“I can’t wait to meet him.”
“I’m probably exaggerating,” Simon admitted. “But I do want you to come to the auditions.” He saw me hesitating. “We’ve already narrowed down the field, so you’ll just be seeing the callbacks.”
“I’ll come,” I caved, “but don’t count on me to help out much this season. I’ve got a lot to do.” I shot Eileen a glance. She was checking her watch again.
“I’ve really got to run,” she said. “Do you two want to come now? Or do you mind cabbing it?”
“We haven’t had dessert yet,” Simon pointed out. “We’re staying.”
I got up to peck Eileen on the cheek as she stood. “Thanks for everything. And I still expect you to tell me all about whatever motivated your new look.”
“Whomever, you mean.” Simon blew her a kiss.
Eileen waved at him dismissively and left.
Simon flagged down a waiter and asked for sesame balls and custard tarts. He waited until all the plates had been cleared, then leaned towards me conspiratorially. “Darling, I give you two weeks of domesticity before you come screaming into the theater demanding something useful to do.”
“Simon!” Of course, he was probably right. Nevertheless… “I have every intention of making a good home for myself and my husband. That includes decorating and gardening and cooking— ”
His laughter cut me off. “Charley, darling, this is me you’re talking to,” he choked. “I know you. You can barely manage to keep gin, vermouth, and olives in your house concurrently. Do you really think a ring on your finger is going to turn you into Suzy bloody Homemaker?”
***
When I got back to the hotel, Jack was on the phone. “Here she is now,” he said, “I’ll ask her.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Charley, it’s Harry.”
“Tell him no.” Whatever his question was.
“He wants to know if you’ve heard from Cece.”
Hear from my cousin? Voluntarily? Never in my life. “No. Why should I have?”
Jack spoke into the phone. “No.” He listened, then asked me, “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. What’s going on?”
But Jack was speaking into the phone again. “Yes. Of course. The minute we hear. And you too.” He hung up.
“What’s going on?” I repeated.
Jack kept his hand on the receiver for a moment after hanging up, then he looked at me. “Your cousin is missing.”
Chapter 8
There was no word from Harry on Saturday. I kept telling myself it was just Cece being Cece, and that she was probably on some secluded island resort with her new boyfriend, laughing at Harry and spending his money. I still didn’t like it.
According to what Harry had told Jack over the phone, Cece had been expected to bring her boyfriend, the doctor, to the Hillsborough house on Thursday night for dinner and one of Harry’s friendly family interrogation sessions. She hadn’t shown. At midnight Harry had finally given up and called her, and found the number disconnected. Her cell phone had given a “customer out of service area” message. That’s when he’d called one of his private detectives and told the guy to find her.
The next morning the detective had reported that the house where she’d been living with the doctor in Marin was empty, and looked like it had been for at least a few days. There was no trace of Cece or the boyfriend. There had been no activity on her credit cards for a week, which was about the length of time since she’d spoken to anyone the detective had been able to find.
“Wasn’t Harry having her watched?” I’d asked Jack.
“Why would he have?”
“Habit.” But I hadn’t really wanted to get into a discussion of Harry’s methods of demonstrating familial affection to a person, so I dropped it.
Harry and the detective had made the usual calls to friends, emergency rooms, airlines, and anybody else they could think of. Nothing. Other times when Cece had disappeared Harry had always been able to drag information out of her more marginal friends, but this time he couldn’t find anyone who appeared to be holding anything back.
Cece had cut herself off from everyone except her new man after she’d gotten out of rehab. Initially, Harry had interpreted this as a sign that the treatment was working this time, but now it meant there was nobody she’d confided in. There was nobody to blackmail into giving her up. There was no trace of her.
***
I spent Saturday trying not to listen for the phone. The only call that came was from Eileen’s realtor. I’d practically hung up on her, explaining that I was waiting for an important call and it wasn’t a good time. I watched a lot of TV, read two newspapers cover to cover, and refused to worry about Cece. Jack played racquetball again and only once suggested that I should call Harry for news.
We spent the afternoon curled up together on the couch, watching the end of a Greer Garson movie followed by a Giants game. There was something infinitely comforting about having someone to share a worry with—even a worry I wouldn’t admit to feeling.
On commercial breaks or in between plays I told Jack about other times Cece had disappeared. When she was fourteen she’d hooked up with a roadie and gotten on Screaming Blue Messiah’s bus as it left town after a concert. Then there was the time she ran away from school with some friends to go pick psychedelic mushrooms in Oregon. The worst had been when she’d joined a cult at seventeen. Harry had tracked her down to some smack-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Texas town, then had her kidnapped and deprogrammed. He nearly went to jail for that himself, but a few discreet political donations kept him out of serious trouble.
Cece’s twenties had been more gruelingly predictable, the disappearances every year or so usually signaling a bottoming-out with drugs that led to another stint in rehab. Each time there was the almost-certainty she’d be found too late.
Jack didn’t say much to any of this, which was a relief. There wasn’t much to say. We watched the game.
I couldn’t sleep that night, which was probably why I was groggy and grumpy at breakfast the next morning. “I need fresh air,” I announced. “I think I’ll go for a run.”
