“I didn’t! You’re crazy! Why would I?”
“To clean things up. Get free. Get rid of someone you finally realized had been manipulating you instead of helping you. What made you break? Finding the two of them? Up in her room, doing what they’d probably been doing for years? Or maybe she’d told you about it when you hypnotized her. Incest. The worst kind. Daddy fucking her. He was your daddy too. And, by doing it, fucking you over.”
“No! No, no, no, no! You slime-bastard, you lying fucking bastard! No! Shut up! Get out, you fuck, you piece of shit!”
The filth poured out of her, the way I’d heard it pour out of her sister. The look on her face, that of the girl in the flame dress, loathing me. Murderous.
I said, “Two birds with one stone, Sharon. Turn Sherry on Kruse, then wait for her to come for you. You’d been planning it for months—at least half a year. That’s when you told Elmo to get another job. You knew Resthaven was closing down, because Resthaven was something Uncle Billy had set up for Shirlee and you were taking Shirlee out of there. To your new home. You and me and Shirlee makes three. A new partnership.”
“No, no! That’s fucking crazy—you’re out of your mind! She had D.J.—dangerous, violent, you said so yourself. Two against one! I’d have been crazy to put myself in that kind of danger!”
She fought one hand loose, finally got a nail in and ripped downward. I felt pain, wetness, shoved her away from me, hard. She flew backward, the backs of her legs hit the bed, and she sprawled. Panting. Sobbing. Mouthing silent obscenities.
I said, “D.J. was no threat to you. Because all along, he thought it was you he’d been making-it with, you who’d paid him to kill Kruse. Sherry couldn’t risk blowing that, telling him he’d been deceived and having him turn on her. She had to take care of you by herself. Thought she’d be able to surprise you. But you had the advantage. She stepped right into your trap and you were ready. With your gold-plated twenty-two.”
She kicked her feet in the air, waved her arms. Tantrum. Early trauma. Bad genes …
“Fucking … bastard … fuckdick slimebastard …”
“First you shot her,” I said. “Then you poured dope and booze down her throat. A good forensic analysis would be able to show she’d swallowed all of it after she died, but there’ll never be a forensic analysis, because Uncle Billy took care of it. Along with everything else.”
“Lies, all lies, you fuck!”
“I don’t think so, Sharon. And now you’ve got everything. Enjoy it.”
I backed away from her.
“You can’t prove a fucking thing,” she said.
“I know,” I said. And made it to the door.
A gurgling, roaring sound—the only thing I could think of was a cesspool overflowing—came from deep inside her. She picked up the water glass she’d gotten for me, drew her arm back, and threw it at me.
If it had hit, it would have done damage. I ducked. It bounced off the plastic wall, landed on the carpet with an ineffectual thud.
“Your right hand,” I said. “At least I’m finally sure which side of the mirror I’ve been looking at.”
She whipped her eyes down to her hand, stared at it as if it had betrayed her.
I left. Had to walk for a long time in the darkness before I stopped hearing her screams.
Chapter
36
I heard the buggy before I saw it, a night-moth hum, coming from somewhere to my left. Then headlights swept the desert like some prison searchlight, washing over me, halting its arc, preserving me like a specimen in amber.
Within moments it was at my side.
“Step in, Doctor.” Vidal’s rasp. Only he, in the driver’s seat.
As I took my seat he ran his penlight over the blood on my hand. The desert air had dried it to maroon grit.
“Superficial,” I said.
“We’ll take care of that when we get back.”
Unconcerned.
“You heard everything,” I said.
“Constant monitoring is necessary,” he said. “She needs care, watching. You saw that for yourself.”
“You’re a big fan of show-and-tell,” I said. “Taking Sharon to see Joan, hoping that would dissuade her. Putting Sharon on display for me, in hopes of shutting my mouth.”
He began driving.
“What makes you think,” I said, “that you’ll be any more successful?”
