“To talk to George Haywood.”
“About what?”
“His visits to his sister Alberta in Tecolote prison.”
“Where on earth did you get a crazy idea like that?” she said impatiently. “You know perfectly well George broke off all connections with Alberta years ago. I told you.”
“What you tell me isn’t necessarily the truth.”
“All right, so I’ve lied a little here and there, off and on, but not about that.”
“Maybe you didn’t lie about it, Willie,” Quinn said. “But you were certainly misinformed. George goes to see his sister once a month.”
“I don’t believe it. What reason would he have for pretending?”
“That’s one of the questions I intend to ask him, right this afternoon if I can arrange it.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
She bent forward in the chair, her hands clasped tight against her stomach as if to ease the sharp pain of a cramp. “He’s not here. He left the day before yesterday.”
“For where?”
“Hawaii. He’s been having a bad time with bronchial asthma for the past couple of months and the doctor thought a change of climate would help.”
“How long will he be away?”
“I don’t know. Everything happened so suddenly. He came into the office three days ago and out of the blue he announced lie was flying to Hawaii the next morning for a vacation.”
“Did he ask you to make a reservation for him?”
“No. He said he’d made it himself.” She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief and held it against her forehead. “It was quite a... a shock. I had done a lot of planning—or dreaming I guess you’d call it—about George and me spending our vacation together this year. Then suddenly I get the whammy, he’s flying to Hawaii. Alone. Period.”
“So that’s what’s causing your glooms?”
“Well, at least he could have said something, sorry you’re not coming along, Willie, some little thing like that. He didn’t, though. I’m afraid. I’m afraid this is the end of the line.”
“You’re over-imagining, Willie.”
“No, I don’t think so. God knows I’d like to, but I can’t. George acted like a different man. He wasn’t George any more. The real George, my George, wouldn’t go on a trip like that without careful planning in advance about where he’d stay and what he’d do and how long he’d be gone. He didn’t tell me a single detail beyond the fact that he was leaving the next morning. So you see, I have reason to be afraid. I’ve got this terrible feeling he’s not coming back. I keep thinking of O’Gorman.”
“Why O’Gorman?”
She pushed the handkerchief across her forehead again. “Endings can happen so suddenly. I should have argued with George, begged him to take me along. Then if the plane crashed, at least we’d have died together.”
“You’re getting morbid, Willie. I didn’t hear of any plane crash day before yesterday. Right this minute George is probably surrounded by a bevy of sun-browned maidens who are teaching him the hula.”
She stared up at Quinn coldly. “If that was intended to cheer me up, I assure you it didn’t. Sun-browned maidens, hell.”
“With hibiscus in their hair.”
“I have a hibiscus growing in my own backyard. Any time I want to put one in my hair, I can. I can also get a tan and do the hula, if I have to.”
“I’d bet on you any day, Willie.”
“Would you?”
“Try me.”
“Oh, stop kidding around, Quinn,” she said with a brisk shake of her head. “I’m not your type, and you’re not mine. I like older, more mature men, not the kind who know where they’re going, but the kind who are already there. I’ve been through that stardust and baked beans routine once. Never again. I want security. I don’t think you even know what you want.”
“I’m beginning to find out.”
“Since when?”
“Since I hit rock-bottom a couple of weeks ago.”
“How far down is rock-bottom for you, Quinn?”
“Far enough,” he said, “so there’s no direction to go but up. Have you ever heard of the Tower of Heaven?”
“I had a very religious aunt who was always using phrases like that in her conversation.”
“This isn’t a phrase, it’s a real place in the mountains behind San Felice. I’ve been there twice and I’ve promised to go back a third time. Which reminds me, did you ever have acne?”
Her precisely plucked brows moved up her forehead. “Say, are you losing your marbles?”
“I may be. I’d like an answer to my question anyway.”
“I never had acne, no,” she said carefully, as though she were humoring an idiot. “My kid sister did when she was in high school. She got rid of it by washing her face six or seven times a day, using Norton’s drying lotion, and not eating any sweets or oils. Is that what you want to know?”
“Yes. Thank you, Willie.”
“I suppose if I asked why you wanted to know, you wouldn’t—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You’re a very peculiar man,” Willie said thoughtfully. “But I’m sure that’s already been pointed out to you?”
“At my mother’s knee. Besides, we can’t all be perfect like George.”
“I didn’t claim he was perfect.” There was a sharp note in her voice as if she had suddenly had too vivid a picture of George surrounded by the sun-browned maidens. “He’s headstrong like his mother, for one thing. When he gets an idea, he goes right ahead and acts on it, without consulting anyone else or caring what I... what someone else might think.”
“Like the sudden trip to Hawaii?”
“It’s a good example.”
“You’re sure he went to Hawaii?”
“Why, I... of course. Of course I’m sure.”
“Did you see him off?”
“Naturally.”
“Where?”
“He came to my apartment to say good-bye,” she said. “He was going to drive to San Felice, catch a plane there, and then transfer at Los Angeles to a jet liner for Honolulu.”
“Leaving his car at San Felice airport?”
“Yes.”
“They don’t have a garage at San Felice airport.”
“There must be garages nearby,” she said anxiously. “Aren’t there?”
“I guess so. What kind of car was he driving?”
“His own. A green Pontiac station wagon, last year’s. Why are you asking me all these questions? I don’t like it. It makes me nervous. You seem to be implying that George didn’t go to Hawaii at all.”
“No. I just want to make sure he did.”
“Why, it never even occurred to me to doubt it until you started hinting around,” she said in an accusing voice. “Maybe you’re deliberately trying to cause trouble between George and me for reasons of your own.”
“There’s already been trouble between George and you, hasn’t there, Willie?”
Her jaws tightened, giving her face a strong sinewy look Quinn hadn’t seen before. “None that I couldn’t handle. His mother has been, well, rather difficult.”
“Last time you talked about her she was an old harridan. Is she improving, or are you?” When she didn’t answer, Quinn went on. “I heard an interesting rumor a few days ago from what I consider a reliable source. It concerns George.”
“Then I don’t care to hear it. A man in George’s position, especially after what happened to Alberta, becomes the target for all kinds of rumors and gossip. He’s borne up under it the only way he could, by living a clean, decent, exemplary life. There’s something about George you couldn’t know since you haven’t met him—he’s an extraordinarily brave man. He could easily have left town to avoid the scandal. But he didn’t. He stayed here and fought it.”