Summitt

Chapter Six

The Dupree Engineering Company (a division of Harlequin Chemicals) held its October sales convention at a country club in Osmond, New Jersey, forty miles from the Walt Whitman Bridge and Philadelphia. On Friday afternoon, George Thomson, president of Harlequin, had played with a foursome of local executives, shooting an eighty-two; he might have done better if it hadn’t been for the call from Clem Stoltzer in Summitt City.

He was also troubled and disappointed because his son had changed his plans suddenly and decided not to join him for the tournament. Thomson enjoyed being seen with him; there was a sense of accomplishment and pride in introducing Earl to people and savoring their reactions to his dark good looks and casually superior manners.

Thomson had flown to New York that morning on a Correll Group jet from Brussels. His chauffeur had met him at Osmond, but Richard had no message from Earl or any explanation of his absence.

Clem Stoltzer’s news, however, had been both good and bad; Harry Selby had returned suddenly to his home in Muhlenburg, but Jarrell’s attitude and behavior had become a concern. Plus the fact that he’d had another guest in addition to his brother, a girl who had spent the night with him and left that morning.

Thomson had tried to reach Simon Correll. From his offices in New York and Philadelphia he had tracked him to Mount Olivet but Correll wasn’t taking any calls; even Thomson’s priority produced only regrets. That was obliquely reassuring because only the most serious emergencies could penetrate the refuge on the Hudson.

Thomson went into the locker room for a sauna and massage and tried to dismiss his anxieties, but they continued to nag at him.

They had been caught completely off-guard by the revelation that Jonas Selby had another son. They had postponed a meeting between the half brothers until the older one had got aggressive about it... like his goddamn father, Thomson thought.

Meanwhile they had run checks on Harry Selby... a widower, two young children, small farm, ample bank account, a National Football League pension, strong ties to his home and family. Nothing to involve him with Jarrell or keep him at Summitt after they’d settled their real estate business. Thomson had okayed their meeting, though the timing was precarious. After all, it seemed wiser than running the risk of deepening Harry Selby’s anxieties... risking his suspicions...

His decision had been sound, Thomson thought. Selby had left Summitt, and now they could handle Jarrell as necessary, without any complications...

The massage relaxed him and put him in an alert and sexually expectant mood — Earl would show up, don’t worry...

The cocktail party at the fairway home reserved for him was crowded and noisy, with tanned executives and their smartly turned out wives standing about waiting to talk to him. His spirits rose later when an unescorted young woman joined his large table at the dinner dance. Her name was Natalie Winters. Her cousin was an auditor at Dupree, but she hadn’t seen him around. Natalie was a graduate student at Maryhill, a local college. She occasionally joined friends here at the club for bridge, she told Thomson.

A Dupree senior executive, Frank Mallon, suggested with a smile that Natalie must have got her dates mixed up because her cousin was in Houston on a research trip. Possibly, she replied casually, she wasn’t all that good at dates and things.

George Thomson had been pleased when she agreed to join him later and alone for a brandy. Her hair was black in the smoky light and her body was full, but with a muscular agility that Thomson found marvelously exciting.

A ringing phone woke him early the next morning. As he lifted the receiver he was comfortably aware of the warm darkness and the silky feel of the girl snuggled up behind him.

It was Clem Stoltzer on the line from Summitt, with Sergeant Hank Ledge on an extension. Thomson swung his legs off the bed and listened, his frown deepening.

Natalie Winters went into the bathroom and closed the door. He waited until he heard the water running. The sergeant told him he had talked to Earl on Thursday and that Jarrell Selby was now missing...

Natalie came out of the bathroom, her hair smooth and fragrant. She lay on the bed with one slim leg outside the coverlet.

“How long’s he been gone?” Thomson said.

“Since yesterday morning, Major,” Ledge told him. “Left his apartment at first light, near as we can figure. Gate guards didn’t check him out, and his car’s still here. So he may not have left Summitt. We’re checking. But the girl’s gone, that’s for sure.”

