Goodnight, Irene (22 page)

Thinking of the Hollingsworths reminded me of Guy St. Germain and our plans for that evening. I was starting to wonder if it had been a mistake to accept his invitation. I kept asking myself why I had this urge to confess to Frank that I was going out with another man. Then I asked myself why I thought of it as confessing. It wasn’t as if we were involved with one another in some exclusive arrangement. We really hadn’t dated or anything. All we had done was have a picnic together. And been shot at and nearly killed in a car chase.

I rewound the microfilm and put it back in its box. I turned off the machine and sat there in the dark for a minute.

I didn’t want to tell Frank, and I wasn’t sure why. But I knew for damn sure that I didn’t want him to hear about it from Pete Baird. Hell, considering Pete’s basic buttinsky nature, I might already be too late to be the one to tell Frank about it. If I decided to tell him.

Nuts.

I
WENT BACK UPSTAIRS
and called Frank and told him what I had learned about Woolsey. He said he’d ask if Pete could spare some time to go through old files to find more information on the Decker accident and the shy witness. Hearing that he was going to be talking to Pete, I arranged to have lunch with Frank, thinking maybe I’d get a chance to talk to him about my plans for the evening. Since I had only been there once, I asked for directions to his place and told him I’d bring some sandwiches from his favorite deli, the Galley.

That settled, I spent the next few hours looking over some of the political stuff O’Connor had been covering, writing up a couple of brief pieces about events scheduled for the upcoming week. I went back through some of the computer notes, but I still couldn’t make much out of the references to the mayor’s race.

I did start to notice that almost every reference to the mayor’s race had some connection to the one for the DA’s office. I skimmed back over them a few more times. The notes on Hollingsworth were at least as plentiful as those on Mayor Longren. Most really weren’t very revealing; they either seemed to chronicle fund-raisers held for the two races or contain general political background on the two men.

Both had held power in Las Piernas for decades, so there was little that was new in the background information. They were basically conservative, “law-and-order” types. Hollingsworth had a high conviction rate and Longren was an astute year-round grandstander. Running for city-wide office in Las Piernas was an expensive proposition, so incumbents never had too many problems getting reelected.

It was easier for Hollingsworth to pay his campaign bills; he had married into the Sheffield fortunes. Longren struggled harder, but always seemed to manage reelection. There was some decline in his campaign war chest after the California campaign funding reporting laws went into effect in the mid-1970s, especially as the laws were made stronger over a series of later initiatives.

Those laws require candidates to file public reports which state the full name, address, occupation, and employer of anyone who contributes over ninety-nine dollars to a campaign in any one-year period. The idea is to give voters a chance to see who is backing whom and how much a candidate is dependent on a given supporter or company or political action committee. Longren’s funding problems probably meant that before the laws were passed, his big money had come from people who didn’t care to be identified.

While I was in the midst of all these political and legal musings, the phone rang. It was Barbara, calling me back. I asked how Kenny was feeling.

“Oh, he’s doing a lot better. He’s conscious and able to talk a little. He doesn’t remember anything about being beaten, but the doctor says that isn’t uncommon with head injuries.”

“Maybe it will come back to him later.”

“Maybe.”

“You sound kind of down,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Just tired, I guess. He still seems happy that I’m here with him. I was kind of worried that things would go back to — well, go back to the way they were before.”

“You’ve been great for him, Barbara, sitting there all those hours. Any chance of getting away for a while tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. For how long?”

“Oh, how about lunch? Maybe we could go sit on the beach for a while. Whatever you want. I could use a change of pace myself.”

“What the heck. Okay, let’s go out together tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been reading about all the things that have been happening. Are you sure it’s safe for you to be out in the open?”

“No, and if you’re afraid to be with me, I don’t blame you.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that part of it. I just keep wondering if you wouldn’t be happier working for Kevin Malloy again.”

“Probably safer, definitely not happier — no reflection on Kevin.”

