Stealing Flowers

by Edward St Amant

  I explained everything from the first contact Sally and I had with The Family of Truth to that evening, and when I’d finished, I saw I had convinced him. For the first time since I’d been charged, I felt I had a fighting chance.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day, Stan, Mary, and I, traveled together to the La Guardia Airport to pick up Peter Burgess. Dad had been wiping his moustache and patting down his grey hair continually while we waited. I could tell he was anxious. The bustle at the airport was unbelievable, yet conversely there was no press. Una had told me, I wasn’t aware of it myself, that we had been inundated with news coverage. We missed Sally and wanted to get the people responsible for her death, but I hadn’t read the papers in weeks. I saw a young pretty woman selling flowers and studied her for a moment.

  “She’s not skinny enough to be in a cult,” Mary leaned over and whispered into my ear. “I can pick them out now.”

  That was the first time Mary had said anything to me of significance in weeks and a wave of relief washed over me. I knew through Una, Mary had lost much weight and was unable to sleep, and of course, I could see for myself, she was as though struck with a fatal disease and was suffering more than anyone at the loss of Sally. We all cried our tears, but I think Mary cried more than all of us put together. “There’s Peter,” she said and waved.

  Peter came over and we shook hands. “Our limousine is this way,” Dad said and pointed north. “Why were you in South Africa? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “A personal matter. It’s fine, and it was only two days. The authorities are really quite helpful. They’re always trying to impress Black Americans, at least the ones who manage to actually get through the red tape and get there.”

  “I’m sure they could care less,” Mary said. “We thought we’d take you out to lunch at Prima Fresco.”

  “I’m not alone. My help has been following each of you for twenty-four hours. I’ll let them know where we’re going. I’m staying at the Hyatt.”

  “You’ve decided to help us then?” Dad asked.

  “Never any question of that, Stan, only when.”

  “Why don’t you have your people join us?” I suggested.

  “My children eat like cannibals, especially Josh.”

  Josh was his twenty-two year old son, who I liked.

  “Isaac, did you hear that?” Stan said. The glass barrier in the limo was down. Isaac waved from the driver’s seat.

  “Perhaps I should take them to McDonald’s after I drop you off?” he suggested.

  We laughed, except Mary.

  “I half-expected Una to be driving,” Peter said.

  “She has to run both the company and the household,” Stan said, “driving us around would be just too much for her.” We laughed a second time, again, again except for Mary.

  “Although” I added quickly, “she would try it and not take any money for doing it.”

  “You folks are in good humor,” Peter said, looking straight at Mary as though she belied his statement.

  It was true. Since the funeral they’d been morose, but today they seemed much better.

  “We’re happy to know that you’re going to help us out,” I offered.

  On the way to Prima Fresco, Peter made a few calls. I felt uplifted every time he snuck a glance at me. “Someone is extremely interested in what you’re all doing,” he said. “You’re all being followed, and have been for the whole time my people have been tailing you.”

  “The press are such scavengers,” Stan said.

  “They don’t think it’s the press, but we’ll find out for sure.”

  Mary looked him over carefully. “Who else could it be?”

  Peter was delayed answering her. The limousine pulled up in front of a restored three storey mansion surrounded by multiple aged-maples and with a sizeable parking lot to its side. Stan reached for his briefcase and straightened his suit-jacket. “I’ll park at the back,” Isaac said, “and join you in a minute.”

  We sat in the middle of the third floor of the eatery, near an old-fashioned roaring-fireplace with a large stone hearth. We were the only customers, but this was by design. “You’ve taken precautions, Stan?” Peter asked, looking around.

  Dad nodded. “Like I said, the press are all over us. Their lack of civility is unmatched by anything I can compare to it. If someone is given a press pass and a video camera, they think they can come up and camp on your porch. It’s gone too far.”

  “You must be going through hell,” Peter said. “I know you’re private people.”

