“Douglas is like me, Mr. Blackshear. He hasn’t changed either. Unfortunately.”
She approached the walnut desk. It bore no evidence of the hours Miss Clarvoe had spent at it. There were no letters or papers visible, no ink marks on the blotter. Miss Clarvoe did not leave things lying about. She kept them in drawers, in closets, in neat steel files. All the records of her life were under lock and key: the notes from Douglas asking for money, her bank statements and canceled checks, gardenia-scented letters from her mother, some newspaper clippings about her father, an engraved wedding invitation half torn down the middle, a bottle of sleeping pills, a leash and harness with a silver tag bearing the name Dapper, a photograph of a thin, awkward girl in a ballet dress, and a sheaf of bills held together by a gold money clip.
Miss Clarvoe picked up the sheaf of bills and handed it to Blackshear.
“Count it, Mr. Blackshear.”
“Why?”
“I may have made a mistake. I get — flustered sometimes and can’t concentrate properly.”
Blackshear counted the money. “A hundred and ninety-six dollars.”
“I was right, after all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Someone has been stealing from me, Mr. Blackshear. Perhaps systematically, for weeks, perhaps just once, I don’t know. I do know that there should be nearly a thousand dollars in that clip.”
“When did you discover some of it was missing?”
“This morning. I woke up early while it was still dark. There was some argument going on down the hall, a man and a woman. The woman’s voice reminded me of the girl on the telephone, Evelyn Merrick, and I... well, it upset me. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I began to wonder about Miss Merrick and when — whether I would hear from her again and what she hoped to get out of me. The only thing I have is money.”
She paused, as if giving him a chance to contradict her or agree with her. Blackshear remained quiet. He knew she was wrong, but he didn’t feel that anything could be gained, at this point, by stating it: Miss Clarvoe had another thing besides money which might interest a woman like Evelyn Merrick, and that was the capacity to be hurt.
Miss Clarvoe continued quietly. “I got up and took a pill and went back to sleep. I dreamed of her — Evelyn Merrick. I dreamed she had a key to my suite and she let herself in, bold as brass. She was blonde, coarse-looking, made up like a woman of the streets — it’s so vivid, even now. She went over to my desk and took my money. All of it.” Miss Clarvoe stopped and gave Blackshear a long, direct stare. “I know such dreams mean nothing, except that I was disturbed and frightened, but as soon as I woke up again I unlocked my desk and counted my money.”
“I see.”
“I told you about the dream because I wanted to make it clear that I had a reason for counting the money. I don’t usually do such a thing. I’m not a miser poring over a hoard of gold.”
But she spoke defensively, as if someone in the past had accused her of being miserly.
“Why do you keep such a large amount of cash in your room?” Blackshear said.
“I need it.”
“Why?”
“For... well, tips, shopping for clothes, things like that.”
Blackshear didn’t bother pointing out that a thousand dollars would cover a lot of tips, and the black jersey dress Miss Clarvoe was wearing indicated that her shopping trips were few and meager.
The silence stretched out like tape from a roller until there seemed no logical place to cut it.
“I like to have my money around,” she said, finally. “It gives me a feeling of security.”
“It should give you the opposite.”
“Why?”
“It makes you a target.”
“You think that’s what Evelyn Merrick wants from me? Only money?”
He realized from her stressing of the word “only” that she too suspected other factors were involved.
“Perhaps,” he said. “It sounds to me like an extortion racket. It may be that the woman means to frighten you, to harass you, until you are willing to pay her to be left alone. It may be, too, that you’ll never hear from her again.”
Miss Clarvoe turned away with a little sighing sound that whispered of despair. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid sometimes even to answer the phone.”
Blackshear looked grave. “Do you know more than you’re telling me, Helen?”
“No. I wrote everything in my letter to you, every word that was spoken. She’s... she’s crazy, isn’t she, Mr. Blackshear?”
“A little off-balance, certainly. I’m no specialist in these matters. My business is stocks and bonds, not psychoses.”
“You have no advice for me, then?”
“I think it would be a good idea if you took a vacation. Leave town for a while. Travel. Go someplace where this woman can’t find you.”
“I have no place to go.”
“You have the whole world,” Blackshear said impatiently.
“No... no.” The world was for couples, for lovers, for husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Everywhere in the world, all the way to the horizon, Miss Clarvoe saw couples, like her mother and father, and, now, Douglas and her mother, and the sight of them spread ice around her heart.
“England,” Blackshear was saying. “Or Switzerland. I’m told St. Moritz is very lively in the winter-time.”
“What would I do in such a place?”
“What do other people do?”
“I don’t really know,” she said seriously. “I’ve lost touch.”
“You must find it again.”
“How does one go about finding things that are lost? Have you ever lost anything, Mr. Blackshear?”
“Yes.” He thought of his wife, and his endless, silent prayers when she was dying, his bargains with God: take my eyes, my arms, my legs, take anything, but leave me Dorothy.
“I’m sorry,” Miss Clarvoe said. “I didn’t realize — I’d forgotten...”
He lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking with anger and remembered grief and sudden loathing for this awkward woman who did everything wrong, who cared for no one and gave nothing of herself even to a dog.
“You asked me for advice,” he said with no trace of emotion. “Very well. About the missing money, you’ll have to report that to the police. Whether you like it or not, it’s your duty as a citizen.”
“Duty.” She repeated the word after him, slowly, as if it had a taste that must be analyzed, a flavor pungent with the past: castor oil and algebra and unshed tears and hangnails and ink from leaky pens. Miss Clarvoe was a connoisseur. She could pick out and identify each flavor, no matter how moldy with age.
“As for the woman, Evelyn Merrick, I’ve already given you my advice. Take a vacation. There are certain disordered persons who get a kick out of making anonymous phone calls to strangers or people they know slightly.”
“She gave me her name. It wasn’t an anonymous call.”
“It was as far as you’re concerned. You don’t know her. You’ve never heard of her before. Is that right?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“Do you ordinarily remember people well — names, faces, conversations?”
“Oh yes.” Miss Clarvoe gave a nod of bitter satisfaction. “I remember them.”
Blackshear got up and looked out of the window at the traffic below. After-five traffic, with everyone hurrying to get home in all directions; to Westwood and Tarzana, to Redondo Beach and Glendale, to Escondido and Huntington Park, to Sherman Oaks and Lynwood. It was as if the order had gone out to evacuate Hollywood and the evacuation was taking place with no one in command but a single traffic cop with a tin whistle.
Blackshear said, over his shoulder, “You’re not good at taking advice.”
“What you suggest is impossible. I can’t leave Los Angeles right now, for personal reasons.” She added vaguely, “My family.”