The Four Last Things

Chapter 23

"Try the American Dental Association," I said to Joyce. I was standing in a pay phone on Ventura Boulevard. Across the street, furtive-looking men stole in and out of an adult bookstore.

"I don't have to," she said. "That's what he is, a dentist. He's listed in the ADA data base. How'd you know?"

"Just a guess. Have you talked to the DEA?"

"Yeah, that's what's odd. He graduated in 1972 but he only registered with the DEA seven years ago."

"That's about right," I said. "Where'd he practice?"

"I don't know. He graduated from a college in New York."

"Good work. Just to make sure, can you check with New York to see if he was certified there? He probably practiced in or near a town called Utica."

There was a pause. "It's after five o'clock there," she said. "They'll probably be closed."

"Tomorrow morning is fine."

I figured Brooks worked until five-thirty or six, so I had a few hours. I dialed my own number and entered a two-digit code when I heard my recorded voice say hello.

"Number of messages," the machine announced, "four." I hated its smug tone of voice, and also the fact that the damn thing couldn't count.

"One," it said.

"Simeon? Roxanne." Music was very loud in the background. She must have been calling from McGinty's of Malibu, the bar where she worked. "I've been cold the last couple of nights. I drove by last night, but no Alice, and I didn't feel like getting threatened with another piece of firewood. Give me a call if you feel like sharing your warm feet." There was a pause. "Everybody here is very drunk," she said.

"One," the machine said again.

"I am Mrs. Yount," Mrs. Yount said. "That house is a mess, mister. I was just there. There's no excuse for it. Now, normally I'd just tell you to move out. But if you find Fluffy I'll forget all about it. I know she's alive. I could feel it in the inside of my bosom if she wasn't. I want to hear from you, young man." She hung up decisively.

"One," the machine said implacably.

"This is Al Hammond, goddamm it." I pushed the six button on the pay phone and the machine skipped to the next message. "One," The machine said.

"May you roast in hell," I said.

The next caller had hung up. I started to do the same.

"One," said the machine.

"You said four," I told it.

"Wo," Dexter Smif said. "Mus' be you busy. Man can't return his calls mus' be on the go mostly all the time. Just lettin' you know they a man of talent available. I ain't gonna give you my number again. If you done lost it I don't want to work with you anyways."

Dexter hung up. This time I waited. "Last message," the machine said. "Thank you for-" I was already heading for the car.

Brooks wasn't in the directory. The list of the Church board of directors, to which he belonged, didn't bother with addresses. So at five-fifteen, having dropped Eleanor's suitcase at the Times, I was parked in my invisible gray Camaro across the street from the exit to an underground parking structure in Century City. I'd circled the structure twice, dismayed at finding two exits. For a moment I'd actually thought of calling Dexter. But then what would we have done? Talked to each other on our two-way wrist radios?

I finally calmed down. One of the exits led south and the other led north. South was Culver City, Palms, Mar Vista- perfectly nice places for secretaries and support staff to live.

North was Westwood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and several other perfectly nicer places. I had Brooks pegged as a Westwood man. Quiet and substantial.

At five-forty on the dot he came out. He'd made it easy for me by putting down the top on his cream-colored Mercedes. The streetlights flickered and then hummed above us as I followed him down the Avenue of the Stars to Santa Monica Boulevard.

At the stoplight, he checked himself out in the rearview mirror. He smoothed his hair, examined his teeth briefly, and then rubbed his chin. He seemed pretty happy with what he saw. Of course, he'd had a lot of time to get used to it.

He turned left onto Santa Monica and then right onto a cute, crooked little street that edges along the golf course of a country club. I've never known which club it is. I stayed about thirty yards behind him, just close enough to squeak through a yellow light if one got frisky with me.

Together we crossed Wilshire. He drove fast and economically, downshifting when he wanted to slow. I don't think he hit his brakes once except for the stoplights. He hit them again in the middle of the very expensive part of Beverly Glen that stretches for about half a mile south of Sunset. Then he turned right, into the yard of a big traditional colonial house with white shutters.

There was a paved parking area to the right of the house with a detached carport at the end of it. By the time he had the car in the carport, I had passed the house, parked the Camaro under a tow-away sign, and was crossing the yard. Jingling something in his pocket, he strode across the paving stones to the front door. He had no inkling of my presence behind him until he put the key in the lock and turned it and I pulled out the nasty little gun and touched it lightly to the back of his neck.

He froze in a well-bred fashion. Then he slowly turned his head to look at me. When he saw my face, his muscles relaxed slightly.

