“What’s that, Mr. Lester?” the nurse asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Thank you.” He wiped the tears from his cheeks and strolled out, afraid that if he looked back he’d turn into a pillar of salt.
Abby was in the hall speaking softly to Sylvia Rubin, the widow who lived next door to him and Meg in Westwood. They were never very close neighbors, but on a few occasions, Mrs. Rubin had done them the favor of looking after Justine when neither he nor Meg could be home in time to greet her from school. But Sylvia Rubin wasn’t the sort of elderly woman who did domestic chores of any kind. She had been left a sizeable estate and was a very active person, vigorously involved in the arts and a member of one committee after another to restore theaters and maintain acting companies. She helped organize and run charity affairs and often had her picture on the society pages or in the Beverly Hills magazine. Scott knew she was never particularly fond of him, so he didn’t expect any sympathy or support. The look of condemnation on her face when she and Abby turned to him confirmed it. He shook his head.
“Nothing different,” he said. “Hello, Sylvia.”
“Scott. I’m sorry about all this,” she said and pressed her lips together firmly.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve always liked Meg. I just had to stop by to see how she was,” she explained, more to Abby than to him. Abby nodded and smiled. “At least there is one good thing about her still being unconscious,” she added and glared at him. “She doesn’t know Justine’s still missing.” She turned back to Abby. “She just dotes on that child. She’s a wonderful mother.” She turned back to him. She was a stately woman, always elegant and refined. He couldn’t remember ever catching her out of character. Even that one time he saw her in a bathrobe early in the morning, she looked like she could step onto the pages of Maturity Today to advertise some product for senior citizens. She could be a stand-in for Angela Lansbury on Murder, She Wrote, he had thought.
“Do you know your daughter’s whereabouts, Scott?” she demanded with surprising authority. One part of him wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but a greater part of him was intimidated.
“Honest, Sylvia, I don’t. I’m not responsible for what happened here.” If he had to deny it to one more person…
His denial didn’t impress her; she didn’t change expression.
“I saw the limousine,” she said.
“What?” He looked up sharply.
“I’ve already told the police. They came around to speak with me…a Lieutenant Parker and a Detective Fotowski. They said your attorney would find out what I said, so you might as well know now. I saw the limousine. I wasn’t spying on your home or anything,” she added. “I just happened to have returned from a committee meeting late and saw it in your driveway.”
“What time?” Scott asked quickly.
“Eleven-thirty. Maybe a little later. I gave them a good description of the car, Scott. I’m familiar with limousines,” she added, nodding at Abby.
“It was a Mercedes, silver gray, right?” he asked.
“Yes, it was.”
“What else did you see? Did you see the license plate?” She didn’t respond. “Did you see me?”
“No,” she said.
“Did you see anyone?” She didn’t say anything. “I don’t mean to interrogate you like this, but…”
“I didn’t linger to snoop,” she said and then added, “but maybe I should have.”
“Believe me, I wish you had,” Scott said. “This is good,” he continued. “This is good.” Both women looked surprised. “At least they’ll know I wasn’t lying about being brought to the house. Once we find Philip Dante, that is.”
“Who’s Philip Dante?” Abby asked.
“It’s too complicated to explain it all to you right now, Abby, but believe me, what Sylvia reported is going to help me prove my innocence. Thank you. I’ll stay in touch,” he told her. “And if you need me…”
“Where will you be?” Abby asked. He thought a moment.
“In the house,” he said suddenly. “Yes. I’m going home.” He strutted away. “I’m going home,” he chanted. As he passed the waiting room doorway, he caught a glimpse of Sharma lighting a cigarette.
“Smoke yourself to death, you Amazon,” he cursed under his breath. She spun around as if she could hear him and smiled coldly. And suddenly he thought, it must’ve been women like you who gave rise to the Solomon Organization.
He went directly to his suffocating apartment and packed. Then he drove to his house. When he pulled into the driveway, he had the eerie feeling that all that had happened had just been a nightmare to teach him a lesson. Actually, it was more like a prayer than a feeling. After he opened the front door, he stood there with his eyes closed, listening for Meg’s footsteps or Justine’s cry of joy at his arrival. He was greeted only by deadly silence, a morbid hush reinforced by the sight of the roped-off area and chalk drawing where Meg’s body had been found. He stared at it a moment and then looked at the living room. Everything had been left as it was—furniture turned over, table leg broken, things strewn about. He didn’t want to go in there, either. Maybe it was a mistake to come here, he thought. It was his desperate attempt to restore his life, a foolish symbolic gesture. Christ, they might even find a way to hold this against him. He should have asked his attorney’s advice first. Without unpacking, he went to the phone and called to tell her.
“Not a wise move,” she confirmed. “You should have remained where you were.”
“But I have a right to be here. This is still my home and with Meg in the hospital, the agreement we had doesn’t matter,” he whined.
“That’s true, but the police might think you’re there to conceal something.”
“I don’t care what they think.”
