“I might as well tell you now …”
“What?”
“I don’t dip under any circumstances. It’s a question of dignity.”
“Your dignity is safe with me,” she said.
I hadn’t danced with anyone in a long time, not since I’d danced one night at The Ritz with Annie DeWinter. Heidi Dillinger made dancing very easy. I hated dancing, but Heidi Dillinger fixed it so I wasn’t really aware of what I was doing. She put her hand around the back of my neck and smiled while I looked at her face. Her lips were shiny and there was a faint dewiness on her upper lip.
She said, “So, why are you here?”
I told her how I’d found out about Whitney, via Freddie Rosen and Donna Kordova. I ran over the talk I’d had with Cotter Whitney but I left some of it out. What was the point of dragging Bill Stryker and the cocaine into it? She’d heard about the plane crash but had arrived too late actually to see it. I told her it had been well worth the price of admission. The band segued into “You Do Something to Me,” a slow, romantic arrangement that kept us on the floor. I held her loosely against me. Maybe dancing wasn’t really so bad after all. However, before I began composing rhyming couplets to love and the night, I asked her what had brought her to Minnesota.
“Allan and Whitney have business. Book business. Magna wants to acquire Purvis and Ledbetter, Allan’s publisher. I’m serving as the messenger.” She moved closer. The dance floor was filling up. She slowly rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. “Hugo Ledbetter is here this weekend. A confederacy of dunces.” She sighed again.
“I like it when your mask slips.”
“My Ms. Invincible mask?”
I nodded.
“You can’t imagine how glad I was to see you here. Allan is terribly curious about what you’re learning. When he called the Bel Air Hotel this morning he discovered you’d gone. He was disconcerted, how were we to find you, could you be trusted, why hadn’t you reported to him before leaving Los Angeles … but here you are. We’ll bring him up-to-date. Tomorrow. Tonight … we dance.”
The band played “Blue Moon” every third number while I tried to make a connection between the Heidi I’d met on. Fifth Avenue and the one in my arms. She might have been two entirely different women. She might have been an actress, not a computer whiz and aide-de-camp to Bechtol. Maybe she was an actress. Maybe all women were actresses. Or maybe she had fallen victim to my comparatively devilish charm. In a night full of fairies and moonbeams I decided it must have been my charm.
“You know,” I whispered in her ear, “some men will believe anything.”
“I know,” she whispered back. “That’s the nicest thing about men.”
“One might almost say that men are gullible.”
She nodded and looked up into my eyes.
“I like that in a man.”
“Romance,” I said, “couldn’t exist without the gullibility of men.”
“La Rochefoucauld?”
“Lee Tripper.”
“Well, very few men realize the truth of what you say. My hat’s off to you, Tripper.”
“You’re not wearing a hat. Try something else.”
“Details,” she said. “You must rise above them when the night is full of romance.” She stopped dancing, led me off the floor. “Do you row?” Her dress clung to her breasts. Row? I’d have walked through fire.
The music floated out across the water, and occasionally something leapt and splashed in the darkness. A saving breeze moved across the surface of the lake. The immense house was illuminated by some floodlights arranged in the shrubbery. The colored Japanese lanterns shimmered in the humid evening. The candle in our boat was green, the flame flickered. We sat on cushions in the bottom of the boat, leaning back, seeing the stars and the moon above us. Somewhere off to my left an airplane had sunk a few hours before.
I was not altogether sure about what was going on. To be specific, was this business or pleasure?
Letting nature take its course, following my impulses, I touched her chin to turn her head toward me, but she was already turning and tilting her face up, and we kissed for quite a long time.
This was definitely pleasure. Any fool could see that. She made me feel like a kid again. Shortness of breath, a ping or two in my engine, the vague feeling that the wheels might come off at any moment. When we parted I was panting like the winner of the Boston Marathon. She looked into my eyes and smiled as if congratulating at least one of us on a job well done. She made me feel as if I’d passed a test.