"Mr. Swinburne," he said. "How tiresome."

"It'll get more interesting," I said. "And you know my real name. You're the one who had me hired in the first place."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because you weren't sure you could trust the people you gave Sally to. And you were right. You couldn't."

"Sally who?" he said without conviction. It sounded as though it was purely for form's sake.

I gave the back of his neck a little jab with the gun. "Open the door," I said. "We'll talk inside."

"You won't use that," he said.

"After what I've seen today, I wouldn't think about it twice."

"Today?"

"I talked to Wilburforce. And I paid a visit to Jessica. She's certainly on the road to recovery, isn't she? What is it besides Valium addiction?"

"Oral insulin," he said after a beat. "It keeps her blood sugar abnormally low. She's not in any danger."

"She's a junkie," I said. "You've turned a child into an addict. Two other people are dead. Maybe three. I wouldn't any more worry about shooting you than I would about stepping on a slug."

He pursed his mouth. "Then I guess we'd better go in," he said. He turned the key and the door swung open.

"Just a minute," I said. With my free hand I patted his jacket pockets. "Put your hands in your pockets," I said, "and keep them there. I'll get the key."

He did as he was told, and we stepped into a big entrance hall furnished in what looked like genuine Early American. A pine dry-sink filled with an autumnal arrangement of bare branches, grasses, and pine cones stood at its far end.

"Have you got a study?"

"Of course." He sounded affronted.

"Which way?"

"To the left."

"Let's go."

I lowered the gun to his middle back and followed him into an enormous cathedral-beamed living room. Lamps burned here and there. As we entered, a pleasant-looking gray-haired lady in a blue silk dress stood up from the couch, laying down an embroidery hoop as she rose.

"Why, Merry," she said with obvious delight. "You're early."

"I got to missing you," he said. "Dear, this is Mr. Grist. Simeon Grist. Mr. Grist, my wife, Adelaide."

"I'm so pleased to meet you," she said, crossing the room with her hand extended. "You've brought Merry home early."

I dropped the gun into my pocket and shook her very slender hand. "It was his idea," I said. "We could have done this anywhere."

"Well, aren't you sweet. Merry's usually business, business, business. I just know you had a hand in this, and I'm grateful. I don't get enough time with this husband of mine."

"No rest for the wicked," I said. Adelaide Brooks laughed.

"For the weary, you mean." She looked from one of us to the other. "May I get you men a little something to drink?"

"No thank you, Addy," Brooks said. "Mr. Grist won't be staying very long."

"Oh, that's too bad. Should I go into the other room, or will you be using the study?"

"The study will be fine," I said. Brooks nodded curtly.

"It's such a lovely room," Adelaide Brooks said. "So masculine. Merry calls it his Think Room." Brooks colored slightly. "All right, then. You men run along and figure out a way to make lots and lots of money. Call me if you change your mind about a drink, Mr. Grist."

I said I would, and Brooks and I marched in silence down a short hallway and into a room that could have belonged only to a lawyer. The furniture brooded there in heavy conspiracy: a massive wooden desk, red leather chairs, mahogany end tables, and books of exactly the same size and color ponderously lining three of the dark walnut walls. Brooks started to sit behind the desk, but I shook my head and gestured him toward one of the armchairs. He sat sullenly and I closed the door.

For a long time I just stood there looking at him. "Well," I finally said. "Domestic bliss. The little lady. Embroidery. And Merry, no less." His blush deepened. "So," I said, "here we are in the Think Room, Merry. What do you think about it all?"

"She doesn't know anything," he said.

"No, I don't imagine she does. She probably thinks you're a real lawyer."

"I am a real lawyer. May I take my hands out of my pockets now?"

"It's your Think Room. Do what you like. No, you're not a real lawyer. You're a fungus with a wardrobe. You're running a gigantic blackmail racket, sucking blood out of people who need help. Poor, frightened, lost little people who don't know where to turn, so they come to you. And you squeeze them dry, don't you? You move them up the levels of Listening, pulping more money out of them every week. You tape everything they say and you file it for future use. You pervert little girls to turn them into ventriloquist's dummies because it's good show business. And you kill people."

"I guide the Church in its investments," he said stubbornly, slouching deeper into his chair. "I provide legal advice. I serve on the board of directors. I serve on many boards of directors."

"Come on," I said. "You run the money and Merryman runs the Speakers. You help out with the Speakers sometimes too, don't you?"

"No," he said tightly.

"Caleb Ellspeth wouldn't agree with you."

Brooks sat up suddenly at the sound of Ellspeth's name. His eyes wandered nervously over the rows of law books.

