Waiting Read online

  “I’ll do that.”

  On his way past the bar, Carl told them to send more Champagne to Miss Pickford’s table. As he left the clubhouse he glanced back and watched the scene for a moment. All over the country people were on their uppers, struggling to get by, pecking out a living in the dust bowl. Starving, in some cases. You wouldn’t know it from the atmosphere in here. At Pasatiempo the party was always in full swing, and you could believe that it always would be.

  If you didn’t know what Carl knew, of course.

  He walked quickly along dimly lamp-lit walkways through the trees toward Marion’s house. She’d called it “Sleepy Hollow,” and Carl knew she was well-read enough for this not to be an accident.

  As he turned up the path toward it he heard something, and stopped. Stood absolutely still for a moment. The noise of leaves rustling in a light, cold breeze. The quiet sound of his own breath, until he held it. But something else.

  He turned, looked out into the darkness. In the distance there was a twinkle of light outside someone else’s door. Between there and here, an inky emptiness. And a silence that was not quite silence.

  “I know you’re not there,” Carl said.

  The silence became more silent. The darkness a little blacker. The lamps along the path seemed to contract, to become smaller and brittle and wan. Carl felt suddenly tired and old and a little afraid. Not because something was there. There wasn’t. That was the problem. This was an absence, a pulling-out of everything that should be present. He’d learned over the years to sense this lack. Others would feel it merely as a dip in energy, a deep feeling that things were not okay and might never be again. They would turn and look behind, convinced something was there, too, relieved when nothing was visible to notice that the shadows weren’t in the right places. Carl had felt this in other locations in the world, but nowhere as strongly as this part of California, and specifically here in Pasatiempo. The place was not right. He believed that Marion knew this, too, at some level. He hoped so.

  He did not show his fear.

  He turned and walked up the path to the house. The sound of music came from somewhere inside, but he had to stand with his finger on the push-bell for three minutes before he saw a shape approaching. Even through the frosted glass he could tell it wasn’t Marion. It was far too slim, and moving too slowly.

  The door opened. “About time,” Kitty said. “For goodness sake.”

  “About time for what?”

  The girl blinked. Attractive, but pale, and too thin. An expensive dress, on backward. “I called you hours ago.”

  “No, Kitty. You called me two days ago. I came. You didn’t call me tonight.”

  She blinked. Looked confused. “Oh. Then why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for Marion.”

  “She’s not home. At least I don’t think so. I hope she’s not, for sure.”

  Carl gently pushed past her and into the house. As usual it looked well overdue for a visit by the maid. Marion didn’t care too much about such things. She also received regular houseguests. Other golfers, ne’er-do-well relatives come to sponge off her success, the society set of San Jose and San Francisco. She was welcoming, and always tried to help people out. Kitty was the current case in point, the wayward daughter of a friend back East. She’d been here five weeks and had spent most of that time either drunk or stoned. Marion hauled her out of bed every morning, made her go play golf or try to learn polo—Marion’s other passion, at which she was also apparently one of the most accomplished women in the world. Kitty actually looked a good deal better than when she’d arrived, though still a long way from the straight and narrow.

  Carl walked downstairs to the main living area. A few people were spread around the space, dancing vaguely to the gramophone in the corner—also playing Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” as though this house were part of the same scene up at the clubhouse—or drinking cocktails out on the terrace. He recognized a few of them, without enthusiasm. Party people. No sign of Marion, naturally. Stoned though Kitty was, she’d have been likely to notice Hollins if she’d been in the same room.

  Carl quickly searched the rest of the house. No sign. When he started back the other way he realized Kitty had floated along behind him. “She’s not here,” he said.

  “That’s as well,” Kitty said. “She doesn’t like Max, much. Or Jillian. Thinks they’re a bad influence on me.”

  “They’re a bad influence on everyone,” Carl said.

  “Do you . . . do you have anything for me? I mean, I know I didn’t call. But do you?”

  Carl raised an eyebrow. “Already?”

  She shrugged girlishly, for a moment looking about the same age as Carl’s son. “Some of the fellows upstairs . . . Marion’s always generous. I like being generous too.”

  Many people do, when it’s other people’s money. Carl pulled out the second of the small packets he’d brought with him. The contents had been cut—Carl had meticulously performed this task himself, at home on the kitchen table—making it a little weaker than his previous delivery. He’d been doing the same, gradually lessening the dose, for three weeks. Marion knew about this. Kitty didn’t.

  “You’re a doll, Carl.”

  “Keep it to yourself this time. I’m not doing this for the freeloaders upstairs.”

  “You got it.”

  Back in the living room Carl helped himself to a scotch. He took it out onto the terrace and stood right behind a couple there until the woman took the hint and wandered away. The man took his own good time in turning to look at Carl. Max Fleming’s tie was loose and he had a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  “Ah, Carl. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but then we both know that I’d be guilty of a mistruth.”

  “That’s an old one, Max.”

  “So let’s dispense with the niceties. They’re hardly your forte, after all. What do you want?”

