The Quiet Game

by Greg Iles

“I have no idea.” She looks away from me. “Mom probably doesn’t either. She’s a hairbreadth from the DTs by five o’clock every day. Daddy’s talking about sending her to Betty Ford.”

  “She was referring to something specific. I saw her eyes.”

  Livy turns and peers into the cloudy water. “My divorce has upset her quite a bit. Divorce isn’t part of the fairy tale. If it were, she’d have left my father long ago.”

  “I thought you were only separated.”

  “Pending divorce, then. It’s just semantics.” She looks at me over her bare shoulder, an injured look in her eyes. “You think I’d ask you to make love to me if there was a chance my husband and I would get back together?”

  This is one of those moments where we make a heaven or hell of the future, by choosing honesty or deception. “I don’t know. You weren’t that discriminating in the past.”

  She flinches, but she can endure much worse than this. “The past, the past,” she says. “The damned sacred past. Can’t we try living in the present for once?”

  “Yesterday was the only free ride we’re going to get.”

  She looks back into the depths of the pool. “I have a room,” she says in a deliberate voice. “It’s two doors down from yours. Why don’t we talk there?”

  A room. Part of me wants to slap her for assuming so much. I move sideways so that I can see her face. “Will you really talk?”

  She pulls her hair back into a thick ponytail, as though to feel the breeze on her neck. Her collarbones are sculpted ivory, creating shadowy hollows at the base of her throat.

  “About what?”

  “About what? Everything. Why you did what you did twenty years ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  This is Kafkaesque. Can she really have edited the past so completely that she no longer remembers how badly she betrayed our dreams? “Why you disappeared for a year. Where you went. Why you ran off to Virginia. Why you treated me like a stranger when I flew up to ask you to get your father to drop the suit.”

  She turns to me and lets her hair fall, and whatever mask she was maintaining falls with it. She looks more vulnerable than I have ever seen her, and when she speaks, her voice is stripped of all affect. “Penn, I can’t do it.”

  “Livy, if I understood some of those things, I might . . . well—things might not have to happen the way they are.”

  “What do you mean? If I answer your questions, you’ll withdraw the charges you made against my father?”

  I don’t know what I mean. I started into the Del Payton case to destroy Leo Marston, but compared to understanding the mysteries that shaped my life, revenge seems meaningless. Of course, there is still Del Payton. And Althea. And the small matter of justice—

  “I can’t pull out of the Payton case now. It’s too late for that. But I can pursue it a different way. If your father’s part was only—”

  “Stop,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t talk about twenty years ago. Not even to make things easier on my father.”

  She takes a step toward me. I want her to stay back, because the closer she gets, the more I want to go to her room with her. She is achingly beautiful in the moonlight.

  “How did I ruin your life?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, absolving me of any possible sin. “You didn’t.” Another step. “But you can save it.”

  “Livy, listen—”

  “Come with me,” she pleads. “Right now.”

  If she had kissed me then, I would have walked away. But she didn’t. She picked up her purse from the pool chair, took my hand, and led me across the parking lot toward the motel, a purposeful urgency in her stride.

  The déjà vu of walking beside the numbered doors is powerful enough to dislocate time. If I were to close my eyes and open them again, I would see the eighteen-thousand-dollar gown flowing behind her like a trail of mist. The lifetimes of water that have passed under the bridge since that night have all flowed back in a span of moments.

  When she opens the door and closes us inside, I pull her to me and kiss her with the thirst of a binge drinker returning to the bottle. My questions fade to dying sparks, made irrelevant by the absolute connection of our lips and hands. I don’t even know I am backing her toward the door until she collides with it, the unyielding wooden face holding her as I continue forward, pressing against her, my hands groping at her dress, searching for the hem.

