You mentioned what Jane Delaware had said. Sabotage. Murder.
Rumors, rumors. May he rest in peace. I bring news, Luigi said. I got good news and bad news. Which you want first?
Give me the bad, it might unblock the anxiety freeze.
Luigi laughed, full of sympathy. Get it over with, right? Well, let me tell you. He began a long mysterious State of the Company speech, full of organization charts, which he took out of the portfolio and spread loosely across the desk. Boxes connected to each other by lines. In his beautiful New York Italianate speech carefully enunciated Luigi Pardon talked about inheritance and lines of succession, all invalid, he said. What was invalid was not clear to Stephen Trace nor why it was necessary to insist on it. Nor where the bad news was. Words about autocracy and tyranny. Overstepped prerogatives. Presumption and arrogance. Luigi Pardon pronounced his big words carefully, conscious of their dangers. He came to the top of the chart. Two boxes side by side with an equal sign between them. It’s a duumvirate now, Luigi Pardon said. Doo-um-vuhrate. Joint rule, equal responsibility, equal authority.
The names in the two boxes were:
Is this the bad news? Stephen Trace asked.
Luigi Pardon’s cocky blue eyes flashed for the sheer pleasure of it. You may wonder why I am going into such detail. The bad news, such as it is, ain’t personal. If it was up to Luigi, he’d leave you be. A company decision, and Luigi would like you to know personally he voted against it, but the will of the company comes first. He said it in such a cheerful way, with such a charming heavylipped smile, so full of all the old familiar places where the fundamental things of life go on and a kiss is just a kiss, he could not possibly mean harm.
Luigi Pardon scratched his shiny black hair, scrunched up his face, trying to figure out how to say it. Tell you straight, no beating around. The company wants to investigate Jack’s personal manipulations of the company’s assets.
Stephen Trace wondered what that had to do with you. (You knew what it had to do with you.)
Jack’s loans. Yes? That includes Jack’s loan to you.
Beg pardon? (Luigi Pardon liked a guy who could make a joke at a time like this.) No joke intended. What loan are you talking about?
Reading from a piece of paper: The company hopes to recover all assets wrongfully or carelessly disposed of. Will investigate Jack’s personal loans. Not that you have anything to fear.
Jack made no loans to me.
No? Well, if he didn’t the investigation will find out. The company seems to think he did. (They’re mistaken.) Are they really? The company had in mind thirty million bucks loaned to Stephen Trace by Jack Rome plus interest and profits from investments.
That was no loan, that was a grant.
Luigi Pardon looked politely troubled. Is that so? He stroked again his suntanned oiled face, how smooth. His trouble unreal as his troubled grin. He was a melancholy love song, walking alone full of sorrow until I can walk with you, baby. The company wants to be sure the money loaned to you was not taken unfairly from others. Stockholders. Reduced budgets to make way for you. Charitable contributions cut back, the homeless at Christmas.
That money was given to Stephen Trace. Outright. Unconditional.
All Luigi Pardon wanted was peace. All the company wanted—for starters anyway—was a full understanding of the conditions of the loan. To that end, lawyers would be calling on him, and Luigi sure hoped Stephen would cooperate, it would make everything so much easier.
What do the lawyers want?
They want to ask questions. (About what?) About you. Ha ha. He laughed, then took it back, a little. They want to investigate the conditions of your loan, the real reasons for it. They’ll want to know all about you, where you came from, what you did to deserve it. Unfortunately, there’s nasty rumors going around, you wouldn’t want them to be true.
What kind of rumors?
Ah you know, ugly things. Some drunk driving his car the wrong way on the Interstate smashing into a family with kids, killing them all. That kind of thing. Statutory rape, high school teacher with his own student, ain’t that disgusting? If something like that proved true, think how it would besmirch the good name of Jack Rome, you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you? Makes you wonder how such vicious stories ever get started.
Jack Rome knew everything there was to know about me.
