The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  “You shouldn't be out,” he scolded her gently. ”I could have grabbed a taxi.”

  “I'm fine,” she told him. “There is no more pain.”

  Lesko knew she was lying. He knew what bullets did. And what they felt like.

  The Mercedes climbed higher, past homes that became increasingly elegant and grounds more spacious as they drove. Lesko tried to imagine the house Elena would have chosen. The driver slowed and reached to press a button. Just ahead, on the left, a heavy gate swung open. Its ironwork had been covered with metal plates to obstruct the view within. The Mercedes entered. The chase car stayed at the curb outside.

  There was a circular driveway, not so big, space for five or six cars at most. It led to a house that seemed more French than Swiss. A chateau. Sort of a salmon color trimmed in white stone that looked as if it had recently been sandblasted. The house was substantial but not huge. Not much land around it either. But what it had was richly landscaped with shrubs and rock gardens and an occasional bronze sculpture. The gate closed behind them. A woman stood waiting at the front door. She wore a nurse's uniform, her expression a mixture of exasperation and concern. Ignoring Lesko, she hurried to Elena's side of the Mercedes and helped her out of the car.

  Inside, lots of marble. More sculpture. A main hallway with a curved stairway straight ahead and double doors on each side. The nurse opened one of these. It was the living room, Lesko guessed. Or the library. Many books lined the walls, some behind glass. There was a fireplace, freshly lit and blazing. Two plush chairs faced each other in front of it. There was a wheelchair next to one of them. The nurse tried to force Elena into it. She shook her head impatiently, stepped past the nurse and eased herself into one of the chairs. She beckoned the nurse closer, whispered something to her. More exasperation, a rolling of the eyes, but whatever Elena said to her, the nurse seemed to throw in the sponge. Elena patted her hand. “Danke,” she added. The nurse took her fur and left the room.

  “The nurse knows it too,” Lesko told her. “Going out was dumb.”

  He stood facing the fire. He could not look at her because she was staring at him. her eyes alive with pleasure. It embarrassed him.

  “It has been three weeks,” she said. ”I have indulged myself enough.”

  “Yeah, well,” he admonished her, “it's going to be more like three months. That's not a skin rash you got there.”

  “Sit. Lesko,” she said. “Please.”

  He hesitated.

  “Must I tell you that it hurts to look up at you?”

  He took the chair opposite.

  Elena eased her right arm out of the light canvas sling. She winced, then tried to disguise it with a smile. Lesko leaned forward as if to rise but she waved him off with a motion of her fingers.

  “If I ask you why you came, Lesko,” she said, her breath catching, “what will you say? That you were passing through?”

  Lesko made a face. He would have. “Truth is,” he told her, ”I came to see you. I been thinking about you.”

  “Nice thoughts?”

  “Yeah. Mostly.”

  The qualifier caused her to drop her eyes. Lesko saw it.

  “Not mostly,” he said. “All of them.”

  A shy smile. Her fingernails picked idly at the stitching of her gown. “Will you tell me some of them?” she asked.

  “Just”—he shifted uncomfortably—“Just thoughts.”

  “Tell me.” She kept her eyes down. “Please?”

  Lesko felt his color rising. He could not tell her of the times when he'd imagined himself holding her in his arms. Her face against his chest. Now and then he'd bring a hand to her cheek. Sometimes he would kiss her. Never on the lips. Just the forehead. A couple of times, back home, lying in bed at four in the morning, he'd imagined that she was there with him. But he had not imagined her there on purpose. It was a dream. The half-awake kind. Like when David Katz comes. Nor were they doing anything. She wasn't naked. She was just there.

  ”I thought,” he said with effort, “about how brave you are. And how bad I feel that you got hurt. And ... I don't know. Lots of things.”

  She waited.

  “And how you're so beautiful,” he said hoarsely.

  She smiled. ”I am not. But thank you.”

  “Don't argue.”

  Her eyes fell again. ”I dream of you sometimes.”

  Lesko blinked, startled.

  “In my dreams,” she said slowly, “you have forgiven me.”

  He let out a breath. ”I told you before. We're square. Forget that part.”

  There was a knock at the door. The nurse entered. Lesko did not know whether he was annoyed or relieved. She brought a tray of coffee, which she set down at Elena's right hand. She stepped back into the hall and returned with a rectangular object that was covered with a cloth. She set this down as well and walked from the room. Elena tried to pour. The arm had no strength. Lesko crossed to the tray. He dropped to one knee and did it for her. His hand was shaking. He cursed himself.

  “Do I make you ill at ease?” she asked.

  “How do you like your coffee?”

  “Black. Please answer. Do I?”

  ”I guess. A little.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you make me crazy sometimes, that's why.”

  “Have you ever wanted to make love to me?”

  Lesko needed both hands for his cup. “See that?” he said. “That's what I mean.”

  “It is an honest question. I have certainly thought of you in that way.”

