Greenwich (17 page)

Harold put his arms around her. “Let's take the coffee and sit outside and have a smoke.” He picked up the coffeepot and a couple of mugs. “Then, you didn't tell the kid?”

“I didn't have the heart to,” Ruth confessed. “I know I should have, but, you know, he and Dad discussed this trip for weeks. They went over the maps, and Dad, I think, selected places he had always dreamed of but had never seen. Cornwall, for example. He always wanted to go to Cornwall but never gave himself the time. He never took a vacation. You remember?”

“Oh, but I do,” Harold said. “I used to beg him. I said we'd both go with him. Last year, Oscar's last year of high school, I told him this was the perfect time.”

“I remember. I remember what he said: Suppose someone gets really sick while I'm gone? His great grandfather came here from Cornwall. He was a doctor Dr. Rowdy Ferguson. Can you imagine anyone giving a child that name?”

“No worse than Harold.”

“I like your name.”

“There goes Craydon's yacht,” he said, pointing to an eighty-foot beauty putting out to sea.

Ruth began to cry. “Not over that stupid yacht, but here we are, sitting and talking as if nothing has happened.”

He rose and stood behind her, bending over and kissing the nape of her neck and folding his arms around her. “Seth knows how much we love him.”

“To know, you have to be somewhere. Do you believe that nonsense?”

“Sometimes. When I want to believe it. Right now I want to believe it.”

“We have to go down and see the undertaker,” Ruth said, almost crossly.

“Time for that, Ruthie. He said he wanted to be cremated. Do we go along with that?”

“His living will included instructions for the hospital to take any organ they had any use for. He said there wouldn't be enough left for a proper burial. God help me, that's my father I'm talking about.”

“It's better to talk about him, honey, than not to. We'll be talking about him for the next fifty years.”

“Yes.” She stood up and embraced him. “I need you, Harold. I'm not worth shit today. It took my last bit of strength to deceive Oscar.”

“Why don't you lie down and get some sleep. I'll take care of everything.”

“I won't sleep.”

“Try. Lie down and close your eyes.”

“All right, I'll try.”

Harold went inside, found the sleeping pills, and put the container in his pocket, and then felt like a fool for doing so; yet he had never seen his wife like this before. She was always alive with energy. He had a theory about professional photographers, that they bristled with energy and moved like dancers. At least Ruth did. He was always amazed at her photographs—especially the way she put life into that little rabbit of a woman that Castle had married.

He watched her as she came inside. He was a chubby man, colorless hair and glasses, and three inches shorter than Ruth. He loved her, everything about her—her cynicism, her tall, hard body, just under six feet, her willingness to go anywhere and do anything to get the right picture. “If only I were with you in Vietnam,” she had once said, to which he had answered, “Thank God you weren't.”

Yet she had not said a word about the changes in his manuscript. What an utterly selfish hog he was, thinking about his damn book with poor Seth either lying on the autopsy slab or already shipped down to the undertaker without his liver or kidneys or anything else they found useful. And this was worse, standing and berating himself with his sharp whip of guilt.

Suddenly, Ruth appeared, now in a robe, and said, “Harry, with all this going on, I never told you. I read the manuscript over during those miserable hours of waiting. It's good—damn good.”

And with that, she disappeared into the house and the bedroom.

Twenty-nine

A
t seven-thirty that morning, Sister Patricia Brody knelt by her narrow bed and prayed. Hers was a tiny room, eight feet wide, ten feet long. It contained only one ornament, a crucifix carved by a woodcutter in El Salvador. The single window in the room opened itself to the early sunlight, and in the broad beam of radiance, dust motes danced and plunged.

