The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“Do it,” she said.

I shut my eyes. Then I felt her place her arms lightly around my shoulders and touch her lips against my cheek. When I opened my eyes, she stuck one of the roses into my shirt pocket. “You’ve got a nice home and family. Hang on to them.”

“Why did you put the rose in my pocket?”

“Probably because you deserve it and I don’t. Or something like that.”

She picked up the envelope with the money inside it and went out the screen door without saying another word. Major went to the screen and watched her walk away.

THAT EVENING I TOOK Valerie to see Viva Zapata! at the Loews Theater downtown. At first I wanted to see High Noon, but Valerie said it was an allegory about the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joseph McCarthy and the prosecution of the Hollywood Ten.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“My father said so,” she replied.

Her information was probably correct, but if it came from Mr. Epstein, I didn’t want to hear it.

“I hear Brando is great as Zapata,” I said. “Anthony Quinn plays his brother. Joseph Wiseman plays Judas. I love Joseph Wiseman.”

“Okay, by all means, let’s see Zapata,” she said.

For two hours

we got lost in revolutionary Mexico. When we came out of the theater, the sky was turquoise, the wind flapping an American flag on a building across the street, the image of Marlon Brando in a sitting position and shot to pieces in a cattle lot imprinted upon our memory. I put my arm across Valerie’s shoulders. She looked so beautiful in the glow from the marquee that I ached inside. For just a moment I thought about the two of us throwing our suitcases into my heap and heading west on Highway 66, following the sun to Hollywood and the beaches of Santa Monica and Malibu.

Then I saw a man across the street, in a boxlike 1940s four-door black sedan, wearing a suit and fedora despite the heat, his features barely visible in the shadows.

“Why are you stopping?” Valerie said.

“That guy in the black car.”

“What about him?”

“He has a camera. There, see? It has a telephoto lens.”

He pointed the camera at us. I shielded Valerie from his view, my back to the street. A dozen people surged by us on the sidewalk. When I looked again, the car had pulled into the traffic. This time I saw the driver clearly. His face had the texture of bad wallpaper; his eyes were wide-set, his fingers like sausages on the wheel.

A pedestrian collided into me. “Sorry,” I said.

“If I had a gal like that, I’d be distracted, too,” the pedestrian said.

The car turned the corner and was gone. I didn’t have time to get the license number.

“Who was he?” Valerie said.

“Cisco Napolitano says Jaime Atlas has brought in a couple of guys from Sicily.”

“Killers? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought maybe she exaggerated.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“That’s just piling more grief on them.”

“I’ll tell my father.”

“Maybe the guy was a tourist. Let it go.”