  “What bothers us most,” Stan added, “is that our son is being tried in the press. One New York radio shock-jock has developed this bizarre theory that Christian killed Sally so that he could take over the Company. They’re so incompetent that it almost seems that it is being done on purpose. They’ve no shame.”

  “In some quarters, it’s malicious,” I added, “and they don’t even have all the bad details yet, wait until they find out Sally and I had an incestuous affair when I was first adopted and that the night of the murder, we slept together. I fear to think about it.”

  Isaac drew up and sat down beside me. “Tell us how you have been, Peter?” Isaac said after we had ordered

  “My family has one extra since I saw you last.” He took out a picture of his wife and their new daughter.

  “She’s beautiful,” Isaac said. “What’s her name?”

  “Cassandra.”

  Mary looked at the photo sadly and rose her glass. “I hope she lives long and sees a good life.”

  We all raised our glasses. “Give me what you have so far,” Peter said afterward.

  Stan passed him a folder from his briefcase and Peter studied it in silence a few moments. “What we have is considerable,” Stan said, “but not good. There’s enough evidence against Christian that he’d have to have been an imbecile to commit this crime in this fashion.”

  “I’ve read through the preliminary information which you sent me,” Peter said, looking up. “Already, I can say with some certainty that someone is framing you. You think it’s The Family of Truth?”

  “You don’t?” I asked startled, having some kind of idea how his mind worked.

  “Nearly a month ago the president of Nexus unexpectedly resigned,” he said softly.

  This slant, surprised us all. “Cheryl Garland,” Mom said, “she was with us almost since the beginning.”

  “Without warning, she has left the country,” he said, “disappeared, and the president of Constant Batteries, Graham Roberts, an original member of the group of six, a so-called Stanroid, has also disappeared. Hiroyuki Nakamura launched company-wide audits with Bill Stanton, using your son and his own hand-selected people? What was wrong with Jack Denison’s previous results? Christian, maybe you could shed some light on this?”

  I figured whatever confidence I’d shared with Hiro, he wouldn’t hold me to it now. Besides, Una, Mary, and Stan, knew something lousy was up. “We found millions missing,” I confessed. “Misappropriated funds from the Constant Batteries and Nexus Divisions were most evident. Their disappearances are no mere coincidence. We were honing in on Susan and Graham, but there are others involved. It’s company-wide and they stole billions.”

  “How long have you known this?” Stan asked while Mary silently studied me with a gaze which could only be construed as disapproval mixed with hurt.

  “Not as long as Hiroyuki. It was Bill Stanton who discovered it working under Jack. He went to Hiro out of fear of reprisal, but now the ongoing investigation has been expanded, but we’ve had a hell of a time pinning the guilty parties.”

  “Do you feel that someone inside our organization has framed Christian?” Mary asked. I could tell she was in total shock.

  “Graham Roberts went missing late at night,” Stan said, not waiting for his answer, “and a police investigation has now begun. The details are in the folder. His car disappeared with him. He must be on the run, but the police fear foul-play
too. Do you feel he may have killed Sally and framed Christian?”

  “I don’t think he killed Sally,” Peter answered. “An expert did it. Nothing else could count for all the evidence against Christian, except professional assassins, but Graham Roberts may have paid for it. If you and Mary retire, if let’s say Christian is convicted, who’d control Tappet Industries?”

  “Hiroyuki Nakamura,” Stan answered.

  “Could Mr. Nakamura raise the funds to buy it from you?” Both Mom and Dad shook their heads. “What’s Mr. Nakamura’s salary?” Peter asked further.

  “I would have to check,” Mary said, “but I think it grew over the two million mark in 1987. We gave him several significant raises to keep him mollified. After all, Sally and Christian are being groomed by him, and for that matter, Lloyd Mills. Lloyd is ambitious, and has a great deal of power inside Tappets too, but Hiro, after all, is truly capable of running it, not Lloyd. Hiro has made it known to us that he would like to be the executive president before Sally and Christian took over.”

  Peter scratched his head. “How is it that you and this brilliant Nakamura guy, don’t know about the missing millions all these years, but Christian steps in from university and presto?”