Come on kid, relax. No one knows everything. Hopefully it will be routine and you won’t lose much. Hopefully you’ll cooperate and answer all questions, and it’ll be nice for everybody.
The thought of investigation squeezed your heart. What will they do with this investigation?
Well, Luigi said. Hopefully. They want to check if the loan was in the best interests of the company, that sort of thing.
What if it isn’t?
Let’s hope that’s not the case.
Nevertheless, what if it isn’t?
Proceedings will begin.
What kind of proceedings?
Proceedings to recover. With the inevitable attendant publicity. Unless you prefer to settle.
I’m not afraid of publicity.
Publicity’s incidental. Unavoidable, unfortunately. I don’t mean that as a threat. Settling would be better.
Settling for what?
The company will always be willing to settle. If you want to avoid the inconvenience of an investigation.
Challenge him, you thought, ask him to produce an I O U signed by Stephen Trace. On the other hand, he probably has an I O U signed by Stephen Trace.
Luigi Pardon hated to think it would come down to a fight. He wanted to be fair. It wasn’t as if Stephen Trace was born rich. It wasn’t as if he earned his wealth by hard work or shrewd investment. Naturally it was difficult to think of giving it up without warning, Luigi understood that. But like he said, it wasn’t as if Stephen Trace was used to it.
Gather useful words. Treachery. Extortion. Blackmail.
Think it over.
What am I supposed to think over?
The lawyers who’ll come to see you. If you want my advice, I’d urge you to settle. The company is not the cold machine you might think. It does have a heart. Even if they foreclose, they won’t leave you destitute. They’ll be glad to give a person a reasonable allowance, if it’s understood they’re under no obligation to do so.
How much of an allowance?
The company will decide that after you reach agreement.
How can I agree if I don’t know what I’m agreeing to?
Trust them.
Luigi Pardon’s smile was fixed. He sang blues in the night and I’ll never smile again and love is a many splendored thing and che sera sera. What will be will be, the future’s not ours to see.
What kind of business is that? You must be crazy.
You’ll want to think it over, that’s taken for grant. Only take my advice, be careful. Luigi’s eyes narrowed. Just between us. You don’t want to get on the bad side of a company like that. The power they have, you wouldn’t believe. You wouldn’t believe how petty and vicious. It’s criminal, pal. They’re a bunch of hoods, believe me. There’s no depth they could sink, killing people without remorse, I could name you names. I’m on your side, man. I wouldn’t cross them if I was you. I’d do whatever they ask me to, I sure would.
Stephen Trace felt warned. He knew what the old songs meant when Luigi Pardon sang them. He wouldn’t be stubborn. He just wanted time to reflect and consult his wife.
Your wife? Hey man, that’s the good news I came to tell you about.
You have news about my wife?
My wife.
The orchestra stopped, moment of silence. What?
My wife, Luigi said. Sharon.
Sharon who?
Sharon Pardon. Formerly Trace. We got married at last.
Amazing, the good news in Luigi’s face which he expected you to enjoy with him.
Who got married?
Me and Sharon. Your ex.
What? Sharon’
s my wife.
Naw man, that was a mistake.
Since when? Since forever.
You got to your feet, stand up to power face to face, though unfortunately along with his other virtues he was taller and heftier than you. Stop that.
I knew you never understood, Luigi said. It’s too bad you didn’t. Sharon Trace is my woman and always was, including when she was married to David Trace.
THIRTY FOUR
Two police cars were parked by your island bridge. The policemen arrested you when you went up to the porch. They read your rights and charged you with kidnapping Miranda Landis.
That’s ridiculous, you said. Ask her.
She’s gone back to her father, they said. The two in front were city policemen. The policemen behind them wore green uniforms with gold insignia: GP/JC. They had mild baggy middle aged faces.
You kidnapped her, you said. You pointed to the God’s Police. She didn’t want to go back to her father.
We don’t know nothing about that, they said.
