Where Is Bianca? Read Online Free PDF

pushed away from him. “All right, Dad, you want my understanding? Suppose we start by your telling me what kind of roof is about to fall on our heads this time.”
    â€œRoof? What roof?” Ainsley said innocently. “The only roof that’s about to fall is the roof of the heavens, in a shower of stars.”
    â€œDad, please .”
    â€œI know you’re thinking about San Quentin again. Jeanie, San Quentin is no longer even a memory. I’ve forgotten that it was once my address, and I assure you there’s no chance of my moving back. I’m a craftsman of the theater about to demonstrate anew to the millions my mastery of my craft, that’s all. Naturally,” he added with a cough, “it makes me a little nervous. You know I always get the flutterbyes.”
    â€œYou ham,” Jean said without inflection. He had ducked the issue, as he always did. Further pressure would get her nowhere. And it was always possible that he was telling the truth. Perhaps something less than catastrophic had set him on the bender that had ranged from Times Square, to the Village, to up beyond 101st Street.
    He had moved to the door, sensing the psychological moment for an exit.
    â€œ Au ’voir , my princess. Worry not; it will age you. Everything will work out. You’ll see.”
    He went out swiftly.
    Jean stood motionless in her silent office, looking at the door.
    As usual, he had talked his way out without really saying anything.
    She returned to her desk. Her always crowded calendar was an unfailing escape, an old friend. She gave herself up to some thoughts about the business at hand.
    Frances Weatherly and her producer, Travers Proehl, were due shortly. The woman never gave up. She hadn’t enough backing, Jean thought, and I’m not sure her play would keep the doors of a midtown theater open for a third performance.
    But the Weatherly woman and her play had the approval of Vincent Lessard, husband of the girl who owned so many theaters all over the country. Jean’s business sense could not stand up against a connection like that.
    And there was this policeman to complicate the day, Corrigan. Probably a big Irisher accustomed to taking tough criminals apart with his hands, although he’d had a very nice telephone voice. He had given her a bad moment. The last time policemen had come into her life, her father had wound up in San Quentin. Thank heaven, this time, Jean thought, the subject was Bianca Fielding Lessard, not Carlton Ainsley.
    She flipped the intercom switch. “Miss Tolliver, I’m running late. I’ll lunch here. Have a chicken sandwich on toast and a glass of milk sent in. And if Frances Weatherly and her producer show up on time, stall them. I promised that policeman I’d see him at two.”
    â€œYes, Miss Ainsley.”
    â€œAre the land-lease contracts ready on the Kansas City property?”
    â€œOur attorneys just returned them.”
    â€œFine. Bring them in with my lunch, please.”
    Jean broke the connection. A huge old theater in Kansas City that had served a generation of moviegoers would be torn down. A chain department store would rise in its place, and the Fielding enterprises would collect rent on the land for the next ninety-nine years.
    She would have to get Vincent Lessard’s signature on the papers. Her nose crinkled at the thought of having any dealings with Lover Boy, as she called Lessard in the privacy of her thoughts.

4
    Corrigan was five minutes early for his appointment. Several people were waiting in the surprisingly plain outer office. A rather dowdy secretary was being firm with a man and woman at her desk.
    Corrigan knew that the Fielding corporation more and more in the recent past had juggled its resources against the decline in theaters the country over. Theatrical real estate was now only one of its interests.
    â€œI’m sorry for the delay, Miss Weatherly,” the receptionist was