We said good-bye and hung up. I closed out the computer files and turned in what I had written. I called in the deli order, then took off for Frank’s house.

In June, almost every day’s weather forecast is the same: “Late-night and early-morning low clouds, burning off to hazy sunshine in the afternoon.” The hazy-sunshine part was in progress when I drove out of the parking lot. When I reached the corner of Shoreline and Hermosa, I stopped off at the Galley and picked up the sandwiches I had ordered — a couple of pastramis with hot mustard.

I rode the long stretch past the marina and the mansions on the bluff, finally turning down one of the small avenues that led to the beach. I made a few more turns and looked for a parking place.

School wasn’t out for the summer yet, so street parking was not too bad, but I took advantage of the fact that Frank had the ultimate beach-house luxury: a driveway and garage. I got out of the car and stood there for a moment, feeling the contrast of sun and ocean breeze on my face. Seeing the house by daylight for the first time, I noticed it was neatly painted and the small front yard was well cared for. Frank was no slouch.

I entered the fenced yard from a side gate and made my way to the front door. I was surprised when Frank answered the door himself.

“Where’s your baby-sitter?” I asked.

“The department can’t keep somebody on a duty like that forever. I don’t think I was the target anyway. You’re the one we need to keep an eye on. Come on in.”

He was moving a little slowly as he led me toward the back of the house, but his steps weren’t those of someone feeling weak or pain-ridden.

“You’re really making progress,” I said.

“Getting damned impatient with it all.”

“Hey, a few days ago you scared the hell out of me. You could use a little boredom.”

“Life has been anything but dull around you, Irene.”

“Thanks, I think.”

He took me out the back door onto a wooden deck. The yard was very private, another rarity in houses near the beach. Latticework over the deck was covered with honeysuckle vines. Beyond the deck was a winding brick pathway cheerfully bordered by poppies and other colorful flowers. In one corner, another deck began, shielded from view between the garage and back fence, where a willow grew. Tall plants of various kinds grew along the side fences. It was a green and peaceful place. Somehow I had not pictured Frank having this kind of yard.

As if reading my mind, he said, “I like working out here. It’s where I spend a lot of my spare time. A little world of my own, I guess.”

“It’s great,” I said.

We sat down in a couple of redwood chairs. He had put out a small cooler with some white wine in it. He poured out a couple of glasses and we drank and ate our sandwiches. Again there was that comfortable silence between us, and I felt my anxiety about talking to him about my plans for the evening ebbing.

“I’m going to the Hollingsworth fund-raiser tonight,” I began.

He looked up over his wineglass, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m going with Guy St. Germain.”

Suddenly he put the glass down and started laughing, holding the side with the cracked ribs and saying, “Oh, God, that hurts.” But still laughing.

“I don’t suppose you’d mind letting me in on the joke?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you unless you promise not to be mad.”

“Anything given an introduction like that is bound to infuriate me, so I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.”

“Not worth any fury. Pete told me you were going out with someone tonight.”

I could feel my temperature rising, even though I had half-expected Pete would talk. “And?” I said, trying to control my temper.

“Well, he told me he didn’t think you’d tell me that you were going out, and that if you did, you wouldn’t tell me who you were going out with or where.”

“And what did you tell Pete?”

“It’s not important. Thanks for telling me.”

“What do you mean, it’s not important? What the hell did you tell him? I know there’s more to this than you’ve told me so far.”

“Well,” he said, hesitating, “we made sort of a bet.”

“Sort of a bet, or a bet?”

“A bet, sort of.”

“And the bet was?”

“He bet that you wouldn’t tell me. I bet that you would.”

I could feel my face flushing with anger.

“You’re a cocky son of a bitch, you know that?”

“I can’t believe you’re angry over this. I just stated my trust in your openness.”

“What kind of a simpleminded bimbo do you take me for? I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, Frank. You weren’t betting on my openness. You were betting on — shall we say, your degree of influence over me?”

“Excuse me, Irene, but nobody can have a damn dime’s worth of influence over you.
Goddamn,
you are stubborn. I’ve never met a more hardheaded woman in my entire life.”

