Belinda (61 page)

"Give me the address," Blair said.

Quickly I described the place, the street, the turn off, how the houses didn't have any numbers, all that.

"You leave it to me, Rembrandt. Midnight Mink is a heavy item in Carmel. I know just the guy to send over there, and he doesn't even have to know why he's doing it. He owes me one for a full-length coat I delivered to him personally just in time for Christmas for a beat-up old movie queen who lives in a falling-down hermitage just north of there at Pebble Beach. I spent Christmas Eve of 1984 at thirty-eight thousand feet thanks to that SOB. He'll do what I say. What time is it, one fifteen? Call me at this number at four, if you haven't heard from me before that."

DAN and David Alexander were just getting out of a cab in front of the house when I got back. We went inside together.

"They want you to surrender at six P.M.," Alexander said. "Daryl Blanchard has just issued a statement to the press in New Orleans. After speaking to your housekeeper there and the officers who interrogated her, he says he now believes his niece to be dead. Bonnie made a similar statement in Los Angeles when she was discharged from the hospital. But you can still make a deal on the minor charges. The public won't know the difference once you are in custody. That is all they want."

"You gotta listen to me. She may be on her way here." I told him everything that Blair had reported. I told them about the hideaway in Carmel. I also told him about the "crank calls."

David Alexander sat down at the dining table and made that steeple out of his fingers just under his pursed lips. The dust swirled in the rays of sun breaking through the lace curtains behind him. He looked as if he were in prayer.

"I say, call their bluff," Dan said soberly. "It will take them time convene the grand jury, it will take time to subpoena her letter."

"And then we lose our bargaining power as to the lesser charges." Alexander said.

"You've got to keep me out of jail until I make contact with her," I said.

"But how do you propose to make contact and what do you expect-"

"Look," Dan said, "Jeremy is asking us to keep him out of jail as long as we can."

"Thank you, Dan," I said.

Alexander's face was rigid, completely concealing whatever were his true thoughts. Then he made some little shift in expression that indicated perhaps he'd made up his mind.

"All right," he said. "We'll inform the deputy district attorney that we have new information as to Belinda's whereabouts. We need time to investigate. We will argue that the warrant for Belinda may be frightening and intimidating her, which is highly detrimental to our client's position. We will push the date of surrender back as far as we can."

AT three o'clock a bellhop from the Stanford Court rang the bell and gave me a new number for Blair. Please call him from a booth as soon as I could.

"Look, she's been in the Carmel house. Today!"

"How can you tell?"

"Ironclad evidence. The newspapers open all over the breakfast table with today's date. And a half-drunk cup of coffee and an ash tray full of half-smoked fancy foreign cigarettes."

"That's it. That's Belinda!"

"But no luggage and no clothes. And guess what my man found in the bathroom? Two empty bottles of Clairol Loving Care."

"What the hell is Clairol Loving Care?"

"A hair rinse, Rembrandt, a hair rinse. And the color was chestnut brown."

"Way to go, Belinda! That's wonderful." The reporters on the corner heard me yelling. They started running towards me. I gestured for them to be quiet.

"You bet it is, Rembrandt! 'Cause Loving Care washes out. How the hell could I do the wedding photo of you in Midnight Mink if her beautiful hair was permanently dyed brown?"

I laughed in spite of myself. I was too happy not to laugh. Blair went on talking.

"Look, my man left notes for her all over. But she's already cleared out. And my line's tapped. And so is G.G.'s at the Clift. And what's to stop her from ringing your doorbell and getting stopped by the cops no matter what color hair she's got?"

"She's not that dumb, not Belinda, you know she isn't. Listen, speaking of G.G. and Alex, I gotta get word to them about this. They went up to Ryan's Cafe two blocks from here. I'll call you at the hotel when I get back."

I hung up and shoved my way through the reporters. Couldn't say why I yelled, why I was smiling, really, guys, get off my back, not now! I gave a friendly wave to the plainclothes guys, then started walking fast up to Castro Street.

I didn't realize till I crossed Hartford that the reporters were following me, about six of them at a distance of less than three feet. Then there were the plainclothes guys behind them.

