Don't Look Behind You

by Lois Duncan

  Jim regarded her with concern. “Are you okay, Mrs. Corrigan?”

  “No,” said Mom. “I’m feeling pretty shaky. And by the way, don’t you think you should call me Liz? Since we’re sharing a suite, I take it we’re supposed to be related.”

  “Right,” Jim agreed. “I’m either your uncle or your father.” He sat down on the chair across from her, and from my position behind him I could see the pink of his scalp peeking out through the wispy strands of gray and was suddenly, painfully reminded of my Grandpa Clyde. The brisk, no-nonsense voice was like my grandfather’s also. “Bram, will you please come in here? We have things to talk about. We’ve got to establish some ground rules for our stay here.”

  When Bram came in from the balcony, his shirt was unbuttoned. He was evidently in stage one of preparing for the pool.

  “Do you think they let people swim in shorts?” he asked hopefully. “I’ve got cut-offs in my pack that look sort of like swim trunks.”

  Mom started to answer, but Jim was ahead of her. “I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be able to go swimming here. It isn’t the time of year yet for family vacations. People who saw you would wonder why you weren’t in school.”

  “Who cares?” Bram yipped. “There’s nobody here who knows us!”

  “That’s probably true,” Jim agreed. “Still, we’re not going to risk it. If somebody’s out to find you, he’ll be casing out hotels.”

  “But there’s no way for anybody to know we’re in Richmond!” I protested.

  “I hope you’re right, but we can’t be certain about anything.”

  “Please, do as Jim says without arguing,” Mom told us. “He’s not just being arbitrary, he’s trying to protect us.”

  “Protect us from what? Somebody jumping in and drowning us?” I couldn’t believe the turn the conversation had taken. “What are we supposed to do tonight in the dining room? Are we going to eat with napkins over our faces?”

  “We won’t be eating in the dining room,” Jim told me. “We’re going to have our meals brought up by room service.”

  “You mean you’re going to keep us locked up like prisoners!” I gestured toward the phone on the coffee table. “Next I suppose you’ll be telling me I can’t let my boyfriend know he can’t come over tonight.”

  “You already know the rule about phone calls,” Jim said.

  “But Steve and I have a date to work on an English assignment! It’s bad enough that I wasn’t at the courts after tennis practice. If Steve comes over to the house and nobody’s there, he’s going to freak out!”

  “Calm down,” Mom said. “It’s not the end of the world. In a couple of days we’ll be home, and you can explain everything.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if it was Dad who was worrying!” I was becoming more and more frustrated every minute. “It’s not like Steve is going to tell anybody anything! All this cloak-and-dagger stuff is ridiculous!”

  It was a good line to exit on, but I had nowhere to go. From what Jim had just said, we weren’t even allowed in the hallway. The only refuge available was a bedroom, so I stalked into the closer of the two and slammed the door. Then I gazed about me, wondering what to do next. The room did not offer many alternatives. It contained two queen-sized beds, two dressers, and a TV set. I flicked on the TV and surfed to a regular channel. A rerun of Friends appeared on the screen, and I threw myself down on one of the beds to watch it.

  At first I expected Mom to come in after me to try to talk me into rejoining the group in the living room. After a while, though, I realized she wasn’t coming and that I was caught in a trap of my own making. I couldn’t stay shut away in the bedroom forever, but to walk back out without being begged to do so would be the same as agreeing with Jim’s ultimatum.

  I couldn’t bear to do that when I was in the right. And I was in the right, no question about it. There was no way Jim, who had never even met Steve, could be a judge of whether or not he should be trusted.

  The show seemed to drag on forever. Finally the episode ended. Then came a couple of commercials and a newscast. It was hard for me to believe it was only six. I glanced across at the clock radio on the bedside table and was surprised to see that there was a telephone next to it. I had assumed the only phone in the suite was in the living room, and it had not occurred to me there might be extensions.

