The Inheritors (25 page)

“In a telephone booth on North Beach,” he said.

“Got any money on you?”

“About six bits.

“Go over to the KSFS-TV offices on Van Ness across the street from the Jack Tar Hotel and ask for Jane Kardin in the legal department. By the time you get there she will be expecting you. Tell her what you told me and have her check out where they took your friend and arrange a visit. Wait there in her office for me; I’ll be up on the next plane from Vegas.

His voice was suddenly very young. “Thanks, Uncle Steve. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” He hesitated a moment. “You think your friend would spring for a sandwich? I haven’t had anything to eat all day.”

He was still a kid. “Sure. Go across the street to Tommy’s Place. I’ll look in there for you before I go up to the offices. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Uncle Steve.” He clicked off and I heard Diana come on.

“There’s a Western Airlines flight leaving for San Francisco from McCarran in twenty minutes,” she said. “I made a reservation for you while you were talking.”

“Good girl. Now call Jane Kardin at Sinclair Broadcasting KSFS and tell her I’m coming up and to look after the kid until I get there.”

“Will do, Mr. Gaunt,” she said. “‘Bye, now.”

Blonde Girl was waiting when I came out of the booth, the money in her hand. “What’s up?” she asked.

“What was Johnston paying you?”

“Five hundred a week and expenses,” she said.

“How much you got there?” I asked, indicating the money in her hand.

“Twenty thousand three hundred,” she said, handing it to me.

I took the money and counted off ten thousand and gave it back to her. I stuck the rest in my pocket. “That’s for you.”

She looked at me with big eyes. “What’s it for?”

“Severance pay,” I said, leaving her there in the casino. I went out and got into a cab. She came to the door just as the cab pulled away. She waved and blew me a kiss.

I blew a kiss back to her and by the time the cab pulled out onto the Strip, she had already gone back inside.

The way the good-bye rate for girls was climbing for me since this morning, if I wound up with one tonight I would have to keep her.

***

Los Angeles had been hot and muggy, Las Vegas, sun-bright and dry. San Francisco was wet and clammy. I shivered going into the airport from the plane. Blue jeans and a pullover weren’t enough.

Jane Kardin was waiting at the ramp with a raincoat. I slipped into it gratefully. “Makes me wish I were still your boss, Lawyer Girl. So I could give you a raise for this.”

“Since you’re not my boss anymore, you can kiss me hello.”

Her lips were warm and sweet. I looked at her. “I had almost forgotten how good it was.”

She smiled. “I’ve got my car outside.”

I looked around as we began to walk. “What did you do with the kid?”

“I left him at Tommy’s Place eating his way out from under a mountain of knockwurst.”

It turned into real rain by the time we got into the car. The windshield wipers began to click as we moved out.

“What did you find out about the girl?” I asked.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?” I echoed.

She nodded without taking her eyes off the road. “By the time I tracked her down at Juvenile, her parents had already come and picked her up.”

“What about Junior?” I asked. “He must have been upset.”

“I thought he looked relieved,” she said flatly. “After all, he is a man.”

She was entitled to that one. I hadn’t exactly been the gentlest of people with her. We were swinging pretty good. But that was almost four years ago. Before I left Sinclair and she wasn’t a lawyer then. She was a model.

She came out of the Ford Agency in New York. I remember the way she had walked into El Morocco the first time I saw her. She had calm eyes and stood there looking around.

It was a premiere party and I went right up to her. “Can I help you, Miss—?”

The expression in her eyes didn’t change. “I’m looking for John Stafford, the director,” she said.

I hadn’t seen him and I wouldn’t know him if I did. “He just left,” I said promptly, taking her arm. “Let me get you a drink.”

She looked around without moving, then back at me. “No, thank you,” she said coolly. “I don’t see anyone I recognize. And I don’t like staying at parties where I don’t know anyone.”

“I’m Stephen Gaunt,” I said. “And now you have no excuse.”

She laughed. “They told me about New York men.”

By this time we were moving. I made a signal and the maître d’ fielded it. “Your table is just over here, Mr. Gaunt.”

“You’re from out of town?” I asked as we sat down.