“You’d better start caring. I’m advising you to return to your apartment. You can do what you want, of course; but if you don’t listen to what I tell you, it makes no sense to pay me,” she added rather caustically.
Miss Personality, he thought.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll just get some of my things out of the garage.”
“How’s your wife?” she asked in a softer tone.
“No change. Oh, but our next-door neighbor was there and guess what. She told the police she saw the limousine here, the one that Dante brought me in, and she told them it was around eleven-thirty.”
“Won’t help us unless we get Dante to testify,” she said, punching a hole in his small balloon of hope quickly.
“I know, but I thought with her corroborating…”
“Once we get Dante,” she repeated. “Go home, Scott.”
“I am home,” he said sharply.
“You walked out of that home a while ago, Scott, and as Thomas Wolfe wrote, ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’ Call me as soon as you hear anything from Dyce. Gotta run.”
After he cradled the receiver, he gazed around. He was like a chicken with its head cut off running madly about…to his crummy apartment, to home, and then back to his hole in the wall. But he had to at least go through the house once, just once, he thought and started up the stairs.
He stood in the doorway of the master bedroom staring at the bed and thinking about himself and Meg making love, especially during the first weeks here. The house was exciting then; everything about it was fresh and wonderful, it made their marriage and their love feel brand-new.
He didn’t shed a tear until he stood in his daughter’s bedroom doorway and stared at the bed, left just the way it was when whoever it was came and took her. The blanket was folded back, the pillow still creased.
He couldn’t stand gazing at her toys and stuffed animals, her little desk and vanity table any longer. He went downstairs quickly and then into the garage, surprised by the mess. Someone had rifled through the cartons, pulling out his things and casting them aside. Shirts, books, ties, everything was strewn about.
“My gun,” he muttered and checked through the cart
ons himself, but he didn’t find it. Did Meg come looking for it when she heard some noises? Maybe she had put it back in the night table in the bedroom. He rushed back into the house and up the stairs to pull open the night table drawer. It wasn’t there. He made a mental note to mention it to Dyce. Then he took a few articles of clothing, some more of his personal effects and left.
Later, when he checked with his answering service, he found he already had a message from Dyce. The man, despite his appearance, was efficient.
“Mr. Dyce called to say that his friend has searched thoroughly with his computer and has found no one named Philip Dante working for any insurance company in Los Angeles, or even the immediate area. He’ll be calling you later.”
“Anything else?” Scott asked, his heart feeling like it was bobbing in his chest cavity.
There was a message from a customer who obviously had been away and had no knowledge of what had transpired. He wanted to come in to see a car tomorrow.
“Thank you,” Scott said when the service operator told him that was it. He opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of Scotch. He poured himself three fingers and gulped most of it. Then he stared down at the counter, his eyes fixed on the bread knife. Slowly, he took it and carried it into the living room with him and his Scotch. He sat there sipping his drink and thinking.
Where was Dante? Who the hell was he?
He gazed at the knife and then turned his left wrist over and brought the edge to it. He was still sitting there holding the knife against his wrist when the sun went down, sitting there and staring at the blade, shocked by the realization that suicide was indeed a viable option for a man as trapped and destroyed as he was.
7
It was the telephone that saved him. When it came right down to it, it wasn’t a fear of the hereafter; it wasn’t a fear of committing a sin. He had hypnotized himself with the golden promise of ending his misery, of escaping the condemnation and the derision that seemed inevitable. But most of all, he had mesmerized himself by dangling the bright hope that he would escape the pain that came from thinking about Justine and from realizing that something he had begun for selfish reasons had resulted in so much terror and agony for her. Who could live and be happy with that knowledge?
He felt himself being drawn, urged, and prompted. Slowly, his fingers tightened around the handle of the knife, and he felt the sharp edge begin to slice through the thin layer of skin that protected his artery. His other hand moved like an independent creature, a part of his body in revolt.
Slitting your wrist is messy, he vaguely thought, but only for the people who came afterward to clean up. What did he care about them?
He closed his eyes. There was so much he wanted to say; so much he wanted to do.
And then the phone rang, the grating noise cutting its way through the dark, pulsating walls of his misery and bringing along with it light, life. He opened his eyes, surprised he had actually cut himself. He threw down the knife as he grasped for the telephone, a drowning man lunging for the life preserver.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Lester, Henry Dyce. Did you get my earlier message concerning Mr. Dante?”
“Yes,” he said dryly. “He talked so much about insurance and knew so much about different policies, he convinced me he was really an insurance salesman.”
“Well, I just come from another one of my friends, the one who works for the police department. This Dante, whoever the hell he is, has no criminal record, not even a fucking parking ticket.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Scott said.
“Uh huh. I checked out part of your story,” Dyce said. “I went to see your boss, or should I say your former boss.”
“Mr. Miller?”
“Yeah and he confirms that a limousine picked you up just before you were supposed to leave for the day. I even got a description of this Philip Dante that matches the description you gave me.”
“And my next-door neighbor saw the limousine at the house eleven-thirty that night. She told me so at the hospital this afternoon.”
