That severed telephone line.
Yet Varada, who must have been there on the grounds to cut it, never put in an appearance. He left it to Caro to do his killing for him. It was like driving a single stake through both their hearts. And God only knew how he’d located the house in the first place. The bottom line was simple. We’d had a visitor from hell.
TWO
Victor’s death was ruled an accident. There was never any question of bringing charges against Caro. Her doctor kept her on mild sedatives for a week and, considering her past and the particular pressure of the tragic events, a private nurse moved into one of the spare bedrooms for several days. But the fact was simply that Caro came through it with remarkable calm.
One evening her doctor, a thickset man with wiry blond hair and a pink face, accepted a gin and tonic and sat with me in the back garden after seeing that she was safely sound asleep. I observed that she was holding up remarkably well.
“So it would seem,” he said, working his tie loose and undoing his collar button. “On the one hand, I’m very relieved that it should be so. On the other, we have to hope she’s not bottling up all the pain and frustration and anger. The problem is there’s really no way to tell. We just have to wait and see. So few people ever go through things on the order of what she has, it’s hard to judge what may be going on inside her head.” He swirled the ice in his glass with a stubby forefinger.
“She has incredible self-control,” I said, wondering what he’d say if he knew the Varada dimension.
He nodded. “In a curious way, her father’s condition is good for her. She must be strong to help him. Therefore, she will be strong. And, if I may say so, it’s very good that you happen to be here. She needs to keep her chin up for you and—also very important—she can share her memories and sorrow with you. If you can, stick around for a while. It’ll do her a world of good … she’s never made friends easily. You’re something of a godsend.” When he got up to leave he said: “She’s quite a specimen, Mr. Nichols. She’s had far more than the normal complement of nasty shocks in her life. Maybe it’s true what they say. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
The police asked us more questions about the death of Abe Braverman but even they seemed rather daunted by the enormity of the tragedy that had beset the household. Whatever theories they might have had they didn’t share with us. They must have poked around in his cases to see if someone might have wanted to kill him, if it hadn’t been a mugger gone berserk. They never mentioned Varada to us: Abe must have kept this one in his head. I never did find out if they tied Abe’s death to Claverly and Potter and the mangling they endured. The truth was, I think the summer horrors New York was breeding somehow took our business out of the spotlight more quickly than I’d imagined probable. After all, I was used to the slower pace of London.
There was a slasher loose in the subway system, striking at random, his brain fried on the griddle of madness, hatred, whatever. Somebody else was stealing human heads from morgues and mortuaries, a peculiar kind of nonlethal pilferage. Good for lots of headlines. Crack was being purveyed from Wall Street to Harlem: some of the more colorful dealers announced then-presence by loudly cracking bullwhips on Forty-second Street. There was an epidemic of babies toppling from high windows. The government of the city was rotting from within, almost disappearing under an avalanche of indictments. A guy with a saber carved up a bunch of tourists on the Staten Island ferry. Cops were being arrested for shaking down cocaine dealers and going into business for themselves. Six movies were being shot on the streets of Manhattan and if the swarms of tourists weren’t looking around to see if the slasher might be creeping up on them they were trying to catch a glimpse of Dustin Hoffman or Warren Beatty. It was also hot as hell and humid as your goldfish bowl. So, all things considered, the Saberdene tragedy had to fight for newspaper and television coverage. Then half of a new building fell down on a platoon of pedestrians and somebody threw a spring-loaded dagger at a ballplayer from California up at Yankee Stadium and Caro Saberdene found herself consigned to ancient history within a week of her husband’s death.
THREE
The funeral was very small, guarded by a security organization from the city. It was held without any church service up in Westchester. A few of Victor’s law partners spoke briefly. They were all very proper, very controlled individuals: it would have taken a good deal more than a partner’s death to produce a tear, though I’m sure they were preoccupied by strategies to retain the kind of fees Victor attracted. There were people who prided themselves on knowing how to behave. Caro, although she was not personally close to them, was in many ways one of them. She knew how to behave and she was grace itself when it came to dealing with them. I think maybe I was the only one in attendance who shed a tear and I felt oddly ashamed, as if my breeding were being revealed as not quite up to snuff. But I tried to be discreet, moved off by myself, wiped away the tears with my bare hand so no one would see the white flag of handkerchief.
