Her skin was deeply tanned. That, and the long, brown hair served to frame a face dominated by deep, dark eyes that heralded her Italian heritage. At twenty, she’d been beautiful. Now, at thirty-five, she was magnificent. Even the pain that pinched her face failed to detract from her true loveliness.
“Can I get you something?” she asked.
“A beer, if you have it.”
“I have it.”
She went into the kitchen and returned with the drinks. A beer for him, white wine for her. She placed both glasses on the coffee table and said, “I’m sorry I’m such a wreck. It’s just … I messed up your shirt. I’ll wash it for you.”
“No need,” he said. “I’m sorry about Tommy.”
She sat beside him on the couch, let out a deep sigh and sipped the wine. “God … I can’t believe it. I guess, deep down, I always hoped we’d get back together. That maybe he’d change, realize how much more there was to life. But he never did. And now … it’s too late. He’s gone.”
For a moment, he thought she might cry again, but she didn’t. She turned to face him and said, “We’d kept in touch. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t,” Ted answered. “It’s been two years since I last talked to either one of you.”
Once, they’d all been close. Tommy and Terry, Ted and Toni. The Terrible T’s, as they’d been called in college. They’d studied together, gone to football games together, eaten together, done everything but make love together.
And when they’d graduated, Tommy and Terry were still in love and Ted and Toni weren’t. There’d been no argument, no great issue to drive them apart. It had simply been a passion that had run its course.
Perhaps it was because of the break-up of the foursome that they’d drifted apart. Tommy and Terry got married and Ted joined the FBI. Toni ended up marrying a stockbroker, he’d heard. Big bucks. And Ted … he’d finally married a woman named Erica. With Erica, there’d been passion too. But, as the relationship grew, the passion, while never really dimming, became almost secondary. She aroused in him deep, supplemental feelings he never knew existed. For six wonderful years, they’d …
He felt the chill again.
As he looked at Terry now, it seemed so long ago, and yet, like yesterday, if that was possible. A flood of memories, joyous memories, washed over him like a gentle mist. Memories of another time. A simpler time.
“It’s nice to see you again, Ted. It really is.”
Terry’s voice broke his reverie.
“I missed you,” she said. He could tell that she was speaking the truth.
“I missed you too,” he replied.
She sipped her wine and then put the glass down on the table. “I’m glad you’re here … but … please don’t take offense, why did you come?”
It was a logical question. There’d been the obligatory Christmas card, but other than that, no contact between them. And now he was here, sitting in her apartment. She was no fool.
“I was curious,” he said, “why I wasn’t invited to the funeral.”
She looked away. “There was no funeral.” Again, tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. “Isn’t that a bitch? I was surprised when I heard about his will. I knew he’d prepared a new one after the divorce, but I had no idea he wanted to be cremated. And no funeral. I never …” She started to weep again, but touched a tissue to her eyes and fought back the tears. “I never even got a chance to say goodbye. They never notified me or anything.”
Ted leaned forward on the sofa and stared at her intently as he asked, “Who made the arrangements?”
“His mother,” she said. “The bitch! Not a word! She never forgave me for leaving him, you know. Once, she came by, about a week after the split-up, and accused me of having a lover. To her, it was the only reason I would even consider leaving Tommy. I tried to explain to her that my reasons for leaving were legitimate. That he was working too hard and I only got to see him once in a blue moon. We had no children and he made it clear, near the end, that he didn’t want any. I was devastated. I wanted children, dammit!”
Her face reflected her anger as she remembered. “She wouldn’t hear of it. It was all my fault, she said. I was a manipulating, pushy wop. She’d been against the marriage from the start, she said. God! It was awful. I finally threw her out.”
Now she was looking at him as seriously as he’d been staring at her, as though seeking some validation for actions she’d felt compelled to take two years ago. It wasn’t necessary. He’d told her then that she was right. He still felt that way. But he sensed she needed to hear it.
“You had a right to your own happiness,” he said. “You still do, for that matter. Mothers tend to be biased. Some of them are overly protective, even when their children are all grown up. You know that.”
For the first time, she smiled. “You always knew the perfect thing to say, didn’t you Ted? Even when we were in college you had an insight that was remarkable. That was something Tommy never had. And yet, I was in love with him, and you … you were in love with Toni. Does that make any sense at all?”
He could feel his cheeks becoming warm. Her eyes confirmed the directness of her words.
No! He pushed the thoughts from his mind. She was vulnerable. Much too vulnerable.
He shook his head. “Nope,” he said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “Chemistry, I guess.” Then he asked, “So his mother took care of the arrangements? She never even told you about the accident?”
“Not a word,” she said, bitterly. “I didn’t see or hear from her. I don’t get the newspaper and I rarely watch television. The people at the library have only known me since I started there. If they heard about it, there was no reason to put two and two together, even though I still use the name Wilson. I only found out he was dead when the man from the insurance company came by the library with a check. That was yesterday.
“He told me what happened. I phoned the police and they confirmed it. By then, Tommy had already been cremated and his ashes dumped at sea. I was horrified.”
