It was an order. “Sure,” Abigail said.
*
Merle and Lucinda went in together to view the body one last time. Abigail hung back at the door. She wanted to remember Sam when he was admirably alive.
Abigail watched Merle’s expression as he bent down over the casket. That wasn’t love on his face, it was pure, steaming hatred for a man who’d had no foresight, who’d been thoughtless about his genes, who’d mixed his with dumb Lucinda’s, not giving Merle the heredity he still longed for. Quickly, Abigail went over and took Lucinda by the arm and led her out of the room so that she would not see her offspring’s face.
*
Afterward the three of them sat together in the private mourner’s room, next to the room where the casket had just been closed. Merle indicated to Abigail that he wanted to talk to her privately, and led her back into the heavily carpeted room, where the aluminum and brass casket gleamed as if it were made of gold and silver.
“I have to know something,” Merle said. He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the casket. “Have you ever—I mean ever—done anything bad with him?”
“Bad? What are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean,” Merle said.
“I have done nothing but good with your father,” she said, determined to tell only the truth on this solemn occasion.
“That isn’t what I mean!” Merle said, his voice rising so that his mother came to the door and said, “Anything wrong?”
Abigail took her away and returned to Merle. “Now say what you mean.”
“I have to know. Did you ever with him?”
“Ever what?”
“Sexual relations.”
“You mean did I fuck him? The answer is no. Never.”
“I’m sorry,” Merle said. “I’m sorry for suspecting you. But you didn’t have to be so vulgar about it. You ought to be ashamed.”
Abigail looked at Merle, who knew he wasn’t half the man Sam had been. The only thing she was ashamed of was that she had never been able to seduce old Sam. All the others since, gratifying as some of the experiences had been, were substitutes for the man lying in the coffin. She was prouder of what she had done yesterday than anything else in her life she could remember.
7
“That’s quite a place you got yourself up there in Big Sur, Merle,” Jordan Everett said, letting his lanky frame down into an armchair.
“Why thank you,” Merle Clifford responded, genuinely pleased. Though he and Jordan didn’t see each other often, what with Jordan in Texas and the Cliffords now permanently in California, they’d been friends since they met over an oil deal nearly thirty years earlier. Nevertheless, Merle had taken a bit of a chance letting Jordan visit Cliffhaven. If the Cliffhaven idea was to spread, it wouldn’t be like fast-food franchises. You’d have to start with trusted friends.
Jordan looked around the cavernous and expensively furnished living room of the Cliffords’ Orange County mansion. “Quite a place here, too,” he said. “Merle, I got to give you credit. You do things. A lot of other like-minded people I know would contribute dough to somebody else’s scheme, but you did it on your own.”
“Well, I have some really good staff up there,” Merle said.
Jordan let a laugh be his comment, then he said, “You and I know what staff is, Merle. People you hire.”
“It’s a bit different in Cliffhaven, Jordan.” Merle hesitated just a second. “Once in, they can’t quit, you understand.”
“I guess it’s not that far different from sharecropping. I never knew one to pay off the company store. I’ll bet you lend some of them serious money from time to time.”
Merle smiled. In fact, he had lent money only to Clete. He didn’t want to get into the subject any further until he knew how committed Jordan would be.
Jordan liked Merle because he had no time for people who weren’t successful early in life. He had some reservations about what he thought of as Merle’s “polish,” meaning the neutralizing of his Texas accent and the cultivation of a polysyllabic vocabulary, posh manners, and so-called intellectual interests. Jordan was satisfied to talk the way he’d been brought up to talk, to read the local papers, and to eat steak and fries as often as he liked. His quick tour of Cliffhaven had convinced him that his old friend Merle had more going on behind his eyes than Jordan’d ever given him credit for.
Abigail Clifford, wearing a floor-length gown of a sheer and luminous material, paused at the doorway of the living room until Jordan saw her.
“Why Abby,” Jordan said, elevating himself to a standing position and then walking to her as she came toward him. He reached out to hold her arms, then leaned close to buss her cheek. “You get purtier all the time. I don’t know how Merle lets you out in the street with all them sex maniacs you got in Los Angeles.”
They’d been lovers only once, a long time ago when Merle had been briefly hospitalized with pneumonia. Jordan had gone to the hospital, but the nurse made him wave to the wheezing Merle from afar. He’d then stopped by the house to see if he could be of any help, or so he said to Abigail, with whom he had never been alone for ten seconds. He stayed two days. Abigail and Jordan had gotten out of bed only to go to the john and sneak some food from the ice box, which they ate in bed, and for Abigail to slip a cotton dress over her naked body in order to make one quick trip to the hospital to assure Merle that he’d be better real soon, and, more importantly, to make sure he hadn’t recovered unexpectedly and was getting ready to come home.
Jordan remembered those two days with Abigail as one of the highlights of his life, a roller coaster of exhilaration, exhaustion, sleep, and exhilaration all over again. Some weeks later he’d phoned during the business day, hinting to Abigail could she provide another opportunity, even a short one. Abigail chose to ignore the hint. She was interested in men in general and not in acquiring a particular lover on a regular basis.
After Abigail had seated herself near her husband, Jordan said, “I was telling Merle that Cliffhaven place of his is something else.”
“Did you try the restaurant?” Abigail asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it after what Merle said. It’s the honey in the trap, isn’t it? Got a question. How do you make a profit feeding those jewbirds so good and keeping them in fancy buildings?”
“I don’t know that we’re showing a profit yet,” Merle Clifford said, “but we’re getting there.”
“I’d a thought a place like that with a hundred to two hundred people at a time would cost you two and a half, maybe three million a year to run.”
“That’s a very good cost analysis off the top of your skull, Jordan. I figure it’s been running at a rate that’ll work out to two million seven, and the credit card charges and deposits cover less than twenty percent of that.”
