Martin Queller’s children were spoiled in that quintessential American way. Too much money. Too much education. Too much travel. Too much too much, so that the abundance of things had left them empty.
Laura Juneau found the girl in particular painful to watch. Her eyes furtively darting around the room. The nervous way she kept twitching her fingers as if they were floating across invisible keys. Her need to connect was reminiscent of an octopus blindly extending its tendrils in search of nourishment.
As for the boy—well, he had charm, and a lot could be forgiven of a charming man.
“Excuse me, madam?” The politi was lean and tall. The rifle hanging from his neck reminded Laura of her youngest son’s favorite toy. “Have you misplaced your conference badge?”
Laura gave him an apologetic look as she leaned into her walking cane. “I had planned to check in before my panel.”
“Shall I escort you?”
She had no choice but to follow. The additional security was neither unexpected nor without cause. Protestors were picketing outside the Oslo conference center—the usual mix of anarchists, anti-fascists, skinheads and trouble-makers alongside some of Norway’s Pakistani immigrants, who were angry about recent immigration policy. The unrest had found its way inside, where there were lingering suspicions around Arne Treholt’s trial the previous year. The former labor party politician was serving a twenty-year term for high treason. There were those who believed the Russians had more spies planted within the Norwegian government. There were still more who feared that the KGB was spreading Hydra-like into the rest of Scandinavia.
The politi turned to ensure Laura was following. The cane was a hindrance, but she was forty-three, not ninety-three. Still, he cut a channel for her through the crowd of stodgy old men in boxy suits, all wearing badges that identified them by name, nationality, and field of expertise. There were the expected scions from top universities—MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Cal Tech, Stanford—alongside the usual suspects: Exxon, Tenneco, Eastman Kodak, Raytheon, DuPont and, in a nod to keynote speaker Lee Iacocca, a healthy smattering of senior executives from the Chrysler Motor Company.
The check-in table was beneath a large banner reading WELCOME TO G-FAB. As with everything else at the Global Finance and Business Consortium, the words were written in English, French, German and, in deference to the conference hosts, Norwegian.
“Thank you,” Laura told the officer, but the man would not be dismissed. She smiled at the woman sitting behind the table, and delivered the well-practiced lie: “I’m Dr. Alex Maplecroft with the University of California at Berkeley.”
The woman thumbed through a card catalog and pulled the appropriate credentials. Laura had a moment of relief when she thought that the woman would simply hand over the badge, but she said, “Your identification, please, madam.”
Laura rested her cane against the table. She unzipped her purse. She reached for her wallet. She willed the tremble out of her fingers.
She had practiced for this, too; not formally, but in her mind, Laura had walked herself through the steps of approaching the check-in table, pulling out her wallet and showing the fake ID that identified her as Alexandra Maplecroft, Professor of Economics.
I’m very sorry but could you hurry? My panel starts in a few minutes.
“Madam.” The woman behind the table looked not at Laura’s eyes, but at her hair. “Could you kindly remove your identification from your wallet?”
Another layer of scrutiny Laura had not anticipated. She again found her hands trembling as she tried to work the card from beneath the plastic sleeve. According to the forger in Toronto, the ID was perfect, but then the man’s vocation was deception. What if the girl behind the table found a flaw? What if a photo of the real Alex Maplecroft had somehow been scrounged? Would the politi drag Laura away in handcuffs? Would the last six months of careful planning fall apart for want of a simple plastic card?
“Dr. Maplecroft!”
They all turned to locate the source of the yelling.
“Andrew, come meet Dr. Maplecroft!”
Laura had always known Nicholas Harp to be breathtakingly handsome. In fact, the woman behind the table inhaled sharply as he approached.
“Dr. Maplecroft, how lovely to see you again.” Nick shook her hand with both of his. The wink he offered was clearly meant to reassure her, but Laura would find no reassurance from this point forward. He said, “I was in your econ 401 at Berkeley. Racial and Gender Disparities in Western Economies. I can’t believe I finally remembered.”