She lay back again, looking at the stars. Heidi Dillinger probably looked dreamy and relaxed as seldom as any woman on earth. It didn’t come naturally to her. I knew that much. But caught in the grip of the moment, she was giving it a try.
“Well,” she whispered at last, “is he?”
I drifted back, feeling her words like little fingers tugging at my mooring ropes. “Is who what?”
“Is JC alive?” she murmured.
“Not so far as I know.” I looked down at her. The dress was molded against her long thighs and stomach. The fabric rose and fell as she breathed. JC was far from my thoughts, which extended only about as far as the tips of her bright red toenails. “But what if he’s alive? What’s it to you, really?”
“He’s a corporate asset. Please don’t think I’m cold. I understand, he’s your brother. But to me he’s part of my job … if he’s out there, I’m responsible for seeing that we get him back.” She sighed. “That’s what JC means to me.”
“JC—the Corporate Asset. Times change.”
“We’ll find him, Tripper.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” I said.
“Somebody sent that song to Rosen.” She was trailing her fingers in the water. “Somebody killed those people. When we find out who … then we’ll be almost home. I can feel it.”
I kissed her again.
“You’re an irresponsible fellow. We’re supposed to be working.”
“Not my idea of work.”
“It’s late. You’re going to have to spend the night.”
“I’ll have to talk to Whitney.”
“Why bother him? I’ve got a room. Third floor in the West Wing. I think it’s the Lincoln Bedroom.” She giggled.
“Still leaves me without a room.”
“So incredibly dense. I’m making you an offer.”
“In that case, I say let’s turn in.”
“Row, row, row your boat.”
Half an hour later I’d showered and padded back down the hallway to her room. She was in bed, the sheet pulled up under her chin. The windows were open. The band was still playing and the floodlights cast shadows across the bedroom wall. Nobody missed us out there. The crowd had thinned but the party was far from over. It had settled into an easy rhythm, an endless supply of gin and tonic and ice, the low burble of conversation, the music floating on the night’s breeze. The curtains moved slowly at the window. It was cooler, a delicious summer night.
We didn’t say anything. I slid into bed and she turned toward me, her eyes closed, her mouth soft and open. We made love for a long time. Anyway, it seemed slow and languorous, a word I’ve seldom used. She proceeded deliberately, no giggling now, with a real respect for what she was doing, for what we were doing. At one point she whispered in my ear; “You’d laugh at me if I told you how long it has been since I did any of this …”
“Tell me.”
“I couldn’t bear it if you laughed. Let’s not stop.”
I couldn’t figure her out. I didn’t even try.
Later we lay on our backs, covered with sweat, feeling it dry as the breeze blew across us. Her eyes were closed. I watched the shadows of the tree limbs moving on the walls. The band was playing “String of Pearls.” I inhaled her smell. She stroked her hand slowly along her thigh. I watched her fingertips against the flesh. She rested her palm on her flat belly. I had to have her again. I kissed her fingers and she pushed her hand lower and lower, breathing harder, and I kept
kissing and lost track of everything else.
The next time I noticed the band, they were playing “A Fine Romance” and our heads were at opposite ends of the bed. I rested my hand on her knee.
“Are you awake?” she said.
“Just thinking.”
“What about?”
“One thing was, would I die if we did all this again right away?”
“Probably. But it would be a good death.”
“That’s just what I was thinking, Hemingway.”
“What else were you thinking?”
“Bechtol.”
“Oh, no,” she groaned. “Why? Now, of all times?”
“Are you sure that you and he aren’t … you know?”
She was laughing softly. “Gee, let me think. Maybe I forgot something.” She paused. “No, I’m sure we’re not you-know, never have been you-know, and frankly, I’ve never known him to be you-know with anyone. But it’s sweet that you asked. Anyway, he insists he’s impotent and I’m omnipotent …”
“Well,” I said, “I have another question about him.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Why didn’t he tell me about JC’s song arriving like it did? What was the point of making me stumble across that little shocker on my own?”
