Living Proof r-7

by John Harvey

  More than three days and Frank was floundering awkwardly in Cathy's wake, bored, and Cathy, unable to stop herself, was sniping at him without let-up or mercy.

  This was already the sixth day.

  The brittle plastic glass which held her Scotch now had no more than a quarter-inch of once-iced water slopping about at the bottom, and Cathy wondered if she had the energy to walk back through the train to the buffet car and order another.

  "Do you think she'll be here on time?"

  Mollie Hansen glanced up from her Independent.

  "I don't see why not, do you?" There they were, twice on the Listings page, bare details under Events Around the Country and a boxed Daily Ticket offer two pairs of seats for the opening night complete with picture. Good old Independent'. Saturday they'd promised a feature length piece on the Curtis Wooife retrospective, which would fit nicely with the Cathy Jordan profile they were publishing on Sunday. Coverage in the Observer, the Telegraph and The Times, all they needed now was the Mail for a pretty clean sweep.

  As Tyrell watched the overhead screen, the arrival time disappeared.

  "You see. Trouble."

  Moments later, it flashed back up: 5. 18.

  "Why are they never on time?"

  "David," Mollie shook her head.

  "A minute late, I think we can live with that. Don't you?"

  The woman who walked along the platform towards them was a good few inches above average in height, even allowing for the cowboy heels on the tan boots she wore below her jeans. Red hair, straight save for a slight curl at the ends, hung shoulder-length. She had taken the time to refresh her lipstick and the greenish shadow above what, even at a distance, were disturbingly blue eyes. A tweed jacket, predominantly green and tailored at the waist, hung open over a red silk shirt. She was carrying a medium-sized carpet bag in her left hand.

  Rhonda Reming, Tyrell decided, meets Arlene Dahl: though, close to, there was more than a touch of Lauren Bacall about the mouth.

  52 Mollie was looking, not so much at Cathy Jordan, but at the barrel-chested man with cropped grey hair walking alongside her. He was carrying large, matching suitcases in both hands, a third tucked beneath one arm. Shorter than Cathy, what impressed immediately about him was his size. The bags he was carrying could have been toys.

  For a moment, Mollie's face settled into a scowl: she didn't like surprises. Nevertheless, she was the first to step forward and hold out her hand.

  "Cathy Jordan? Welcome to Shots in the Dark. I'm Mollie Hansen. We've spoken on the phone. And this is David Tyrell, he's the Festival Director."

  "Hi!" said Cathy.

  "Hello." Shaking hands.

  "This is my husband, Frank."

  "Frank Carlucci. Good to know you." His voice was pitched low and edged with something that might have been tiredness, but could have been drink.

  Tensing instinctively, Mollie was surprised to find his grip so soft, not weak, almost delicate.

  "We didn't know you'd be coming."

  Carlucci shrugged strong shoulders.

  "Last-minute thing. Joined up with Cathy in Copenhagen. Nice little town. You know it at all?"

  Mollie shook her head and they began walking towards the end of the platform, Carlucci falling in step beside her, while, immediately behind them, Tyrell was talking to Cathy Jordan.

  "This hotel where we were just staying," Frank Carlucci was saying, 'the Plaza. Oak panelling you'd kill for, leather books all round the bar, huh! They got this pillar in the lobby, names of all the celebrities ever stayed there engraved in gold. Well, maybe it was brass. But everyone, you know. Liza Minnelli, Paul McCartney, Jack fucking Nicholson. Michael Jackson. Well, maybe they'll be taking that one down. But Cathy, next time we go back, hers'll be up there along of the rest Alongside of Jack Nicholson, ain't that something? "

  Mollie made a sound that was strictly noncommittal; Nicholson had been all right in Chinatown, but after that what was he? An overpaid actor with a paunch and falling hair.

  Climbing the steps from the platform, Carlucci was still talking and Mollie realised he was the kind of man whose idea of a conversation was one-sided he talked and you listened. She moved ahead on to Cathy Jordan's free side, Tyrell on the other telling her how excited he was she could be there, how much he liked her work.