  “Bill Stanton discovered it by chance,” I said. “We haven’t even found enough of a paper trail to fire anyone. It’s meticulously well hidden.”

  “It isn’t always possible to give free reign to your managers,” Mary replied, “and then on the other hand, make them account for every penny they spend. Under the system which Una and I devised, the books can be doctored. We’ve known that all along. We run almost completely on the honor system. That’s why we have performed so well in nearly all market changes, even this depression. We’re flexible, creative, innovative and we aren’t tight-fisted.”

  “At first, Mary thought that the audits were a bit insulting,” Stan added, “but I guess Hiro took the right track.”

  Peter refused another glass of wine from the waiter and looked at a small notepad. “Is the court date set?”

  Isaac checked his daily planner pilot. “May 16.”

  “Burlington is good,” Peter said, “when can I meet with him? The sooner the better.”

  “We’ll try tomorrow,” Mary said, “if that’s okay?”

  “What does Burlington think of your theory on the murder motive?”

  “He thinks the Family of Truth is more than capable, but we need facts in a most desperate way.”

  “That’s why I’m here. We’ll investigate on two fronts, The Family of Truth, and Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts. Maybe they’ll even overlap.”

  Stan sighed. “They better not.”

  I agreed. If they did, I’d give up my faith in man. Already it looked like there were way more Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts-types, than there were Una, Mom, and Dad-types, and far too many people like me, the neutral, the average, and the vast majority.

  About a week later, on Sunday, February 7, while I was sequestered in the mansion, I had now started reading the newspapers, and what they were saying about me was extremely disturbing, Peter returned from Montevideo, Uruguay, South America. He been hunting down Cheryl Garland. Una, Stan, Mary, and myself were there when he visited.

  “I’ve found her,” he said when we were all together and took a drink from Una in the parlor looking defeated. “I’m afraid to tell you that she’s dead. As you know, I received an anonymous tip that Cheryl often professed that Uruguay was a great place to retire. When I arrived there, I thought I’d hit a lucky break. My taxi-driver had seen her. Can you imagine? But, you know how she has that look of victimhood, so everybody remembered her. One guy fleeced me for eighty dollars to find out that she lived in Colonia. I rented a car and that night started to go from diner to bar. Four establishments later, at ten o’clock, I hit some luck. A little plump native man studied the picture with great interest. I thought I was going to get fleeced again, but he told me to go to the police. I inquired at the police station and an officer told me that a North American female, going by the name of Cheryl Locke, had been the victim of a violent house robbery. She’d been discovered dead with a body full of bullets by her housekeeper. They gave me her address and I double-checked with neighbors, who identified her. It was Cheryl Garland.

  “I’ve become convinced that Christian has been set up, but two clear choices still exist. They both seemed to involve conspiracies. Someone killed Sally to halt the audit at Tappets or to stop the litigation against The Family of Truth. I must tell you that I hate conspiracy theories, but if either one is true, they have certainly been effective: The litigation has been stopped, and although the audit continues, it is less likely to be finished than before. Moreover, there seems no proof of any perpetrator but Christian. This tells us two things: They likely killed Graham and the murderer or murderers of Sally are quickly tying up whatever remaining loose ends exist.” He took a long swallow of his drink. “Josh, my son, is hunting down Graham Roberts. He has talked to a call-girl and he thinks that she’s the last one to see him before he disappeared.”

  “Mr. Burlington has lost our delay tactic,” I said, suddenly depressed. “The trial’s date is still set for May. It’s like the world has rose up against us.”

  “Don’t get down, son,” Stan said. “There are better days ahead. Peter will find who’s behind this.”

