Ugly Money

The painted lady gave this careful thought. The girl confronting her was no weirdo; she was educated, bright and beautiful, and she was wearing cashmere slung carelessly around her shoulders, and that meant class, beware. For a start, she replied, it wouldn’t actually be possible to see Mr Scott Hartman, he hadn’t set foot in the office for a long, long time. Of course Hartman Inc. was always very conscious of its public image …

Marisa 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 Subaru. ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘it looked a mile high, I could hardly see the driver.’ A second later the pick-up had closed again, and there was a scream of metal as it sheared along the side of the station wagon. No one else paid any attention: minding their own business, the modern virtue.

Nick said, ‘Jesus it was scary, those huge tires!’

By this time Marisa’s offside wheels were scrabbling along the rough shoulder, and her car was yawing to and fro, gravel flying.

‘She was great,’ said Nick. ‘I saw the turn-off coming before she did, and I was pointing and yelling – and just as the bastard came swerving in again she wrenched the wheel over and zing, he was gone. Trapped on the freeway, see, while we shot off into Something-or-other Avenue.’

They were completely lost, but at least they were free of the maniac’s attentions. How far it was to the next turn-off was anyone’s guess, but by then he might have forgotten them, if he was indeed drunk; if on the other hand he was still interested it would take him a long time to reach the spot where they’d evaded him, whether he rejoined the freeway in the opposite direction or tried to make his way back by residential side streets. They drove off into the hinterland, found a mini-market and bought themselves a much-needed Coke. Half an hour later they returned to the freeway, via another entrance.

Once or twice during the next hour they were sure they were being followed – which was why Nick had taken so long parking when they finally reached Astoria; he wanted to make sure it had only been their imagination.

Well, I thought, there were plenty of good reasons for all that nervous tension; some kids I’d known would have been in need of first aid. I said, ‘Hartman. I wonder why they were so touchy.’

‘They thought I was a media person.’

‘OK. Why so touchy about the media? And how about the guy in the pick-up?’

‘I still don’t think he was anything to do with them.’

‘Coincidence, eh?’

Nick shook his head; clearly he didn’t believe in coincidence either. We all considered the situation in silence. Then I said, ‘What do you want to do next, Marisa?’

‘I just have this feeling he’s it, I don’t know why.’

Nick added, ‘I just have this feeling we could do with some help from not-Uncle Will.’

‘We might dream up a more subtle way of going about it.’ I smiled to blunt the sharp adult edge. ‘For a start it may be true he’s never in that office; I think we have to find out where he lives. And even if Ms Julie Wrenn was right, we’d better make sure he wasn’t just a boyfriend. He doesn’t have to be biological Dad.’

She nodded, accepting this. Nick relaxed a little; it was obviously what he’d been hoping I’d say. I could understand that being the sole curb on Marisa’s impulses might well be exhausting, particularly if you were no older than she was.