Trying hard to keep the surprise out of his voice, Ted asked, “Insurance?”
“Yes,” she said. “The company Tommy worked for had some group life plan. Tommy still had me listed as the beneficiary. He’d never gotten around to changing it, I guess.”
“You didn’t know?”
She looked puzzled. “No, I didn’t. I thought he’d changed everything after the divorce. He never discussed it with me, and of course I never asked.”
“And the insurance man came by with a check? Just like that? You never contacted them?”
She looked confused. “Of course not,” she said. “Why are you asking me these things?”
He wanted to tell her everything. But he couldn’t. Not yet. “I’m sorry, Terry. I don’t mean to invade your privacy. It’s just that … well, you know I’m in the insurance business myself. We don’t usually hand out checks without a claim being made.”
She stared at him, her face looking even more confused. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“I don’t either,” he said. “I’ll ask you one more question about the insurance and then I’ll get off the subject altogether. Do you know the name of the company that issued the check?”
“No,” she said. “But I have the stub, if you think it’s important.”
He gave her a small smile. “If it isn’t any trouble.”
She stood up and walked over to the desk by the window, opened a drawer and removed a piece of paper. When she handed it to him, Ted examined it and asked, “May I hold on to this for a few days? I’ll make sure you get it back.”
“Ted, why are you so concerned about this? You’re not here because I didn’t call you, are you? There’s something else, isn’t there? I can tell by the look on your face. What is it, Ted? What’s going on?”
He held the check stub in front of him. “Can I keep this?” he repeated.
She nodded. He put it inside his shirt pocket, then sa
id, “I didn’t mean to deceive you, Terry. I did come to see you because I was curious why you didn’t let me know. But you’re right. There is something else.”
“What?”
He ran a hand through his heavy thatch of sandy hair and said, “I received a letter from Tommy this morning. It was just sort of a newsy thing, bringing me up to date. But I thought it a little strange, for a couple of reasons. He wasn’t one to write letters, especially to me, and … there was a paragraph that was, well, pretty heartbreaking. He wrote about his feelings for you. How he’d screwed up your life. He wrote to ask that I tell you that.”
For a moment she just stared at him. Then she took a sip of her wine and asked, “Are you trying to tell me that he committed suicide?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “Not at all. I guess what I’m trying to avoid saying is that he sensed he was in some danger.”
Her eyes widened. “Danger? What kind of danger? He was a seismologist. A scientist. What kind of danger could he be in?”
“I don’t know,” Ted answered. “I wondered if he’d ever mentioned anything to you. You said you’d kept in touch.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “Yes, we kept in touch, but it was a once-a-month thing. How are you? I’m fine, how are you? There was never anything beneath the surface. I think we went to dinner once or twice. He wanted me to find a man. Like it was a project of his. Maybe he felt guilty and thought a man would take care of everything.”
Ted watched her closely. “I think he did feel guilty.”
“He should have.” Her tone betrayed the bitterness still within her. And then she caught herself, realizing he was no longer alive, and once more, the anguish was upon her. “Damn! Damn him!”
Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Ted asked, “How did you find out about the will? Were you in it?”
She shook her head. “No. Everything he had went to his mother. The insurance was a separate thing. The man from the insurance company told me about the will.”
“Do you remember his name?”
She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head.
“What about Tommy’s mother? Do you have her address?”
“She lives in the same house she always did in San Jose. At least, I think she does. If she ever moved, I never heard about it.”
She dabbed the corners of her eyes with the now-soggy tissue and asked, “What are you going to do?”
He stood up. “Nose around a bit,” he said. “See what turns up.”
She seemed about to cry again. “Would you stay for dinner? It wouldn’t be any trouble.”
Ted patted her on the shoulder. “Not tonight. If you ask me again, say for tomorrow, I’ll take you up on it.”
“It’s a date,” she said. “I’ll look for you around six.”
“Sounds great.”
She stood up and pressed her face against his chest again. Without looking at him, she asked, “Do you really think he was in danger?”
He wrapped his big arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. The smell of her perfume drifted up and with it came more memories. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman in his arms … for any reason. Almost reluctantly, he pulled away and said, “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
She looked at him now, his brown eyes intense, the brow furrowed, the jaw set. She knew that he would, somehow.
It made her feel better.
Much better.
She was wise enough to know that he hadn’t told her everything.
But it didn’t matter.
Four
* * *
Michael Davis licked his lips nervously as he bared his soul to the man from the Interior Department. “Raymond, I’ve read this over and over and I still can’t accept it,” he said, holding a report in his hands. “According to Graves, we should simply stand by and let this thing happen. That’s what I’m supposed to take to the Joint Chiefs.”
He put the report down and ran the back of his hand across his lips. “I can’t be a party to this,” he continued. “I just can’t. I don’t care how many studies he and his cohorts have conducted, the idea that we are incapable of evacuating Los Angeles is totally unacceptable. Totally!”
