"How do you know she drives a Cadillac?"
"Jack, come on."
What she said was, "Jack, do you mind if we take my CTS?"
Asking if it's okay, showing him more consideration than Dawn.
"The valet guys know my license plate. They like to take care me."
All Foley said was, "Sounds good," without saying why or knowing what a CTS was.
Dawn was right, it turned out to be a Cadillac. Foley liked the interior, with a screen that came up out of the instrument panel. He said, "You watch movies while you're driving?" Danialle said the video screen was in back. This one was a computer; it told how to get where you wanted to go and what was playing on the stereo. Foley said, "Yeah?" It was as much as he needed to know. He was wearing his shades for Beverly Hills, his drip-dry sports jacket over a black T-shirt. He felt good, liking the way he looked. Danialle had on hip-hugger jeans and a man's white dress shirt, the tails tied together in a way that gave Foley a look at her tan midriff and navel.
"You must spend a lot of time in the sun." "Alone by the pool," Danialle said, "with my grief. Thanks to you I'm beginning to feel like myself again." "I haven't done anything."
She glanced at him. "Are you sure?" And said, "I was thinking we could go to the Sunset Marquis or the Beverly Wilshire, avoid the crowds."
"Aren't those hotels?"
"They serve lunch, Jack." She said, "I thought of Spago," and brought a cell phone out of her straw bag. "If Wolfgang's there he'll find us a table. I wanted to call this morning, but the girls, my Asian twins-they put their hands over their mouths, fingers straight up, when they're talking about me-they're driving me bananas, absolutely sure Peter's ghost is still around." She pressed buttons on the cell and said, "Hi, this is Danny Karmanos. Let me speak to Wolfgang." She listened and said, "Too bad. Tell him when he comes out of hiding he missed his chance to meet America's foremost bank robber." She turned off the cell. "I'll try the Ivy."
Foley said, "I'd just as soon people don't know about me," bringing her check out of his coat, folded, the way Dawn had handed it to him. "And I'd like to give this back to you. Not that I don't appreciate it, but I didn't earn it."
She looked at Foley, stared for a moment, glanced at the road descending through Benedict Canyon and looked at him again, not saying a word as they crossed Sunset and now were going south on Canon.
Foley got as far as saying, "I remember you were writing the check-" and she cut him off.
"Shhhh, don't say anything, I'm thinking." "Where to have lunch?"
She didn't answer and they were both silent all the way through the busiest part of Beverly Hills, past shops and restaurants, bumper to bumper from Little Santa Monica to Wilshire where Danialle said, "That was Spago we just passed," and turned left saying, "I've thought of the perfect place," and turned south on Beverly Drive, "the menu's great and the location's ideal for what I have in mind." She said, "You do like Italian."
"Everybody likes Italian."
"There it is on the left, Piccolo Paradiso. They have my very favorite Italian wine, Amarone, and Norberto the maitre d' I think is in love with me." She turned into a lot next to First Bank of Beverly Hills, directly across from the restaurant. They sat in the car while she told him why she had an account at First Bank.
"I was meeting an agent at Piccolo's, the guy dying to represent me, couldn't wait to tell me why I should be with him. I got there first. I'm late, but not nearly late enough; I'm waiting for an agent. So I came over here and opened a checking account. I have one at Citibank too, across from Spago. I got back to Piccolo's and now the agent's waiting with his bottle of water. I say, 'Sidney, I'm so sorry I'm late.' Sidney said, 'Danny, I'd wait day and night for you.' In Hollywood, you never want to be the one waiting unless you can make a story out of it."
Crossing the street to Piccolo's, three empty tables on the sidewalk, she said, "You know who I saw the last time I was here? Billy Baldwin."
Foley took a moment to say, "No kidding."
"After lunch we'll stop in the bank and open an account for you. It'll only take a minute."
By the time they were having their risotto, one with sliced sausages, the other with spinach puree and pesto, and a bottle of Amarone…
Dawn was taking her walk, jogging when she wanted to make a show, got to Tico's aunt's house and took off her top. Tico came after her with the towel to grab her from behind, get his young arms around her-God, but he was just right, a horny youth in his prime, slim, a main event, and she told him, "Sweetheart, I want you so bad, but…we don't have time. Tonight's the big night."
Tico, moving the towel over her back and around to her ribs, her arms raised, said, "Tonight, uh?"
"What have we been looking for," Dawn said, "trying to decide how to approach the job? Go in with guns drawn or try to be a little more subtle. I was thinking it could be an idea we've already considered but decided no, because it looked too simple. There was one plan we had I looked at again. I remember how easy it looked except for one, well, drawback."
Tico said, "What is it we doing?"
All the ideas she'd whispered to him during the afternooners, and he didn't know what she was talking about, pressing himself against her.
"Tico, what is it we want?"
"Yes, Cundo's fortune. Yes, of course, and you see a way to make off with it?"
"Not take everything but enough." "Tell me how we do it." "It came to me-" "In a trance?"
"Out of the blue. I've been wearing myself out, becoming irritable, trying too hard to think of a foolproof way-"
"Yes, I remember-a way to slip a fortune, you said, out from under the old man."
"I never called him old," Dawn said. "He's old to you, but he isn't old. He pays attention. He has his guys who keep watch over his money, his accounts. He knows how to work things, and he's lucky."
"Tell me," Tico said, "what was it came to you?"
She turned in the towel to look at his face. "I can't believe it isn't the only thing you've been thinking about."
That got his white teeth grinning at her.
"See, I don't know," Tico said, "if you only talking or what. Since I have experience in this kind of business and you never stole anything before."
Still another one shoving the guy-thing at her.
"Tonight," Dawn said, "we take Little Jimmy away from Cundo. That's the first step."
"Yes…?"
"Without Cundo knowing we're doing it." It got him grinning at her again, nodding, trying to look into her eyes. He said, "Yes, I think I know how you going to do it." "No, you don't," Dawn said.
"I thought it might take a couple bottles of wine," Danny said, "to convince you it's yours," sounding to Foley a little surprised.
Or maybe disappointed, he wasn't sure. He had told her he was returning the check because he hadn't done anything to help her. "Dawn says she's positive there's a ghost in your house, but for all I know I'm working a con game." He held the check in his hand and waited for Danny to insist it was his, he earned it, something like that.
But she didn't. She said, "It's up to you," with kind of a shrug. "If you don't want it, tear it up." Foley took a moment.
He said, "I've never torn up money before," trying to smile, took a chance and held out the check. "You want to destroy ten thousand dollars, here."
She reached out to take it and he pressed the bank note between her fingers. Her fingers touched the check while she looked in his eyes and she had to smile feeling his grip on the check. To Foley the smile meant she was kidding, she wanted him to keep the check. He thought of saying he'd pay her back, and thought, Why do you want to fuck this up? Tell her thanks. She wanted him to have it because he was…fun. All Foley said was, "You win," and put the check in his pocket.