Find Her a Grave (12 page)

Opting to project an air of amiable benevolence, he smiled down at the upturned faces, some of them old, some of them young, almost all of them attentive, a few of them transparently anxious. Sitting on the edge of the stage with legs dangling, hands spread wide at either side, Bernhardt had assumed the traditional get-acquainted posture of the director upon first addressing the random group of aspiring actors from which he must select that brave handful who would face the footlights on opening night.

Bernhardt was a tall, lean man with a long, lean face. The face was Semitic, darkened through the ages by ancestors whose forebears had lived beneath an uncompromising sun shining down on an uncompromising land. His hair was dark and thick, flecked with gray and worn long and careless. His forehead was high, his nose was generously curved. Beneath dark, thick eyebrows, behind gold-rimmed aviator glasses, his dark eyes were in constant, restless motion. His face was deeply creased, a reassuring pattern of lines that suggested intelligence, perception, and energy. He wore what he always wore when he directed: a pullover sweater, vintage corduroy slacks, and middle-aged running shoes.

“Little theater is—” Bernhardt broke off, searching for the word, the phrase. “It’s transitional, that’s the best word I can think of. Some of you—the ones with acting talent, whatever that is—you might have a good shot at going on to Broadway, or the San Francisco equivalent. And yes, some of you will decide to give Hollywood a shot, with all the attendant risks and rewards. But the rest of you—which is to say those of you who’re either blessed or cursed with no acting talent—” He broke off again, taking time to sweep the upturned faces with eyes that touched each face in turn, a preface to what must come next: “Well, you’ll either opt to stay on here, painting scenery and rustling up props, or else you’ll find something better to do with your spare time.
All
your spare time, for the next two months, probably.” Once more, watching them for reactions, he smiled. “I’m forty-odd years old, and I’ve been doing theater for a long, long time. I’m hooked, in other words. Just like a few of you, certainly, are also hooked.” He waited for the predictable response: the small smiles, the sidelong looks, the shifting on seats that badly needed reupholstering.

“I’ve discovered,” he continued, “that at this stage—call it get-acquainted time—you’re interested in knowing something about me.” Now his gaze questioned them. And, as always, they nodded. Yes, they wanted to know more about him.

“Briefly,” he said, “I grew up in New York City. I’m Jewish, as you’ve doubtless surmised. My father was a bombardier during World War Two, and he was killed over Hamburg. My mother was a modern dancer. We had a loft in Greenwich Village; that’s where she taught dance. She was also involved in lots of causes, mostly in favor of women and against war. Her father was a small clothing manufacturer. He played the harpsichord, and he was a wonderful man. He sent me to good schools—including Antioch College, in Ohio. That’s where I got hooked—changed my major in my sophomore year from Political Science to Theater Arts. Antioch has a first-class little theater—they call it the Yellow Springs Area Theater—and in my senior year I had the very great pleasure of acting in two plays that I wrote myself.”

A subdued ripple swept the ranks of the aspirants, a well-earned tribute that Bernhardt always secretly savored.

“After I graduated,” he continued, “I went to New York, of course. And, of course, I started making the rounds reading for parts. Eventually I got a few walk-ons, with the promise of better things to come. While I was doing that, I was revising my plays—and writing another one. The two plays that were produced in Yellow Springs were two-acters. The one I wrote in New York was three acts. It was called
Victims.
And—lo—after a couple of years knocking on doors, I finally found someone to produce it.” Once more he paused, waiting for the response, this one more forthcoming, therefore more satisfying.

“It only ran three weeks off Broadway, Thursday through Saturday,” Bernhardt said. “But the reviews—well—critics are generous the first time around. Which is to say that I’ve still got those reviews.” He smiled, dipped his head, an aw-shucks turn. “All three of them.” Once more, one last time, he waited for the predictable response. But now came the conclusion, the inevitable, regrettable wind-up, no more calculating the laugh lines, nothing left but the bitter truth: “Then, though, I had some problems. Personal problems. And, well, it was time to leave New York. I went to Los Angeles for a year, but it didn’t work out. I had a few power lunches, and got my playwright’s ego stroked. I got a few bit parts in a couple of B movies, too. But that was it for me and Hollywood. I wasn’t raised to spend part of every day driving on freeways. So I came to San Francisco. I love it here. Literally, from my first day in this city, I knew it was for me. It’s been more than ten years now, and I still love San Francisco. However, unlike New York or Los Angeles, it’s impossible to make a living in the acting profession here, let alone the directing profession, or the playwrighting profession. Even actors who work in equity houses here have to have an outside income, usually. Moonlighters, in other words.” Once more he broke off, let the fateful words sink in, watched for the reactions. A few in his audience registered consternation, others registered exasperation. Others appeared to be indifferent.