“One can only try,” he said.
We crossed the desert. More stars had come out, flooding the earth with icy light. Glazing it.
I said, “When did Belding die?”
“Years ago.”
“How many years ago?”
“Before the girls were reunited. Is the exact date important?”
“It was to Seaman Cross.”
“This isn’t about Cross, is it?”
“What was the diagnosis?” I asked.
“Alzheimer’s disease. Before the doctors gave us that, we just called it senility. A gradual, nasty fade.”
“Must have been a strain on the corporation.”
“Yes,” he said, “but on the other hand, we had time to prepare. There were early signs—forgetfulness, wandering attention—but he’d always been an eccentric. His quirks concealed it for a while. Contacting Cross was the first thing that made me take notice—it was totally out of character. Leland had always been obsessed with his privacy, detested journalists of any sort. A change in habits indicated something seriously wrong.”
“Like the playboy phase that preceded his breakdown.”
“More serious. This was permanent. Organic. I realize now he must have felt his mind slipping away and wanted to be immortalized.”
I said, “The things that Cross described—the long hair and nails, the altar, defecating openly. They were true, then. Symptoms.”
“The book was a fraud,” he said. “Fictional trash.”
We drove on.
I said, “Convenient of Belding to die when he did. It spared him—and you—confronting Sharon and Sherry.”
“Ever so rarely Nature acts in benevolent ways.”
“If She hadn’t, I’m sure you would have figured something out. Now he can remain a benevolent figure for her. She’ll never know he wanted to kill her.”
“Do you think that knowledge would be good for her—therapeutic?”
I didn’t answer.
“My role in life,” he said, “is to solve problems, not create them. In that sense, I’m a healer. Just like yourself.”
The analogy offended me less than I’d have imagined. I said, “Taking care of others really has been your thing, hasn’t it? Belding—everything from his sex life to his public image, and when that got hard to handle, when he started going for the night life, you were there to assume executive responsibility. Your sister, Sherry, Sharon, Willow Glen, the corporation—doesn’t it weigh on you once in a while?”
I thought I saw him smile in the darkness, was certain he touched his throat and grimaced, as if it were too hard to talk.
Several miles later he said, “Have you reached a decision, Doctor?”
“About what?”
“About probing further.”
“My questions have been answered, if that’s what you mean.”
“What I mean is, will you continue to stir things up and ruin what’s left of a very ill young woman’s life?”
“Not much of a life,” I said.
“Better than any alternative. She’ll be well taken care of,” he said. “Protected. And the world will be protected from her.”
“What about after you’re gone?”
“There are men,” he said. “Competent men. A line of command. Everything’s been worked out.”
“Line of command,” I said. “Belding was a cowboy, never had one. But once he was dead, it was a different story. With no one to churn out patents, you had to hire creativity, reorganize the corporate structure. That made Magna more vulnerable to outside attack—you had to solid
ify your power base. Having all three of Belding’s daughters under your thumb was one big step in that direction. How’d you get Sherry to back off from her legal threats?”
“Quite simple,” he said. “I took her on a tour of corporate headquarters—our research and development center, the highest of high-technology enterprises. Told her I’d be happy to step down and have her run everything—she could be the new chairperson of Magna, bear the responsibility for fifty-two thousand employees, thousands of projects. The very thought terrified her—she wasn’t an intellectual girl, couldn’t balance a checkbook. She ran out of the building. I caught up with her and suggested an alternative.”
“Money.”
“More than she’d be able to spend in several lifetimes.”
“Now she’s gone,” I said. “No more need to make payments.”
“Doctor, you have an extremely naïve view of life. Money is the means, not the end. And the corporation would have survived—will survive, with or without me, or anyone else. When things attain a certain size, they become permanent. One can dredge a lake, not an ocean.”
“What is the end?”
“Rhythm. Balance. Keeping everything going—a certain ecology, if you will.”
