The plane was scheduled to land in Burbank an hour before dusk. He was sleeping in a window seat, covered with a blanket, when the pilot came on announcing their descent. He opened his eyes, taking in the view. Two or three times its normal size, the sun shimmered through a red haze out over the ocean. Looking down, Hardy picked up the maze of freeways winding through the Valley, the Hollywood jammed even now on an early Saturday evening, the Golden State also packed heading downtown. The Pasadena wasn’t yet a parking lot, at least not from the air.
Feeling wasted with fatigue and fever, he closed his eyes again until they came to the famous complete stop at the gate.
This, he told himself as he tried not to stagger walking to the nearest rent-a-car booth, was a dumb idea.
But somehow he made it to Pasadena. He had taken a couple of DA training classes at an Embassy Suites there and had a vague memory of where he was going. Within an hour of landing, he had registered, showered, left a message for Frannie that he'd made it and passed out under the covers.
He slept fourteen hours and woke up in soaked sheets feeling he had a chance to survive. It was close to noon, Sunday, October 24. After another shower, still shaky, he called home again, and again no one answered. He left another message. He was feeling better, which wasn't saying much. He'd try again tonight.
Restoffer picked up after three rings. The greeting was cordial enough, but when Hardy started to brief him on why he had come down here, he hadn't gotten out two sentences when he sensed a change, an almost ominous reserve.
Restoffer interrupted him. "You gotta leave this. Or at least leave me out of it."
An unwelcome surprise. Last time they'd talked, Restoffer had told him he'd be around if he was needed. Now he was backing out.
"Did something else happen?"
"Nothing else happened except your prosecutor called my chief."
Silence. But nothing else needed to be said. Hardy had made some serious problems for Floyd Restoffer in the months before his pension was going to kick in. He didn't want any more. "I've got to go."
The line went dead.
Hardy squeezed the receiver. "Now we're having fun," he said to no one. He went into the bathroom and took three more aspirin, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. "Nice eyes." Backing up a step, he realized the rest of him matched his eyes – he needed a shave, clean clothes, another fourteen hours of sleep. He didn't have the courage to take his temperature.
After pacing the room for fifteen minutes, he ordered breakfast from room service, then called Restoffer again. "Margaret Morency is engaged to Jody Bachman, you know that?" There was a long silence and Hardy said: "I've got to start somewhere, Floyd. I'm down here. I need a little help. Please?"
Restoffer's breath echoed on the line. Hardy waited. "Believe it or not, Morency is in the book. I checked." After another moment the cop said, "San Marino," and hung up.
Hardy left a message for Jody Bachman at Crane amp; Crane. He was sure it was just an oversight because he was so busy, but Bachman had never gotten back to him on the Larry Witt matter. Now he was down in LA today and tomorrow. Maybe they could get together sometime, perhaps for lunch. He left the number of his hotel if Bachman wanted to call him back. Also his room number.
His luck ran out. Yes, Clarence Stone had been able to see him.
Freeman had come up with pretty much the same conclusion. The plane had had an open seat, the hotel a vacant room.
That was it – that had been the run of it.
Now Restoffer wouldn't talk to him, Frannie wasn't home, Bachman wasn't at work on a Sunday and Margaret Morency's phone apparently didn't even have an answering machine.
Steeling himself for the shock, Hardy drew the shades back. The San Gabriel mountains rose sparkling in front of him. Closer in, squatting along the Rose Bowl parade route on Colorado Boulevard, he noticed the low buildings were waging a losing fight with grafitti. He pushed open his window. The air was fragrant and warm with a late-summer softness to it.
A new rush of dizziness came over him and he was tempted to yield to the inertia, to lay down, call it a mistake and fly home this afternoon when he woke up. Sitting on the bed, he flopped onto his back, closed his heavy eyes.
Suddenly, anger forced him up. He was disgusted with himself, with his weakness, with being sick. If he was going to sleep fourteen hours he could have done it at home. He hadn't come all the way down here to catch up on his sleep, to let a run of bad luck do him in.
The sitting up cost him another hit of dizziness. He knew the fever hadn't broken but he'd done a lot yesterday feeling even worse. He picked up his shirt, soggy and wrinkled. It wouldn't do. He had to get some clothes. He had to keep moving…
Clarence Stone's home in Seacliff had been a nice, human-scaled, run-of-the-mill mansion. Margaret Morency's place in San Marino put things in perspective. Hardy was getting a lesson in the investment community – there were the very comfortable, then the rich, and then there were the people who had houses that weren't visible from the road. The drive, through the double iron gates, would back into a forest of scrub oak up over the crest of a small knoll and disappeared.
It hadn't been as hard to find as he had expected. The Huntington Library was open on Sundays (after noon) and they carried back issues of the city's weekly society sheet. In the past year there had been several charity events as Margaret Morency's.
