by Tim Baker
‘About the Kennedy assassinations?’
‘About the Bannister case.’ Her dyed auburn hair masks half of her face as she reaches down and plucks a cigarette and lighter from the coffee table. ‘Admit it, Mr. Alston, that’s why you’re really here. Your father’s unfortunate association with the case locked you into this obsession. A downward spiral . . . ’ She smiles sadly at me. ‘You shouldn’t have to do this to yourself—you’re throwing your life away looking at one thing when you should be looking at another. Besides . . . ’ There is the grind of flint finding flame, and the swift inhalation of combustion. ‘When it’s all said and done, Jack and Bobby were such heels. Don’t waste your time on them. Your father was so much more interesting.’
A plume of smoke crosses the room. I can smell its charmed breath of spices and cancer. There is a long silence. She’s made her speech, and now I was expected to make mine. We stare at one another, each waiting for the other to crack. She smiles. ‘Do you know who I am?’
’Betty Bannister.’
The intake of her breath is so sharp that for a second I think she’s having a heart attack. I rise to my feet, but she flags me back down. ‘The very thought!’ Her laugh is warm and indulgent. Authentically amused. I realize that whoever she is, I think I like her. ‘I am . . . I was Eva Marlowe.’
‘The movie star?’
‘How very kind of you to remember . . . Sometimes I do feel like Norma Desmond.’
‘And now you’re running with bounty hunters?’
She doesn’t understand at first. ‘Oh, Dwayne.’ Her laugh is like a reed instrument. Musical; resonant without being overwhelming. ‘He does have an active imagination. Of course everyone likes to think of themselves as a hero.’
‘Heroes don’t kidnap people.’
‘You were brought here for your own protection.’
‘Where’s here?’
‘Caddo. That’s the name of the house. Sonny—Howard Hughes—gave it to me. He knew I couldn’t stand Texas. Sonny was always like that, just couldn’t take no for an answer. It’d drive him crazy, and let’s face it—he was pretty damn crazy to begin with. Poisoned chalices were always his favourite type of gift . . . ’ Now I remember where I knew the name: they used to call Howard Hughes “The Headless Horseman of Old Preston Hollow”. ‘On the other hand, how could any sane person refuse a place like this? Wait till you see the grounds. A drink, Mr. Alston?’
I look at the bottle of single malt she’s holding. Older than me. ‘Please . . . ’ I nod to the shelves of books. ‘You’re a reader?’
‘I love reading, though I’m too impatient to be a great reader. I just finished The Day of the Jackal. I actually met de Gaulle. Appalling bore. I was living in France back then. We all were. We were tax exiles, although we pretended it was for the culture . . .’ Eva Marlowe looks up at me, coming back from Paris when it sizzled. ‘What were we talking about . . . ? Oh yes, the library. Sonny was always fascinated by the esoteric. Freemasons, Ancient Egypt. The Knights Templar. Prophesy and fortune-telling. Even Ouija boards. Anything to do with magic . . . He just hated the notion that someone might know something he didn’t.’
‘Meaning he was gullible?’
‘On the contrary, he was alert—always looking for an angle that other people overlooked. Sonny used to say that superstition was simply knowledge that educated people ignored. He called it his double indemnity. When he found out this house had been built on a Caddo Ghost Dance site, he was hooked. He believed there was some kind of ancient power buried under the earth. That’s why he installed his library here. For its magical properties.’
I flash back to Evelyn and me in her library last night . . .
‘Evelyn uses it all the time.’ Eva Marlowe mind-reads me. ‘She says it’s unique. Apparently Yale would like to acquire it. There’s a lot of material about Skull and Bones; material they’d prefer to keep hidden . . . ’ She stands and removes a slim leather volume from a bookshelf. ‘But there’s one book that shouldn’t remain hidden any longer. It was given to me by two men I met in . . . unusual circumstances.’
‘What circumstances were those?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. There’s a third party involved who has already suffered enough.’
‘Do you know the names of the men?’
‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. They said they were killers. I believe they were actually spies. One of them was French. The other man, the American, gave this to me. It’s a diary. You must promise, under no circumstances, to discuss it with anyone, including Dwayne and Adam. Especially Adam.’
‘You don’t trust Granston?’
‘He’s trustworthy. Up to a point. But he’s too much like Tex Jeetton . . .’ She knows—knew—Tex too. ‘Haunted by all the glass keys they had to smash after every door they locked. There are things you should never go back to. That’s easier for a woman to understand than a man. But then there are things you must go back to, out of respect for the victim. Like that book . . . ’
I open the volume. Pages and pages of tight, neat writing. The blue ink has faded to a bronze-hued tint, and the paper has been sun-scorched by time into a burnished, fragile transparency. ‘This is Marilyn Monroe’s diary?’
‘One of them. The one that concerns you. The one that talks about the Bannister case. It explains it all, starting with Sonny.’
‘What did Hughes have to do with the kidnapping?’
‘It’s all there. Sonny blamed Bannister for the election of Kennedy. That was not supposed to happen. Nixon was supposed to have been elected. Especially with everything they had over JFK . . . ’
‘And what did they have over him?’
‘Joe Kennedy was very active in Hollywood, both sides of the War: Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich. Clare Boothe Luce—you know I once turned down the offer of playing Crystal in a remake of The Women? It just didn’t make sense: why would you want to remake a Cukor classic?’
‘Please, Miss Marlowe. What were you saying about Joseph Kennedy?’
‘He had an affair with Adèle Bourdonnais—the greatest beauty of her day. Their children married Rex Bannister.’
‘Children?’
‘Twins. Elaine and Betty.’
‘And Rex Bannister knew this.’
‘Of course—everyone knew it. Why do you think he married them?’
I look back at the diary in my hands. Turning the pages. A name starts to appear, recurring more and more frequently: Bannister. Adèle, Elaine; Elizabeth . . . Betty. An ancient Photostat slips out of the back of the diary. I unfold the hard, grey shell. It is a Texas State Board of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics Standard Certificate of Birth for a Joey Mack, born October 8th, 1957. I look up at Eva Marlowe. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Remember the body your father found? Everyone said it was Ronnie Bannister? They even buried him in the Bannister tomb. It was all a lie. It was this child, this poor child, Joey Mack . . . ’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘Who else could it be? Didn’t your father ever tell you? Ronnie Bannister was invented to stop Kennedy.’
‘Invented?’
‘I’m sorry. I thought you knew. The Bannister child never existed . . . ’
CHAPTER 44
Los Angeles 1960
Cate straightens my tie. Steps back, then adjusts it. ‘Come home soon.’ I snatch up my car keys. Then I remember. ‘Baby, can I take yours?’
She comes out onto the street with me. ‘Be careful . . . ’
I see her in the rearview mirror, the screen door closing behind her, hiding her like a veil. I go through my calculations. Take the Old Man for as much as I can. Sell the house. Go. Somewhere where there’s sunshine and a sea to wash all the grime away. I switch on the radio. Mingus. Flamingo from Tijuana Moods. Why not another country? I want out of LA. If it doesn’t hap
pen soon, it never will. I’ll be like everyone else, trapped in Cemetery City.
The gates are open at High Sierra. No cops; no reporters. It’s like everyone got embarrassed and ran away. Branches sway with the restless wind, Cate’s car swerving up the gravel path. The quiet is unnerving after the carnival scenes with the press hounds. Distant barking tells me the only dogs left are safely stowed in their kennels. There is a plaintive sound to their howls, as if they know the truth: the kid is dead, the only suspect who could give up Roselli is dead, and this whole stinking thing has been a setup from the very beginning.
I look down on the lights of LA. The real LA. Of families and squabbling kids, dirty dishes and blaring televisions. Couples arguing or copulating. Children crying. Cats sleeping or prowling. The mysteries of the mundane; the things that keep us sane. But up here, in High Sierra, other mysteries apply: wealth, control, dominion; limitless power. Up here, it’s Olympus; a whole, separate cosmology. And we poor mortals don’t have a clue that it even exists until we accidentally collide with it, through happenstance or catastrophe.
