The Four Last Things

Chapter 27

Brooks looked like he hadn't slept in days. He had on the same clothes he'd worn the night before, and his hair was rumpled and his mouth drawn into a line of disgust as though he suspected his tongue was contagious. For what was probably the first time in forty years, he hadn't shaved. He seemed to regard Merryman with almost superstitious dread.

"Where is she?" I said.

"Where she'll keep," Merryman said. "Don't worry, Simeon, you'll see her soon enough." He glanced at Needle-nose and said, "Shut the door, Barry," in the tone of a man who had given a lot of orders in his life. Barry shut the door. "You've met, I believe," he said to me.

"Only recently," I said. "But I've admired his work for some time."

"Barry has his uses," Merryman said as though he and I were alone in the room. "He's a genuine textbook sadist, rarer than you'd think. It's always a pleasure to work with someone who enjoys what he does."

"There's nothing like cheap labor."

Merryman flashed his teeth at me. "Won't you sit down?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

I sat down in a heavy metal chair. Merryman seated himself behind his desk, every inch the professional man despite the vivid color of his shirt. Brooks and Barry remained standing. On Merryman's desk were the congealed remains of a dinner and two breakfasts. The meeting had clearly been going on for some time, but Merryman looked like he'd had twelve hours' sleep, followed by two sets of tennis and a sauna. He gave me an anticipatory smile and then glanced over my shoulder.

"For Christ's sake, Meredith, stop hovering like that," he said sharply. "Sit down and don't fidget. Brooks has been having pangs of conscience," he said to me.

"That must be a new experience," I said.

"Yes. He's quite unprepared for it. It's sweeping through him as measles did with the Indians. After a life of more or less perpetual professional betrayal during which he never developed so much as a night sweat, his immune system has suddenly sprung to life, and the result is the shivering, shambling wreck you see sitting there. Of course," he added confidingly, "he'd never really made plans to betray me before."

I didn't say anything.

"Although we must remember that we haven't firmly established that he did. This isn't a court of law, and if it were, Meredith would be more at home in it than any of us, wouldn't he?" He smiled again.

"Do you want an answer?" I said.

"I have a number of grievances with you, Simeon," Merryman said, letting the smile slip a notch or two, "not the least of which is that you tried to divide Meredith and me. We've had our little problems, I won't deny that. We're not naturally congenial with one another, any more than you and I are, although heaven knows I've been pleasant enough to you. But Meredith and I, in spite of the occasional friction between us, complement each other. We built this operation together. He's a brilliant man of business. I'm a brilliant stage manager. Together we give the people what they want and persuade the people to give us what we want. And we take what they've given us and together we build with it. What's wrong with that?"

"I wouldn't know where to start."

"Don't bother." He winked brightly at Barry. "You'll be talking soon enough."

"He offered me a million dollars," I said.

Merryman's eyes flicked to Brooks. "He did? That's not quite the way he tells it."

"This man came to my house-" Brooks began.

"He called me," I interrupted. "Told me he didn't want to see me at the office. Said he knew I'd been working on Sally's death and he wanted to know if I'd found out what she had on you."

Brooks sputtered. "Dick," he said, "this is-"

Merryman held up a hand. "Go on, Simeon," he said.

"Well, I had been working on it. I kept working on it even after you phoned to warn me off. I knew there was money in it but I didn't know how to use what I'd learned. I was going to come to you to see what it was worth, but then Brooks called and offered me a million on a platter. He invited me over, introduced me to Adelaide-nice lady, by the way…"

"Is she," Merryman said equably, resting his chin on his hand. "I haven't had the pleasure."

"And he asked me what I had. I asked him what it was worth, and he said it was worth a million, cash, if it was something that would allow him to control you absolutely, keep you working for him, but deprive you of whatever power you had in the Church. I said that what I had would do all of that and more, and told him what it was, and we arranged to meet at five this evening for the payoff."

"Isn't that interesting?" Merryman said conversationally. "We hadn't learned that it had gone quite that far."