Pastille was on Swan Court. Pastille was the name of her place. After those French breath candies. Maybe that's how Ms. Morency thought of her home – a trifle, a confection to soothe the spirit.
Hardy pulled his rent-a-car up to the gates. He had to get out of the car to ring the bell. No one had answered the last time he'd tried the telephone but that had been nearly an hour before. Something might have changed. If it hadn't, he'd try Bachman again, then come back here. Something.
A deep young female voice spoke through the box.
"Yes."
"Ms. Morency?"
"Yes."
He didn't feel he could launch into a long story. He had to see her. "I couldn't reach you on the phone," he said.
She laughed. "I know. I just let it ring. I don't know why I keep the thing. Who is this?"
Hardy took a gamble. He was an acquaintance of Jody's.
"Oh, just a minute." There was a whirring sound and the gates began to open. "I'm back by the pool. You'll find it."
"I give the staff Sundays off."
They sat on thick-cushioned picnic chairs under an umbrella. Two sweating pitchers – iced tea and lemonade – sat in a serving platter on the table. She had taken crystal glasses from the bar at the gazebo near the head of the pool and poured lemonade for them.
It was crude, he knew, but Hardy's first reaction, shaking her hand, was that he had seen better heads on beer. Orange Court debutante or not, she had one of those faces that didn't quite work – a jaw that was almost merely strong, but it jutted. A trace too much down clouding her cheeks. Her forehead reached her hairline a half-inch too soon. Being mega-rich could cover a multitude of sins.
She had also apparently perfected the art of diverting attention from her face. Blonde hair hung shining to her shoulders. She wore black bikini bottoms and a white top tied halter-fashion over her breasts. The top was diaphanous. A gold chain hugged her flat, tan waist. She was barefoot with long, tapered legs; another discreet chain encircled one ankle. Hardy noticed the top of the bathing suit draped over some flagstones by the flower bed on the opposite side of the pool. She had obviously been swimming, lounging, topless.
"I like being here alone."
They were certainly alone. No other houses were visible. Only trees, the pool, the manicured garden and rolling lawn beyond, the mansion behind them, the perfect blue sky. A jet flew high overhead.
"How do you know Jody?" she asked.
Hardy's every bone ached. He could feel sweat gathering between his shoulder blades as the fever began to spike again. He sipped the lemonade and smiled weakly. "I'm afraid I'm another lawyer."
She had, he thought, a great laugh – deep, full-throated, uninhibited. She threw her head back, seemingly delighted. "Lawyers aren't afraid of anything," she said. "That's what Jody tells me."
"This lawyer is."
"What are you afraid of, Mr. Hardy?" She looked directly at him, her deep eyes a shade too dark. "You look pretty much able to take care of yourself."
"Right at this moment, I'm fighting a cold. I feel like an eight-year-old could take me down without too much trouble."
She looked another question at him. Had she been coming on? Had he just turned her down? Whatever, it didn't seem to bother her. She seemed to think it was interesting. It was such a different league here. There must be different rules and maybe he didn't know them.
"So, where were we?" she asked.
"How I knew Jody. I don't."
For a moment, her eyes registered something. Fear? Annoyance? "You're not a policeman, are you?"
"Why? Is Jody in trouble with the police?"
"There's no reason he should be. And you didn't answer me."
"I told you. I'm a lawyer. I'm not a cop."
She sat back and crossed her arms under her halter. Her face remained impassive. "What do you people think he did? You ought to leave him alone."
Hardy nodded. "Yes. That's what Mr. Kelso told Inspector Restoffer. But I'm on my own. I'm not with him and I'm trying to save my client's life." He gave her Jennifer's story in a nutshell. By the time he finished, she had uncrossed her arms. She took a long drink of lemonade.
"But Jody didn't call Frank – Mr. Kelso. I did. Jody knew nothing about it, probably still doesn't."
"Why did you call him?"
"Because, Mr. Hardy" – she leaned forward again – "because Jody doesn't need this. He's very sensitive and he hasn't done anything wrong. And then suddenly out of nowhere this Restoffer person starts questioning him as if he were a criminal. These accusations were tearing him apart and it was ridiculous. Do you know who Jody is?"
"I know he's your fiance. That's about it."
"He's a one-in-a-million person, that's who he is. He spends half his life helping people. He came from nowhere and now he's moving into the city's elite, he raises money for twenty causes – that's where he is now, at a charity golf function. He's a partner at his firm and he makes a good living. He's engaged to me, so as you can see money will not be an issue. He doesn't need to do anything criminal. Money just doesn't drive him."
If Jody were so wonderful, Hardy wanted to ask her, why did she give the impression she would have taken him to bed, maybe still would. It could be that all his goodness didn't satisfy her, which, of course, didn't mean it wasn't there.