Through visitation from the Gods.
Broken glass crunches underfoot, all that’s left of the memory of Greta Simmons. Stars flint their hesitant light into the windy sky above the mansion. Datura flowers bloom in moon glow, honeying the air with their disturbing lemon scent. I shiver. The entire estate seems deserted at first, but then I notice the glow from the pool house and walk round the side, my feet loud on the heavy pebble driveway. This is how Tommy got it, in a lonely place just like this, his footsteps down a mansion’s pebble driveway betraying him to his killer.
There is a noise behind me. I whirl, the gun at her face, so close to the final consummation of barrel, bullet, bone. Yet she doesn’t start. She just stands there, letting the gun rest against her cheek, as though it were the lips of a lover. ‘Kind of edgy tonight, aren’t we, Mr. Alston?’
‘You could have gotten yourself killed, Mrs. Bannister.’
She shakes her head, hair falling across her face, across my hard barrel. I draw it slowly away and see the white oval impression it’s left on her tanned cheekbone. ‘I give you more credit than that.’
‘What are you doing out here all on your own?’
‘I thought I heard a car . . . And what are you doing out here, Mr. Alston? Haven’t you read the papers? The case is closed.’
‘But you called me?’
Panic spreads across her face. ‘Mr. Alston, I assure you, we haven’t spoken since Captain Schiller was here.’
One of us is being set up. ‘We need to talk . . . ’
‘Can’t this wait?’
‘It’s about your husband . . . ’
‘What about him, Mr. Alston?’
‘Do you know where he is?’
She hesitates, then shakes her head. I start heading towards the house, but she takes my arm, steers me away. ‘Please, Mr. Alston . . . You must go.’
‘I want answers. Now.’
She stares into my eyes; a testing look. Challenging. Judgmental. She sighs. Capitulation? Or resignation? ‘All right. But not in the house . . . It’s not safe.’
‘Why’s that?’
She doesn’t answer, she just walks away . . . I follow the sway of her hips across the gardens, watching her body slowly appearing through her white silk dress as we draw closer to the glow of the pool house. It’s lit by dozens of floating candles flickering on the surface of the water, reflected in the skylight.
‘Power company cut you off?’
‘You know what they say about the rich . . . We’re poorer than the poor.’ She’s looking at me the way she did when we first met, regal and with amused defiance as she crossed that immense hallway, coming to me proudly in her revealing negligée, her silk robe sweeping the marble floor.
If this encounter had happened earlier today, there would have been no hesitation. I would have tugged her into my arms, and kissed her. But something unexpected had gotten in the way . . . Cate.
As soon as we’re in the pool house, her attitude changes. ‘We must be quick,’ she says, glancing over my shoulder. ‘There are people everywhere.’ Who is she talking about? The estate’s deserted. ‘Ronnie’s life is in danger.’
’Stop the charade, Mrs. Bannister. There never was a Ronnie Bannister, it was all a . . . ’ My voice falls down a well when I see it, framed beyond her left shoulder at the other side of the pool house.
The telephone on the table.
She follows my gaze then turns back to me. ‘The calls. They didn’t come from the bomb shelter, they came from here . . . Didn’t they, Mrs. Bannister?’
A look of horror passes across her face, and she takes a step backwards. I start to turn.
Too late.
There’s a blow from behind, the blood hot down the back of my shirt then cold with the swimming pool, candles dancing in the water above me, her face disappearing as I sink, flames extinguishing like meteors, till everything closes and goes black.
* * *
I come to in a cellar, the smell of dust and mildew in the air, being dragged backwards down a corridor. It’s all too complicated to absorb . . .
* * *
I’m being thrown down on my back, my head meeting the stubbornness of stone. I open my eyes, the golden and purple pentagram coming into focus on the ceiling above the table I’m lying on.
Altar, Mr. Alston.
