Katherine Pratt Carrington had been complaining to her nurse all day about the pain. When the doctor came to her bungalow, she gave him every symptom he asked for.
“Have you noticed blood in your bowels? Coal-black stools?”
“Yes.”
“No, she hasn’t,” said the nurse.
“What about red blood?”
“That, too.”
“I haven’t seen it,” said the nurse.
“They’re my stools,” answered Mrs. Carrington.
“Where is the pain?” asked the doctor.
“All over.”
“You have no temperature. Do you feel nauseated?”
“Yes.”
“She hasn’t vomited,” said the nurse.
The doctor put his hands on her stomach. They were ice-cold. “Relax.”
She hardened every muscle.
“Relax,” he said again.
“I am.”
He frowned. “We’d better take a few pictures. Get her over to X-ray.”
The nurse, Mrs. Drexel, put Katherine Pratt Carrington in a wheelchair. Mrs. Drexel had once been a gym instructor, and she was as strong as a man. Except for the dress, she looked like a man. “I know you’re not sick. You just want attention.”
Katherine Carrington said nothing.
Mrs. Drexel rolled the wheelchair out of the bedroom, across the small sitting room, and out the door of the bungalow where Katherine Pratt Carrington had been living since her grandson’s funeral. Mrs. Drexel nodded to the bulky young man by the door. He was one of two private orderlies who kept visitors away from Mrs. Carrington. He was reading Penthouse and waiting for the next shift.
The Lynnewood Manor looked like a resort hotel, and only the rich could afford to end their lives there. Dozens of private bungalows, shaded by elms and maples, were scattered across the manor’s two acres. The lawn was dotted with old people in robes and pajamas, giant pastel flowers soaking up the June sun. A black wrought-iron fence kept the world out and the occasional wanderer in. Ribbons of clean, bright concrete wound across the lawn and connected the central building to the bungalows. The central building was an old Victorian mansion, all turrets and porches, balconies and bay windows, which had once been the home of a New England shoe manufacturer. The Lynnewood Manor offered full medical care, game rooms, cable television, and, for the healthier guests, shuffleboard and swimming. Katherine Pratt Carrington hated it.
The X-ray technician read the doctor’s instructions and helped Katherine onto the table. After she took the X-rays, she told Katherine to stay on the table while she made sure the pictures came out.
For the first time in a week, Katherine Carrington was alone with a telephone. She jumped off the table and ran to the wall phone in the technician’s booth. After dialing four digits, she heard the operator’s voice. She hung up and dialed nine. This time, she got an outside line. She prayed that Evangeline was home.
It was eight o’clock. Fallon and Evangeline were still in bed. Instinctively, Fallon reached for the telephone when it rang him awake.
Evangeline grabbed his wrist. “It may be my mother. I’d rather not have to explain you so early in the morning.” She reached across his chest and picked up the telephone. “Hello?”
“Get me out of here.”
“Grandmother! Where are you?” Evangeline sat up in bed.
“Lynnewood Manor, bungalow sixteen, I can’t talk anymore. Lynnewood Manor. And be careful. They have me guarded.” Katherine was back on the table before the technician returned to the room.
Evangeline found the address of the Lynnewood Manor in the phone directory. The home was in a rich bedroom community about an hour north of Boston.
Fallon drove. He had been waiting for a chance in the Porsche, and Evangeline trusted him enough now to give him the keys. But instead of heading across the Back Bay to the Mystic River Bridge, he drove toward South Boston.
“Where are you going?” asked Evangeline.
“If you look behind you—and don’t—you’ll see a black Oldsmobile. I suppose it’s followed us before, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it.”
“Who’s in it?”
“It must be one of the guys Ferguson was talking about last night.”
“One of Soames’s men?”
Fallon nodded.
“Why would they be following us?”
“Apparently they didn’t believe we fell for their story yesterday.”