  He had to put it down.

  “Furthermore”—she forced firmness into her voice—”I have asked you to come visit me, even live here with me, as long as you like. I think this invitation deserves the courtesy of á reply.”

  “Will you''—Lesko rubbed his face—“Will you please stop?”

  “You Americans have an expression. Cards on the table.”

  “Yeah, well, we have one about beating around the bush, too. It's also a custom.”

  “And that opposites attract.”

  “But not oil and water.”

  She became subdued. “That is how you see us?”

  “Elena.” He softened his voice into a reasoning tone. “Will you look at me? Take a real good look.”

  ”I have looked. You wish for proof?” She reached for the object the nurse had set by her chair. She tugged at the cloth that covered it. Lesko could see that it was a painting, framed. He moved to help her with it.

  He sat back, stunned.

  It was him. Ten years younger. Thirty years less angry. But the face was still hard. And yet ... contented. There were mountains in the background but they were low. It gave the feeling that he was standing on the highest peak, looking off in the distance, liking what he saw. When he could speak, he asked, “Who did this?”

  “I did.”

  “What, personally? You painted this?”

  “From memory.” She wrinkled her nose. “Now I see the mistakes. But that is you, Lesko.”

  ”I wish.”

  “You see? You think you are unattractive. You are not.”

  Lesko grunted.

  “Your manner is coarse, Lesko, but your features are not. You are an intimidating presence but I think much of this is deliberate. In any case, it no longer works with me because I have seen great tenderness in you. And integrity. And strength. You are a man. In my life I have met only one other like you. Perhaps two.” Urs Brugg was one, she said in her mind. Paul Bannerman, perhaps, the other,

  Lesko's color rose again. The last people who said anything like this to him, besides Susan, were the hookers when he was working vice. And that was because they knew he'd never hit on them for sex or money for not busting them.

  He cleared his throat. ”I . . . admire you too.”

  A hesitant smile. “You feel more than that, I think.”

  His color deepened.

  “Cards on the table, Lesko,” she said.

  Lesko groaned inwardl
y. She was about to make him crazy again. But at least she was plowing straight ahead. Which was more his style. If she'd tried any of that feminine wiles shit he knew he'd be a puddle by now.

  “You want cards?” He set the portrait down carefully. “Try these. My whole pension plus what I make on the side probably couldn't buy one of those statues you leave out in the rain. You pick up a new Mercedes every time your old one gets a window shot out and I run around by subway. Start hanging out with me and you've had your last invitation to anything fancier than awards night at the bowling alley.”

  She held his gaze, not amused. She gestured vaguely at her surroundings. “If I had none of this, what then?”

  “The point is, you have it. I don't.”

  “Very well.” She raised her chin. ”I will leave the money here. You will bring me home with you. You will take care of me.”

  Lesko pushed to his feet, stepping behind his chair as if to keep it between them. He didn't believe this. Not in his dumbest daydreams, not even at four in the morning would he—“Look.” He winced. “Could we change the subject for a minute? Where's Bannerman?”

  “No, we cannot. I have dealt you a queen. You will please cover it.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, fingers to his temples. “You'd give up all of this. Just to be with me.”

  “Certainly not. It would be here for our visits.”

  “Just checking.” He made a face. “And how long would you expect this to last?”

  “Until you hurt me.”

  “So we're not talking marriage here.”

  She shrugged. “We can marry. If you wish. But I would like a child in any case. You seem to do that well.”

  The room tilted. Lesko held fast to the chair. Through a soft mist, layers of gauze, he could see Elena rising toward him, eyes moist, lips tight as if she were trying not to let him see her laugh, guiding him back to his chair. Now she was kneeling, her good arm resting on his thigh. She was talking to him. He heard only fragments. Like Poor Lesko. And from time to time she would grin broadly as if recalling something funny. / know how this must seem to you. To me as well I had no idea that I would say such things.

  Here was this woman who, two years ago, had calmly tried to bargain for her life and now, in this dream, she was back and she wanted him to take her home and give her babies—Poor Lesko—which meant that she would actually have to be in bed with him, not make-believe like in the other dream, and he would have to try not to roll over and crush her some night like he heard pigs do with their young.

  It is not a requirement. She's still on babies. Perhaps it is foolish. Then about how she's forty-six years old but other women that age have had healthy . . . but your wishes must be considered as well . . . and he had time to shower and take a nap before lunch and then they could discuss these matters with clearer heads . . . / will ask Uncle Urs to dinner. He wants so much to meet you.

  Lesko barely heard. This could not be happening. His fingers traced lightly over the back of her hand as if to see if she were real. They floated up against her cheek with a will of their own and they felt the texture of her hair. It was shorter now. And lighter. Kind of halfway blond. It was like that last time, too, he remembered dimly. Maybe he should say he likes it.