  “Stay away from Kitty.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You heard. Stay away. Don’t sleep with her. Don’t take what’s hers. Don’t encourage her to behave any more badly than she’s already bound to.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Do I look serious?”

  “And what would happen, should I choose to ignore these wholly inappropriate requests?”

  “I’d break your fucking face,” Carl said, evenly.

  Max was momentarily shocked into something like sobriety. Nonetheless he took a leisurely sip of his drink and looked away toward the woods before responding. “I think you may have forgotten who you’re talking to.”

  “No,” Carl said, keeping his voice pleasant and low. “And that’s why I’d do it. I wouldn’t have to. One word from me and you’d never be allowed in Pasatiempo again. I may do that anyway. But I’d break your face purely because someone’s going to do it sooner or later and it may as well be me. Not least because I’d really enjoy it.”

  Max looked Carl up and down and realized the man meant what he said. He rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say. One must stay on the right side of the help, after all.”

  “That’s better. Any idea where Marion is?”

  “I suspect she’s left the reservation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An hour ago. Actually, probably two. I was here on the terrace. Saw her striding by in the twilight, thump thump thump, as she does. Such an ungainly woman.”

  “Where was she headed?”

  Max leaned back against the railing, and pointed. “Toward the gate.”

  Carl nodded. “Remember what I said. I mean it.”

  As he turned to go, something happened. A noise, so low that it was more like a sensation, a folding over in the gut. A juddering, brief rumble.

  From inside the house, the sound of the chandelier tinkling, and then a couple of small smashing sounds as glasses fell off tables, or perhaps from someone’s hand. When the tremor was over, there was a moment of leaden quiet. Then conversation starte
d up quickly again.

  “Goodness,” Max said. “That’s the second in three days. Mother Earth is rather out of sorts, evidently.”

  Carl walked quickly away. On the way out he passed a room where Kitty lay sprawled on a bed. She turned her head slowly when she heard him. Her eyes were far away.

  “Goodbye, angel,” she said.

  He drove up to the kiosk. Jimmy saw who it was and pulled the lever to raise the bar. Carl didn’t drive on, however. He sat looking straight ahead. After a few minutes Jimmy came out of the kiosk and over to his window.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Not sure,” Carl said.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Not really getting you, Carl.”

  “Just talked to a guy. Now, the guy’s a world-class jerk, so I don’t know. But he said he saw Marion headed this way a couple hours ago. She was on foot, but I know she often leaves her Duesenberg just over there because I’ve heard you bitch about it a hundred times. The car’s not there now and it wasn’t when I got here either, come to think of it. So I’m wondering whether she left before I arrived.”

  “Right,” Jimmy said, quickly. “She did. A while back. I was going to tell you.”

  “When.”

  “Now.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “To be honest with you, Carl—I forgot. Until you’d gone in. Then I thought maybe she’d come back through the other gate, so you’d find her anyway and it probably didn’t matter. Sorry, man.”

  Carl looked up at him. “You been smoking on duty, Jimmy? Did you maybe slip away into the trees this afternoon, and take a toke or two?”

  Jimmy looked sheepish. “That may have happened.”

  Carl kept looking at him. He knew that though Jimmy was not smart, he understood very well that the packages of reefer that came his way were not free, and that Unger expected something in return. Intel. Information on who came through the gate, and who went out, and with whom. Any other bits of skinny that might come in handy.

  “I’m sorry, Carl. Seriously. Sorry.”

  “You aren’t, Jimmy,” Carl said. “Not sorry enough, anyway. But you will be if it happens again.”

  He wound up his window and drove away.

  It took him twenty minutes to get back to Santa Cruz, another ten to get across town to the west side. There he turned up High Street, the road leading to the upper part of town, an area sparsely occupied, a few small farmhouses. Then ever farther uphill along Spring Street, so called because it ran past one of the natural watercourses that had fed the gardens of the original Spanish Mission, without which there wouldn’t have been a town.

  At the top stood Windy Hill Farm, quite a different enterprise to the smallholdings he’d passed. A few fancy cars were parked along the street. None of them Marion’s, but Carl got out and walked up the drive anyway. Fifty yards along was a cluster of buildings, an interior courtyard behind an ornate copper gate. Well-kept and grand, Arts and Crafts-style. Stables on the side for horses and dogs. The man of the house was a renowned breeder of both. But it wasn’t him that Carl wanted to talk to.

  When he got to the door he heard the sounds of restrained revelry within, and wondered if he was going to spend the entire evening dipping into other people’s good times. Perhaps his entire life. It felt that way tonight. It was coming up for eight o’clock. There would be—if his son hadn’t gotten to it—a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes waiting for him back at the apartment. He could go home, eat, spend time reading on the couch. Go to bed like a normal person. Get up the next day. Go do a regular job.

  These thoughts floated across his mind like a story about someone else. He pressed the doorbell.

  Deming Wheeler opened it a few moments later. At nearly sixty he remained a trim, imposing figure. Fitter than most men half his age, an expert horseman, the man responsible for bringing polo to Santa Cruz.

