House on Fire

18

Now the slight blond man in the dinner jacket and his date were standing before me. He offered his palm, a touch and a slide, barely a handshake at all.

“Cameron,” he said to me.

The woman had copper-red hair and blue eyes, and she was dressed in a black, off-the-shoulder sheath. Her eyes gazed directly, defiantly at me. “I’m Hildy,” she said, almost daring me to acknowledge her.

“Nice to meet you, Hildy,” I said, “I’m Nicholas Brown.”

“Nicholas.” She smiled politely but barely glanced at me, as if she didn’t know me. Well played.

I played it the same way. Whatever she was up to, I wasn’t going to derail it. Nor did I want her to mess up my cover.

But what the hell was she doing?

Cameron said, “You with somebody?”

“Sukie,” I said.

From across the table, Sukie flapped a hand. “Nice of you to make it,” she said to Cameron.

He grinned, cocked an eyebrow. He looked at Sukie, then back at me. “Huh,” he said after another beat. “Huh. Well, enjoy. Welcome.” He half-sauntered, half-stumbled his way down the table to his place at the far end near the kids.

Maggie Benson went around to the other side. She was far enough away that I couldn’t talk with her, yet close enough that I could watch her interact with Cameron and the others. She was either a little drunk herself or plausibly acting that way. She took a sip of wine.

Maggie was wearing a reddish wig and probably contact lenses. I hadn’t seen her in seven years, and she was even more beautiful than she was back then. She also had to be a dozen years older than Cameron, though she didn’t look it.

But my thoughts were interrupted by Megan, on my right. “So how long have you and Sukie been together?” she said.

“Just a couple weeks,” I said, gnawing on a rib, and I came right back: “So you’re the senior VP for Europe, right?” Most people like talking about themselves.

“Right,” she said.

I glanced at Maggie and saw her take another sip of wine, though the level in her glass didn’t seem to be dropping.

Then I turned back to Megan. “It’s surprising, if you don’t mind my saying so, that you haven’t been made CEO already. I mean, with your smarts and experience? I’d think a lot of companies would feel very comfortable with you in the cockpit. So what am I missing?”

I could see her flush a little before she replied, smoothly, “My father’s sharp as a tack. And as long as he stays that way, we’re in the best possible hands.”

Conrad Kimball was not in listening range, and besides, he was busy berating the waitress who kept refilling his coffee. “I get the goddamned cream and coffee proportions just perfect and you come along and splash more in and screw it up,” he was scolding the terrified young woman.

Lowering my voice a bit, I said to Megan, “The man’s eighty years old. How long is this arrangement going to last?”

A sort of giggle escaped her. “Could be forever.” Hastily she added, to cover her slip, “If we’re lucky. My day will come.”

Maggie took another sip from her wineglass and laughed whoopingly about something.

While our dinner plates were being cleared away, someone started clinking a glass with a spoon or something, and the table quieted down except for loud whispering from the kids’ table.

“And now,” Conrad Kimball said, “as is our custom, we move to the library for coffee, cake, and champagne!”

The kiddie end of the table erupted in cheers. Chairs scraped against the stone floor.

Conrad and his fiancée got up from the table.

I got up and came around to join Sukie. We trundled through an arched doorway into a warm, amber-lit room lined with books, antique leather-bound volumes in sets, all color coordinated. More marble busts here, posing in spotlit niches, every ten or twelve feet. Several waiters and waitresses were holding aloft trays of champagne flutes, all full. The kids were given what looked like apple juice in champagne flutes. One of them said something to Sukie that made her laugh, then pulled her over to the other kids.

Everyone gathered around a table on which was a big cake in the shape of Texas. In the northern part of the state was a big red square that I assumed represented the Kimball Ranch, all five hundred acres, where he’d grown up. In the middle of the red square a single candle had been placed. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” and Conrad Kimball blew out the candle. A waitress began slicing the cake while Conrad held up a flute of champagne.

He cleared his throat, and the room hushed.

“Everyone has a drink who drinks?” he said. “I’d like to make a toast. Not to myself, but to my family. To all of you. Because right now there’s all kinds of bad things being said about us out there. All sorts of lies. Blaming us for society’s problems. It’s unbelievable.” His champagne glass trembled a bit in his hand. “We have our enemies, no question about it. But you know, a wise man once said, when there’s no enemy within, the enemies outside can’t hurt us. A house divided against itself cannot stand. But we’re not divided, and we don’t have enemies inside the family. We’re all rowing in the same direction. I know it. I know my boys and girls, and we all share a polestar. Because the strength of a family, like an army, is in its loyalty to each other. And thank the Lord, we have ourselves one loving family.” He lifted his glass even higher. “To family.”

Megan said, “Happy birthday, Daddy.”

“Happy birthday,” the crowd raggedly said.

I took a sip of champagne and felt someone grab me by the biceps. I turned. It was Natalya. She caressed my arm.

“Your name is Nicholas?” she said.

Up close I could see that she was a beautiful woman with too much makeup on.

“Nick Brown. Nice to meet you.”

“Have we met before?” She had a thick Russian accent.

“Haven’t had the pleasure.”

“And you and Susan, you have been together long time?”

“No, just met a few weeks ago.”

A waiter handed her a slice of cake along with a fork, then gave me one too. It was an unusual-looking cake, made up of countless thin layers. Natalya forked some cake into her mouth. “Try,” she said. “It’s very special cake. Like a mille-feuille. A thousand layers.”

I tried some. It melted in the mouth. “Very nice,” I said.

“They make this from twenty paper-thin crepes, and in between is pastry cream. Delicious, no?”

“Delicious. I... I saw what you did earlier. With your scarf. That was awfully nice.”

She smiled. “I’m sure Conrad’s children think I am expert at covering things up. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“You and Susan — you can’t keep hands off each other.”

I smiled. She was being sarcastic.

“Yes,” she said. “I can see chemistry between you two. Please.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are not who you are pretending to be,” she said. Her tone was playful. “You are here for another reason. Did Sukie bring you to investigate me?”

“What’s to investigate?” I said.

“I have always been outsider, all my life,” she said. “One thing people like me very good at is spotting other one.”

“Very good,” I said. “I’d consider myself an outsider too.”

She held up the plate of cake. “You are like this Napoleon cake. Many layers.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She patted me on the arm again as she turned away. “Maybe I will peel back some layers, Nicholas.”