LaBrava by Elmore Leonard Page A

delicate outline, the soft, misty profile as she stood at the window in San Francisco staring at the Bay. Foghorn moaning in the background. Deadfall . The guy goes off the bridge in the opening scene and everybody thinks it’s suicide except the guy’s buddy, Robert Mitchum. Robert Mitchum finds out somebody else was on the bridge that night, at the exact same time. A girl . . .
    He saw the movie—it had to have been twenty-five years ago, because he was in the ninth grade at Holy Redeemer, he was playing American Legion ball and he went to see the movie downtown after a game, a bunch of them went. She did look older. Not much though. She was still thin and her features, with that clean delicate look, always a little bored, they were the same. He remembered the way she would toss her hair, a gesture, and stare at the guy very calmly, lips slightly parted. Robert Mitchum was no dummy, he grabbed her every chance he had in Deadfall , before he ended up with the dead guy’s wife. That was the only trouble with her movies. She was only grabbed once or twice before the good guy went back to Arleen Whalen or Joan Leslie. She would have to be at least fifty. Twelve years older than he was. Or maybe a little more.
    He didn’t want to sound dumb. Like the president of a fan club. Miss Shaw, I think I saw every picture you were ever in .
    She said, without looking at him, “You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you?”
    It was her voice. Soft but husky, with that relaxed, off-hand tone. A little like Patricia Neal’s voice. Jean Shaw reminded him a little of Patricia Neal, except Jean Shaw was more the mystery-woman type. In movies you saw Jean Shaw at night, hardly ever outside during the day. Jean Shaw could not have played that part in Hud Patricia Neal played. Still, they were somewhat alike.
    “I can get you a pack,” LaBrava said. He remembered the way she held a cigarette and the way she would stab it into an ashtray, one stab, and leave it.
    “Maury said he’ll bring some. We’ll see.”
    “I understand you’re old friends.”
    “We were. It remains to be seen if we still are. I don’t know what I’m suppose to do here, besides stare at the ocean.” She came away from the window to the sofa, finally looking at him as she said, “I can do that at home. I think it’s the same ocean I’ve been looking at for the past . . . I don’t know, round it off, say a hundred years.”
    Dramatic. But not too. With that soft husky sound, her trademark.
    He said, “You were always staring at the ocean in Deadfall . I thought maybe it was like your conscience bothering you. Wondering where the guy was out there, in the water.”
    Jean Shaw was seated now, with the Miami Herald on her lap. She brought a pair of round, wire-framed glasses out of the robe and slipped them on. “That was Nightshade .”
    “You sound just like her, the part you played.”
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “I think in Deadfall you lured the guy out on the bridge. You were having an affair, then you tried to blackmail him . . . In Nightshade you poisoned your husband.”
    She hesitated, looking up at him, and said very slowly, “You know, I think you’re right. Who was the guy in the bridge picture?”
    “Robert Mitchum.”
    “Yes, you’re right. Mitchum was in Deadfall . Let me think. Gig Young was in Nightshade .”
    “He was the insurance investigator,” LaBrava said. “But I think he grew flowers, too, as a hobby.”
    “Everybody in the picture grew flowers. The dialogue, at times it sounded like we were reading seed catalogues.” She began looking at the front page of the Herald . Within a few moments her eyes raised to him again.
    “You remember those pictures?”
    “I bet I’ve seen every picture you were in.” There. It didn’t sound too bad. She was still looking at him.
    She said, “Really?” and slipped her glasses off to study him, maybe wondering if he was putting her on. “On television? The late