"It hadn't," Brooks said. His face was filmed with sweat. "He barged in with some cock-and-bull story about dentists and Utica-"

Merryman's gaze flattened and grew opaque. He looked straight at Brooks. "That's enough, Meredith," he said. "It's certainly provocative, isn't it, that you didn't call us after your visit with Simeon last night. If we hadn't had the courtesy to call you to tell you our news about Miss Chan, we probably still wouldn't know all that Simeon knows about dentists and Utica, would we?" He arched his eyebrows and smiled inquiringly. "And it's such fascinating information."

"The Fox sisters," I said. "When you first fell into the Church it must have felt like old home week."

"Meredith doesn't know anything about the Fox sisters," Merryman said. "I'm amazed you do."

Brooks slumped further down in his chair, studying one of his cuff buttons.

"Of course, Simeon," Merryman continued in the same chatty tone, "I realize, and I'm sure that Meredith here does too, that you're just continuing in your effort to divide us. I certainly have no intention of taking seriously anything you've just said. For one thing, I'm positive that Brooks doesn't have a million dollars anywhere that he could have given to you without my knowing it. Do you, Meredith? That isn't the way our bookkeeping works, is it?"

"Of course not," Brooks said faintly.

"You see, Simeon?" Merryman said, shrugging his shoulders. "With a discrepancy like that, how could I take you seriously? The idea that Meredith keeps two sets of books is too absurd to contemplate. Good Lord. I've known the man for eight years."

"Would you miss a hundred thousand?" I said. Brooks shifted nervously in his chair. Merryman put one hand on top of the other, very much the listening doctor.

"You have my attention," he said.

"I'm sure it's all there, of course, right out on the books where it should be. One hundred thousand dollars for delivery of Sally Oldfield."

Merryman looked at Brooks but directed the question to me. "Paid to whom?"

"Hubert Wilburforce." I tried to sound surprised. "You mean you didn't know how Brooks got hold of Sally?"

"No," Merryman said. "I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't. A hundred thousand dollars, Meredith. How much is that per pound? She didn't look like a very big girl. And paid to good old Hubert, too. I must call Hubert one of these days."

He regarded Brooks for a long moment and then sighed. "Well," he said, "it seems my partner hasn't been completely candid this morning. Especially where the books are concerned. We'll have to look into that. Not for a moment, of course, do I believe that Brooks is really a threat to me," he went on almost dreamily. "He's got ink in his veins, foolscap for skin. He's a paper man. Aren't you, Meredith?"

Brooks made a little dry noise that might have been assent.

"But since he hasn't been completely candid, and since I need to know everything you know, Simeon, I'm going to have to ask you a few questions. Then you can go join Miss Chan while we debate the matter of your reward. Stand up."

I looked around me. Barry was standing directly behind my chair. Brooks was still seated, staring fixedly at the floor. He looked old.

"Have you searched him, Barry?"

"I found a gun," Barry said, displaying it.

"Listen to my question, Barry," Merryman said, as though he were speaking to a child. "Have you searched him? Pocket by pocket?"

Barry hesitated.

"No, he didn't," I said.

Merryman smiled up at me, all white teeth and dark skin. "I appreciate the impulse to get Barry into trouble, Simeon, but you'll learn it's counterproductive in the long run. What you want is for Barry to like you, to have a teeny smattering of regret that he has to practice his craft on you."

"I think it's a little late for that," I said.

"You're probably right." Merryman suddenly sounded impatient. "Search him."

Barry patted me down again, then went through one pocket after another. He pulled out everything I'd stashed away the night before: my money, my car keys, my address book, my wallet, a comb, a little travel bottle of after-shave, and two handkerchiefs. I'm not in the habit of carrying a comb, but I thought it would make the after-shave look a little less odd, just in case someone should get a chance to look in my pockets. Barry lined the items up on Merryman's desk. Merryman examined them in turn, pausing to flip through the address book, then picked up the handkerchiefs.

"Is our nose running?" he asked in the first-person plural of medical people all over the world.

"I don't know about yours," I said, "but mine is." I picked up the handkerchiefs and put them back in my pocket.

"We'll keep these for the moment," he said, pocketing the keys, "and I'll want a closer look at this." The address book followed the keys. He opened the after-shave, sniffed it, and handed it back to me. "A bit heavy for my taste," he said. "I prefer real lime."

"So do I," I said, "but who can afford it?"

