Bannerman's Law (13 page)

She flipped the power switch of Lisa's computer. Molly
knew the machine. It was a Leading Edge, an IBM clone, hard disk
,
fairly inexpensive. It hummed to life. At the C prompt, she typed in the access to Lisa's word processing software. The words
.
.
.
GENERAL FAILURE
...
ap
peared on the screen
.
She lifted the monitor and placed it
to one side, then, carefully she raised the front end of the computer. Underneath, in the dust, many months of it, she
saw what she was looking for. A pattern of marks and
scuffs where there should have been none. Someone had moved the computer, roughly, probably banged it up and
down until the hard disk crashed and everything on it
was destroyed.

Molly turned to the bookcase. She'd noticed several
computer manuals there. She looked through them, hoping
to find that Lisa had owned and used a backup system
that guarded against such a crash. There was none. Months of work, all gone. Personal records, correspondence
.
.
.
everything. Molly could not believe that a graduate student
would risk so devastating a loss.
She searched through the drawers of the desk, looking
for files of disks. She found two sets. One, in a
plastic case, contained a variety of utility programs and
games but no duplicate files. The other, in a Maxell box,
contained eighteen disks, each numbered in sequence. She
took the first one, locked it into the computer, and booted
it on the A prompt. The screen filled with symbols. They
were scrambled. Hopelessly. She tried several more at ran
dom with the same result.

“
What's wrong
?”
Car
l
a asked.
“
What did you find
?”

Molly shrugged.
“
I'm not sure
.”
She tried to hide her concern. No use setting Carla off just when she'd calmed
her down. But someone, for some reason, had deliberately
destroyed all of Lisa's records and the contents of her
disk fil
e—w
hich might or might not have been her backup
disk
s—a
s well. Sh
e
tried to imagine what it could have
meant. That Lisa had known the killer? That she had writ
ten something about him on her computer? Stranger things
had happened. Yet it hardly seemed likely.

“
Molly
?”

”Uh-huh
?”

“
Don't jerk me around
,”
she said evenly. ”I know
what a crash looks like. And I know this place has been
picked over
.”

Molly hesitated.
“
It could still have been the police.
Or the FBI
.”

“
Bullshit
.”

Then who else, she wanted to ask, but didn't.
“
Can you
think of anything else that's missing
?”
she asked instead
.

“
She kept one of those month-at-a-g
l
a
n
ce calendars
right here
.”
Carla pointed to a nail hole in the wall by
the desk. Even the nail was gone.

“
How about a
n
address book? Diaries, tape recorders,
anything like that
.”

Carla scanned the room. Then, slowly, silently, she
began opening drawers and closets. She moved into the
living room. Molly could hear her. More drawers and now the hall closet. Molly waited, the Maxell box in her hand,
thoughtfully tapping it against her chin. The light from the window caught some scratchings on the box's lid. Initials.
Marked with a ballpoint pen. They read
DF/FB.

Their possible meaning struck her at once. She was
reaching for Lisa's telephone directory when she heard a
sound coming from the front door. It was being opened.
By someone who had a key. She sat still, listening. The
hinges squeaked. Whoever it was, was hesitating. Now she
heard feet, more than two, moving slowly over the thin carpet. Where was Ca
rl
a? She took a pen from the desk,
removed the top, and concealed it in her hand.

A man's face flicked into the doorway, then withdrew.
Almost instantly, it returned, this time behind a revolver held in outstretched hands. A second man, also armed,
stepped from behind the first. Both men, wearing suits,
filled the doorway.

“
Do you mind
?”
Molly asked quietly, nodding toward their weapons.

“
On your feet
,”
the older of the two ordered.
“
Slowly
.”

Molly made a face.
“
Identification, please
.”

”I said
”—h
e gestured with his gu
n—“
on your feet
.”

Suddenly, the second man collapsed. One knee shot
forward, his head whipped back. He crashed heavily to
the floor. The first man swung his revolver toward the
man who was down. Too late. His head jerked back as
well. Molly saw a flash of metal. A large bread knife. A
hand attached. They appeared from nowhere. The serrated
edge glistened at the throat of the man still standing.

“
For Pete's sake, Carla
,”
Molly said disgustedly.

Calamity Carla.

Ir
win Kaplan, Drug Enforcement Administration,
Washington, was eating breakfast with his daughters when
he took
Lesko's
call. At the first mention of
Bannerman's
name, he told Lesko that he would get back to him in
twenty minutes
.

He returned the call from a Peoples Drug Store several
blocks from his home.

It was not that he had reason to think his phone might
be wired, except that this is Washington and you never
know. What he didn't want was anyone in government,
ever again, using his name and
Bannerman'
s in the same
sentence.
“Irw
in
.
.
.
you know Banne
r
man, right? The guy
trusts you, right? We have this problem and we wonder if
you could
.
.
.
”

“Absolutely not. Go away. Fuck off
.''

