Bernhardt's Edge (2 page)

Deliberately, Dancer allowed a moment to pass as he used an outsize plastic clip to fasten the fact sheet, the photo, and the business card together inside a fresh manila folder he'd taken from a drawer. Then, initiating his own eye contact, seeing the other man's gaze almost imperceptibly falter, he finally nodded. “I understand.”

Another silence passed as Powers looked away, frowning. He'd known this would happen, this insubordination, these knowing looks, that subtle sneer. But he was helpless. Totally, abjectly helpless. As surely as a murderer was destined for the gas chamber, he was destined to be here, enduring this indignity inflicted on him by the man across the desk. This was his destiny, sitting abjectly in this chair, shuddering deep inside himself. Impaled.

He'd forgotten what remained yet to be said. Certainly they must sign something, a contract, with a retainer. Once more, he glanced at his watch, 5:32. Every hour, disaster came closer. Yet he was forced into this meaningless charade, this pretense of equanimity, of urbane unconcern.

“Do you have reason to think she's here, in San Francisco?” Dancer was asking.

“Not specifically. But she's close to her mother, keeps running to Mother, apparently, when she's in trouble.”

“She's in trouble?” Dancer frowned. “How do you mean?”

“It's a—” He broke off, searching for the word, the phrase: “It's a figure of speech.”

“Hmmm…”

There it was again: the insolence, the suggestion of a knowing leer.

“Was MacCauley looking for her, in Los Angeles?” Dancer asked.

He'd known the question would come. For this question, he was ready. “Briefly, he was looking for her. But he didn't find her. And it's pretty clear, MacCauley says, that she left town, left Los Angeles. We think she's traveling with a man. His name is Ames. Nick Ames. They lived together, and they both disappeared at the same time, just about a month ago.”

Nodding, Dancer noted the name, then slid open his center drawer, withdrawing a single sheet of paper. “This is our standard contract, Mr. Powers. We have a minimum charge of five hundred dollars a day, for three days. Then there's travel outside of San Francisco, of course, and lodging, if that's necessary. I'll report to you, personally, three days from now, whether or not there's any progress. If you'll read the contract, and sign it, then all we need is an advance of five hundred dollars.”

Powers put on horn-rimmed glasses, skimmed the contract, signed it, quickly wrote out a personal check, flicked both away from him. The time was nine minutes to six.

“Will you be handling this yourself?”

Dancer shook his head. “Sorry. I can't. I've got twelve full-time people, plus another five people that work part-time, investigating. Then there's another four, in the office. It's all I can do, frankly, to keep everything on track. Actually, I'd like to get out in the field. But it's impossible.”

“If it's a question of the fee…”

“It's not. Believe me. But I promise you, I'll put one of my very best people on it.”

“I'd assumed,” Powers answered brusquely, “that that went without saying.”

Aware that the tone of the other's voice demanded a counter in kind, Dancer nodded curtly. “Then you assumed correctly.” As he said it, he saw Powers' mouth tighten slightly. Yes, he'd scored a point, found a small chink.

Recovering, also countering, Powers sharpened his tone, hardened his gaze. “There's one thing—one restriction.” He waited until he'd compelled Dancer's full attention, “You're not to contact any of my people. None of them know anything about this. And that's the way it's got to stay. Is that clear?”

Eyes steady, Dancer nodded. His voice, too, was steady. “Perfectly clear.”

“Good.” Powers stood up. “I'm counting on you, Mr. Dancer. I don't know whether you've checked on Powers, Associates, but our balance sheet would impress you. We're simply too big to let someone like Betty Giles threaten us. Do you understand?”

Also rising, Dancer shook his head. “I'm not sure I do, Mr. Powers.”

“What I'm saying is that she's got to be found. She's got to be—” He hesitated. “She's got to be neutralized. There's simply no other way. And cost, as I'm sure you know, is of no consequence.”

“I understand. I'll be in touch. And thank you for contacting us.”

Powers nodded, put on his hat, took his attaché case from the desk. “You're welcome.” He turned abruptly to the door.

