Bernhardt's Edge (20 page)

“Yes. Fine.” He reached into another pocket, withdrew a plain white envelope. “Here's the—” He licked his lips. “Here's the first installment.”

“Thanks.” Dodge slipped the unopened envelope into his own pocket, and rose to his feet. He picked up his matched suitcases, nodded pleasantly, and walked briskly away. As Powers watched him go, he realized that he was beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

B
EFORE HE'D RENTED THE
Camaro, he'd gone to the airport newsstand and bought three California travel atlases, each one with a listing for Borrego Springs. He'd put both suitcases in a locker and taken the atlases into a restaurant, where he ordered a late breakfast. While he ate, he studied the atlases, then checked the road map “Carter” had given him. Conclusion: if Santa Rosa had been a problem for a black face, Borrego Springs would be worse. Because the smaller the place, the richer the place, the worse the problem got.

But for every problem there was an answer—two answers, to this problem. He could blend in, disappear into the background, play the part of a laborer, or a porter. Or else he could come on strong, play it big, stand out. He'd been in Palm Springs once, on vacation. He'd stayed at the Sheraton, in a suite. Played golf. Spent a hundred dollars for dinner, spent three hundred dollars for a girl, a white girl. He'd seen Flip Wilson at a club, not performing, just living it up, the big shot, people hanging around him, like he was a boxing champ. So Flip had fitted in, playing it big.

In Santa Rosa, he'd tried to blend in, disappear. He'd imagined he was a waiter who worked in a big hotel in San Francisco, made good money, decided to take a drive up north, maybe to see the redwoods. It was something else he'd learned from Venezzio, the importance of playing a part, being ready if a policeman ever pulled him over—ready with a story, ready with a gun, too. Decide who you are, Venezzio had said, and stick to it. If you're a garbage man, dress like a garbage man, act like a garbage man—
think
like a garbage man. Like an actor does, learning a part—or a football player does, psyching himself up for the game, visualizing himself in the end zone, spiking the ball.

During breakfast at the airport, studying the atlases, he'd thought about it, concentrating as hard as he'd ever concentrated in his whole life. He could have been a novelist, concentrating on a character he was creating. And finally he'd got it, settled on his story. He'd be a real estate salesman, from San Francisco—a smooth, cool real estate salesman who worked for a big company—Coldwell Banker, he'd decided, very upscale. He'd be their token black face, make about seventy-five thousand a year, selling big buildings, scheduled to move up into management, a real smooth operator.

He'd found a men's wear shop at the airport. He'd bought two pairs of Bermuda shorts, four lightweight sports shirts, and a thirty-dollar straw hat, narrow brimmed. After considerable thought, he'd decided on running shoes. He'd made sure the shirts had long, square-cut tails, and were cut full enough to cover whatever he'd carry in his belt. At the shop next door, he'd bought a pair of designer sunglasses, heavily tinted. Then he'd gone to Hertz, and decided on the black Camaro, for just a touch of flash. Because a black working for Coldwell Banker, making it big, he'd want a touch of flash, a little show.

Easing the Camaro into a turn on the two-lane road, he took his foot from the accelerator, slowed the car enough to look out over, the desert, still several miles ahead. For most of the drive south from L.A., the smog had been so bad that his eyes had watered. Only when he left the freeway and began climbing the western slope of the low mountain range that separated the Los Angeles basin from the desert had the sky turned a true blue. And now, on the eastern slope of the mountains, the air was so clear he could see for miles across the desert looking east. One range of mountains, just four thousand feet high, had made a big difference in the terrain, too. The western slopes had been lush with thick-growing trees and bright green grass. But the eastern slopes were dry as dust, with sagebrush as far as the eye could see. Between the ridge of the mountains and the Salton Sea, according to the travel atlases, the only underground water was in Borrego Springs, just ahead. He was facing forty or fifty miles of desert. No water, just sand, sagebrush, cactus, and the strange, stunted trees that grew in the desert.

Still driving easily, rhythmically, he was conscious of the pleasure the Camaro gave him as he swung it smoothly from side to side, testing his skill in the curves. The highway ahead was straightening as it descended. Soon he would be on the desert floor, where there were no hills, and the roads were straight as strings.

