Authors: MAYNARD SIMS
“Well,
I guess I’ll see you around,” he said as he fumbled the key into the lock.
“He
comes in a boy and leaves a man,” Paula said heavily. “Don’t they teach you
manners in Arizona?”
“Sure
they do.”
“Well?”
He
stared at her blankly.
“Dumb
jerk, you could at least say thank you.”
“For what?”
He opened the door and let himself out.
Paula
sat down on the
lounger
and swore softly.
From his vantage point on a garden seat Ray watched
the boy leave the pool house.
He’d guessed Paula was the
occupant there. Caroline had been a wild child in her youth, and he’d heard rumours
her daughter was following in her footsteps. Still, you were only young once.
It was her eighteenth birthday, and if she wasn’t allowed to break a few rules
today of all days, then when could she?
When
Ray looked back on his own life it was the loves he remembered. The times he
had made love, found and lost love. The regrets would be not having enough occasions
when he could love in any way, shape or form. The times he had passed up the
opportunities for intimacy, for sex. Why? Reasons far too vague to recall now,
but which must have made sense to him at the time. Probably his innate sense of
self worth that had been formed early in his childhood. The curse of being the
other son has coloured his life for as long as he could remember.
He
stamped out his cigarette and immediately lit another.
He
hadn’t enjoyed the meeting with his sister, but it hadn’t gone any worse than
he might have expected it to. There had been no chance to see his father yet,
and with the way the evening was going he guessed he wouldn’t get a chance to
lock horns with the old man until morning. Assuming he decided to take up Caroline’s
offer and stay over; which he guessed he would. He would have liked to have
seen his mother, and when he had spoken to Paula, he decided he would go up and
see her.
He
had no plans formulated for what he would say to his niece, but he had a vague
notion he wanted to move her onto a path that would lead her into a different
place from her mother.
Ray
had drifted into a way of life that suited him. He judged Caroline had taken a
route that she thought she should. One of them had plotted things out deliberately,
while the other had ridden whichever wave took them on the most exciting
journey. He knew he was happy enough, but he doubted Caroline would recognize
the emotion.
What
he was still trying to decipher was what his sister had meant about their mother
thinking their brother, Frank, hadn’t died.
It was a rain swept evening. Cars in those days
weren’t quite as sophisticated as they are now. They were big, and Randolph
Stock’s Cadillac was as large as any.
Luxurious, comfortable,
and as safe as they made them.
It was the drivers that generally made
such cars unsafe.
Drink
and driving wasn’t nearly as transparent as it is nowadays. DUI notices were
nowhere near as prominent. Social drinking, and then taking the car home
afterwards, was a common occurrence.
No
one suggested Stock was drunk, but if any of the police that attended the crash
scene had been brave enough to test him, he would have been outside any safe
parameters.
Father
and son had been at a fund raising event in the Hills. His vast personal
fortune was still a future goal but Randolph Stock had been born into old
money. His father, and his father before him, had built up a family dynasty
based on construction; in the city and the outer limits. Stock had managed the
businesses sensibly, but without the passion he later demonstrated through his
gemstone and diamond business.
Frank
was being groomed to take on a senior position alongside his father, and
ultimately to take on the top position. Still in college,
studies
going well, this was
a welcome evening off. Frank shone in the company
of his father and the adulation was reciprocated. Ray had recognized the mutual
worship long before, and had done his best to ignore it.
It
was after midnight when the pair managed to make their excuses and leave. They
had helped the organizers raise a decent sum for a home for under privileged
children; few of the rich people eating and drinking to excess realized the
irony of why they were gathered together.
The
rain was insistent; the sky, already dark with night, was crowded with black
clouds. Frank asked his father to let him call a cab, but driving home was
something Stock had factored into his plans for the evening, and he wasn’t a
man to change his plans for anyone.
Stock
instructed the valet to bring his car around and stood waiting under the canopy
of the porch, chomping on the cigar that had been given to him at dinner by the
vice president of an oil company.
The
Cadillac loomed out of the darkness, and the valet jumped out, running round to
open the passenger door. He handed the keys to Stock and accepted the folded
dollars that were pressed into his palm.
Frank got into the passenger
seat and shook the raindrops from his hair. Randolph Stock opened the window so
the cigar smoke had a release. He inserted the key, engaged gear and pulled
away.
The wipers did an adequate
job trying to keep the screen clear, but the rain gradually got worse, and
Stock had to concentrate just to keep in a straight line. There was little
traffic about, and once they left the highway they were the only vehicle.
The crash report commented
on the road conditions, mentioned the circumstances of the driver’s evening.
The skid marks where the large car had braked and the driver had lost control
were measured and remarked upon in the report. Eventually the report was filed
away. Money, old money in particular, has a lot of
favors
it can call in when it needs to.