We were silent again, only this time we weren’t at all at ease. An explosive tension hung between us. We stopped looking one another in the eye. I didn’t just want to stomp off, and I didn’t want to stay there avoiding eye contact. It would have been nice to have been able to vanish into thin air. It was a standoff, all right.

“I’d better be getting back to the paper,” I said, but regretted the words as I spoke them.

“Fine.”

The Arctic Circle was warmer in December than that one word in June. I decided to try again.

“Frank, I’m sorry if I lost my temper. I just wish every cop in Las Piernas wasn’t briefed on our every move. I don’t want this to be some kind of game.”

“And you think I do?”

This steamed me. He was not cooperating. I decided I would get up and leave. Any minute, I was really going to do it. I was going to stand up and walk out and — and then what? Go to a political bash with Guy St. Germain? I didn’t want to leave things like this with Frank.

“I apologize,” I said, speaking two words I find very hard to say in these situations. “I know you don’t think of this as a game either.”

I could see the mollification process going on, and wasn’t going to step in and screw it up. I waited.

“Who is this Guy St. Germain, anyway?” he said gruffly, then softened his tone a little when he added, “I mean, do you know him very well?”

“Not really. He’s a former hockey player who’s now a vice president at the Bank of Las Piernas. I met him the other day when I went into the bank to follow up on something in O’Connor’s computer notes.”

“How does a hockey player get into banking?”

“I don’t know. We talked hockey, not banking.”

“You’re a hockey fan? Isn’t it kind of a violent sport?”

I counted to ten. In between numbers, I told myself: He is just like the zillion or so other people you run into all the time, Irene. Probably a football or boxing fan who has never watched any part of a hockey game except a ten-second clip of a fight on a television newscast. He doesn’t know hockey. Yes, it did feel like a cheap shot. Keep cool.

What I said was, “Yes, I’m an avid hockey fan.”

Quiet again. Not as bad as the previous silence. I heard him exhale. Good, he was still breathing.

“Well, I guess I’m out of sorts,” he said at last. “I’m not trying to pry about Mr. St. Germain. I just want to make sure you’re safe. I don’t trust strangers around you right now.”

“I’m going to this dinner as a reporter, Frank. Guy St. Germain and I had a friendly conversation about hockey and a brief talk about one of the employees at the bank, and he followed it up with an invitation to sit next to him at this dinner. Neither one of us is really looking forward to the fund-raiser, and we each thought it would be nice to sit next to someone we would enjoy talking to.”

“You have every right to go out with anyone you care to go out with. I’m not jealous,” he said, “just concerned.”

Yeah, right, I thought, looking skyward to see if pigs could fly after all. Aloud I said, “I’m glad you’re concerned, Frank. But I don’t think you need to worry.”

“When is hockey season?”

I thought it was a weird question, but decided to roll with it. “The pros will start up again in the fall. You can find amateur games around here all year long.”

He was quiet for a minute.

“Well, maybe you can take me to a game sometime and try to explain it to me.”

“Sure, I’d like that,” I said, feeling relieved.

All the same, he looked a little down. And tired. I decided to let him work through it on his own. Sometimes I actually do know when to shut up.

“I guess I better let you get some rest,” I said. I gathered up the paper wrappers and other odds and ends from lunch, and stood up. His ribs made it a little hard for him to stand up again, but I didn’t want to fuss over him, so I tried to act like I didn’t see him wince when he rose from the chair.

As we slowly walked away from the garden, I felt bad, as if we had somehow ruined it that day. It was like having an argument with somebody in a church.

We made our way to the front door.

“Thanks for lunch — and thanks for coming by.”

“No problem. Look, Frank—” I stopped myself from bringing up the subject again.

His bruised face turned to me in a questioning look. I thought about how he got those bruises, and felt like a complete jerk. He must have seen the guilt on my face. He reached up and brushed some loose strands of hair away from my eyes.