"Now, Simeon," Merryman said as though I hadn't spoken. "I need to know absolutely everything you've found out, figured out, intuited, guessed, whatever. The complete dossier, anything that might help us to evaluate how much your silence is worth to us. You can think of it as a Listening session if you like, except that we haven't got the time to do it absolutely properly, so we're going to have to accelerate the process. Sit down again."

I sat. Barry passed a belt around my lap, threaded it through the rungs of the chair, and pulled it tight. Then he took my left hand, pulled one of the handkerchiefs from my pocket, and twisted it around my wrist. He knotted the handkerchief through the belt.

"Didn't bring your tools?" I asked. My voice wasn't very steady.

"He doesn't need tools," Merryman said comfortably. "He's very ingenious."

Barry took hold of my right hand and turned it palm down. He held it in a surprisingly strong grasp while he reached over to the nearer of the two breakfast plates and picked up a fork. Then he slipped one of the tines of the fork under the nail on my index finger and shoved it in.

I screamed for what seemed like a very long time. I kicked the chair backward and scuttled like a crab until I cracked its back against the wall. Then I kept scuttling, going nowhere but away from Barry, screaming until my throat felt like rags. Barry leaned against Merryman's desk and watched me with total absorption, turning the fork over and over in his hand. His mouth was open.

When I'd finished screaming and was leaning forward in the chair, fighting down an urge to retch, Merryman held up both of his beautifully shaped hands, fingers spread wide. "Ten," he said. He curled his right index finger. "You've got nine to go. Then, if you want to experience really exquisite pain, Barry can go back to the one he just did. You have absolutely no idea what it feels like a second time." He turned to Barry with an indulgent expression.

" Would you like to do another one?" he asked.

Barry nodded and got up. I was screaming before he took a step, twisting against the bonds of the chair. Merryman leaned forward and placed a restraining hand on Barry's arm.

"Later," he said. "I think Simeon's ready to talk to me now. Is that right, Simeon?"

I managed a nod.

"Nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "All those stories about people resisting torture are nonsense. No one can stand up to the prospect of real pain once they've felt it. That's why we started the conversation with a little attention-getter. So I wouldn't have to waste time asking you the same question twice.

"Wait outside," he said to Barry. "I'll call you if I need you." He turned to Brooks, who was looking ashen. "I think I'd like you outside too, Meredith. Just to create an atmosphere of perfect candor. Do you mind?" He might have been offering him a ride home. Brooks waved off the question with one heavy hand and stood up, with some difficulty, to follow Barry out of the room.

"I should be afraid of him?" Merryman said to me as the door closed. It had been loud enough for Brooks to hear. "Hardly. He has the narrowest comfort zone of any human being I've ever met, including other lawyers. The slightest change in the status quo turns him to milk. That's one reason he's good in business. Very conservative, very steady. With all the cash we have to deal with, an impulsive man would be disaster. Still, I'll have to look into those books." He crossed his arms across his chest and regarded me in a friendly fashion from across the room. "All right, Simeon, tell me. If anything strikes me as false or incomplete, or if you fail to answer any of my questions in a forthright manner, I'll call Barry back in. Once he's in the room, I won't stop him no matter what you say, so don't make me call him. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes."

He reached up and smoothed his hair. "Start at the beginning, if you don't mind."

I did. I told him about Harker, about the assignment to tail Sally, about Sally's murder and the fact that I'd seen Barry on the scene. I explained about the real Ambrose Harker and about Skippy Miller being my only link to the man who'd hired me.

"Why didn't you just wash your hands of it and go to the police?" he asked. He hadn't taken his eyes off me since I'd started talking. "A girl is murdered virtually under your nose and you don't go to the police?"

"What for? What were the cops going to give me? I didn't even have a client. All I wanted at first was to get a little money out of it. Then, as I learned more and more, I realized that there was more than a little money floating around and that I could probably catch as much of it as I could hold in two hands."

He gave me a long, absolutely level gaze. Most people look you first in one eye and then in the other. Merryman had the knack of looking directly into both eyes at once. After perhaps a full minute he said, "So you went to Big Sur to see Mr. Miller. Driven by the profit motive."

I ran through all of it. I told him about my first interviews with Brooks and Wilburforce, explaining that I'd used Eleanor only for her connection with the Times and emphasizing that she knew only what had been said on those occasions. I didn't mention Hammond or the Red Dog.