Fallon pulled the Porsche into a large storage yard near the MBTA car barn in South Boston. A ten-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire ran all around the yard, and a sign above the gate read “Fallon and Son Construction Company.” A rundown shack, once the office of a used-car lot, sat in the middle of the yard. Behind it was a work shed, and scattered all about was the equipment of a small construction company: mortar mixer, compressor, scaffolding, planks, bags of limestone and cement covered by a tarpaulin, piles of plywood and scrapwood, pallets of bricks and blocks, a railcart the Fallons used when they did a job in the subways, and a frontloader that converted into a snowplow in winter. Tom Fallon believed in owning his own equipment. Peter Fallon thought that his father was a packrat.
Peter parked the car behind the shack and went in the back door. It was a tiny room—two metal office desks, a filing cabinet, a space heater for winter, and a Playmate calendar on the wall. Danny was reading the sports section behind one desk. Sheila was opening mail behind the other. Although there was little to do, she came in every morning to answer phones, type, and help out in the office.
“Morning, Dan,” said Peter. “Where’s the old man?”
“Off lookin’ at a job. Where the hell did you come from?”
Peter pointed out the door. “From that Porsche.”
Danny saw Evangeline sitting in the car. He whistled softly.
“I’ll trade the Porsche for your Chevy.” Peter held out the keys. “Just for the morning. You can take Sheila for a long spin, but only if she puts on the kerchief in the glove compartment.”
“What the hell is going on here, Peter?”
Fallon gestured toward the window, but he did not go near it. “You see a black Olds out there?”
Danny glanced out. “The Cutlass?”
Peter nodded. “I’m trying to lose him.”
“You in trouble?” asked Danny seriously.
Peter didn’t want to explain. “The guy in that car used to be Evangeline’s boyfriend.”
“Evangeline.” Danny said the name very slowly. He liked it.
“Do me a favor and take him on a little tour of Southie. Then Evangeline and I can get away.”
“That’s real romantic, Peter,” said Sheila.
Danny flipped his keys to his brother. “Anything so my little brother can get laid.”
Evangeline looked the other way as her Porsche sped off. Fallon watched it head back toward the expressway with the Oldsmobile a short distance behind.
“If anybody up at that place is expecting us, they won’t be looking for a brown Chevy.”
Peter and Evangeline swung past the Lynnewood Manor an hour later. A large visitors’ parking lot descended in several tiers down from the main house. The only entrances were through the central building or the service gate, where trucks, doctors’ cars, ambulances, and hearses passed regularly. Fallon did not stop or pull into the lot. He had already decided that he would go in on foot, avoiding the reception area or the guardhouse at the service gate.
“Why don’t we just go in?” asked Evangeline.
“The guy in the black Olds proves they still don’t trust us. They’re probably watching for us at all the main entrances.”
“So what? I don’t see why we can’t just walk right in. I’ll talk to her doctor, or we’ll talk to the people in administration, and we’ll get her out. She’s a responsible adult. They don’t have the right to keep her in there.”
“If she’s still in shock, she isn’t responsible. Who’s the executor of her will?”
“Her daughter Isabelle.”
“Then Isabelle has probably been appointed temporary guardian, and from what I’ve seen, Isabelle is on your uncle’s team.”
Fallon watched a bus stop in front of the nursing home. Six people got off. Two were black, one Puerto Rican, three whites. The women wore white dresses, and none of them looked as though they lived in the neighborhood. They crossed the street and the parking lot and went in a side entrance on the basement level of the main building. The midday shift was arriving for work.
Fallon drove the car around the block and back to a bus stop a mile or so away.
“What are you doing?” asked Evangeline.
“I’m going in alone.”
“We came here to see my grandmother, Peter.”
“If she’s guarded, it’s going to be hard enough for one person to get near her.” He looked Evangeline up and down.
She was wearing an expensive pink blouse, gold neck chain, and Brass Buckle jeans. Fallon had stopped at his apartment for a clean shirt and jeans after borrowing his brother’s car.
“I might be able to get in the workers’ entrance, but you don’t really make it as a member of the proletariat.”
She decided to let him follow his instinct.
Fallon got off the bus in front of the Lynnewood Manor along with three nurses, a Puerto Rican man and a white teen-ager who were complaining to each other about the work load for the kitchen help, and a black man dressed like an orderly. Fallon fell in behind the kitchen workers and put his head down.