I really started to get crazy. "You guys leave me alone," I started yelling at the reporters. They just clumped together and looked at me, as if to say, Nobody here but us chickens. I thought I'd go nuts. Somebody took my picture with a little automatic camera. Finally I just threw up my hands and stalked up the hill.

When I turned the corner, there was Alex in his fedora and raincoat and G.G. in a denim blazer, standing like two male models out of Esquire magazine in front of the Castro Theater looking at the playbills.

"Jeremy!" G.G. shouted when he saw me. He waved for me to come to them quick.

But I had already seen the marquee above them. The man on the long ladder was still putting the black letters in place:

MIDNGHT SHOW TONIGHT-DIRECTOR ON STAGE IN PERSON. BELINDA IN "FINAL SCORE"

"Jeremy, break out your black dinner jacket and if you don't have one, I'll buy you one," G.G. said, as he took my arm. "I mean, we're going, all of us, first-class, goddamn it, even if we have to take the gentlemen with their nightsticks with us. I am not missing my daughter's debut this time around."

"You just may see your daughter in the flesh!" I said.

I made sure my back was to the little crowd of cops and reporters as I huddled there with Alex and G.G. and told them everything Blair's man had found out.

"Now all I have to do," I said, "is stay out of the slammer for another twenty-four hours. I know she's coming. She's less than two hundred miles away."

"Yes," Alex sighed, "that's all, unless she turned around and went other direction, as far as she could from here."

He beckoned to the reporters. "Come on, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "let's all go into the Twin Peaks bar now and I'll treat you to a round of drinks."

[7]

AT eleven forty-five P.M., Susan Jeremiah's white Cadillac stretch limousine lodged itself uneasily in the narrow driveway, and the reporters mobbed it, cameras flashing, as Susan stepped out of the rear door, smiling under the brim of her scarlet cowboy hat, and waved to us at the living room windows just above.

G.G., Alex, and I pushed our way down the steps. We were all turned out in black dinner jackets and boiled shirts, cummerbunds, patent leather shoes, the whole bit.

"You're going to miss the film, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't hurry!" Alex said genially. "Now everybody has a press pass? Who does not have a pass?"

Dan went across the street to the plainclothesmen in the Oldsmobile. No need for anyone to get crazy. He had four passes for them compliments of Susan, and we were now leaving to go up to Sanchez, turn right, then go down Eighteenth to Castro then right again and down to the theater, which was actually only one block from here.

It seemed to be going amicably enough, but then Dan gave me the signal that he was going on with the cops.

"Can you believe it!" G.G. muttered. "Are they holding him hostage? Will they beat him with a rubber hose if we make a mad dash?"

"Just move on, son, and keep smiling," Alex said.

As we slid one by one into the blue-velvet-lined car, I saw Blair, cigar in hand, opposite Susan, in the little jump seat, wearing the lavender tuxedo Belinda had described in her letter, and the inevitable white mink-lined cloak. The car was already full of smoke.

Susan put her arm around me immediately and gave me a quick press of her smooth cheek.

"Son of a bitch, you sure as hell know how to launch a picture, Walker," she said in her slow Texas drawl. Her red silk rodeo shirt had three inch fringe on it, and a crust of multi-colored embroidery set off with rhinestones and pearls. The pants appeared to be red satin, her boots too were red. Her cowboy hat was resting on her right knee.

But the woman herself obscured the brilliance of the clothing. She had a sleek dark-skinned radiance to her, a cleanness of bone and line that suggested a perfect admixture of Indian blood. Her black hair was luxuriant even though it was clipped short and brushed back from her face. And if Belinda had gotten all that right in her letter, she'd left out a few things. The woman was sexy. I mean conventionally sexy. She had big breasts and an extremely sensuous mouth.

"Blair's told you everything?" I asked. We were still doing a bit of kissing and handshaking but the limo was backing out.

Susan nodded: "You've got until six in the morning to give yourself up."

"Exactly. That's the max we could get. Might have been better if Bonnie and Marty hadn't joined brother Daryl in New Orleans this evening to personally prevail upon the New Orleans police to dig up the garden surrounding my mother's house."

"The lying shits," Susan said. "Why the hell don't you give them both barrels, Walker? Release Belinda's letter not to the police but right to the press."

