The Heaven Trilogy (82 page)

“Why does it concern you?” Jan asked. “I help one woman desperate for her life and it's a problem?”

“No, Jan. But you have to understand—we're in sensitive times now. This movie deal depends on your reputation. Do you understand that?”

“And what does my helping one junkie have to do with my reputation?”

“She's in your
house
, Jan. You keep a young junkie in your house and that could definitely look off-color to some people.”

“You can't be serious. You really think someone would question that?”

“That's exactly what I'm suggesting! You're in a new league now, my friend. Any sign of impropriety and the walls could come crashing down. To whom much is given, much is required. Remember? Or have you forgotten our discussion altogether? Frank would choke if he knew you were entertaining a young woman. Especially now that you're engaged.”

“Stop it!” Karen said. “You've made your point, Roald. Don't be asinine about it. It's
my
engagement, not just Jan's you're talking so flippantly about. Have some decency.”

Roald and Jan stared at their plates and went back to work on their steaks.

“Now, while it's true that a young woman staying with Jan could look off-color, we're talking about a fluid situation here. I doubt if even your most conservative partners would come unglued about Jan helping a drug addict for a few days, woman or not. Let's not make this more than it is.”

“Thank you, Karen,” Jan said. “I couldn't have said it better.”

Roald didn't respond immediately. Jan caught Karen's eye and winked. “And don't worry, Roald. She won't be staying there long. As soon as I return I'll get her the help she needs.”

“I'm sorry. Perhaps I spoke too quickly.” Roald smiled. “You're right.” He lifted his glass for a toast. “Just looking out for you, my friend. No offense intended.”

Jan lifted his glass and clinked Roald's. “None taken.” They drank.

“That's better,” Karen said with a smile. “You do what needs to be done, Jan. Just remember that your big mansion there, as Ivena calls it, has room for only one woman.” She winked and joined them in the toast. “You just make sure she's gone when we get back.”

“Of course.”

“Send her to the Presbyterian shelter on Crescent Avenue—give her to the Salvation Army—take your pick. But she can't stay at the house,” she said.

“No. No of course not.”

They looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

“Well, then,” Roald cut in. “That's settled.”

All three of them lifted bites to their mouths at the same time, and dinner resumed. It was a small caveat in an otherwise perfect trip, Jan thought. And Karen was right. He should settle the matter the minute he returned. He really should.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WHILE JAN sat in the expensive atmosphere of Delmonico's in New York Friday night, Glenn Lutz sat alone at his own Palace bar, stewing. The room was mostly dark except the backlit bar itself. A half-empty bottle of rum stood next to his glass. It was his second for the day and it might not be his last. The bar had been carved from mahogany and stained a very dark brown. The decorator had wanted to paint it bright yellow, of all colors. That was before he'd fired her. He'd fired her, all right. Yes sir, he had fired that little freak, right after he'd bitten her lip. Now
that
had been a night.

Glenn remembered the occasion and tried to smile, but his face did not cooperate. The plan he'd settled on was a good plan, but it didn't feel good just now. It had come on the dawning notion that he could cage
any
woman. Women as pretty as Helen, women who wouldn't be missed. It wasn't the caging of Helen that he really wanted, was it? No, it was her free spirit that attracted him most. The very fact that she
did
resist him with a tenacity that most wouldn't dream of. Even the fact that she'd fled half a dozen times now. Each time his desire for her had swelled until now he could hardly stand it all.

So then, as much as he relished the idea of caging her or forcing her to return, he'd decided that he had to allow her to return on her own. He needed her to want him. It was the next step in this madness he'd given himself to.

The decision to let her free of her choosing was one he now doubted perhaps more than any he'd made in his life. Because there was always the chance that she would
not
come back, wasn't there? If that happened he would go out with a machine gun and cut her and anybody near her down in one long staccato burst. Or maybe he'd just revert to the caging approach.