Forty-eight hours later we were sitting in one of the partners’ offices down on Wall Street listening to a longtime friend of Victor’s inform Caro that she had come into an estate valued at just this side of eleven million dollars. Never has such a sum received so little reaction. Finally I paid it my personal respects by breathing a heartfelt Jesus. Caro’s mouth flickered at the corner, a tiny involuntary smile, when she heard me. The partner, a man of great gray pin-striped gravity, went on reading the list of assets.
If Caro was holding up superbly, I was having some difficulties. She and I really didn’t have much chance to talk through that first week or ten days following Victor’s death, what with the doctor wanting her to take her pills, the nurse bustling about making sure she got plenty of rest and quiet, the Filipino couple being as solicitous as humanly possible, and a few of the partners and then-wives dropping by on sympathy calls. I tried to stay out of the way. I tried not to worry about defining my role but inevitably I contemplated the future, which consisted of pondering Varada, Caro, and myself—what we were all going to do.
She did make clear to me, though, that she wanted to continue Victor’s policy regarding Mr. Varada. That is, our lips would stay buttoned. It seemed to us then that the death of Victor marked the end, that Varada would be content. We wanted it over, done with.
I don’t want to place myself onto center stage at this point. For that matter not even Caro was dominating events just then. Rather it was a period when the process of coping with Victor’s passing took hold of us, directed our behavior. My own reactions were private, but for the sake of clarity let me quickly describe what was going on in my mind while I played the family friend, good old Charlie, for anyone who took the time to notice me.
I felt a deepening sense of guilt about having fallen in love with Caro at all and, even worse, about not having just shut up about it. I had gone behind Victor’s back, which was wicked: I had drawn Caro into my passion. I felt guilty about having slept too soundly that night: if I had been on the ball I’d have been the one with the shotgun and maybe I wouldn’t have fired, maybe I’d have waited just long enough to see that it was Victor …Maybe. Maybe it would all have turned out differently. Maybe I would never have had Caro to myself. And I felt like hell even thinking along those lines. But I was stuck with the reality of it: she was the one who heard the noise, who came and got the gun assuming it was probably nothing, not wanting to try too hard to wake me but taking the gun to be on the safe side, and it was she who pulled the trigger. Sometimes I came awake in the night that first week, terrified, having dreamed that it was I who had heard the noise in the night and gone downstairs and shot my old friend.
Love. How can I explain that it wasn’t common lust? The more I watched her that week, the more I saw her composure under nearly unspeakable pressure, the more I knew that I loved her, that I was spellbound by her.
Bad timing. Sure, sure. You’re telling me it was bad timing! She was freshly widowed. She was suddenly e
normously wealthy. Both emotion and propriety made my feelings tasteless at the very least. But there they were. What she felt now—not what she’d felt before, when the ending we’d foreseen was something else entirely—I couldn’t be sure. I’d have to find out.
And finally let it be noted that I was still afraid.
It was Victor who had died. Varada was still out there somewhere.
FOUR
I didn’t know how to restore the intimacy Caro and I had established in those tense days leading up to Victor’s death. We now seemed never to be alone and on the rare occasions when we were, there seemed to be a subtle barrier between us, as if she knew I was waiting and it was up to her to set the agenda. I couldn’t force the issue of our relationship: it would have been too crass, a kind of insult to her courage. But the wait was driving me crazy. I didn’t know if we even had a relationship anymore. Maybe it had died with Victor. If I’d been a gentleman maybe I’d have assumed it had, maybe I’d have been preparing to pack my bags and go home to London. But I couldn’t just let go. Hell, I was no gentleman and I knew a real lady when I saw one. And I knew Varada might still be watching.