“
Look. Hear us out. All we want is
.
.
.”

“
No, you look. I am an officer of the law. I am sworn
to uphold the law. You ever hear of it? It
's
called the
Constitution. Nowhere does it say, if this doesn
't
work, try
Bannerman
’s
law
.”

“
Yeah, well, we hear Bannerman
’`s
law worked for you,
Irwin. Last year in New York. We hear about a Jamaican
gang that's now mostly dead after you sent him a hit list.
We hear you were also feeding names to Lesko and the
Bruggs who were then leaving bodies all over Z
u
rich. We hear
you're
.
.
.
”

“
I
don
't
know what you
're
talking about
.''

“
Bullshit
.''

“
Anyway, the New York thing was personal
.”

“‘
But it was a win, Irwin. We need a win
.''

“
Out. Leave me alone
.”

All this boiled in his mind as he drove to Peoples Drug. He practiced saying no. No matter what it was. Even if
Bannerman just had something for him, no strings. There
were always strings.

It came as a relief,
therefore, and
it caught him un
aware, that all it was was the murder of Ca
rl
a Benedict's
younger sister. Thinking that way, in those terms, also left
him feeling guilty. Yes, he was sorry to hear it. Yes, he'd
make some calls to see what the FBI had. The law's the
law, but a creep who kills young women just to see them die is something else. God should be so good that Ban
nerman got his hands on the fucker and locked him in a
room with Carla. She'd take two days with him.

Bannerman
’
s law.

Yes, he promised. He'd find out what he could.

_1
2

“
Nellie? How many, like me, have you seen here
?”

“
Like you? None, I think. You're very nice
.”

”
I think you're nice, too. But I mean the special guests.
The ones in the north wing
.”

She thought for a moment.
“
Over the years
.
.
.
hun
dreds, I suppose
.”

Barbara closed one eye, doubtfully.

“
In the beginning, I was sick. I don't remember much.
But since then, yes. Hundreds
.”

Barbara made a mental note to ask Ca
r
leton Dunville.
Claim idle curiosity, although he probably wouldn't tell
her. Nellie Da
m
eon appeared to read her mind.

“
Carleton, the young one, keeps lists of them. I think
they all send money and some come back. He kept the lists in his desk, but not now
.”

Barbara leaned forward.
“
How would you know that
,
Nellie
?”

“
We used to hear them arguing. Carleton found Henry
looking at them. Now Carleton won't let him see them at
all. He keeps them in his safe
.”

It was almost too much to absorb.

The numbers of people who had passed through Sur
La Mer, going on to new lives
.
And how much this old
woman knew.

Barbara was inclined to doubt much of what she said.
Consider the source. And yet, in a crazy way, it made
sense. The members, it seemed, were no more than props. They were kept there, to legitimize Sur La Mer. And they
were, all of them, probably insane. Nellie as well, notwith
standing that Barbara was becoming fond of her. It seemed
entirely likely that, over the years, many a careless remark
was made in the hearing of one or more of these sick old
men and women, part of the furniture, by people who saw
only their vacant stares and eccentricities and assumed that
nobody was home.

She would have assumed that as well.

They watched another film,
Polly of the Follies
with
Constance Talmadge, made in 1922. Barbara inserted the
cassette. The machine, she noted, was strictly a player.
Unlike the one in her suite, it had no television function.
Looking around the room, she saw no newspapers. Only
a stack of old magazines in plastic covers. They were old
fan magazines.
Photoplay Silver Screen,
and a few vintage
copies of
Time.

“
Nellie, what's today's date
?”

“
It's Monday
.”

”
I mean, the exact date
.”

”
I don't know
.”

“
Do you know what year it is
?”

“
No
.”

“
Don't you even wonder
.”

“
Barbara, it doesn't matter here. Watch the movie
.”

“
I'd better go
,”
Barbara said. A Tiffany clock had just
chimed two. She opened the curtains slightly, watching
for the guard to pass on his rounds.
“
I'd like to come
again
,”
she said, turning.

“
Do you like movies? We have shelves and shelves
of them
.”

“
Could we watch one of yours
?”

Nellie blushed.
“
That's nice. Thank you
.”

“
Could I bring my husband? You'd like him
.”

She hesitated.
“
Just you, I think
,
for now
.”

“
May I tell him about you
?”

Nellie smiled. The eyes were pleased that she had
asked
.
“
But no one else
?”

”
I promise
.”
Barbara reached to ease the window
open. She paused, suddenly frowning. A part of her could
still barely believe that this visit had happened.
“
Nellie
?”
She turned again.
“
Does anyone else know you can talk
?”

“
The members do. Some of them. And a girl who came
to see me
.”

“
What girl
?”

“
She came yesterday. To my bench. She's going to
help me find my children
.”

“You.
.
.
you have children
?”

