“Are you after Hoffman?” I said. “Or the entire
Stasher-Layman organization?”
She smiled. “Let’s just say
we’ve been working on this for a long time.”
“Major financial angle.”
“The kind of thing that raises everyone’s taxes by a
couple of bucks but the taxpayers never find out
about. . . . I’ve got to go down there and see them
with my own eyes. Start documenting. I’m going upstairs to get my
camera, then I’d appreciate it if one of you would take me back.”
“I wouldn’t approach them without Moreland,” I said.
“Apart from what they just went through, they’ve got all sorts of
physical problems—sensitivities.”
“Such as?”
“He mentioned sunlight, there may be others.”
“What does sunlight do to them?”
“Destroys their skin.”
“My flash isn’t UV.”
“At
the least, they’ll panic when they see you. They’ve been down there so
long, let’s hold off till we’re sure we can’t hurt them.”
She thought. “All right . . . but I’ve got
to see this. If he’s right about the arm only being a flesh wound,
he should be able to take me himself.”
She tapped her leg very fast, checked her watch, and
stood. “Let’s go see how he’s doing.”
“His whole purpose in life all these years has been
sheltering them,” said Robin. “He’s not going to use
them.”
“I understand the man’s got principles. But things
change, you have to adapt.”
A strand of hair looped over one eye and she shoved it
away. The gun was in her waistband. She ran a finger over
the butt. “Things change quickly.”
Chapter
38
Moreland’s arm was bandaged and it rested on his chest.
A thermometer protruded from his mouth.
Pam read it. “A hundred. Are you comfortable there,
Daddy, or should we try to get you up to your bed?”
“This is fine, kitten.” He saw us. “I used to call her
that when she was little.”
Pam’s look said it was another lost memory. She snapped
her doctor’s bag shut.
“How’re we doing?” said Jo. I thought of how she’d
waited upstairs, knowing we were down there with Creedman and
Haygood.
Using us. But I’d just shot a man in the back, and there
was no anger left in me.
“I’ll survive,” said Moreland. He stole a glance at me.
Jo said, “I know about what you’ve got down there, Dr.
Moreland. Whenever you’re ready to show it to me.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” said Pam.
“It’s something of an emergency. A lot’s at stake. Right,
doctor?”
Moreland didn’t answer.
“What are you talking about?” said Pam.
“It’s complicated,” said Jo. “I think I can help your
father in a big way if he can help me.”
“What’s going on, Daddy?”
Moreland held out a hand to her and grasped her fingers.
“She’s right, it
is
complicated, kitten. I should get down
there—”
“Down
where
?”
Moreland blinked.
Pam said, “Who’s she to tell you what to do, Daddy?”
No answer.
“Who are you, Jo?”
Jo flashed her badge.
Pam stared at it.
“Long story,” said Jo. “Come with me for a sec.”
She put her arm around Pam just as she’d done a few
hours ago. Pam shook her off angrily.
“I’m not leaving him alone.”
“It’s fine,” said Moreland. “Thank you for
taking care of me. Go with her. Please. For my sake.”
“I don’t
understand,
Daddy.”
“Robin,” said Moreland, “could you go along and help
explain things?”
Robin said, “Sure.”
“Why can’t
you
tell me, Daddy?”
“I will, kitten, all in due time. But right now I need
some rest. Go with them. Please, darling.”
The three women left and Moreland beckoned me closer.
The rain was hitting the picture windows sharply, like
buckshot on metal.
He stared up at me. Chewed his lip. Blinked. “Your
questions down there, about what Hoffman had over
me . . . the things Creedman said about me down
there. There’s some truth to them.”
Moving with difficulty, he faced the back of the sofa.
“I was a different man back then, Alex.
Women
—having
them—meant so much to me.”
Forcing himself to face me, he said, “I’ve made
mistakes. Big ones.”
“I know. Dennis thinks the man who died at sea was his
father, but he’s wrong.”
He tried to speak, couldn’t.
“I’m not judging you, Bill.”
Though the room was dim, I could see dark spots on the
white couch. Spots of his blood. His eyes were sunken and
dry.
“When did you figure it out?”
“You paid for Dennis’s schooling—Ben’s too, but Ben
gave you something in return. And you got upset about Dennis and
Pam getting close. So upset you spoke to Jacqui about
it and she called Dennis off. I didn’t think you were a
racist. Then, after what Creedman said, it made sense. It
must have been hard since Pam came back.”