The first car he'd ever owned had been a Camaro: a bright red Camaro with black striping, brand-new, bought right off the showroom floor. He'd been nineteen years old, just passed his birthday, when he bought it. And ever since, for nine years, every year, he'd bought a new car: another Camaro, then a Corvette, then a 280Z. All of them had been customized, some touch that was only his, even if it was just a striping job, with his initials on the doors. Every year, he used to buy a different car, never the same kind of car two years in a row.

But now he drove BMWs, only BMWs—conservatively painted BMWs, none of them customized, nothing flashy. When he'd bought the red Camaro—for cash, a big wad of cash—he'd gotten all dressed up: wide lapels, narrow tie, everything cool, lots of flash, like he was going out with the most beautiful woman in the world.

But when he bought his last car, the 633CSi, he'd worn a three-piece suit, everything button down. And he'd paid by check, just wrote out a check with his Cross pen. The salesman, too, had used a Cross pen. But the salesman's pen had been silver—and his was gold. They'd laughed about that, he and the salesman, one of them black, from the slums, the other one white, probably a Harvard man, the way he talked.

A
WARE THAT SHE'D READ
the same sentence twice, still without comprehending what she'd read, she closed the book and put it on her towel, folded beside her poolside chair. She'd bought the book in town earlier in the day, as an experiment. It had been almost a week since he'd been killed, a week tomorrow night, at about ten-thirty. In a week, she'd hoped, the worst of the wounds within would have begun to heal. So she'd bought the book, a copy of
Time and Again,
a book she'd always meant to read, hopeful that she'd be able to concentrate on the story, refocus her thoughts, tear them away from the memory of Nick, his face so still, so white, eyes open, lying on the gurney, draped in the institutional green sheet, only his face showing.

Was that particular color green reserved exclusively for the dead and the dying, some universal agreement, some immutable law? She'd once seen a traffic accident victim being loaded into an ambulance—covered with a green sheet, the same color green.

Why had she left him there?
Why?

For a year, they'd lived like man and wife. So she should have waited for his father to arrive, to claim the body. They should have shared some special ceremony, she and his father.

But she'd run away.

Why?

Logically, because she feared for her life, feared that Nick's murderer would come looking for her. Because what Nick knew, she knew. What he'd known, he'd learned from her.

But if she'd been afraid—too afraid to return to her apartment—then why had she called DuBois, threatened him—challenged him? Everyone, she'd once read, had a death wish. Under certain conditions, given certain stresses, it was normal to invite death, either consciously or subconsciously. For every suicide, there were doubtless thousands who subconsciously invited death: the driver who wouldn't stop drinking, the woman who walked alone down dangerous streets, all of them rushing their appointment in Samarra.

At the far end of the pool, the shallow end, a man lay stretched out in the sun while his wife and their small children paddled happily in the water. The mother was teaching the daughter to float, supporting the little girl with her hand at the small of the girl's back, exhorting her to relax. The mother-and-daughter scene was classic, everything motherhood should be, could be—the laughter, the grace, the trust, and the love. And the young husband, watching and smiling, completed the picture: an American dream, the family at play, infinitely secure, unreasonably happy, candidates for a Norman Rockwell painting.

For as long as she could remember, she'd seen herself in a picture like this. She'd known it would happen; she'd never lost faith. Because all the promises had been made: the TV sitcom, the movies, the glossy four-color ads, all of them had promised her happiness: a sanitized, deodorized, homogenized future, she and her husband and their sanitized, deodorized children.

It had been in high school that the dream had begun to lose definition, like an old photograph, fading in the sun. It had happened quite suddenly, it seemed—on a Friday in April, perhaps, when there'd been a party, and no one had invited her. Until then, she'd always thought she was pretty, always thought that, when the time came, she'd find the right man, the one who fitted into the Norman Rockwell painting.

But something had happened to her on that Friday in April. Perhaps it had happened in her subconscious, between the time she'd gone to sleep and the next morning. Because it seemed that until one day, one specific, fateful day, she'd always thought of herself as pretty—just the one simple word, “pretty.”

