Swimming to Catalina (Stone Barrington 4)

“I certainly didn’t. I was sharing an apartment with two other actors, and I stayed right where I was. I drove a motor scooter to and from the studio, and I let Hyman invest my money. After two years of this, I was getting first-class supporting parts and learning my trade, and the money was good, too. I moved into a nicer apartment, but small and cheap, and I bought a used car. After five years I was hitting my stride, and when I brought my first house it was in Beverly Hills, and I paid cash for it, and when the bad scripts shot in nice places came along, I was able to turn them down and wait for the good stuff. I learned never to do a movie for money alone, or because it was being shot in Tahiti or some other paradise. You have no idea how many actors have made those mistakes and how much it cost them.”

“I see your point,” Stone said. “Vance, what have you heard about Arrington?”

Vance glanced to either side of him. “Is anyone listening to us?”

Stone looked around. “Everyone seems to be trying to.”

“Let’s not talk here.”

“I take it you’re entertaining tomorrow night?”

Calder lowered his voice. “I am. It’s been planned for nearly a month, and if I cancel, people will start to talk. When people start to talk, somebody tells somebody in the gutter press, and the next thing I know, I’m all over the tabloids, and I have a battalion of paparazzi camped at my front gate. It’s important that I behave as I normally do, no matter what’s happening in my personal life, and it’s important that you understand this.”

“I understand.”

“One other thing: I expect all our conversations on that subject to be conducted under the attorney-client privilege.”

“As you wish.”

“Good, now here’s our dinner; let’s enjoy it, then we’ll talk on the way home.”

Back in the Bentley, Calder finally opened up. “It’s been three days now, and I haven’t heard anything from her.”

“What precipitated this?” Stone asked.

“I don’t know. I came home from the studio, and her car was gone. It was seven in the evening, and it was unusual for her not to be waiting for me. She hadn’t given any instructions to the cook for dinner, and the houseman, who usually has a nap in the afternoon, hadn’t seen her leave the house.”

“Did she take anything with her?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose she could have taken a few clothes—I couldn’t look at her closet and say for sure. She may have taken a suitcase, but there’s a room full of luggage, and I can’t know if one or two pieces are missing.”

“Had you quarreled? Was she angry about anything?”

Calder pulled into the Bel-Air parking lot, stopped, and waved away the attendant. “No, not angry, but she was…different. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“How was she different?”

“The night before, she had told me about the baby. I was overjoyed; I’ve always wanted a child, and I thought she did, too. She…was not overjoyed.”

“What did she say?”

“It’s not so much what she said as the way she behaved. Then I did some thinking, and it occurred to me that the child…might not be mine.”

Stone said nothing.

“Stone, you and I both know that Arrington and I married after the briefest of courtships and that she was living with you up until a week or ten days before we married.”

Stone still said nothing.

“She didn’t come right out and say that the child was yours, but she was very subdued.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No, but she knew I was thinking that.”

“What about the following morning?”

“She said nothing. I had to be at the studio at seven—I’m in the middle of a picture—and she wasn’t up when I left, so we had no opportunity to talk. I went to work, and I thought about nothing else all day, and I came home prepared to tell her that I didn’t care who the biological father was, I wanted to be the father who brought up the child. But she was gone.”