  “That’s right,” she says hoarsely. “That’s right . . . that’s—”

  The moment my hand finds her sex, she is breathing like a sprinter in the last few yards of a race. She kisses me with almost desperate passion, then pushes down the front of the strapless dress and pulls my mouth to a breast. In seconds both her arms are outstretched, fingers splayed and quivering, discharging the frantic energy pouring from her core. Touching her this way is rapture, at once within her and without, needing no other thing, no friend, no thought—

  The knock at the door reverberates through our bodies, stunning us from our trance. Yet still Livy presses herself down against my hand, unwilling to let the world back in. I jerk her away from the door and onto the bed, fearing someone might shoot through the thin metal.

  The knocking comes again. This time, with the distance to the bed and with half my faculties restored, it sounds reasonably discreet.

  “Who is it?” I call, digging in my pocket for Kelly’s gun, hating the ragged edge of fear in my voice.

  “Kelly.”

  Relief cascades through me. I turn to tell Livy everything’s all right and find her standing with both hands pointed rigidly at the door, a pistol clenched between them. She must have taken it from her purse.

  “Whoa!” I say, holding up my hands. “I know this guy. He’s with me.”

  She lowers the gun slowly, as though unsure whether to trust my judgment. I turn back to the door and open it a crack.

  Daniel Kelly’s sandy blond head leans toward mine.

  “I saw you go in here as I pulled up. I just wanted you to know I’m back.”

  I nod. “I heard about what happened at the apartments. You must be tired. You can go ahead and get some sleep.”

  “I’m fine. Wired, really.”

  I hesitate to ask the next question, but I want to know. “Is Caitlin with you?”

  An ironic smile, there and gone. “She’s back at the paper, writing the story. She’s a tough lady, man.”

  Coming from Daniel Kelly, this is high praise indeed. “Thanks for looking out for her. And thanks again for the levee thing.”

  He nods, but there’s a curious hesitancy in his face.

  “What is it, Kelly?”

  “Well, I thought maybe you and Caitlin were . . . you know.” He looks past me, through the crack in the door. “I guess not, huh?”

  “I guess not,” I reply, feeling a strange hollowness in my chest.

  He makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “I’m gonna get some eggs over at Shoney’s. One of the other guys’ll be watching this door.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh, and your little girl is fine. No worries.”

  His words hit me like a blow. Maybe he meant for them to. My cheeks burn with self-disgust.

  “ ’Night, boss,” he says, and disappears from the crack.

  I shut the door and bolt it.

  Livy is sitting on the bed, her face composed, the gun nowhere in evidence. Only her tousled hair hints at our brief encounter at the door.

  “Why are you carrying a gun?”

  She shrugs. “The town’s gone crazy, hasn’t it? And Daddy insisted.”

  Leo would.

  Livy’s shoes, hose, and panties lie on the floor beside her bare feet. She looks at me like she can’t understand why I’m still standing where I am. Like what happened against the door was the opening movement of a symphony.

  I glance at my watch. Twelve-twenty. Annie is almost certainly asleep, but Kelly’s words have left me with a guilty longing, like an unresolved ch
ord. I need to see my daughter sleeping.

  “I need to check on Annie.”

  Livy stands and takes my hand, pulls me toward her. “I know.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know.” She puts her arms around my waist and pulls me against her.

  “Livy—”

  She kisses my nipple through my shirt. The sharp edges of her teeth pull at flesh and wet cloth, sending a delicious current of pain through me.

  “It’ll only take a minute,” I tell her. “I’ll be right—”

  With three or four quick movements she unbuckles my pants and pushes them far enough down to free me, then entwines her fingers behind my neck. When I try to speak, she takes my right hand and lifts it to my mouth, cutting off my words. Her scent on my fingers is overpowering.

  “Me first,” she whispers.

  Even as I despise myself for it, in one violent motion I reach beneath her dress, lift her into the air, and set her down upon me.