"We know what Eleanor knows," he said. "She was very cooperative last night. She was more cooperative, in fact, than you're being. She told us, for example, that you asked her to look into the death of poor little Anna, which she didn't, and to locate Caleb Ellspeth, which she did. I'd say Eleanor knows quite a bit more than you're telling me. I wonder whether we shouldn't call Barry in here?"

"No," I said, very quickly.

"You've just gotten your only break," he said. "If Barry comes back in, I'm going to let him do a double. He'll enjoy that much more than you will. Was your talk with Mr. Ellspeth productive?"

"He told me more about Meredith than he did about you."

"Of course. He barely knows me. The man was away from home practically all the time. Do you think he's a danger to me?"

"No. He's frightened. I had the impression that you had something on him."

Merryman was watching me very intently. "He didn't tell you what it was?"

Praying that Eleanor hadn't told them, I said, "No." If I didn't get out of there, I didn't want them going after Ellspeth and Ansel.

After a moment, he dropped his eyes and studied the nails of his left hand. "Good," he said. "Then that's under control, isn't it? Still, I think we'll have Barry drop by and remind him that we'd really rather he didn't talk to strangers."

"Why tell me?" The confidence didn't make me feel comfortable.

"Why not? I feel as though you know everything already. I have to congratulate you, Simeon, you've done very thorough work. There are a few details wrong here and there in the account you gave Meredith, a few wild guesses, but by and large it's been very instructive. There are any number of loose cannon rattling about, it would seem. You've done us a service, actually. You've been profoundly irritating, but you've identified quite a few points of entry that should be shored up immediately."

"Glad I could help," I said.

"The first ten or fifteen years, before you get to be institutional, are always the most vulnerable in a business like this," he said. He sounded like he was talking to a trainee. "Everybody, when faced with something new, wants to take a crack at it. Politicians, the media, the competition. We know that. We've invited it by making the Church as vivid as possible. Beautiful little girls, a billion-year-old spirit, rather nice sermons, if I do say so myself." He waited for a compliment.

"The one I heard was very impressive."

"Thank you. I had no idea I could write until I actually had to sit down and do it. And even then, it wasn't until we printed little Jessica's first twelve Revealings and I saw them on the page that I knew how good they really were."

"You can't delegate that?" I said, just to make conversation and to keep Barry out of the room.

"Oh, no." He gave a manicured little laugh. "Very few people know how the Revealings work. Not even Mary Claire. Just you and I. And Brooks, of course. And Miss Chan."

"She doesn't know," I said.

"She certainly didn't seem to," he said absently. "She would have told us if she did. She would have told us anything. Barry rarely gets a chance to work on a woman. There was Miss Oldfield, of course, but that was over almost before it began. From Barry's point of view, I mean. I imagine it seemed longer to Miss Oldfield." He gave me the smile again.

"At any rate, we made the Church colorful on purpose. We wanted to be good copy. We wanted a certain amount of challenge. A religion can't survive without opposition. It knits the membership closer together, builds loyalty and so forth. The bunker mentality. And then, there's all that publicity. So, as I say, we invite a certain amount of adversity."

"Very wise," I said. My right hand felt bigger than the Goodyear blimp.

He leveled a finger at me. "But you're something quite new. I suppose we should be thankful that both you and Miss Chan had good reason to keep quiet about what you were doing. You wanted your money and Miss Chan wanted her story. That keeps the circle small. Manageable, in a manner of speaking. If you hadn't, I suppose I'd be packing now."

"Instead of sitting here talking to me."

"I almost wish we'd met under different circumstances." He sounded wistful. "You're smart and thorough and greedy. We could have used someone like you."

"You still can."

"No, I'm afraid not. You know too much to justify the level at which you'd be employed. It would make me uncomfortable, Simeon, and I can't work when I'm uncomfortable." He looked at his gold Rolex. "Barry," he called. I flinched.

Merryman laughed as the door opened and Barry came in. "Don't worry," he said. "Not yet, anyway. Meredith? Could you come in too, please?"

Brooks came through the door like a man walking into a forty-knot wind. He didn't look at any of us.

