The Council of Ten (6 page)

Of course, there was also Pam, and Drew blessed his luck there. They had been going out for six months now, Drew’s longest stretch ever, and their relationship was remarkably unstrained and comfortable. It was all new for Drew, who had never been much good at relationships, thanks to partners who demanded too much or not enough. With Pam he had found the happy medium. She was a grad student in biochemistry across the city at George Washington University. She had her own apartment and insisted even after their relationship turned serious that they not share his. She slept over regularly, mostly on weekends. But she had her own life and left Drew to his. People were far better together when they were more comfortable with themselves, Pam reasoned, and Drew couldn’t have agreed more.

They had met, ironically, at Clyde’s through a friend of Drew’s who wanted to show off his new girl friend to the gang. Apparently he showed her off too much. Drew may have lost a friend, but Pam was well worth it. Only because of her did he at long last feel comfortable not being in college anymore, the crutch of M Street no longer as sorely needed, although Drew was not yet ready to let go cold turkey.

He pulled his 325e into the driveway of his condo and noticed Pam’s Escort parked by the curb. She said she might be coming over to run some material through his computer, and Drew was all too happy to oblige. The only thing he was using it for was the compilation of research on his latest and only book, which was presently suffering from an acute case of procrastination.

Stepping through the door of his condominium, he noticed the bare minimum of lights on. Pam was an energy stickler, a detail-oriented person all the way. The condo was composed of two floors with a full kitchen, dining, and living room on the first and a pair of bedrooms on the second. Drew had first planned to convert the second bedroom into an office, but working on the second floor depressed him so he moved his work area down into the living room/den.

His Apple IIe held a sacred corner position and he saw Pam hunched over it. At first he thought she was working intensely. Then he realized she had dozed off. He walked over and squeezed her shoulder with firm tenderness.

“Ah,” she sighed, coming awake, “my landlord returns. Hell of a machine you’ve got here, boss.”

“The work must have been boring.”

“Just tiring. What time is it?” She stretched her arms out.

“After one.”

“Late.”

“I got talking to Jabba.”

She gazed at him closely. “Your face has looked better.”

“See, there was these two guys and one of them must’ve got in a lucky shot… .”

She looked at him disapprovingly. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard this one before.”

“You don’t sound too pleased about it.”

“Why should I be? You go out with your friends, get shitfaced—”

“I wasn’t shitfaced.”

“Fine. Just don’t expect me to be impressed with your macho bullshit.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let Jabba get his head kicked in?”

“You didn’t have to enjoy it.”

“Who said I—”

“You did,” Pam blared at him. “It’s written all over your face. You look like a fucking dog who’s just turned back an intruder into his territory. Come on, love, look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t glad when the opportunity arose for you to use your fists.”

Drew didn’t bother. Lying was pointless. Pam knew him better than he knew himself.

“You go off in the woods and play Rambo,” she continued, “and now you can’t get it out of your system. The games aren’t enough anymore. You want to play hero for real.”

“They were mixing a friend of mine’s face in Caesar salad.”

“So it was Drew Jordan to the rescue. No white horse and six-shooter, just a pair of fists the punching bags aren’t enough for anymore. And instead of leaving a silver bullet behind, you left with a smile.”

She started to stand up. Drew restrained her gently at the shoulders, her resolve more than equal to his strength.

“You’re too tired to drive,” he said with curt seriousness.

“And if I disagree, what are you gonna do, punch my lights out, too?”

“Nope, I’m hopeless without Tonto. Besides, if I knock you out, taking advantage of you wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”

She started to pull away from him, then sighed with a weak smile. “You know why I can’t stay mad at you for more than thirty seconds? Because you won’t argue with me. You stand there and nod at everything I say.”

“Not all the time. Tonight it happened to be the truth.”