“Did you tell him that?” asked Raymond Ellis.
“I did.”
Ellis shrugged and said, “You certainly do like to live dangerously, don’t you, Michael?”
Again, Davis licked his lips, his nervousness approaching panic. “It’s not a case of living dangerously. It’s a case of not being able to live with that kind of decision. Graves! The man is an egotistical Neanderthal. Why the hell anyone listens to him is beyond me.”
“You realize he’s very good at what he does.”
Davis fingered the thick pile of reports on his desk and said, “I’m aware that he’s held in high esteem in certain circles. As for me, I always feel the need for a long shower after I’ve talked to him. And as for the reports, they’re so much bureaucratic bullshit, as far as I’m concerned. While I agree that an evacuation of this immensity raises enormous problems, it seems to me that the entire emphasis has been focused on the negative aspects, without any effort to find a solution. It’s as though the lives of millions of people are just numbers! Statistics!”
Ellis grunted. “You’re losing your objectivity, Michael. I can understand your concern. I share it. But there are times when decisions have to be made that seem heartless on the surface, but are, in the final analysis, best overall. Military commanders face this dilemma many times in their careers. It’s never easy.”
Davis slapped a hand on the pile of reports. “I’m not asking for something easy. I’m trying to find answers here. That’s why I wanted to talk to you before I made my presentation. You’ve read the report and Graves’s recommendations?”
“Yes.”
“Well … the first thing I want to know is this: are we facing disaster, or aren’t we? You people are supposed to be on the cutting edge of earthquake prediction. And yet, we have two people from a privately funded organization developing a system that’s been dead right four times in a row. Your people had nothing. Can you explain that to me?”
Ellis tossed a hand in the air and said, “You said the magic words, Michael. Privately funded. That’s part of the reason. Dalton Research is funded by an association that is, in turn, funded by a group of insurance companies. Ten years ago, they started hiring away our best people and giving them a blank check, whereas we’ve been subjected to budget cuts year after year.”
Davis pursed his lips. “Why,” he asked, “would they cut the budget when there’s been almost unanimous agreement that a big earthquake would hit either San Francisco or Los Angeles sometime in the next three decades?”
“Three reasons,” Ellis answered, holding up a hand and ticking off the fingers. “One, the deficits have caused them to reprioritize funds, and we happen to be in an area that isn’t very glamorous. Nobody really gives a shit, other than a small handful of environmentalists, what the hell we do. Oh sure, there are screams when the redwoods come down and oil leases are given out, or when some animal nobody ever heard of is about to become extinct, but by and large, we don’t get a lot of attention. At least, up until now, we haven’t.
“And then,” he said, as he slapped another finger, “there’s Graves and his group. He’s got everyone pretty well convinced that earthquakes are something we have to live with. At least, for now. You must take into account the fact that we’ve had a lot of people crying wolf throughout the years. It might surprise you to know that this isn’t the first time we’ve had successful predictions of earthquakes.”
Davis frowned. “Graves mentioned that and it’s also in the reports. But this new system seems so sure! They’ve been right on the money four times in a row. What the hell does it take to convince people?”
Ellis sighed. “For every scientist who believes that you can accurately predict earthquakes, there are
a hundred who insist that earthquake prediction is something that belongs in the same category as tea-leaf reading. Oh sure, there’s been the odd time when someone seemed to have a handle on it, but until the scientific community has a chance to study the methodology in the open, they’ll never accept these findings.
“As Graves told you,” Ellis continued, “there have been previous occasional earthquake predictions that were quite accurate. But they were always isolated incidents, almost accidental in nature. When put to the test over a long period of time, the methods came up empty. I’m sure this one will too.”
Davis shook his head in disbelief as Ellis continued: “But the third reason is probably the most important. We’ve always had access to whatever Dalton Research developed, simply by inserting one of our own people within the company. Once we learned what Gifford was working on, we went to Graves, who had a Top Secret label slapped on it. From that day forward, the information came directly to us, and only to us, because of the national security concerns. We benefited from the information without having to put up the funds. The same thing happened with Wilson’s data. I’d call that prudent management of available resources.”
Davis stared at the man and said nothing for several seconds. The only sound in the room was that of the grandfather clock by the window.
He wanted a drink.
“You mean,” he said, a slight quaver to his voice, “that you doubt the veracity of the report?”
“No. But then again, I’m not that concerned about it.”
Davis more than wanted a drink. He needed a drink. Badly.
“I don’t understand,” he said, numbly.
Ellis replied, “Whether or not we have an earthquake is beside the point,” he said. “We’re confronted here with the task of making decisions. In this case, we must address ourselves to one single problem, that being, do we, or do we not, evacuate Los Angeles. Since that specific question has been thoroughly examined and a viable recommendation made, the decision-making process becomes less complicated. You must learn to accept the inevitable, Michael. Evacuation is impossible. Totally out of the question. Even you must agree that Graves has studied the problem well. His thinking on that issue is indisputable. If we can’t evacuate, what’s left?”
The Big One Page 4
