Ross Thomas: Ah, Treachery!

“That’s what you do, then — raise political money?”

“I’m a rainmaker and a good one. In odd years I sometimes go back to the plushbottoms I’ve hit up and try and put ’em together with a few solid guys I know who can make big bucks even bigger. When it works, I get a small percentage and the plushbottoms are so grateful they’re almost happy to see me the next time I drop by to shake their money trees.”

“Let’s get to it,” Partain said. “What d’you want with me?”

“One-point-two million in political funds have gone missing. Stolen, for sure. Maybe embezzled. I want it back.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Yeah, but I do,” she said. “But while I’m doing it — and, O Sweet Jesus, I’ve just been dying to say this all day — I need somebody to ride shotgun.”

Partain smiled. “I think I could handle that.”

Once he made it to Wilshire Boulevard, Partain drove west in Millicent Altford’s black Lexus coupe until he reached the apartment building that bore the name of either a failed British prime minister or the world’s first garden.

The Eden was twenty-six stories of condominiums on the south side of the Wilshire corridor a dozen or so blocks east of UCLA. It had tinted windows and a facade of light brown stucco whose peculiar shade was called Jennifer after the late August tan of a 19-year-old beauty the architect had once met on Broad Beach in Malibu.

At 7:56 P.M., Partain made a left turn across traffic into a curved drive and stopped in front of the Eden’s entrance. A uniformed doorman materialized on the driver’s side, opened the door and said, “If you’ll just leave the ignition key, Mr. Partain, I’ll take care of the car.”

Partain thanked him, grabbed the Cape buffalo bag and got out. The doorman handed him an electronic door key in the form of a plastic card with holes punched in it.

“This’ll get you through the front door and into Fifteen-forty, Ms.Altford’s place,” the doorman said. “When you need the car again, just press the asterisk on your Touch-Tone phone and ask for Jack.”

“You’re Jack?”

“I’m Jack.”

The electronic key card worked nicely and the door to 1540 opened into a small formal foyer large enough for a burled elm wall table that could hold the mail, the keys and even a long shopping list. There was also room for a lyre-back occasional chair that looked as if nobody had yet found an occasion to sit on it.

A large mirror above the table was surrounded by an ornate gilt frame and both mirror and frame looked their age, which Partain guessed to be at least two hundred years. Opposite the mirror was a door that he assumed led to a coat closet. The foyer floor was covered with large black and white squares that his leather heels informed him were marble.

A few more steps and he was in an immense living room that boasted a Steinway baby grand and a real bar with lots of bottles and six comfortable-looking stools. There were more than enough couches and easy chairs, some covered in leather, some in fabric. There were also plenty, maybe even an excess, of tables and lamps. The floor itself was oak parquet and partially hidden by aging rugs woven in countries that were then called Persia and Mesopotamia. On the walls were a few large pictures, all representational oils, by painters whose names Partain thought he should recall but couldn’t.

Beyond all this was the wall of glass that looked west toward the lights of Westwood, Brentwood and Santa Monica and beyond them to the blackness that was the ocean. It was a room, Partain decided, where it would cost you $1,000 for a glass of wine, a shrimp or two and the chance to chat up somebody who wanted to be your mayor, congresswoman, senator, governor — maybe even your President.

Partain, who had never missed voting absentee in every presidential election since 1972, was wondering if he would ever vote again when the woman’s voice behind him said, “Don’t move or I shoot.”

Partain ignored the threat and spun counterclockwise with his right arm extended to give the old Cape buffalo bag added momentum. He let go the bag and watched it slam into the unarmed woman’s stomach. After an explosive whoof , she stumbled back and down into an easy chair, somehow hanging onto the bag.

Six or seven deep recovery breaths later, staring at him all the while, she grinned and said, “I’d’ve shot you if I’d had a gun.”

“You don’t look that stupid.”

She ignored him, lifted the bag from her lap, winced at its weight and dropped it on the floor with a clunk. “Christ, what’s in there — the burglar tools?”

“Books and whiskey mostly.”

“You’re not the burglar?”

“No. Are you?”

“I’m Jessica Carver.”

“Who used to be Jessica Altford.”

“Wrong. I was always Jessica Carver, even if I do look like her. My mother.”

“You’re lucky to look like her.”

“Am I?” she said, rose and went behind the bar, mixed Partain the bourbon and water he requested, then poured herself a glass of wine.

Partain now sat on one of the stools. After tasting his drink he said, “Your mother didn’t call and tell you I was on the way?”

“Why would she? She doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“Since you’re Jessica Carver, who’s Mr. Carver?”

“My dad. Dr. Eldon Carver. He died in ’sixty-nine.”

“Of what?”

“Of pain and an overdose of carefully self-administered morphine. He had cancer of the pancreas, the inoperable kind, and didn’t want to stick around. Nobody blamed him, certainly not Millie or me. He was her second husband.”

“And her first one?”

“Why?”

“I like to know about people I work for.”

“Well, her first was Harry Montague. They married in ’fifty-seven and lived in Dallas until one Sunday afternoon in ’fifty-nine when Harry took his old Stinson biplane up, did a couple of rolls, then tried an inside loop he didn’t quite finish. A year later Millie married my dad and I came along in February of ’sixty-one, which makes me almost thirty-two, if you forgot your calculator.”

“Then came Mr. Altford, right?” Partain said.

She nodded and had another sip of wine.

“Who was he?”

“Slime.”

“Any particular kind?”

“The all-purpose kind. Lawrence Demming Altford is sexy, smart and very rich. He’s also a dedicated liar, a louse and a top-seeded paranoid. It lasted three years until Millie gave up and divorced him. But when she didn’t ask for a property settlement or alimony, he sicced private detectives on her to find out what she was really up to.”

“Why’d she keep his name?”

Jessica Carver shrugged. “Tired of changing it, I suppose. Or maybe she thought ‘Millicent Altford’ sounds kind of tony.” She had another sip of the wine and asked, “What’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Edd Partain.”

“Spell it.”

“Edd-with-two-ds P-a-r-t-a-i-n.”

“What if I called Millie and asked if she’s ever heard of any Edd-with-two-ds Partain?”

“I think you’d better.”

She put her wine down, picked up a phone that was beneath the bar, tapped out 411, asked for the hospital’s number, called it and requested Millicent Altford’s room. After someone answered, she asked, “Ever hear of an Edd Partain, Ma?”

She listened for twenty seconds or so, staring at Partain as if he were some recent purchase she might return. “Well, this one’s forty or forty-one, about six-two, maybe 175 pounds and wears an old blue suit, white shirt, striped red and blue tie that’s way too narrow and honest-to-God black lace-ups.”

She listened again, then said, “The hair’s real dark with little gray streaks in it. The eyes are a funny-strange gray-green. Real white teeth. An okay chin, but it’s only a chin. And he’s quick, the way a cat’s quick.”