“Oh,” he said, more exhalation than word. “As a father,
I’m a disgrace. They’ve both turned out better than I
deserve. I sent Pamela away because I didn’t—couldn’t cope
after Barbara died.”
Propping himself up.
“No, that’s not all of it. I sent her away because of
the guilt.”
“About Jacqui?”
“And the others. Many others. I
did
serve as my own
abortionist. Barbara had never been a happy woman. I made her miserable.”
He sank back down again.
“The bastard was right, I
was
a repugnant lecher.
Lecher with surgical training . . . but Jacqui
refused to terminate . . . Barbara’s death made me
realize . . . how could I hope to raise a
daughter?”
“And you already had kids.”
He closed his eyes. “I put the needle in their
arms . . . my life since then’s been a quest for
redemption, but I doubt I’m redeemable. . . . Jacqui
was such a
beautiful
thing. Barely eighteen, but mature. I
was always . . . hungry—not that it’s an
excuse, but Barbara was . . . a
lady.
She
had . . . different drives.”
A woman alone on the sand, the day before she died.
“It was the baby that drove her to it,” he said. “The
fact that I’d actually let it get that far.”
“How did she find out?”
“Someone told her.”
“Hoffman?”
“Had to be. He and Barbara were chums—bridge
partners. A younger man paying her attention.”
“So Barbara went along with his cheating.”
He smiled. “I suppose she can be forgiven that tiny
revenge.”
“Did their playing go beyond bridge?”
“I truly don’t know—anything’s possible. But as I
said, Barbara wasn’t inclined to the
physical . . . toward the end, she hated me fiercely. And
she always liked
him—
found his interest in cuisine
and tailoring
charming.
”
“Then why did he tell her about Jacqui? ”
“To wound me. After our dinner at the base, we spoke of
several things. Including the fact that he’d seen Barbara in
Honolulu the day before she died.
He
took the picture I
showed you. I’d never known. It was mailed from her hotel,
compliments of the manager; I’d always thought it a
courtesy.”
“Did she go to Honolulu to be with him?”
“He claimed not, that their running into each other was
a coincidence. At the hotel bar, he was there on Navy
business. Maybe it’s true, Barbara did like to
drink . . . he told her about Jacqui and Dennis, she
cried on his shoulder about my whore and my little bastard.
Shattered,
was his exact word. Then he
smiled
—that
smile.”
“But how did
he
find out?”
“Back in those days, I was less than discreet—discretion
wasn’t part of being a first-rate cocksman. So
Hoffman or a member of his staff could easily have heard
something, or even seen something. There was an empty hangar
on the north end of the base. Little unused offices we officers
used, to be with girls from the
village. “Play rooms’ we called them. Mattresses and liquor
and portable radios for mood music. We still thought of ourselves as
war heroes, entitled.”
“Did Hoffman bring girls there?”
“Not that I saw. His only lust is for power.”
“And when Jacqui gave birth to a fair-haired baby he
figured it out.”
“A beautiful baby—a beautiful woman.”
“Was it only Aruk you fell in love with, Bill?”
He smiled. “Jacqui and I—she’s a very strong woman.
Independent. Over the years we’ve reached an understanding.
A fine friendship. I believe it’s been good for both of us.”
Thinking of the oil over the mantel, I said,
“Strong—unlike your wife. Did Barbara have a history of
depression?”
He nodded. “She’d been chronically depressed for years,
taken shock treatment several times. In fact, the trip to
Hawaii was for her to consult yet another psychiatrist. But
she never showed up for her appointment. Probably spent her
time drinking with Hoffman instead. He sensed her
vulnerability, told her what I’d done, and the next morning
she walked into the ocean.”
Some of his weight shifted onto the wounded arm and his
breath caught. I helped him find a comfortable position.
“So you see, that’s the hold he has over me: keeping it
secret from Pam. I killed her mother and so did he. In that
sense we
are
partners. Rams locking horns, just as you said.
Beautiful analogy, my friend—are you offended by my
thinking of you as a friend?”
“No, Bill.”
“All these years, I’ve yearned to expose him.
Convinced myself the reason I haven’t done it is the kids’
safety. Then, tonight, you began asking questions and I was
forced to confront reality. I acquiesced because I knew it
would ruin Pam. I sent her away because I was
overwhelmed and guilty, but also because I didn’t want her
here on the chance that she and Dennis . . . so what
happens? She comes back. And it starts . . .” He grabbed
my arm and held tight. “What do I do? There’s no escape.”