“Yes.” Laura was always taken aback by the ease with which Nick lied. “How lovely to see you again, Mister—”
“Harp. Nicholas Harp. Andrew!” He waved over another young man, handsome but less so, similarly dressed in chinos and a button-down, light blue polo. Future captains of industry, these young men. Their sun-bleached hair just so. Skin tanned a healthy bronze. Stiff collars upturned. No socks. Pennies stuck into the slots on the top of their loafers.
Nick said, “Andy, be quick. Dr. Maplecroft doesn’t have all day.”
Andrew Queller seemed flustered. Laura could understand why. The plan had dictated that they all stay anonymous and separate from one another. Andrew glanced at the girl behind the table, and in that moment, seemed to understand why Nick had risked breaking cover. “Dr. Maplecroft, you’re on Father’s two p.m. panel, I believe? ‘Socio-Political Ramifications of the Queller Correction.’”
“Yes, that’s right.” Laura tried to force some naturalness into her tone. “You’re Andrew, Martin’s middle child?”
“Guilty.” Andrew smiled at the girl. “Is there a problem, miss?”
His sense of entitlement was communicable. The woman handed Laura the badge for Dr. Alex Maplecroft, and like that, Laura was legitimized.
“Thank you,” Nick told the girl, who beamed under his attention.
“Yes, thank you.” Laura’s hands were considerably more steady as she pinned the badge to the breast of her navy-blue blazer.
“Madam.” The politi took his leave.
Laura found her cane. She wanted to get away from the table.
“Not so fast, Dr. Maplecroft.” Nick, ever the showman, clapped together his hands. “Shall we buy you a drink?”
“It’s very early,” Laura said, though in fact she could use something to calm her nerves. “I’m not sure what time it is.”
“Just shy of one,” Andrew provided. He was using a handkerchief to wipe his already red nose. “Sorry, I caught a stinking cold on the flight.”
She tried to keep the sadness out of her smile. Laura had wanted to mother him from the beginning. “You should find some soup.”
“I should.” He tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “We’ll see you in an hour, then? Your panel will be in the Raufoss ballroom. Father was told to get there ten minutes ahead of time.”
“You might want to freshen up before that.” Nick nodded toward the ladies room. He was giddy with the deception. “It’s a wonder they even bothered to open it, Dr. Maplecroft. The wives have all gone on a shopping excursion to Storo. It appears you’re the only woman slated to speak at the conference.”
“Nick,” Andrew cautioned. “‘It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.’”
“Ouch, old boy. I know it’s time to go when you start quoting Spinal Tap.” Nick gave Laura another wink before allowing Andrew to lead him away. The river of suited old men turned as the two young bucks, so full of life and possibility, rode in their wake.
Laura pursed her lips and drew in a shallow breath. She feigned interest in locating an item inside of her handbag as she tried to regain her equilibrium.
As was often the case when she was around Nick and Andrew, Laura was reminded of her eldest son. On the day he was murdered, David Juneau was sixteen years old. The fuzz along his jaw had started to form into the semblance of a beard. His father had already shown him at the bathroom mirror how much shaving cream to use, how to draw the blade down his cheek and up his neck. Laura could still recall that crisp fall morning, their last morning, how the sun had teased its fingers through the fine hairs on David’s chin as she had poured orange juice into his glass.
“Dr. Maplecroft?” The voice was hesitant, the vowels rounded in that distinctively Scandinavian way. “Dr. Alex Maplecroft?”
Laura furtively glanced for Nick to save her again.
“Dr. Maplecroft?” The Scandinavian had persuaded himself that he had the right person. There was nothing more validatory than a plastic conference badge. “Professor Jacob Brundstad, Norges Handelshøyskole. I was eager to discuss—”
“It’s my pleasure to meet you, Professor Brundstad.” Laura gave his hand a firm shake. “Shall we speak after my panel? It’s in less than an hour and I need to collect my notes. I hope you understand.”
He was too polite to argue. “Of course.”
“I look forward to it.” Laura stabbed her cane into the floor as she turned away.
