They weren’t crowded, so we were able to sit next to one of the windows, on the lowest level. Frank went up to the bar and brought back a Myers’s and OJ for me, a beer for himself. We watched the waves rolling in on the moonlit beach below.

I drank about half my drink while he sipped at the beer.

“Frank.”

He looked at me.

“I need to fill you in on a few things.”

He didn’t say anything, just sat up a little straighter. This was going to be business, and he subtly adopted a different posture. More distant. I didn’t like it, but it was too late.

I told him about seeing the degree from ASU, about my suspicions of Hollingsworth and Longren, about the connection of the DA and the mayor in all of O’Connor’s notes, about Ann Marchenko and Guy’s discussion of the safe-deposit boxes and money laundering. He asked a question or two for clarification here and there, but otherwise made no comment.

When I had finished, he said, “I really appreciate your telling me all of this, Irene. When are you talking to Guy St. Germain again?”

“I’m going to try to have lunch with him on Monday.”

He looked down into his beer. It seemed to me he was a little curt when he said, “Let me know what you learn, okay?”

“Okay, but I think we need to be cautious there, Frank. He’s sticking his neck out for me. He doesn’t want any negative publicity for the bank.”

“Publicity is your department.” Unmistakably curt.

I bristled at his tone for a moment, but suddenly it dawned on me that I hadn’t told Frank anything about how I had left things with Guy, and that he might be jealous.

“By the way, I’m bringing Lydia along when I go to lunch with Guy. I’m hoping they’ll hit it off with each other.”

He looked up at me. “Really?”

“Really. I can only handle making one guy pissed off at me at a time.”

“I’m not pissed off at you.”

“Give it another five minutes.”

He smiled briefly, then grew serious again. “Irene, look, let the department check Hollingsworth and Longren out. I’ll let you know what we find out and you can write your story from there.”

“I was wrong. It’s going to be less than five minutes.”

He took the hint and we sat there quietly for a while.

“I guess I’m a slow learner,” he said. “I’ve known all along that you were going to keep poking your nose into things until you got hurt. Just try to understand that it isn’t easy on me.”

“I might not get hurt. I might be able to help prevent other people from getting hurt.”

“That’s my job.”

“That’s both of our jobs.”

He shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

No reply. He looked out the windows, sighed and looked back at me.

“Please be careful,” he said.

“I will.”

He looked out the windows again. I couldn’t read him at all. It bothered me. Maybe he had decided to stop mollycoddling me. But I worried that instead he was only distancing himself from me.

“Let’s go,” he said at last.

He drove me home, walked me to the front door, and said a polite goodnight.

I lay awake a long time, angry by turns with myself and then with Frank. Finally I fell asleep.

I dreamed a memory-dream of O’Connor that night. It was a mixture of two separate evenings we had actually spent together, interspliced into one in the dream. We were laughing and drinking and watching fat women dance. He turned to me and said, “Remember what Sister Kenny once said.”

“Sister Kenny?” I said in the dream, just as I had the night he brought it up. “Is she someone who taught you in Catholic school?”

He laughed in the dream, as he had then. “No, my dear, I suppose you are too young to remember Sister Kenny. Elizabeth Kenny. She was an Australian nurse who developed a treatment for polio. And took a lot of guff along the way-but anyway, what she said was, ‘Better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.’”

“I like that.”

“I knew you would”-he smiled in the dream-“I knew you would.”

42

LYDIA AND I drove separately on Monday morning. I went back down to the morgue and checked out microfilm rolls for the last week in March and all of April 1955. Throughout both months Richard Longren was mentioned frequently. Nothing about his leaving town. And during Easter week, he was featured in an article almost every day, in connection with some special committee that was looking into the polio-vaccine controversy and which vaccine should be used by the health department in Las Piernas.

So that let Longren off the hook as far as an opportunity to get together with Jennifer Owens.

I looked up at the clock. I had spent over two hours looking at microfilm. I decided to go upstairs and call Guy.

Guy was his charming self and said that he would love to meet for lunch. “I also have something on that matter we discussed the other day,” he said.

“What did you find out?”

“I think it would be better if we waited on that,” he said, and I realized that someone must be standing near his desk. He went on. “By the way, why don’t you have your friend with the spark join us? He may find it interesting as well.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the bank at about eleven. I’ll bring both friends if I can.”

“I think it would be better if I met you.”

So someone was nearby.

“I take it we don’t want to meet at some banker’s hot spot.”

“No.”

“How about the Thai Royal down on Broadway and Pacific?”

“Good. See you there.”

I stopped by Lydia’s desk and filled her in on the lunch plans. “He wants me to invite Frank, too.”

“Oh, no,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, no’?”

“God, Irene, it will be like a double date.”

“Relax. He’s a mature person.”

“What’s that mean? Is this guy 109 years old or something?”

I laughed, realizing I really hadn’t filled her in on Guy. So I told her a few details, and I could tell she was interested.

John Walters strode up to us. “This sounds very much like girl talk to me. You got anything useful to tell me today, Irene?”

“I think I might have something pretty big before the end of the day,” I said.

His bushy brows lifted.

“Can we talk in your office?” I asked.

He motioned me to follow him as he waddled off.

“So what’s the story?” he said as he seated himself at his desk.

I filled him in on what I had learned from Guy.

“Well, what do you know. Hollingsworth and Longren, eh?” He mulled this over for a moment. “Do you think O’Connor got killed over this?”

“I’m not sure. I still think that was in connection with Jennifer Owens-Hannah.”

“Hmm.” He studied me, a skeptical look on his face. But he said, “You watch your backside-understand? Now get out of here and get back to work.”

“I understand they’re taking up a collection in the newsroom-they want to pay your tuition for charm school.”

“OUT!” he shouted, but I was already on my way.

I called Frank at police headquarters. I didn’t know how he would respond to the idea of meeting Guy, but I was at least going to give him the invitation.

“Frank?”

“Irene? What’s up?”

“Guy St. Germain has found something out down at the bank. He specifically asked if you could be there when he talks about it. We’re going to meet at the Thai Royal at eleven o’clock. Can you make it?”

He didn’t respond right away.

“I don’t see why not,” he said at last, and I felt a wave of relief.

“Great. See you there.”

• • •

SAM WAS ELATED to see me. Naturally, when I told him a couple of gentlemen would be joining us, he was beside himself with joy.

He showed us back to the same booth that I had been in the day Frank had called to say Kenny had been hurt. It seemed like a long time ago.