by Blake Banner
“Where outside, wiseass?”
“You got some reason why you need to know?”
He had no answer for that, so he scowled at me again.
I said, “I didn’t think so, so how about you get off my back and go look for the owner of a Ford Mustang that has a hot hood and the right plates?”
He grunted, muttered something to Olsen and they went outside, climbed in their car and took off down the road.
I looked at Don, then Maria. “Thanks. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll be out of your hair.”
Don shrugged, staring down at the counter. “You ain’t in my hair.” Then he looked up. “Where’d you learn that stuff?”
“It’s a long story. They’re not skills you really want to learn.” I thought about it a moment and added, “Maybe they’re not skills at all. Maybe it’s just a state of mind.”
He frowned, like he didn’t really know what I meant.
I shrugged. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
In my room I stripped, sat on the bed and drained the last of the whiskey. I knew what was going to happen next, and I didn’t have the strength to fight it. There was a tap at the door. I said, “Come in.”
It opened and Maria was there, holding a bottle of Bushmills and two glasses. She held up the bottle for me to see. “This is the one you like, right?”
I nodded. “But I am really tired, Maria, and I really am married.”
“It’s OK, Gringo, I just came to say goodbye.” She stepped inside and closed the door with her foot. Then she stood looking at me a moment. “Lacklan Walker of Weston.” She put the glasses on the bedside table, poured a measure into each and handed me one. “So you are a real person after all.”
I took the glass and stared at it. Then I touched her glass with mine. “Yeah. I guess, after all, I am a real person now.”
We drank. And then I slept.
Alone.
EIGHTEEN
I was at my desk, looking through the leaded windows at the lawn outside. It seemed unnaturally vibrant and green in the sunshine. My study was dark by contrast, except for a patch of light that lay, like one of Dali’s clocks, warped across the corner of my desk, crisscrossed with twisted shadows. Small columns of dust drifted in the rays of light that leaned in through the leaded glass to form it.
I leaned back in my leather chair and sighed. The phone I held to my ear remained stubborn in its silence. I saw the minute hand on the old clock on my wall inch forward. Then there was the sound of somebody sitting down and the receiver rattled.
“Mr. Walker?”
“Sheriff.”
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long. There really is nothing I can add to what I have already told you. Our records indicate that there were three bodies at the scene. Not four.”
I sighed. “You are the sheriff for the Lost Hill and Malibu area…”
“Yes, sir. I already told you that.”
“So you, personally, must have been present at the scene…”
“Like I already told you, Mr. Walker, I cannot comment on an open investigation. What is your interest in this case, sir?”
“I’m writing a book, and I have reliable information that there was another body.”
“What information? You are aware that withholding information pertaining to a murder investigation…”
“My source has already spoken to your people. That’s why I am surprised that you have no record of a fourth body.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Mr. Walker, sir, this conversation is going in circles. I have given you all the information that I can. There was, categorically, no fourth body. Now you have a great day.”
The line went dead. Kenny must have been waiting outside because as soon as I hung up there was a tap on the door and it opened. He stepped in.
“Sir, the senator and Miss Marni have arrived. I have shown them into the drawing room.”
“Bring them in here, will you, Kenny?”
“Shall I serve coffee, sir?”
I nodded and he went away. I stood and went to the window. From here the green looked less intense. I could make out small meadow flowers. The gardener walked past pushing a barrow. He was still working on the orchard. I felt a moment’s guilt because I didn’t know his name. Abi knew his name. To me he was just the gardener.
A voice behind me made me turn. Kenny was closing the door and Senator Cyndi MacFarlane was standing looking at me, and by her side was Marni.
I went to them and we kissed on the cheek, hiding the stiff, awkward formality which we felt. I gestured toward the nest of chesterfields which sat around the cold fireplace. “Kenny is bringing coffee,” I said. “If you’d rather something else…”
They muttered that coffee was fine and we sat. They both watched me. I spread my hands. “You are both old friends. Abi and I are going to be married, as you both know, and your visit here is simply as old friends to congratulate us. This conversation never happened. That goes,” I said, looking at the senator, “for you especially, Cyndi. You cannot be a party to what I am about to tell you.”
Marni’s cheeks had colored slightly. “Philip should have been a part of this conversation, Lacklan.”
“I don’t trust him. His ambition is out of control. You can tell him whatever you like, once you leave here. But you must both know that there are parts of this story which I will deny, and which can never be proved.”
They nodded.
“I went to L.A. and I murdered Alpha, Beta, Delta and Epsilon. The murders you have heard about at Aaron Fenninger’s house were those murders.”
Marni nodded. “We had our suspicions about William Fencer, and Levy,” She shook her head. “But, Lacklan, what about Alpha?”
“My man sent you the footage. You saw the fourth body.”
Cyndi made a face. “You can see a body, Lacklan, but with all due respect, it isn’t clear at all.”
I turned to Marni. “It was Ben.”
She sat forward. “Ben?”
