And then sometime this afternoon, while Bennett had been on the plane back from Shasta, the Subaru agent had called and left a message — they had decided to film the car on the Antelope Valley Highway east of Agua Dulce, way out north in the desert, and to hell with the "old Hollywood" idea. They'd pay Bennett for the days he had put into the project, but he would have no further part in it.
All the on-site emergencies, the unforseen shadow patches or glare spots, the traffic and parking screwups, the crises with the available voltage and amperage, would be dealt with by another location manager. And that guy would get all the on-location pay too.
Several thousand dollars that Bennett had been counting on-gone. Before the end of the month, he thought, we'll be hurtin' for certain.
The telephone rang, and he hurried to the desk to answer it, thinking the Subaru people might have reconsidered.
"Bradley Locations," he said.
A man's voice said, "I'd like to speak to Bennett or Moira Bradley, please." It wasn't the Subaru agent.
"This is Bennett Bradley."
"Mr. Bradley, I represent a company that's always actively trying to expand its database, and we're now in negotiation with a Francis Marrity for some items that belonged to his grandmother, a Ms. Lisa Marrity. There will probably be a substantial amount of money involved, and our research department has just established that Mr. Marrity is not the sole heir of Ms. Marrity."
"That's true, my wife is coheir." Son of a bitch! thought Bennett. "What items? Uh, in particular?"
"I'm not involved in acquisitions, I'm afraid. But it's probably papers, floppy disks, or films; even electrical machinery or precious metals, possibly."
Bennett had seized a pen and begun scrawling meaningless spirals on a legal pad. "What is your company?"
"The remuneration would be greater if I didn't say. Anonymity is our policy."
"How did — Mr. Marrity — approach you? — and when?"
"We've been in negotiation with Lisa Marrity for some time. Yesterday we learned that she had died, and the only contact she had provided us with was Francis Marrity. We called him, and he expressed interest in consummating the sale we had arranged with Lisa Marrity."
"Well you definitely need to talk to my wife too. She's coheir. As I said. As you know." Bennett was breathing hard. "Now."
"Are you aware of the nature of the items to be sold?"
"Of course I am," Bennett said. What on earth could they be? he wondered — what papers, what precious metals? What electrical machinery? "My wife and I were in Shasta yesterday afternoon and today, making funeral arrangements — for, uh, Ms. Marrity — and we just got back from the airport half an hour ago. I'm sure Frank meant to get in touch with my wife before concluding any deal," he said. "With my wife and I. Because no sale could be finalized without our cooperation."
"Who currently has physical possession of the items in question?"
"Well, they're — divvied up. Some here, some there. I'd need to see a list of which particular — items—are being discussed. The—" Bennett considered, and then dismissed, the idea of sneaking another drink from the bottle. "The old lady had a lot of valuable things. What's your phone number?"
"We'll get in touch with you, probably tomorrow. Good night."
Bennett heard a click, and then the dial tone.
He hung up the telephone, had another mouthful of the brandy, and then banged out through the door that led to the kitchen of his house, yelling, "Moira! Your bloody damned brother—!"
Nine
"He doesn't know what I was talking about," said Rascasse, pushing his chair back from the telephone on the folding desk and standing up, gripping an overhead rail to steady himself as the bus rocked around a sharp housing-tract corner in the evening darkness. To the young man driving the bus he said, "But pull up in front of his house anyway, so Charlotte can take a look."
"He was just up in Shasta," said Golze hopefully.
Through Rascasse's eyes Charlotte Sinclair looked down at herself and the chubby figure of Golze sitting on the first bus seat aft of the cleared rubber-tiled floor, both of them leaning forward to hear the radio speaker. She lifted her chin and pushed a wing of dark hair back from her face.
From the speaker they could now dimly hear Bennett Bradley shouting at his wife.
"Lousy signal," said Rascasse.
"I think they're in the hall," said Golze. "I didn't put a mike in the hall."
"Yes," said Charlotte, leaning back in her seat with her eyes closed, "they're in a hall."
The bus was close enough to the Bradley house now for her to be able to see through the eyes of the people inside — and she saw a tanned blond woman in jeans, standing in a lighted hallway, with suitcases visible beside a door behind her; Charlotte switched to the woman's view, and found herself looking at a man shouting; he had styled reddish hair, and a bristling mustache, and he was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back on his forearms.
Charlotte felt the bus jolt to a stop, presumably at the curb in front of the Bradley house, but she kept her attention on Moira Bradley's field of vision.
The man was walking backward into a brightly lit kitchen, and the woman's viewpoint followed, and all at once the sound from the speaker in the bus became clearer, and Charlotte had words to go with the man's moving lips.
"—that he doesn't like you, it's that he doesn't like me," Bennett Bradley was saying. "He's always been jealous of me."
"Jealous? He likes teaching," said the woman Charlotte was monitoring; Charlotte's field of vision bobbed slightly at the syllables.
"Out in the middle of nowhere?" said Bennett. Charlotte saw him wave a hand in the air. "With a dead wife and a bratty kid? And a million cats? He knows he's rotting out there — he'd move west to L.A. or south to Orange County in a second, if he could, but that house of his is probably worth about a hundred dollars. Look at that joke truck he drives! And I drive a Mercedes and I'm on a first-name basis with Richard Dreyfuss!"
"Frank wouldn't try to gyp us out of any money," said Moira. "I'm sure he—"
"There were no messages on the machine from him, just from that damned Subaru agent. You think your brother wouldn't try to keep this for himself? 'Substantial amount of money,' this guy said—"
Charlotte's view rocked as Moira's voice from the speaker said, "For — what was it? Machinery? That doesn't make any—"
"Or papers, or gold. She knew Charlie Chaplin! Your grandmother—" Bennett backed into some decorative glass candleholders on the counter by the sink, and clattering sounded from the speaker. "What is all this trash?" He shoved the jars that hadn't fallen into the sink back against the wall, breaking at least one more.
Bennett shifted out of Charlotte's line of sight as Moira looked into the sink instead of at her husband; but his voice on the speaker said, "Your grandmother might have letters, manuscripts, even lost Chaplin films."
"Well, they're trash now," said Moira's voice as Charlotte saw Bennett swing into view again. "The candles, I mean. So now you believe she knew Chaplin."