Voodoo River - Robert Crais Page 0,2

her this afternoon and tell her to expect you. You can keep her card." She glanced at the door, anxious to leave. You hire the detective, you let him worry about it.

Sid made a writing motion in the air and the waiter brought the check.

The woman with the pale hair looked our way again, then spoke to her husband. The two of them stood and came over, the man holding his camera.

I said, "We've got company."

Jodi Taylor and Sid Markowitz turned just as they arrived. The man was grinning as if he had just made thirty-second-degree Mason. The woman said, "Excuse us, but are you Jodi Taylor?"

In the space of a breath Jodi Taylor put away the things that troubled her and smiled the smile that thirty million Americans saw every week. It was worth seeing. Jodi Taylor was thirty-six years old, and beautiful in the way that only women with a measure of maturity can be beautiful. Not like in a fashion magazine. Not like a model. There was a quality of realness about her that let you feel that you might meet her at a supermarket or in church or at the PTA. She had soft hazel eyes and dark skin and one front tooth slightly overlapped the other. When she gave you the smile her heart smiled, too, and you felt it was genuine. Maybe it was that quality that was making her a star. "I'm Jodi Taylor,' she said.

The overweight man said, "Miss Taylor, could I get a picture of you and Denise?"

Jodi looked at the woman. "Are you Denise?"

Denise said, "It's so wonderful to meet you. We love your show."

Jodi smiled wider, and if you had never before met or seen her, in that moment you would fall in love. She offered her hand, and said, "Lean close and let's get our picture."

The overweight man beamed like a six-year-old on Christmas morning. Denise leaned close and Jodi took off her sunglasses and the maltre d' and two of the waiters hovered, nervous. Sid waved them away.

The overweight man snapped the picture, then said how much everybody back home loved Songbird, and then they went back to their table, smiling and pleased with themselves. Jodi Taylor replaced the sunglasses and folded her hands in her lap and stared at some indeterminate point beyond my shoulder, as if whatever she saw had drawn her to a neutral place.

I said, "That was very nice of you. I've been with several people who would not have been as kind."

Sid said, "Money in the bank. You see how they love her?"

Jodi Taylor looked at Sid Markowitz without expression, and then she looked at me. Her eyes seemed tired and obscured by something that intruded. "Yes, well. If there's anything else you need, please call Sid." She gathered her things and stood to leave. Business was finished.

I stayed seated. "What are you afraid of, Ms. Taylor?"

Jodi Taylor walked away from the table and out the door without answering.

Sid Markowitz said, "Forget it. You know how it is with actresses."

Outside, I watched Jodi and Sid drive away in Markowitz's twelve-cylinder Jaguar while a parking attendant who looked like Fabio ran to get my car. Neither of them had said good-bye.

From the parking lot, you could look down on the beach and see young men and women in wetsuits carrying short, pointy boogie boards into the surf. They would run laughing into the surf, where they would bellyflop onto their boards and paddle out past the breakwater where other surfers sat with their legs hanging down, bobbing in the water, waiting for a wave. A little swell would come, and they would paddle furiously to catch its crest. They would stand and ride the little wave into the shallows where they would turn around and paddle out to wait some more. They did it again and again, and the waves were always small, but maybe each time they paddled out they were thinking that the next wave would be the big wave, the one that would make all the effort have meaning. Most people are like that, and, like most people, the surfers probably hadn't yet realized that the process was the payoff, not the waves. When they were paddling, they looked very much like sea lions and, every couple of years or so, a passing great white shark would get confused and a board would come back but not the surfer.

Fabio brought my car and I drove back along the Pacific Coast