"Look at him," Merryman said cheerfully. "What you're seeing is the mummy when it's unwrapped. After centuries of miraculous preservation, he's about to turn to dust. You've been a bad boy, Meredith. We're going to have to evaluate our deal. In the meantime, I'm sure you'll be glad to know that this little forest fire is confined almost entirely to Simeon and Miss Chan-Eleanor, I mean." The name came out of his mouth coated with oil.

"When do I get paid?" I asked with a bravado I didn't feel.

"Well," Merryman said expansively, "I'm afraid you don't. If it had been just you, I might have bargained you down a few hundred thousand and let you go on your way. Even though you've irritated me. But there's Eleanor too. I could believe in your greed, but what am I going to do about Eleanor? She seems to be a pure spirit. Anyway, I've already promised you to Barry."

Barry grinned like a hound in a steakhouse. Brooks sagged against a wall.

"Don't like it, do you, Meredith?" Merryman laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "You'd rather be behind your big clean desk in Century City, adding up zeros while I take care of the loose ends. Well, you're in the middle of this one, my friend, and you're going to get very dirty. And then we'll sit down for a little heart-to-heart and see who has what on whom. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get to meet the fair Adelaide."

Brooks swallowed audibly. "Sure, Dick," he said. "Just an oversight."

"Maybe we'll all do lunch," Merryman said in a gleeful parody of a Hollywood agent. "Just you and me and Adelaide. I think we should all be a lot closer, don't you?"

Brooks managed a nod that looked like it fractured all his cervical vertebrae. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out but air.

"Fine," Merryman said. "All settled, then." He gestured dismissively at me. "You can have him, Barry. You can have both of them. But for Christ's sake find somewhere to put them this time. Not like poor Ellis."

Barry took two steps toward me.

"Wait," I said. 'There's a kicker."

"Kicker?" Merryman said politely. His voice was almost indolent, but the muscles in his shoulders tensed and bunched. "And what would that be?"

"There's a cop involved," I said.

"Too late," Merryman said, relaxing. "You and Miss Chan have been very persuasive on that point."

I forced myself to shrug, although my shoulders weighed a hundred pounds apiece. "What can I say? We lied."

Merryman looked at Brooks, and Brooks found his voice. "This is nonsense," he protested. "You were after a million dollars. Why would you talk to the police?"

"Merry," I said, "I don't know how to tell you this, but I wasn't really planning to collect the money."

Everybody looked at everybody else.

"Then why are you doing this?" Brooks finally said.

"Oh, who knows?" I said. "Adventure. Diversion. You know, Merry. Tally-ho."

There was a long pause. Then Merryman said, "Barry. Do something to him."

Barry did something to me and then he did something else, and a cloud of red came down behind my eyes and I heard my voice torn to tatters in my ears. When it was over and I was whimpering, Merryman said, "Are you finished, Simeon?"

"Al Hammond," I said in a whisper. Then, louder, I said, "Al Hammond." I think I said it three times.

"Hammond," Merryman said tonelessly.

"Hammond comma Al," I said. "You heard the messages on my answering machine," I said to Barry. "You know that Al Hammond called me."

"Barry?" Merryman said in a voice that would have frozen vodka. The charm-boy was long gone now, vanished to sunnier climes.

"There was an Al Hammond," Barry said. "He didn't say he was a cop."

"Is he a cop," Merryman asked, "or are you playing games?"

"He's a cop. Call the LAPD. Ask for Records and then ask for Al Hammond. Sergeant." I said. "Sergeant. Alvin. Hammond." I couldn't talk anymore.

Merryman pointed at the phone. We all sat there while Barry dialed and asked for Al. Then he hung up very slowly. "He's there," Barry said.

Merryman gnawed at the inside of his cheek. "I knew it was too easy," he said to no one in particular. "There are far too many loose mouths in this organization. Time to clean house." He seemed suddenly childish, anxious to fix blame.

"But this is awful," Brooks abruptly said. "The police? This is terrible."

"Shut up, Meredith," Merryman said. "You act like it's the end of the world."

"It is," Brooks said. Then he swallowed again.

"Not by a long fucking shot it isn't," Merryman said, gaining strength. "Go home to Adelaide. Borrow one of her dresses. When you've got it all out of your system, come back and we'll talk business." He looked at me. "This is a business, you fuckhead, a good business, and you're not going to disrupt it. Barry," he said, "put him on ice."

