“You got food?” was all Tom Black asked.
Gaines threw him the backpack. “I showed you how to find things to eat in the woods,” he said, sounding cross. “I can’t be here for you all the time, Tom. That would just make them suspicious.”
“Can’t stay here forever, either,” Hank cut in. “Sooner or later you’ve got to come out.”
The young man ripped into a pack of trail mix, poured some into his throat, and looked at them unpleasantly, as if they weren’t quite real.
“What if we could make it sooner?” Frank added. “What if we could make it safe?”
Black glanced at Jimmy Gaines, seeking guidance.
“Take their phones and throw them in the forest,” Gaines ordered. With his left hand he retrieved some rope out of the backpack. “Then tie them up good and tight.”
5
The Brocklebank building was old and elegant and hauntingly familiar. Costa parked outside the grand entrance and talked his way past the uniformed concierge at the door. There was money on Nob Hill. History, too. The connection came to him as he stood in the elevator, waiting for it to rise to the third floor, where Maggie’s apartment was situated.
In the movie, Madeleine Elster had lived in this same block. The detective Scottie had watched her leave the forecourt in a green Jaguar, identical to the one some unknown stranger had briefly loaned Maggie Flavier.
He went through a cursory ID check when he reached the floor — the movie company’s security men were all flash suits and earpieces and very little in the way of brains — and then she let him in.
Maggie looked as if she’d come straight from the shower. She was wearing a bright emerald silk robe and nothing else. Her blonde hair was newly dried and seemed to have recovered its gleaming sheen. It was still short, without the extensions that had caused his heart to skip a beat at the Palace of Fine Arts. She looked incredibly well, as if she’d never suffered a day’s illness in her life.
“I wish you’d come when I asked,” she said. “No need to explain. Help yourself to a drink, will you?” She pointed at the kitchen. “I’ve got a vodka. I need to get dressed.”
He watched her walk into the bedroom and close the door. Then he found some Pellegrino in the refrigerator, returned with it, and stood in front of a marble fireplace and the largest TV screen he’d ever seen. The place wasn’t as big as he’d expected. A part of him said movie stars needed to live somewhere special, somewhere different. From what he could see, there was just the one living room, a kitchen, the bedroom on the inner side of the building, away from the noise of the street, and a shining stone-and-steel bathroom next to it.
When she returned, she was wearing a short pleated skirt, the kind he associated with teenage cheerleaders at sports matches, and a polo shirt with the number seven on the front. No makeup, no pretence, no borrowed character from an old museum canvas. She looked little more than twenty.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked.
“Forever. My mother found it not long after we came from Paris. We rented back then. Not that she could afford it. There were … standards to be maintained. If you read the bios, they’ll tell you she spent our last thousand dollars trying to find me a break. That’s not quite true. Not quite.”
“So that’s … what? Ten, fifteen years ago?”
“Seventeen years in October. I remember how warm and sunny it was when we arrived. I thought San Francisco would always be like that. You should come in the autumn. It’s beautiful. Different. What you’d expect of the summer.”
“You don’t know how she found it?”
She shook her head and ran her fingers through the ragged blonde locks. “No. Why should I? It was a good choice. When she was gone and I had the money, I bought the apartment. It’s just a one-bedroom bachelor-girl pad. I’m not here more than two or three months of the year anyway.”
“And when you’re travelling?”
“Then the agency rents it. I hate the idea of an empty home. A place should be lived in. Why are you asking all this?”
“I’ve seen it before. This apartment block. It was in a movie.”
“It was?” she asked, wide-eyed, curious.
“Vertigo. Hitchcock.”
Maggie closed her eyes and fought to concentrate. Then she opened them, picked up her glass from the table, and gulped at it.
“No. I don’t think I’ve seen it. Hitchcock isn’t really that fashionable these days, to be honest with you.”
“The woman in it lived here. She died. In the end.”
Maggie raised her drink in a kind of toast. “Women in movies often do. You should congratulate me, by the way. Dino Bonetti came by earlier. He offered me the part of Beatrice in the sequel.”
“Did you agree?”
“What, on a social visit? I don’t think so. All that stuff goes through Simon and then my agent.”
“Do they take a cut?”
She laughed, exasperated. “This is show business, Nic. Everybody takes a cut of everything. I feed thousands …”
“How much?”
She hesitated. “You’re very curious. I don’t know. I don’t really want to. They put together some deal, I sign it when I’m told. Money goes in the bank.” Her eyes darkened. “At least it’s supposed to. Apparently, I’m missing something from Inferno. My accountant was whining about something or other. It’s no big deal. I’m …” She threw a hand around the room. “… rich, aren’t I? After the first couple of million, you stop counting. Any problems, I guess I can still do a hair ad. I’m not proud.” She hesitated. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“There’s money missing in the production company accounts. A lot of money. And you haven’t been paid?”
“Not everything. It’s not the first time. Sometimes it takes months. They wait for the exchange rates to get better or something. That’s why I didn’t want to waste any time talking to Dino when he started pressing me to sign a new contract. Why should I? They can’t screw me out of what they owe me for Inferno. It looks like it’s going to be the biggest-grossing movie I’ve ever made. I’ll get what I’m owed.” She glanced at the window. “I want to live to enjoy it, too. Are we all still supposed to be on someone’s hit list?”
He tried to sound convincing. And convinced. “I don’t think so. Still, it makes sense to be careful.”
“No rides through the Presidio? No visits to strange art galleries?”
“Not for the moment.”
She stood a little closer. Her perfume was subtle and mesmerising. Close up, she didn’t look so young, and he liked that.
“I have to do the premiere tomorrow. Then launch some old movie festival in the city over the weekend. After that …” The glass bobbed up and down, a touch nervously. “I have a villa for three weeks in Barbados. No one but me. Private estate. Nearest house half a mile away. Is that safe enough for you?”
“I’d think you’d be fine.”
“What I meant was …”
Another edgy shot of vodka disappeared. She was coughing hard, her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide open again with astonishment. His mind began to race, recalling her terrible collapse in the park.
Maggie fell back on the sofa behind them. He was beside her instantly.
“Damned drink,” she swore, still struggling to speak. “Went down the wrong way. Must break that vodka habit. Tomorrow. Definitely. Wait, I forgot something, Nic. Dino Bonetti! That movie! Vertigo!”
“What?”
“The first time he came here. He told me to watch it. He recognised the location.” She looked at him. “Now you’re saying the same thing. What’s going on here?”