Above the altar I’m lying on.
That screwy face inside the star stares at me with a decidedly unfriendly expression. I’m not too crazy about him, either.
My head aches the way it only ever does on New Year’s Day.
I crane my neck, trying to scope as much of the room as possible. Over my shoulder I can make out ancient cobwebs slowly turning from the heat of a nearby candle. I try to move and feel the burn of rope around my wrists, ankles and throat. The rope around my left wrist is not as tight as it should be. Maybe I have a chance after all. Maybe someone is looking out for me . . .
A voice I recognize says, ‘He’s awake . . . ’ A light comes on directly above me, showering me in its big, voltage smile. I close my eyes against the glare and the same voice says, ‘Where’s the kid?’
I can see nothing but the solar flare of the klieg light, its immense heat hammering into my body, my wet clothes already beginning to smoulder under its Fahrenheit dazzle. But that voice? The thick-lipped intonation, laboured and overly precise; the strangely lisped delivery, as though reading from a script he didn’t quite understand. Jesse. The man who demanded the ransom.
‘What have you done with Mrs. Bannister?’
No response. Guilt? Or satiated exhaustion.
‘So help me, God, if you’ve touched a hair on her—!’ There is the wheezing turn of an old wheel and the rope begins to tighten to a sequence of hard clicks. I have just enough time to tauten my throat against its pressure, swelling my Adam’s apple into a hard knot against the bite of hemp, sucking breath through my nostrils and expanding my lungs as much as I can, my clothes smoking as though from the pressure. ‘Your sweetheart’s gone, chump, and she couldn’t help you even if she wanted to. This is your last chance. Now where’s the kid?’
The rope around my left wrist is giving, but I need more time. I need to go on the offensive. They think I’m helpless because I’m tied up. I need to ambush their smug assumption that they’re in control. ‘Which kid?’ I have their attention, all right. I decide to play a hunch. ‘The phony dead one? Or the real living one?’
Stunned fucking silence.
The shocked hush drains the room of all life. Even the arc light above me seems to waver in disbelief.
It tells me something I’ve never quite stopped believing.
That the Bannister kid is real.
That the Bannister kid is still alive.
And that they know wh
ere he is. Or are looking awful hard to find him.
The question is why are they putting on this routine . . . ? The only answer: for the benefit of someone else in the room who’s out of the loop. I keep working at the rope around my left wrist. I play the only card I have left, praying it’s an ace. ‘Jesse led me to the real kid.’
The room simmers with the possibility of betrayal, and right then I knew I figured right, that Jesse had to be there in the room, lurking in the artificial darkness. Time to tease him out with a twist of the big knife. ‘He was as sloppy as a dishrag in a chophouse.’ I give a false laugh, which comes off as scornful and real. ‘You should have heard him trying to talk on the phone! What a riot! Know what we called him? We called him Mumbles.’
‘Liar!’
That had to be Jesse. There is a lethal pause and then what feels like a fistful of brass knuckles wallops me hard below the belt. In the convulsive jolt it gives my body, I loosen the rope enough to let me pull my left hand free whenever I need to. I turn my head and the vomit trickles onto the floor. I glance up and spot my assailant retreating into the coward shelter of the arc light’s blinding halo. But he isn’t fast enough. I get a glimpse of him. His face is mush. Bingo. I’ve clocked the bastard. Jesse is Goodwin James—Old Man Bannister’s nosy reporter turned amateur shakedown artist. ‘But seeing you in the flesh what we should have called you was Pruneface.’
I turn to the other side of the room, to where a pair of scuffed black shoes with the soles lifting off the toes half-hides in the shadows. ‘And that makes you who? Flattop or Itchy?’ I let out a gasping shriek as someone belts me in the guts. I can hardly breathe, but still manage to spit out a curse. I turn my head, dry-retching, my hand free. I just need to stall for the right moment . . . ‘Go on. Call the Old Man. Ask him. He knew about the switcheroo. He was the one who told me that Jesse was Goodwin James.’
