Private Screening

by Richard North Patterson

  He felt their bodies meld together, moving slowly at first, without haste or thought or reservation, until he was lost in her. It was sweet and intense.

  And then they were still, looking into each other’s faces. Lord could feel the difference in them; he could not bring himself to speak.

  Smiling, she seemed to know this. “It’s funny how faces change,” she said softly. “You don’t look arrogant to me, now.”

  “About you, I never was.”

  After a time, they lay beside each other, fingers touching.

  “How was it really,” she asked, “the first time you made love?”

  His face turned to hers, resting on the cushion. “Her name was Mary Jane Kulas,” he answered, “and we were both Catholic and sixteen, and so ridden with guilt that I used two condoms.”

  Her eyes widened. “How was that?”

  “Like making love to a radial tire.”

  Stacy’s mouth turned up. “I meant for Mary Jane.”

  “Hard to say.” Lord kissed her. “Given my finesse, her face never changed.”

  Stacy burst out laughing.

  She was more drawn to him than she thought possible.

  They made love in every soft or warm spot she could think of. Like their conversation after, this seemed to feed on itself.

  For two days they talked of everything but Jamie or Harry Carson. They did not go near the television.

  On the third morning, they drove up the coast and bought abalone at a place where no one seemed to recognize them. Their drive back was spent planning an elaborate cookout in a cove she knew, her favorite since childhood. When it was time for dinner, she led him along the cliffside until it cut sharply inland, to form a bay where surf pounded on a rocky beach. To the nearest side the small cove curled back toward them, sheltered from the wind and ocean. Its view was of the bay; a residue of deep aqua waves spilled across brown, fine sand. Ropes secured several flights of rickety wooden stairs which tumbled there from the cliff.

  At twilight, between two logs, she started a fire as her father had taught her. Lord looked out at the bay. “Christopher would love this,” he said. “He’s nuts about water.”

  “How’s he getting along now?”

  He threw on another piece of wood. “Better, I think. He seems happy we’re together more.”

  “I’ve never spent much time around children, really.” Stacy finished her first glass of wine. “Since college, I’ve known I couldn’t have any.”

  Lord reached for the chilled bottle. Watching him, she realized, foolishly, that she was hoping for some word or sign that this did not matter.

  “I can always expose you to mine.”

  “A little boy,” she said in mock horror. “With a loud voice and a penis and everything? What would I do with him?”

  Looking up at her, Lord smiled. They ate the abalone, Stacy leaning against him, his down jacket around them both.

  They were making Irish coffee when the telephone rang.

  “It’s for you,” she told him. “Marty Shriver.”

  When Lord took the phone, she left the coffee half-made, and walked to the window.

  “I’m sorry to call here,” Shriver said slowly, “but Cass had the number, and I thought you might not know yet.”

  “What is it?”

  “Harry Carson’s dead.”

  Lord sat down. After a moment, he looked for Stacy; though it was dark, she was staring toward the ocean.

  “How did it happen?”

  “They’re calling it an escape. Early this morning, Harry used a couple of old ’Nam tricks and got out the window with a rope made from bed sheets. Before anyone knew it, he’d knocked out the front guard and then hotwired a Harley in the lot. They only heard him speeding out the gate.”

  “Was he shot?” Lord asked quietly.

  Stacy became quite still.

  “No—he got out onto Highway One and drove until the sun came up. It happened about seven, with the Highway Patrol after him. They were near San Luis Obispo, on some winding cliffs above the water, heading for a hairpin curve. Harry gunned the cycle to a hundred and just kept on going. Didn’t even leave skidmarks.” Shriver paused. “He meant to kill himself, Tony. A classic case, right to the bitter end.”

  In the last flat phrase, Lord heard how wasted Shriver was, and how sad. Then heard his doubt.

  Finally, Lord said, “Is anything being done?”

  There was silence. “There may be a service, if Beth and Harry’s mother can get together on it.”