“Yeah,” said the teen-ager, a pimply kid with stringy hair and a bad set of adenoids. “They get real pissed when their tea ain’t hot.”
“They bitch at me today, man, I tell ’em the bus is late,” said the Puerto Rican.
“What if Lard-Ass Loughlin bitches?”
“Ah, I tell her to suck me off, man.”
They both laughed.
Fallon decided that if he could get past the entrance, he would follow them to the kitchen. From there, he might have a good chance at Katherine Carrington.
Keeping at the edge of the group, he walked around the side of the main house to the narrow flight of stairs which led to the workers’ entrance. He felt his hands beginning to sweat. He wiped them on his shirt. He hoped he didn’t have to answer any questions at the door, because he could feel his voice tightening in his throat. He walked down the stairs which led to the cellar and stepped into the air conditioning.
A private security guard sat by the time clock. He was reading the racing form, and he did not look up. Fallon thought about slipping past, but he did not know where he was going. He had to stay with the kitchen workers, who continued to complain as they punched in. Fallon took a time card from the rack and pushed it into the clock. The guard raised his head from the paper, but Fallon didn’t miss a beat. He finished punching in, and by the time he put the card back, the guard was again trying to pick the daily double. Fallon realized that the guards weren’t waiting for him.
He turned and walked through a pair of swinging doors which led to a new stairwell. He heard the voices of the kitchen men below him. He followed. At the bottom of the stairs, he stepped into another corridor. He was in a subbasement which had been dug when the house was remodeled. At the end of the corridor were swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Two rooms opened onto the corridor, and Fallon could hear the voices of the kitchen workers coming from the room on the right.
He walked down the corridor and looked into a workers’ coatroom. There were pegs on the wall, benches and folding chairs scattered about the room.
Fallon stepped in and said hello.
The pair eyed him suspiciously at first, thinking he was another boss. Then Fallon took a white coat off one of the hooks and put it on.
“You new here, man?” asked the Puerto Rican.
“Yeah. My first day.”
“You a cook?”
Fallon shook his head. “Loughlin hired me. She said I should start deliverin’ food on the noon shift.”
The two workers looked at each other.
“You takin’ one of our jobs?” asked the teen-ager.
Fallon said he didn’t think so and wondered whether the kid would sound any better if he blew his nose.
“She musta found more shit for us to do, then,” said the Puerto Rican.
Fallon introduced himself and learned their names. “Mr. Sanchez. You must be the Sanchez that Loughlin told me to see.”
The Puerto Rican laughed. “I didn’t know that bitch trust me with anything.”
Fallon thought he might be going too far. “We don’t have to check in with her once we’ve punched in, do we?”
“Nope. Just deliver the food, then bring the trays back. She find something for you to do then.”
Sanchez led Fallon down the hallway. They stepped through the swinging doors into the steam and confusion of the central kitchen. Workers scurried about. Cooks shouted orders. Dishwashers churned away. Institution green and stainless-steel silver were the only colors that cut through the steam. On the far side of the room, behind a glass partition, Fallon saw an overweight blonde shouting into a telephone. He assumed that she was Loughlin.
“Where are the trays?” Fallon wanted to be out of the kitchen before Loughlin was out of her office.
“Take it easy, man. You don’t want to move too fast on your first day. You’ll wear yourself out,” said Sanchez.
“Yeah,” added the kid. “Watch us.”
They crossed to the corner where the carts were loaded for delivering. Fallon read the notation on the first cart. It listed bungalows one to twelve, the name of each patient, and the meal. There were four carts. Fallon moved to the next and read. “Carrington, number sixteen.”
“You choosy, man? You don’t like the first cart?”
“It’s the first day. Gotta have someone to follow.” He glanced at the kid. “And someone behind me to make sure I don’t fuck up.”
The kid laughed. “You must be pretty stupid if you need me to watch you.”
Fallon shrugged and followed Sanchez through another set of swinging doors into a long tunnel which led, eventually, out to the lawn. He pushed the cart past old men playing checkers and soaking up the sun, past old men and women who stared vacantly and others who smiled and hoped he’d stop to talk.
