“Well, of
course
it’s the money. You’d like to take a trip to Europe. Airline tickets cost money, you know.”
Placed on a nearby chair, the portable phone warbled. It was the office number, ringing in the flat’s front room, the office. Bernhardt glanced at his watch. Eight o’clock.
“Go ahead.” Paula pushed back her chair, rose from the table. “Answer it. I’ll uncork another bottle of wine.”
Watching the rhythm of her walk as she strode into the kitchen, aware of the stiffened tilt of her head and the particular set of her jaw, he realized that Paula was exasperated.
Exasperated and, yes, worried.
He answered the phone on the third ring.
“Mr. Bernhardt? Alan Bernhardt?” It was a man’s voice, a voice that, even in just two words, conveyed an aura of aloof command.
“That’s correct.” Reacting to the peremptory note in the caller’s voice, Bernhardt clipped his reply.
“This is Justin Powers. Can you talk?”
Justin Powers—the front man who’d hired Willis Dodge.
Again, the desperate images flared: the figure engulfed in orange flames, so ghastly in the blackness of the desert night.
The flames, and the shrieks: animal screams, finally gurgling into silence. And then, in the darkness, the thin, shrill sound of the siren, coming closer. All of it juxtaposed on the other obscenity: Justin Powers, presiding behind his huge desk at Powers Associates. Justin Powers, the ultimate executive, smiling, smooth-talking, infinitely secure, granting Bernhardt a few minutes of his precious time, ostensibly to help Bernhardt find Betty Giles, once a Powers employee.
“Yes,” Bernhardt said. “I can talk.” His eyes were on the doorway to the kitchen, where Paula was struggling with a stubborn wine cork. Crusher, ever optimistic whenever anyone was at work in the kitchen, was sitting attentively beside Paula, hoping for the best.
Bernhardt turned his back on the kitchen. “Why’re you calling?”
“I want to meet with you. Tomorrow. Preferably down here, in Los Angeles.”
“Why?” As he spoke, it was as if he were two characters in tandem, his outer self and his inner self. The inner self spoke next:
Why do you want to see me? So you can hire someone else to kill me, you son of a bitch?
“I’ll have five thousand dollars for you, and I’ll meet you in the terminal at LAX. I’ll be wearing blue jeans, running shoes, a Dodgers warm-up jacket, and a Dodgers baseball cap. I’ll be wearing sunglasses, and I’ll be carrying a copy of a car magazine, probably
Motor Trend.
I’ll be in Concourse C, gate forty-two. That’s four-two. I’ll arrive there at three p.m., and I’ll remain there until four-thirty. I’ll be sitting down, either reading the magazine or looking out the window. Is that clear?”
Bernhardt decided to pitch his response to a patronizing note distilled in pure, savage hatred. “You sound like you’re doing a very bad imitation of a third-rate spy, Powers.”
“Tomorrow. Three o’clock. Concourse C. Gate forty-two.” The line clicked, went dead.
E
VEN IN THE WARM-UP
jacket and Dodgers cap, Powers was unconvincing as a sports fan waiting for his flight. Perhaps, Bernhardt decided, it was the razor-cut hair showing beneath the cap. Or perhaps it was body language: the well-paid, infinitely secure executive, accustomed to regarding the masses with disdainful tolerance.
Bernhardt slid into the empty chair beside Powers—and waited. His eyes were focused on the floor-to-ceiling window of Concourse C that offered a view of one of the busiest airports in the world. Seen at this distance, the taxiing airliners looked like battery-powered toys. Only on takeoff, roaring down the runway and climbing into the sky, undercarriage dangling, flaps extended, whorls of exhaust trailing the engines, did the airplanes acquire scale and substance.
Finally, also looking straight ahead at the airport view, Powers spoke: “Mr. Bernhardt.”
“Powers.”
“Let’s get a cup of coffee.” Without waiting for a reply, Powers rose, walked rapidly down the concourse in the direction of the main terminal. Soon the two men were sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups as they looked at each other across a tiny Formica table that hadn’t quite been wiped clean. Powers dropped his copy of
Motor Trend
on the floor beside Bernhardt’s flight bag.
“In the magazine,” Powers said, “there’s an envelope with the money inside. I’ll leave first. When you leave, pick up the magazine.”
“Fine.”
“My, ah, employer told me to do this, meet you here.”
“Mr. DuBois.”