The plan didn't prohibit him from removing obstacles that stood in the path between them, of course. Preacher-man, for instance. Good God, a
preacher
of all things. The house Helen had entered belonged to a Jan Jovic, he learned from Charlie down at the precinct that same night. And Charlie had heard about the man. He'd seen a news story about the man sometime back—a preacher who'd escaped from prison or something. A preacher? A
preacher
was trying to steal his Helen? Glenn had thrown the phone across the room when Charlie had told him.

As it turned out he was one of those foreigners who'd written a book about the war and made a bundle.
The Dance of the Dead.
Glenn's first impulse was to make
him
dead. He'd learned all of this within thirty minutes of his return. It was then, after deciding that a preacher couldn't be a threat to him, that he'd settled on the plan. He'd made one phone call to the preacher, and then he'd drowned himself in several bottles of rum.

He had spent the entire day pacing and sweating and yelling, completely immobilized from conducting any business. He'd forced himself to keep a lunch appointment with Dan Burkhouse, his banker and friend of ten years. It was Dan who'd lent him his first million, in exchange for some muscle on a nonperforming loan. Well, he'd killed the nonperforming loan, thereby implicating Dan, and making him a confidant by necessity. Besides Beatrice, only Dan knew the dirty secrets that made Glenn Lutz the man that he was. Of course, not even they knew the truth about his youth.

He had gone still dressed in his smelly Hawaiian shirt and between bites of snapper at the Florentine told Dan about his decision to let Helen come and go. If not for the private dining room his agitated tone would've raised some eyebrows for sure. The banker had shaken his head. “You're losing perspective, Glenn. This is crazy.”

“She's possessed me, Dan. I feel like I'm falling apart when she's not with me.”

“Then you should get some help. The wrong woman can bring a man down, you know. You're going too far with this.”

Glenn had not responded.

“How can one woman do this to you?” his friend pressed. “There's a hundred women waiting for you out there.”

Glenn had glared at the man and effectively cut him off.

Now he lifted the bottle and chugged at its mouth. The liquid burned down his throat but he didn't flinch. He would suck it dry, he thought. Tilt it up and suck at the bottle until it imploded. Or just stuff the whole thing into his throat. No pain, no gain. And what was paining now? His chest was paining because Helen had driven a stake through his heart, and regardless of what that old witch Beatrice told him, he did still have a heart. It was as big as the sky and it was burning like hell.

He yanked the bottle from his mouth and hurled it against the mirrored wall. It shattered with a splintering crash.
Don't be such a melodramatic lush, Lutz
.

The phone shrilled in the dead silence and he bolted upright. He scrambled for it, grasping for the tiniest thread that it might be Helen.

“Lutz.”

“Glenn.” It was the witch. Glenn slumped on the bar.

“I've got a phone call for you. You may want to take it.”

“I'm not taking phone calls.” The phone clicked in his ear before he could slam it in the witch's ear. She'd disconnected him. That was it! He was going to walk over there right now and— “Hello?”

The voice spoke softly in the receiver and Glenn's heart slammed up into his throat. He jerked upright.

“Hello?”

His voice wavered. “Helen?”

“Hi, Glenn.”

Helen! Glenn's heart was now kicking against the walls of his chest. Tears flooded his eyes. Oh, God, it was Helen! He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to beg for her.

“You're mad at me?” she said quietly.

Glenn squeezed his eyes and fought for control. “Mad? Why did you leave? Why do you keep leaving?”

“I don't know, Glenn.” She paused. By the sound of her voice she was near tears. “Listen, I want some stuff.”

“Who are you with?”

“No one. I'm staying in this man's house with the lady I told you about, but she went home to water some flowers or something. She'll be gone for a few hours.”

“You think I don't know? You think I'm useless here, waiting for you to come crawling home!”
Easy, boy. Play her. Lure her
.

He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “I miss you, Helen. I really miss you.”

She remained silent.

“What did I do to make you leave? Just tell me,” he begged.