As they reached the walkway that led past the bungalows, Sanchez parked in front of number one.
Fallon kept going. He was doing well so far, but he could see the orderly reading Penthouse outside number sixteen. He didn’t recognize the orderly, and he hoped the orderly wouldn’t recognize him. Katherine Pratt Carrington sat in a lawn chair beside the orderly. She was holding a book, but she wasn’t reading. He hoped she noticed him before he got to her. Otherwise he might startle her.
He worked his way to bungalow fifteen, knocked on the door, went in, and placed a tray on a table in the living room. The person sitting there hardly noticed him. He stepped outside again and heard Katherine Carrington’s voice.
She was speaking to the orderly. “If you must look at that filth, young man, please do it at a respectable distance from me. Every time I look up, I see pudenda and areolae, and frankly, I am offended. You can keep your eye on me just as well over on the grass.”
The orderly said nothing. He closed the magazine, walked a short distance across the lawn, and stretched out.
Fallon wheeled the cart slowly toward her. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”
The guard glanced up, as did Nurse Drexel, who was sitting inside the bungalow watching television.
Fallon placed the tray in front of Mrs. Carrington, and she winked at him. Now that he was here, with her protection all around, he didn’t quite know what to say or do.
“What do we have for lunch today?” she asked cheerfully.
“Clear soup, ma’am.”
“I’m not hungry anyway.”
Fallon bent down, as though he had dropped something from the cart.
“Is Evangeline with you?” whispered Katherine.
Katherine Carrington pulled an envelope from the back papers of her book and slipped it onto Fallon’s cart. She hadn’t expected that they would have much chance to talk.
“John Milton and Paradise Lost?” Fallon spoke in shorthand. He had no time for explanations.
Her eyes narrowed. “You, too?”
“Since my first trip to Searidge.”
“Are you with Rule?”
He shook his head.
“Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
The orderly looked suddenly in Fallon’s direction. Fallon was sure he’d been recognized, although the orderly was ten feet away.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Fallon said to Mrs. Carrington. Nonchantly, he took the handle of the cart and started down the path toward bungalow seventeen. As he walked, he looked around for the best escape route. If he had to run, he wanted to know where he was going.
He stopped at bungalow seventeen. He could feel the orderly’s eyes boring into him. He told himself to stay cool, to play the role. It had worked for him when he punched in. It could work now. He knocked on the bungalow door, then brought the lunch inside. When he stepped out again, the orderly was eating Katherine Carrington’s lime jello.
“I don’t see why we should be wasting perfectly edible food,” Katherine was saying to him. “And I certainly don’t intend to eat that awful stuff myself.”
Fallon almost laughed. He wiped the droplets of perspiration from his forehead, delivered the rest of his lunches, and pushed the empty cart back to the kitchen. He returned the white jacket and cap to their hook and left the Lynnewood Manor with another group of workers.
When he got back to the car, Fallon was exhilarated, like a little boy who had just done something on a dare.
“Did you see her?” asked Evangeline.
“Got in and out without a hitch.” He was grinning.
“Is she all right?”
“She looks fine. We couldn’t talk, but she gave me this note.”
“ ‘I write surreptitiously and in haste!’ ” Fallon began to read while Evangeline drove toward Boston. “ ‘I am here against my will. They tell me it is for my own good, that they want to protect me from danger in this tea-set business. They are lying. They are simply afraid that I might say something to the authorities about Christopher’s death. I believe that he is dead because of the tea set, but the Pratts believe otherwise. I do not understand what requires such secrecy, but they have made me its victim, first in my own home, and now here. They believe that my knowledge of the tea set might be helpful to the people trying to find it. They want no one to approach me, not even that Harvard student, a total innocent.’ ”
“I wish you were,” said Evangeline.
“ ‘Please help me to leave here, Evangeline. I no longer love my daughter or my nephews. They have abused my freedom and shown no respect for my wishes. It is a lie to discourage me from trying to change my situation. Men are guarding me round the clock, and Philip Pratt is on the board of directors at this nursing home.’ ”
“I didn’t know that,” said Evangeline.