“San Francisco,” she said. She looked up at the maître d’. “Bourbon and ginger.”

She liked sweet drinks, sweet talk, and sweet men. After about a week she decided I wanted too much, I wasn’t sweet enough.

“You’re looking to get married,” I said.

“That’s right. Anything wrong in it?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“But it’s not for you?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re honest at least.”

“Anything else I can do for you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

I looked at her, thinking here it came. They were all alike. She surprised me.

“I want a job.”

“I’ll send you over to the head of casting,” I replied.

“Not that kind of a job.”

“What kind of a job?”

“I just received word from home that I was admitted to the bar,” she said.

I looked at her. “You’re a lawyer?”

She nodded. “Modeling just helped pay the way. Now I want to work at it.”

“You make more money as a model.”

“So?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll send you in to see the head of legal.”

“I don’t want to work in New York,” she said. “I don’t like it here. I want to work in San Francisco.”

“There’s more opportunity here.”

“But I have family there. And friends. And I’d be much happier. Here everything is a turn-on.”

Our station in San Francisco needed an attorney. She turned out to be good at it too. The proof was that she kept her job, even got a promotion after I had left.

She found a parking place next to the restaurant. Samuel was sitting behind a schooner of beer. “Hey, Uncle Steve, you know they got ninety-one kinds of beer here?”

“Wipe the foam off your whiskers and kiss me,” I said. “It’s been a long wet trip.”

“I’m sorry, man,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know she was goin’ to hang us up like that. I wouldn’t have bugged you.”

“It’s okay,” I said, sliding into the seat opposite him. “I had nothing better to do. Anyway I’ve been lookin’ for an excuse to come up here and see Lawyer Girl for the longest time.”

“Too much,” said Lawyer Girl. “I’d better be going now.”

“No you don’t,” I said, pulling her down onto the seat beside me. “We don’t know whether we’re out of trouble yet.”

Samuel looked at her, then at me. He shook his head. “I should have known it.”

“Know what?” I asked.

“You had to come up with the best lookin’ legal brain in the world.”

We all laughed as the waitress came to the table. “Beer all around,” I said.

“No,” Lawyer Girl interrupted. “Bourbon and ginger for me.”

“I gotta go,” he said, sliding out of his seat. “Be right back.”

The waitress came with the drinks. I hoisted my glass. “
Ciao
.”

“You finally made it.”

I looked at her.

“You know I used to have little-girl dreams about you. That you would come up here someday and you’d be different somehow…” Her voice trailed off.

“I am different,” I said. “I’m not your boss anymore.”

She shook her head. “You’re still the same. You belong. Wherever you are is where it’s at.” She hesitated. “What made you think of me? I thought that by now you had forgotten.”

I didn’t answer.

“Or is it that you have a file cabinet somewhere in the back of your head and in every drawer there is a listing of girls in different towns that you can call on for various services? Is that it, Steve; am I filed under legal?”

“Okay, Jane,” I said. “Did you get your money’s worth?”

She flushed. “I apologize.”

Samuel came back with a peculiar look in his eyes. He sat down easily and picked up his glass of beer.

“If you’re goin’ to turn on in public toilets,” I said, “shave. The smell of pot sticks to your beard.”

“I just used half a joint,” he said defensively. “I was getting a little uptight.”

“What for?” I asked. “You’re out clean.”

“You,” he said. “Suddenly I got scared. I brought you up here on a jerkoff. You must think I’m pretty stupid.”

“I know better than that. You didn’t get me up here just because of the girl.”

He looked at Lawyer Girl. She started to get up.

“Maybe I’d better go. You might have something personal to talk about.”

I put my arm out to stop here. “You’re in this. You didn’t ask for it. You stay.” I looked at him. “That right, Samuel?”

He nodded. She sank back into her chair.

“Okay, Samuel,” I said. “Get it off.”

He took a deep breath. “My father was up here the other day.”

“So?”

“You know him, Uncle Steve. He did one of his tricks. He tried to lay a hundred on us. I told him we didn’t want it. Later he sent his chauffeur back up with two fives.” He took a sip of his beer. “He also wanted me to come home.”