  I stared at the hunk of beige plastic with its digit-pocked face, feeling as Eve must have felt when she first saw the apple. All I had to do was dial Steve’s number and I could break our date and explain the reason. I knew he was home, because his brother Billy was in Little League and the Chandlers always ate dinner early on game nights. A phone call, drowned out by television, would not be discovered until it appeared on our hotel bill. By that time we’d be checked out and headed for home, and my one small act of rebellion would not be an issue. I was just preparing to reach across for the phone, when it burst into life with an accusative ring. The sound was so unexpected that, without pausing to think, I snatched up the receiver.

  I was all set to blurt out an automatic “Hello” when I heard Jim’s voice and realized he had taken the call in the living room and we must have lifted the receivers at the same exact instant.

  “…well enough, all things considered,” he was saying. “If anybody was tailing us, the guy was invisible. Where are you calling from? Are you back in the office?”

  The voice that responded belonged to Max. “I’m at my daughter’s apartment, using her ultra-safe, unbugged phone. How are things there? Is Liz holding up okay?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Jim said. “Of course she’s worried about her husband. Hang on a sec, there’s something she wants to say to you.”

  There was a short pause, and then Mom said, “I want to talk to George, Max.”

  “I’ll try to arrange to have him call you tomorrow,” Max said. “He’s not here now. I’m making this call from Susie’s place. George has a private room and a personal bodyguard. We can’t let him call you from there, though. Too many people have access to the hotel switchboard, and it’s open knowledge our witnesses are housed at the Farragut. He can’t use his regular cell phone, but I’ll see if I can get him a new one.”

  “But he is all right?” Mom pressed him.

  “He’s fine, believe me. After today the courtroom will be closed to spectators. The only people allowed in will be lawyers and jurors.”

  “I’d feel much better if I could just hear his voice,” said Mom.

  “I’ll do my best to see that you hear it tomorrow. Now, please, get Jim back on the line again. There are a couple more things I need to discuss with him.”

  There was another brief pause. Then Jim said, “Yeah, Max?”

  “This is just between us,” Max said. “Don’t make any comments. A special delivery letter arrived here today for George. Thank god, we intercepted it before he got hold of it. If he’d read it, I doubt we could get him on the stand tomorrow. The language was graphic—the writer didn’t stint on adjectives—and the threats weren’t aimed at George as much as at his family.”

  “You can’t—” Jim began, and stopped.

  “You’re right, we can’t withhold it indefinitely, but we can hang on to it for twenty-four hours. Usually I can talk George into anything, but he might pull out if he thought his family was in danger. We can’t afford to do anything to rock the boat right now. The shit hits the fan as soon as our boy nails Loftin. He’s knocking over the first in the line of dominoes.”

  “I guess that means we stay put for a while,” Jim said.

  “There’s no way I want the Corrigans to step out of that hotel suite. The scope of this is bigger than we ever anticipated. If George has all the information we hope he does, he’s got enough ammo to blow this ring to hell and back.”

  “I got it,” Jim said. “So how about doing me a favor? Give Della a call and tell her I won’t be home this weekend. We were planning on having our son’s family over for a cookout. Tell her t
o ask the kids to give us a rain check. Maybe we can reschedule it for Memorial Day weekend.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Max said. “But you’d better not make any promises. There’s no way of knowing how long you’re going to be stuck there.”

  “However much time it takes, then that’s what it takes,” Jim said. “I knew when I took this job that it wouldn’t be a lawn party. Like I told you, though, the old bod is giving me some problems. You’re sure you don’t want to send me over some backup?”

  “You’ll handle things fine,” Max said. “You’re a longtime pro. No need to double the guard when you’re holed up in a fortress. I’ll check in again tomorrow to see how it’s going.”

  There were two sharp clicks, and then the sound of the dial tone.

  I set the receiver carefully back on its cradle, trying to absorb the immensity of what I’d just heard. Up until then I’d thought of our situation as a drama made for television, crafted to fit into its allotted time slot. Now I was stunned to learn that no time limit had been set for it. Fragments of dialogue from the phone conversation churned in my mind, stirring up questions for which I had no answers.