“That makes it even harder,” said Fallon.
He finished reading the letter. “ ‘But you must do what you can to get me out of here. Bring a suitcase of clothes with you and take me straight to the airport. I still can be of use someplace, but not here. I must leave this tea-set mess behind. It has already cost me a son and a grandson. I made a mistake twenty-seven years ago. I will pay for it no more.’ ”
Her father. Evangeline was shocked. She looked straight ahead and gripped the wheel. She felt the car accelerate almost involuntarily. Another generation, another tragedy. Evangeline realized that her grandmother had been mourning more than the unrelated deaths of father and son, son and grandson. Her father and brother were both dead because of the tea set and a crazy ancestor who was father to them all.
In the days after Christopher’s death, Katherine Pratt Carrington had kept saying that she could have stopped it. And now came this note, with its cryptic reference to a death twenty-seven years earlier. Evangeline had to find out what her grandmother meant. An angry buzzing noise rattled Evangeline. She was traveling seventy-five miles an hour, and the speedometer alarm was pulling her attention back to the road.
“We have to get her out,” said Peter. “We have to do it quickly and quietly, with no fanfare, no publicity. She can tell us things no one else knows. And with what we know now, I don’t think either of us can rest until we end this thing for good.”
She was beginning to agree with him.
Philip Pratt had spent most of the day talking on the telephone with major Pratt Industries stockholders. He was trying to convince them not to throw their support behind William Rule. He had not been successful. Former supporters told him that they were disappointed in his leadership and uncertain of the company’s future. They said that, in light of the company’s drastic losses over the last few years, a change at the top might be a positive move. While many of the old-line stockholders agreed that William Rule was not the sort they would invite to dinner, they all recognized his skill and his toughness. In twenty years, he had built an insignificant import firm into one of the most successful overseas buying operations in the United States.
“We’ve been very disappointed in your acquisition and diversification efforts,” said the head of an investment firm which held a considerable block of Pratt stock. “All you have to show for seven years is a bad movie company. When Rule becomes chairman, he’ll bring Rule Imports right along with him, and that’s the kind of small, successful operation that makes an excellent acquisition. That alone puts Rule a mile ahead of you. Besides, he isn’t making a tender offer. He isn’t trying to buy up a controlling interest in the stock. He doesn’t have the means. He’s simply a stockholder trying to amass enough votes to take over the top corporate office. If the other stockholders don’t like the job he does, they can vote him out again. Just as they’re doing with you.”
Philip Pratt wanted his tea very strong this afternoon, with nothing but a twist of lemon to cut it. He stared down at the swanboats and sipped the acid, letting it scour his tongue. He did not want to listen to Bennett Soames or his cousin Isabelle.
“Evangeline spent the night with Fallon,” Soames reported. “And this morning, they both eluded our observation. I believe that they will try to get to your aunt. They may have tried already. We could handle the problem more easily if your aunt were moved.” He paused, then added sarcastically, “Our little charade yesterday didn’t work.”
Pratt glanced at Isabelle. He did not want to look weak in front of her. “We had only two other options, Bennett. Tell him everything or eliminate him. We’re not murderers, and I had no intentions of asking Fallon to join us. He’s in it for the adventure and the money.”
Soames nodded. “And we couldn’t rely on him to cooperate in our negotiations with Mr. Rule.”
“Precisely,” said Pratt. “Continue to keep him under surveillance and make sure that he doesn’t get near my aunt.”
“Back to my original point. Your aunt.”
“I would prefer that my mother stay where she is,” said Isabelle. She sat on the sofa and sipped at her tea. She was wearing a flowered cotton sundress and her hair at her shoulders.
Soames did not move and his expression did not change. He simply stared and waited for Pratt to agree with him.
Pratt realized that he was beginning to feel uneasy in Soames’s presence. He had lately been allowing his authority to slip into Soames’s hands. He did not like his secretary giving him orders. “Fallon hasn’t gotten to her yet. I don’t think we’ll have any problems.”