“Call me at Wahasett in about two hours.” Thomson’s voice had sharpened; it was good to be reminded of his old rank, and the time with Ledge in Korea. “I’ll need all the details then for Mr. Correll.”

“We’ll stay on top of it, Major.”

Thomson called the desk for his car.

He then dialed a number in Philadelphia. The phone was lifted on the first ring; he realized with relief that Lorso had been waiting for his call.

“I’m leaving here in a few minutes, Dom. I just talked to Stoltzer. They got problems. But what about Harry Selby’s daughter? The papers have anything on it?”

“Just a couple of lines in the Bulletin. I already talked to Captain Slocum. Everything’s all right.”

Thomson drew a deep breath; his stomach felt cold. “Why’d you call Slocum?”

“That can wait, I think, Giorgio. I’ll see you at your place. I’ll have it all then.”

“Is Earl home?”

“Now look, you take it easy. Earl’s home, everything’s fine. Have some breakfast. Don’t drive with just coffee. A salami omelette, that’s good, and some white toast with butter.”

“Let me have it now, Dom. All of it.”

“But there’s nothing, Giorgio. Nothing definite.”

“Why’d you call Slocum, then?”

“Because I’m paid to worry, goddammit. It was last night, the accident. It came in as a missing persons, a minor child. The dispatcher had a name, Shana Selby, that’s how it made the paper for one edition. Muhlenburg sent it over to East Chester, just routine — that’s how Eberle got a line on it. There was some talk about a red car, he said. I don’t know where the hell that came from. Eberle told Slocum. Giorgio, like I said, Earl’s home, don’t worry about it. His car’s not in the garage but I haven’t talked to him yet. I’ll have the whole story when you get here.”

Thomson said, “Take care of it, Dom. Take care of it.”

“Don’t worry, Giorgio.”

Thomson put the phone down and listened to the heavy stroke of his heart. He poured himself a drink, a splash of Black Label from a bottle on the dresser. It tasted sour. He shouldn’t be worrying, Lorso was closer to him than anyone at Harlequin, anybody anywhere for that matter. There was no name or title on Lorso’s door, but few people or problems could get to Thomson’s desk without clearance from the little Sicilian.

“Is anything wrong, Mr. Thomson?”

Natalie Winters punched up a pillow behind her back, and watched him pulling on the yellow jockey shorts he had thrown off so impatiently a few hours ago.

“No, just a change of plans,” he told her.

He was hardly aware of her, she knew, though she could see the soft bulge of a morning hard-on filling the ribbing of his shorts. He was of medium height and build, but looked larger because his shoulders and arms were thickly muscled. His complexion was dark, not only from the sun but because he was Italian, he had told her last night. His hair was black, his face was hard, the features cut sharply, and his eyes told her it wouldn’t be wise to antagonize him, not because he was cruel especially but because he had very little patience with people. Impatience and cruelty were closely related, she had reason to know.

He was close to fifty, or maybe older, but in surprisingly good shape. He ate and drank sensibly, made a point of that, he had told her. Took plenty of vitamins. But there was something else he wasn’t getting enough of, Natalie could have told him.

He had been quick last night, rushing it as if he were afraid it might not be there, but after an assist from her that he was hardly conscious of, a touch and pressure that brought a glaze of confident anticipation to his eyes, after that he had settled into a secure and relishing rhythm so intense that when it coiled and finally broke free he cried out as if he were in pain, a sound that always touched Natalie and made her feel tender.

His name was Tomaso, he told her before falling asleep, his hands loose and relaxed between her thighs... Giorgio Tomaso.

She raised herself on an elbow now, the sheet dropping away from her smooth white legs. “I thought you were playing golf today, Mr. Thomson. Aren’t you one of the leaders in the tournament?”

“I guess I am at that, but it can’t be helped.”

