“The kitchen, please,” he said. “If we won’t be in your way.”
His answer surprised her, but still smiling, she said, “Not at all.”
When we were alone, I whispered, “I think we have scandalized the help.”
“And isn’t it about time?” He seemed very pleased with himself, so I kissed him, right there in the middle of the foyer.
Guido was the first to call in the morning. He had finished with the task I had set for him the night before, and was on his way with a crew to film the bullet holes in my kitchen windows before the glazier showed up to replace the broken panes.
The second call came from Mom, just as I had wrapped a towel around my head after a shower. It was a little past seven o’clock and Jean-Paul was still in the shower, a tidbit I did not divulge.
“I’m not snooping, Margot,” Mom said. “But I need you to tell me you’re fine.”
“I’m fine.”
“Every time Roger goes out on a police call he announces where he’s going. Another drunk wrapped around a tree, or college pranksters making too much noise-you know the sort of thing. But last night he said nothing. His face was red when he came back from his call, and then he gave Kate a look that made her turn white, so I knew immediately that whatever it was had to concern you.”
“Could have been anybody, Mom.”
“Kate and Marisol were on either side of me at the table, his parents were both there and he had just spoken not an hour earlier with his grown children. That leaves you, my dear daughter.”
“Nothing to worry about, Mom. Someone shot out a couple of my kitchen windows last night, that’s all.”
“Where were you when it happened?”
“At dinner with Jean-Paul.”
There was just the slightest pause before she asked, “What did you cook last night, dear?”
“The kid was a lousy shot, Mom. Don’t give it another thought.”
“Hah!”
“Have you persuaded Gracie you aren’t in the clutches of a cult?”
“If it’s a cult, she likes everyone in it very much. Here she is.”
Gracie Nussbaum was on the phone. “What was all that about last night?”
“Business as usual, Gracie,” I said. “So, has Mom said anything more to you about moving down here?”
“I think she’s made her decision, honey. She talked with your former housemate Lyle last night about the logistics. He suggested that she keep the house furnished, except for the things she’ll want in her apartment, and turn that big heap over to the university housing office to rent out to graduate students and visiting faculty. The arrangement will give her a nice tax break and she’ll be able to go up and stay there whenever there’s a vacancy.”
“I knew Lyle would know what to do.”
“That boy is a treasure.”
Gracie told me that she wasn’t ready to move out of her own house yet, but she planned to come down for regular visits. And of course, Mom would be up in Berkeley from time to time.
She handed the phone back to Mom who had one more thing to say.
“Lyle will want to borrow Mike’s pickup when I get around to the actual move.”
Of course he would. I hung up and couldn’t help laughing. Was I ready for Mom as a neighbor? Ready or not, I had brought this on myself.
Hiram Chin, sweating although the living room of Mme Olivier’s Broad Beach mansion was chilly, paced between the massive front windows and the table where his empty apéritif glass rested on a coaster, as if maybe hoping that after each short trip the glass had magically refilled itself.
Mme Olivier, Lisette, to give Hiram and me some privacy after a rather stiff attempt at brunch-no one seemed interested in food-was giving Jean-Paul a tour of the house. The first floor had an open floor plan so wherever they were he could keep an eye on Hiram and me by doing no more than leaning around a pillar or massive sculpture. The living room was two stories high. In order to catch the light and the ocean view, all of the rooms upstairs opened onto a walkway that overlooked the living room below. When the two of them made it upstairs, I spotted Jean-Paul checking on us regularly.
“Ethics,” Chin was saying. “Now there’s a term with variable meanings. Actions that in my mother country might be considered smart business practice might be considered unethical, even illegal, in yours. The reverse is as true. Can you not see the genius involved in creating a perfect replica?”
“I can appreciate craftsmanship in an imitation. But genius? No.”
“You see? That is where we differ.”
“I am less concerned about the ethics of what happened than I am about the events themselves,” I said.
“Why?” he said with enough heat that Jean-Paul’s face quickly appeared over a walkway railing. “It’s over, done with. We were ruined a long time ago. What does it matter now?”
“Park Holloway was murdered only a few days ago. How can you say it’s over?”
He looked at his empty glass with such a desperate longing that I handed him my full one. As he closed his eyes and savored the first sip, I glanced around the room, not knowing where each tiny camera lens had been secreted by Guido early that morning. Because we did not know where Hiram might sit, or not sit, the entire room was covered by cameras. Each camera was fixed in place, so as he paced Hiram moved constantly from the field of vision of one camera into the field of another. The final edited sequence of this conversation in the finished film would have to be a cut-and-splice mosaic with tiny lacunae-gaps in coverage-interrupting the images in the same way that grout interrupts the pattern of a tile floor.
“Hiram, what was Park’s role in the art-for-arms deal?”
“Veneer,” he said. “He made the deal look pretty, and that’s all.”
“Are you protecting Park?”
“Dear God, woman,” he said, glancing at me with disdain. “Don’t you understand that Park Holloway was an empty suit? He was a hick with some book-larnin’ from a fancy Ivy League school who later got pushed to the top of the local manure heap by the boosters from some small cowtown by the mere fact that he didn’t get his degree from the local state college. He did nothing in Congress except warm a chair until I came along; when he was supposed to be studying bills before the House, he was studying Mandarin.”
“I thought he was your friend.”
“He was my front. My American credentials.”
“Why are you being so forthcoming now?”
He beat his fist against his chest. “What have I got to lose?”
“Your freedom?”
“I can arrange to be out of this country before anyone who can stop me could stop me.”
“I have some vague idea what you got out of the art scam. But what did Park get?”
“His life.”
“What does that mean?”
He drained the potent liquid from the tiny glass and took a deep breath, but instead of answering, he turned toward the window and watched the ebbing tide.
“You manipulated the college trustees to get Park hired as president at Anacapa College,” I said. “Why? What can you possibly get out of a cash-strapped community college?”
He stared out the window. “I thought you would have that figured out by now.”
“I’m still working on it.”
Jean-Paul had made his way slowly back downstairs. I glanced out the window and saw Detectives Thornbury and Weber on the beach near the edge of Mme Olivier’s deck, barefoot, baseball caps pulled low over their eyes as camouflage, wearing shorts and sweatshirts, half-heartedly chucking a football back and forth.
I walked over to the wet bar in the corner, picked up a highball glass and held it up to Chin.
“Scotch, light ice, fifty-fifty water,” he said.
It is unethical, in American journalism, to get a subject drunk during questioning. My goal was to keep him mellow; he seemed ready to jump out of his skin. Barring that, more strong drink might render him to some degree impaired in case he intended to do something stupid.