“
Two that I remember. Ha
r
land says I have four but
Ha
r
la
n
d says a lot of things that aren't so
.”

“
Who is Harland
?”

“
You've seen him. In a yachting costume. He goes
sailing every morning
.”

Barbara had seen him. On the far side of the lawn. The
magic bench, in his case, must be his wheelchair. Barbara
wanted to ask about these children Nellie seemed to think
she had but an alarm, deep within her brain, had begun
to buzz.

“
This girl
,”
she asked quietly,
“
is she one of the
staff
?”

Nellie shook her head.
“
Just a fan. She came up
through the trees
.”

The alarm bleated.
“
Or a reporter? Could she have
been a reporter
?’'

Nellie heard the low intensity behind the
question and
she seemed to understand Barbara's concern. She reached
a reassuring hand.
“
I'm sure that she isn't. But I'll ask
her when she visits again
.”

Alan, even more than she, could scarcely believe all
that Barbara had learned from this old actress wh
o
was
thought to be an hysterical mute and hopelessly insane.
But, like Barbara, his most urgent concern was the girl
who had come up through the trees. If she existed at all.

It appeared that she did. Nellie Da
m
eon even got her
name. Lisa something. Benson
.
.
.
Bickford. Nellie could
not quite recall.

She remembered, however, that the girl had a camera.
And Alan Weinberg had remembered that at the approxi
mate time of this visit, he and his wife had been out on
the terrace, sipping coffee, in defiance of Henry Dunville's rules. They soon went back inside but only because their
coffee was cold and because the Ruiz woman came out
to say that a doctor from the Motion Picture Relief Associ
ation had just entered the main gate. Still, this girl, this Lisa, could well have photographed them.

Alan now remembered an incident of that morning that
had made no great impression on him at the time. The
young docto
r—h
is name was Feldma
n—c
ame once eac
h
month to check medical records and give routine physicals.
Alan had overheard him complaining to Henry, angrily,
about Henry's
“
guests
”
bothering the members. Henry
had seemed confused. He knew that his only guests were the Weinbergs and they had gone nowhere near the old
actress or the blind painter. Although the two men clearly
despised each other, Henry claimed innocence. He promised to look into it. Minutes later, he heard Henry shouting
at his chief of security, a surly goon named Darby, who
then rushed out of Henry's office.

Yes, he thought. Someone had apparently been there.

“
They might have her already
,”
he said to Barbara.
“
Darby might have grabbed her when she came down through the trees
.”

Barbara shook her head.
“
They'd want to know who
she is first. They'd wait. Even Henry would know better
than to grab a reporter
...
if that's what she is
.”

Alan frowned beneath his mask of bandages
^
He e
n
vi
sioned a grainy photograph of himself and his wife on
the cover of some supermarket tabloid.
Alien Visitors at
California Asylum?
or
Hitler Alive in Movie Madhouse.

“
I'd better ask Henry about her
,”
he said.

“
You can't say Nellie spoke to me
.”

”I won't have to
.”
It was enough that he'd witnessed that scene with young Dr. Feldman.

It had taken some persuasion and the encounter had
not improved their relationship. But Henry, in the end,
acknowledged that there had been an intruder.

They know who she is, he said, and she's not a re
porter. Merely a student. Her only interest seems to have
been photographing the house and meeting Nellie Da
m
eon.
She is being attended to and Nellie Dameon is to
be
..
.
examined.

“
Examining that old woman
,”
Weinberg told his wife,
“
will probably involve drugs. We don't want him finding
out that she can talk, and especially the things she told you
.”

“
How do we stop him? We can't move in with her
.”

“
You might have to
,”
he said.
“
For now, it's time
that I met her. Henry has to know that we're her
f
riends
.”

Barbara understood. Henry Dunville was afraid of them
already. He might not risk forcing a confrontation without
Ca
r
leton here to back him up. The flip side was that he
would surely wonder about their sudden interest. But Bar
bara could handle that. She would simply tell him that
there was nothing sudden about it. She had been sneaking
into Nellie's suite for some time. Watching movies. Because Alan snored.

“
What about that girl
?”
she asked.
“
What will they do to her
?”

“
What I'd do, I imagine. Give her something else to
think about
.”

Barbara understood that as well. He would not hurt her.
Not if she meant them no harm. But he would certainly frighten her.

That afternoon, the thug, Darby, sent by Henry to fetch
Nellie Da
m
eon found Barbara Weinberg with her, watch
ing movies. Barbara told him to go away. He returned
with the Ruiz woman but Barbara, by that time, had braced
a chair against the door that locked only from the outside.

Ruiz returned with Henry Dunville, this time to the
casement window. He demanded an explanation. Barbara
confessed to having been coming there for weeks. She
claimed to be a fan of silent films and of Nellie Dameon
in particular. She said that, given time, she thinks she can
get Nellie to speak.