“You said we’d drive over to Atlantic City this afternoon. You told me you liked the casinos. A psychiatrist would know why, I guess, but gambling turns me on. It’s scary. I do things, things that are crazy, and I can hardly remember them.”

“Well, like I told you, something came up.”

She glanced down at him and laughed. “I can see that, Mr. Thomson.”

“Look, you got a card? No, you wouldn’t have. Put your phone number on a coaster or a matchbook. I’ll be in touch, Natalie. I mean it.”

“Okay, my man. But you can’t blame a girl for being disappointed.” She sat up and fluffed her hair out around her shoulders. “Mr. Mallon said you were staying through Sunday.”

“I was hoping to.”

“So was I.”

Thomson turned from the mirror and looked at her, a hand motionless on the knot of his maroon tie. “What’d Mallon say to you?” he said.

“Nothing.” Natalie smiled carefully. “It was something I heard at dinner, I guess.”

Thomson’s concentration had been splintered by what Dom Lorso had told him.

If Earl had joined him yesterday, played golf and gone to dinner... they might have had a brandy, listened to the dance music and talked about things that interested Earl... his cars, the time in London with the Correll Group, the summers he’d worked at Summitt. Now he was at headquarters in Wilmington, the student prince routine, rotating from one department to another with his supervisors reporting directly to George Thomson. This allowed him to live at home, which a doctor suggested was good both for Earl and his mother, the closeness...

It was difficult to talk to Earl, but maybe if he’d had the time and opportunity the night before he wouldn’t be standing here now tight with worry and Natalie So-and-So’s expensive perfume on everything around him.

She had written a phone number on a paper napkin. She smiled and held it out to him. “I hope you’ll call,” she said. “Would you kiss a girl goodbye?”

He put his bag down and walked to her side of the bed. “So it was a deal, right?”

“I enjoyed it, Mr. Thomson. That wasn’t part of the deal. I mean that.”

“I asked you, was it a deal?”

She smiled nervously. “Yes, it was a deal, Mr. Thomson. Mr. Mallon said you’d be alone, that your wife wouldn’t be with you.”

“Where do you usually work, Natalie?”

“In Philadelphia. I only take a few jobs a month. Mr. Mallon said you didn’t like things arranged, that you liked them just to happen.”

“He’s right, I’m romantic. My wife’s a cripple, her name’s Adele. Did Mallon mention that?”

“He didn’t tell me anything personal.”

“She was hurt fifteen years ago, it was an accident, but I was responsible,” Thomson said. “Did Mallon tell you all about that?” He was close to shouting. “Did he tell you she’s still a goddamn beautiful woman?”

She moved quickly back from him, a smile straining her face. “Mr. Thomson. It was business, nothing else.”

Thomson struck her twice with a full swing of his arm, and when she rolled on her side, covering her face, making no sound at all, he picked up his bag and left the room.

In the lobby of the clubhouse he bought a morning paper and told the manager that someone in his condo had slipped in the shower and needed a doctor. Franklin Mallon should be informed immediately, and he would take care of it. If Mr. Mallon had any questions whatsoever, he was to contact Dom Lorso at Harlequin headquarters.

Thomson joined his chauffeur, who stood beside a Mercedes Benz 600. On the way home he flipped through the bulky paper until he found the story, a single paragraph in the suburban section.

Under a Muhlenburg, Pennsylvania, dateline, it read:

Two hours after reading this, Thomson was at his home in Wahasset, Pennsylvania. At least the surface of his life was serene, he thought, as a maid brought him orange juice and coffee and a tray of hot rolls. Somewhere beyond the windows of his study a power mower sounded faintly, a last autumn trim of the hedges.

Returning here was always an emotionally ambivalent experience. The grounds were manicured and elegant, a small estate given over to lawns and greenhouses and carefully kept woods with brick-bottomed streams running through them. But after the first glimpse of the driveway and gray manor house, after that first stir of pride would come the dispiriting thought of Adele waiting there for him, alone in her upstairs suite.