A few minutes later: “You still haven’t answered my question, Doctor.”
“I won’t stir anything up. What would be the point?”
“Good. What about your detective friend?”
“He’s a realist.”
“Good for him.”
“Are you going to kill me anyway? Have Royal Hummel do his thing?”
He laughed. “Of course not. How amusing that you still see me as Attila the Hun. No, Doctor, you’re in no danger. What would be the point?”
“For one, I know your family secrets.”
“Seaman Cross redux? Another book?”
More laughter. It turned into coughing. Several miles later the ranch came into view, perfect and unreal as a movie set.
He said, “Speaking of Royal Hummel, there’s something I want you to know. He’ll no longer be functioning in a security capacity. Your comments on Linda’s death gave me quite a bit of pause—amazing what a fresh perspective will do. Royal and Victor were professionals. Accidents needn’t happen with professionals. At best, they were sloppy. At worst … You brought me insight late in life, Doctor. For that I owe you a large debt.”
“I was theorizing, Vidal. I don’t want anyone’s blood on my conscience, not even Hummel’s.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, will you please stop being melodramatic, young man! No one’s blood is at stake. Royal simply has a new job. Cleaning our chicken coops. Several tons of guano need to be shoveled each day. He’s getting on in years, his blood pressure’s too high, but he’ll manage.”
“What if he refuses?”
“Oh, he won’t.”
He aimed the vehicle at the empty corral.
“You gave the silent-partner photo to Kruse,” I said. “The girls were photographed over there.”
“Fascinating the things one dredges up in old attics.”
“Why?” I said. “Why’d you let Kruse go on for so long?”
“At one point, until recently, I believed he was helping Sharon—helping both of them. He was a charismatic man, very articulate.”
“But he was bleeding your sister before he met Sharon. Twenty years of blackmail—of mind games.”
He put the buggy in idle and looked at me. All the charm had dropped away, and I saw the same cold rawness in his eyes that I’d just witnessed in Sharon’s. Genes … The collective unconscious …
“Be that as it may, Doctor. Be that as it may.”
He drove quickly, stopped the buggy and parked.
We got out and walked toward the patio. Two men in dark clothing and ski masks stood waiting. One held a dark piece of elastic.
“Please don’t be frightened,” said Vidal. “That will come off as soon as it’s safe for both of us. You’ll be delivered safe and sound. Try to enjoy the ride.”
“Why don’t I feel reassured?”
More laughter, dry and forced. “Doctor, it’s been stimulating. Who knows, we may meet again one day—another party.”
“I don’t think so. I hate parties.”
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I’ve tired of them myself.” He turned serious. “But given even a slim chance that we do come face to face, I’d appreciate it if you don’t acknowledge me. Invoke professional confidentiality and pretend we’ve never met.”
“No problem there.”
“Thank you, Doctor. You’ve comported yourself as a gentleman. Is there anything else?”
“Lourdes Escobar, the maid. A true innocent victim.”
“Compensation’s been made in that regard.”
“Dammit, Vidal, money can’t fix everything!”
“It can’t fix anything,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, during the time she lived in the States, half of her family was wiped out by the guerrillas. Same death, no compensation. Those who survived were tortured, their homes burned to the ground. They’ve been granted immigration papers, brought over here, set up with businesses, given land. Compared to life itself, admittedly feeble, but the best I can offer. Any additional suggestions?”
“Justice would be nice.”
“Any suggestions about improving the justice that’s been meted out?”
I had nothing to say.
“Well, then,” he said, “is there anything I can do for you?”
“As a matter of fact, there is a small favor. An arrangement.”
When I told him what it was, and exactly how I wanted it done, he laughed so hard it plunged him into a coughing attack that bent him double. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth, spat, laughed some more. When he pulled the handkerchief away, the silk was stained with something dark.
He tried to talk. Nothing came out. The men in black looked at each other.
