp, okay?”
“Fine,” Adair said, climbed down from the Land-Rover, went up the two steps and rang the bell exactly as the brass plate suggested.
Danielle Adair Vines, the thirty-five-year-old mental patient who sat at the far end of the small conference table in the cozy room with the big picture window, looked not much different to Jack Adair from the daughter he had last seen more than fifteen months ago. Paler, he thought, and not nearly as animated or maybe frenetic. But no big change really, which is exactly what that resident psychiatrist just told you. Nicely stabilized, he said. We soon expect marked progress.
Adair nodded and smiled at his daughter as he took a seat at the other end of the table. “How’re you feeling, Dannie?”
She smiled back at him and said, “Who are you? Do I know you?”
“I’m Jack.”
“Jack?”
“Jack Adair.”
“I’m feeling very well, thank you, Jack.”
“That’s wonderful. Anything you need?”
“No. I don’t believe so. Why?”
“Kelly sends his love.”
“You mean Mr. Vines?”
“That’s right. Kelly Vines.”
“Mr. Vines is such a silly man. He comes to see me almost every month, I think. Sometimes he says he is Kelly Vines and sometimes he says he is someone else. Once he said he was a movie actor but I didn’t really believe him.” She smiled. “He’s such a silly man.”
“Do you get many other visitors?”
“The coyotes come sometimes. And the deer. The deer will come almost up to this window but the coyotes don’t come nearly so close as that.”