“My mother could not stand another move,” said Isabelle softly.
Soames did not acknowledge her. He continued to stare at Pratt.
“We’re not moving her,” said Pratt with sudden firmness. “We put her there for medical and psychiatric reasons. We wanted to shelter her so that she could deal with her shock. Let’s remember our responsibility to her, Soames. We’re keeping her right where she is. It’s your responsibility to make sure that no one gets to her. Not Fallon, not Rule.”
Bennett Soames showed no annoyance, but he felt his neck growing hot beneath his starched collar. He did not like to be overruled, especially in matters of security, but he knew that Pratt was beginning to feel the pressure of Rule’s deadline and needed to assert himself. Soames could tolerate such displays a while longer.
Philip Pratt turned to Isabelle. “Tell Soames what you’ve found in the diaries.”
Isabelle looked at Soames, whose dispassionate stare always irritated her. “I’ve been through forty-one diaries, each covering a year of Abigail’s life. She kept a diary for over sixty years, but I couldn’t find the others. I’m rather surprised that they disappeared. It isn’t like us to lose important documents. But from what I read, I could understand Christopher’s fascination with the family history. Abigail Pratt Bentley was an amazing woman.”
“Did she tell you the whereabouts of the final passage?” asked Soames impatiently.
“If she had,” snapped Isabelle, “do you think we’d be sitting here talking about it? If Abigail Pratt Bentley had not been quite so cryptic, we might have the tea set right now. However, as my mother discovered forty years ago, the envelope containing Abigail’s instructions was lost someplace between Artemus Pratt and his grandson, Philip’s grandfather. No one took Abigail seriously, which is a great tragedy. Fortunately, we saved most of her diaries, and the diaries may lead us to the last clue.”
Isabelle took a notecard from her purse. “Just before she died, writing on the last page of her last diary, Abigail Pratt Bentley discussed the final codicil in her will and the ten envelopes she left to her nieces and nephews.” Isabelle read, “ ‘I have also fulfilled my promise to young Joseph Mannion, and that makes me feel wonderful.’ ”
“Who is Joseph Mannion?” asked Soames.
“He was the son of Abigail’s servant, Sean, who died defending her from thieves. It seems that Abigail was in love with Sean for most of her life. Considering that and the context from which this quote is taken, it seems quite possible that Abigail gave the last quotation to Joseph Mannion.”
Soames wondered why Christopher Carrington had not explored the Mannion descent.
“It’s hard to say,” responded Isabelle. “He read all the diaries when I first interested him in the family history a few years ago. Maybe he never considered the Mannion reference significant. After all, everything else in the diaries indicates that Abigail was trying to keep the secret within the family.”
“Do you think you can track Mannion’s descent?” asked Pratt.
“Tomorrow I’m visiting the Massachusetts Genealogical Society, and a friend at the State House will help me research birth certificates. That’s the best way to start.”
“Let me remind you,” said Soames, “that we haven’t much time. If our plan is to work with Mr. Rule, speed is of the essence. It is Friday afternoon. We have until Monday morning.”
Soames bid them good day and left the office.
“He is a very annoying man,” said Isabelle.
“If he wasn’t annoying, he wouldn’t be Soames.” Pratt smiled. “He’s been my personal secretary since I joined Pratt Industries in 1975. I’d be lost without him.”
Isabelle studied Philip for a time. He seemed smaller, less formidable than she remembered. Once he had fitted perfectly behind the mahogany desk. Now the responsibilities that came with it threatened to engulf him.
“We need all the help we can get, don’t we?”
Pratt spun in his chair and looked down at the Public Garden. “All we can get,” he said softly. “All because of one crazy old lady who thought she was doing us a favor.”
Isabelle stood impulsively and came up behind his chair. She placed her hands gently on his shoulders. “I’ll do whatever I can, Philip.”
“Thanks, Izzy.”
She repeated the name. She hadn’t heard it in years.
They both laughed, sharing the memory. Then she began to massage his shoulders. He bowed his head foreward. She worked her hands into muscle and tendon, kneading, stretching, relaxing. She enjoyed comforting him.