"Looking for a precedent?" I said. "There isn't one. This is about as shitty as it gets."

"I haven't killed anybody."

"No. You wouldn't have the guts. That's a fine point anyway. You've profited from their deaths. I imagine you'd qualify as an accessory."

He gripped the arms of his chair tightly and made an enormous effort to stand up. "I have nothing to say," he said.

I leaned over, put my fingertips on his chest, and pushed gently. He fell back into the seat. "Fine," I said. "Let's call Adelaide in and we can continue our discussion."

His mouth opened and closed several times. He looked like a fish snapping at something. "You can't," he said at last.

"What did you think? Did you think you could swim through the scum all day and then come home and shower it off? Did you think nothing would ever come in through the front door with you? You've been tracking it across the rug for years, Merry. You're covered in it. That's why your face shines."

He rubbed his chin. "It's Merryman," he said.

"That's what everybody tells me. It's always Merryman. The really awful thing is that you might actually have gotten away with it if the two of you hadn't gotten even more greedy. Merry and Merryman, the Gold Dust Twins. Except that both of you wanted to run the whole show, didn't you? Like a couple of big blue horseflies dive-bombing each other over a pile of shit. And Sally Oldfield got caught in the middle."

Brooks slowly closed his eyes. He kept them closed while I counted to fourteen. Then he opened them again and looked at me.

"What's your deal?" he said.

"Who says I have a deal? Maybe I'm just God's flyswatter. I liked Sally Oldfield. I never talked to her, but I liked her. She should be in the living room right now, chatting with Adelaide. Adelaide would have liked her too."

"Keep Adelaide out of it."

"No way in the world." I shrugged sympathetically. "Poor Adelaide," I said.

"If you didn't want a deal you wouldn't be here," he said. "If you know all you seem to know, why not take it to the police? Why talk to me?"

"I wanted to get a chance to see you up close. People like you don't come along all that often."

He turned his attention back to the books. He rubbed his chin in an abstracted fashion. "Who's your client?" he finally asked.

It had taken him long enough. "Haven't got one," I said. "I thought maybe you were."

He looked a little more self-assured. He rubbed his hands over his thighs and then straightened the crease in his pants. "What's your fee?" he said.

I cocked my head and looked at him appraisingly. He returned the gaze.

"One million dollars," I said.

He didn't blink. "For what?"

"For keeping you out of it. For going away. What do you think it's for?"

"For going away," he repeated. "For closing down completely."

"In cash," I said.

"Tomorrow," he said.

"Small bills."

"Tomorrow," he said again. "Nothing bigger than a twenty."

"Fine," I said. I put out my hand, and after a moment, he shook it.

"I'll need some insurance," he said.

"For example."

"I imagine you have a license." The Brooks I'd first met was back. He got up and began to pace. "I need to know what you've got and how you got it. Then I'll need a signed statement that makes it clear that you've violated a number of laws in obtaining your information and keeping it from the police. We may have to add a few things to it to give it weight, but you'll sign it anyway, for a million dollars. You'll have me, I'll have you. I go to jail, you go to jail."

"Fair enough. But one thing at a time. I tell you what I know tonight. We can draft the statement tonight. But you don't get a signature until you hand me the million and I've counted it."

He gave me a small, malicious smile. "Counting it will take quite some time," he said.

I returned his smile. "I figure it'll come out to about ten thousand an hour."

He went to the desk and took out a yellow legal pad and an automatic pencil. "Begin," he said peremptorily. "I'll take notes and we can draft the statement from them." He clicked the pencil twice and looked critically at the point. "Wait a minute," he said. "Do you want that drink?"

"Sure," I said. "Bring it in a bucket."

"Scotch?" He was mein host to his fingertips.

"Unblended."

"Of course," he said. He went to the door, opened it, and left with a whisper of woolen slacks.

I passed a few minutes looking at the spines of the law books. There it was, the law in all its indifferent, magisterial glory, referenced and cross-referenced, a legacy of protection for the individual that marched in a straight line from Athens and the Roman Codification through the Magna Carta, the Age of Enlightenment, the Revolution, and more than two hundred years of earnest attempts to right injustice. Human rights, citizens' rights, government's rights, property rights, equal rights, civil rights, women's rights, even animal rights. All of it printed and proofread, handsomely bound and numbered to fill the shelves of men and women who could defend it or destroy it. The books didn't care who used them. They were as indifferent as the law.

Brooks came back in carrying a rattan tray with two large perspiring cut-glass tumblers on it. "Here we are," he said, laying it carefully down on the desk to avoid scratching the surface. He picked up his drink. "Tally-ho," he said, clinking it against mine.