She inserted herself into the crowd of white-haired men with pipes and cigarettes and briefcases and rolled sheaths of paper in their hands. That she was being stared at was undeniable. She propelled herself forward, head held high. She had studied Dr. Alex Maplecroft enough to understand that the woman’s arrogance was legend. Laura had watched from the back of packed classes as Maplecroft eviscerated the slower students; overheard her chastising colleagues for not reaching the point quickly enough.
Or maybe it wasn’t arrogance so much as the wall Maplecroft had built in order to protect herself from the stares of angry men. Nick was correct when he said that the renowned economics professor was the only woman slated to speak at the conference. The accusatory looks—Why isn’t that waitress wearing a uniform? Why isn’t she emptying our ashtrays?—were doubly warranted.
Laura hesitated. She was walking straight into nothing; a blank wall with a poster advertising Eastern Airline’s Moonlight Special flights. Under such withering examination, she felt she could not reverse course. She took a sharp right and found herself standing at the closed glass door leading into the bar.
Blessedly, Laura found the door unlocked.
Stale smoke with an undertone of expensive bourbon shrouded the bar. There was a wooden dance floor with a darkened disco ball. The booths were low to the floor. Darkened mirrors hung from the ceiling. Laura’s watch was turned to Toronto time, but she gathered from the empty room that it was still too early to have a proper drink.
After today, Dr. Maplecroft’s reputation would be the least of her worries.
Laura could hear the tinkling of keys on the piano as she took her place at the end of the bar. She rested her cane against the wall. Her hand was reliably steady as she found the pack of Marlboros in her purse. There was a box of matches on top of the glass ashtray. The flash of nicotine catching fire soothed her jangling nerves.
The bartender came through the swinging door. He was stout and starched with a white apron wrapped around his thick waist. “Madam?”
“Gin and tonic,” she said, her voice soft, because the cacophonous notes from the piano had turned into a familiar melody; not Rossini or even, given the locale, Edvard Grieg, but a slow tune that escalated into a familiar verve.
Laura smiled as she blew out a plume of smoke.
She recognized the song from the radio. A-ha, the Norwegian singing group with the funny cartoon video. “Take On Me” or “Take Me On” or some variation of those words repeated ad nauseam over a relentlessly chirpy electric keyboard.
When Laura’s daughter was still alive, the same type of candy synthpop had recurrently blared from Lila’s record player or Walkman or even her mouth while she was in the shower. Every car trip, no matter how short, began with her daughter tuning the radio dial to The Quake. Laura was not shy with her daughter when she explained why the silly songs grated on her nerves. The Beatles. The Stones. James Brown. Stevie Wonder. Those were artists.
Laura had never felt so old as when Lila had made her watch a Madonna video on MTV. The only semi-positive comment Laura could muster was, “What a bold choice to wear her underwear on the outside.”
Laura retrieved a pack of tissues from her purse and wiped her eyes.
“Madam.” The bartender pronounced the word as an apology, gently placing her drink on a cocktail napkin.
“May I join you?”
Laura was stunned to find Jane Queller suddenly at her elbow. Andrew’s sister was a complete stranger and meant to stay that way. Laura struggled to keep the recognition out of her expression. She had only ever seen the girl in photographs or from a great distance. Up close, she looked younger than her twenty-three years. Her voice, too, was deeper than Laura had imagined.
Jane said, “Please forgive the interruption.” She had seen Laura’s tears. “I was just sitting over there wondering if it’s too early to drink alone.”
Laura quickly recovered. “I think it is. Won’t you join me?”
Jane hesitated. “You’re sure?”
“I insist.”
Jane sat, nodding for the same from the bartender. “I’m Jane Queller. I think I saw you talking to my brother, Andrew.”
“Alex Maplecroft.” For the first time in this entire enterprise, Laura regretted a lie. “I’m on a panel with your father in”—she checked the clock on the wall—“forty-five minutes.”
Jane worked artlessly to mask her reaction to the news. Her eyes, as was so often the case, went to Laura’s hairline. “Your photo wasn’t in the conference directory.”