Barry came around behind me and I tensed, but all he did was undo the belt. He prodded me to stand up. When I did, he untied the handkerchief around my wrist and stuffed it into the pocket of my shirt. "There," he said. "You're beautiful again." He gave me a yellow grin and took my arm.

"One minute," Merryman said, assembling his poise piece by piece like a knight tying on his armor. "I want you to know something, Simeon, because you're going to wind up in Barry's hands sooner or later. It's inevitable. This is just a delay. Anyway, I want you to have something to think about in the meantime. His name isn't really Barry. We chose it for him because it's a name rich in the annals of sadism. Have you ever heard of the Doll?"

I shook my head.

"He was a guard, a very handsome guard, at a concentration camp. Some of the women in the camp developed extremely complicated attitudes toward him. He was that handsome, you see."

"His real name was Barry?" I said.

"No." Merryman gave me the full fifty-kilowatt smile. "His dog's name was Barry. A big German shepherd, passionately devoted to his master. Actually, an ordinary enough dog by all accounts. Except that he had a trick. Would you like to know what the trick was?"

"Not really."

"Well, darling, too bad for you. It was only one trick, but it was a good one. He was trained to chew off the genitals of male prisoners. He got very fat." He paused to see the effect of his story. I didn't speak. Merryman shrugged. "So," he said, "that was Barry."

"And you," I said, "haven't got any genitals. You piss sitting down. Out of choice. And when you're finished you dry that teensy little thing in the breeze and go bother some twelve-year-old because anything else would be too loose for you. You haven't got a cock. You've got a hypodermic."

Merryman looked very ugly all of a sudden. "You shouldn't have said that," he said. "And if you did say it, you shouldn't have said it in front of anyone else. Barry is going to take special care of you, aren't you, Barry?" Barry nodded fervently. "But first, in front of you, Barry is going to take special care of sweet little Eleanor."

"Zip your trousers," I said. "Your mole is showing."

Merryman's face filled with blood. "Put him on ice," he said to Barry.

Barry grabbed me under the arm and hoisted me up in a lopsided fashion. "Walking time," he said.

We went out the door and down the hall to the elevator. In the elevator, Barry produced a small silvery key and inserted it into the slot marked basement. We started down. I leaned against him adoringly.

"Lover," I said, "what a surprise. You're taking me where we met."

He pushed me away roughly. "Later," he said. "We'll have our laughs later."

"What do you eat for breakfast?" I asked. "Babies?"

"Tomorrow, I'll have liver. Yours."

"I'll bet you say that to all your dates," I said.

"Keep it up," he said. "You don't know what a long time is yet."

The elevator doors opened and he pushed me out into a dark hallway. It was still wet from the rain. It was probably always wet.

"Have you been to Venice?" I asked as he steered me along. "You'd feel right at home. Water, rats, the whole schmear. You could probably get work chewing barnacles off the bottoms of gondolas. Or else you could eviscerate chickens in the marketplace. Somebody has to do it. Italians love chicken." Three of my fingers felt like water balloons that had been filled with blood. "Listen," I said, "why don't we go out to dinner? I'll buy. Italian, Mexican, Thai, you name it. I love the way you handle a fork. I'd love to see you try it on food."

"You're going to see a lot more of it," he said. We were heading toward the kitchen. "You'll see it on your girlfriend."

"You're going to fork my girlfriend?" We passed the air-conditioning unit, humming busily away. "That's not very polite. Where I come from, a gentleman doesn't say that to another gentleman."

He grunted.

"So much for snappy patter," I said as he propelled me into the kitchen. "Oh, I see. Put me on ice. It's that sweet little refrigerator, isn't it? Good. I have a theory. All shivering is caused by the attempt to reduce the amount of body surface exposed to the cold. Open up, I always say. Open up and let the cold in. Then you won't shiver. What do you think?"

"I think," he said, opening the refrigerator door, "that you're going to want to be cold in a few hours."

"Jesus," I said. "You sound like a Friars' roast for one of Bob Hope's writers."

"Bundle up," he said, pushing me in and closing the door.

Somebody inside sighed.

"Well," Eleanor said, "what took you so long?"