Bernhardt's Edge (17 page)

What would it take to find out—how many drinks, how many dollars?

Facing her across her desk again, neither Kay Fairchild's words nor her manner offered any clues. Instead, coolly, she said, “Mr. Powers has made some time for you.” Without lifting her telephone, she touched a button on her console. Then, sotto voce, she added, “Next time, Alan, wear a tie. Okay?”

Before he could reply, the inner door opened to reveal another high-styled woman, this one blonde.

“Mr. Bernhardt?”

“That's right.”

“Will you come with me, please?”

“Gladly.”

T
HANK GOD THE RECEPTIONIST
had thought to mention the man from San Francisco to his secretary—who, in turn, had mentioned the man to Powers. And, thank God, Powers had reacted exactly as he should, pretending nothing more than a mild curiosity as he wondered aloud why a private detective would be inquiring about innocuous, mild-mannered Betty Giles. Then, pretending to find some unexpected room in his schedule, he'd told his secretary to tell the receptionist that he could see the man…Briefly.

Then he'd told his secretary to delay the man—Alan Bernhardt—for ten minutes. On principle, he'd learned it was better to let unpredictable visitors wait, hopefully to make them more malleable, more manageable.

But no sooner had he given the order than he'd realized it had been a mistake. He should have had Bernhardt shown directly in. Because, instead of disconcerting Alan Bernhardt, the delay was deepening his own anxiety.

So, for ten minutes—nine minutes, now—he must clear his mind, compose himself, take firm control of his own thoughts, his own emotions. Sylvia had been amused when he'd studied the book on the efficacy of thought control. But he'd persisted. Diligently, he'd practiced the process. Three times a day, at regular intervals, the same time every day, seven days a week, he'd practiced. So that now, at will, he could transport his thoughts back in time to any point he chose, and thus liberate himself from tension in the present. That was the secret: concentration on past pleasures, past achievements, past fantasies. Even driving back from the interview with DuBois, with his nerves screaming, he'd been able to lose himself in the half-forgotten pleasures of the past. Surprisingly, he'd decided to fix his thoughts on the stamps he'd collected as a boy. Clearly, he could remember the satisfying heft of the albums, and the sweet taste of the adhesive on the stamp hinges. And, yes, he had learned about foreign countries, from the stamps he collected. After school, while the other boys played at their foolish games, chasing a ball, manfully colliding with each other, beating up on each other, he'd worked at his stamp collection, fixing the stamps in his albums, cataloguing them. He'd traded, too. Even as a child, he'd been a talented trader. At nights, in bed, he would plan his next acquisition, calculate the terms of his next trade.

Just as now, lying in bed, he planned his next move in the market, or in real estate, or commodities. But now he lay beside Sylvia, whose acquisition he had also carefully planned.

Give me the child until his sixth birthday and he'll always be ours,
was the popularly conceived axiom of the Catholic church.

As the bough bends, so grows the tree.

Human affairs, he'd finally come to realize, could be summed up by its platitudes. Birds of a feather
did
flock together. And, yes, the early bird
did
get the worm.

Until a few days ago, an eternity, it seemed, his nocturnal calculations—yes, his grownup fantasies—had centered solely on the markets, on the constant ebb and flow of human events, and the financial trails they left. Many of these calculations, of course, were artful dodges, chronic exercises in amiable self-deception. Only rarely did he permit himself to face the inescapable, admit to himself that he was Daniel DuBois' faithful retainer, nothing more. For every ten dollars that he invested for DuBois, as directed, he invested a dollar for himself, on the side. He bought when DuBois bought, sold when DuBois sold—and prospered when DuBois prospered, much as the chauffeurs of capitalists were reputed to prosper from scraps of market information overheard from the backseat.

Until a few days ago, acquisitions and concomitant divestments had been the entire focus of his thoughts, of his adult fantasies.

Now the focus was murder.

In Santa Rosa, a man lay dead, beginning to slowly decompose. His body had been eviscerated, and the results had been duly recorded. With a small electric saw, the coroner would have taken the top of his skull off, removed the brain, examined it, put it in formaldehyde, as evidence. The vast machinery of law enforcement would have recorded the coroner's conclusions, and added information of their own: fingerprint evidence, ballistic evidence, computer printouts. Inexorably, that machinery was—

His secretary was knocking. The time had come, a possible prelude to utter disaster. The doorknob was turning; the door was swinging inexorably inward.