Jordan whistled. “Don’t tell me even a Croesus like you is going to fork out over two million a year for his pet project. Come on, Merle, tell old Jordan what you’re up to. Got a silver mine out back?”
Abigail smiled. Jordan was a clever man. Wrong, but on the right track.
“Where do you advertise?” Jordan asked.
“We don’t,” Merle said.
“You could advertise in Jewish publications, couldn’t you?” Jordan said.
“Not a bad idea,” Abigail commented.
“With all due respect, Jordan,” Merle said, “advertising is a bad idea. It’d be seen by too many people. My system of steerers means that most of the people who hear about Cliffhaven actually get there.”
“Steerers?”
“I’ve got more than a dozen now in key cities—room clerks, waiters in good restaurants, people like that.”
“They know what Cliffhaven’s all about?” Jordan asked.
“I doubt it. We just let them know it’s a place Jews’ll feel comfortable in. They get the point. They also get a small stipend per month and a bonus for every person that actually checks in as a result of their steering, when we know it. They call collect and tell us the names. Easy for room clerks. Easy for waiters, too, once they see the credit card.”
Jordan slapped his knee. “Merle, you are ingenious.”
“Why thank you,” Merle said.
“Don’t you ever get a Gentile by mistake?” Jordan asked.
“Rarely. The manager sends them on their way with apologies for being full up.”
“Don’t they get mad?”
“Sure. They swear never to reserve at Cliffhaven again,” Merle said, laughing.
“Don’t any of the guests tell others where they’re going, relatives, friends?”
“Certainly,” Merle said. “We get to keep the relatives who come searching. And the friends if…”
“If they’re Jewish,” Jordan said. “I’ll be damned. You’ve got it all figured out.” He stood up. “Mind if I call Mary? Didn’t tell her I was going to Big Sur or seeing you, ’cause you said it was confidential. For all she knows I’m in Denver or San Francisco.”
“Phone’s right there,” Merle said, pointing. “Behind the screen.”
When Jordan returned, he said, “Damn, nobody home but the servants. No point leaving a message with them, it just comes out in Spanish with the facts all wrong.”
“Why don’t you try again later?” Merle said.
“Thanks. I will.”
As the Japanese manservant appeared, Merle asked, “What are you drinking these days, Jordan?”
“The usual.”
“Sour mash on the rocks for our guest, and martinis for Mrs. Clifford and myself, thank you.”
The Japanese disappeared without a word.
“Could he have overheard what we were talking about?” Jordan asked.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Merle said. “He’s in the United States illegally and has been with me for years. He’s more loyal than a child of mine would be.”
“You’re lucky to have help like that,” Jordan said. “Back home all we get is Mexicans, who sometimes quit by vanishing without notice.”
“Yes,” Merle said, “the Japanese are fortunately not like that at all. A remarkable people. A number of my geneticist colleagues have commented on their high level of intelligence and diligence. They are workers of the first order, and the smart ones are extraordinary. It’s a pity we haven’t devised a way of breeding out their epicanthic eyelids and the slight pigmentation. They’d make perfect Caucasians.”
“And not a Jew among them,” Jordan added, laughing.
Abigail said, “I’ll bet Jordan’s not as forgiving a man as you are, Merle. He probably still holds Pearl Harbor against them.”
“Bet I do,” Jordan said.
“You shouldn’t really,” Merle said, “once you’ve observed their industry after the war and their willingness to ally themselves with us.”
“Hypocrisy,” Jordan said. “Masters of it. The only side the Japanese are on is theirs. Now come on, Merle, out with it. You’re holding back. How do you make that place of yours pay off?”
Merle smiled. Jordan had not guessed after all. “Well,” Merle said, “half a mile behind the compound there are three quite separate small fields under cultivation, worked by perhaps half of the guests in rotation.”
“I knew it,” Jordan said. “Hash.”
Abigail smiled. Jordan
was
smart.
“Actually, it’s not hash. Do you know what two tons of marijuana is worth in southern California?”
“I’ll be damned,” Jordan said. “You always was the smartest of the bunch. If someone put Jews to good use, it’d have to be you. The staff seemed like nice people. Young. How do you keep the Hebrews from running off?”
A lacquer tray in both hands, the Japanese man appeared, offering Abigail her drink first, then Jordan, and finally Merle. Three thank-yous were the only sounds heard other than the clink of ice until they were alone again.
“It’s all right to talk in front of him,” Abigail said. “He’s completely reliable.”
Jordan wondered whether Abigail had sampled the Japanese man’s favors. He had himself found Mexican women useful from time to time. Hell, she’s probably as nutty on races as Merle is.
“Control is maintained in three ways,” Merle said. “First, the environment itself provides a very nearly impenetrable barrier except for the one road, which is quite carefully, though discreetly, guarded. Nevertheless, we do find that we have a surprising number of troublemakers among the Jews, and not just the young ones. We’ve developed several stages of remedial treatment. Did George show you the lockers?”
“What lockers?”
“You’d remember if you saw them. Next time. Very proud I am of that—inexpensive and most effective. Even our ultimate punishment for the recalcitrants costs next to nothing. Was George Whittaker polite to you?”
“The manager? Very.”
“Did you meet a young staff member by the name of Clete?”
“I don’t rightly recall.”
“Well, both Whittaker and Clete have been trained in a method of permanent disposal that is very American and very secure. However, for the majority the third method of control works best. It was Abigail’s idea really.”
Jordan turned to the woman.
“Whittaker doesn’t sell off the entire crop,” Abigail said. “About six percent is used in the food that the guests eat. They know they’re being heavily tranquilized after a while, but there’s really nothing they can do about it. And the high isn’t bad. It makes up a little for not being able to leave, I should think.”