Dancer waited until he judged Powers had left the outer office, then pressed an intercom button, spoke into a speaker phone: “Has everyone gone, Marge?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, you can go. Any calls? Anything important?”

“Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow, I'd say.”

“All right. Good night. Lock the outer door.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dancer turned to the room's single window, a large one, behind his desk. He'd chosen the building for its views, and now, reflectively loosening his tie, he stood looking out over the rooftops of Chinatown. Beyond the northern edge of the city, the waters of San Francisco Bay were deepening into purple as the sun began sinking slowly toward the great orange arc of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Dancer drew a long, deep breath. Expanding his chest, he arched his back, lifted his chin, rose on his toes, raised his arms high over his head, exhaled, drew another deep breath. He was a compactly built man, impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit that could have been made by Justin Powers' tailor. At forty, Dancer was as slim as he'd been at twenty, and just as wiry. His gray eyes were shrewd, yet curiously empty. His small mouth was slightly pursed: a corrupted cherub's mouth. His chin was small, slightly indented. His nose was curved, a little too large. His forehead was broad; his sandy hair was receding. Except for the eyes, so cold, so empty, the face was mild, even benevolent. But it was the eyes that defined the man—as many had discovered, too late.

Neutralized
…

Had Powers meant to say it?

Some people used words very precisely. Others didn't. Powers was a precise man, a man who obviously understood words, and could calculate their impact. It must be assumed, then, that “neutralized” had been carefully chosen.

Meaning that, when Betty Giles was found, Powers would call MacCauley. And MacCauley would call the leg-breakers.

Because, behind his suave banker's face, Powers was badly frightened. Terrified, perhaps, of Betty Giles.

A rich client, a terrified client…

Potentially, it was a promising combination, one that Dancer had often turned to considerable profit.

Dancer smiled and turned to his desk, and the phone. From memory, he touch-toned a number.

T
HE SIX OF THEM
sat in the front row of the Howell Theater, a ninety-nine-seat house located in San Francisco's Eureka Valley district. With the house lights up and the work light on, the theater plainly showed its age: fifty years, at least, originally built as an Odd Fellows' Hall, later used as a neighborhood community house.

One of the six rose to his feet. He was a tall, lean man with dark, thick hair and an angular, deeply etched face. The face was Semitic: olive-hued, with a long, thin nose and an expressive mouth. Unmistakably, it was a Jewish face, a face that reflected both an ancient sadness and a new, gentle hope. The tall man wore corduroy slacks, an Icelandic wool sweater, and an open-neck shirt. Beneath heavy eyebrows, his vivid blue eyes moved restlessly as he spoke to the five still seated:

“I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Alan Bernhardt. I'm forty-two years old, and I'll be directing this play. It's the fifteenth play I've directed at the Howell. I came to San Francisco eight years ago. Before that I spent several years in New York, mostly acting off-Broadway—and sometimes on Broadway, if the part was small enough.” He smiled: a slow, rueful, half-shy smile. He waited for the chuckles, then continued. “I directed off-Broadway, too—and had a play of mine produced at Circle in the Square. It didn't have a very long run, I'm afraid—” Now the smile twisted slightly, quietly ironic. “But at least I've got the clipping, and a photostat of the check.” He paused, looked at the five aspirants: three men, two women. One of the women, on his far right, interested him. Her name, he'd learned, was Pamela Brett. She was in her middle thirties. Serious. Attentive. Pretty face. Great body. Not on display, the body. But definitely there, beneath the jeans, and the loosely worn fisherman's sweater.

“The reason I'm telling you all this,” Bernhardt said, “is that I want to make the point that, as far as I'm concerned, the Howell is the best theater of its kind I've ever worked in. The people who run it are very, very serious about what they're doing—serious about producing damn good plays. That takes dedication, and stubbornness, and vision, and a feeling for what the public wants. And integrity, too. It takes a lot of integrity. And it also probably takes a touch of mild insanity, the kind of insanity that Don Quixote had, I suppose. Quixote, and Dave Falk, the man who's run the Howell for as long as I've been here. If you haven't met Dave, you will. Maybe you've already seen him, and didn't know it. He could've been answering the phone, or selling tickets, or sweeping out the lobby, or—”

A small, shrill shriek interrupted: Bernhardt's pager, clipped to his belt, under his sweater.