“I’m not much for photographs.” Laura had heard Alex Maplecroft say the same thing at a lecture in San Francisco. Along with shortening her first name, the doctor felt hiding the fact of her womanhood was the only way to make sure that her work was taken seriously.
Jane asked, “Has Father ever met you in person?”
Laura found the phrasing odd—not asking if she’d met Martin Queller, but whether or not Martin Queller had met her. “No, not that I can recall.”
“I think I’ll actually enjoy attending one of the old man’s panels, then.” Jane picked up her glass as soon as the bartender set it down. “I’m sure you’re aware of his reputation.”
“I am.” Laura raised her own glass in a toast. “Any advice?”
Jane’s nose wrinkled in thought. “Don’t listen to the first five words he says to you, because none of them will make you feel good about yourself.”
“Is that a general rule?”
“It’s carved into the family coat of arms.”
“Is that before or after the ‘arbeit macht frei’?”
Jane choked out a laugh, spitting gin and tonic onto the bar. She used the cocktail napkin to wipe up the mess. Her long, elegant fingers looked incongruous to the task. “Could I bum one off you?”
She meant the cigarettes. Laura slid the pack over, but warned, “They’ll kill you.”
“Yes, that’s what Dr. Koop tells us.” Jane held the cigarette between her lips. She picked open the box of matches, but ended up scattering them across the bar. “God. I’m so sorry.” Jane looked like a self-conscious child as she gathered the matches. “Clumsy Jinx strikes again.”
The phrase had a practiced tone. Laura could imagine Martin Queller had found unique and precise ways to remind his children that they would never be perfect.
“Madam?” The bartender had appeared with a light.
“Thank you.” Rather than cup her hands to his, Jane leaned toward the match. She inhaled deeply, her eyes closed like a cat enjoying a sunbeam. When she found Laura watching, she laughed out puffs of smoke. “Sorry, I’ve been in Europe for three months. It’s good to have an American cigarette.”
“I thought all of you young expats enjoyed smoking Gauloises and arguing about Camus and the tragedy of the human condition?”
“If only.” Jane coughed out another cloud of dark smoke.
Laura felt a sudden maternal rush toward the girl. She wanted to snatch the cigarette from her hand, but she knew the gesture would be pointless. At twenty-three, Laura had been desperate for the years to come more quickly, to firmly step into her adulthood, to establish herself, to become someone. She had not yet felt the desire to claw back time as you would a piece of wet muslin clinging to your face; that one day her back might ache as she climbed the stairs, that her stomach could sag from childbirth, that her spine might become misshapen from a cancerous tumor.
“Disagree with him.” Jane held the cigarette between her thumb and forefinger, the same way as her brother. “That’s my advice to you on Father. He can’t stomach people contradicting him.”
“I’ve staked my reputation on contradicting him.”
“I hope you’re prepared for battle.” She indicated the conference buzzing outside the barroom door. “Was it Jonah or Daniel who was in the lion’s den?”
“Jonah was in the belly of a whale. Daniel was in the lions’ den.”
“Yes, of course. God sent an angel to close the lions’ mouths.”
“Is your father really that bad?” Laura realized too late the pointedness of her question. All three Queller children had found their own particular way to live in their father’s shadow.
Jane said, “I’m sure you can hold your own against the Mighty Martin. You weren’t invited here on a whim. Just keep in mind that once he’s locked onto something, he won’t back down. All or none is the Queller way.” She didn’t seem to expect a reply. Her eyes kept finding the mirror behind the bar as she scanned the empty room. Here was the octopus from the lobby, the one who was desperately in search of something, anything, that would render her whole.
Laura asked, “You’re Martin’s youngest?”
“Yes, then Andrew, then there’s our older brother, Jasper. He’s given up glory in the Air Force to join the family business.”
“Economic advisory?”
“Oh, God, no. The money-making side. We’re all terribly proud of him.”
Laura disregarded the sarcasm. She knew full well the details of Jasper Queller’s ascendancy. “Was that you just now on the piano?”