Thomson tried to organize his thoughts. The maid told him that Mr. Earl was with his mother and that Mr. Lorso had just joined them.

His phone rang. It was Summitt City, Clem Stoltzer. Thomson made a note of the time and pressed the record button on his desk console.

Stoltzer told him they had no news of Jarrell Selby as yet. He had not returned to his house at Summitt City. Everything else was proceeding on schedule.

Thomson said, “Do you know anything about the girl who was with him?”

“No, sir, just that he said she was a friend of his.”

“Did Harry Selby know her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“That’s right, sir. But I called Harry Selby this morning. He told me he didn’t even know her last name and didn’t have any idea where to get in touch with her.”

“He could have been lying. But you think their meeting at Summitt was a coincidence?”

“That’s the impression I got.”

Thomson was distracted by voices from the hall. “Keep in touch, Stoltzer.” He broke the connection.

Earl and Dom Lorso were coming down the stairs from Adele’s suite. Earl laughed and called something to Santos, his mother’s therapist.

George Thomson hated the tension gripping him. It reflected worries that Adele couldn’t understand or tolerate. Criticism of Earl, to her, was the equivalent of a treacherous disloyalty. He was more than her only son, more than flesh and blood, he was an instrument of God, her savior after the accident. Earl had given his life to her then — his legs were hers, his laughter sounded when hers choked away into sobs; he had made a world worth living for. His fierce love had kept her from finding a solution in the bottle of capsules hidden beneath her pillow.

Adele had in time achieved a steely resignation to her fate and a will to live rooted in the mystical conviction that her life had been spared, at whatever cost in personal anguish, for some preternatural purpose which was beyond her grasp to understand but not her capacity to accept and submit to.

Dom Lorso entered the study with Earl, who wore a blue robe and pajamas.

“Coffee smells good,” Thomson’s son said.

“Help yourself. You, too, Dom. There’s orange juice and fresh rolls.”

Earl poured himself coffee and settled into a deep chair, propping his slippered feet against an ottoman. “Coffee’s fine,” he said. “I’m having breakfast with mother. Santos is making what he calls ‘a Cuban credit card.’ You take it on faith, I guess.”

Dom Lorso sat in a leather chair and stared at his shoes. Small and tidily dressed — white shirt, blue tie, dark jacket — Lorso was several years younger than Thomson, but his face was old, gray and deeply lined. His eyes were tired, heavily lidded, always about to close, it seemed. But at times they could become suddenly and disconcertingly sharp. His thick hair, a cluster of white curls, struck an incongruously cherubic note above the weary face and eyes.

The big room was silent, except for the crackle of the fireplace and the occasional clink as Earl put his cup down.

This silence was deliberate, as Thomson knew. It was a testing game Earl played. He knew his father had questions to ask, but he wouldn’t cooperate in even a token fashion with anything resembling an interrogation.

Earl disliked being questioned; in fact he refused to tolerate it. Even as a child, a casual query about what he was doing might tip him into dangerous rages. A doctor had explained to Thomson that this stemmed from the trauma of role reversal. Earl the son was playing the mother to the crippled “child,” reading stories to Adele, helping her in and out of the wheelchair, operating the controls of her whirlpool bath, coaxing her to eat and giving her smiles and hugs for rewards. “In the boy’s mind, at this stage, his ministrations are perfect, even Godlike, perhaps, and therefore they can’t even be questioned or criticized,” the doctor had told Thomson.

Thomson said casually, “I didn’t see your car when I came in, Earl. So this is a pleasant surprise. I assumed you weren’t home.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re pleasantly surprised.” Earl sipped his coffee and smiled, as though oblivious to the tension in the room.

Thomson found himself reluctantly admiring his son’s composure. Rockland Military had put a stamp on him, no doubt of that. The benchmark was evident in the tall, aloof way he held himself and the dismissing politeness he could affect when it suited him.