  Glancing across, Mollie put Cathy's age as late forties, certainly not a day under forty-five. Her bio sheet was surprisingly coy when it came to details like age. But whatever she was, Mollie thought, she was looking good, Outside, on the station forecourt, waiting for a taxi, Tyrell assured Cathy that the civic reception would be no big deal, nothing exhausting. So far, neither he nor Mollie had said anything to her about the hand-delivered letter or its threat.

  You do realise I am serious? Poor little Anita Mulholland, Cathy, remember what happened to her.

  "Graham, you didn't get anywhere with that book, I suppos 7' Millington looked across the CID room hopefully, unable to pick out most of what Resnick had said. Two desks away, the world's noisiest printer was chuntering its way through a listing of the last six months' unsolved burglaries, broken down by the Local Intelligence Officer into location, time and MO.

  Lynfl set down the receiver, pushed herself up from her desk afld stretched her shoulders and back. The last of her trawl around the city's hotels and she was no nearer to finding the identity of the mystery man who'd done a runner from the hospital. As one of the clerks had pointed out, with so many accounts prepaid by employers' credit cards, all some clients had to do was turn in their keys and wave goodbye.

  "Sorry," Millington said, having made his way to where Resnick was standing.

  "Couldn't hear a bloody word."

  "That woman's book, the one I gave you…"

  "How about it?"

  "Thought perhaps you could give me some idea what it's about. Got to see her later."

  "Ah. Can't say I really got that far. All right, though. Not rubbish, you know what I mean. One thing pretty clear- she's not Agatha Christie, you'd have to say that."

  Resnick guessed that to be a compliment, but with Millington you could never be sure. This was, after all, the person who swore Petula dark did a better version of "Lover Man* than Billie Holiday.

  "Not got it with you, I suppose, Graham?"

  "Have, as a matter of fact. Reckoned I might give it twenty minutes in the canteen, but, of course, it never happened."

  "Best let's have it back, then. Take a look on the way down."

  "Suit yourself." Millington shrugged and turned away to fetch him the book.

  Minutes later, Resnick was on his way down the stairs, a copy of Dead Weight in his hand.

  Cathy Jordan poured herself another shot from the one of the pair of king size bottles of J amp; B Rare they had bought on the plane. She and Frank buying silence with the usual share of booze in the usual bland hotel room, though here the walls were closer together than usual.

  Which meant that they were too. In a way.

  Right now they were getting ready for the reception. Frank was wandering about morosely in a pair of striped boxers and a white shirt, the creases from where it had lain folded in the case pulled flat across the muscles of his arms and back; Cathy was wearing a couple of towels and a cream half slip, which she hated, but the problem with the dress she had chosen was the minute you stood in front of the light, it was the next thing to being featured in an x-ray.

  For once it was Frank who broke the unspoken truce. "So what d'you think?" he said.

  "You worried or what?"

  "About the reception?"

  "Reception, hell. The letter."

  Examining a pair of tights, Cathy shook her head. "Sticks and stones," she said.

  "That's it, sticks and stones?"

  One leg in, one leg out, Cathy looked across at him.

  "That's it."

  Frank breathed out noisily and shook his head.

  "You're not scared?

  Spooked? Not even one little piece
? "

  Turning away, Cathy shook her head. Of course, she was scared. Not all the time, not even often, but, sure, step into a lift and there's a guy standing there, looking over at you in a certain way walk out into the street to catch some air and the window of a slowing car slides down who wouldn't be scared. The world was full of them, God knows, it wasn't just the pages of her books. Sociopaths.

  Psychopaths. Whoever was writing those letters wasn't Dear Abbey.

  But admitting it to Prank, that was something else. The way it had become between them, everything was a statement of strength, not of weakness, neediness. It wasn't in her nature to be the one to back off.

  "It's why you're here, isn't it?" Cathy said.

  "Reason you changed your mind, flew over. Look out for me. Protect me." She made protect sound like a dirty word.

  Frank was having trouble with the knot of his tie.

  "And if it is?"

  "You needn't have bothered. They've got professionals for that."

