Part 2 (1/2)

- Are you a Buddhist or something?

- No, he said. I didn't know if it wanted to go where we're going, that's all.

At Jack's they were quickly given a good table. She had come here all the time when she lived out here and was making movies, she said.

- I've seen all of them, Keck said.

- Well, you should have. They were good. But you were a little kid. How old are you?

- Forty-three.

- Forty-three. Not bad, she said.

- I won't ask you.

- Don't be cra.s.s, she warned.

- Whatever it is, you don't look it. You look about thirty.

- Thank you.

- I mean, it's astonis.h.i.+ng.

- Don't let it be too astonis.h.i.+ng.

What was her accent, was it English or just languid upper-cla.s.s? It was different in those days, she was saying. That was when there were geniuses, great directors, Huston, Billy Wilder, Hitch. You learned a lot from them.

- You know why? she said. Because they had actually lived, they just didn't grow up on movies. They'd been in the war.

- Hitchc.o.c.k?

- Huston, Ford.

- How did you and Nick meet? Keck asked.

- He saw a photo of me, she said.

- Is that the truth?

- In a white bathing suit. No, somebody made that up. They make up all kinds of things. We met at a party at the Bistro. I was eighteen. He asked me to dance. Somehow I lost an earring and was looking for it. He'd find it, he said, call him the next day. Well, you can imagine, he was one of the G.o.d kings, it was pretty heady stuff. Anyway, I called. He said to come to his house.

Keck could see it, eighteen and more or less innocent, everything still ahead of her. If she took off her clothes you would never forget it.

- So, you did.

- When I got there, she said, he had a bottle of champagne and the bed turned down.

- So that was it?

- Not quite, she said.

- What happened?

- I told him, thanks, just the earring, please.

- That's the truth?

- Look, he was forty-five, I was eighteen. I mean, let's see what's going on. Let's not raise the curtain so fast.

- The curtain?

- You know what I mean. He'd been quite the ladies' man. I took care of that, she said.

She looked at him with knowing eyes.

- You men get all excited by young girls. You think they're some kind of erotic toy. You haven't met a real woman, that's the difference.

- The difference.

Her nostrils flared.

- With a real woman, the buck stops here, she said.

- I don't know what that means.

- You don't, eh? I think you do.

After a while, she said, - So, where is your wife this evening?

- Vancouver. She's visiting her sister.

- All the way up in Vancouver.

- Yeah.

- That's a long way from here. You know one of the things I've learned? she said.

- No, what?

- One never has the human company one longs for. Something else is always offered.

Perhaps it was a line from a play.

- Like me, you mean?

- No, sweetheart, not like you. At least I don't think so.