  CHAPTER 29

  I am parked in the alley between Wall and Pearl Streets, the legal center of the city. It’s nearly dark and raining steadily, a drizzle with a breath of fall in it. The courthouse towers above me on its pedestal of earth, grayish-white and imposing amid the windblown oaks that surround it. Across the street, running down the block in a line, stand the offices of various law firms, all of them small, most very profitable. The most prestigious among them is Marston, Sims. Founded in 1887 by Ambrose Marston, Leo’s great grandfather, the firm has handled everything from high-profile criminal cases to corporate litigation involving tens of millions of dollars. And I am parked in this alley to see whether the senior partner of the firm will commit a felony tonight.

  I filed my requests for production this morning, and if Leo plans to hide or destroy any documentary evidence, the sooner he does it the better, at least from his point of view. I would like to be there when he tries. I’ve staked out his office because Tuscany—his fenced estate—does not lend itself to surveillance. Daniel Kelly is covering the back entrance for me, and we’re in contact via handheld radios, which were among the toys he and his associates brought from Houston. Also among those toys was a Hi-8 video camera with a night-vision lens, which rests on the seat beside me. The rear entrance of the office is well lighted by a security lamp, so Kelly is using a standard camcorder borrowed from Caitlin Masters. The pistol he lent me last night lies on the seat beside the Hi-8 camera, its safety off.

  “One-Adam-twelve, one-Adam-twelve.” Kelly’s voice crackles out of the radio. “Sitrep, please.”

  I laugh and press Send on my walkie-talkie. “Nothing out here but rain.”

  “It’s like fishing. That’s what my butt’s telling me, anyway.”

  “Yeah. Maybe we’ll catch something.”

  As I set the radio back on the passenger seat, something bangs against my window, nearly stopping my heart. I grab for the gun, knowing I’ll never bring it up in time to save myself if the person outside the car means me harm.

  When my eyes focus through the rivulets of water on the window, I see Caitlin Masters, her hair soaked from the rain. I let out my breath with a sigh of relief and motion for her to come around to the passenger side.

  “I’m glad I wasn’t trying to kill you,” she says, sliding into the passenger seat. “You’d be dead.”

  She’s wearing a windbreaker with Los Angeles Times stenciled on the chest. From the pocket she takes a barrette and puts the end in her mouth, then flips down the visor mirror above her seat. “Nothing yet?” she asks through her teeth.

  “Nope.”

  She gathers her fine black hair and pins it in a loose bun behind her head. “There. I should have done that before I left.”

  She turns and gives me a dazzling smile. “Well, are you up on the day’s events?”

  “I’m up on my events. The rest of the world I know nothing about.”

  “Four TV vans covered the Whitestone suspects’ walk to their arraignment. Jackson, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and a Gulf Coast station. The courthouse looked like it was under siege. The wire services picked up all three of my stories, and they’re being rerun in dozens of papers.”

  “That Pulitzer’s getting closer every day. Which judge did the kids get?” Natchez has two criminal court judges, a white woman and a black man.

  “The black one. And he gave them bail.”

  “On first-degree murder?”

  “With a confession, no less. He set it at a million apiece, which is like a billion to those kids’ families. But I heard the NAACP may put up the cash bond. Two hundred thousand.”

  “They might as well paint targets on the kids’ backs.”

  Caitlin picks up the video camera, switches it on, and trains it on the polished mahogany door of Marston, Sims. It’s set deep in a deep brick alcove; a brass plate on the street announces the presence of the office to the public.

  “Night vision,” she murmurs. “Nice. Where’s Kelly?”

  “Watching the back door.”

  She zooms in on the door, then pans the rain-slickened street. “How much are those bodyguards costing you?”

  “Let’s just say I’m going to have to hurry up and finish another book.”

  She laughs. “It’s money well spent. That Kelly’s been all over and done some wild things. He’s cute too.”

  An irrational prick of jealousy irritates me. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Don’t get all homophobic on me.” She pokes my knee as she scans the street. “Well . . . here comes a familiar face.”

  “Where?” I turn the ignition key and flip on the windshield wipers.

