hadn’t been aware of the arrival of a tall young man in glasses; suddenly he was at the other end of the desk – and interested. The painted lady said, ‘I’m sure Publicity would help you.’ Marisa wasn’t sure how far she should push her man-at-the-top request; but she still had a strong feeling that Mr Scott Hartman was the one she’d come all this way to find, and she wasn’t altogether sure that she wouldn’t in the end find him right here in a resplendent office on the twenty-fifth floor. It’s very easy, even if you’re not seventeen and relatively inexperienced, to imagine you’re moving events along your chosen route when, in fact, events are actually moving in a quite different direction of which you know nothing; reality seldom pays much attention to one’s wishes.
The man in glasses said, ‘Perhaps I could help.’
‘Oh, Mr Rineman, would you? This is Miss …’
‘Allison, Mary Allison.’ It seemed wise to start off with a false name.
‘Mr Harry Rineman, one of our publicity directors.’
Mr Rineman was fair and balding, with a thin bony face and sharp, pale blue eyes. Marisa noticed the eyes but, euphoric in her Sherlocking mood, didn’t pay them the attention they deserved.
‘Stay right here,’ he said, ‘while I ask a few questions.’
He returned inside ten minutes and said, ‘Great. Why don’t we go to my office, and I can make a note of the kind of things you’d like to know. A school project, I think you said.’
Yes, but Marisa was pretty sure he hadn’t been there when she’d said it. This thought induced a flash of uneasiness which the office did nothing to ameliorate; it was large, even luxurious, but it had no windows. Mr Rineman asked for particulars of her school. Marisa knew she should have expected this and worked out a story; she remembered Nick’s words of wisdom, ‘Think first for Christ’s sake.’ Now, for lack of forethought, she had to give the name of her real school.
‘Oh. In LA!’
‘Yes, my mom went there, she wanted me to follow on.’
She was saved from further improvisation by the appearance of a large young man: handsome, tanned, with greedy-looking lips and cold gray eyes – and an air of absolute authority. He said, ‘I’m told you were asking for Scott Hartman in person. Why?’ No smooth politeness here; he was to the point, and harsh with it. And why the ‘in person’, how else could she have asked for anyone by name? Feeling less sure of herself, she repeated the story of her pregraduation project; it was beginning to sound flimsy.
Authority said, ‘But why Mr Hartman?’
‘He … He seemed the biggest big businessman around.’
‘There are plenty just as big in California.’
‘Sure. But … I happened to be here, visiting.’
‘School went back this morning, and your school’s in LA.’ How did he know that, he hadn’t been in the room? The place must be wired. She began to feel very uneasy indeed, aware of the situation nose-diving out of control; she wasn’t sure how or why: naturally, because she had no idea of the real direction she’d been taking ever since she entered the building.
Greedy-lips came closer; he was overpowering – sexy, she felt that in her gut, but also violent. The gray eyes examined her as if she were a slug found among the petunias. ‘I think you’re lying, giving us a load of baloney. You’re media, aren’t you? Who do you work for?’ She usually enjoyed being thought older than her years, but not this time. ‘I don’t work for anyone, I’m nothing to do with—’
He turned from her abruptly and said, ‘Rineman, keep her here. I want to make a couple of inquiries.’
Keep her here. This was when Marisa panicked; but with the panic came the certain knowledge that she must remain cool. She said to Publicity, ‘Who’s he?’
‘I’m sure he’ll tell you himself. If he wants you to know.’ The pale blue eyes were no longer friendly; they reminded her of a school friend’s Siamese cat, an avaricious killer of mice and small birds. Why the hell did she never listen to Nick? He was so damned sensible. Obviously she had to get the hell out of here before Greedy-lips returned. But how? Mr Rineman was standing purposefully in front of the only door. Panic began to swell inside her; she felt it might at any moment escape in a high-pitched scream. And her brain wasn’t operating again. Where was the Drano?
Ever since entering this creepy office she’d been clutching Cross-eye, her soapstone toad; she was just wondering whether he was going to turn out to be a dead loss when he summoned chance to her aid. It arrived in the shape of a secretary who pushed open the door without knocking and dealt Mr Publicity Director Rineman a sharp blow on the back of his balding head. The secretary, a frantic blonde and, by the look of her, a dumbbell, launched into strenuous apology, at the same time trying not to drop the teetering tower of folders she was carrying. ‘Oh Mr Rineman, oh I’m so—’
He had stepped away from the door willy-nilly, and was now stretching out both hands to catch some of the folders as they began to spill onto the floor, scattering loose pages. Marisa darted behind the girl’s back into a corridor, into the vast atrium. Things then happened very quickly and in no recognizable order. Mr Rineman was undoubtedly shouting somewhere behind her, maybe Greedy-lips as well. A few passers-by gaped, others passed hurriedly by. The lady at Information was staring, brows raised. Marisa ran as fast as she could towards the heavy steel doors, sure that she’d find them electronically locked. Not so – they even opened for her as she approached. A man in uniform, Security, no doubt, was by then turning towards her, but she was already at the top of the steps; went leaping down them; saw a gap in the traffic and darted across the street to a fanfare of horns.
Nick had seen her and was staring open-mouthed. He flung himself into her Subaru station wagon as she reached it; a second later she was beside him and they were moving; and – oh God! – lights at the end of the block were changing to red. Looking in the mirror she saw, as Nick had evidently also seen, a couple of Hartman security men closing in on them.
Nick said, ‘Oh Christ!’ as Marisa shot the lights. More horns, a screech of burning rubber. But they’d made it.
‘Hm!’ was all I could say when she’d finished. I was thinking that none of it had been exactly clever, but on the other hand I found her devil-may-care courage rather endearing.
Nick said, ‘“Hm!” just about nails it.’
‘And after this …’ I was aware of sounding like a prosecuting attorney. ‘After this you were forced off the road.’
Marisa was sure it had nothing to do with the drama at Hartman. ‘How could it, Will? I mean, this guy suddenly appears out of left-field …’
‘Like,’ I said, ‘Mr Rineman.’
She stared at me. ‘Nobody could have picked up on us that quick.’
‘I go with Will – Mr Rineman did.’ Nick was cutting himself another chunk of French bread and buttering it. Marisa looked at it longingly. He divided it and gave her half.
‘No,’ she said. ‘The guy was smashed, he was making a pass at me, you know how they are.’
It seems that this big pick-up, towering on mountain wheels, materialized in the fast lane, swerving in towards the