Plainly fearing that Bernhardt wore a wire, Powers looked pained as he nodded.
“DuBois told you to hire the man who tried to kill Betty and me in Borrego Springs.”
“Mr. Bernhardt—” Powers’ voice was no more than a whisper, his meager mouth pursed. Behind dark designer sunglasses his eyes were mercifully invisible. “Please.”
“I could have died, you son of a bitch, and you’re asking me to spare your feelings.” As he said it, Bernhardt experienced a sudden surge of rage, a vestige of the fury that had engulfed him that night in the desert. “I should strangle you.”
“I’m here to do business, Mr. Bernhardt. If you’d rather call me names …” Powers let it go unfinished. Watching him, Bernhardt realized that at some deep, primitive level, himself surprised, caught utterly unaware, he must abuse this man until he saw fear in his face. There was no other way.
“You should be in jail, you bastard. Dead—you should be dead, lying in the desert, rotting. You should—”
“I brought you five thousand dollars, to show good faith.” Powers pointed to the magazine lying on the floor. Was his forefinger trembling? Inside, in his guts, was this craven satrap cringing? Was it enough? Probing the depths of his own anger, Bernhardt drew a deep, tremulous breath—one breath, and another. Finally he spoke:
“Take off those goddam glasses.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Powers used both hands to remove the dark glasses.
Yes, there was the proof of surrender: the furtive movement of the eyes, the uncertainty around the mouth.
It was enough. For now, it was enough.
“All right.” Bernhardt gestured, a rough flick of his hand. “Go ahead. Tell me what it’s all about.”
“My—my employer. He wants to see you. Talk to you.”
“I thought that might be it.”
“Tomorrow morning. Ten-thirty.”
“Where?”
“At the same place you met before. Mr.—my employer—said you’d know where.” With an effort, Powers raised his head, looked inquiringly at Bernhardt, who merely nodded, a slight, contemptuous inclination of the head.
“I’ve got you a hotel room and a car. A Lincoln.” Powers spoke indistinctly, without inflection. On the tiny round table between them, he still gripped the sunglasses with both hands. Now his naked gaze was fixed on the table.
“What’s DuBois want to talk about?”
Eyes still downcast, Powers shook his head. “I don’t know. I was just told to contact you, make the arrangements.”
“You’re a fucking errand boy.”
No reply. Yes, the surrender was complete.
“When you put Willis Dodge on Betty’s trail, told him to kill her, were you just following orders then?”
“Mr. Bernhardt—” Once more the frightened eyes begged. “Please. Let’s not—”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Powers.” Bernhardt spoke bitterly. “I’m not wearing a wire. Because, you see, I’m on DuBois’s payroll, too. You didn’t know that, did you? You didn’t know we’re both infected by the same virus. It’s called greed.”
“If you knew what really happened in the desert, you’d realize that I went there to stop it. Those were my orders. But I couldn’t locate Dodge in time,” Powers said.
“First DuBois told you to have Betty killed. Then he changed his mind, and told you to stop it. Is that your story?”
“I was there, that night in Borrego Springs. Would I have been there, if I hadn’t wanted to stop it? Would I—”
“All right, forget about Borrego Springs. What’s this all about—this meeting tomorrow? What’s the purpose, errand boy?”
“It—” In futility, perhaps desperation, the husk of a hollowed-out man, Powers slowly shook his head as he said, “It’s what I said. I don’t know why Mr.—my employer wants to see you. I only know he does.”
“How much money did you make last year, Powers?”
“I don’t see what—”
“
How much?
”
“Almost—almost a million. Maybe a little more.”
“Are you happy in your work?” Bernhardt laced the question with all the contempt he could command.
“You’re—you’re trying to humiliate me.”
“That’s right, Justin. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. See, this is the first time I’ve ever faced someone who ordered my death. It’s a new experience for me. I’m amazed at the anger I’m feeling. I’m absolutely awed. If we were somewhere else—an alley—I’m sure I’d try to kill you with my bare hands. All this despite the fact that, since grammar school, I’ve never struck anyone in anger. And I—”
“You killed Willis Dodge.”
“No. Willis Dodge was tossing a Molotov cocktail through the window of that cottage in the desert. I had a shotgun, and I fired instinctively as the bottle came through the window. It was a lucky shot. Dodge wasn’t so lucky.”
