I rise from my breakfast and go to the door for my shoes. I see that Nadi has hung something new on the wall above the sofa. In a gold frame it is the prized photograph of myself and General Pourat addressing Shahanshah at a Persian New Year’s celebration at the Imperial Palace. The king is dressed in the finest of European suits while Pourat and I are in full uniform, our hats in our hands, smiling at something complimentary the king has said of our air force. Also in the photo are three men, a foreign minister from Africa and two large Savakis, their hands folded before them, their faces and eyes empty of all humor. I know Nadi has hung this picture not only for Soraya’s benefit, but for her own as well, for of course Soraya’s new relatives have already seen the photograph at our expensive apartment in Berkeley. They have investigated us and they know the caliber of people we are, but I suppose Nadi must remind them, so they do not regard this small bungalow and perhaps forget.
My wife rinses radishes and cucumbers in the sink for a meal we will not eat until tomorrow evening. I wish to tell her to slow herself, to rest; our daughter is already married and we must no longer break our backs. But I know my Nadi. My lack of concern will worry her further and then she will insist we paint the walls and hang new drapes before tomorrow. No, for this moment I leave her to herself. I will drive down the hill into Corona and purchase tasteful outdoor furniture for our widow’s walk, and perhaps I can find what is called a love seat for the young husband and wife, my lovely daughter who I last saw two weeks past, stepping into the rear of a limousine dressed in ivory satin, her long black hair tucked up upon her head beneath a spray of baby breath flowers which she wore like a crown.
I N ONLY TWO NIGHTS AND TWO MORNINGS LESTER BURDON WENTfrom being a distraction for me to the main movie, and I wasn’t even sure how that happened, though I know it started when he picked me up right at seven-thirty Wednesday night wearing polished black cowboy boots, black pants, a gray tweed jacket, and a white shirt buttoned at the throat. His hair was combed straight back and his mustache looked less crooked. He was so handsome I immediately doubted how I looked; I’d changed only twice, finally ending up in black rayon slacks, a white dress blouse, and a short rust jacket I always liked because when I buttoned the bottom it pulled into my waist and made me look like I had more of a bust. I wore my black dress pumps and the pressure of the right one felt almost good, like a fresh bandage. I had put my hair up too and now I wondered if I looked womanly enough, but Les took me in like he’d never seen anything so perfect before and on the drive up the highway for San Francisco under the setting sun I wondered if he left his house dressed like that, what did he tell his wife?
The Orion Room was at the top of the Hyatt Regency close to the long wharfs of Embarcadero Street. The restaurant took up the whole top floor and was surrounded by carpet-to-ceiling windows that leaned out at a slight angle. A large square bar was in the middle of the room and three bartenders were working back there now, their shirts and ties and faces bottom-lit with green light. The bar was full of well-dressed men and women laughing and talking over the music of the piano player, who sat on a raised platform, a dim light on him as he played and sang an old song I couldn’t name. The mâitre d’ led us past crowded candlelit tables and I tried not to limp as much as my foot still needed, which was hard to do in heels and I was sure everybody must be looking. Our table was small, covered in white linen, and it was right up against one of the glass walls. I could see the tops of skyscrapers looking gold and pink in the dusk light, the blue stretch of the bay, but the whole picture was moving and I had to sit down in the chair the host pulled out for me.
“It’s a revolving room,” Lester said. “Would you rather go someplace else?”
I looked at him, then back out the window. He was right. Already I was seeing less of the tall office buildings and more of San Francisco Bay, a half-dozen tiny white sails, the yellow hills of Berkeley on the other side. I laughed. “This is weird.”
“Do you like it?” Lester was smiling, though his eyes were in a squint like there was only one answer he could really handle.
“Yeah, I like it.” And I did once I got used to it. Our waiter showed up fast, his blond hair so short he could’ve been in the military. He asked what we’d like to drink and when I ordered a mineral water Les did the same. After the waiter left I lit up a cigarette. “You don’t have to go without because of me, Lester.”
“Oh, I don’t miss it. I’m not a big drinker anyway.”
“Me neither. I mean, I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t?”
“Only when I did lines. That’s what almost killed me.”
Lester’s brown eyes looked more deep-set than ever.
“You’ve done them too, haven’t you, Officer Burdon?”
Les shook his head. “’Fraid not.”
The young waiter came with our mineral waters. He handed us tall menus, then recited the night’s specials. I watched him walk back to the main dining area, then I looked over all the full candlelit tables to the piano player, who wasn’t singing now, just playing something slow and sad, and I turned and looked back out the window. This time I could see the Bay Bridge to Oakland, the long gray cables in the twilight. “Have you everdone anything against the law, Lester?”
“That’s a strange question.”
I blew smoke at the glass. “A conversation starter. We’ve already slept together and I don’t even know your middle name.”
“Victor.”
“Lester Victor?”
“Not very musical, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.” I sipped my mineral water. “Well?”
“Recently? Or a long time ago?”
“How recently?”
He glanced down at the tablecloth. The restaurant was turning to the east now, our windows facing out over south San Francisco, so Lester’s face was shadowed. “It’s pretty big.”
“How big?”
“Big enough not another soul knows about it. Can you handle that?”
“You mean can you trust me?”
“I already trust you, Kathy. Do you want it in your lap?”
“Do I have to keep it there?”
Lester smiled. “I guess not.” He looked once around the restaurant then leaned forward and said in a low voice: “I planted evidence.”
“You did?”
He nodded, slowly, like he was trying to see how I felt about this.
“Not our schoolteacher boy in blue.” I felt an almost electrical current in my arms and face.
Lester smiled again, a little sadly, though.
“Well?”
“There was this guy out near the reservoir, this little runt who used to beat up his wife like it was a pastime. He was an engineer or something, a teetotaler, but he’d go off the deep end and take a belt or a piece of garden hose to her. We never found out what exactly. The neighbors would call us, and my partner and I would show up on a hot night, talk ourselves in, and there’d be these bloody welts on her arms and legs, but they’d both stand there together, sometimes arm in arm like it was nobody’s business. I’d take her off to the side and ask if she was staying quiet out of fear of him, but she just looked at me with these big wet eyes like she didn’t know what I was talking about. This was before the domestic violence law, Kathy, when we couldn’t bring the batterer in unless the victim filed a complaint.”