Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what they discuss. If the city council members all get together for a picnic, they don’t have to invite the public- unless they start discussing public business. They can’t evade the law just by going to the park and playing Frisbee while they tell each other how they plan to vote on a zoning change.”

“I’m beginning to see where this is leading. Someone held a meeting here and you found out about it.”

“Right. The Redevelopment Agency. People with business and construction interests used to invite the city planning commission members down to the Terrace for dinner meetings. That’s in violation of the Brown Act. Someone leaked word of one of the meetings to me, and I barged in on it-it was a great story.”

Frank shifted a little in his chair. The drinks arrived, and he took a long sip of scotch before asking cautiously, “You do remember that I’m employed by the city? I mean, I won’t get in the way of your doing your job, but-”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to barge in on this meeting, Frank. I can’t.”

“Why not? You just said-”

“Moffett doesn’t qualify. He was the city manager, and now he’s a private citizen. The people who are in there with him have been involved in city projects, but none of them are members of a public board or advisory committee-at least, not right now. So it’s a private meeting.”

“So why are we here? Were you going to try to eavesdrop?”

“The Express may be cheap, Frank, but we haven’t crawled down to tabloid level yet. No, I just want to know who showed up for this cozy little gathering. And I want them to know that I’m around-that will be enough to make a couple of them nervous. If I get a chance, I’ll try to corner one of them on the way out. Even if I don’t, someone may want to talk later.”

“Any ideas about what’s up?”

“Not exactly. But it’s got to be connected to whatever caused Moffett to resign.”

WE ORDERED ENOUGH APPETIZERSto keep the alcohol from going straight to our stomachs. We made the most of our chance to be alone, to talk, to catch up on the day’s events-even though I was keeping one eye on the hallway near the private dining room.

After we had been there about an hour, Andre Selman came out of that hallway. I hadn’t seen him in more than a decade. His once-blond hair had turned silver, he had gone soft in the middle, but otherwise he hadn’t changed much. For some odd reason, he seemed shorter.

Most of the women in SOS would probably say that Andre’s charm was more powerful than his looks, but at the moment, neither was in evidence. He looked like hell. He was dabbing a handkerchief across a perspiring forehead and he was pale. His blue eyes watched nothing but the carpet as he hurried along. I thought he might be headed for the restroom, but his destination was one of the telephone booths. Like everything else in the Terrace, the phone booths are old-fashioned-real booths with doors made of wood and glass. By the time I figured out that Andre hadn’t gone into the restroom, he was returning to the dinner party. It was on his way back that he spotted me. His eyes widened, then his face screwed up in anger. For a moment it looked as if he would storm his way over to me, but then he seemed to notice Frank.

Frank had realized some moments before that I was watching someone, and had turned in his chair and started watching, too. I couldn’t see Frank’s face, but Andre’s seemed to go pale again. Andre hurried down the hallway to the dining room.

Frank turned back to me, a self-satisfied grin on his face. “Well, well, well,” he said, and finished off his drink.

“Out with it.”

“That, I take it, was the old boyfriend?”

I cringed. “Do I go around reminding you of your mistakes?”

He laughed. “No. But none of my old girlfriends have whole societies dedicated to honoring their memories.”

“What are you talking about? SOS isn’t about Andre.”

“You sometimes call it ‘Survivors of Selman,’ right?”

“As a joke.”

He didn’t say anything, just sat there looking bemused. His smug mode. He was inviting a fight, but escalating the argument in the middle of the Terrace was an unappealing idea. I had the feeling this topic could get loud. I kept my eyes on the hallway and changed the subject.

“Tell me a Bakersfield story,” I said.

After a brief moment of hesitation, during which he probably figured out that he had pissed me off, he said, “Okay. This one happened not long after I made detective.”

The story was about a hardware store owner who had disappeared. His wife reported him missing, and she was convinced that the guy’s business partner had done him in. They questioned the business partner at the store and didn’t learn much, but Frank thought he seemed nervous. Frank’s partner, a senior detective, agreed, and they kept an eye on the guy. Frank talked to a nosy neighbor. The neighbor was full of complaints about the suspect: didn’t keep his lawn mowed, left his garbage cans out for a day or two after pickup, his house needed painting, his leaves needed raking, so on and so forth. Only thing the guy cared about was his car. Then the neighbor mentioned that the suspect had changed one habit lately: he had been leaving his car out in the driveway, instead of parking it in the garage.

The story was interrupted when we heard a commotion near the front door. I turned to see the maître d’ blocking the way of a dark-haired man wearing jeans, refusing him entrance.

Frank pushed his chair back. The man at the door hovered over the maître d’, saying angrily, “I don’t want to dine in your goddamned restaurant! I’m just here to take someone home. Move out of the way!”

Although I hadn’t seen the man in many years, his face was immediately familiar. “It’s Jerry Selman,” I said. “Andre’s son.”

Before the maître d’ could reply to Jerry, Corbin Tyler came bursting out of the private dining room, panic-stricken. He looked blindly around the room, his gaze finally settling on me. “Help!” he shouted. “He’s having a heart attack!” He ran back down the hall.

Frank was out of his chair and moving after him in no time, pausing only to shout back at me, “Call 911!”

Jerry and I rushed past one another as I made my way toward the maître d’, who was already dialing the phone. I waited until I heard him asking for an ambulance, then went back to the private dining room.

I realized as I walked into the room that I had assumed that Corbin had been shouting about Andre; as it turned out, the assumption was true. In a quick glance, I took in Corbin Tyler, Booter Hodges, Allan Moffett, and Keene Dage all watching nervously from the other side of the room. Roland Hill was with them, too, but seemed merely curious, not at all upset. Frank and Jerry were on the floor with Andre. Frank straddled Andre, doing chest compressions while Jerry knelt near his father’s face, giving him mouth-to-mouth.

“Stay back,” Booter Hodges warned.

“I know CPR,” I said, moving a chair and kneeling down on the floor.

“Pulse,” Frank said between counts.

I reached toward Andre’s neck, my fingers searching for his carotid artery. At first, I felt nothing, and then, a few seconds later, it was there. “He’s got a pulse!” I said.

Frank stopped, felt for it, too. “She’s right.”

“He’s breathing,” Jerry said, and started weeping.

We stayed there, not speaking, waiting to make sure our luck would hold. I heard someone leaving the room, but I was too focused on keeping my fingers on Andre’s pulse to see who it was. Andre’s color changed from a claylike gray to a shade that still didn’t look great, but wasn’t half as frightening.