Right To Die

11

I SAID TO ALEC BACALL, "HOW IS Inés DOING?”

He gestured at the massive central staircase. "She went up to her room to lie down."

"Inés lives here too?"

"Oh, yes. Maisy often likes to work at night, and this way Inés can be available for whatever."

Bacall said the last in a matter-of-fact way, no inflection or other indication of double meaning. We were standing alone in a ground floor parlor done in blue pastels. Bacall, Wonsley, and I had taken a taxi together, following another cab with Andrus, Tucker Hebert, Roja, and Manolo to the town house. Once there, Manolo exchanged hand signals with Andrus, then seemed to disappear while Andrus and Hebert climbed the steps to the second floor. Bacall and I had gone with Wonsley into the kitchen before he began opening cabinets and shooed us out the swinging door.

On a mews at the flat of Beacon Hill near Charles, the town house was more truly a mansion. Fifty feet wide at the street, at least seventy feet deep. We were within blocks of the buildings where Daniel Webster, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry James spent their time.

I said, "Just how big is this place?"

"We1l," said Bacall, "I haven't seen every nook and cranny, but the design is pretty typical for its vintage. The second floor front has a living room or library, the rear a large study. The master bedroom and bath are on the third floor, with a studio for painting or needlepoint or whatever the hell Mater and Pater did back then. Children's and staff quarters are on the fourth floor, under the eaves, where it's coldest in winter and hottest in summer. The Victorians really knew how to handle that."

Much of Beacon Hill is Federalist red brick, but there wasn't I much doubt Bacall was right about the period in which the Andrus home was built. Still, you'd have to be current in the real estate market to know how many millions it would fetch.

When I didn't say anything, Bacall leaned a little closer. "I really don't think you need worry about Inés. She's seen a lot worse than this."

"Coming over from Cuba?"

Just a nod. "She's a strong woman, and a good one too. She used to volunteer at an AIDS clinic Del and I support."

"Used to?"

"Inés found she couldn't stand to see people suffering?

"Not many can."

Another nod.

"Coffee or tea?"

Wonsley was carrying a tray with lots of things on it that I couldn't identify.

"I'll pass, thanks. Can you two give me a while upstairs?"

Bacall said, "Certainly. John."

I climbed to an elliptical landing with double doors on either end. I walked to the front set. Through the narrow slit between the doors came the muted noise of a stadium crowd and the strobing of a video monitor in an otherwise darkened room. I knocked and a southern accent said, "Hold just a second."

Tucker Hebert threw open doors which slid into the walls on either side of the threshold. He'd taken off the jacket, tie, and shoes. His dress shirt was unbuttoned almost to the waist.

I said, "I hope I'm not breaking in on you?"

Hebert grinned. "Just trying to get comfortable. Maisy's in her study. You'd be the detective, right?"

"Private investigator. John Cuddy."

"Tuck Hebert." His grip was almost a vise. "Come on in and set yourself down. Fix you something?"

I could see a crystal tumbler, nearly full of amber liquid and ice cubes, on a cocktail table.

"Beer?"

"Easy enough." Hebert went behind a bar of padded leather and brass implates. I heard the noises a miniature refrigerator makes. The table with his drink squatted close to an Eames chair and ottoman. The chair was positioned in front of a wide-screen television and a console of video equipment. On the screen, two tennis players were moving around, the taller one slowing to serve, the other hopping and snorting to receive. The rest of the room was basically floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. In the flickering light, the only things I could see on the shelves were videocassettes and trophies.

Hebert popped the cap from a bottle of Miller's Genuine Draft with a church key. "I know these fellers are twistoffs, but I cut my racquet hand on one once, and I've been shy ever since."

I took the beer from him, no mention of a glass being made. Hebert picked up a remote-control device, but waited while the point was being played on the screen.

"Watch me crush this one."

I did, realizing the bigger guy was a younger Hebert. He took a ball that bounced near his eyes and swept it away crosscourt, beyond the reach of the opponent with dark hair.

"That was match point against me there. Survived that and went on to take the set seven-six in the tiebreaker. Lordy, old Harold did give me trouble with that moonball of his."

Without looking at the remote device, Hebert hit stop and then off. Pushing a third button caused the recessed lights at the tops of the bookshelves to grow brighter.

He palmed the device lovingly before setting it down. "Littlefel1er does about everything for you except wash the windows. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Maybe answer a few questions?"

"Sure, sure." He curled into the Eames chair and reached for his drink. "Have a seat."

I angled a velvet wingback that probably once felt at home in the room and sat down.

Up close and well lit, Hebert's features were strong but lined, the year-round tan like the patina on the surface of an antique. The ready smile reminded me of locally produced car commercials, the only detraction other than age being a swipe line through his left eyebrow. He took a healthy swig of what looked more and more like Scotch.

