Anatomy of a Crossword Read Online Free PDF Page B

waistlines and blunt chop-shop hair styles, regarded the lithe and black-clad troop as if they were watching the exploratory foray of some potentially malevolent alien force.
    Belle tried to ease the tension of the situation, repeating Darlessen’s explanations concerning designers and second-unit camera men, but her words were greeted by apprehensive and sometimes antagonistic stares. “They’re coming back?” was the most oft-repeated comment.
    â€œMaybe,” Belle would answer. “But not this group … And they’ll only be shooting exteriors.”
    â€œShooting?”
    â€œFilming. For the movie.”
    â€œRight … Shooting …”
    But Belle could sense this was no reassurance. As far as NPD was concerned, the only “shots” came from guns. And Miso Lane and crowd were none too happy when Al Lever insisted on going through every single one of their Polaroids and removing the photos he deemed sensitive to security or compromising to critical undercover personnel.
    As for Lawson’s’—aside from Martha, who clucked tenderly over the band and tried, unsuccessfully, to insert herself in their photos—it was clear that the group was disrupting the local customers, and that any “second-unit” types would find themselves on shaky ground if they wished to return.
    And then the team and Belle raced on to Sara Briephs’s impressive and ancestral home, White Caps, where the whirlwind of activity suddenly ceased.
    â€œI’m simply delighted you could come,” Sara pronounced. She was “receiving” her visitors in her downstairs sitting room. Here the fireplace was aglow with birch logs, sending warmth and light spilling across the antique oriental carpet and the polished ball-and-claw feet of the Chippendale chairs and tables, over the silk-shaded alabaster lamps, the Chinese export porcelain, and the crystal vases filled with greenhouse flowers, and finally up into the proud face of the house’s invincible owner.
    â€œYou’ll take tea with me, I hope. Or something stronger on this dreary winter’s day. Sherry, perhaps?” Seated in a high-backed wing chair, her cane discreetly hooked on an armrest, Sara motioned to her elderly and stouthearted maid, Emma, who disappeared to return a few moments later pushing a laden tea trolley. A plate of warm shortbread cookies rested beside a stack of fresh scones, the traditional clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam resting in matching Wedgwood bowls close by. And yes, there was a decanter of dry sherry along with the requisite slim-stemmed glasses, as well as bottles of aged port and vin santo. “Belle, dear, will you do the honors?”
    Miso Lane and his team were slack-jawed. Not a camera was in evidence.
    â€œSo lovely to have you here, Mr. Lane,” Sara continued in her modulated and aristocratic tone. “Although our chilly temperatures must seem quite an abrupt change from Southern California. I’ve only been to Los Angeles once, I must confess, but I was greatly taken by a panorama from the bluffs in a place called Pacific Palisades. A village, it was then, with charming little bungalows … I expect it’s gotten bigger since. But it did have the most spectacular views looking out over the ocean. I remember the blue seemed as sublime and shimmering to me as the Bay of Naples. I refer to Italy, naturally. The other Naples, the Floridian town, is pleasant, of course, but what can compare to la bella Italia? And then, I don’t fish or play golf.” She graced her speechless guests with a glowing smile while Emma proceeded to pass around the tea that Belle had poured. “Don’t forget to offer sherry and so forth, Belle dear. Oh, and Emma, be good enough to fetch something salty to accompany our fortified wines … perhaps, those herbed pecans and the cheddar wafers? I regret to say that we don’t have any Stilton at the