Jane offered a self-deprecating eye-roll. “Grieg seemed too aphoristic.”
“I saw you play once.” The shock of truthfulness brought an image to Laura’s mind: Jinx Queller at the piano, the entire audience held rapt as her hands floated across the keyboard. Squaring that remarkably confident performer with the anxious young girl beside her—the nails bitten to the quick, the furtive glances at the mirror—was an unwieldy task.
Laura asked, “You don’t go by Jinx anymore?”
Another eye-roll. “An unfortunate cross I bore from my childhood.”
Laura knew from Andrew that Jane abhorred the family nickname. It felt wrong to know so much about the girl when she knew nothing of Laura, but this was how the game had to be played. “Jane suits you more, I think.”
“I like to think so.” She silently tapped ash off of her cigarette. The fact that Laura had seen her perform was clearly bothersome. Had Jane been rendered in paint, lines of anxiety would have radiated from her body. She finally asked, “Where did you see me play?”
“The Hollywood Bowl.”
“Last year?”
“Eighty-four.” Laura worked to keep the melancholy out of her tone. The concert had been a last-minute invitation from her husband. They had eaten dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant. Laura had drunk too much chianti. She could remember leaning into her husband as they walked to the parking lot. The feel of his hand on her waist. The smell of his cologne.
Jane said, “That was part of the Jazz Bowl before the Olympics. I sat in with the Richie Reedie Orchestra. There was a Harry James tribute and”—she squinted her eyes in memory—“I fell out of time during ‘Two O’Clock Jump.’ Thank God the horns came in early.”
Laura hadn’t noticed any slips, just that the crowd had been on its feet by the end. “Do you only remember your performances by their mistakes?”
She shook her head, but there was more to the story. Jane Queller had been a world-class pianist. She had sacrificed her youth to music. She had given up classical for jazz, then jazz for studio work. Between them all, she had performed in some of the most venerated halls and venues.
And then she had walked away.
“I read your paper on punitive taxation.” Jane lifted her chin toward the bartender, silently requesting another drink. “If you’re wondering, Father expects us to keep up with his professional life. Even from nearly six thousand miles away.”
“How edifying.”
“I’d say it’s more alarming than edifying. He sneaks his clippings into my mother’s letters to save postage. ‘Dear Daughter, we attended supper with the Flannigans this weekend and please be prepared to answer questions pertaining to the enclosed abstract on macroeconomic variables in Nicaragua.’” Jane watched the gin fall from the bottle. The bartender was being more generous with the alcohol than he’d been with Laura, but beautiful young women always got more.
Jane said, “Your passage about the weaponization of financial policy against minorities really made me think about government in a different way. Though, to hear my father tell it, your type of social engineering will ruin the world.”
“Only for men like him.”
“Be careful.” This was a serious warning. “My father does not like to be contradicted. Especially by women.” She met Laura’s gaze. “Especially by women who look like you.”
Laura remembered something her mother had told her a long time ago. “Men never have to be uncomfortable around women. Women have to be uncomfortable around men all of the time.”
Jane gave a rueful laugh as she stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray.
Laura motioned for another gin and tonic, though the first one sat sourly in her stomach. She needed her hands to stop shaking, her heart to stop pattering like a frightened rabbit.
The clock gave her only thirty minutes to prepare herself.
In the best of circumstances, Laura had never been a comfortable public speaker. She was a watcher by nature, preferring to blend with the crowd. Behind Iacocca’s keynote, the Queller panel was expected to be the most well-attended of the conference. The ticket supply had been exhausted within a day of the announcement. There were two other men who would join them, a German analyst from the RAND Corporation, and a Belgian executive from Royal Dutch Shell, but the focus of the eight hundred attendees would be squarely on the two Americans.
Even Laura had to admit that Martin Queller’s C.V. could draw a crowd: former president of Queller Healthcare, professor emeritus at the Queller School of Economics, Long Beach, former advisor to the governor of California, current member of the President’s Council on Economic Development, at the top of the shortlist to replace James Baker as Secretary of the Treasury, and, most importantly, progenitor of the Queller Correction.