"You know I've been asked to look into the threats to your wife."

This time he grinned without showing his teeth and put down the drink. "Tell you what, John."

"What?"

"Let's not dance around too much, okay? I know Alec and Inés went to see you, and I also know that Maisy near pitched a fit over it till she met you. By this afternoon, though, she seemed to think you were an idea whose time had come. I figure that if I was playing in your shoes, I'd wonder how come the younger husband of the older rich lady isn't too concerned about all this. How am I doing so far?"

"Forty-love."

The ready smile again. "You play?"

"Hacked at it when I was in the army."

"Too bad. It was a great game, twenty years ago. Solid American players coming up. Bob Lutz, Roscoe Tanner, Jeff Borowiak. That Borowiak, he had a huge serve, a real stud who could blow you off the court. Smart too. Took the NCAA the year before Connors beat Tanner."

To keep the conversation going, I said, "Wasn't Laver the dominant one in those days?"

"Yeah, but most of the Aussies were good. Laver, Newcombe, Rosewall, Roche. We were all using sixteen-gauge string by then, and some of us even went to double stringing. We called it 'spaghetti,' winding another string around the basic one? Put tremendous spin on the ball before it got banned by WCT and then by individual tournaments too."

Hebert shook his head and laughed inwardly. "Yeah, a great sport, one of the few you can stay with no matter how old you get. And it surely does beat stumbling on gopher holes around eighteen greens just to have an excuse for getting drunk on the nineteenth."

He scoffed a little more Scotch, apparently not feeling the need for an excuse but not really showing any effect from the booze either.

I said, "How long since you retired?"

"Retired? 'Retired,' now, that's a kind word, John, and I thank you for using it. I had to hang up the serious game at thirty-one, which if you're counting was seven years back. But it's not like you work for a corporation and build up a pension and stock plans and all. Nossir, it's get some backers, get in, and get what you can, because the show's over awful fast. Hey, now, I can't really complain, you understand? I had the brass ring for a while there."

Hebert set down the drink to count on his fingers. "One French Open, finalist at Wimbledon, semis three years running at Forest Hills. But what I had was the serve and the crosscourts, like you saw on that tape there. When the old rotator cuff went…"

He moved his shoulder in a very slow-motion serve. I could hear a crickling noise that had nothing to do with the starching of his shirt.

Hebert shrugged. "That was all she wrote."

"Can you still play?"

"Lordy, no. That is, not play play. You know the difference between, say, a Corvette and a Prelude?"

I didn't know if he was aware I drove a Honda and was toying with me, so I said, "No."

"Well, your Corvette, now, that's a sports car. But your Prelude, now, that's just a sporty car, get me?"

"The difference between an athlete and somebody who's just athletic."

"There you go. Well, I'm a Prelude that knows it used to be a Corvette. Oh, I'm happy to go out and shuck my way through a celebrity tournament for charity and all, but I can't really play no more, no more."

"And this has just what to do with the threats to your wife?"

Hebert finished his drink and got up immediately. "Another?"

I'd barely touched the Miller's. "Not just yet, thanks."

Fridge, rattle of fresh cubes, the neck of bottle clinking against rim of glass. I took in his trophies. Platters, cups, occasionally the racquet and player in metal outlined against a ceramic background. Hebert returned to his chair. "This all has to do with Maisy like this: I'm her husband. She used to have some doctor from Europe who died, but I'm it now. She's quite a woman, Maisy, but she gets an idea in her head, and it's Katy-Bar-the-Door, you think you're gonna change her mind. Like the players on the tour today."

"I'm sorry?"

"The players today. They verbalize everything. Take 'first serve percentage.' John, do you know I never, ever heard anybody say that all the time I played? Nossir, all you'd say to yourself then was 'I hope to Christ I can get this next one in.' Now they actually plan their matches around percentage and tendency and all. I suppose it does make sense. We plan everything else, why not 'first serve percentage'?"

"Or death."

Taking a slug, Hebert said, "Right, right. That's my point. Maisy's got this idea she can save the world by encouraging people to help each other die peaceable. Fine by me. I'm not about to go threatening her about it. I'm happy as can be. You know why?"

"No."

"Take any professional athlete – tennis, football, you name it. Once you've seen Paree, it's tough to give that up. Tougher than kicking drugs, I'm told by those who've known both pretty well. But your body, this thing that's made your fortune, sooner or later it lets you down, John. It goes and gets old on you.

"Now, I never held on to a dime longer than it took to order another round for the house. But it turns out I'm one of the lucky ones. Wasn't a year I was out of the tournaments, with not too many options staring me in the face, when I met up with Maisy. Boy, I was just plain dazzled by her. Don't know what she saw in me other than the usual stuff that the gossips'll spread, and there'd sure be some truth to that."