Jack tried to disguise his surprise with a gulp of orange juice. “A run?”
“I run sometimes,” I said, breaking off a piece of croissant and not looking at him. “And I’ve been eating too much since we got back,” I slathered strawberry preserves on the pastry and popped it in my mouth. “It’ll do me good,” I said through the crumbs.
He cocked an eyebrow. “If you want to work out, why don’t you come to the gym with me? The concierge set me up with a temporary membership.”
I made a face. “I’m not really a gym person. If I’m going to be gasping for air I want it at least to be fresh air.” And I’d rather not have my new husband watching my first workout in ages. It was bound to be ugly.
It took a while to find the appropriate shoes, jog bra, shorts, and tee-shirt among the piles of clothes on my side of the closet, but I managed. All the while I was getting ready I was fighting a strong impulse to stay parked by the phone for another day. But I’d made a good effort during the night to convince myself that Cece was fine, and I was determined to stick to that conviction. I was even more determined not to let Jack see how scared I was.
When you grow up with money, there’s always fear. Fear that people will like you for how much you can give them. Fear that who you are is secondary to how much you have. And fear that one day someone will pull a bag over your head and hold you hostage. If you’re not going to go crazy one way or another, you have to be careful. And Cece had never been careful.
When I came out of the bedroom Jack whistled. “I didn’t know I married a jock.” I did look the part, with my blue lycra tee-shirt and my hair pulled back in a ponytail. I had tied a sweatshirt around my waist. No sense in parading my spandex-covered ass around in full daylight.
Jack tossed a cell phone to me. “Thought you might like to take this along.”
&nbs
p; “Where did you get it?” The phone was silver and about the size of a cigarette lighter. “When did you get it?”
“I thought it might come in handy.”
I flipped the top of the phone up and saw Jack had programmed both the hotel’s number and Harry’s into it.
“I’ll call you if I hear anything, okay?” Jack said. “Don’t worry.”
I nodded and slipped the phone into a snug pocket inside the waistband of my shorts. “Okay.” Having the weight of it made me feel more secure somehow. I suddenly and ridiculously felt like I was about to burst into tears, so I grabbed my room key and some cash, called “see ya” over my shoulder, and left.
I took a cab to the Embarcadero. I figured I’d run when I got there, so there was no need to be fanatical and walk all the way. I had the driver let me out under the Bay Bridge, and began stretching. I wasn’t as stiff as I’d expected to be. Although I hadn’t formally worked out very often while in London, as an unpaid intern for a busy theater company I’d done more physical labor than at any other time in my life. Apparently it had paid off.
It was overcast and windy, typical of summer in the city, so I was glad to have the sweatshirt. I started out slowly, heading toward Fisherman’s Wharf. It felt good to breathe the sharp salty air of the bay. I started to find my pace as I kept moving, passing the working piers and then the ferry building.
The wide sidewalk was almost empty. Other runners, couples walking hand-in-hand, a few tourist groups, and clusters of skateboarders practicing their moves for one another were about all the company I had.
And a motorcycle. Because there were no cross streets on my side of the road, I didn’t have to wait at corners. But the street traffic did, and I found myself passing the same group at each light as I caught up to them while they waited. There was a red motorcycle with some sort of muffler problem that just about deafened me every time I passed it or it passed me on its way to the next light.
I was already irritable and the engine racket just about put me over the edge. I tried to give the biker a filthy look as I passed, but his matching red helmet enclosed his whole head and I couldn’t even tell if he’d seen me. He finally turned down a side street when I neared the always-congested area around Pier 39, and I started to relax and breathe easier at just about the time the sidewalk became too crowded to keep up a regular pace.
To hell with it. I came to a stop near a bench and watched some girls demonstrating racing kites as I stretched and cooled down.
Pier 39 is a tourist mecca. The people there generally look cold and surprised, as if the brochure hadn’t told them about the fog. The sweatshirt vendors do a brisk business and the air smells of waffle cones and fried calamari, with the occasional acrid whiff of sea lion.
As a self-respecting native San Franciscan, I was expected to run through the out-of-town crowds with my head held high, getting through the area as quickly as possible on my way to the Marina Green. But today I didn’t care. My heart wasn’t in the run and I wanted a latte.
I don’t know how long I spent sipping coffee and watching the sea lions from the railing of the pier. I was startled out of my stupor by a gull, screeching as it flew past my head. I jumped and automatically turned to see where it had gone, and I was almost sure I saw someone watching me. He turned immediately and walked quickly away across the landing of a second-story balcony. But in the moment I’d seen him I had recognized, or thought I’d recognized, the red-helmeted biker from the noisy motorcycle.
Great. I was getting as paranoid as Harry. Time to take a deep breath and—I yelped as the cell phone in my shorts started chirping and vibrating. “Shit!” I dug it out and flipped the top up. “What?”
“Charley?” Apparently Jack hadn’t been expecting to be yelled at.
“Jack!” The latte I’d just drunk began to re-froth in my stomach. “What’s happened?”
“I’m not sure. Harry called and told me a car was on its way to pick me up. He’s at his apartment in the city.”