“Bechtol’s whole life is a plot. He lives it like a novel-in-progress. He likes to have the plot unfold … he knew you’d discover things as you went along—and they’d have more impact if you found them out yourself.”
“Well, that’s cute. It’s very nice for him, but it’s less appealing to me, the guinea pig. What else does he know—and you, too, for that matter—that I’m going to find out for myself?”
“I don’t know. Nothing so far as I’m concerned. God knows I can’t answer for Bechtol.”
“Well, I’m gonna start developing some secrets of my own. I don’t like to be the one doing all the trusting.”
“You are the only one being paid, my sweet.”
“So fire me. I’ll survive.”
“Ahhh. You’ve figured that out—”
“The fact is I’m the only one Bechtol thinks can find JC. I keep telling myself in my noble way that he needs me more than I need his money.”
“That is noble.”
“It’s the kind of guy I am.”
“But you would like to find your brother.”
“I can take it or leave it. I say he’s dead.”
“But you don’t know.”
“Oh, I know. I’m just humoring everyone by taking the money. Why didn’t Bechtol tell me Whitney or Magna is putting up half the money? Part of the plot unfolding?”
“Well, why should he? What has that to do with you?”
“Somebody’s lying to me.” I was turning toward the top of the bed and had stopped to kiss the back of her right knee on the way back to the pillow.
“Somebody’s always lying,” she sighed.
“You want to go to Tangier with me?”
“You’re going, then?”
“Why not? Whitney thinks it would be a good idea.”
“You do think JC’s alive, don’t you?”
“My brother is dead as they come. It’s not my fault no one will believe me.”
“You’re already starting to keep secrets!”
“I’ll tell you what I really want—”
“Oh, God … I really am exhausted …”
“Relax. I’ve sated my lust for the moment.”
“There is a God,” she sighed.
“I want to know who sent that song to Freddie Rosen. That’s what bothers hell out of me.”
It was three o’clock in the morning and the band was gone and the guests had shuffled off and the floodlights were off and the Japanese lanterns were dark and the rowboats were bumping the dock and the moonlight lay in quiet liquid patches across the lawn, flowing and silver as if it had been poured from a pitcher. I stood at the bedroom window doing a reality check. Yes, it was all true—the airplane crash, Morris Fleury, Heidi Dillinger, the bed, all real. She was deeply asleep. I slid into my pants and shirt and shoes. The house was quiet and dark. I went outside. The doors stood open to the warmth. The hum of the crickets was loud and insistent, once you noticed it at all.
I stood in the shadows, felt the night all around me. I heard the sounds things made in the lake and in the foliage. Nothing was what it seemed. The quiet night was actually noisy and alive with activity. And there were people abroad in the night, as well. I felt like a spy.
I clung to the shadows for safety. There were so many imposing trees, it wasn’t difficult. I made my way down toward the lake, but I was only halfway there when I heard the low murmur of the voices and a faint creaking sound. I stood near the trunk of an oak big around as a picnic table.
The creaking sound came from Eleanor Whitney’s wheelchair being pushed along a path of fine gravel. She was speaking very softly, the words indistinct to my ears. She was being pushed by a man who in outline resembled an ambulatory haystack. Very tall, vast in girth, and his voice box must have required an exceptional woofer. When he spoke it was as if there were giants in the earth, rumbling, shaking the crust on which we’d chosen to build a civilization. Hearing the rumble, I saw in my mind the needle bouncing on my idea of what a Richter Scale doohickey looked like. He seemed to be clad in an immense smock. There was a beard of impressive dimension. When they passed closest to me I made out a single word, her exclamation in reply to something scandalous he’d said. “Hugo!” Then their shared laughter.
Hugo Ledbetter, I assumed. Publisher. Soon to be part of the Magna Group?
I watched their stately procession on up the path toward the house. Before they got there they had disappeared in the shadows.
The night smelled of flowers, and of the clean wetness of the dew on the grass. I meandered on toward the lake, past the boathouse toward the dock where Bill Stryker had climbed out of the lake.