Eyes once more downcast, submissively, Powers nodded agreement, but made no reply. Bernhardt finished his cup of coffee and checked the time: almost four o’clock on a smoggy April afternoon in Los Angeles.
“Where’s the car?” Bernhardt asked.
“I’ll show you. It’s in the short-term parking garage.”
As if he were exasperated at some petty inconvenience, Bernhardt sighed impatiently. “If I’m ever alone with you in a parking garage, asshole, I’ll punch out your lights. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Helplessly shaking his head again, the other man made no reply.
“You’re disgusting. You’re unbelievably disgusting. There are no words to describe how disgusting you are.”
Still no reply.
B
RACED IN THE CUSTOM-CONTOURED
seat that held him erect in the car, Du Bois allowed his eyes to close, allowed his head to lean slowly back against the leather headrest. Recently the gardener’s eight-year-old daughter had watched while DuBois was being lifted into the seat, then strapped in. “Hey, look,” she’d said, calling to her father. “Look, it’s like a baby seat.”
Raphael’s mortification had been monumental. Therefore it had been a particular pleasure to instruct a secretary that a comic card be sent to the child, with a ten-dollar bill inside.
DuBois opened his eyes as the driver and the bodyguard began talking in low voices. Now James, the principal bodyguard and chief of security, was studying the side-view mirror on his side while Ferdinand, the Chicano driver, slowed the Mercedes. Probable significance: the two bodyguards following in a second Mercedes had fallen behind, either caught by a red light or clogged in traffic. DuBois touched a button on the console built into his chair’s arm, an identical console to the one in his wheelchair. In response, the window between the front and the rear began to close. Whenever he was in the decision-making mode any distraction, especially conversation, was unacceptable.
Time: ten o’clock. The Friday morning traffic was light. They would arrive at the Huntington in twenty minutes, allowing James and Ferdinand to get him out of the car and into the wheelchair with a comfortable time margin. As he’d done before, Ferdinand would park so that, remaining in the car, monitoring two radios, he could see the marble bench where DuBois and Bernhardt had first met, almost six months ago. Ferdinand would take a small submachine gun from the compartment beneath the Mercedes’s dash. James and the other two guards would assume their positions, two on the pathway that connected the marble bench to the main building of the Huntington. Holding a tiny surveillance radio concealed in his hand, James, the leader, would take up a position beside the car. An intelligent, impassive, quick-thinking South American in his middle thirties, almost improbably handsome, James was built like a linebacker and moved like a quarterback. Of all his domestic employees, James was the only one in whom DuBois reposed any real trust, the only one who’d demonstrated mettle. The test had come only three months after James began work. In downtown Los Angeles, at noon, three black men in ski masks had tried to kidnap DuBois as his limousine stopped for a red light. With incredible coolness under fire, James had taken careful aim at each of the three kidnappers, dropping them with three shots from the Browning nine-millimeter he carried in an elaborately tooled leather shoulder holster. That evening DuBois had written out a bonus check for ten thousand dollars. A month later, James was given his own rent-free bungalow on the DuBois estate. Earning thirty thousand a year, James prospered.
Sometimes DuBois estimated the expense, hour by hour, day to day, of his own personal maintenance. Here, now, there were three bodyguards and two drivers who doubled as guards. At his home, high above the sprawl of Los Angeles, there was a valet. A nurse lived on the grounds. Two day women cleaned. There was a cook, two gardeners, and a secretary. Grand personnel total, thirteen. Grand total yearly outlay for salaries, almost two hundred thousand, give or take.
Like James, the spinster secretary—Grace Campbell—enjoyed a particular measure of DuBois’s trust, and was rewarded accordingly. It was Grace Campbell who took responsibility for running the house. She did the accounts, paid the staff, paid the taxes, contracted for needed repairs and maintenance. She’d been with him for ten years, and was the only employee who lived on the premises in the main house, in an apartment with a separate entrance and its own garage. For the first five years, she’d been scrupulously honest. Then, when she turned fifty, still unmarried, without prospects, Grace had begun systematically skimming from the household accounts. On principle, DuBois reviewed the accounts quarterly. When he’d first discovered Grace’s lapse, five years ago, he had considered firing her, even considered having her prosecuted. But he’d already had his first heart attack and one small stroke. He needed Grace more than she needed him. Therefore, if she were intelligent enough to keep her graft to a minimum, which she did, DuBois would ignore her lapse, charging it to “retirement.”