Hebert grinned. "I learned two things on the tour, John. How to serve and how to bed a woman. You've got to practice both every day, and I can still do the one to beat the band. But Maisy also provides for me."

He waved his hand around the room. "This used to be some kind of library. Well, she let me turn it into a shrine. A place I feel comfortable, like old St. Francis enjoying his sainthood before the pope declared it for him. I get everything I want out of this relationship, and I don't have to speak nice with old fogies that couldn't hit a dead hog with the sweet spot on a windless day. Nossir, I don't have to worry about tips or the IRS or club ladies getting fussy because I haven't made a move to lift their skirts. A lot of players I knew – good ones, too, John. Tough, chew-your-leg-off competitors – they've got to worry about those things. Not me. And if you think I'd piss in the well by threatening Maisy, you've got another think coming."

"Why would I think that?"

Hebert put his drink on the table, nearly sloshing it. "Because I was here when Inés found the threat note in the mailbox."

I thought about it. "You hear or see anything unusual that day?"

"Nothing. Sound asleep for a good part of it. Friend of mine from the old old days, he was in town, and we tied one the night before."

"You were sleeping off a drunk."

"Dead to the world till I heard all the commotion downstairs over the note."

"And tonight?"

"What about tonight?"

"You were there, at the auditorium and the bookstore. You see anything?"

"Just what everybody else did. Bunch of neurotics talking to themselves, except for my Maisy. But I was smiling, John. I was smiling because that's my job, and I'm happy to be doing it."

"And you're not taking the threats that seriously."

Hebert retrieved his drink. "You have any notion how many threats Maisy receives in a week?"

"You have any notion who's behind this batch?"

"Sure don't."

"You ever meet the first husband's son?"

"Who?"

"The doctor had a son. You ever meet him?"

"Oh, yeah. Not at the wedding though, I can tell you that. No, there was some kind of business for the estate in Spain. Couple of years ago, still dragging on all that time. Name of… just a second… Ramone was what Maisy called him."

"What was your impression of him?"

A sip. "You ever traveled through Europe, John?"

"No."

"Well, you do, and you get certain vibes from people. Like they know you're richer, maybe more powerful than they are, but they still think they're better?"

"Go on."

"Well, this guy wasn't like that. All-American and pleased as punch about being in the States. Even changed his name to just Ray, I think."

"Anything else?"

Another sip. "Not that I remember. Seems to me Ray signed all the papers he had to, no muss or bother. I don't believe he's been around since."

"So you wouldn't think the son was behind this?"

"No. I'll tell you something, though."

"What's that?"

"I find the feller's been sending these things…" Hebert tossed the rest of his drink at the back of his throat and started to get up, then paused halfway. "I'll crush the sumbitch, John. I will, messing with my life support system like he is."

I closed the doors on Hebert and was halfway around the landing when Maisy Andrus stuck her head through the other threshold on the floor.

I said, "How are you doing?"

"All right, I suppose. Do you have a minute?"

"Sure."

I followed her into the study, also lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, these actually containing books. There were law titles, but many seemed to be from other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, medicine, and history. Andrus settled into a desk chair. Off to one side, computer components ranged over a trilevel table. The monitor was still glowing above one of those backless chairs that resemble a disoriented Catholic kneeler.

I said, "Kind of late to be working, isn't it?"

A tired smile aimed at the computer table. "I sometimes find it easier to write at night. And you're still working, aren't you?"

"Your husband's an interesting man."

Reclining in the chair, Andrus closed her eyes. "Tell me, John. Do you use the word 'interesting' when you're fishing for information about a person?"

"Sometimes."

A laugh with an edge of superiority in it. "Actually, I agree with you about Tuck being interesting. Most people don't adjust well to a fading of the limelight. But Tuck seems to be an exception."

I thought about other people, including me, who'd "adjusted" with alcohol, but I didn't interrupt her.

"You see, John, Tuck truly lived in the fast lane. Money, cars, women. Real glitz, if that's not an oxymoron. But when it was over, he acknowledged the fact, and he's entered a new phase of his life."

"Which is?"

"Being thought of as a 'trophy husband'."

I remembered the phrase as "trophy wife" from a magazine article on successful male executives. "Meaning you sport Tuck as a trophy husband to show you've made it as a female professional?"

A brighter smile, the eyes opening. "No pun intended?"

"No pun intended."

"My point is, that's how others think of Tuck, as an object of Maisy's overcompensating. But it's not how Maisy thinks of him."

"I see."

"What do you see?"

"I see that you and Wade Boggs are the only people in Boston who refer to themselves in the third person."