How long would I have waited before doing something, probably something preposterous and overt? We’ll never know because, just about when I’d come to the end of my tether, two weeks after Victor’s death, she came into the study carrying a tray of coffee things. She’d had dinner in her room and I’d eaten alone in the garden, come inside to sit before the air conditioner and try to pay attention to a ball game on the tube. The humidity permeated everything. The leather furniture was sticky with a patina of moisture. The pages of a book on my lap were wilted and rippled.
“Charlie,” she said, then paused. Watching her, I felt shy, as if our memories of one another might somehow differ in crucial ways. “Charlie, I know what you’re thinking.”
“Really? I wonder—”
“I always know what you’re thinking.”
“Ahh. What do you expect me to say? But then you already know—”
“You’re thinking about packing up and going back to London. And I want you to tell me you’ll stay.”
My heart took a little leap. “But what’s the point? You need some time to yourself. You’ve got to sort things out and get on with your life. You could hire a private security firm to deal with Varada … Isn’t all this obvious?”
“No, it’s not obvious at all, Charlie. Maybe you’re talking about yourself … maybe you’re the one who needs a little time to yourself. It’s your life that’s been on hold, ever since Victor dragged you into our melodrama.” She had put the cup down and was staring at me, her eyes huge, the two pearls hanging absolutely still. “I’ve already done some thinking and I want you to stay and be patient with me. Do you have to leave me, Charlie? Do you want to?”
“I can’t just stay here forever like a permanent houseguest. For one thing, aren’t you concerned about what people will say?”
She solemnly shook her head. “I couldn’t care less, Charlie. Why should I? My life is my own now. The real question is just this, can you be patient with me? This is important … you know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been reading your books, right from the first one about the political campaign of 1968. I’ve been trying to get to know you—”
“You know me,” I said. “You even know what I think—”
“That’s not the same. You know me. No one has ever gotten to know me so quickly. But you’re still a mystery to me. Please stay.”
“Look, do you understand what was going on between us before—you know?”
“Of course I do. But I wanted to get through this thing. And then we could figure out what it all meant, means. But everything ended so strangely, so badly, so sadly. It threw the timetable out the window.” She sighed heavily, curling her toes into the carpet. “We were falling in love, weren’t we?”
“I was. I’m not sure what you were doing. You had a couple of things on your mind. Like trying to stay alive. That sort of pressure could turn all your emotions inside out.”
“Odd as it may seem, I’m used to it … pressure. I seem to have an infinite capacity for attracting it. Like a lightning rod. I’m not incapacitated by it. But if you can only give me a bit of room on the love issue—do I sound like Victor? Like a lawyer?”
“Not in the least.”
She slowly poured more coffee into my cup. “Well, can you? Give me just a little time?”
“Sure. Time. Some room. But wouldn’t it be easier on you if I gave you some real time, more than a bit of room? I could go back to London, give you six months, come for a visit at Christmas if you still wanted me … we could have a fresh start.”
“No.” She shook her head, the pearls swinging. “I don’t want to risk it. I’d miss you, Charlie. I wouldn’t have anyone. Not Dad, not you …” Her voice had lost its customary extreme certainty. It was trembling in her chest. She stood up abruptly, went to the window overlooking the garden where I’d once seen her puttering in the wet earth. “I need you to help me through this, Charlie. I don’t want to be alone.”
I got up and went to her, put my arms around her. She was stiff, the tension you don’t see with the naked eye. But she leaned her sleek head back against my cheek. I kissed her shining hair, smelled her.
“For one thing, this isn’t over yet. I’m still afraid.”
“I know.” I felt her begin to relax in my arms. “I’ll stay.” There was no point in telling her that I, too, was afraid.
Chapter Eleven
ONE
THE NEXT MORNING AFTER CARO had left for the hospital I was having a cup of coffee with the morning’s sports pages when Conchita came bustling across the patio with a pot of fresh coffee in one hand and the cordless telephone in the other. “For you, meester,” she said. I was always meester. I thanked her, she refilled my mug, and I took the phone.