“I worry about you, Philip. You’re so alone in all of this.”
“I’m lonely, Isabelle, but rarely alone. There’s a difference.” His body began to loosen and settle into the chair.
She slid her hands across his chest and clasped them in front of him. “I guess I’m lonely too, Philip. How can people be so lonely with so much?”
He placed his hands on hers. “Do we have anything that matters?”
The buzzer rang. Miss Allardyce told Philip that a young lady named Melissa Pike was on the phone.
“Tell her I’m out of town on urgent business.”
“Yes, sir.” Miss Allardyce clicked off.
Pratt looked at his cousin. “How about a game of tennis and a quiet dinner in a lonely Back Bay mansion?”
Evangeline and Peter stopped at Nahant and had lunch on the way back from Lynnewood Manor. They talked about her grandmother. They stared at the ocean for a time. And they returned to Boston around four o’clock. They parked Danny’s Chevrolet on Huntington Avenue, cut through an alley, and slipped into Evangeline’s apartment.
Jack C. Ferguson, wearing nothing but a wet towel, was seated in the kitchen. He had showered, his white hair was trimmed and neatly combed, and he smelled faintly of Jean Naté.
“Afternoon, kids,” he said cheerfully.
Evangeline looked at Peter. “I’ve been having this nightmare about a white whale in my apartment. Do you think I need to see a shrink?”
“You know, I like your girlfriend, Fallon.” Ferguson began to laugh. The rolls of sagging muscle bounced about merrily.
“I wear a thirty-four bra with a C cup,” said Evangeline. “You can borrow it any time you like.”
Ferguson flexed and the flesh tightened. “I still got it when I need it, honey, especially after a nice bath and a shave.”
“How long before the bathtub ring eats through the porcelain?”
“It usually takes about a week.” Ferguson laughed. “And I guess you’d better fumigate your washer and dryer when my clothes are finished.”
“I may just move instead.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” The good humor left Ferguson’s voice.
Fallon took out three beers and offered him one.
“No, thanks. When I shower and shave, I’m on the wagon. I got sloppy last night and nearly got blown away.”
“You mean you drank too much?” asked Evangeline.
“I mean a couple of Rule’s men were waitin’ for me when I got to my flat. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard them movin’ around. If I hadn’t drunk so damn much champagne, I would’ve known the minute I stepped into the hallway that somebody was waiting for me.”
“How?” asked Evangeline.
“I don’t live in a very safe neighborhood, honey. So I have a little security system. But I wasn’t paying attention to it.”
“What did you do?” asked Fallon.
“I set the place on fire and got the hell out.”
“I don’t think I can deal with this.” Evangeline opened her beer and sat down.
“Don’t worry. The place was a boarded-up hovel. I found another one and had a good night’s sleep. And I think that you two better find a new place, too. The Pratts are too civilized to go around knockin’ people off, but Rulick, he’s something’ else again.”
“What do you mean by that?” Evangeline didn’t like his tone.
Ferguson flipped a newspaper to Fallon. A small article on the business page was circled. It described the possible takeover of the Pratt Industries board of directors by William Rule, who had been seeking support among the major stockholders for the last several months. It said that Rule would be making an announcement on Monday at the Pratt Industries stockholders’ meeting.
“The baseball writers call this nail-bitin’ time,” said Ferguson. “Rulick can’t let anybody find that tea set between now and Monday. If they want to make a dent in his plans, the Pratts have to find it before then. If any of us wants to see the two and a half million, we have to find the tea set before any of them. But we better be careful. Rule’s been after me since the day I got sober enough to start lookin’ for the tea set. He may just get panicky and come after you, especially if he thinks you’re gettin’ close.”
“I don’t think I want this to continue,” said Evangeline evenly. “It’s getting a little too dangerous.”
Ferguson smiled. “It will continue with you or without you until it’s found. Now, what about Granny?”
Fallon described his meeting with Katherine Carrington and showed Ferguson the note.
