Bannerman's Law (17 page)

“
You're all set
,”
DiDi Fenerty told her, looking up from the IBM workstation in her study.
“
You'd better
make yourself comfortable
.”

Molly looked at the screen. It showed a list of files.
She touched a key and the list scrolled upward. There
were some sixty files, overall about thirty megabytes worth
of data. Even concentrating on the most recent entries, she
might be here for hours.

She sat. Ca
rl
a reached for another chair. DiDi Fene
r
ty
excused herself.

“
Are you sure you're ready for this
?”
Molly asked her.

“
I'm okay
,”
she answered.

Molly doubted it.
Carla's
color had already begun to
rise in anticipation of seeing words her sister had written.
Molly called up a file labeled
“
Personal
.”
She did so
deliberately. It consisted of letters, mostly. Some to
friends, many to Carla. Here and there, she had used her word processor as a sort of diary. She would share her
thoughts with it, especially whenever she felt sad, or over
whelmed by her studies, or had been hurt by some slight.

She recorded wish lists. She wanted to travel, especially
to Italy, taking a whole summer to see it to
p
to bottom.
She wanted Carla to go with her but only if and when
Lisa was able to pay her own way. Enough was enough,
she wrote.

If Carla wanted to give her a graduation present, how
ever, and asked what she'd like, what she really wanted
was an invitation to visit Westport. To meet
Carla'
s
friends. The famous Paul Bannerman. Billy Mc
H
ugh. Anton
Zivic
.
Molly Fa
rr
ell. Especially Dr. Russo
.
To see them
all in the flesh. If they're
Carla's
friends, Lisa mused, how bad could they be? Molly, reading these thoughts, had the
impression that Lisa had heard about the Westport group
from someone other than Carla. Perhaps from her father,
perhaps from federal investigators.

Above all, Lisa wanted to be like her big sister. Carla,
she wrote, had seen and done so much. Been everywhere. She was so confident. So smart. And yet so kind. Lisa
wondered if Dr. Russo realizes how lucky he is that Carla
is even thinking about saying yes.

Molly blinked. The date of the entry was last August
fifth. Doc Russo had been dead six months by then. Carla was apparently still talking about him as if he were alive,
and her suitor.
Molly, embarrassed, turned to look at her. But Ca
rl
a
had turned away from the machine, perhaps in time. She
was taking deep breaths, one tiny fist against her mouth.

“
Carla
,”
Molly said softly. ”I wish I knew what not to read. But I don't
.”

”I know
.”

“
Why don't you go back to the hotel. Call your father.
Check in with Paul
.”

“
No
,”
she shook her head.
“
I'm all right
.”

Molly turned in her seat, took
Carla's
hand.
“
You
know, don't you
,”
she asked,
“
that I'll never tell another
soul about anything I might read here. Not if it's private
.
And not unless you tell me I can
.”

Carla looked away. ”I didn't lie to her
,”
she said.
“
Not exactly
.”

“
You protected her. I would have done the same thing
.”

Carla took a breath and exhaled. Her shoulders sagged.
“
You know what I used to do? When I was with Lisa
?”

Molly waited.

“
I'd try to be like you. Never a bad word about any
body. Not even my fuck-head father
.”

Molly smiled but said nothing.

“
And Gary Russo did ask me once. He really did
.”

”I know. Or at least I knew he was thinking about it
.”

“
Goddamn him
.”

For dying. Yes. Molly squeezed her hand.
“
Go back
to the hotel
,”
she said gently.
“
I'll be along. I'll take
a cab
.”

“
All that
,”
Carla gestured toward the IBM monitor.
“
You won't leave it on the machine
?”

“
Not a word. I'll give you the disks when I'm
finished
.”

“
Maybe I'll lie by the pool for a while. Get some lunch
.”

“
Good idea
.”
Molly, relieved, stood up with her.
Maybe now she'd get some work done.

Carla saw this last in her eyes.

And maybe, thought Carla, she would make herself useful. Maybe she would see if a silver Honda happened to turn up behind her again as she drove back toward the
Beverly Hills Hotel.

Su
mn
er Todd Dommerich, biting one of his hands,
rolled up his window with the other so that he could
scream. He did do, covering his face. He kicked at his brake and clutch pedals until the tops of his feet bled
through his socks. He screamed so hard, starving his brain,
that he nearly fainted. He did not see the Chevrolet until
it was past him.

And now he saw the silver Honda pulling out to follow.
His father was behind the wheel.

Dommerich watched, gathering himself, as it began to
turn the corner, then stopped. A boy, maneuvering under
a floating Frisbee, blocked his path. Dommerich
’
s father
pounded his steering wheel but he did not sound his horn
for fear of being noticed by the driver of the Chevrolet.