  “Then I’ll be there.” Lord hesitated. “Thanks for calling, Marty.”

  “Sure.” A last, brief pause. “Talk to you later.”

  When Lord put down the telephone, she did not move.

  At first, neither did he. In those moments he saw Carson shooting James Kilcannon, remembering that his mother smelled like strawberries, a thunderstorm breaking over the farm and Beth handing him a poem. The last time he and Carson had faced each other.

  He could feel Stacy waiting.

  For a final moment Lord watched her straight, slim back. Then he walked behind her.

  As gently and as clearly as he could, he explained that Carson was dead, why he had shot James Kilcannon, how Damone had used the concert money.

  When she turned, tears ran down her face.

  Lord felt helpless. “If I’d seen through Harry Carson, Stacy, the Parnells might still be alive. Right there, you can stop blaming yourself for Damone.…”

  “So every time I look at you, I can remember that, like I can remember bringing Jamie to him.” For a moment, the tears were the only part of her that seemed to move. “Oh, Tony, how did we think this could go anywhere?”

  He gave a dispirited shrug. “This isn’t the time.…”

  She ran past him to the bedroom.

  Lord passed the night in the window seat, too miserable to sleep, certain only that she had to be alone.

  At dawn, sitting on the point overlooking the seals, he heard her come up behind him.

  “Did you sleep?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  For a moment, she was quiet. “Part of me always understood what you couldn’t say. But knowing …” Her voice fell. “Tony, I never realized about the money.”

  He nodded, silent. After a time, he felt her watching him.

  “When I found out, I wanted to quit.” He shrugged at the hopelessness of that.

  She sat beside him, a few feet away. There were circles beneath her eyes; she picked up pebbles and threw them in the water.

  “It’s so complicated, Tony.”

  He turned to her. “There was no way you ever could have understood Robert Parnell. He wouldn’t have let you.”

  “I didn’t mean just that.” Her eyes closed. “Later, maybe at least we can talk about it. But I’ve got to be alone here now. Please.”

  Carson’s service was in a white-frame Catholic church, a few miles from the farm. When Lord arrived, a handful of people were trickling between the photographers and television cameras Beth had barred from the inside.

  She was waiting in the alcove. Nearby, Cathy peered out at the cameras; Lord saw that she had Carson’s hair, but that her eyes were Beth’s.

  “She doesn’t know what to think,” Beth told him.

  He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “I knew it would be like this. But she’s old enough that I can explain a little. That her father was a good man, but the war did something to him.”

  Silent, Lord watched Cathy turn from the door, coming toward them. Then Beth squeezed his arm.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said.

  As he entered, Rachel sat near the back, turning from his silent look of disbelief.

  The mourners were sprinkled closer to the casket. Lord saw Carson’s mother and Rob Bramley, Carson’s friend from Vietnam, then Marty Shriver. When he sat next to him, Shriver raised an eyebrow; everyone else had the set, burdened look of those who know that whatever they sa
y or do cannot be adequate.

  The service was quiet and spare; Lord found that he still remembered it by rote. And then the casket was past him, borne by a few neighbors, outside.

  Following, Lord saw Rachel hurry after it.

  Rob Bramley was waiting on the front steps. They shook hands. “Give you a lift?” Bramley asked.

  “Sure.”

  Cameras whirred around them. Then they got in a rented car and drove through the New Jersey countryside.

  Bramley fidgeted with his tie. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you.”

  Lord turned to him, waiting.

  “Look, I know how lousy you must feel. I mean, you wanted to help Harry.…” Bramley grimaced. “What you did is end up helping me.”

  “How, Rob?”

  “The trial—it was the first I really looked at what happened. It’s made all the difference in therapy, and everywhere. Sue—my wife—we’re going to try again.” He glanced across the wheel. “If you hadn’t gotten me to testify, we never would have.”

  Lord gazed at him. “That’s great,” he finally murmured.

  Bramley drove the rest of the way without talking.