Her prayer was silent and wordless. She listened to the silence and allowed the silence to bring her where it might. The silence was an ocean of what was boundless, filled with mystery beyond the scope and reach of the human mind. Sometimes, once in a great while, she broke through that great barrier of silence and touched the wonder of what was and is and always will be, and then for at least a moment, she was filled with a joy that made up for all the misery and contradiction that encased her life. She had no description or understanding of this joy; there were no words for it in language available to her. She was a well-educated woman, college and postgraduate degrees in theology and psychology, and she had read a great deal about satori and enlightenment, but this moment of illumination was for her neither satori nor enlightenment. She had never spoken of it to anyone because she did not know how to speak of it.

Thoughts crossed her mind while she prayed and listened, and for the most part she threw them away; but this morning, Sally Castle intruded. Sister Brody had once been a slender and good-looking young woman, but with her middle years, any care about her appearance had slipped away. When she thought about beauty, it was not of the face or the body, but now the thought came to her that beauty, like that of Sally Castle, was not simply features or hair or body. Why had she been so drawn to Sally? What miracle could allow a woman to come out of the dregs and filth of a life as wretched as life gets in a place like California and at the age of forty be this gentle and soft-spoken person?

These questions interfered with her prayer, and she let them go and returned to the deep silence.

Thirty

L
arry did not require directions, driving from New York City to Greenwich, Connecticut. He had been to Richard Bush Castle's home a number of times because Castle was always good for at least a hundred thousand in campaign money. He admired the great sprawling house that Castle lived in, his beautiful wife, his expensive cars, and his staff of servants, and he had always left there filled with envy. He himself kept a small apartment in Georgetown and a permanent address in his hometown, where he had inherited his father's house. It was one of the better houses in that town, but nothing at all compared to Castle's place.

He had sort of made up his mind that when he had three million socked away in his safe-deposit box and in quiet but good investments, he would phase out Drummond and live the kind of a life Castle lived. But for now he had to finish his ordeal over the documents Castle had foolishly put his name to. He was not a professional killer, but he had killed three men in his lifetime, and the memory of the rush and headiness that had followed those killings was like nothing else he had ever experienced. He looked forward to meeting Castle this morning with excitement and some fear—and also with some pride. There was pride in his admission to himself that he was a crazy bastard of sorts. It made him smile.

It was a fine morning, as fine as only a pleasant June morning can be. The trees were in full bloom, and the morning temperature was about seventy degrees. There was little traffic this early, and Larry never allowed his speedometer to pass fifty-five miles per hour. He had no desire to be stopped by a cop, with his CIA identification and a gun in his jacket pocket. He knew that Castle would note the bulge in his pocket, but Castle was slender and weighed no more than one hundred and fifty pounds. Larry could break him in two with his bare hands, if the occasion required.

And Larry had to admire Drummond and Curtis. They left nothing to chance, no stone unturned. Yet he had to keep in mind that they were dangerous. People who planned everything down to the last detail were always dangerous.

From the rental garage, Larry drove up to 97th Street, where he took the tranverse through Central Park to the Henry Hudson Parkway. He liked the drive along the Hudson River, and then the Cross County to the Hutchinson River Parkway and then the Merritt Parkway. His exit was North Street in Connecticut, and a mile more to Castle's driveway. As he turned into the driveway, between the two stone posts crowned with ornamental lights, he saw Castle walking down the driveway toward him. Larry pulled his car off the driveway onto the grass and got out of the car.

The two men shook hands.

“I'll forgive the wheel marks on my lawn, Larry,” Castle said, “it's that good to see you.” He noticed the bulging jacket pocket and said to himself,
Play this cool and easy. Don't get nervous. Money talks.

“Sorry,” Larry apologized. “I live in Georgetown, no lawns or wheel marks. Shall I pull off?”

“No. Let it be. The hell with the wheel marks.”

“You're looking good,” Larry observed.

Measuring the tenor of every word, Castle relaxed slightly. “Living the good life. It pays off,” he said, smiling. “Suppose we walk up to my office—you know, the place in the pool house. We have to talk, and no one will interrupt us there. I also have a small gift for you.”

“I never refuse small gifts or large ones. It comes with the territory.”

As they walked toward the pool house, Larry said, “You read the story in the
Times
?”