You went to jail in the Whitfield Municipal Building. They fingerprinted you, making it technically possible to link Stephen Trace to Peter Gregory, drunken highway killer, child seducer, suspect in the Jock Hadley case, false suicide. You made your legal telephone call to Mrs. Heckel, asking her to call Peck and Delaware. The heavy cage bars and lock of your clean tiled cell established your species kinship to lions and wolves. They also forced together the mutually repellent identities of Gregory and Trace.
It was David Trace who delivered you, big with his beard and concealed tiny ice blue eyes in the police office when you came out. This is stupid, he said. Your lawyers will fix it.
He drove you to your house. Mrs. Heckel gave a vivid description of the men in the green uniforms with brass crosses who took the girl away (Mr. Trace, you should have told me she was Miranda Landis). Who went quietly, not fighting or weeping, though disappointed, as if she knew her dreams were foolish and her destiny unique.
In which case, David Trace said, you won’t get much support from her. He sat on your porch, giving advice in his once booming voice, quieted now for conspiracy purposes. Said he heard from Peck and came out to see were they pulling tricks on you already. Not so, this is only Landis. Landis you can deal with. He’ll make a stink, but Fitch can handle it. What I came about is the others, the Rome folks, if you start hearing from them.
Maybe you’d heard from them already.
Luigi Pardon, eh? They’ll try to intimidate you. Ignore them. They’ll talk about claims, rights, dig up your past. Don’t listen to them. You can’t be blackmailed unless you want to be. They’ll try to make you think they have criminal enforcers, ambushers around street corners, snipers watching your lighted windows. Disregard. Walk down the middle of the street, they can’t do anything unless you react.
Repeat: They have no legal claim. See Fitch. There’s nothing they can do you don’t let them do.
You asked how to get Sharon back.
Sharon unfortunately is different. With Sharon it’s not you versus Luigi, it’s you versus Sharon. If she prefers Luigi, too bad.
She gave you no warning. Not a hint.
Like your marriage, right? No woo, no hard choice, no push and pull. Sharon was your geisha girl. Off she goes.
You were married to her once yourself.
So I was. One tends to forget one’s marriages to Sharon.
Even if it was ephemeral it wasn’t very considerate of her to disappear like that, leaving it up to Luigi to tell me.
He’s trying to spook you. You’re not totally unfamiliar with that principle yourself.
What will happen to Jane Delaware?
They’ll try to scare her out too. But she’ll fight back. I might marry her, myself. Why not? Political, consolidate power. Keep watching, it could be interesting the next few months.
I thought you were a socialist.
That’s in the past, pal.
You went bravely to Jack Rome’s funeral to stand up for yourself, as David Trace said. Stephen Trace put on his dark suit, rich for mourning, shined shoes like steel, weighing Anonymous swimming the sidestroke against Nobodyatall feeling a bullet between his shoulder blades. Looking for the place, a small church in Westchester, hard to find, afraid he would be late. All the parked Rolls Royces and limousines blocking up the residential streets in front of the tudor houses with their leaded windows: he walked under the wintry bare shade trees expecting ambush from behind a child’s tricycle in a garage door. David Trace’s advice had missed its effect, something else had slipped through the current of his words. At the church, people in funeral clothes, handkerchiefs in breast pockets, no one noticed Stephen Trace. Through the open doors between groups of people who looked at him as they made way, he felt his muscles contract against bullets from behind. Inside, the church opened up, the high stone arches, the modern stained windows depicting saints and children in colored sunlight. A fine new painting of Christ at ease upon his cross. Carved wood pulpit and candles and glinting brass and red velvet and gold. The church was full of prosperity, a clean modern incarnation of tradition. Trusting not even Jack Rome revolutionaries would shatter a bullet in this sanctuary air, he sat not too far forward and let himself rest too. The enclosed air heard the people coming in, converting their feet on the pavement, their whispers, into an uncategorized hiss. Then organ music, dreaming listlessly through hollow tubes. You heard your journey echoing and fading in the tubes all the way back to the river.