  As they parked, Lord touched his shoulder. “Good luck, okay? It’ll mean something to me.”

  Bramley’s face relaxed. They walked together to the cemetery.

  The afternoon was bright and cool; a crisp breeze stirred the priest’s robes as he spoke over the grave. Carson’s mother sprinkled the first shovel of dirt, then handed the shovel to Beth. Beyond the white fence, on the grounds of an industrial park that had once been farmland, Lord saw cameras recording this.

  When it was over, he told Bramley, “You go on, Rob. There’s someone I need to talk with.”

  They shook hands again. As he said good-bye to Beth and walked from the graveside, Shriver was waiting by an entrance.

  Both stood there for a while, leaning against the fence.

  “I’ve always been curious, Tony. That morning, when you went to see Harry, what was it he wanted?”

  For a moment, Lord looked back. Beth and Cathy stood alone, hands locked, beside Carson’s grave. The moment had an odd, quiet beauty; then Lord caught the glint of a distant lens.

  “It was strange,” he said. “Harry didn’t want me to go, because I might get killed. It was the one time I knew I’d gotten through to him.”

  Shriver was quiet for a moment, watching Beth. Then he put one hand to his eyes, and slowly shook his head.

  A few weeks later, Johnny Moore bought Lord drinks.

  He had chosen an Irish bar with dark wood, soft chairs, and all kinds of Celtic memorabilia hanging from the walls and ceilings. They both drank Bushmills.

  “Until you caught him,” Moore said over his second, “there was no way to know that Robert Parnell was still alive—he’d never been fingerprinted until the Army, as Damone. But after I’d read that file, it kept working on me that they’d never found his body.

  “I wonder if that had occurred to Parnell. Before.”

  Moore looked up at him. “You wouldn’t wonder,” he said softly, “if you’d seen Parnell’s face.”

  Lord nodded at his drink.

  “The question is,” Moore said after a time, “who’ll play him in the movie? What with his recent windfall profits, Hart Taylor’s formed a production company. To assure verisimilitude, he says, and the public’s right to know.…”

  “Oh, no—”

  “In fact, he called the other day, wanting to hire me as a consultant. He even mentioned you.”

  Lord gave a short laugh.

  Moore shrugged. “He figures what you must know would really juice up his story. He just doesn’t know how true that is.”

  Lord watched his eyes. “You mean about the Parnells.”

  “That’s one part,” Moore said blandly. “Why Colby didn’t ransom him, anyhow—the thing you told me about Robert and Alexis.”

  “Such a shame. Think what Taylor could do with it.”

  “The man would gag a maggot.” Moore signaled for another round. “Considering all that’s happened, how did it wind up with Stacy Tarrant?”

  “Lonely, at the moment. Probably longer.”

  Quiet, Moore regarded him.

  “Still, you’re never going to say a word about Carson, are you. Not to me, or anyone. Not even for money.”

  Lord did not answer. When the drinks arrived, they sat untouched between them.

  “Of course without you,” Moore said finally, “DiPalma will never find the connection. Which is the only breakthrough that could keep him from going down the tube.”

  For another moment, Lord was quiet. Then he lifted his glass to Moore. “Absent friends, Johnny.”

  Moore smiled faintly. They drank together, in silence.

  When Lord returned to his apartment, her note was waiting.

  “Still don’t like the phone,” it began. “Especially now.

  “But I do want to see you. I can’t promise anything—even the minimum. I just don’t feel right about how we left this.

  “Is starting Labor Day all right, at Sea Ranch? I may even make sense by then.”

  Beneath there was a P.S.:

  “If it’s a Christopher week, that’s okay.”

  Arriving with Christopher, Lord felt as edgy as she looked. After quick smiles and a few words, he shuttled Christopher’s suitcase to an upstairs bedroom and his to another.

  It was close to his son’s birthday. The cake she brought out was covered with candles, the table with balloons.

  “Lung power,” Lord said.