  Resnick arrived at the hotel later than he'd intended and Mollie Hansen was already waiting on one of the leather settees in the foyer, her duty to escort Cathy Jordan and her husband to the reception. David Tyrell had claimed the task of collecting Curtis Wooife, who had flown in earlier in the day from Switzerland, which was where he now lived. The third major guest, the octogenarian British crime novelist, Dorothy Birdwell, was being driven directly to the reception by her assistant.

  Mollie, Resnick thought, was looking decidedly smart, rising to greet him in a loose-fitting pearl trouser suit which might have been silk.

  Something held him back from making the compliment out loud, a sense that, to Mollie, that kind of remark would be less than acceptable.

  "Nice tie," Mollie said, with a little nod.

  "Interesting design. Paul Smith?"

  "Spaghetti vongole."

  To his surprise, Mollie laughed and Resnick grinned back.

  "What happened," he asked, 'when you showed her the letter? "

  "Oh, for a minute or two, I thought she was going to throw a wobbly, but then she just laughed and told me for all it was worth, I might as well tear it up. That was when I told her about you."

  Before Resnick could reply, the lift doors opened and Cathy Jordan appeared in an ankle-length, off-white dress from beneath the hem of which poked the toes of her boots.

  Mollie moved quickly to meet her.

  "Is there time," Cathy Jordan asked, after Resnick had been introduced, 'for the inspector and me to have a chat? "

  Sure," Mollie said.

  "I think so."

  "Great!" Cathy said, appropriating Resnick's arm. "Why don't we go to the bar?"

  Perched on a stool, Cathy Jordan asked Resnick to recommend a single malt and, although it wasn't really his drink, after a quick glance along the bar he came up with Highland Park.

  "Two large ones," Cathy said. And to Resnick,

  "Ice?"

  He shook his head.

  "One as it comes," she said to the barman, 'one with lots of ice.

  That's L-O-T-S. " Turning towards Resnick. she made a face.

  "What is it with this country? Is ice still rationed?"

  He smiled.

  "We're a moderate people. Maybe we don't like too much of anything."

  "That include crime?"

  "Not necessarily."

  "Violent crime?"

  "Well, we don't have guns on the streets…" He corrected himself.

  "At least, not as many as you."

  "But you're getting there."

  "Maybe." He said it with regret. He knew it wasn't only the more publicised areas of the country Brixton, Moss Side where weapons were increasingly easy to obtain, increasingly likely to be used.

  There were estates there in the city where firearms were heard being discharged far more frequently than gunshot wounds were ever reported. He didn't imagine their aim was always less than true.

  Cathy clinked her glass against his.

  "Cheers."

  "Cheers," Resnick said. And then,

  "Miss Jordan, about this latest letter…"

  "Cathy," she said.

  "For God's sake, call me Cathy. And as for the letter, it's a crock, just like all the rest. Some scuzzbag shut off in a sweaty room, only way he knows of getting off, you know what I mean?"

  Resnick (brought that he might.

  "Then you've no worries about security?" he said, after tasting a little of the malt.

  Cathy rattled the ice cubes around a little inside her glass.

  "I'm in a strange country, right. It wouldn't hurt to have someone watching my back."

  "All right. Mollie's given me a copy of your schedule. Maybe we could go over it and see which events you're most concerned about?"

  "Sure," said Cathy, but then became aware of Mollie Hansen hovering with intent and drained her glass in a double swallow.

  "Gotta go.

  Look, couldn't we meet tomorrow? Go through things like you said?

  Resnick got to his feet.

  "Of course."

  "Good. We Americans are big on breakfast meetings, you know."

  "Here?"

  "Half eight, how's that sound?"

  Pine. "

  "Good." And Mollie steered Cathy Jordan away towards their waiting car, while Resnick sat back oh the stool and nursed his way down the rest of his Highland Park.