After a while a racket in the back. Coffin covered in an American flag trundling on wheels down the aisle, followed by privileged mourners. There’s Jack, processed and packed: you tried to x-ray into the box—still not convinced this was not a trick, Jack alive hidden away somewhere getting ready for a different name, a new life. There was Luigi Pardon in a black suit with a veiled woman in black clutching his arm. Behind Luigi another woman also in black next to a big man with a beard. That was David Trace, dressed up like a president with a heavy executive front. The woman with Luigi was Sharon. Stare, project, make thought heard: Sharon! Look over here. They were watching the coffin, making sure what was inside did not get out.
Stephen Trace lived through the funeral. Speeches and music, rising and sitting. That great heavy flag-covered thing and the black hats of Jane Delaware and Sharon Trace in the front row. The stained glass windows which brightened and faded as the clouds moved. It was a chamber of silence, in which silence ate everything up. It ate up the speeches and music. It ate up the great rush of catastrophe. It ate up the crash of Jack Rome’s plane in the sea. It ate up Luigi Pardon’s threats, the jail cell, God’s Police, the disappeared wife. It ate up the skyscraper office and the check for thirty million and the great stone house on the edge of the Sound. It ate up, in fact, Stephen Trace’s whole life and that of his forebears and ancestors from the time they first scrambled out of the sea.
They trundled the squeaky coffin out again, and the people followed crowding down the aisles, Stephen Trace among them. Keeping inconspicuous. He wanted to see Sharon or Jane Delaware. The person closest to him in this life, the one he could trust most—either one would do. In the chilly outside sunshine, waiting at the sidewalk for the row of pennanted limousines to take them to the cemetery, they stood together in their black dresses and veils while their escorts at the curb signaled the drivers. Stephen Trace went forward, he went direct to Sharon: Sharon, my Sharon.
You got a little smile out of her, a glance up at Luigi, who was peering around over heads, then suddenly a big overt shrug, hands out palms up, and a half-amused grimace with plain meaning, What else could I do? That was her goodbye, after which she turned under Luigi’s arm and got into the car. The next moment Jane Delaware, who had seen that. Her smile was sardonic, with her own kind of shrug (That’s life), followed by a little fist no higher than her chin, which meant something or other, before she too was gone.
Someone at your side, looming close whispering, David Trace: Notice how light
the coffin looked when they lifted it into the hearse?
What?
His eyes twinkled merrily like Santa Claus through his beard.
What do you mean?
What do you think? He was gone. You tried to follow but he vanished in the crowd.
Left alone among strangers, you noticed by the church door a tall man with a bald head, back turned, who you were quite sure had been looking at you. You stared, but he refused to turn again, disguising himself by shaking hands with people he couldn’t know. You drove off quaking, caught between wondering what had brought Sam Indigo back and what had happened to Jack Rome’s body, if David Trace were right. You heard definite words in your head: This is the end. I don’t mean you actually thought it was the end. I just mean you heard words saying it was.
Two views of the same events. In one, everything is logical, decisions are made after thinking things through. In the other, it is a flight of panic.
Logical panic. In the car after the funeral, logical and calm, you thought seriously about moving away. Not to fight Luigi Pardon as David Trace suggested; you’ll resist if he attacks, but if they don’t want you here, you had no reason to stay. The plan was to see Mr. Fitch, line him up, and then perhaps an automobile trip to scout homes, San Francisco, Seattle, New Orleans. You could do it, you had done it before, you were expert in starting over.
Then there was the diversion of your course from the funeral back to the house: you came within sight of the house across the little bridge and quite suddenly decided to go to the apartment instead, which was perfectly logical since the house was still full of painty rags—except for the non-logical images of police cars and kidnapped women and bald detectives. So you headed for the city, thinking sanely this will be more convenient for seeing Mr. Fitch tomorrow, and maybe you don’t want to keep the house anyway if you intend to start a new life.
After Gregory Page 22