“Has there been another call? What about Cece?”
“I don’t know. He just said that I was supposed to come over and you were supposed to stay here and he’d explain when I got there. The car’s probably downstairs by now. I should go.”
“Wait!” I yelled, scaring the seagulls, “I’ll meet you there! At Harry’s!”
“Charley, I don’t know what’s up, but he said he wanted me to come alone. You should come back here and I’ll call you when I know what’s going on.”
“Like hell!” Now tourists were pulling their children away from me as I ran toward the street, looking for a cab. “I’m not going to sit around waiting while—”
“Charley.” Jack’s voice stopped my crazed dash. “Listen to me. Do what Harry says. Come back here and I’ll call you when—”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Just do this,” he said. “Just do this.” He hung up.
“Shit!” It not being possible to slam a cell phone receiver, I threw the phone at the ground. “Shit!”
“Ma’am?” A young woman was looking at me with mixed concern and fear. Maybe they didn’t have lunatics in spandex who scream obscenities in public where she came from. “Are you all right?”
I took a deep breath. I picked up the phone. I nodded at the woman. I went back to the hotel.
***
Jack didn’t call until he left Harry’s, and then it was only to say he was on his way back to the hotel.
The instant the door closed behind him I pounced. “What did he say? What did he hear? Why did he want to talk to you and not me? What’s going on?”
Jack kissed me quickly on the cheek and said “Cece is alive.” Then he headed for the bedroom. He pulled his gym bag out of the closet and dumped its contents onto the bed.
I followed him to the doorway. “And?”
He was sorting through the drawers where his clothes were neatly stacked. “She’s been kidnapped.” He looked up at me briefly. “They made contact this afternoon. They’ve made their demands. Are you all right?” I was hanging onto the doorpost, but I nodded mutely. “They want six hundred thousand in cash. Harry’s getting it now. We don’t know when they’ll call back and tell us the terms of the exchange. You’re not all right.”
He took me by the arms and led me to a chair. “Put your head between your knees if you need to—you look like you might pass out.”
I took a few deep breaths instead. “I’m fine. It’s just…”
Jack nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on mine.
I straightened my shoulders and pulled myself together. I’ll be damned if I’ll faint in a crisis. “Well,” I said. “What are we going to do to get her back?”
Jack gave me a careful look, which I didn’t like one bit. He resumed packing. “Your uncle has asked me to take care of it.”
“Uh huh.” I pulled another bag from the closet and started throwing things at random into it. “How are we going to do that?”
“Charley.” Jack grabbed my bag and threw it back into the closet. “There’s no time. I don’t know how long this is going to take or where I’ll have to go, but I have to leave for Harry’s right now. They expect him to be at the Hillsborough place in—” he looked at his watch— “twenty-three minutes. They could call any time after that. I have to be there.”
“Alone?” He couldn’t be serious. “You and Harry?” Harry had asked Jack to deal with the kidnappers? And Jack had agreed? “Why?” I said it like an accusation. “Why did Harry ask you for help? Why didn’t he call the cops? Or one of his famous detectives?”
“We don’t have time for this now,” Jack said.
“If you think I’m going to let you go alone you’re completely insane.”
“You’re not the first to suggest that.” He zipped his bag, not breaking his pace. His movements were precise and economical. He took a last look around the room. Everything he had taken was black. That meant he thought the
meeting would take place at night. Tonight?
“You’ll need me,” I told him.
“Pumpkin,” he held my eyes, and suddenly the room seemed unnaturally calm. “The last thing I need is to be worried about you. Stay here. Be safe.”
That stopped me for a minute. It was the way he looked at me. Then I registered what he had said. “First of all—” I followed him into the living room— “don’t ‘Pumpkin’ me at a time like this.” He ignored me. “And secondly, what makes you think you need to worry about me? I’ll have you know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of a chair. “Really?”
“Really.” I disregarded his sarcastic tone and stood, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands relaxed at my sides. “You probably don’t know I have a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.”
“Impressive.” He paused. “Why is it that I’ve never known you to practice?”
“Well,” I held my stance, looking (I hoped) defiant and athletic, “getting the black belt was my goal. After that I sort of…”
“Stopped?”
“Well, reduced the frequency and intensity—”
“When?”
“What?”
“When did you get your black belt?”
I lifted my chin. “A while ago.” He raised his eyebrows. “All right,” I admitted, “I was seventeen.”
“That is impressive, a black belt at seventeen. Luckily my mother raised me to be a gentleman, so I won’t point out how long ago that was.”
Bastard. “The point is, I can take care of myself.”
He finally lost his cool. “Yes, I’m sure I’d feel much better knowing that when some psycho pulls a gun on you you’ll be able to wow him with a rusty roundhouse. Look,” he cut off my response, closing the distance between us to grab my shoulders, “these guys are professionals. They took Cece with no trace, and they’ve made no mistakes so far in dealing with your uncle. They are undoubtedly highly armed and highly alert. You cannot pull a Nancy Drew and save the day. I’m going to go wherever they tell me, do whatever they tell me, and I’m going to give them the money to get your cousin home. That’s all.”
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