It was the Correction that had brought them all here. While Alex Maplecroft had managed to distinguish herself first at Harvard, then Stanford and Berkeley, she would have likely lived in academic obscurity but for her writings and publications accomplishing something that no man dared: vehemently questioning the morality of not just the Queller Correction, but Martin Queller himself.
Given Martin’s standing in the economic and business community, this was tantamount to nailing the Ninety-Five Theses on the church doors.
Laura gladly counted herself among Maplecroft’s converts.
In a nutshell, the Queller Correction posited that economic expansion has historically been underpinned by an undesirable minority or immigrant working class that is kept in check by nativistic corrections.
The progress of many on the backs of an other.
Irish immigrants erecting New York’s bridges and skyscrapers. Chinese laborers building the transcontinental railroad. Italian workers fueling the textile industry. Here was the so-called nativistic correction: Alien Land Laws. No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. The Emergency Quota Act. The Literacy Act. Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Chinese Exclusion Act. Jim Crow. Plessy v. Ferguson. The Bracero Programs. Poll taxes. Operation Wetback.
The research behind Martin’s theory was well substantiated. One might even call it a summation of facts rather than an actual theory. The problem—at least according to Alex Maplecroft—was that the Queller Correction was being used not as an academic term to describe a historical phenomenon but as a justification for setting current monetary and social policy. A sort of “history repeats itself,” but without the usual irony.
Here were some of the more recent Queller Corrections: less AIDS funding to thin out the homosexual population, harsher sentences for African American crack users, regressive penalties for post-conviction felons, mandatory life sentences for repeat offenders, the for-profit privatization of prisons and mental health facilities.
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, Alex Maplecroft derided the thinking that went into the Queller Correction with this inflammatory line: “One wonders if Hermann Göring swallowed that cyanide capsule after all.”
“Doctor?” Jane pulled Laura out of her thoughts. “Do you mind if—”
The girl wanted another cigarette. Laura shook two out of the pack.
This time, the bartender had a light for both of them.
Laura held in the smoke. She watched Jane watching the mirror. She asked, “Why did you give up performing?”
At first, Jane did not answer. She must have been asked the same question dozens of times. Maybe she was preparing to give Laura the same pat answer, but something altered in her expression as she turned in her seat. “Do you know how many famous women pianists there are?”
Laura was no musical expert—that had been her husband’s hobby—but she had the tickling of a memory. “There’s a Brazilian woman, Maria Arruda, or . . . ?”
“Martha Argerich, from Argentina, but well done.” Jane smiled without humor. “Name another.”
Laura shrugged. She had not technically named one.
Jane said, “I was backstage at Carnegie, and I looked around and realized I was the only woman there. Which had happened before, many times, but this was the first time that I had really noticed. And that people noticed me.” She rolled the ash off of her cigarette. “So then my teacher dropped me.” The sudden appearance of tears at the corners of her eyes indicated the girl was still stung by the loss. “I’d trained with Pechenikov from the age of eight, but he told me that he had taken me as far as I could go.”
Laura felt the need to ask, “Can you not find another teacher?”
“No one will take me on.” She puffed the cigarette. “Pechenikov was the best, so I went to the second best. Then the third. By the time I worked my way down to the junior high band directors, I realized that they were using the same code.” She held Laura’s gaze with a knowing expression. “When they said, ‘I don’t have time to take on a new student,’ what they meant was, ‘I’m not going to waste my talent and effort on a silly girl who’s going to give it all up once she falls in love.’”
“Ah,” Laura said, because that was really all she could say.
“It’s easier in some ways, I suppose. I’ve been devoting three or four hours a day, every day of my life, to practicing. Classical is so exact. You have to play every note as written. Your dynamics matter almost more than touch. With jazz, there’s a melodic expression you can bring to the piece. And rock—do you know The Doors?”
Laura had to shift her thinking in a different direction. “Jim Morrison?”