Ferguson read it and smiled. He read it again, then he stared at it, as though it conveyed something more than the message written upon it. “After all these years,” he said softly. Then, he stood. He held the towel around his waist with one hand and the note with the other, and he paced back and forth. He seemed suddenly animated and excited.
“This is good. This is very good,” he said. “There’s one thing you learn when you’ve been on the run as long as I have—you don’t stick your neck out. But for this lady, I’ll do it. We get her out. We put her on an airplane. And we’ll be damn close to havin’ ourselves a tea set.”
“How do you know my grandmother?” asked Evangeline.
“It’s a long story, honey. You stick around and you’ll hear it. Crap out on us, and you’ll never know.”
“Put some pants on,” she said.
That evening, Fallon and Evangeline did not stay at her apartment. Ferguson suggested that they do something to make it seem as though they had given up the search. He told Peter to take Evangeline over to South Boston and have dinner with the Fallons, just like any young man introducing his girlfriend to the family. Ferguson didn’t tell them that the presence of several Fallons in one house would probably deter Rulick.
Evangeline went with Peter, although reluctantly. Whenever she considered going to the authorities, he persuaded her to look around one more corner. Each time, she discovered something about her family’s past that she did not want to know. But with each discovery, she wanted to know more. Now, she faced the possibility that around the next corner was a man with a gun.
She told herself that she should go to the police and inform them of everything she knew. That would be the rational thing to do. But as Fallon said, if they involved the police, the web might be broken and the tea set never found. Until it was, she could not live in peace. Besides, what could be rational when a mother was imprisoned by her children for her own good and a crazy derelict materialized periodically to dispense information? What was rational about her attraction to Fallon, which grew as the sense of danger deepened?
Danny, Sheila, and the kids ate dinner with Tom and Maureen on Friday nights. Scrod baked in breadcrumbs and milk. They were all delighted to see Peter walk through the door with his new girlfriend. He rarely appeared unannounced, and he’d never brought a girl before. Two more plates appeared and the six helpings of scrod quickly became eight.
The dinner was passed in pleasant conversation. Maureen and Sheila both liked Evangeline, and Danny couldn’t take his eyes off her. Tom Fallon thought she was nice enough, although a trifle on the skinny side and altogether too nervous.
When the children went out to play after dinner, Peter told his family the story of the Golden Eagle Tea Set.
Danny was the first to speak after a long silence. “You’ve gotta be shittin’.”
“You know me better than that.”
“A tea set worth two and a half million bucks buried under the Back Bay?”
Peter nodded.
Danny rubbed the palm of his hand across his five o’clock shadow. He was hooked already. “Son of a bitch.”
“If you can’t say something intelligent,” said Tom Fallon, “don’t be cursin’.”
Danny opened the refrigerator and took out a beer.
“Why have you come here with all this?” Tom asked Peter.
“Because we need your help, Pa. Right now, that means a place to stay.”
“Are you breaking the law?” he asked sternly.
Peter looked at Evangeline.
“Others have broken the law. I think Peter has bent a few,” she said.
“Well,” announced Danny, “I don’t mind bendin’ a few laws for a few million bucks. It sure would get us out of the hole, Dad.”
“That thought crossed my mind, too,” said Peter.
“Why did you get involved in this, Peter?” asked his mother.
“For a change, I just followed my nose.”
“It’s not like you to be getting into trouble, Peter,” she said.
He smiled and opened a beer. He seemed pleased with himself. “I know.”
Tom Fallon looked level at his son. “I’ll do what I can for you. I’ll never turn away when you ask me for help. But before you do anything else, I think you both should have a good night’s sleep.”
“And tomorrow,” cracked Danny, “we start diggin’!”
That night, Peter Fallon slept in his old room. Evangeline slept in the guest room. As she climbed into bed, she noticed a crucifix on the wall above her head. She was struck by its beauty. She took it down and examined it. The crucifix was silver, and the figure of Christ was engraved into the metal. The word BLOSSOM was stamped on the back.
Maureen Fallon appeared in the doorway to say goodnight.
“This crucifix is exquisite,” said Evangeline.
“Indeed it is. It was the gift of a dear friend.”