“Tell her.”
“How can I?”
“In due time you’ll be able to.”
“Men have mistreated her because I abandoned her!
She’ll despise me!”
“Give her some credit, Bill. She loves you, wants to
get closer to you. Being unable to is the biggest source of
her
pain.”
He covered his face. “It never ends,
does it?”
“She loves you,” I repeated. “Once she realizes the
good things you’ve done, gets to really know you, she may be
willing to pay the price.”
“The price,” he said weakly. “Everything has its
price . . . the microeconomics of existence.”
He looked up at me. “Is there anything
else
you need to know?”
“Not unless there’s something else you want to tell
me.”
Long silence. The eyes closed. His lips moved.
Incoherent mumbles.
“What’s that, Bill?”
“Terrible things,” he said, barely louder. “Time
deceives.”
“You’ve made mistakes,” I said, “but you’ve also done
good.” Ever the shrink.
His face contorted and I took his cold, limp hand.
“Bill?”
“Terrible things,” he repeated.
Then he did sleep.
Chapter
39
It was a big beautiful room in a big beautiful hotel.
One glass wall looked out to white beach and furious surf.
Yesterday, I’d seen dolphins leaping.
The three walls were koa panels so densely figured they
seemed to tell a story. Crystal chandeliers hung above black
granite floors. Up in front was a banquet table laden with
papayas and mangoes, bananas and grapes, and thick, wet
wedges of the kind of orange-yellow, honey-sweet pineapple
you get only when you harvest it ripe.
Sterling silver coffeepots were set every six feet,
their shine blue-white.
Other tables, too, round, seating ten, interspersed
around the hall. Hundreds of men and a few women, eating
and drinking coffee, and listening.
Robin and I watched it on TV, from a suite upstairs. Room
service and suntan lotion and every newspaper and magazine we
could get our hands on.
“Here he goes,” she said
Hoffman stood up at the center of the big table, dressed
in a mocha suit, white shirt and
yellow tie.
A banner at his back.
He talked, paused for applause, smiled.
The banner said:
PACIFIC RIM PROGRESS: A NEW DAWN.
Another one-liner. Laughter.
He continued talking and smiling and pausing for
applause.
Then he stopped and only smiled.
Something changed in his eyes. A shutter-snap
flicker of confusion.
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I probably wouldn’t
have noticed.
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have been tuned to
C-Span.
The camera left him and swung to the back of the room.
A tall, gaunt old man in a brand-new charcoal-gray suit
walked toward the front.
Next to him walked a woman I’d known first as Jo Picker, then as
Jane Bendig, official-looking in a navy-blue suit and high-necked
white blouse. For the last three days she’d worked nearly twenty-four
hours a day. The easy part: using Tom Creedman’s
computer to send bogus messages by e-mail. The hard part:
convincing Moreland he could redeem himself.
The doctors and psychologists at the medical center had
helped some. Examining the kids with care and compassion,
assuring the old man they were clinicians, not technocrats.
Jane shared her grief with him, talked numbers,
morality, absolution.
Eventually, she just wore him down.
Now he walked ahead of her.
Behind the two of them, six men in blue suits flanked a
massive black thing, like pallbearers.
Black thing with legs, a shuffling variant of the circus
horse.
Stirring and confusion at the other tables, too.
Moreland and Jo kept marching. The black cloth seemed
to float in midair.
Some men next to Hoffman began to move, but other men
stopped them.
Zoom on Hoffman’s face, still smiling.
He mouthed something—an order—to a man standing
behind him, but the man had been restrained.
Moreland reached Hoffman.
Hoffman started to speak, smiled instead.
Someone shouted, “What’s going on?” and that seemed to
shake Hoffman out of it.
“I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, this man’s quite
disturbed and he’s been harassing me for quite a—”
The men in blue suits flicked their wrists, and the black
cloth seemed to fly away.
Six soft, misshapen people stood there, hands at their
sides, placid as milk-sated babies. Ruined skin highlighted
mercilessly by the chandelier. The doctors at the medical
center had established that only UV was a threat. The black sheet
protecting them from the stares of gawkers.
Gasps from the room.
The blind one began bouncing and waving his hands,
staring up at the light with empty sockets.
“My God!” said someone.
A glass dropped on the granite and shattered.
Two blue-suited men took hold of Hoffman’s arms.
Moreland said, “My name is Woodrow Wilson Moreland. I’m
a doctor. I have a story to tell.”
Hoffman stopped smiling.