  “Carl,” he said, warmly. “Didn’t realize you were expected tonight.”

  “I’m not, sir,” Carl said. “It’s more of a business matter. I’m looking for Marion.”

  “Aha. They seek her here, they seek her there, eh? Hard to keep up with, Marion. Well, she’s not here, I’m afraid. Or not yet, at least. But come in, come in.”

  Carl followed Deming into the house, grateful for the warmth. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in Windy Hill, nor the first time he’d reflected how much he’d like to own somewhere like it himself one day, however unlikely the prospect. Wood paneling and subtle brickwork. Every single thing within vision—furniture, glassware, paintings, the rugs, vases of flowers—chosen by a person of taste. A long window on the other side yielding an extraordinary view over the lights in the distant downtown, and on a good night, straight across the bay to Monterey.

  A few prosperous-looking folk were gathered around the large stone fireplace. Several sounded like they were speaking French. Members of the international polo set, most likely. A couple watched Deming lead Carl across to the drinks table, nodding and smiling in his direction. People with manners, and goodwill. A man like Max Fleming, Carl was confident, would never be allowed to cross the threshold of Windy Hill Farm.

  He let his host pour him a large scotch and then asked Deming if he might have a word with his wife.

  “By all means. She’s in her study, chasing down some photograph or other—trying to win a bet against Pierre over there. Wouldn’t do any harm to flush her out. It’s been a while. You know where it is?”

  “I do.”

  Carl walked down the corridor to the room at the end, where he found Dorothy Wheeler bent over a desk. All the drawers had been pulled out, revealing a chaos of memorabilia. She heard him coming and turned.

  “Dratted thing,” she said. “Can’t find it anywhere.”

  “It’ll be where you first looked for it.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. But one has to go through the process, doesn’t one. And what are you looking for tonight, Carl? You have that air.”

  He smiled, and took a sip of his drink. As it flowed into him, warming his stomach, he realized both that he probably shouldn’t have another after this, and also that he wanted one.

  Dorothy waited for him to answer. She was closer to medium-build than Marion, and blonde where the other woman was brown. There was a strong resemblance nonetheless. Both keen sportswomen, of course— the Wheelers, predominantly Dorothy, ran the polo club up on the Pogonip, open country that started at the top of the road and stretched up into the mountains almost as far as Pasatiempo. Dorothy was no mean golfer herself, and said to be the first white woman ever to complete the Iditarod, driving a team of dogs from Anchorage to Nome while on honeymoon with Deming at the tender age of twenty.

  She and Marion had become firm friends since the latter came to town, and there were those who hinted the relationship was even closer than that. Personally he doubted it. Marion was what she was, of course, though extremely discrete. Though Dorothy was two decades younger than her husband, and his first cousin, and there had been no children, Carl declined to speculate on the details of her personal life. It wasn’t his business, and he didn’t care.

  The most telling resemblance between the women was their extraordinary force of character, the fact that though both were constrained by society to behave as though men ruled the roost; the reality was very different. In this town, and much of the world. The real power has always lived in the shadows. It gathers strength there.

  “Marion,” he said.

  “Ah. Not here, I’m afraid. Nor expected. She’s motored down to Carmel for a lavish feast with her pal Morse. It’s her birthday tomorrow, of course.”

  He hadn’t known this. Dorothy caught the look on his face and frowned questioningly. “What?”

  “There’s a problem,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “I had luncheon with her yesterday. She . . . she
perhaps drank rather more than usual, and was frank with me.”

  “About?”

  “Financial matters.”

  Carl nodded. Though he had been given Dorothy Wheeler’s name as a contact before he moved to Santa Cruz, all their conversations had been oblique. Nothing direct had ever been said between them, nor so much as acknowledged. As a result he was unsure how much the woman knew, or even if she was aware of his role and occupation. “Things are tight, certainly. Nobody else at the club is aware.”

  Dorothy sighed. “She’s generous to a fault. Always making sure people have the best of everything—friends, relatives, even appalling little parasites like that Fleming fellow.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “He rolled up at the Pogonip club a few evenings ago. Quite drunk. With that young Kitty creature, who’s very sweet of course but distressingly dim. I let them have a drink but then encouraged them to understand they might enjoy their evening far more back at Pasatiempo.”

  “Good for you. But yes, all that. And not selling sufficient house sites on the course fast enough to pay for the constant improvements she’s making.”

  “You know she imported the clay for the tennis courts all the way from Europe?”

  “That’s exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.”

  “I’m sure things will level out.”

  Carl nodded again, though he was not sure of this at all. He looked out of the window as he took another long draw on his scotch, which was excellent, of course. Far below he could see fog starting to creep in from the bay, blotting out the tiny points of light downtown.

  The bay was very, very deep.

  When he looked back he saw Dorothy’s eyes upon him, her expression serious now. “What is it, Carl?”

  “I’m worried,” he said.

  “About? Be frank.”

  “Marion is considering an offer for a portion of her land. For far more than it’s worth.”

  “From whom?”

  He chose his words carefully. “People who cannot be allowed to own the earth so close to a fault line.”