Those were Rockland’s endowments, the molding influence of the hard-assed, stiff-necked army brass (retired) who ran the school. They had worked with Earl’s contempt for authority and instincts for violence — “harness those horses” had been a colonel’s phrase for it, “guide and shape those qualities rather than stifle them.”

They had succeeded, you had to give them that. Earl was totally indifferent to what people thought of him. The swastika he often wore around his neck was a case in point. If people were offended by it, they didn’t have to look at it. There had been a local but minor furor in the press because — typically — he had asked a firm of Jewish jewelers in Philadelphia to make the emblem for him. They had objected to the inscription Earl wanted, on the back: “Munich — 11/9/38,” Munich being one of the places where Crystal Night had been successfully “celebrated” (that was Earl’s word to the Philadelphia jewelers) in Germany’s Third Reich.

The firm had refused to make the swastika and someone, a clerk or a customer present at the time, had tipped off a local columnist. But Earl had found another jeweler who was willing to do the job and, despite the flurry of unpleasant publicity, insisted that the incident proved his philosophical point, which was that people had options and that somebody would always do anything you wanted providing you paid him enough.

“So,” Thomson asked at last, “where’s the Porsche? In for a tune-up?”

“No, it was stolen yesterday, father. I was just telling Uncle Dom about it. A pity because it was in mint condition for the rally. Let’s hope whoever ripped it off is enjoying it. That’s the Christian attitude, right, Uncle Dom?” Earl laughed. “But according to Nietzsche, Christianity and alcohol are society’s two greatest narcotics.”

Lorso shrugged and blew a smoke ring.

Thomson said, “Well, when did this happen?”

“I told you.” Earl was still smiling, but a line had hardened around his eyes. “Yesterday.”

“I was wondering about the time. The insurance people always want to know, for some reason.”

“Well, you can tell them it was yesterday afternoon. Five or six o’clock.”

“Where’d it happen?”

“On Route One outside a pub called The Green Lantern. I had a beer or two and when I came out the old red hornet was gone.”

“The Lantern’s near Muhlenburg,” Dom Lorso said. “It’s run by a colored guy. It’s a bar for coloreds.” He inhaled smoke and blew it out in a thick stream. “Which is not to say there’s something wrong with it.”

Earl stood with a fluid grace which transformed the simple action into a performance. “Yes, Uncle Dom. The Green Lantern is an establishment for ladies and gentlemen of color. Ni-gras, that is. But as Colonel Ward was fond of telling us, the function of the elite in an elite society is to emphasize class distinctions rather than to pretend they don’t exist. Camouflage in warfare is an art. In social manners, it’s just gutless. I wasn’t at The Green Lantern to prove the colonel’s thesis, though. I was hoping to buy a shotgun, but my man didn’t show.”

Thomson said, “Did you report to the police that the Porsche was stolen?”

Earl stared at him. “Look, father. There’s no big deal here. I didn’t call the cops because there are tons of classic wheels in town for the Longwood Show. Probably one of my pals borrowed the Porsche for a quote joke unquote. So be cool. One of those clowns will swing by with the old red hornet. Anything else?”

Thomson’s own temper sharpened. “Yes, dammit. Sergeant Ledge told me he called here Thursday afternoon and left a message with you. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Earl’s face became tight. His powerful hands clenched. “Why are you always hassling me?” His voice had risen. “You weren’t here, you never are. Ledge called about a problem he was having at Summitt with a character named Harry Selby. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I told him you were in Europe. He said he’s trying to reach you. I’m not one of your clerks in this house, so kindly get off my ass.”

He walked stiffly from the room.

Thomson and Dom Lorso sat in silence for a few moments. They had known each other many years. Their relationship was based on a knowledge of what they had done in the past, and what they were capable of doing, now and in the future, out or pride and ambition and, perhaps most compelling, out of sheer habit. They had long been tacitly aware that their union had become like an old and casually attended marriage, with no unanswered questions between them, no sense of adventure or surprise; they had been left finally with nothing linking them and keeping them together but an unwavering trust.