  “As soon as our boy nails Loftin…”

  What could my father say that could have so much impact? What were the “dominoes” Dad was going to knock over, and how long a time had Jim meant when he’d said we would have to “stay put for a while”? But the biggest question of all was, should I tell Mom? Was there anything to be gained by repeating what I’d heard to her? She couldn’t discuss it with Dad until he called her, and by then he would already have learned about the letter. No, the best thing to do, I decided, was to keep what I’d heard to myself. Mom was upset enough without my making things worse for her, and besides, I wasn’t too keen to admit I’d been eavesdropping.

  There was a rap at the door, and Bram stuck his head in.

  “Mom says to tell you dinner’s here,” he said. “Do you want to come out and eat, or are you still mad?”

  “No, I’m not mad,” I told him. “I was overreacting. Of course I’m going to come out and eat dinner with the rest of you.”

  I tried not to think about Steve arriving at an empty house. Instead I got up from the bed and went out to the living room, where I found that Jim had ordered prime rib for all of us.

  CHAPTER 4

  As Max promised, Dad phoned Wednesday evening. The call came while we were eating, and Mom took it in our bedroom with the door closed, leaving her seafood casserole to congeal on her plate, while Bram and I sat fidgeting and waiting for our own turns. She stayed on the phone twenty minutes, and when at last she came back out into the living room, it was obvious she had been crying, and equally obvious Dad wasn’t waiting on the line for us.

  “We talked too long, and he had to hang up,” she said. “The plan’s been changed. We’re not going home on Friday.”

  “But we have to!” Bram protested. “Chris is spending the night!”

  “I’m afraid that’s off,” Mom said. “We’re here for the duration. I’m not happy about it either, but we don’t have a choice. Dad says it isn’t safe to go home until the trial’s over. April, I’m so sorry. You’ll have to miss the prom.”

  The prom! In all the excitement, I’d forgotten the prom!

  “Steve’s chairman of the Entertainment Committee,” I said miserably. “He’s got to go to the dance whether I do or not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mom repeated. “I know how upset you are. We’ll make it up to you somehow, honey, I promise.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “This is Steve’s senior year and his last prom. And the worst of it is I can’t even let him know what’s happened to me!”

  “Have some dessert, it’ll make you feel better,” Jim said. He handed across a plate, and it slipped from his fingers, dumping a slice of cheesecake into my lap. “Oops, sorry about that. It’s getting ready to rain. I can always tell when the joints in my hands cramp up on me.”

  “Let it pour!” I snapped. “At least we’re not going to get wet! We’re all sealed up in our super-luxurious prison!” I stomped into the bathroom and sponged the white glop off my jeans (the only pair I had with me, I reminded myself bitterly). Then I lay on the bed and watched old movies on television until bedtime.

  In the morning Jim went down to the gift shop and bought a newspaper. The murder attempt on Dad hadn’t rated the front page, but it did get a four-column headline across page three. The article identified Dad as “an employee of the airline, working as an undercover agent for the government” and disclosed that during the past eight months he had accompanied Richard Loftin on two flights to South America. Dad’s testimony read that on both occasions they brought back cocaine. “Our suitcases were packed full of the stuff,” he said. “We didn’t claim the bags when we arrived in the States, so they didn’t have to go through routine customs inspection. Airline employees confiscated the unclaimed luggage and placed it in airport lockers. Later it was removed and delivered to the dealers.”

  I read the article through twice, too stunned to assimilate it.I felt as though the man being quoted was a stranger. The gentle, conservative father I had known for seventeen years could not have been actively engaged in the trafficking of narcotics! When Mom had told me that Dad had been working for the government, I had pictured him peeking and prying in files and ledgers, and that in itself had been almost inconceivable. It had never entered my head that he had become so deeply involved that he had been a physical part of the smuggling operation.

  “It’s so out of character!” I said. “Dad isn’t a risk-taker. He’ll even stop at a yield sign when both streets are empty!”

