Double

“Quite well, thank you.” She studied me, faint amusement in her eyes. “I see you haven’t grown up yet.”

I glanced down at my tailored blouse and jeans. “Good Lord,” I said, “and I even wore high-heeled sandals for this occasion!”

“They’re very stylish, but the general impression remains the same.” There was no censure in her voice. When I’d gone to work for Elaine just after graduating from high school, she’d realized there was no way a true child of the sixties would be believable in the suburban-housewife pose that Huston’s female security guards usually assumed. So she’d encouraged me to wear the bell-bottoms and Indian cloth blouses that were popular then, to go barefoot and let my long hair hang free. The costume had worked, placing me beneath the suspicion of shoplifters; and as I’d lurked among the racks of clothing with a walkie-talkie in my macrame bag, I’d become one of Elaine’s most effective operatives. It was also to her credit that she didn’t attempt to hold her people back; she had been one of the first to suggest I might be wasting my time by not going to college.

The big man in the red shirt whom Elaine had been talking with earlier was still standing next to her, holding a drink that looked like whiskey. He must have brought his own bottle or got it from the hotel bar, because all they had at the drink table here was wine. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and cleared his throat.

Elaine said, “Sharon, I’d like you to meet Jim Lauterbach, one of our local investigators. Jim, this is Sharon McCone, from San Francisco.”

Lauterbach extended his hand. He was about six-two, overweight, and nondescript. Although there was no obvious reason for it, the phrase down at the heels flashed through my mind. I shook his hand briefly.

“Great convention, isn’t it?” he said. “Lots of good people, and these manufacturers’ tables are terrific.” He motioned at the booths displaying electronic gear. “All the latest equipment, better even than a lot of the stuff I’ve got.”

Elaine said, “Jim was just telling me that he recently moved here from Detroit.” Usually you couldn’t sense much of what Elaine was thinking or feeling; she had a very polished and polite surface manner. But something about the way she spoke told me she didn’t like Lauterbach. Maybe it was the heavy sprinkling of dandruff on the collar of his shirt — that would offend a fastidious woman like Elaine. Come to think of it, it offended me.

“How do you like California?” I asked him.

“Oh.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “Compared to Detroit... well, there’s no comparison. Detroit’s a depressed area. Very depressed. So many out of work. And the winters... well, you can’t imagine the winters.” His words were slightly slurred, as if he had been drinking for some time.

“Do you have your own agency here?”

“Yes. I took over a friend’s. An old Navy buddy, Jack Owens — the Owens Agency, on Sixth Avenue, downtown. He couldn’t take the grind anymore, so I’m running the business for him. And believe me, since I’ve been at it things are looking up.”

I glanced at Elaine and saw she was staring off in a preoccupied way. When I caught her eye, she moved her head slightly in the direction of the door.

“Well, I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Jim,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll be running into one another again this weekend.”

“Yeah, sure.” He nodded curtly, clearly annoyed at the dismissal. Elaine took my arm and steered me toward the exit. “God, what a dreadful person,” she said “He’s been boasting and breathing booze at me for what seems like hours. Let’s go downstairs and get a drink. The smoke in here is starting to get to me.”

I set my plastic cup on a nearby table and we went out onto the mezzanine. The air out there was definitely clearer.

“At least the bar has proper ventilation,” Elaine said. “And we can put it on my expense account.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I followed her down the wide staircase to the lobby. “An expense account — my, my. I have one too, but every time I turn in a report, it’s like the Spanish Inquisition before they’ll reimburse a dime.”

Halfway across the lobby, we encountered two men standing close together, in an apparent conference. The one facing us put out his hand and stopped Elaine. He was slim and elegant-looking in a light summer suit, and had thick blond hair. The man with him half turned, and I saw he was younger, maybe thirty-five to the other man’s fifty, vaguely effeminate, and appeared to be of Mexican descent.

“Elaine,” the first man said, “the security at the bungalows—” He stopped, looking at me.

Elaine removed her arm from his grasp and said, “Sharon, this is Lloyd Beddoes, manager of the Casa del Rey.” Now her tone, under the polite words, was cold.

Lloyd Beddoes nodded and shook my hand.

“And Victor Ibarcena, our assistant manager.”