“I did.”

“Found it disturbing?”

“More or less,” Castle replied, thinking that this was the game he had played for years. A company required so many millions of dollars, and you took it to a bank or a brokerage house and you convinced them that the stock was worth that many millions of dollars. What was his life worth, and why didn't he call the cops and get some protection or have them pick up Larry? But cops don't pick up a suspect on somebody's word, and he didn't want protection. And he wanted desperately to meet Larry and hear what he had to say, and maybe that bulge in his jacket was a cellular phone and not a gun; and Castle had thought of various responses to whatever situation was brewing in Washington, and he felt that Larry might have the answers.

He took the risk. Last night, for reasons he did not understand, he had almost blown it with his desire to talk to the monsignor—thinking that might open some door to him, but he preferred this risk. After all, what sense did it make for Larry to kill him? Larry had made no overt gesture, and all his life Castle had taken risks. He had floated Internet companies and other high-tech offerings that had never turned a profit and had no projected profits for years to come, and yet, by now their stocks had tripled for no good reason at all.

As they walked toward the pool house, Larry's thoughts took a different road entirely. It was many years since he had been sheriff and shot that black man, but he still remembered that cocaine-like high it had given him, that sense of ultimate power, the look on the black fisherman's face as his life departed, that stunned, unbelieving look.

He recalled a story he had read when he was very young. It concerned a king who had decided to kill a duke. He invited the duke to dinner, and course after course of delicious food was served, but no bread—and thus the duke realized that he would never leave the table alive, for the king would not break bread with someone he had decided to kill. Yet even though it was early morning, Castle might well offer Larry one of the Cuban cigars, with which Drummond kept his good friends supplied. Would he, Larry, accept a cigar?

But in the pool-house office, Castle produced a bottle of scotch whiskey and two glasses.

“Too early to drink,” Larry said. He was looking at the desk, where the letter Castle had written was lying. He picked it up and read it. “What made you think I was coming here to kill you?” Larry asked.

“It's a possibility.”

“And if so, what are you going to do?”

“Persuade you that your best interests lie elsewhere.”

“Oh? And how?”

“Pick up that bag and open it,” Castle said, pointing to the athletic bag. “No, Larry, I don't have a gun. No guns here or in my house. I hate guns.”

Larry nodded, studied Castle thoughtfully for a long moment, and then lifted the bag to the desk. He unzipped it, picked up one of the bundles of money, riffled it, and pursed his lips.

“How much, Bush?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand.” Larry had used that intimate name. It might mean something or it might not. “All fifties, and it's clean money, Larry. I get the money nine thousand at a time, right under the limit. Been doing that for years. No numbers on the record, no fussing with the tax people. You don't have to report it. It's tax free. I know that two hundred and fifty grand is not Fort Knox, but there's more where it came from.”

“It's mighty tempting,” Larry agreed.

“You want me out of the way before a subpoena is served? There's a very simple way. I pick up Sally and some luggage and take off for the Bahamas. I have a house and a boat down there, and I can stay there for a year if I want to. I have a computer and I can do business there as well as here. They can't touch me or subpoena me there. I know all the top people in the Bahamian government and just how much money it takes to keep some of them happy. You want to visit me there—well, it's one hell of a sweet place. And I have dual citizenship, there and here.”

“It sounds pretty good,” Larry admitted. “Except for one thing.”

“What's that?”

“What do I tell Drummond?”

“Fuck Drummond!”

“I'd like to, but—”

“But what?”

Larry shrugged. “He'll kill me if I don't kill you.”

“Larry, you don't hate me.”

“No more than anyone else.”

“You can't kill someone in cold blood.”

“Why not, Bush? Most killings are done in cold blood.”

“Not by ex-congressmen. And why me? Why not Curtis? Why not you? What in hell makes Drummond decide to be an executioner? It's been years and years, and not even a whimper about it. Who the hell cares about it today? People don't even remember where El Salvador is. Who gives a damn?”