“Know thyself …”

“Doesn’t mean I can change or even that I want to. I keep going to that camp mostly because it makes me feel alive, and tonight I felt even more alive because what I did
mattered
. I helped someone who was in trouble. What you don’t realize is that when it comes to some people, you can throw all your values clarification and moderating skills out the window. Approach them with a ‘come on, fellas’ and you’ll be lucky to get the ‘on’ out before a quick fist has you talking with a permanent lisp. I did what I had to tonight. How I felt about it is irrelevant.”

“Savage to savage, right?”

Drew winked and squeezed her shoulders tenderly. “Speaking of savage …”

“There you go again.”

“Me Tarzan, you Jane. What you say we go make boy?”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t love you so damn much.” And they kissed.

“My place or yours?” he asked her.

“Whichever’s closer.”

Drew had made love with many other girls and women, but seldom did he have the desire to do anything but go through the motions once the act was over. With Pam, the act itself was just the beginning. He loved simply sleeping with her, their arms interwoven and chests pressed tight together. He loved waking in the early morning hours and just seeing her there next to him. He would hug her tight and somehow in her sleep she would hug him back. She loved him without accepting all his actions, and this constant give-and-take had brought them even closer together. Drew liked criticism, saw it in a sense as one of the greatest ways someone could show they cared. Tolerance or passive acceptance had never worked with him, nor could he involve himself with a woman who treated him with too much deference. Pam’s strength was not physical, but, undeniably, it was there and in many ways far greater than the force that had allowed him to effortlessly put down the Ryker brothers in Clyde’s.

Thing of it was, no matter what she might have said about him being a savage, in bed that onus fell willingly upon her. She knew when to take command and when not to, and tonight was no exception. Her hands probed, rubbed, guided. Drew never ceased to be amazed at how she could arouse him no matter his mood. Tonight he was ready and that served to increase his pleasure. He rose over her and moved patiently, trying to time every move, but after a few seconds instinct took over and he lost himself within her. Minutes later it was over and he felt full and warm.

They tried again not long after, this time reversing the positions so Pam might have a turn in the lead. They broke off after that, collapsing in exhaustion with Pam falling almost immediately off to sleep. Drew lingered awake for some time and it seemed as though he had barely fallen asleep at last when the phone ringing on his night table jarred him. He fumbled for the receiver in the darkness, grasping it finally and remembering how much he feared late night phone calls.

“Yes? Hello.”

“Is Mr. Jordan there, please?”

“Speaking.”

“Andrew Jordan, this is Dr. Morris Kornbloom. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you… .”

Chapter 5

“THE LIFE OF A
person is judged on …”

The rabbi’s voice droned on through the heat of Doris Kaplan’s gravesite in West Palm Beach. The memorial service at Temple Beth El had been attended by perhaps two hundred people, and about half that number had formed the procession to the cemetery. According to Dr. Kornbloom, Drew’s grandmother had died in the early morning hours on Thursday of a massive heart attack. Now, Friday afternoon, he watched as they buried her.

He had made it through the day thus far in a daze. He accepted polite, sincere condolences from dozens of people, few of whom he had ever met. It was all very eerie and unnerving and Drew had never felt more alone. Pam had desperately wanted to accompany him down here, but he refused to let her, aware of her work load and how far back she’d be set if she lost even three days. So, he would go it alone as he had gone so often through his life.

Of course, tragedy was nothing new for him. It had struck once before, twenty-one years ago to be exact, on a rainy night back in Westchester when news of his parents’ deaths was brought to the door by a state trooper. His grandmother had handled everything. At their funeral he hadn’t felt alone because she was with him. Now it was her funeral and he had cried more than he had back then.

She was a strong woman and Drew had always thought her to be a physical giant. Only when he began his growth spurt at the age of eleven did he realize that his grandmother was barely five-four and that he had fallen into the syndrome children often do of making adults they respect or love mammoth in size. She had been everything to him for so long, but Drew had pulled away from her this last year and now the pangs of guilt felt like stray marbles in his stomach.