  Art Tatum and Ben Webster: they did it for him every time. Resnick lowered the stylus with care and watched as it slid into the groove; listened, standing there, as Tatum played his practised, ornate way through the first chorus of the tune, tightening the rhythm at the beginning of the middle eight, before stepping aside with a simple little single-note figure, falling away beneath the glorious saxophone smear of Webster's arrival. Resnick turned up the volume and wandered through into the kitchen: coffee was pumping softly inside the silver pot on the stove. He set a match to the gas on the grill, sliced dark rye bread and put it to toast. Cream cheese, not too much pickled cucumber, smoked salmon. While none of the other cats were looking, he sneaked Bud a small piece of the salmon. Some days he liked to drink his coffee, rich and dark, from one of a pair of white china mugs, and this was one of those.

  Settled in his favourite chair in the living room, coffee and sandwich close at hand, album turned over and turned back down, Resnick lifted Cathy Jordan's book from the small table beneath the lamp and began to read: If anyone had told me, Annie Jones, you

  "II end up spending your seventh wedding anniversary alone in the front seat of a rented Chevrolet, outside of Jake's at the Lake in Tahoe City, I'd have told them to go jump right in it. The lake, that is. But then if that same anyone had told me, the day I appeared, fresh out of law school, ready to start work at the offices ofReigler and Reigler, bright and full a/promise in my newly acquired dove grey two-piece with a charcoal stripe, skirt a businesslike three inches below the knee, that I would swap what was clearly destined to be a famous legal career or that of a lowly private eye, I would gleefully have signed committal forms, assigning them to the nearest asylum, and tossed away the key.

  "You know, Annie," my mother had said, the first time I plucked up courage to explain, 'you can't really be a private eye, they only have them in the movies. And books. And besides, they're always men. "

  My mom. God bless her, always seemed to have a vested interest in remaining firmly behind the times.

  "Sure, Mom," I said, 'you're right. " And inched back the business card I had proudly given her, stuffing it back down into my wallet.

  There'd be another time.

  And so there had. My first major cheque safely paid into the bank and cleared, two other clients waiting in the wings, I had invited my long-suffering mother out for cocktails and dinner at her favourite Kansas City restaurant.

  I didn't mention that, did I? About my mother being from Kansas City.

  Well, that's an important part of it; it explains a great deal.

  But
back to cocktails. Emboldened by the second Manhattan, I had showed my mother my bank balance and launched into the spiel.

  Adventure, independence, the chance to be my 62 own boss, run my own life "Mom, I'm a big girl now. This is what I want to do. You see, it'II work out fine."

  Which so far, pretty much, had been true. During my time practising law I had made a lot of useful contacts, in that profession as well as the police. I was in pretty thick with a few good working journalists, too the kind that still spend more time on the street than in the office staring at their computer screen.

  And Mom, I like to think, surprised herself with a smile of pride when some newfound friend asked over coffee,

  "Marjorie, just what is it that your daughter does out there in California?" And my mom, smiling, saying, "Oh, she's just a private eye."

  There were things about my life, though, that I didn 't tell her. A little knowledge may. in some circumstances, be a dangerous thing, but in my mother's case it's positively beneficial. I didn't tell, for instance, about the six weeks I spent in hospital after being stupid enough to get trapped up an alley with three guys who made Mike Tyson look like Mickey Mouse. Nor the occasion I stepped in front of a light and two. 38 slugs tore past me so close I swear I could feel the wind of their slipstream. And the bodies. I didn't tell her about the bodies. The one I had found tied upside down, offering freebies to half a hundred flies; the little girl I had discovered buried in a ditch. I hadn't told her about any of these things on account there was no need to upset her without cause which was why I had never told her about Diane.

  My mom, you see, is strictly old school. The reason she can come to terms with what I do for a job is because, when it comes right down to it. the job I do is not that important.

  At best it's a stage, a phase, it's what I do to fill in time before I finally settle dawn and get on with what the Good Lord set me on this earth for, get married, of course, and have children.

  Somewhere, she has a picture of me, taken at a cousin's wedding when I was but thirteen. The same age as that poor child who ended her days in a shallow grave. There I am, on the left of the photo, wearing my pretty pink bridesmaid's dress and smiling through the jungle gym of my new braces as I cling on to the bride's bouquet which I have just caught.