“Some of us do commercials,” Bernhardt went on. “I suppose they’re the lucky ones. Then there’s always cab driving, of course, and waiting on tables, the traditional solutions. And, meanwhile—” Bernhardt raised his hands, a graceful gesture that included them all. “Meanwhile, here we are at the Howell Theater. Which is, in my opinion, the best little theater in California. Some of us are hiding out, some of us are still pursuing our dream. And all of us—” Bernhardt moved his right hand to lift a bound copy of
East.
“All of us are going to cooperate in the absolutely best-ever nonequity production of
East,
which I think is an excellent play. If the play should close in its first month, the Howell will lose money—yet again. If, however, we’re successful in conveying the magic of
East
to our audiences, and if, therefore, the play should run for five or six months, then the members of the cast and the volunteer staff might make, say, a thousand dollars each. The director—me—might make five thousand. With luck.” As he said it, delivered the tag line, he looked once more at the upturned faces. Among them, was there the collective willingness and the tenacity and the infernal spark that he could somehow combine into a successful play?

In the front row a middle-aged woman with a mischievous face and bad posture raised her hand, a question.

With his business concluded, elapsed time about a half hour, Bernhardt smiled benign encouragement. Questions were always a promising start.

“Do you moonlight?” she asked, mischief sparkling in her eyes.

“Yes,” Bernhardt answered. “I do.”

“May I ask what you do?”

“Certainly,” Bernhardt answered promptly. “I’m a private investigator.”

“What?”

Pleased at the spirited reaction and the general exclamation of surprise, Bernhardt grinned, spread his hands. “Think about it. Flexible hours and pretty good money, if you have the right clients. Plus, for an actor, investigating is a natural. There’s a lot of playacting involved, you know. Otherwise known as little white lies. Bullshitting, in short.”

“A
ND AFTER TONY BACARDO
left last night, your mother told you about the treasure. It was the first time she mentioned it to you. Is that right?”

Angela nodded.

“But she didn’t tell you the precise location of the treasure—just that it’s buried up in the San Joaquin delta.”

“Right.”

“So only she and Bacardo know the precise location of the treasure. They didn’t find out until last night, when they put the six words together.”

“Yes.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Bernhardt let a silence fall. They were in his office, once the front bedroom of a turn-of-the-century flat that he had rented on Potrero Hill. Bernhardt sat behind the vintage carved-oak library table that served as a desk; Angela Rabb sat on an aging Victorian love seat that Bernhardt realized he must either junk or have reupholstered.

Whenever he was puzzled or apprehensive or experiencing unspecified pangs of emotion, Bernhardt was unable to sit still. He rose, walked to the generously proportioned bay window that looked out on Vermont Street. Since it was Saturday afternoon, technically not a workday, he still wore the same Icelandic sweater and wrinkled corduroy slacks he’d worn earlier at the theater. Bernhardt was a tall, lean man, slightly stooped. Standing with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, he looked out at two small boys, Andy and Eugene Ralston, who lived across the street. They were skateboarding down the steep slope of Vermont Street, seemingly courting certain injury, if not a messy death.

A million dollars in jewels …

The Mafia …

He’d first met Angela Rabb two years ago, when she was only eighteen. She’d come to the theater with Ramon Rodriguez, who’d been in his midtwenties. Ramon had been serious about acting, and Angela had been serious about Ramon. She came to the theater with him and helped backstage. Sometimes she’d volunteered to usher and take tickets. Only once had they really talked, she and Bernhardt. As always, she’d come to the theater with Ramon for rehearsal. But that night it had been obvious that she and Ramon weren’t getting along, and during a rehearsal break, drinking diet Coke from the machine, Bernhardt had invited her confidence. Unpredictably, she’d begun to cry. Before anyone could see her crying, he’d guided her through the wings and into a prop room, locking the door behind them. In minutes, she’d told her story. It began with her mother, who’d moved in with a sadistic restaurant owner named Walter Draper. One night, Angela said, her voice choked by the memory, her eyes moving furtively, Draper had gone for both of them, first her mother, then her. No, it hadn’t been an actual rape. Angela had known what to do, how to fight him off.

