Marked Man

57

“You keep pressing button, it very annoying,” came Lou’s voice over the squawk box beside the closed gate at the Purcell estate. “I have headache already. What you want?”

“To see the new movie, to talk to the boss.”

“He invite you back?”

“Sure he did. Told me to come around whenever I wanted. Any good-looking women there tonight?”

“Always good-looking women at screening party. You think you get lucky tonight, Victor Carl?”

“Why not?”

“My English not good enough to tell you why not.”

“Oh, Lou, my guess is you could give Shakespeare a run for his money if you wanted.”

“Okay, you smarter than you look, which maybe not so hard in your case. I let you in, but don’t eat all my canapés. They for invited guests only.”

“Deal,” I said. A moment later the gate slowly opened.

The winding, unkempt drive, the clutch of cars parked off to the side, the guy in a red jacket standing at the front entrance.

“Beat the hell out of it, I don’t care,” I said as I handed over the keys. “It’s rented.”

I expected the bare living room to be crowded with the rich and the beautiful, but it was mostly empty, a couple sitting on the floor off in the corner making out, a man standing by the window with a drink in his hand, looking dazed and confused. There was a tray of canapés on the coffee-table crate and Bryce on the couch, legs curled beneath her, paging through a magazine.

“Where’s the party?” I said.

Bryce looked up and smiled. Somehow her smile immediately brightened my day. I had the strange sensation that I was being smiled at by Chantal, the real Chantal.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.

“Neither did I.”

“Did you bring my mother?”

“She decided to stay and talk with Monica.”

Bryce seemed a little disappointed. “I guess that’s nice.”

“It looks like Monica’s sleeping over.”

“Like a pajama party,” said Bryce.

“Just like,” I said. “What did your mother tell you about the name Chantal?”

“Nothing. She told me today that some people would come by and call her Chantal and that she’d explain everything to me later.”

“And you had no problem with that?”

“My mom’s an actress, she’s always playing a part.”

“And she acts for Uncle Theodore?”

“When she’s not too busy at the office.”

“I see. Where is everybody?”

“In the screening room. Downstairs, just across from the billiards room. Theodore’s showing his newest film.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“I’m not allowed. Theodore’s very strict.”

I took a step forward, stooped down to speak with her at eye level. “How is he strict?”

“He takes care of me, he looks out for me. I don’t know. He’s very nice to me and all, but he’s just strict. He likes to have me around but he doesn’t let me do anything. No boyfriends, makes me watch my language. He’s like an ornery grandfather or something, you know? I don’t know. He’s old-school about a lot of things.”

“Okay,” I said, standing. “Good.”

“When are you and Monica leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Don’t be late for the plane.”

“Don’t worry. That way?”

She nodded in the direction of the stairs. I popped a canapé in my mouth and climbed down the stairs, following the sound to the screening room. An uncomfortably primal sound.

It was a large room, larger than the living room, with all kinds of easy chairs and couches facing a huge screen. A video projector was attached to the ceiling, and the sound was being blasted out of a set of speakers hung fore and aft on the walls. The chairs and couches were mostly filled, the air was thick with smoke, the picture was bright, the dialogue was loud and sparklingly clear.

Although how clear it needed to be to make out the “Ooh, baby, yeah, that’s the way I like it, do it again and again and again” is a little beyond me.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Sometimes, even though my experiences as a lawyer have hardened me to the hard facts of the world, I still find myself inexplicably clinging to a hope that all is not as foul as I imagine it to be. And inevitably that’s when I tumble into the cesspool.

Yes, the movie on that giant screen, Theodore’s newest film production, was baldly pornographic. Not pornographic the way some in this country would call a square sponge with buckteeth and tight briefs pornographic, I mean out-and-out, too-hard-core-for-late-night-hotel-television pornographic. I mean pornographic enough to shock me into almost swallowing my tongue and lead me into a coughing spasm that had many in the room turning around to stare at the disturbance.

And one of the stares came from Theodore Purcell himself, with his ubiquitous thick cigar. He was sitting on a couch next to a tall lovely with elegant posture and a strong jaw. She had one arm over his shoulder, one hand on his knee, and she was whispering in his ear even as he stared at me.

Purcell said something to the woman, she turned to look at me. Then Purcell struggled to his feet. Without saying a word, he passed by me and stalked into the billiards room.

When I followed him inside, he closed the door behind us. The room was bright, quiet except for the moans slipping in from the screening. The tip of the cigar glowed. The cue ball made a lonely comment on the long brown table. From the window I could see the murky pool, glowing strangely in the night. I almost expected to see a body floating facedown, but then I remembered that only shows up in act 3.

“Ahh, surprised to see you here, kid,” said Theodore Purcell.

“I thought I’d check out your new movie,” I said. “I didn’t know you were making such fine family entertainment these days. How long have you been making porn?”

“Not so long. It’s like guerrilla filming, in, out, and lots of dough. A few flops in this town and you’re on your back, but I’m building up my stake again, getting ready to return to the fray. I got a script that can’t miss. Best script I’ve read in years. Not a porn script, legit.”

“The thing you showed me yesterday?”

“Not that crap, that was just a test. What I got is the real deal. It’s genius, brilliant. Another Tony in Love, but better than Tony in Love. It’ll put me right back on top. You want a look?”

“No thanks.”

“I might need a line producer on the project.”

“What about Reggie?”

“He’s in over his head. I need a different kind of smarts, street smarts. Earn yourself a credit, get a start in the business. Hell, everyone wants to be in the business. You interested?”

“Not a whit.”

“Think about it. The offer’s open. But I’m surprised to see you here.” Purcell rolled the white ball hard against the far bumper and, when it shot back, he stopped it deftly. “I thought you’d still be with Chantal.”

