Chapter 33
While he was having his bourbon neat, Archer called Universal Studios from a pay phone and left a message for Callahan, leaving the pay phone number for her to call back on. She did so about ten minutes later, during a break in shooting, she told him.
“Well, it’s swell to hear that you’re alive, Archer.”
“Keep your toga on. I plan to be around and kicking at least until tomorrow. Look, did you get a chance to talk to that gal, Donna?”
“Yeah, I did. Lamb never showed at the Marses’ party.”
“Okay, I figured that, but it’s good to know for sure.”
“Where are you?”
“Waiting for a lady to arrive by plane after a trip to gay Paree.”
“Well, aren’t you the swanky one?” Her words were joking, but her tone was not.
“It’s all work. How about dinner tonight? I’m buying, so pick some place cheap.”
“Do you treat all the ladies this good, Archer?”
“None of them get it as nice as you, babe.”
“We knock off at eight. You can pick me up then. I’ll book the best burger joint on Skid Row.”
He hung up the phone, finished his drink, and checked his watch. A moment later an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the flight from New York would be landing shortly.
Two minutes later he watched the Boeing double-decker Stratocruiser descend into view out of the thickening clouds, touch down smoothly on the runway, and veer toward the terminal. The ground crew brought out the mobile stairs, and a minute later the passengers began deplaning.
And that was when Archer realized he had no idea what Bernadette Bonham even looked like. Danforth had described her as forty and lovely and French. Well, there were about a dozen of those getting off the plane that he could see, so that was no good.
Archer watched them head toward the terminal building and then come inside. He followed the group to the baggage counter where, about twenty minutes later, a skycap appeared with a mountain of luggage and people started to call out and point to their pieces. They each paid him a tip for the privilege of getting their own property back.
As the passengers started to trickle out, Archer darted over to a courtesy phone and asked the woman who answered to page someone.
A few seconds later, over the PA came, “Mrs. Bernadette Bonham, please call the courtesy desk. Mrs. Bernadette Bonham, please call the courtesy desk for a message. Thank you.”
Archer watched as one woman, a slim, medium-height brunette wrapped in a blue mink stole over a black skirt and jacket with a light green blouse and an Army-green veiled hat, gazed around, surprised, and then hurried over to a courtesy phone, her suitcase in hand.
Archer came up behind her. “Mrs. Bonham?”
She turned quickly around and looked him up and down while he did the same to her.
Her features were pretty much flawless, Archer noted. Sharp, straight nose, large, luminous green eyes, firm chin, square jaw, stellar cheekbones, and a look of intensity that was actually a bit intimidating. But maybe that was just the French in her.
“Yes? And who are you?” A discernible accent underlay these few words.
Archer held out his PI license, and explained who he was and what he had been engaged to do.
Her very fine cheekbones sagged under the weight of all this. “Eleanor Lamb is missing and a dead man was found in her house? You mean, right next door to us?”
“That’s right. Can we go somewhere and talk for a few minutes?”
“I really need to get home,” she said, glancing around.
“Is someone picking you up from here?”
“No, I... I will take a taxi.”
“Long taxi ride to Malibu. Is your husband waiting for you there?”
She looked at him with what Archer thought was a fearful expression. “What? Peter?”
“Yes, I understand he flew back here on December thirtieth.”
“No, I mean, yes, that is correct. It was then that he came back. And then I followed.”
“I just have a few questions. Maybe we can sit in the lounge and have a cup of coffee? I know it was a long flight from the East Coast.”
“Yes. It is very tiring.”
“I hope you stayed over in New York for a bit after flying back from France.”
Her green eyes fluttered so erratically Archer thought she might be on some drug. “One night, yes. At the Waldorf.”
“Nice.”
He carried her leather suitcase with gold-trimmed straps, and she allowed him to lead her to the lounge, where he ordered two black coffees. She placed her stole on a chair and took out a pack of cigarettes that made Archer smile.
She noted this and said, “Yes? You know these?”
“Unfiltered Gaulois Bleu. I had some French buddies smoke them during the war. Tried one. Strongest tobacco I ever put in my mouth.”
She seemed pleased by this acknowledgment. “Yes, it is very strong. That is how we French like it, just like our café. Would you like one?”
He drew out his Luckys and shook his head. “These helped get me through the war. And I recently tried drinking a Chinese liquor that nearly killed me, so I think I’ll stick to what I know. I might live longer.”
He lighted her smoke and did the same for his own.
Their coffees came and were hot and bitter and strong.
“So, you met Eleanor when she moved out to Malibu?”
Surprisingly, Bonham shook her head. “No, our families knew each other when we were much younger. Her father, Charles Lamb, was in the diplomatic corps for this country. My father, Matthieu, was the same for France. He was attached to the French Embassy in Washington. Eleanor and I went to school together there. Then, she went away to university, as did I, only in Paris. But we both came back to Washington afterward, and lived with our families for some time. Then my family moved back to France and I went with them.”
Archer thought about what the banker had told him about Lamb moving out to Malibu to be close to someone from her past. And Danny Mars had said pretty much the same thing. Well, Bernadette Bonham had just moved to the top of the list for that trophy.
“And then all those years later, she moved to Malibu where you and your husband were living. I guess you were excited to see your old friend.”
Bonham puffed on her Gaulois and didn’t answer. She looked out the window at a DC-6 taxiing for takeoff. “France has not changed much after the war. We go now for the last three years. There is still so much that is destroyed. Gone, never to return. It is very sad. So much beauty... poof. I did not like it. It is not the same.”
This statement didn’t sit too well with the Army veteran Archer. “Well, at least you’re not speaking German. There is that.”
She settled her luminous eyes on him in a disarming manner. “This is true what you say.” She took off her hat and set it on the table. Bonham tapped her ash into the ashtray and said in a contemplative tone, as though she were testing its veracity, “Eleanor and I were not what you would call... very good friends, though our fathers got along splendidly. We... we were very different.”
“Having met her and now you, I can see that. But sometimes different is good.”
She glanced up at him. “And sometimes it is not. She was always very intense. There was no, how do you say, relaxing time with her.”
“So her moving next to you wasn’t a good thing, then?”
Bonham shrugged and said in a casual tone, “I did not care one way or another.” She pointed her Gaulois at him like a miniature sword. “But I can tell you this — my husband did not like her.”