"Can't do it, Susan. Belinda wouldn't want it," I said.

The limousine was turning on Sanchez. I could see one car of plainclothesmen in front of us, and the other right behind.

"So what's our strategy?" Blair said. "No one's heard from her, but that is hardly surprising under the circumstances. Her best bet may be to show up at the premiere tonight."

"That's exactly what I'm hoping she'll do," I said. "The announcement was in the evening Examiner."

"Yes, and we ran time on the rock stations," Susan said, "and did handbills on Castro and Haight, too."

"All right, suppose she shows up," G.G. asked. "Then what do we do?" We were slowing down now that we had turned on Eighteenth. In fact, there was a heavy traffic jam as we approached Castro. Typical late-night party atmosphere all around. Music pumping from the bars and from the speakers of the tramp electric guitarist on the corner and out of the window of the upstairs record shop.

"The question is, what are you willing to do?" Blair asked, leaning forward and fixing me with his eyes.

"Yeah, that's what me and this guy here have been talking about," Susan said gesturing to Blair. "Like we're down to the wire now, you're facing jail in the morning. Now, are you willing to make a run for it, Walker, if it comes to that?"

"Look, I've been sitting in the living room of my house for the last five hours thinking about nothing but that very question. And the answer is simple. It's just like the exhibit. My needs and Belinda's needs are in total synchronization. We've got to get hold of each other and get out. If she wants a divorce later she can have it, but right now she needs me just about as much as I need her."

I could see Susan and Blair exchanging glances. Alex, who had taken the other jump seat opposite, was watching too.

And strangely enough I was getting nervous, upset. I could feel my hand shaking. I could feel my heart accelerating. I wasn't sure why this was happening just now.

"You have anything to say, Alex?" G.G. asked a little timidly. "I've got her birth certificate in my pocket. It's got my name on it, and I'm ready to do whatever Jeremy wants me to do."

"No, son," Alex said. He looked at me. "I realized in New Orleans that Jeremy was going down the line with this thing. As I see it, his getting away somewhere long enough to marry Belinda is the only chance he's got. I think those lawyers would admit that, too, if one of them wasn't so cold-blooded and the other one wasn't so scared. I just don't see how you're going to do it. You need anything from me, you can have it. I'll be all right no matter what happens. At this point I'm just about the most famous innocent bystander involved."

"Alex, if any of this winds up hurting you-" I started.

"It hasn't," said Susan offhandedly. "Everybody in Tinseltown's talking about Alex. He's coming out of it a hero, and real clean. You know the old saying, 'Just so long as they spell his name right ... '"

Alex nodded, unruffled, but I wondered if it was that simple.

"I love you, Alex," I said softly. I was really on the edge of losing it suddenly, and I wasn't sure why.

"Jeremy, stop talking like we're going to a funeral," Alex said. He reached over and gave my shoulder a nudge. "We're on our way to a premiere."

"Listen, man," Susan said, "I know what he's feeling. He's going into the slammer at six A.M." She looked at me. "How do you feel about splitting out of here tonight whether Belinda shows or not?"

"I'd do anything to get to Belinda," I said.

Blair sat back, crossed his legs, folded his arms, and looked at Susan in that clever knowing way again. Susan was sitting back, her long legs stretched out as far as they could go in the limo in front of her, and she just smiled back and shrugged.

"Now all we need is Belinda," she said.

"Yeah, and we've got cops to the left of us and cops to the right of us," Alex said casually. "And at the theater cops in front and back."

We had rounded the corner onto Castro, and now I could see the line, three and four deep, all the way back from the theater to Eighteenth.

Two enormous klieg lights set out in front of the theater were sweeping the sky with their pale-blue beams. I read the marquee again, saw those lights flickering all the way up on the giant sign that read Castro, and I thought, If she isn't here, somewhere, just to see this, my heart is going to break.

The limo was crawling towards the theater entrance, where a roped walkway had been made, to the left of the box office, leading to the front doors.

It might damn well have been an opening at Grauman's Chinese Theater, the crowd was so thick and making so much noise. The limousine was turning heads. People were obviously trying to see through the tinted glass. G.G. was searching the crowd, I could see that. But Susan was sitting there like someone had said, "Freeze."