I couldn't bring myself to say tally-ho, so I just nodded and drank.

Brooks put his glass down and picked up the pencil. "Let's start," he said.

I moved aimlessly around the room as I talked, picking up pipes, paperweights, awards, mementos, and the other flotsam and jetsam that bobs to the surface of a man's den. Other than my voice, the only sound in the study was Brooks's pencil gouging into the pad and an occasional muted expletive when the point broke.

"Eight or nine years ago, you must have had it all pretty much your way," I said. "However Anna did it, whether she really was a channel, or a schizophrenic or whatever, it was easy to manage. She pretty much did it on cue, and there was only Wilburforce to contend with. And we both know that Wilburforce was no match for you. He's all pressure points. He is that rarest of creatures, a total fraud. There's not a real thing about him.

"But then Anna died, or Merryman killed her. That's one murder, if it was a murder, that I know you had nothing to do with. It put you into a real quandary, didn't it? The Church was up and running, cranking out money day and night, and you had no Speaker. Where was all the doctrine supposed to come from? What was the authority for Listening? Where was the glamour? Did Merryman kill her?"

He shook his head. "I have no idea," he said. "This is your story."

"So it is. So there you are, with the best idea for making money since the invention of the printing press, and it looks like it's time to shut down. But a savior comes along in a bright-colored polo shirt. Dr. Richard Merryman-an internist, he says-proposes that he can create a new Speaker for you. His cut is half, or thereabouts."

"Not half," Books said automatically. "Not until later."

"A substantial bite nonetheless," I said. "Enough to wear a callus in your wallet. I would imagine that Merryman didn't tell even you how he made Jessica Speak. Or Angel later, when Jessica got too old to appeal to him."

Brooks looked up at me quickly. "Oh, that too," I said. "This is going to make some story if it ever comes out. There's hardly a single disgusting aspect of human behavior that it doesn't contain. It'll fascinate Adelaide."

"She'll never hear it," Brooks said serenely.

"I think a million is a little cheap."

"We have a deal," he said.

"But the story is just getting good. I'm not sure I want to tell the rest of it for only a million."

"If I understand you," Brooks said, "You're the only one who knows all of it."

"That's more or less true."

"You haven't bought yourself an insurance policy by sharing this with the police, because they'd act on it and you wouldn't collect your million. Other people, that little Chinese girl, for example, may know bits and pieces, but you're the only one who's got the big picture."

"The big picture. Admirably said. Yes, you could put it that way and not stray over the line into falsehood."

"Then consider," he said, "two alternatives. One is that you get a million dollars. Two is that something happens to you, something from which you would not recover. Either way, as you yourself put it, you go away. Both alternatives pose risks for the Church. You might not stay bought. You would certainly stay dead, but someone might connect it with us. We, or at least I, would prefer simply to buy you. Which would you prefer?"

"This is so civilized. Here we are, sitting in a book-lined study discussing my death as though it were a matter in which we were both only mildly interested. This is what I always wanted to do when I grew up."

"I asked you a question."

"Well, I'd prefer the million, obviously. Who wouldn't? The question was whether I could up it a little."

"You can't."

"Don't get huffy. I just wanted to clear it up. The free-enterprise system doesn't keep moving unless people push it. Where would you be if you'd settled for less?" I took a long swallow off my drink. "Gee, look at this swell house, and Adelaide and everything."

"You needn't mention her again. Go on with the story. I have to change for dinner."

"Okay. So Merryman gets Jessica up and yakking, and it's even better. You're not just selling a little girl who likes to talk, you're selling a spirit who speaks through a series of little girls. Things really take off. Membership grows and you begin to sell franchises, just like McDonald's, and everything is, as you might say, tally-ho. And Merryman gets tired of Jessica after her breasts begin to develop and he auditions new Speakers and comes up with Angel, who's just perfect. Great-looking, wonderful name, and she functions like clockwork.

"Of course, there's a flaw in the ointment, as a friend of mine used to say, because it's not your show anymore. You literally can't do it without Merryman. Still, you guys are making millions of dollars every year between Listening fees, franchises, merchandising, and blackmail, and there should be plenty to go around. Except that there isn't. One of you, and let's concede for the sake of tact that it's Merryman, is a real pig. Plus he's a doctor, doesn't like lawyers anyway, and he figures that you are a very expensive piece of superfluous manpower. How are we doing so far?"

He nodded. "Close enough," he said.