It could also be that one-in-a-million Jody didn't love her, didn't find her desirable, had arranged for himself a convenient marriage that would give him still more money, more power. But maybe, in this strata of society, marriages more resembled strategic alliances than love affairs. Connections and loyalty might count for more than sexual attraction. He just didn't know, he was out of his league.
And he was almost out of steam. "Did Jody tell you that Restoffer had accused him of anything?"
"Not specifically, but it became obvious that he thought Jody might have had something to do with Simpson Crane's death, which is simply absurd. Simpson Crane was like his father. He cried when Simpson was killed – I was with him and I saw it. That's not something you fake, Mr. Hardy."
It's been known to happen, Hardy thought.
"Besides," she continued, "everybody knows who killed Simpson. It was the damn union. He was, I guess everybody knows, a union buster. He believed unions were ruining the country – and by the way he was right – so he went after them. He was just too good at it. And one of them killed him, or had him killed. That's just the kind of people they are."
Hardy wanted to ask her if she had ever had a meaningful conversation with a working person but thought he'd save his breath. That wasn't his fight, he wasn't about to become a life influence on Ms. Morency.
Suddenly she pushed herself up from her chair and crossed the flagstones. At the gazebo she grabbed a towel and draped it over her shoulders, covering the halter. It hadn't gotten any cooler – the implied invitation, if that's what it had been, was withdrawn.
Hardy stood up. "I appreciate you seeing me."
She came up to him and laid a hand on his arm. "I really wish you would leave Jody alone," she said. "He doesn't need this."
"Thanks for your time," he said. "I'll find my way out."
The phone was ringing. It was six-thirty on the clock next to the bed, and at first Hardy didn't know where he was, then whether it was morning or night. The last time he had fallen asleep during daylight he'd slept through the dark, and for a moment there he wondered if he'd done it again.
He picked up the telephone. It was Jody Bachman, personable Jody Bachman. "Margaret said you came by. I'm sorry I missed you. Also, listen, the other thing – never calling you back. What can I say? I got busy again. It's been really crazy. So I got your message at the office checking in, but I was late for this event. You know how it is. You want to get together?"
"Tonight's out. I'm fighting a cold here."
"Okay, how about tomorrow? You still in town? If you're free for lunch I've got a table at the City Club. Great food. Better view. Noon okay?"
"Noon's fine," Hardy answered.
"Noon then. You know where it is?"
Hardy said he'd find it. Bachman said he'd see him there.
He collapsed back down on the bed. When he closed his eyes he had a sensation of motion, of the room spinning around him. He forced himself up to a sitting position.
He was forgetting something. It seemed important, maybe crucial, but he couldn't put his finger on it. And the effort at thought was so tiring. Minutes passed. He started to doze sitting up. The telephone rang again.
"Are you still sick?"
"I'm still sick."
Frannie's earlier anger had given way to concern. "Why don't you come home, Dismas? You ought to see a doctor."
He told her about his scheduled meeting the next day with Bachman. One way or the other, that would be the end of it. He had to stay until then.
She stopped pushing. Okay, if that's what he was going to do. The kids, she said, were fine. Rebecca was really missing him – that wasn't a guilt trip, just a fact. She, Frannie – his wife, remember? – missed him, too. Would he please try to take care of himself, be careful?
He told her he would. He didn't have much choice. He wasn't going anywhere feeling like he did. Hermetically sealed in his hotel room, he was going to sleep right now for the night. He'd see her tomorrow.
In the bathroom he took some more aspirin, drank two glasses of water. His face in the mirror was drawn and sallow. Everything ached. He crossed to the window to pull the shade closed. A purple dusk lay on the city streets. Further off, Mount Wilson, up on the crest of the San Gabriels, glowed vermilion, diamond glints of the gasping sunlight sparkling out of the rocky brush. He put an arm up against the window and leaned heavily against it.
Below him in the parking lot a lone man got out of his car, closed the door and went to his trunk. He took out a small carrying case, looked around the lot, closed the trunk, then quickly, without wasted motion, bypassed the lobby entrance and walked directly underneath into Hardy's wing of the building.
It was just the way he had felt at home. Paranoid. Stupid.
But knowing that didn't help. Suddenly he knew he had to get out of here. He had given Jody Bachman his room number, told him he'd be staying in all night.
Jody Bachman, who by Hardy's scenario had hired someone to kill Simpson Crane, Crane's wife, Larry and Matthew Witt. And now Hardy was the only one standing between him and his seven million dollars…
There wasn't much to pack. He gathered his old clothes, still wearing his new ones. There was no one in the hallway when he stepped into it.
The elevator opened and he was facing a thin dark well-dressed man. The man carried the small carrying case he'd seen earlier, or one very much like it. Hardy stepped by him into the elevator as the man got out. He was looking for a room numbers as the door closed.