His reaction, actually, had been normal. Supported through college and beyond, he at last resolved himself to make it on his own. It was time to grow up, or at least, to try. He was too old for college and too old to be supported by his grandmother. So for the past year he had driven himself madly, pounding out article after article. Half were rejected. But half were published and he saved enough to put the articles aside for a while and start work on his book.

Saved enough … who was he kidding? Only the fact that his grandmother handled the payments on his car and condo allowed him even the semblance of a writing career. When he had begun refusing her regular checks, her response had been that Drew would never have to worry about money. She had taken care of everything.

Doris Kaplan had been a feisty woman who never took crap from anyone. Now, as the rabbi’s voice droned on, Drew found himself sadly recalling incidents that typified her spirit. Like the time she had settled a strike at the manufacturing plant by threatening to run all the machines herself and actually doing it for an hour before the workers tossed down their picket signs and went back in. Or when a teacher gave Drew a poor quarterly grade for no good reason and his grandmother had staged a one-person sit-in in the principal’s office until she received a fair hearing with all parties involved. The stories went on and on. Drew realized only now how much they meant to him, and that made the last year even harder to accept. He couldn’t help but think that his insistence on turning away her checks had been tantamount to turning away her love. It was difficult to draw the line and in the process of not trying to, he had made himself a stranger to her.

In fact, she had visited Washington only once since his graduation, in spite of his constant urgings to come up. She always had an excuse ready, but Drew was certain that the truth was she didn’t want to impose on whatever life he was building. For his part, Drew visited Palm Beach at least twice a year for a week or so, always staying at the exclusive Breakers where his first realization that adulthood had officially set in came when he was told he had to don a jacket in the lobby after six.

Andy
(she never would call him Drew, which he much preferred),
this is your grandmother. I hope I’m not bothering you
… . All her phone calls started that way and they never did bother him.

The rabbi was reading from a prayer book now, words as simple as the gravesite itself. Drew shared the chairs placed at the front with two aunts he knew barely at all and whom Doris Kaplan had never had much good to say about. The only person he had really come to know here was Morris Kornbloom, who had been supportive and caring right from the awful phone call in the early morning hours on Thursday. Kornbloom had mentioned something about the will when he arrived, and Drew guessed he would have to stay around for the reading although it was the last thing he would have preferred.

Drew shifted uneasily in his chair. It was unusually hot for this time of year in Florida and the only suits he owned were made of wool. His shirt was already soaked all the way through and he could feel the warm sweat reaching for his vest.

At last it was over, and Drew did his best to separate himself from his never seen and now last remaining relatives. The rabbi came over to offer his final condolences and Drew thanked him for everything, which wasn’t really much. Then he melted away, escaping all except Dr. Morris Kornbloom.

“We have to talk,” Kornbloom said softly.

Drew shrugged, the doctor gauging his reaction.

“This is different,” he continued, extracting an envelope from his jacket pocket. “This was among your grandmother’s effects. As executor of her estate, it was given to me along with a note from her saying that I should deliver it to you personally in the event that her death was unnatural.”

“Does a heart attack qualify as unnatural?”

“The circumstances do. Delirium’s a convenient enough explanation, but it doesn’t wash, not for me. Then there are the deaths of the other three women to consider. All explainable as well, and I might be able to accept them if your grandmother hadn’t been found outside the Breakers, perhaps trying to escape something.”

“Doctor—”

Kornbloom jammed the letter into Drew’s hand. “I haven’t read this and I want you to take it now so I won’t be able to.” His voice trailed off. “I’m here if you need me, though. I … just want you to know that.”

Drew started to open the envelope. A rigid hand from Kornbloom stopped him before he was halfway through the tear.

“Not here,” he advised. “My impression is that the letter’s contents are personal.” He paused, eyes mournful. “You’ve got my number. I know you have no reason to trust me, but if—”

“My grandmother trusted you,” Drew interrupted. “That’s plenty reason enough.”