The next day Angela had moved out, gone apartment hunting with Ramon Rodriguez. They’d been in love—they thought.

But after a year she and Ramon had broken up. Determined to make it in Hollywood, Ramon had gone to Los Angeles. Angela had moved in with her mother, who was living alone—again. Bernhardt had asked Angela why Draper had let her mother move out, just like that. Usually, he’d said, men like Draper wouldn’t let their women go so easily. “He didn’t have a choice,” Angela had answered cryptically.

And now, a half hour ago, a year after the fact, Angela had told him why Draper hadn’t had a choice. When he’d learned that Draper had attacked his daughter and granddaughter, Carlo Venezzio had sent men to break both of Draper’s legs at the knees—after they’d beaten him almost to death.

Aware that he’d stood at the window too long, Bernhardt returned to his chair behind the desk. Saying: “I really should be talking to your mother. Why didn’t she come with you?”

“Bacardo’s gone up to the delta to look things over. It’s about seventy miles one way, I think. He probably left this morning. He said he’d contact us when he got back. He told Mom to be home.”

Bernhardt looked at his watch: two-thirty on a bright, clear Saturday afternoon in April.

Carlo Venezzio, boss of bosses …

Everything about Angela’s story could be checked. Either Draper had been attacked, or he hadn’t. Either Venezzio was in prison, or he wasn’t. Either he’d had a heart attack, or he hadn’t. Either he’d had an affair with a beautiful waitress in New York forty years ago, or he hadn’t.

Leaving, however, the one essential point dangling, impossible to check: Did the Mafia know about the treasure buried somewhere in the delta near Sacramento? As the question surfaced, Bernhardt visualized the San Joaquin delta: a desolate, low-lying terrain crisscrossed by a random network of waterways, a land favored only by millions of birds, a few corporate rice growers, assorted fishermen and houseboaters: bayou country without the picturesque trees and swamps. Why, Bernhardt wondered, had Venezzio chosen the delta?

Did he want to know?

Yes, he wanted to know.

The timeless lure of buried treasure, the attraction of potential profit, the tug of simple curiosity: whatever it was, yes, he wanted in. Didn’t he?

“So.” Bernhardt settled himself behind his desk, decided to make a judicious steeple of his long, bony fingers, decided to take the role of the confessor, the advisor, the savior for hire. Maybe.

“So,” he began again, slipping into the with-it cadence of the post-teenager. “So, why’re we having this conversation, Angela? What do you think I can do for you?”

“Well, I—I told you what Bacardo said. He won’t go after the treasure alone.”

“Let’s suppose,” Bernhardt said, piecing together his thoughts as he spoke, “that I
did
do it. And let’s suppose something went wrong. Bacardo and I, let’s say, are apprehended by the police with the jewels in our possession. What I’m wondering is, could I be liable to prosecution? On the one hand, I’m not stealing anything. I’m merely helping Bacardo carry out Venezzio’s wishes that your mother collect her inheritance. But the money that bought the jewels was Mafia money. So—” Bernhardt spread his hands, shook his head. “So I don’t know how I’d stand with the law, if the worst happened. And that’s always my first consideration, when I take on a case: how vulnerable I’d be legally.”

Angela made no response; she simply looked at Bernhardt as if she were waiting for him to decide her fate. Her eyes, Bernhardt noticed, were a light, clear hazel. Beneath a light blouse, her breasts were superbly shaped.

“And then,” Bernhardt said, “there’s the question of money. My fee, in other words. I get fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses, once I decide to take on a client. I also take the first day’s payment in advance. Four hundred dollars, in other words.”

For a moment Angela made no reply. Then, a rueful, reluctant admission: “My mother doesn’t have any money, and I don’t either. I don’t know about Tony Bacardo, whether he’d pay for your time.”