Alan Bernhardt was a tall, lean, Lincolnesque man with a deeply etched face and dark, alert eyes. The clothes were wrong, but the manner was calm, confident. There was no smile. The voice was quiet, scholarly: “Mr. Powers?”

“Mr. Bernhardt.” Without rising from his leather chair, without offering his hand, Powers motioned the other man to one of two matching chairs placed to face the desk. The matching chairs were two inches lower than his own chair, a trick he'd learned from Daniel DuBois—yet another trick.

The opening was diffident—deceptively diffident, Powers suspected.

“Your secretary told you, I guess, why I'm here.”

“You're trying to locate Betty Giles, she said.” Powers smiled encouragement. “I'd like to find her, too. So if you do find her, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a call.” He opened his center desk drawer, selected one of three business cards, slid it across the desk. “That'll get you through to me here and at home. Hang on to it. Both the numbers are unlisted.” He broadened the smile. “Is it ethical for you to represent two clients? If it is, I'll be glad to chip in, do my share. In fact, lately, I've been thinking about hiring someone to—” Suddenly it flared across his consciousness: dark as death, blinding as the flash of Armageddon, a swift, terrible incandescence that revealed his mortal danger, a self-inflicted wound. Because Bernhardt could know he'd hired Dancer to find Betty Giles. Bernhardt could also know that Nick Ames had been murdered. Meaning that Bernhardt could connect him to the murder.

So if he denied it, and Bernhardt knew the truth, knew he'd hired Dancer, therefore knew he was lying, then Bernhardt's suspicions would be aroused.

Only silence could protect him.

Or incriminate him, attract attention, perhaps arouse suspicion. Because his face, his eyes, were out of control, betraying him. He knew it, could feel it.

Across the desk, attentively, the other man was watching him. Silently.

Ominously?

“Miss—ah—Miss Fairchild says you're working for Betty's mother, that she retained you. There's illness in the family, Miss Fairchild said. And Betty doesn't know. Is that true?”

Now, slowly, the detective was smiling. It was a pleasant smile, almost a shy smile.

Deceptively shy, falsely pleasant. Because this man was a hunter. A predator, who lived off the misery of others, exploited their vulnerabilities, their miscalculations.

“No,” Bernhardt answered, “it isn't true. Nobody's sick. But somebody's dead. And Betty Giles has disappeared. I'm trying to find her. I can't tell you why.”

“But will you take a retainer? Betty's associated with me, a business associate. I'd like to be kept informed.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he answered quickly, “she's important to us—to me. She left on short notice. She's got answers I need.”

“What kind of answers?”

Powers shook his head. “I can't respond to that, I'm afraid. This business—my business—is multinational investments.
Big
multinational investments. We need information on a vast array of subjects. And Betty has some expertise that's valuable to us. Very valuable. In fact—” He hesitated. Without realizing it, he'd made his decision.

When he was eleven years old, at summer camp, he'd taken a dare and jumped from a high riverbank into a stream. He'd never forgotten the terror, falling so far through the air.

“In fact,” he continued, “I hired a competitor of yours to find her, in San Francisco.”

“Oh?” Alan Bernhardt seemed interested. Politely interested. “Who?”

“Herbert Dancer, Limited. Do you know them?”

“Oh, sure. They're big. Very big. I'm just a one-man operation.” The diffident, disarming smile returned.

He'd played blind man's bluff, as a child. He'd always hated it, the groping in the dark. And the fun house, at the amusement park—the pitch-black room at the fun house—it had always terrified him.

“You're not—in touch with them, then. With Herbert Dancer.”

“No,” Bernhardt answered. “Not really.”

To mask a sudden wild surge of relief, Powers dropped his eyes to the desk. Like a balm, he could feel assurance returning, a calm, sustaining warmth.

“You say someone's dead? Who?”

“A friend of Betty's. A man named Nick Ames. Did you know him by any chance?”

Powers frowned, elaborately considered, finally shook his head. “No, I'm afraid not. Should I?” He smiled, then glanced at his watch.

“No,” Bernhardt answered. “Probably not.” He rose to his feet. Cordially, Powers rose with him.