“Oh, oh—” He switched off the pager. “I moonlight, like a lot of people in this business. Either you moonlight, or you have an inheritance. And that's my master's voice. I'll just be a minute. Then we'll do some reading, from the beginning.” He smiled, this time at Pamela Brett, who quickly returned the smile. Bernhardt pushed himself away from the edge of the stage, and walked up the center aisle. Slightly stooped, he moved purposefully, eyes to the front, as if his attention were focused just ahead. In profile, with his long, slightly hooked nose, his sharp chin, with his thick, roughly cut hair growing low across his forehead and over his collar, Bernhardt could have played the part of the younger Lincoln.

In the tiny lobby with its worn carpet and its vintage playbills tacked to the walls, a pay phone hung beside the table used to serve coffee and pastries during performances. Drawing a deep, resigned breath, Bernhardt dropped a quarter in the slot, punched out a number.

“Yes?” the familiar voice answered.

“It's Bernhardt.”

“Can you come in tomorrow at nine?” Dancer asked. “I've got something for you.”

“Is it local, or out of town?”

“I'm not sure. A little of both, maybe.”

“How long will it take?”

“Hard to say. Two or three days, at least.” As always, talking to an employee, Dancer's voice was take-it-or-leave-it flat. Then, because it was Bernhardt, he added, “It's a skip trace. There's a twenty-five percent bonus, if it works out. But you've got to tell me now. Right now.”

“All right. Nine o'clock.”

“Good.” The phone clicked, went dead.

Bernhardt flipped the script closed, put it on the edge of the stage, stretched, looked at his watch. “Okay, that's the first act. What I'd like to do, I think, is go through all three acts, reading the way we have tonight.” He pointed to his clipboard. “I've been taking notes, the way directors're supposed to do. So far I haven't put down any ‘wows,' but then there aren't any ‘ughs,' either. The way I like to work is to read through the whole play. Then I get together with each of you separately, and we decide whether we think it's going to work, with the parts you're reading. Okay?”

As he spoke, the five auditioners folded their own scripts and rose from chairs that had been placed in a semicircle on the stage.

“Today is Monday,” Bernhardt said. “Can everyone make it Friday at the same time, six o'clock?” He looked at the five faces: three men, one woman—and Pamela Brett, who'd obviously acted before. A month from now, four or five rehearsals into the play, some of them would have given up, forfeiting the money they'd paid, to pursue their fragile dreams.

Thank God he believed it, what he'd said about the Howell. It
was
the best little theater company he'd ever worked with.

“So study your parts,” he said, concluding. “Read them over. Make the characters
you.
That's the best advice I can give. Decide what your character has for breakfast, what he does for kicks—how his love life is going, or not going. I always encourage actors to write bios of their characters. Believe me, it helps. And it's fun, too. So—” He put the script on top of the clipboard, put his ballpoint pen away. “So I'll see you Friday night. If I should have a conflict—that moonlighting, I told you about—I'll call you. I'd help if you give me all the phone numbers you can, where I can get you, or leave a message. Okay?”

As they nodded, some of them thanking him, some not, the group dispersed, moving up the aisle, individually. Was it intentional, Bernhardt wondered, that Pamela Brett had lingered, the last one up the aisle? Hastily, he vaulted up on the stage, switched off the work light, jumped lightly down, took up the clipboard and script, walked up the aisle. Ahead, she was already pushing open the door to the lobby. He couldn't run after her; he could only walk like this, briskly, believably, hoping she'd linger.

And, yes, through the lobby door's small round window he saw her. She stood with her oversize leather purse and script hugged close, staring gravely at a reproduction of a turn-of-the-century playbill, Elwood Carrington's
Hamlet.

He pushed open the door, went to the fusebox, switched off the lights in the auditorium. At the sound of the switches she turned, smiling when she saw him.
Had
she been waiting for him? He would probably never know.