He finally found his voice again. “Excellent, Doctor,” he said. “Great minds moving in the same direction. Now, let’s attend to that hand.”
Chapter
37
I was dropped off on the University campus. Pulling the blindfold off, I made my way home on foot. Once inside my house I found I couldn’t tolerate being there, threw some things into a bag, and called the exchange to say I’d be going away for a couple of days, to hold my calls.
“Any forwarding number, Doctor?”
No active patients or pending emergencies. I said, “No, I’ll check in.”
“A real vacation, huh?”
“Something like that. Goodnight.”
“Don’t you want to pick up the messages that are already on your board?”
“Not really.”
“Oka-ay, but there’s this one guy who’s been driving me crazy. Called three times and got rude when I wouldn’t give him your home number.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sanford Moretti. Sounds like a lawyer—says he wants you to work on a case for him or something like that. Kept trying to tell me you’d really want to hear from him.”
My reply made her laugh. “Doctor Delaware! I didn’t know you used that kind of language.”
I got in the car and drove away, found myself heading west, and ended up on Ocean Avenue, off Pico. Not far from the Santa Monica Pier, which had closed up for the night and darkened to a knurled clump of rooftops over a thatch of bowed pilings. Not far from the (vulgar) Pacific, but no OC VU on this block. The sea breeze had taken leave; the ocean smelled like garbage. The street hosted beer-and-shot bars with Polynesian names and “day-week-month” motels given a wide berth by the auto club.
I checked into a place called Blue Dreams—twelve brown, salt-smudged doors arranged around a parking lot badly in need of resurfacing, the neon tubes in the VACANCY sign cracked and drained of gas. A pasty-faced biker-hopeful with a dangling crucifix earring manned the front desk—doing me the favor of taking my money while making lo
ve to a slab of fried catfish and staring at a California Raisins commercial. Candy and condom machines stood side by side in the shoulder-cramping lobby, along with a pocket-comb dispenser, and the California Penal Code’s reflections on theft and defrauding an innkeeper.
I took a room on the south side, paying for a week in advance. Nine by nine, insecticide stink—no gnats here—a single narrow, filmed window exposing a slice of brick wall turned mauve by reflected streetlight, mismatched wood-grain furniture, skinny bed under a spread laundered to dishwater-colored fuzz, pay TV bolted to the floor. A quarter in the pay slot yielded an hour of fizzy sound and jaundiced skin tones. There were three quarters in my pocket. I tossed two out the window.
I lay on the bed, let the TV run down, and listened to noise. Bass thumps from the jukebox of the bar next door, so loud it seemed as if someone was being hurled against the wall in two-four time; angry laughter and truncated street-talk in English, Spanish, and a thousand undecipherable tongues, canned laughter from the TV in the adjacent room, toilet flushes, faucet hisses, movement cracks, door slams, car horns, a scatter of sharp reports that could have been gunshots or backfires or the sound of two hands applauding. And backing it all, the Doppler drone of the freeway.
An Overland symphony. Within moments I was robbed of twelve years.
The room was a sweatbox. I stayed inside for three days, subsisting on pizza and cola from a place that promised to deliver hot and cold and lied about both. For the most part I did what I’d been avoiding for so long. Had pushed away by chasing the inadequacies of others, throwing down cloaks over mudholes. Introspection. Such a prissy word for scooper-dips deep into the wellspring of the soul. The scooper honed sharp and jagged.
For three days I went through all of it: rage, tears, tension so visceral my teeth chattered and my muscles threatened to go into tetany. A loneliness that I would have gladly anesthetized with pain.
By the fourth day I felt sapped and placid, was proud I didn’t mistake that for cure. That afternoon, I left the motel to keep my appointment: a sprint down the block to the sidewalk paper rack. The remaining quarter down the hatch and the evening edition was mine, gripped tightly under my arm, like pornography.
Four Classic Alex Delaware Thrillers 4-Book Bundle Page 47