“You hit me.”

“You don't like that? You don't like being hit like that? I'm sorry. I swear, I'm sorry. I thought you liked it, Helen. Do you?”

“No.” Her voice was very soft now.

“Then, I'm sorry. I swear I won't do it again. Please, Helen, you're killing me here. I miss you, sweety.”

“I miss you too, Glenn.”

Really? Dear Helen, really?
Tears slipped down his cheek.

“I want to come, Glenn. But I want you to promise me some things, okay?”

“Yes, anything. I'll promise you anything, Helen. Please just come home.”

“You have to promise me that you'll let me come whenever I want.”

“Yes. Yes, I swear.”

“And you've got to promise me that I can leave whenever I want. Promise that, Glenn. You can't force me to stay. I want to stay, but not if you force me.”

He hesitated, finding the words difficult. On the other hand, she already had the power. And what was in a promise but words? “I promise. I swear you can leave whenever you wish.”

“And I don't want you to hit me, Glenn. Anything else, but no hitting.”

This time everything within him raged against the absurdity of her request. Letting her go was one thing, but she wanted to castrate him as well? He was slipping, he thought. “I promise, Helen.”

“You promise all of those things, Glenn. Otherwise I don't think I can come.”

“I said I promise! What else do you want? You want me to cut off my fingers?”
Easy, easy.
He lowered his voice. “Yes, I promise, Helen.”

She hesitated and he wondered if he'd lost her on that last one. He felt panic swell in his chest.

“Can you send a car?” she asked.

“I'll have a car there in two minutes. I have one just down the street.” She didn't respond. “Okay, Helen?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. You won't be sorry, Helen. I swear you won't be sorry.”

“Okay. Bye.” The phone clicked off.

Glenn set the receiver in its cradle with a shaking hand. Exhilaration coursed through his veins and he gasped for breath. He uttered a small squeaking sound and skipped out to the middle of the room and back. When he went for the phone to call Buck, his hands were shaking so badly he could barely dial the number.

She would be here in fifteen minutes! Oh, so many preparations to make. So many, so many he could hardly stand it.

THERE WERE three flowers now, each the size of small melons, brilliant white and edged in red, twice as large as any other flower in the greenhouse. Joey inspected each part of the plant with delicate fingers. He'd always reminded Ivena of a jockey, very lean and short, hardly the type you might figure for a renowned horticulturist. He looked more the average gardener than the scientist with his frumpy slacks and cotton shirt.

“What do you make of them?” Ivena asked.

The small man pried through the petals and grunted. “Boy they sure do put off their aroma, don't they?”

“Yes. Have you seen anything like them?”

“And you're saying that you didn't make this graft? 'Cause this is definitely a graft.”

“Not that I remember. Heavens, I'm not that forgetful.”

“No, of course not. Has anybody else had access to this greenhouse?”

“No.”

“Then, we'll assume that you made this graft.”

“I'm telling you—”

“For the sake of argument, Ivena. It certainly didn't just appear on its own. Either way, I've never seen a graft like this. We're looking at several weeks' worth of growth here and—”

“No. Less than a week.”

He dipped his head and looked at her over his wire-frame glasses. “This from the woman who doesn't even remember grafting the plant? I'm just telling you what my eyes see, Ivena. You decide what you want to believe.”

She nodded. He was wrong, of course, but she let it go.

“Even with a few weeks' growth, these flowers are extraordinary. You see there the stamen reminds of the lily, but these white petals lined in red—I've never seen them.”

“Could they be tropical?”

“We're in Atlanta, not the tropics. I did my thesis on tropical aberrations in subtropical zones, and I've never come across anything like this.”

He touched and squeezed and
humphed
for a few minutes without offering any further comment. She let him examine the bush at his pace and searched her memory again for the grafting he'd insisted she must have done. But still she knew that he was wrong. She'd no more grafted the vine into the rosebush than she'd won the Pulitzer recently.