82 Desire

it was an urban myth. And now here was a woman named Urethra. A woman whose art came out of her trouble in such a unique way that Jane could easily shape a story about her for the Living or Book section.
    Normally, she’d have jumped at it. Yet she’d rather crossly put Wallis off. She was damned if she was going to write a story about The Baroness just because the tipster wanted her to—if indeed that was what he wanted. Perhaps he just wanted to get her and Langdon and Cindy Lou Wootten all in a room together.
    Though why, Jane couldn’t have said.
    She was fed up with being at his beck and call, yet when he’d called with this new little tidbit about Bebe she couldn’t resist. She’d gone out and gotten in her car and driven to Bebe’s and parked in front of the councilwoman’s house until Bebe had come out at two-thirty, just exactly as the tipster said she would. She was wearing white silk pants and a matching tunic with little gold sandals, a good outfit for a courtyard cocktail party—a destination for which she couldn’t possibly be headed at that time of day and at the beginning of the week and with her husband missing. The gold sandals were an odd touch, Jane thought—a bit out of character for a city councilwoman. That intrigued her even further.
    She followed Bebe out to Veterans Highway and into the parking lot of one of the many motels that bloomed there like so many weeds.
    She saw Bebe disappear into one of the rooms and she waited an hour. In fact, almost exactly an hour—and that part did indeed seem in character, another fact that intrigued Jane. She wondered if Bebe had set the alarm on her watch: Oops, sorry, darling. Committee meeting in half an hour.
    While she was waiting, she happened to remember she had a camera in her trunk—left over from a recent weekend in Florida. I wonder, she thought, if it has any film in it.
    Just to pass the time, she decided to check it out. There were maybe two exposures left after the Florida photos, but there was also a whole new roll of film. Feeling sheepish, yet unable to resist, she got back in the car with the camera. Again, just to pass the time, she photographed Bebe’s car, seedily parked in the motel lot.
    After that, she held the camera in front of her and looked at it as if it were a meteorite that had just fallen to Earth. She tried to think of a reason she might need pictures of Bebe emerging from the motel room. There couldn’t possibly be any story in this.
    And yet… and yet… one never knew.
    Even if this wasn’t a story in itself—and how could it possibly be?—it might somehow be part of the emerging story of Russell Fortier’s disappearance. How, she didn’t know, but she’d gotten a tip to come here, and surely there was some sort of method to the tipster’s madness.
    There was no doubt this was a tryst—what other explanation was possible? Unless, of course, Bebe, for reasons best known to herself, was meeting at this cheapjack hotel with her own husband.
    Jane’s heart pounded at the thought. If Russell’s in there , she thought, I’ll kiss the feet of the damn tipster. I’ll propose marriage, maybe.
    If this whole thing were anything other than a wild goose chase, she was going to need proof. In fact, now that she thought about it, she probably should have planned to bring the damn camera.
    Bebe came out alone, wearing sunglasses, and Jane snapped her picture—several times: coming out of the room, running down the stairs, getting into her car. What there was to get, she got.
    Bebe drove off and Jane kept waiting, thinking that if worst came to worst, she could persuade the desk clerk to talk to her. She was inventing various ruses when the door of Bebe’s room opened and a man came out, straightening his collar as if he’d just emerged from the shower.
    Really , she thought, men are so transparent.
    The man turned slightly toward her and she found herself bombarded by two emotions at once—disappointment that it wasn’t Russell, and shock at who it was—someone Bebe could barely speak to without causing a scandal. It was Ernest LaBarre, a developer who had a huge proposal before the city council.
    Not only did LaBarre need Bebe’s vote now, he’d needed it in the past and he’d be needing it in the future. This was a man who frequently asked the council’s approval on one project or another.
    And this was so clearly a story Jane felt slightly nauseated.
    This was not a matter of a public official