  “Our side of the street.”

  Now I see. A woman is jogging up the sidewalk in tight lycra warm-up pants and a TULANE T-shirt.

  “It’s the waitress with the crush on you,” says Caitlin.

  “Jenny?” I lean forward and watch the dark-haired young woman approaching through the rain. It is Jenny. “Give me a break.”

  “I mean it. That chick is fixated on you.”

  Jenny jogs past the car at a good clip, not paying us the slightest bit of attention. The rain has soaked her T-shirt, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.

  “She ought to wear a sign,” Caitlin says drily. “Please stare at my tits.”

  “I’m surprised you’d comment, after the blouse you wore the day you interviewed me.”

  Caitlin takes her eye away from the viewfinder and gives me an elfin smile. “That was different. I was trying to distract you.”

  “It worked.”

  “It always does. I’m really rather modest.”

  “Modesty isn’t what comes to mind when I think of you.”

  Her smile changes subtly. “You don’t really know me very well, do you?”

  She reaches over and switches off the engine, killing the windshield wipers. “Any word on when Ruby Flowers’s funeral will take place?”

  Her quick segues are hard for me to follow. “Mose—Mr. Flowers—is thinking of Sunday, but that’s not set in stone.”

  “Sunday? But that’s . . . five days after she died.”

  “That’s how the blacks do it. Haven’t you read your own paper’s obituary column?”

  “Why do they wait so long?”

  “Well, they usually have to wait days for relatives who live up North to get back to Mississippi. Sometimes they have to ride the bus. Ruby has two sons in Detroit, a daughter in Chicago, and another boy in Los Angeles.”

  “Can’t you fly them in?”

  “I’ll do anything Mr. Flowers asks me to do, but he hasn’t asked. My father already bought Ruby’s coffin and headstone, which probably cost more than the church the funeral will be held in. Personally, I think he overdid it. Ruby never wanted to stand out from her own people in life, and I don’t think she’d want to in death. Why do you care when the funeral is, anyway?”

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, Penn, but Ruby’s funeral is going to be the epicenter
of a media hurricane.”

  “What?”

  “Shad Johnson is going to speak, and there are bound to be TV trucks there—”

  “Damn it, that’s all wrong.”

  “You should thank God for small miracles. Al Sharpton called Shad this morning and offered to come down and ‘help out with the Movement.’ Shad told him to stay in New York.”

  Even as I say a silent thank-you to Shadrach Johnson, bitter gall rises into my throat.

  “Take it easy,” Caitlin says, touching my arm. “Tell me what you did today.”

  “What I did? It isn’t what I did. It’s what the judge did.”

  “Which judge?”

  “The white one. Franklin. Two hours ago she set our trial date.”

  Caitlin goes still. “Our trial date? The libel trial?”

  “Just my part of it. You don’t have to worry. But my slander trial is set for next Wednesday.”

  “Next Wednesday? That’s only”—she counts swiftly on her fingers—“six days from now!”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I expected a quick trial date, but I thought I’d get at least a month. Simply going through the materials I’ve requested under discovery could take a month.”

  “How can the judge set a date like that?”

  “Easily. She’s in Marston’s pocket. Why do you think he picked her?”

  “Picked her? I thought they assigned judges by drawing lots or something.”

  “In this district they match cases to judges by simple rotation. Theoretically, whichever judge’s name is up when a suit is filed gets that case. But all the clerk has to do to steer a case to a particular judge is hold on to it until that judge’s turn comes up. One phone call from Marston to the clerk would do it.”

  “How do you know he has Franklin in his pocket? Maybe he just has the clerk.”

  “I talked to a local lawyer I went to school with. Marston was the heavy hand in getting Franklin elected. Big contributions, an endorsement, words in the right ears. That was eight years ago, but she won’t have forgotten who put her on the bench.”

  “But how can she possibly defend that trial date? No one could build a defense that fast.”