“Working behind the scenes all along. A double bluff. It explains the power he had, the way he used to order senior members around. It struck me when we were in the Omega office in Washington, the way he spoke to the former president was odd, to say the least[8]. But the penny never dropped.”
“Your father must have known.”
I nodded. “Yes, he must have known.”
“Why didn’t he tell you?”
“I don’t know. It’s one of several questions I have unanswered.”
Cyndi sighed. “The other is, where is he now?”
There was a tap at the door and Kenny came in with a tray of coffee and biscuits. After he’d left, Marni poured. It came naturally to her and she didn’t seem to question it. She had grown up in that house. I pushed the thought from my mind.
“I just got off the phone with the Malibu and Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department. They are adamant there is no fourth body. I know the Feds were involved in the investigation, but they tell me they were just observers and they had no jurisdiction.”
Marni handed Cyndi a cup. “I’ve watched three interviews so far with celebrities who were at the party. They all claim that after the prostitutes arrived, everybody else left.”
Cyndi narrowed her eyes at me. “That was a cruel stroke, Lacklan. Why did you do it?”
I took my cup from Marni and sat back to think for a moment.
“I had a couple of reasons. My first, and most important, was that I did not want Fenninger to become a martyr. I wanted him discredited in the public’s eyes, and in the eyes of his wife and children too.” I paused. “But there was something else which is harder to explain. He was part of a great machine that was manufacturing an ideal which is totally unobtainable. The word that kept being used was ‘role model’. It’s like Julius Caesar’s bread and circus, only much more sinister than that. Because this circus is a trap. It’s a circus that makes you aspire to the dreams it creates, so that in the end you are living in
a world of unreal aspirations, trying to escape from reality and live in that dream. That is a big part of the way they manipulate people’s minds. I wanted to show the world that those dreams are not real. What better way than exposing Fenninger as a fraud?”
She made a face that was doubtful and also skeptical, but she said, “Well, it seems to have worked. His name is being dragged through the mire. I’m not sure it’s a kindness to his wife and kids.”
I looked at her hard. “The truth isn’t always nice, Cyndi. Sometimes it sucks, big time. But it is always better than a lie. I think all of us in this room know that.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Point taken.”
“So what happened with Ben?”
I shook my head and took a deep breath. “I shot him twice in the chest and I watched him die. I can only think that Omega personnel went to the scene and intercepted the body. We can only guess at the chaos that is going on inside Omega now. With any luck it will mean the end of that organization. Omega One and Omega Alpha are both defunct.” I shook my head. “And Ben’s body has either been cremated or buried in an unmarked grave somewhere.”
Marni asked, “So what about Omega now?” But she addressed the question to Cyndi.
Cyndi turned and looked at me. “You killed all of Omega One, that’s the branch that dealt with the English speaking world. Omega Two controls the EU, Three controls Latin America, Four has control of Africa and the Middle East—and the oil. And Four is what used to be the Communist Block Russia, China, the Far East. Each one of those is very powerful in its own right, and there is very little that we can do to influence them. The most we can do is try to avoid them taking root here again.”
I gave a small laugh. “That’s not an easy task.”
She nodded. “I agree, and as far as I am concerned our best bet is coming clean with the public about what lies ahead.”
We were quiet for a moment. Marni set down her cup. “The coming drought will help, if that’s the right word. It will give people like you and me, and Philip, the chance to talk about the changes that are coming.”
Cyndi was nodding again. “The issue of population is central…”
I raised a hand. “Before we get onto the topic of politics, you both need to talk to Jim Redbeard.” I smiled at Marni. “He is everything you wanted me to be.”
Her cheeks went red. “Don’t say that.”
I ignored her and went on, “He is a warrior. He understands the importance and the value of violence, but he is intelligent enough to be a political player. And where Gibbons has all the right instincts to create a new Omega, Redbeard has all the right instincts to destroy it. He will be a good ally for you.”
They both stared at me for a long moment. Then Cyndi asked the question. “Do I take it that you are, definitely, withdrawing from the fight this time?”
I gave a single nod. “There is no fight anymore, Cyndi. If you guys play your cards right, Omega should die quietly in the night. Bits of it may survive here and there, but the big, global monster has been decapitated. My work is done. Now it is up to you.”
We talked a little more about this and that, and after a while Cyndi glanced at Marni and smiled. To me she said, “Abi has promised to show me the orchard, and I gather you guys have stuff to talk about. I’ll catch you at lunch.”
She got up and left.
Marni and I sat in silence for a moment. Then I stood and opened the French windows onto the lawn. She followed me out and we made our way across the grass and into the woods. We didn’t talk. We followed a path we had followed a thousand times as kids. It led, wending this way and that, down to Sudbury Road, and from there to the church where my father was buried.
We made our way through the church grounds until we came to the graveyard, and there we found my family’s plot, and his grave. Our plot was next to the Gilberts’ plot, and her own father was buried less than thirty yards away.
We stood in silence, in the late morning sun, under the New England sky, among the oaks, the yews, the holly and the pine trees, listening to the endless chatter and babble of the birds, the quiet, desultory buzz of a bee, the distant murmur of conversation between the pastor and a small group who stood chatting to him in the sun.