  “Chalk it up to a master manipulator,” Mom said. “Ever since they were boys together back in Pittsburgh, Max has been leading your father around by the nose.”

  I stared at her incredulously. “I thought you liked Max!”

  “He’s Dad’s oldest friend, so I’ve tried to like him,” said Mom. “The truth of it is, I think all that warmth is a put-on, and I’ve always resented the influence he has over your father. Max is all the things Dad always dreamed of being—smooth and macho, spewing out charm and self-confidence. Even his line of work seems exciting and glamorous, a million times more exotic than managing a freight room. When Max offered Dad this chance to play the part of a hero, he grabbed it. I did everything in my power to talk him out of it, but Max had him all fired up to be like James Bond.”

  “But why would Max want Dad for a spy?” I wondered. “There must be Secret Service agents who are trained for that.”

  “The fact that Dad had no previous connection with the government was the very thing that made him so valuable,” Mom explained. “He had been working at Southern Skyways for years. It was much more effective to use a man who was already a trusted employee than to try to plant an outsider in the inner circle.”

  “How much longer is the trial going to last?” I asked her. “I’ve got to be back in time for Steve’s graduation.”

  “We can’t possibly be here that long,” Mom said confidently. “The hearings have been under way for a week now.”

  As things turned out, she couldn’t have been more mistaken. We stayed cooped up at the Mayflower for two and a half weeks. The novelty wore off quickly, and after just a few days we’d settled into a routine of unbearable monotony. I would wake in one of the two huge beds in the larger of the bedrooms, and for one brief moment, before I became fully conscious, I might forget that I wasn’t in “Princess April’s Chamber.” Then I’d open my eyes, and reality would slam down on me. When I glanced at the bed across from me, there would be Mom, awake and staring at the ceiling. Bram, who shared her bed, would be lying on his back, snoring softly like a teakettle on the verge of boiling. With no reason for getting up, Mom and I would continue to lie there, conscious of each other, but with nothing to talk about, until Bram woke up and we were able to send down for breakfast.

  Our meals from room service were the high points of t
he day. Even I, who was normally not a breakfast eater, found myself waiting eagerly for the waiter to lift the cover from the hot plate so I could see if the eggs came with sausage or bacon. Jim gave us permission to order whatever we wanted, and Bram and I sampled every dish on the menu. Mom went off the deep end ordering seafood and even started having wine with her dinner. And all four of us hit the desserts like there was no tomorrow. By the end of the first week my jeans were uncomfortably snug, and by the end of the second I couldn’t secure the top button and was forced to let my shirt hang out over the waistband.

  But the hardest thing for all of us was a lack of activity. Bram was by nature a hyper kid who couldn’t sit still ten minutes, and I was used to being on the go both physically and socially. Mom was accustomed to being at home by herself all day, but she was also used to spending those hours working. To be stuck without the computer on which she did her writing was more frustrating to her than being deprived of her freedom.

  Finally, in desperation, she started writing in longhand. She would sit at the desk in our bedroom, filling up pages of hotel stationery, oblivious to the shrieks of delight and the groans of disappointment that came from the contestants on Bram’s favorite shows. Television was our only source of entertainment. While Bram watched his shows in the bedroom, Jim and I watched the soaps in the living room, and in the evening we all watched movies and sitcoms. For the eighteen days we were there, the only live people with whom we had contact were the maids who made up our rooms and the waiters who brought our meals.

  In many ways the nights were even worse than the days. Although I always felt sluggish, I almost never felt drowsy. I would lie there in bed, waiting for sleep to come to me, trying to ignore the noises of hotel living: the rattle of pipes as toilets flushed in the bathrooms; the chatter of voices as people passed in the hall; music and laughter, drifting up from the open-air bar in the patio under our window. The sounds of activity were intensified by the darkness and the fact that I was trying so hard not to listen to them. There were times when I almost imagined I could hear the creaking and groaning of beds in the rooms above and below us as their inhabitants shifted positions on unfamiliar mattresses.