“Where're you staying, Mr. Bernhardt? If I hear from Betty, I'll call you. And, as I've said, I'd very much like to hear from you if you find her, whether or not you want to accept a fee.”

“I'm staying in Santa Monica.” Bernhardt produced a card, which he placed on the desk. “I've written the name of the motel on the card.”

“Thank you. And good luck.” He waited for Bernhardt to leave, then took a business card from his wallet, placed the card beside Bernhardt's, on the desk. Quickly, he touch-toned a number.

“Yes. Mr. MacCauley, please. This is Justin Powers calling.” As he waited, he swiveled in his chair to face the window. With offices on the twenty-first floor of the Sinclair Building, his view included the San Fernando Valley, and the range of mountains to the east. The day before yesterday, with Santa Ana winds blowing, visibility had been unlimited. Today, the mountains were hidden behind a pall of yellowish gray smog.

“Mr. Powers?”

“Yes. How are you?”

“Fine, sir.”

“Any progress yet?”

“Not yet, Mr. Powers.”

“Well, I have some information that might be of help to you.”

“Oh?” MacCauley's voice was politely skeptical. “What's that?”

“There's a man named Alan Bernhardt. He's a private investigator from San Francisco, and he's looking for Betty Giles, too. It's not related to me, the reason he's looking for her. He's working for someone else, entirely. He won't say who. But it occurred to me that if you assigned someone to follow Bernhardt around, you might make it easy for yourself.”

“It's possible, I suppose. And if you want us to put him under surveillance, we will. We'd normally put an electronic bug on his car, and assign a man to follow him that way. It'd mean an extra man, though. More expense.”

“Don't worry about the extra expense. I want her found. The sooner the better. And remember, don't report to anyone but me. You've got my private lines.”

“Yes, sir, I have. And you'll be hearing from me. I'll put someone on Bernhardt, too. Immediately.”

“Good. Very good.”

“M
ISS GILES—” CORDIALLY, THE
motel manager smiled. His name was Farnsworth, she remembered. Norman Farnsworth. “How've you been?”

“Fine, thanks. How've you been?”

“Very well—considering that the season hasn't started yet. But you don't mind the heat, I seem to remember.”

“It's a dry heat. And I've missed the desert.”

“Well, you can pretty much take your pick of cabins—at summer rates. Would you like one with a kitchenette? The price works out to be the same as a single room, in season. And there's only a couple of restaurants in town that're open.”

“All right. Fine.”

“How long'll you be staying?”

“I'm not really sure.”

Ruefully, he chuckled. “Not that it matters. You can stay the whole month of September, or what's left of it, no problem.” As he spoke, he filled out a registration card and presented it to her, along with a pen. She signed the card, copied the license number of the rental car from its plastic key fob, and gave him her VISA card. As he took an impression and filled out the blank form, he said, “I should tell you that the phones in the cabins aren't working. We're changing the system, putting in a better one. But it won't be ready until next week, maybe longer. They have to come from San Diego, the installers. That's a problem. And there's a problem with getting the new equipment, too. Or so they say. But there's a phone booth by the road. And there's another one here—” He pointed. “Just around the corner from the office.”

“That's all right. I'm not expecting any calls. A booth is fine.” She took her VISA card and a key, thanked him, and left the small air-conditioned office. As she opened the door, the desert heat met her with a force that was almost palpable. Walking to the car, she looked at the pool, so clear and cool, so infinitely inviting, somehow so reassuring. She would go to her cabin, change into her bathing suit, and give herself to the water.

She signed the chit, slipped her VISA card in her wallet, and drank the last of her wine, a better-than-average Cabernet Sauvignon. She'd ordered a bottle with her dinner, something she seldom did. When she rose from the table, she momentarily lost her balance, steadied herself against the table, then began walking toward the door. On a September night in the desert, off-season, mid-week, the restaurant was almost deserted. The only diners were two tables of “townies”: local, year-round residents who traded on the winter residents who began arriving in mid-October—and began leaving in mid-May. Whenever she'd come to Borrego Springs during the season she'd felt like an outsider, with no entrée to either the affluent winter residents or the ordinary citizenry. But the desert itself had always called to her, for reasons she'd never been able to fully understand, but which had little to do with people, either the tourists or the townies. Words like “vast” and “elemental,” and “irreducible,” had always surfaced when she thought of the desert, but she'd never been able to work the separate words into a meaningful whole.