Another laugh, but hearty, not superior. "That's what I mean."

"What?"

"My first husband was considerably older than I was. Tuck is somewhat younger than I am. But while that does have its advantages, Tuck is really very smart. Not in a book-learning sense, but like your observation just now. The needle that deflates the balloon, that makes you rethink your own position. From class this morning, I recall my insistence that the students use 'he or she' when referring to an unidentified person such as a client or a judge?"

"Yes."

"Well, Tuck once heard me do that, and he remarked that saying it that way took more time. I said that I wanted the students to be comprehensive as well as inoffensive, and he asked me what I did if the client were a corporation or governmental body. I replied that 'he, she, or it' might be appropriate. At that point Tuck gave me that good-ol'-boy grin of his and took out a piece of paper. He wrote 'S/HE/IT' and said 'How about having your students just say it like this?' Well, I pronounced what he'd written, him grinning wider, and it struck me that I had to do a little more justifying with the class on why my approach was important. Tuck wasn't being disrespectful to women. He simply used his wit to make me reexamine my position."

"Can I do the same?"

The tired smile this time. "Go ahead."

"You think your husband is above suspicion?"

Her features distorted. "Certain of it."

"How does he benefit if you die?"

"You call that using your wit'?"

"I call that getting you to reexamine your position. How about it?"

Andrus squared her shoulders and sat a little straighter. "He would receive the bulk of my estate, the residue after some charities and public service organizations."

I inclined my head toward the center of the mansion. "Quite a residue. You have everything here but a two-car garage."

She didn't get it. "We keep the Benz around the corner, in the Brimmer Street garage."

A Mercedes in a condo parking space. Add another hundred and a half to the estate. "My point is – "

"I can see your point, John. I just don't think it has any merit. Tuck is many things, but not a killer. Or somebody who'd threaten it by note. He's an in-your-face sort of man. Besides, trite as it may sound, he loves me and we're happy together."

"How about Walter Strock?"

"Walter?"

"He was there tonight, both at the lecture and the signing when Inés opened the labeled book."

"Oh, my, John. Perhaps one of us has seen too many movies. Walter Strock is an anachronism. A foolish, petty man whose last refuge from real world inadequacy is a law school faculty where he can play his little mind games. He had to leave practice because the pressure got to him. Anything outside the school itself is now beyond his horizons."

"The Rabb is 'outside the school'."

"True, but Walter's performance at the library was a real stretch for him. Believe me."

"Strock seems pretty bitter toward you."

"No doubt. Walter thinks I'm somehow the reason he didn't get the deanship, an opportunity to turn Mass Bay into a kind of legal Levittown, his dream of how academia should work."

"How about your stepson?"

"My stepson?"

"Ramon, or Ray'?"

Andrus shook her head. "No, no. Ramon and I may not care much for each other, but all that was resolved years ago. Besides, if I were to die, he gets nothing."

"Except the satisfaction that you wouldn't be enjoying all this anymore."

"John, Ramon is just not interested in me now."

Andrus seemed to flush a little.

I said, "Was he ever interested in you?"

"That's not material here. Believe me, Ramon cannot be part of this." She softened a bit. "John, I remember what you said this morning about psychopaths, and I'm not trying to cover old ground. But tell me, this… warning in the book tonight. Does it change your view of the situation?"

"According to the bookstore manager, anybody could have doctored that copy anytime in the last week. Whoever did it probably knew you wouldn't be likely to see it until tonight. If you want my opinion, our friend is trying to escalate, to move in closer to you. Maybe a better question would be, does tonight change your view of the situation?"

"No. No in the sense that I'm not about to back down from my positions on the issues. But I have to admit I'm taking the possibility of danger more seriously now. And, consequently, I have to admit that I'm also more interested in what you're going to do next."

"I went through the box of letters Inés gave me at the school today, and I talked with the cop on the case. I'm going to approach some people who might know something. You have any objection to my seeing the Reverend Givens and Dr. Eisenberg'?"

"Really'? They couldn't be involved, John."

"Not directly. But someone who hates you might have sidled up to one of them at some point."

"I suppose that's possible. So you want to know if I object to your telling Givens and Eisenberg about the notes?"

"Yes."

Andrus thought about it. "No, no objection. I've met both of them before, and I know each by reputation. I would trust them to hear what you have to say and to help without publicizing my concern about it."

"In that case, I'll let you get back to work. Or sleep."

I was up and turned when she said, "John?"

"Yes?"

"I must confess. I really asked you to step in here because I'm curious."

"Curious?"

"About what you thought of the debate tonight."

The debate. "First time I ever watched three pep rallies in the same room."

A throaty laugh. "You ought to spend more time with Tuck. You'd like each other."