I thought I smelled the cherry tobacco, but that was impossible. Hours had passed. My sense memory was working overtime.
And then I saw them. Two figures standing at the end of the dock, looking out at the lake in the moonlight. The smell of the pipe smoke wasn’t a figment of my imagination. The breeze coming off the lake carried it like a hint of death, a rumor of murder.
Morris Fleury was back. Rounded shoulders, beat-up seersucker suit, corncob pipe, smoke curling from the bowl. He was talking, the other man listening. I leaned against the boathouse wall out of sight, watching.
Finally the two men turned and came back, strolling the length of the dock. I saw their faces in the moonlight.
Fleury had the pipe clamped in his mouth. The other man with his round, boyishly innocent face was doing the talking now.
Cotter Whitney.
I walked alone back up to the stone patio where the stone fireplace still smelled of roasted pig and gave off some leftover heat. I sank down into one of the striped deck chairs, clasped my hands behind my head, and looked up at the moon and the stars and the occasional cloud that drifted past.
The cricket-infested quiet reassured me that everything would be all right. Never believe nature’s easy reassurances. It simply wants you to lower your guard before you are visited with a rain of toads.
But I didn’t need to look as far as nature for duplicity. It was all around me, culminating in whatever connection existed between the New York detective Morris Fleury and the Magna chairman Cotter Whitney. I couldn’t pretend to reach any sane conclusions, but I managed to sort out some questions that I felt were worth asking. The questions—even without an answer among them—made me feel for the first time that I was beginning to glimpse the outline, the great shadowy bulk of the elephant.
Maybe none of them had been telling me the truth, beyond the fact that they wanted JC found. Maybe I wasn’t being told why. So, watching the heavens, trying not to wonder if Morris Fleury might be hiding in a bush watching me, I put a little spin on things.
Could it be that they wanted me
to find JC because they were afraid he was alive?
Were they, then, afraid of JC because he was doing something to them? That would mean they weren’t so excited about getting him back to recording again: they just wanted to find him … to make him stop whatever he was doing?
The song he sent; was the song “evidence” to prove to them that he was, is, alive and well? Could be. Why else would he send it? But what did it really prove? I knew the song had been written many years ago … so all it proved was that somebody sent it.
What could JC be doing to Magna? Maybe he knew something he shouldn’t. Like Magna and drugs? Music business equaled drugs. A lot of drugs, or just enough for the talent under contract and the deejays? Would, therefore, JC be blackmailing Magna in some way? But I knew JC was dead. Still I had to admit it could be somebody pretending to be JC who was blackmailing them …
So, JC or the pretender will want to remain safe, secure, and hidden.
Which meant that somebody was bound to try to keep me from finding him.
How far was he prepared to stay hidden?
And was I the one sent to set him up to be killed by Magna? Maybe by Morris Fleury?
“I’d had enough questions for one night. And in the morning Heidi Dillinger and I would set out for Morocco.
Back, back to Tangier.
Twelve
WELL, TANGIER WAS A TERRIBLE idea. It was like having your feet held to the fire while somebody shaves your eyeballs away.
It had been a bad idea from the beginning, and maybe I should have known it. I should never have gone, there was nothing there for me but the poison from old wounds, the dregs of the old life, the razor wire I’d carefully strung around the past and now found myself blundering through like a dumb animal, panic-stricken and doomed. Psychologically speaking, as well as literally, it turned me into a bloody mess.
And there was poor Heidi caught in the trap I’d set myself so long ago. She had a madman on her hands all of a sudden and she was at the same time trying to do her job for Sam Innis. He was back to his old name in my mind. I know it’s confusing when somebody has two names, the only similarity between this story and the great Russian novels. What can I tell you? He was Innis to me. But he was Bechtol to everybody else. And his wires and demands for reports and plans were a pain in the ass. From his point of view it was his money paying the bills, and two first-class tickets to Casablanca made for a considerable jolt to the American Express card Heidi wielded so deftly.
The Suspense Is Killing Me Page 14
