Cass was Caswell Edgars, a San Francisco artist. Abelle had not known that Nancy Abbott had gone off with Sonny Catton, nor that Sonny was dead. He had confirmed that Nancy had been houseguesting with the M’Gruders in Carmel, and had said that Vance M’Gruder was a friend of Alex Abbot, Nancy’s elder brother.
“Nothing else?” she asked.
“Just guesses. But how good are they? A terrorized man tries to please, like a hypnotic subject. Rule out the Cornell boys. Rule out Cass Edgars and the waitress. And, according to Abelle, we can rule out Lysa Dean too. Security was good. So who was the target? Nancy Abbott? Vance M’Gruder? Patty M’Gruder? There’s money there. Blackmail targets. Miss Dean was pure profit. The pictures sent Nancy’s father were not the same as the ones sent Lee. Okay, so the fellow took perhaps a dozen rolls. Two dozen. Two hundred and fifty to five hundred shots. He could have another set to sell Vance, another to sell Patty, maybe a set for everybody until he could find out which ones had the money. Maybe he started out, for God’s sake, after nesting water birds and hit a jackpot on the terrace a hundred yards away”
“But the idea of it being an accident doesn’t appeal?”
“No. Before they bought the groceries, they all knew the name of the absentee owners of the house where they were going. If it was set up, either somebody in the group, during the milling around before they took off in the cars, tipped the cameraman off. Or they were being followed. Somehow I like the first choice, Dana. It goes with the way the party developed, as if it was being staged that way.”
“Could he tell you who started it?”
“He said it just happened. Everybody tight. One of those real swinging parlor games, revised for a sun terrace. Somebody gets blindfolded, crawls around, and the first person they touch has to hold still, not make a sound, and be identified by touch. Guess right and the one identified loses one item they’re wearing, and gets the blindfold. Guess wrong and the guesser loses one item and tries again.”
“Sounds gaudy.”
“He said nobody really started it. They made up the rules as they went along.”
“With much jolly laughter.”
“It’s a funny thing about Abelle. He had absolutely no idea any pictures were taken. But he did have the feeling that something was wrong. And he is not a sensitive guy. He couldn’t put it into words. After the group had broken up and he was alone again with Lee, he had the feeling that something was going to work out badly for somebody.”
“Wouldn’t anyone have that feeling after all that?”
“If it was new to them, I guess so. But Abelle has had that kind of group action before and since, and the other times didn’t hit him that way. Something gave him that feeling. Somebody made him react that way. But he was drunk. I couldn’t dig it out. He had the feeling somebody was going to kill somebody sooner or later, because of that house party.”
“Where do we go next, Travis?”
“I want to know how Nancy Abbott’s father got her pictures, and if there was any more contact.”
I put the silver cup aside. It seemed that moments later Dana was gently shaking me awake. There was a delicious aroma in the room. She had walked to a place almost next door called The Log Cabin Restaurant, eaten there and brought me back a huge bowl of homemade clam chowder and a broiled hamburger as thick as her wrist. It tasted as fine as it smelled.
I awoke again. The room was dark. My shoes were off. There was a blanket over me, but the cold had awakened me. A glow of the sign outside came through the blinds, and I could see the sleeping shape of her in the other bed, hair dark against the pillow. I made a silent trip to the bathroom, came back and undressed to my shorts and slipped into the cool sheets and was asleep in an instant. You can seldom guess what will exhaust you emotionally. That hulk of brave muscle had been a weak and pretentious child. In my dreams I heard him sob. Oh please don’t. Oh please. Oh please, mister.
She had flight schedules indicating we could do better out of Syracuse. So we got an early start and went down to the Thruway and west to the Syracuse airport, through a cold gray morning and some tentative snow flurries. She found the best way out, through to Chicago and then non-stop to San Francisco. I noticed something about her, in the ticketing and the baggage arrangements and turning in the rental car, and even with the stewardesses.
With absolutely no fuss at all, she got the maximum service merely by an attitude-smiling and polite-which seemed to make anything less than perfect service unthinkable. She could raise one eyebrow and bring a porter hustling from eighty feet away. It is a rare gift.
I tried to take over some of the chores, but it seemed to make her feel uncomfortable. It was her job and she was used to it, and she knew how to keep everything straight. I had all the benefit of her efficiency. People stared at me as though trying to remember where they had seen me. This knack of getting exactly what you want exactly when you want it is something shared by great ladies, royalty and the very best executive secretaries.
Also I must admit that her strong and handsome face, and the sparkling intensity of her dark eyes gave the impression that if things did not go her way, all hell would break loose immediately. But it was odd to have someone else taking such efficient care. I began to feel a little like the honeymoon bride of an important widower. Or a boy being taken to camp by one of those super-mothers.
She tried to resist being given a window seat. After we’d latched the seat belts, she checked her little note book and said, “We’ll have an hour and fifty minutes in Chicago. I’ll make some phone calls from there. Are you perfectly comfortable, Travis? Is there anything you’d like?”
“You’d better hustle up forward and help them with the check list for takeoff, honey.”
Her mouth tightened and her face got slightly red. “I’m not trying to be officious.”
“You are a little overwhelming, Dana.”
“You could do it all just as well. But why should you?”
“Okay. Thanks. You’re very good.”
It was not gracious. Most of my women have not been particularly useful outside the home. I looked at her emotionless profile and sighed and said, “Aw come on, Myra.”
Reluctantly her mouth softened. “You get these ugly moods, Frank.”
“I keep worrying about how things are going back at the office.”
“Honey, I bet they hardly know you’re gone.”
“Oh, thanks. Thanks a lot. That’s a big help.” She was laughing with me. Her eyes laughed too. It went deep. That kind of affection is seriously underrated among the hack and grab set. To whom should they give trust? To someone who likes them.
When she laughed or smiled broadly I could see that one of the eyeteeth, the one on the left, was set in there aslant, making a little overlap with the tooth in front of it. When an imperfection looks very dear to you, heed the message. Lysa Dean’s teeth were mercilessly perfect. No message there.
Maybe some of my awareness made a little mark. Dana Holtzer suddenly stopped the real laughter, and went along for a little while on some fake laughter, and then folded herself back into herself, out of sight and out of reach, becoming once again the secretarial presence beside me, smart in wool, laced, girdled, hammocked and erect, her neck severe, eyes distant, seat belt pulled tight for takeoff.
Alexander Armitage Abbott, A.I.A., lay dying in room 310 of University Hospital in San Francisco. There was a waiting room at the end of the corridor. A gray rain which was going to continue forever streaked the waiting room windows, obscuring the view of gray hills. It was Friday afternoon. Dana and I sat like dulled passengers in a heavy train sidetracked at the end of noplace. She put a frayed magazine back in the rack and came over to sit beside me on the couch.
“You’re doing fine,” I told her.