"You've got Merryman by the short hairs for the time being. You know where the money is. He can figure it all out eventually, but it could take years. Nevertheless, you're getting nervous. Years aren't really that long, not where millions of dollars are concerned. The problem is that Merryman can run the Church without you, but you can't run it without him. What you need is leverage. You need to be able to control him and keep him quiet somehow, running the little girls for the TV cameras while you sit back and work on your bank balance.

"And, lo! the Lord in his infinite wisdom and mercy delivers unto you a very nice young lady named Sally Oldfield. Sally's just the kind of poor sap the Church was created to milk. She's got low self-esteem, she's lonely, she's got some disposable income. All the qualifications for enlightenment. She sees Angel and she's entranced. She goes through Listening and she actually finds out some things about herself. Happiness and fulfillment are dangled in front of her, and she goes after them. Paying for the privilege, of course."

I rattled the ice cubes in my glass. Brooks stopped writing and watched me, his tongue wadded into one side of his mouth.

"And then she sees Dick, and it all falls apart. She knows who he is. She knows he's a dentist from Utica, New York, the home of religions based on the wisdom of little girls, and that he uses hypnotism as an anesthetic. And she sees his proximity to the Royal Family, and she knows all at once how it works. He wires her, doesn't he?"

Brooks said nothing, but he'd stopped writing.

"Her hair is always down when she's onstage and up when she's not. I'll bet that she's wearing a cute little Dan Rather button in her ear. He must have examined a lot of little girls, not that that would have been a trial for him, to find two who are as susceptible as Jessica and Angel. As their doctor he examines them in their dressing room before and after every Revealing. He probably puts them under while he's checking their pupils and installs the wire. Then she goes out onstage and he watches the TV set until it's time for the magic. He says her name five or six times into a headset, and off she goes. She repeats everything he says from then on, until it's over. Angel mimics him so perfectly she even loses her accent. Then he examines her again and takes out the wire. After that, he fools around with her for a few minutes, tells her to forget everything, brings her out of it, and everybody goes into the next room for the party. Of course, Merryman's already had his party."

Brooks still hadn't written anything.

"No notes?" I said.

"I'm not putting this on paper."

"That's probably a good idea. Sally knew Merryman but Merryman didn't know her. That means he must have been famous in some way back in Utica, some way that was vivid enough to make her remember him all those years later. My guess, knowing his habits, is that he was charged with child molestation.

"So Sally goes running. She believes in the Listening, even if she doesn't believe in Angel anymore. She goes to Wilburforce, who promptly turns her over to you in exchange for cash in hand and the promise to drop a lawsuit that was going to put him out of business. He tells her you're an honorable man and that Merryman is a disease you're trying to cure. What I don't understand is why you turned her over to Fauntleroy and that other creep."

He didn't say anything.

"Or maybe I do. She wouldn't talk to anyone but a Listener."

His eyes flickered, and he looked down at the pad in front of him.

"So you gave her to Fauntleroy and Fauntleroy gave her to Needle-nose-a Listener-whose name I'd really like to know. I don't suppose you'd like to tell me what it is, would you?"

Brooks shook his head. His face shone in the lamplight.

"You didn't want to lose sight of her and you didn't want anything to happen to her, so you had Fauntleroy hire me to follow her while she was having her Listening sessions at the Sleepy Bear Motel."

"No," he said. "That was Ellis's idea."

"Anyway, the problem is that the Listener, who shall for the moment be called Needle-nose, is either already working for Merryman or else he gets the idea when he hears what Sally says that he could be on the way to becoming a very rich man. One way or the other, he cuts you and Fauntleroy out of the information Sally's giving him and passes it on to Merryman instead. When he's sure he's got it all and that no one else knows what it is, he kills her. On Merryman's orders, of course. Then he defects openly to the other side. Starts hanging out at the Borzoi, scrubbing the faces of the faithful with steel wool whenever they backslide a little. Is any of this new to you?"

"Some of it."

"Is it worth a million dollars?"

"What happened to Ellis?"

"They killed him. More or less in front of me, to scare me off. They didn't think I knew much of anything. Hell, I didn't know much of anything. Then, I mean."

"Well," he said, "You've certainly caught up."

"You didn't know what Sally had on Merryman."

"No. As you say, they cut me out."

"You know now. Think it gives you the lever you need?"

"If it doesn't, I've wasted a lot of legal training."

"So is it worth a million?"

He stood up and ripped the pages neatly from his pad. Then he ripped out the four or five blank pages beneath and tore them into tiny pieces. He made a little heap of pieces on the desk and looked back down at his notes. He smiled at me.

"I should say it is," he said.