“Nothing wrong in that,” I said. “After all, he is your father. And your mother isn’t on cloud nine over what you’ve been doing either.”

“Aw, come on, Uncle Steve, you’re not going to get on my back too?”

“Not me, Junior,” I said. “The one thing I believe in is the right of every human being to go to hell in his own peculiar fashion. I don’t give a shit what you do.”

“I don’t quite believe that. You care about me.”

“True enough,” I said. “I cared about your sister too. But I couldn’t live her life for her. And I can’t live yours for you. All I can do is be there if you want me.”

He drained his glass. “Can I have another beer?”

I signaled the waitress. She came with the beer.

“I do want you to help me,” he said.

“How?”

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you that the day after my father comes up to see me we get busted?”

“Is that what you think?”

He looked down at his glass. “He said he could blow the whistle if I didn’t do as he wanted.” He looked up at me. “I got to find out the truth, Uncle Steve. It’s very important to me.”

“How do you expect me to help you with that?”

“You ask him, Uncle Steve. He wouldn’t lie to you.”

“No. I have a better idea.”

“What’s that?” he asked hopefully.

“You ask him. After all, he’s your father, not mine.”

 III

She was right there in the parking lot where I left her before I went to Vegas. Gleaming black, her chrome shining in the slanting rays of the sinking sun.

Junior let out a low whistle as we came up to her. He ran ahead of me and touched the car reverently. “Too much,” he said in a hushed voice.

I took the key out of my pocket and opened the door. He was in the car before I could move. He sat there a moment, brushing his fingers lovingly over the fascia of the dashboard and the toggles, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Smells like pussy,” he said.

I tapped him on the shoulder. “In the back.”

He scrambled over the back of the seat like an overgrown monkey and rested his chin on the headrest, staring over at the dashboard as I got into the car. “Does it really do two-forty?” he asked, pointing at the speedometer.

“I don’t know. I never had it all the way up.”

Lawyer Girl got into the car. “I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

I grinned at her. “You were bored.”

“I have a date tonight,” she said defensively.

I gestured to the phone. “Call up and cancel it.”

“Man, you got everything in this car,” Junior said. “Where’s the john?”

“Driving,” I said. The phone began to buzz. I picked it up. “Okay, Diana. You’re getting rich.”

“The calls are piling up, Mr. Gaunt,” she said. “Messrs. Johnston and Diamond called from Vegas. They’re on their way to see you. Mr. Benjamin called from the Beverly Hills Hotel, he wants you to call him. Mr. Sinclair called and asked me to tell you that he was at the Bel Air Hotel and would you please drive directly there from the airport.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all for the moment, Mr. Gaunt,” she said sweetly.

She disconnected and I put the phone down and started the motor. The beginning roar faded into a steady hum. I put the car into gear and moved out of the parking lot. I got on the freeway smack in the middle of the rush-hour jam.

“Listen to that motor,” Junior said from the back. “I can feel it in my balls.”

“I’ll never understand what men see in cars,” Lawyer Girl said.

I caught Junior’s eye in the rearview mirror. He shook his head. She was right. It was a private world. I snaked through the traffic and cut off the freeway at the next exit. I would make better time on the back roads.

Lawyer Girl picked up the telephone. “How do I work this thing?”

“Press that button down,” I said. “When the operator comes on, give her the number you see printed on the receiver and the number you want.”

She clicked the switch. A half minute later she was talking to her date in San Francisco. Honey dripped from her voice sickeningly. “Truly I am sorry, David. But this matter came up at the last minute and I couldn’t call before now.” There was a moment’s silence, then when she began to speak again, her voice turned frosty. “You forget one thing, David. I am an attorney. And an attorney’s first responsibility is to his client.” She slammed the phone down.

I grinned at her. “So that’s all I am to you. A client.”

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “Give me a cigarette.”

“In the glove compartment,” I said.

She opened it and took a cigarette from the tray I kept in there. She lit it, took a deep drag, and a peculiar look came over her face. “This tastes funny.”

I sniffed the air. “That’s pot,” I said. “Regulars are on the right, menthols in the middle.”