“Nichols here,” I said.
“Mr. Nichols, we haven’t met but I’ve heard a good deal about you. Years ago, from Victor.” It was a woman’s voice, almost melodious, just audibly breathless, as if she were nervous. A laugh stuck in her throat. “He used to say you were quite an expert on the subject of love, his mentor when it came to romance … anyway, my name is Samantha Barber. He may have mentioned me a long time ago as Samantha Frost.”
“Of course he did. But all that mentor stuff is pretty unnerving. I plead not guilty, it’s just not true—”
“True or not, you changed Victor’s life with some advice you once gave him. And you certainly changed mine—”
“I doubt that,” I said. “But if I did, it was for the better, I hope.”
“No, that’s not quite the way it turned out but that, thankfully, is not why I’m calling you … well, it’s about Victor, actually …”
“Yes,” I said when I heard her taking a deep breath. I thought I heard ice cubes sloshing in a glass, clinking against crystal.
“I want to see you, Mr. Nichols. The sooner the better.”
“All right. May I ask what’s on your mind?”
“Look, this really isn’t easy and it’s only going to get harder. But I’ve got something to tell you. I know Victor would want me to do this. Otherwise I’d say the hell with it … but I keep thinking about Victor.” She coughed. I heard the sibilant sound of her sipping, swallowing. “I can’t say any more now but you must believe me. It’s important.”
“Fine. I’ll be glad to listen. When?”
“Tomorrow. I really can’t sit on this any longer. I’ve got to get it off my chest, Mr. Nichols, and damn the metaphors. Then … well.” She took another sip. “It’s got to be just you tomorrow. You alone.”
“Fine. Caro goes to see her father at the hospital in the morning, stays all day. You name it.”
“The bar at the St. Regis. Three o’clock. It’ll be empty. We’ll have it to ourselves and, Mr. Nichols, you’re going to need a drink.”
“I usually do,” I said.
TWO
&
nbsp; I made the mistake of walking to the hospital to see Andy Thorne. It was hot again, and the humidity made it feel like a higher being had dropped a heavy, dirty net over the city. I took off my seersucker jacket. There were blotches of sweat showing on it like Rorschach tests. I carried it from a forefinger, dangled back over my shoulder. The trees were so green it seemed they would burst with their ripeness.
I should have grabbed a cab and stuck my head out the window to catch the breeze, tongue lolling like an old dog, but Samantha Barber’s comments had left me unsettled. I needed the time a stroll would give me, to think or, more accurately, to worry. I kept thinking about the night we’d gone to the Algonquin, the three of us to hear Michael Feinstein and seek some respite from Varada, that very long night that found Abe Braverman dead and Andy Thorne nearly so. But what was lodged in my mind was the sight of Victor inclined over the pretty blond woman with the laugh I recalled—or was it just another melodic laugh in a crowded room?—and Caro’s voice telling me that Victor was having an affair with the blonde because she, Caro, was frigid …It had sounded sad, a sad story, but not at all melodramatic because Caro didn’t strike me as a dealer in cheap effects. But Samantha Barber was something else altogether. She seemed the very stuff of self-dramatization. The model was apparently as much of an actress as the actress.
However, thinking about Samantha didn’t get me any closer to the reason why Victor would want her to talk to me, no closer to why I’d be needing a drink.
The funny thing was, I believed her.
THREE
Andy Thorne was pale, his skin papery and clinging for dear life to his cheekbones, as if he were somehow imploding. He’d become an old man, frail, trembling. He was balancing on that taut wire, suspended above the grave, and you couldn’t know just yet if he’d regain his strength and his footing or just slip away. But the tubes were gone from his nostrils and he was sitting up and the remains of a good-sized lunch were left on the rolling tray he’d pushed aside. The air conditioner was on and the television was murmuring, Bogart still believing that Lizabeth Scott was one of the good guys.
The Saberdene Variations Page 11