Marni said suddenly, “He killed my father in order to save me.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And I killed him, because he killed my father; because he represented to me everything that my father despised and fought against.”
I looked at her but said nothing.
After a moment she went on, “But my father loved him as a friend.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand, Lacklan. I don’t understand any of it.”
I shrugged. “They were just people. They were fallible. They met, they liked each other and over the years they became good friends. Your father followed a path of learning at the university. My father became a power broker. Before he knew it he had sold himself to Omega. When they told him to kill your father, he did the only thing he could.”
She looked at me. “He told him.”
“Yes, and like good friends they did it together, to save not just you, but your mother and me and my mother.”
She put her hand gently on my arm. “I’m sorry.”
“What about?”
“That…” She took a deep breath, then started again. “I was going to say that it didn’t work out, but that would be dishonest, and you deserve honesty. I’m sorry I failed you. I should have stood by you and believed in you. Abi is a better woman than me in that sense. A better person. I’m glad you have her.”
I didn’t know how to answer. In the end I said, “We had our moment. It got very complicated.”
Across the graveyard, not far from our plot, I noticed a man digging a fresh grave. I wondered, absently, who in the neighborhood had died. We turned and started walking back toward the house. I said to Marni, “How well did you know Ben?”
She gave a small shrug. “Nobody knew him very well. He kept very much to himself. I think your father was the only man who really knew him. They were very close. Why?”
We stopped at the verge of the road. A hearse was approaching. There were no mourners, just the car, and the small group of two men and a woman, in a pale blue suit, talking to the priest. They had stopped talking now and were watching the hearse as it pulled in and stopped.
I frowned. “It was very strange, Marni. Ben had many opportunities to kill me, but he never even tried. Whenever he was able, in fact, he tried to spare me. You too. In L.A., he didn’t need to go to Fenninger’s house, but he did, and he took Beta and Gamma with him. He knew I was going to kill them. He knew I was going to kill him. I asked him.” I turned to face her. “I asked him why. But he wouldn’t tell me.”
“What did he say?”
I shrugged again. “I asked him why he had come, and he just said, ‘You knew I would.’ He felt…” I shook my head, screwed up my face, trying to understand. “He felt that I had betrayed him.”
Something drew me across the road. Marni followed me and we approached the hearse as the undertakers pulled the coffin from the back. They hoisted it on their shoulders and began the slow, steady walk toward the open grave that gaped, waiting, under an ancient yew tree. They lowered him in, threw in the ropes and the pastor began, “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes…”
We stayed and listened. I studied the two men and the woman, wondering who they were. I didn’t recognize them. They looked unremarkable. When the pastor had finished they shook his hand and left, driving away in a dark saloon. The reverend approached us, smiling. “Marni, Lacklan, how lovely to see you. It’s been a very long time. How are you both?”
I made noncommittal noises and Marni told him she now lived and worked in Oxford. We fell into step, walking toward the church. I pointed back at the grave, where the gravedigger was shoveling the earth over the cask.
“Who was that, Reverend? I didn’t recognize any of those people, and I notice
d you didn’t mention a name.”
He stopped and frowned at me. “Well, Lacklan, I believe he was a relative of yours. His plot actually falls within your family’s plot, but it was added by your father, a few years back.”
I went cold. “My father extended the family plot, to include a space for this person?”
“Indeed. I didn’t mention a name because apparently in his will, he asked for his name to be omitted as he claimed to be a, and I quote, nameless soul. But he did, of course, have a name.”
I tried to suppress my impatience and smiled. “What was it?”
“Benjamin. Benjamin Walker.”
The world seemed to rock. The reverend frowned at me and Marni took my arm. I told him I was OK and Marni walked me slowly back down the road toward my house. We walked in silence until we had cleared the woods and emerged into the broad lawns that swept down from the French windows outside my study. Then I stopped and turned to face her.
She shook her head. “You don’t know, Lacklan. Don’t jump to any conclusions.”
“It’s the only explanation. It explains everything.”
“You don’t know. It could be a coincidence. He was Ben Smith, not Walker. Benjamin is not such an unusual name. It could be just a coincidence, Lacklan.
I shook my head. “No. It’s what he was trying to tell me. It explains why he refused to kill me. It explains why he looked out for me. For you. For us both.”
“Lacklan…”
“My father exacted the same promise from him that he demanded from me.”
“Lacklan, stop.”
“When he was dying he made me promise that I would look out for you and keep you safe. When Ben came to see me in Wyoming he told me my father was dying. He loved my father. My father had told him he had cancer, but he hadn’t. It was a lie, but he knew somehow that his time was running out. He knew that he was going to die. One of us, you or me, one of us would kill him and he knew it. He probably thought it would be me.”
“Lacklan you don’t know any of this.”
I nodded. “I know this much, he had decided to betray Omega. That alone meant his life was at risk. When he knew his time was running out, he told Ben to look out for you and me, and protect us.”