“She’s not Chantal. She’s a hoax, and not a very good one at that.”

“She’s the real deal, kid.”

“As real as anything in this town, I suppose, but she’s not Chantal.”

“What does your friend Monica think?”

“She wants to believe, she’s trying hard, but that doesn’t make Lena any less a fraud.”

“And how are you so certain?”

“Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,” I said. “She knew nothing about Chantal’s family life, her friends or uncles. When Monica mentioned Chantal’s cousin Ronnie, the cousin who was like a sister to Chantal, she didn’t know who that was. She tried to fake it, but Ronnie’s not a he, she’s a cute little blond girl who might have been the most important person in Chantal’s life.”

“She’s repressed most of her early memories.”

“Give it a rest, Teddy. She didn’t know anything that you couldn’t have known to tell her. And then you had her blame the wrong guy. Richard is not the beast type, it’s not in him. He’s a coward, always was. He was more sinned upon than sinner when it came to his sister, you ask me. But the biggest tip-off was that Lena said none of your friends knew that you had taken her. But we know that’s a lie. Charlie knew what happened to Chantal, didn’t he?”

“He tell you that?”

“Nope.”

He rolled the cue ball against the far bumper again, caught it with a quick, violent snatch. “Then you’re guessing.”

“Sure I am. That’s what lawyers do, but I’m right.”

“If you have all the answers, kid, then what do you need from me? What are you doing here?”

“I originally came to bring Bryce home,” I said.

His blue eyes startled, his jaw slackened, his head tilted to the side. He was the very image of a man trying to figure out the impenetrable mystery of another man’s thoughts. He stuck his cigar in his mouth, sucked in a mouthful of smoke, and then he got it, all my worst suspicions, in one quick revelation he got it. And in that instant I could sense not the nervousness of guilt but the relaxation of someone who knows that his adversary doesn’t yet know enough to hurt him.

“So you don’t got all the answers do you, kid?”

“Some, but not all.”

“Information’s power, kid. What you don’t know will ruin you every time. You got me all wrong. I’m no pervert.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “But I no longer think Bryce is in danger. Which means I still don’t understand what happened to Chantal. I thought for sure you were abusing her, and it got out of hand, and you killed her, but I don’t think that anymore.”

“Course not. I just like kids, like having them around. And Chantal, she had something special about her. A toughness.”

“So why did she go missing?”

“Maybe she ran away.”

“She was too young.”

“Maybe you’re wrong about Lena.”

“No, not that either, because something bad happened. I know that for sure.”

“How do you know anything, you punk?”

“Because Charlie has the painting, which tells me all I need to know. You stole it as an insurance policy, as something to barter in case something went wrong, but somehow Charlie ended up with it. I asked you point-blank why Charlie, and you didn’t have an answer, but I do. You gave him the painting to keep him quiet. It’s why you want to keep him away from Philly now, buy him off, make sure he won’t talk. Because he knows.”

“What does he know, kid?”

“He knows all you did to create your new life. You said what you did with Chantal was heroic, and I bet you think of it that way still. You crossed the final line with her, didn’t you? First you decided to whore yourself to Mrs. LeComte. Then you decided to steal your way to a new life and to screw over your friends in the process. But all that wasn’t searing enough. The one act that sealed it all, the one heroic gesture that made it all happen, was Chantal. You killed her, I know you did. The only question was why. Why did you do it?”

Purcell rolled the ball one more time against the bumper, caught it when it bounced back, lifted it quickly and threw it at my head.

It would have dented my skull for sure, if he wasn’t a feeble old man with a paunch. I ducked, the ball slammed into a fancy wooden dartboard, darts went flying as the board tumbled to the ground.

The door sprang open, and both Reggie and Lou burst into the billiards room, Lou with his hands in some sort of martial-arts pose, Reggie with a pistol in his fist. It was meant to inspire fear in me, this grand show of force, except Lou’s toupee had slipped forward to cover his eyes, and Reggie, frankly, seemed more afraid of the gun than was I.

“What do you know about changing your life?” said Theodore Purcell. “Nothing. You’re a punk, adrift in the wind, and you always will be. You’re weak. You’re normal. You end up with nothing because that’s what you deserve.”

“We all end up getting what we deserve,” I said. “You mind, Reggie, pointing the gun in some other direction? The way you’re shaking, the gun is liable to slip out of your hand and fall on my foot.”

“Put the gun away, Reggie,” said Purcell. “Victor here is too small to kill.”

Reggie pointed the gun at me for a moment more before sticking it back into his jacket pocket.

“So what are you going to do now, kid?”

“I’m going back east,” I said. “I’m going to bring Charlie home. I’m going to get out the truth.”

“You don’t know what the hell the truth is.”

“He’ll tell me.”

“Maybe he will,” said Purcell. “If I don’t find him first. You should think about what I offered you. I’m giving you a chance to make something of yourself.”

“To take Reggie’s job, to follow you around like a toady and pull cheap pistols on your enemies?”

“I’m no toady,” said Reggie.

“Sure you are, kid,” said Theodore. “And don’t you forget it.”

“I’m a vice president,” said Reggie.

“A vice president in charge of toadying,” said Purcell. “But you’re still more than Victor here will ever be. Because Victor is a failure, born to it, sinking in it, doomed to end exactly as he started.”

“Let me ask you something, Theodore,” I said. “What’s it like to take that leap to become someone new and then find out the new you is a decrepit old monster?”

“You want to know how it feels, kid? When the wine is old and the food rich and a broad with fake tits has her face in my lap, let me tell you, it feels pretty damn good.”