Aces and Knaves

What was it? After some thought it came to me. I said to Arrow, "Stan said something to me as we left."
    "I'm never going to speak to Stan again," Arrow groaned. "I thought he was my friend." She ransacked her purse for a headache remedy.
    "He said, 'Do you know what happens to welshers? Remember what happened to Ned.'" I changed lanes to pass an 18-wheeler while I waited for her reaction.
    She found some pills and swallowed a couple, without water, an ability I envied. She didn't speak for a minute. I couldn't tell whether she had heard me and I was about to repeat Stan's statement when she said, almost too softly for me to hear over the road noise, "That bastard."
    I assumed she was talking about Stan. I said, "What do you think he meant by it?"
    Arrow pondered. Or maybe she was just trying to clear her head. "I guess it could have been either a threat or a joke. Knowing Stan, I think it's more likely it was a joke—an unfeeling joke. He's got a weird sense of humor. But he's not a very threatening person."
    "I'm beginning to suspect that Buchanan is. And Stan works for him." I had another thought. "What if it was a slip?"
    "A slip? You mean as in 'slip of the lip?'"
    "Yes. What if Buchanan was somehow involved in Ned's murder?"
    "That's...hard to believe. He's a business man, not a member of the Mafia."
    "Maybe there's a Scottish Mafia." I drove and thought. "What are we going to tell my father?"
    "About what?"
    "About James. About last night."
    "Nothing."
    "Nothing at all?" Didn't we owe him some sort of report?
    "Look," Arrow, said, speaking carefully and not too loudly, "we didn't learn anything he doesn't already know. And we didn't cover ourselves with glory. At least, I didn't. If Richard asks what we did after you talked to the police, I plan to tell him I visited one of our customers. That should keep him happy."
    ***
    I drove the Jaguar to the Emerge fundraiser that evening. Even though I was going as a volunteer and not one of the 950 paid supporters of Emerge, I would be hobnobbing with the cream of Los Angeles society, thanks to the connections of the Board of Directors and the hard work of Esther and her staff, and I wanted to look the part.
    I drove confidently into the Paramount lot at the Melrose Avenue entrance and flashed my invitation at the guard. When he found out I was a volunteer he told me to make a U-turn and park in the garage across the side street from the studio.
    So much for being a part of high society. I found a space on the second level of the garage next to a concrete post and snuggled the car up close to it, leaving plenty of room for someone to park on the other side. Someone who hopefully wouldn't inflict any dents on the Jag.
    I crossed the street and went into a side entrance of Paramount. This time my invitation got me waved through and onto the lot. Dressing-room trailers lined the studio streets, while the large hanger-like buildings containing soundstages, somber and plain on the outside, restricted my view.
    I rounded a corner and a huge sky-wall loomed up into the real evening sky, painted blue with white fluffy clouds. Why was it necessary to have fake blue sky in Los Angeles, where the sun shone almost every day?
    The Paramount water tower also broke the skyline, white with a blue Paramount logo on the top of the tank, complete with stars. Stars, the symbol of Hollywood.
    Past the sky-wall I came to the New York street set, where the party was. A red carpet with a theatrical rope on either side guided me to the festivities. Facades of brownstone row houses made the scene come alive, while a four-story brick building with concrete crests under the windows looked real until I got close enough to look in those windows at the barrenness within.
    Two of the New York streets, which intersected in a V, were filled with 95 round, white-clothed tables, each with 10 chairs around it. Waiters bustled from table to table, setting the necessary utensils and dishes. A centerpiece of cut flowers adorned each table. Esther and her crew had thought of everything, even the weather, which was unusually warm for an evening in Los Angeles.
    A small army of volunteers sat at other, rectangular tables, without tablecloths, eating box lunches to fuel them for handling the onslaught of guests, who would soon start arriving. I picked up one of the cardboard boxes of food and a bottle of apple juice and spotted Jeri, the plump, eternally pleasant volunteer coordinator who worked for