“So the limousine picked you up and dropped you at the house; that doesn’t prove you’re innocent. You’re going to need Dante. However, it looks like this guy gave you a phony name, a phony identity. Now the question is, why would he do that? Assuming you’re telling the truth about the rest of it, that is,” Dyce added.
“I’m telling the truth,” Scott replied, his voice full of fatigue and defeat.
“I see. Well, I could check out various haunts, restaurants, bars, what-not, and work up a coupla more days of income for myself, but…”
“I told you the truth, but I haven’t told you the whole truth, Mr. Dyce, nor have I told my attorney.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to because it’s only going to complicate things and make me look like even more of a bastard,” Scott continued.
“No, I’d say you look about as bastard a bastard as you’re gonna look.”
“Not quite.” Scott looked at his watch. “Let me see if I can connect with my attorney,” he said, “and arrange for the three of us to meet.”
“Okay. I have a hole in my social calendar and will be home all evening.”
Scott called Faye Elliot’s law agency, even though he knew the offices had been closed for the day. Their answering service responded, and he explained how it was of paramount importance that he speak with Faye Elliot as soon as possible. The service operator promised she would convey his message. Ten minutes later, Faye Elliot called.
“I’ve got to see you as soon as possible,” he began.
“Can’t it wait until the morning?”
“I haven’t told you everything and Henry Dyce has run up against a brick wall. There is no Philip Dante. That is to say, the man who I knew had apparently made up that name, so we can’t find him.”
There was one of those now famous long silences.
“Scott, look,” she followed, “we can still talk to the district attorney and work out a settlement here.”
“Please. Once you hear my story, you’ll understand why this man would give me a false name. I’m sure now that they’ve got my daughter.”
“Who’s they?” she asked impatiently.
“Where can we meet?”
Now there was an even longer pause, filled with bad vibrations. His attorney was simply annoyed, he thought. He was interfering with her love life or something.
“I have a dinner appointment I can’t break. If you insist this can’t wait until morning…”
“Every hour that passes now takes Justine farther and farther away from us.”
“Then why didn’t you tell the truth right from the start?” she snapped.
“I thought…I was hoping that once we found Dante, I would get the problems solved. That was naive and stupid of me. I see that now, but before it gets to be too late…”
“It’s probably days past too late,” she replied. “All right. Meet me in my office at nine P.M.”
“I’m bringing Dyce,” he said.
“It’s your money,” she replied and hung up.
“Thank God you’re on my side,” he said to the dead receiver. He called Dyce and arranged to pick him up at eight-thirty. Now that he was about to reveal his role in this bizarre series of events, he felt lighter, felt some relief. It was as if he had just gone to confession and the guilt was already lifted from his shoulders.
More importantly, he was going to get them. They had nearly killed his wife and they had stolen his daughter, setting it up so he looked guilty. He was going to find Justine and expose them at the same time. Permitting himself to be hopeful stimulated his appetite. He realized he hadn’t eaten anything since the morning. He threw on his jacket and left the apartment, deciding to walk up to Hamburger Hamlet.
The moment he made the turn out of the apartment complex and started up the sidewalk, he sensed he was being followed. He hadn’t heard footsteps; he just had the feeling someon
e was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder. He acted as nonchalant as he could at the corner, waiting for the light to change. Just after it did, he turned to look back and saw a man get into a car that pulled up alongside the walk. But the car remained there. Scott crossed the street and continued toward the restaurant. When he turned left to walk on the other side, the car started away from the curb and slowly came toward him. As soon as he stepped into the restaurant doorway, he turned around and waited. The car cruised by slowly and he saw the two detectives: Lt. Parker and Dt. Fotowski.
They think I’m going to lead them to my daughter, he thought. The stupid bastards.
But then again, given the information they had and the story he had told, why shouldn’t they suspect him and follow him? They were doing what they could to protect Justine. Maybe soon, he thought hopefully, maybe soon we’ll be on the same side.
He took a table in the darkest corner, as far away from other people as he could get. He ate quickly, chewing his food mindlessly, indifferent to the chatter and laughter around him. Somehow, because his life was so miserable, he expected everyone else’s to reflect it. We’re all so independent of each other, he realized as he gazed around aimlessly, each of us a little pocket of happiness or sadness. He didn’t really notice them, and as far as the rest of the crowd in the restaurant was concerned, he was invisible.
The police detectives were waiting for him across the street when he emerged from the restaurant and headed back toward the apartment complex. They let him go a good block and a half before starting their car engine and following. After he went to his car and drove out to pick up Henry Dyce, he saw them hovering nearby.
“Right this way,” he muttered and even slowed down when lights turned yellow so they could stay with him. They slowed down and waited at the corner when he went in to get Henry Dyce.
“I’ve developed a tail,” he told Dyce.
“Figured,” he said, gazing in the direction Scott had nodded.
“You wouldn’t know them, would you? Lieutenant Parker and Detective Fotowski?”
The Solomon Organization Page 12