But then, the next day, she no longer thought of herself as pretty. She didn't think she was ugly. She'd never thought that. It was just that, from that particular day until this particular day, she'd never thought she was pretty.

And prettiness, she knew, was a state of mind. Prettiness, and everything else, everything that mattered, it was all a state of mind. Pretty was a code word—for a teenager, for a woman, any woman, pretty was the ultimate code word. In high school, “pretty” meant that the boys liked you, wanted to take you out—wanted to feel you up in the backseats of their fathers' cars. Later, after everyone had lost their virginity, “pretty” meant, simply, that you were a woman that men wanted to lay. The prettier you were, the more men wanted to lay you. And the more men wanted to lay you, the prettier you felt, therefore the more self-confident you felt of your sexuality. Meaning that you could pick and choose. Making you more inaccessible. Making you, therefore, more desirable. It was a simple supply-and-demand equation, really—elementary stuff, for first-year business school majors.

She shifted her gaze to the only other poolside person: the tall, lean, fortyish man with the dark, quick eyes. The man moved easily, smoothly, like an athlete. And he smiled like a shy schoolboy. She'd seen him yesterday, when he'd registered. Ever since, she'd been aware of him watching her, appraising her.

Yesterday, on her second evening in town, she'd driven out to The Crosswinds restaurant, located a few miles east of town, at the airport. Just as she was ordering, he'd arrived. He'd taken a nearby table, and nodded to her, and smiled. She'd returned the nod, but not the smile. She'd wondered whether he'd followed her from the motel to the airport with sex on his mind. It wouldn't've been difficult to follow her. In the desert, day or night, cars were visible for miles. But he hadn't followed up on the smile, and she'd left while he was still eating his entree. After dinner, in the twilight, she'd decided to drive east for a few miles, away from town, out into the desert. When she'd turned back toward town, she'd seen his car still parked at the restaurant.

Last night, late, after the TV movie, she'd unlocked her door and walked past the swimming pool and out through the motel's broad driveway to the county road and the phone booth that stood close beside the road, beneath the motel's blue neon sign. Without realizing it, she'd intended to call her mother, perhaps to reassure her mother that, yes, she was feeling better—or, at least, wasn't feeling worse. Yet she also realized that she was reluctant to make the call. While she was debating, standing a few feet from the sign, facing the phone booth, she was aware of a sound from behind her: a soft, furtive scuffling. Quickly, she'd turned—in time to see a shadow of someone standing beside a huge ocotillo bush that grew beside the driveway. Suddenly terrified, she'd darted to her left, putting the phone booth between herself and the bush. As she stood there, two cars had materialized out of the night, one pair of headlights coming from the north, from town, the other pair blazing out of the desert. Instinctively, she'd raised her hands, to signal. But something had prevented her, some irrational reluctance to make a scene, cause a fuss.

The cars had crisscrossed almost directly before the motel entrance, leaving her suddenly alone, in darkness again. And then, when she'd looked at the ocotillo, there was no figure, nothing. Watchfully aware that the man, whoever he was, must have come from the motel, she'd returned to her cabin, double locked the door, turned up the TV.

Could a killer have a shy smile and a pleasant, open face, and a manner reminiscent of an assistant professor of the classics?

He was just a few feet from her now, sitting shaded from the sun beneath a redwood lanai that ran the full width of the pool. He was sitting at a table. There was a briefcase on the table, and a clipboard. Frowning thoughtfully, eyes far away, he was sucking at a ballpoint pen. He'd been sitting like that, writing, for most of the afternoon, long before she'd come out to the pool with her copy of
Time and Again.

She looked at her watch, lying beside the book on the beach towel. Three o'clock. She was more than halfway through the day; in eight more hours, with luck, she could sleep. It was the sixth consecutive day she'd gotten through alone, without Nick. So the hours had indeed turned into days. And tomorrow, the days would have turned into a week, one whole week, alone. And weeks would become months, and eventually the months would become years—until, finally, she would die, too. With or without another man, she would die, too.