  With a fleeting smile, she turned to Christopher. “My mom always told me to make a wish. Then if I blew out the candles, it would come true.”

  “That’s what my mom says, too.”

  Stacy angled her head toward the cake, still regarding him. “But can you do it?”

  Dubiously counting the candles, Christopher then saw the red balloon nearest the cake. His eyes lit up. “Can I have that now?”

  “Sure. It’s yours.”

  He began to unknot it. “What about the cake?” Lord asked, and then Christopher triumphantly aimed his balloon at the candles and let go of the end.

  Stuttering bursts of air blew out the candles and spattered a stream of frosting across the table. Moving from the frosting to Stacy, Christopher’s look changed to horror and embarrassment.

  For a moment, she watched his face.

  “Damn,” she said. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”

  Christopher started laughing.

  While he and his father washed the dishes, Stacy retreated to her piano. Lord recognized a few Cole Porter tunes.

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  “Just be sure and tell Stacy that, okay?”

  “Okay.” Christopher handed him a dish. “Do you like her more than Mom?”

  Lord turned to look down at him. “It’s just that we’re more alike, I think. Sometimes it’s easier for us to understand each other.”

  His son considered this. “Can I listen to her play?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather wash dishes?”

  Christopher ran to the living room.

  After a while, the piano stopped. A couple of halting notes came that were clearly not Stacy’s, then a few more. Once, Lord heard her laugh.

  As he came in, they looked up at him with a half-smile of complicity. “Bedtime at the zoo,” Lord told his son.

  When he returned, Stacy was sitting in one corner of the window seat, reading a magazine. Delicate light and shadow were reflected in the glass; Lord saw himself sit across from her.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  She smiled a little. “Jumpy as a cat.”

  “Me, too.” Lord glanced toward the upstairs. “It’s a lot, all at once.”

  “He’s a nice little boy, really. I think he senses I’m unsure of myself, even if he doesn’t know all the reasons.”

  When Lord nodded, she was quiet for a moment.

  “How is
your work coming?”

  “Better.” He paused. “I’ve won a couple lately when I knew I should. That helps.”

  It seemed to make her thoughtful.

  “I’ve decided not to do films,” she said after a while.

  Lord tilted his head. “Why?”

  She turned to the window. “I just don’t want to be that public, anymore.”

  He watched her, silent, watching his reflection.

  “I’ve had some time with it, Tony. I finally remembered that you never would have known about Harry Carson if I hadn’t come to you. We did this to each other, in a way.”

  She faced him then. Lord felt a look pass between them, filled with irony and knowledge.

  Such a joke, he thought to himself, but what does it mean.

  “What do you suppose,” he asked softly, “Kilcannon would make of that?”

  For a moment her eyes had a startled quality. Then they narrowed slightly, the trace of a smile that lingered when she spoke.

  “That no one else but us will ever know the truth. I almost think he’d enjoy that.”

  They slept apart.

  When he came down to breakfast, Stacy was in the window seat, watching the ocean. He gave her a tentative, querying look.

  “I hate lima beans,” she told him.

  “What brought that to mind?”

  “Christopher. Last night he was asking me to get some beets for lunch.”

  His face showed disappointment. “He’s playing a trick on you, Stacy. I can’t stand beets.”

  She grinned at him. “That’s what he said,” she answered, and then took them both to watch the seals.

  What struck her was how Tony concentrated on what Christopher said or asked, so that his son knew at that moment that no one else was more important. She talked very little; it was enough to like him for reasons that had nothing to do with her.

  When lunch was through, they went to the tide pools. The ocean had receded, leaving pockets of water on wet, shiny rock, filled with marine life. Christopher was drawn to small things—sea snails, mussels, miniature crabs. She dared him to stick a finger in the middle of a sea anemone; when it closed in harmless sucking, startling Christopher, she made the sudden slurping sound her father had used to trick her. Christopher laughed so hard he had to sit.

  As they left the tide pool, Christopher ran ahead, kicking and throwing rocks.