They had never made the mistake of assuming they knew one another truly well. Lorso was a bachelor and lived in a duplex apartment with a doorman and a fine view of a park. Thomson had been there only once, when Lorso was down with a nagging, persistent flu. A man had been in the kitchen fussing about with a tray of cheese and crackers and drinks. He was balding and plump with wens on his face and wore a plaid belt that matched his tie. A woman in a leather jacket and slim brass chains had been watching TV. Lorso had introduced them to Thomson, but Thomson had never seen them again and had no idea how they fitted into the Sicilian’s life.

Their own relationship was based on business and secured by Dom Lorso’s loyalty to Thomson, but there was one other significant thing between them, which was their shared knowledge of what men were capable of doing to one another.

Lorso lit a cigarette from the stub burning between his fingers. “Earl called Santos from Muhlenburg late yesterday afternoon after his car was stolen. That’s how he got home. Santos drove over and got him. They were back here around seven. Earl had dinner with Adele and they watched TV. So forget what you’re worrying about. Earl was here all night. All the time. I already checked that out with Adele and with Santos. Earl wasn’t involved with what happened to Harry Selby’s kid. Get that out of your mind. He’s proud of you, Giorgio, although I admit he don’t always show it. But where it counts, he’s your son. That trouble with the cunt at Rockland, even that was a way of showing you he didn’t take shit from anybody, that he’s got your kind of balls.”

“But you were worried last night.”

“I told you, that’s what I’m paid for.” Dom Lorso waved at the smoke from his cigarette, which drifted between them like gray webbing. “When I talked to Captain Slocum he’d heard something from Eberle about a red sports car being involved.”

Lorso waved again at the smoke. “When my grandmother lived with us, Giorgio, you know how old people are, she warned us to watch out if we ever smelled garlic in the wrong places, like the vestibule of a church or anywhere in the house outside the kitchen, like around the baby’s room or when you were saying your prayers at night. She always told us to watch out then because it meant the devil was around somewhere. All right, all right,” he said hastily as Thomson smiled and sipped his coffee. “Maybe it’s old-country bullshit, Giorgio, but I got a whiff of garlic when Slocum told me about a red sports car in that accident on Fairlee Road.”

Dom Lorso coughed hard for an instant but when the burn of color faded from his face, he lit another cigarette. “So I drove out here early this morning and checked out the garage. The Porsche was gone. I went to a pay phone and called Earl’s private number here. When he answered I hung up and went home. I was scared then, but not now. I can’t smell garlic anywhere, Giorgio. He was home when it happened.”

“That’s all I wanted to know, Dom.”

Thomson was relieved because his fears had apparently been unfounded and because Lorso’s nervous and superstitious talk of garlic and devils had been a therapeutic reminder of how far they had come from the old times when Harlequin Chemicals had consisted of only a rented, run-down warehouse and a few mortgaged trucks.

“Just one thing,” he said. “Where did that talk of a red sports car come from?”

“There were some scratches on the girl’s bike that looked like red paint. At least, that’s what the Selby kid thought. I mean the girl’s brother, I don’t know his name. Slocum had the bike picked up and they checked it out at the police lab.” Lorso coughed again and put his cigarette out. “But there was no red paint, nothing but mud and gravel.”

“What about the police report on Earl’s car?”

“I’ll take care of it, Giorgio. The kid forgot, I’ll tell them. Or better, I’ll tell them what Earl told us. I’ll call Slocum, give him the details. No, I better do it personally. I’ll call you after I talk to Slocum.”

When Dom Lorso left, Thomson sat watching the birds on the lawn and listening to the faint bursts of laughter from his wife’s suite.

Sometimes, when he was out of touch with the world of Simon Correll, as he was now, it was tempting to think of kinder worlds, where the devils that threatened you were as casual and familiar as a trace of garlic on the night air.