Dommerich scrambled out of his seat. He seized the
pizza sign, stripping it from his roof and throwing it onto
his passenger seat and the hat that had been swiped from
his head. He slipped once more behind the wheel and
started his engine. The pizza sign, he knew, could work
both ways.

Sumner Dommerich was invisible again.

He understood, calming himself, that the man who had
soiled his car, slapped him, humiliated him, could not
really be his father. His father was in hell. With his
mother. His father who beat him. And did much worse to
him. His mother who laughed at him. He had sent them
both to hell. But they did not stay there. They kept com
ing back.

They came in his dreams and they came in daylight.
Sometimes they took over the bodies of other people. Not
for long. Sometimes only for a minute. Long enough to
insult him, to laugh at him.

Dommerich eased his car around the corner. The Chev
rolet was well ahead. It almost seemed to Dommerich that no one was driving and that there was no one in the pas
senger seat either. But then it signaled a right turn on
Western Avenue and he could see that there was only
Lisa
'
s sister, chin high, peering over the dashboard. The
silver Honda hung back but followed.

The Chevrolet
t
urned left onto W
i
lsh
ir
e. The woman's
driving began to seem erratic. She was varying her speed
as if she were a tourist. Once, at the La Brea Tar Pits,
she seemed about to enter the parking lot but she changed
her mind. Do
m
me
ri
ch wondered about this. It did not seem that Lisa's sister should have much interest in sight-seeing.

A sign said they were entering Beverly Hills. After a
while, the Chevrolet signaled a right turn onto Rodeo
Drive. The street and sidewalks were crowded along the two-block stretch where the most expensive stores were
located. There were many people on foot, window shop
pers mostly, tourists, but there were many expensive cars
parked along both sides, some with chauffeurs waiting.

The Chevrolet, suddenly, swung to the curb near the
Georg
i
o Armani store. Lisa's sister climbed from it and
stepped to the meter where she searched her purse for
change. The Honda, two cars ahead of Dommerich, hesitated but it could not stop. Other cars pressed behind it, Dommerich
’
s among them. One driver tapped his horn.
Dommerich gleefully pressed his own. Abruptly, as if angrily, the Honda cut its wheels and squealed into a U-turn.
Dommerich watched the driver as he went by. He was looking at his rea
rv
iew mirror, cursing.

Lisa's sister stepped quickly back to the door of her
car. Dommerich
’
s smile broadened. He understood now what she'd been doing. She had seen the Honda all along.
She had picked this street to stop, forcing him to commit
He'd broken off but at least she'd had a closer look at
him. She might have even read his license number if her
eyes were real good.

The traffic moved forward. Dommerich pulled up be
hind the Chevrolet as if waiting for the space. Lisa's sister
did not look at him. Her attention was focused on the
retreating Honda. At last, frowning, she
r
eentered her car
and continued northward. Dommerich took the space but
immediately pulled out again as soon as
a few more cars
ha
d
moved between them.

Four blocks later, a traffic light changed, stopping Dommerich. Ahead, the Chevrolet was turning out of sight. He waited, anxiously, although he was fairly sure that he knew where Lisa’s sister was heading. Once again, a flash of silver caught the corner of his eye. Afraid to look, but afraid not to, he glanced to his right and froze. The Honda was there, alongside him. The driver, thick lips, double

chin, oily, even looked like his father. Dommerich fought panic. Look away, he told himself. Make no move that would catch his eye, cause him to look this way, notice the rooftop sign on the front seat and remember when he had last seen one like it.

The light changed, mercifully. The Honda surged
ahead. Dommerich could breathe again.

A part of him wanted to break off and drive directly
t
o
the Beverly Hills Hotel. Lisa
'
s sister, he felt sure, would
turn up there eventually. He had seen that parking stub on
the Chevrolet's console.

He could leave a message for her there. He could leave
her the license number of the silver Honda in case she
missed it back on Rodeo Drive. He would sign the note,
”A
friend
.”

But it would be so much better, he decided, if he were
able to tell her where that man lived. Where he went next.
What his name is. That way she would be able to tell the police about him. That he'd been following her all morning, bothering her. And if they did nothing about it, he
thought, maybe Sum
n
er Todd Dommerich would. He fol
lowed the Honda.

They called him the Campus Killer, he thought, driving.
They wrote about him, interviewed psychiatrists about
him, said disgusting things about him. Almost nothing they
said was right, except some of the things they thought had
happened to him when he was a child. The things his
father had done to him. They were right about that. But
they also said that he was afraid of women. That he could
not confront the act of sex with a live frightening woman,
which was why they had to be bound or dead first. That
wasn't true. He would not have been afraid of Lisa. If they
never had sex it would have been because they wanted it
that way. Because it's easier to be friends that way.