  The fingers moved on. They brushed downward near her lips, which turned, and, with a soft kiss, welcomed them. They moved on to her shoulder, the injured one, barely touching it, his brain playing a scene in which men were shooting at her and he saw himself plunging toward them, he heard his own voice in a bellow of rage and his hands were seizing them, tearing away their weapons, snapping the bones of their arms and hearing their shrieks. But another hand was there now, taking his, gently, guiding it once more to her lips and then downward against her breast where it could feel the beating of her heart.

  Somehow, he had slid from his chair. His body, sapped of strength or will, had melted to the floor beside her. It enveloped her. His hands, searching for a way to hold her that would cause no pain, touched her in places, a hip, a thigh, that should have been forbidden to them. Such a rough man, Lesko . . . Such a gentle man. They found the firm flesh of her back and they made it shudder. Her face turned upward toward his. He saw that tears had welled in her eyes and were spilling to the corners of her mouth. He asked what's wrong, he thought. Was he hurting her? Perhaps he didn't ask. There was no answer save the light of a hundred diamonds dancing in her eyes and on her cheeks. He saw in those eyes ... he didn't know what. So many different emotions, each coming fast on the other. Another man might have taken them together and called them love but Lesko could not. To be loved, a man like himself, by a woman such as this, it was not possible. Affection, perhaps. Born of gratitude, or need. And the tears were more likely born of relief, purging her soul of a spell she had somehow cast on herself, washing away the torrent of unwanted emotions with which it had betrayed her for so long.

  Lesko could not articulate such thoughts. He could only feel them. He could only let them settle in his own heart and simmer there until his brain and his instincts began to function once more and remind him that this was ridiculous. It could not work. Not for long. Perhaps for a year. Perhaps only a month. It might not even last the night.

  But here it was. For whatever reason. And better than any dream.

  And he would take it.

  Late afternoon. Westport.

  “Molly”—Susan leaned across Paul's regular table at Mario's; her voice was low but firm—”I want to know what's happening here.”

  She had told her of the calls from Roger Clew. Of her attempts to locate Paul and her father. Of her knowledge that at least two of the others, probably more, had suddenly left Westport and were almost certainly en route to Europe.

  Paul's friend, her friend, had listened attentively, showing no sign of alarm. But Susan saw a light in her eyes, which she had not seen before. Molly reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  “As for your father,''she answered, not hesitating at all, “you're right. He's gone to sort himself out with Elena once and for all. He's in no danger.”

  “But Paul is?”

  She waved the question to one side. “As for Roger Clew, you're sure he said that? That he'd send people into West-port?”

  “It's still on the machine,” Susan told her. “Go listen for yourself.”

  “Give me a second.”

  Molly walked from the table to the bar where she reached for a phone and tapped out two different series of numbers with a pause in between. She listened without speaking. Susan realized that she'd memorized Paul's remote access number and was now listening to the voice of Roger Clew. Molly met Susan's gaze and gave her a nod of acknowledgment. She broke the connection, held up one finger, then dialed another number. Susan watched her lips. They pronounced the name of Anton Zivic, then waited.

  Now she was speaking to him. Susan could not hear but she could pick out other names. Roger, spoken with a frown. Paul spoken with ... at least not with concern. Even a smile here and there. Then her own name. Molly was looking at her. Her eyes, thought Susan, kept flicking down to her purse, which sat on the table at her elbow. Molly was listening, nodding, and agreeing. She replaced the phone and stepped from behind the bar.

  “That was Anton?” Susan asked, more an observation than a question.

  “Yes. And I called Paul's machine.”

  ”I saw. Are you going to tell me?”

  “About Paul? You know I can't. If it helps, even our own people don't know where he is. Just Anton and myself because we need to.”

  “Can you tell me if he's in danger?”

  Molly seemed as if she were going to say one thing but chose another. “No morç than usual,” she said.

  “You were about to say something else.”

  Molly brushed her hair from one cheek. ”I was about to lecture you.”

  ”I know,” she nodded. “Get used to it, Susan. If you can't stand the heat, go find yourself a yuppie.”

  “Not
exactly,” Molly smiled, “but close enough.” She gestured with her thumb toward Susan's purse. “What's the gun for?”

  “How did you know?”

  Molly didn't answer. Susan turned her head toward Mario's single front door. Metal detectors, she assumed. Now she understood why several heads had snapped up when she entered. And why one of the ceiling lights had suddenly begun to blink. She could probably make that happen all over Westport.

  “Susan,” Molly repeated. “Why the gun?”

  “Just trying to fit in.”

  “Do you know how to use it?”

  ”I asked Paul to teach me. He said he's not very good. Is that true?”

  Another smile. A rocking motion of the hand. Molly chose not to elaborate. “Challenge Paul to a contest shooting at tin cans,” she might have said, “and you might very well beat him. Come at him with a gun, let him see you coming or miss with your first shot, and he will surely kill you.”