Stock remembered exactly
what happened. He remembered it every day and every night. He didn’t need a
report, not even a doctored one.
He wasn’t driving too fast,
not for normal road conditions.
Except the conditions were
far from normal.
The road twisted and turned and there were no streetlights.
The bend loomed in front and he turned the wheel a second too late. The tarmac
bent to the right but the car carried on to the left.
The fence was designed
merely to mark the edge of the road; to divide the driving part from the steep
drop on the other side. The Cadillac ploughed through the flimsy metal fence as
if it were made of straw. Stock struggled to keep control, believing if he kept
the wheel straight he might be able to steer the car on all four tires. He
never got the chance.
As soon as the car left the
road it was as good as flying. Trees slowed it down but it didn’t come to a
halt until it hit the rocks that framed the creek at the bottom of the narrow
ravine.
Frank was pronounced dead at
the scene.
Randolph Stock was flung
clear some time during the descent. He ran to the car as soon as he heard the
dreadful sound it made as it connected with the rocks. He hauled his son out,
fearful of the car igniting. When the police and the ambulance arrived Stock
was cradling his dead son in his arms. No one repeated what he was saying, and
his words didn’t make the report.
Randolph Stock walked away
from the crash without a scratch.
Carl Anders had taken a while to locate the bathroom
where the people had been seen taking drugs. He’d assumed they would be men.
Suited types, believing a little recreational coke was fashionable and cool.
Anders
was surprised to the point of shock to find three young women, dressed in white
robes.
He
stood in the doorway, his mouth opening and closing as if he was a fish gasping
for air, while his mind went through the slightly painful process of coming to
a decision. Eventually he decided he needed to exert his authority. He had been
given an assignment; throw the drug takers out of the house. Even though they
were female, and even though he was never quite as comfortable with women as he
was with men, he felt duty bound to see the project through.
“Sweep
it up and flush it.”
None
of the robed figures moved. None of them even turned their heads to glance at
him.
Anders
hesitated. He was used to giving orders and having them obeyed, just as he
jumped when he was told to. He looked around the opulent bathroom, and had to
admit he couldn’t see any evidence of drug taking. If anything the room was
pristine, gleaming clean. Martin
Devereaux
had seemed
certain, and his instructions were clear.
“Finish
up, now. You’re going to have to leave.”
One
of the women, a slim blonde haired girl with startlingly blue eyes, turned to
look at him. She regarded him in a manner suggesting she had smelled a bad
odor
. She pulled her robe closely around her body and
smiled.
“Are
you part of the management?”
“Management?”
“Of the house.
We’re here with the Church of the Divine
Light and we need to make sure Mrs. Stock is settled for the night.”
Hesitation
was now the overwhelming emotion for Anders.
Maybe
Devereaux
had seen three different people. Maybe it
wasn’t these three, what were they anyway, nuns?
“We’re
not nuns.”
“What…”
The
second women had spoken. A dark haired, dark skinned, woman in her late
twenties. “You wondered if we were nuns. We’re not.”
“I
didn’t say anything.”
“You
didn’t have to.” The third woman was speaking now. She was slightly older than
the others, perhaps the senior one.
All three of them were
facing him. They stood in a line, shoulder to shoulder. They were all smiling;
benign, frightening smiles that seemed to devour him.
“We’re sisters,” the older
one said. “We’re here to administer to Mrs. Stock, help her recovery.”
“That’s as maybe,” Anders
had decided to restore his authority, as if he had ever had any here. “You’re
going to have to leave. There have been complaints.”
“Complaints
about us?”
The younger woman sounded excited at the prospect.
“This is a respectable
house, and we don’t want drug taking here. There are important people here
tonight, politicians and the like. You’ll have to come with me.”
One of the women laughed, a
brittle sound, like fingernails on glass.
“Drugs?
You
think we’ve been taking common or garden drugs?”
“Ridiculous,” one of them
said. “We have no need for anything so man made.”
Anders moved forward and
took hold of the arm of the woman nearest to him. He grabbed part of the sleeve
of the white robe and part of her arm.
The woman hissed at him as
if she was a snake, drawing a sharp intake of breath over her teeth. She
glanced
either side of her at the other two robed figures
and then she looked down at her arm, where Anders’ hand lay motionless.
As she looked intently at
her arm Anders felt a warmth fan out over his fingers. The place where he had
hold of her arm was getting warmer. So warm it soon became hot. Very quickly it
was too hot to hold and he had to let go. He drew his hand up against his
chest, cradling it.
“You held on a little too
long,” the woman said. “That will need some attention.”
Anders looked down at his
hand and saw each finger was red raw, as if it had been held against a source
of heat, like an electric fire. His hand was throbbing, small blisters already
starting to form.
“Do you think he still wants
us to leave?”
The women laughed amongst
themselves.
“I think we should shut the
door.”