  But I didn’t have Stan’s faith in life. I was very aware of The First Law of Life for orphans and those born unlucky. Twice that week, I cried myself to sleep and I became depressed and tried my best to hide it. Only Una was aware of how sad I was, but told me I was still better than Mary, who said that she was so depressed that it frightened her. Part of my weakness was caused because of my involvement with Sally. If you build your strength on something that you have to hide, it zaps your strong points, (and I didn’t have that many to begin with). Most men with a foundation who can stand up to the world have either a strong woman behind them or had a dad like Stan. My wounds had come before I’d been placed into Stan’s hands, and then, since that time, I’d managed to wound myself several times more.

  At the turn of March, I sat alone in bed reading, Sun and Steel, by Yukio Mishima, a book Hiroyuki had given me. I had heard that Mishima had once said, ‘A line of poetry signed with a splash of blood; that’s my life.’ The very thought gave me an irrational window into the world of revenge, but modern life was tricky enough without venturing too far away from Stan’s relentless calm. On the walls, hung pictures of my family including Una, and two enormous prints: One of an aerial shot of Musée du Louvre on the Seine River in Paris, France, and the other of a famous seventeenth century painting by Claude Lorrains, Harbor at Sunset.

  They’d replaced the Beatle’s posters. The mansion’s wealthy surroundings contrasted with my former life as an orphan. They meshed and blended in my nightmares while I slept, rectangular sections of naked female bodies were inserted with Lloyd’s thin taut preteen body, like in Cubism. When I awoke in the mornings to find my name in the headlines of the New York City papers, the nightmare became real. I couldn’t recall who I was suppose to be and why I kept living, morose thoughts had often plagued me in recent weeks, but they were becoming more frequent.

  Una came into the room that afternoon with some surprising news. “Miss Susan Zucker is here to see you,” she said.

  “Delay her, Una,” I said in a rush and jumped out of bed, “so I can clean up and shave.”

  “She’s a pretty thing, but don’t hurry; I’ll fix her something.”

  Ten minutes later, I came down and found Una and Susan talking over a hot dish in the kitchen. I could see that Susan had impressed Una once again and looked like she was enjoying herself. I felt relieved. For some reason upon seeing me, she blushed. Her long blond hair fell well below her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes shone and she was as glamorous as ever. “What has she made you?” I asked.

  “Ham-pancake-chili something.”

  “It’s a soufflé,” Un
a said.

  We all tasted it and agreed it was delicious. “Would you like to go out?” I said to Susan when I’d a chance. “I’m going nuts cooped up here.”

  “Could we talk in private?” she said. “I can’t stay that long.”

  I realized my disappointment had jumped to my eyes, but I couldn’t help myself. Why had she come if she wasn’t interested in me? “Will you have something to drink?”

  “Tea would be great.” I hadn’t meant that kind of drink, either, and she knew it. We left the kitchen and walked the corridors of the mansion, sitting on a love-seat before an unlit fireplace in the study. Nervous, her movements seemed rehearsed, as though she had come for a reason she couldn’t plainly state. This bugged me more than it should have. Something about her bothered me, as though she thought I might have actually killed Sally.

  “You’ve heard about the murder charges,” I said. “Do you think I’ve flipped out and killed my sister? I hope you’ve not come here because you feel sorry for me.”

  She half-frowned. “I read the papers,” she said. “I thought you might be able to use a friend, but you’re just being rude.”

  I reached over and tried to kiss her, but she turned away. “I became overwhelmed with the death of my sister,” I said softly, becoming sexually excited and overly aggressive. It pushed me on as I spoke, “And it’s been confusing. Strong evidence has been collected against me and it came immediately to light. You may find this hard to believe, but I’ve many friends and supporters who believe in my innocence, who believe the Family of Truth is behind it. Now that you’re here, now that I see you in the flesh, it’s not just friendship which leaps to mind.” I tried to kiss her again, but she wouldn’t let her lips touch mine. She frowned, yet didn’t rise and leave either. It was nerve-wracking. “I’ve shocked you with my bluntness,” I whispered. “I’m so lonely that I feel like being deliberately indelicate. You’re lovely and I’m doing badly. I need you to stay with me the afternoon and to make love, and I’m not even sorry that I have to beg for it.”