Jane tapped her fingers on the bar top. At first, Laura only heard a frantic rapping, but then, remarkably—
“‘Love Me Two Times.’” Laura laughed at the neat trick.
Jane said, “Manzarek played both the keyboard part and the bass part at the same time. It’s amazing how he pulled it off, as if each hand worked completely independent of the other. A split personality, almost, but people don’t concentrate on the technical aspects. They just love the sound.” She kept tapping out the song as she spoke. “If I can’t play music that people appreciate, then I want to play music that people love.”
“Good for you.” Laura let the beats play in the silence for a moment before asking, “You’ve been in Europe for the last three months, you said?”
“Berlin.” Jane’s hands finally wound down. “I was filling in as a session pianist at Hansa Tonstudio.”
Laura shook her head. She had never heard of it.
“It’s a recording studio by the Wall. They have a space, the Meistersaal, which has the most beautiful acoustics for every type of music—classical, chamber, pop, rock. Bowie recorded there. Iggy Pop. Depeche Mode.”
“Sounds like you’ve met some famous people.”
“Oh, no. My part’s done by the time they roll in. That’s the beauty of it. It’s just me and my performance in isolation. No one knows who’s behind the keyboard. No one cares if you’re a woman, or a man, or a French poodle. They just want you to feel the music, and that’s what I’m good at—feeling where the notes go.” A glow of excitement enhanced her natural beauty. “If you love music—really, truly, love music—then you play it for yourself.”
Laura felt herself nodding. She had no musical point of reference, but she understood that the pure love of something could not only give you strength but propel you forward.
Still, she said, “It’s a lot to give up.”
“Is it?” Jane seemed genuinely curious. “How can I give up something that was never really offered to me because of what’s between my legs?” She gave a hard laugh. “Or not between my legs, or what might come out from between my legs at some point in the future.”
“Men can always reinvent themselves,” Laura said. “For women, once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother.”
“That’s not terribly feminist of you, Dr. Maplecroft.”
“No, but you understand this because you’re a chameleon like me. If you can’t play the music people appreciate, then you play the music that they love.” Laura hoped that one day that might change. Then again, she hoped every morning when she woke up that she would hear Lila’s awful music on the radio, watch Peter run around the living room looking for his shoes, and find David talking low into the telephone because he did not want his mother to know that he had a girlfriend.
“You should go.” Jane pointed to the clock. The forty-five minutes were almost up.
Laura wanted to keep talking, but she knew she had no choice. She reached into her purse for her wallet.
“It’s on me,” Jane offered.
“I couldn’t—”
“I should say it’s on the Queller family tab.”
“All right,” Laura agreed. She slid from the stool, stifling a wince from the pain as she put weight back on her leg. Her cane was where she had left it. She gripped the silver knob in her hand. She looked at Jane and wondered if this was the last person she would have a normal conversation with. If that turned out to be the case, she was glad.
She told the girl, “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”
“You, too.” Jane offered, “I’ll be on the front row if you need a friendly face.”
Laura felt enormously sad at the news. Uncharacteristically, she reached out and covered Jane’s hand with her own. She could feel the coolness of the girl’s skin. Laura wondered how long it had been since she had touched another human being for comfort.
She blurted out the words, “You are a magnificent person.”
“Gosh.” Jane blushed.
“It’s not because you’re talented, or beautiful, though you certainly are both. It’s because you’re so uniquely you.” Laura said the words that she wished she’d had time to tell her own daughter: “Everything about you is amazing.”
The blush reddened as Jane struggled for a pithy response.
“No.” Laura would not let the girl’s sarcasm ruin the moment. “You’ll find your way, Jane, and it will be the right way, no matter what, because it’s the path that you set out for yourself.” She squeezed the girl’s hand one last time. “That’s my advice.”
Laura felt Jane’s eyes follow her progress as she slowly walked across the room. She had sat at the bar too long. Her foot was numb. The bullet lodged inside of her back felt as if it was a living, breathing thing. She cursed the shard of metal, no larger than the nail on her pinky finger, that sat dangerously close to her spinal cord.
Just this once, this last time, she wanted to move quickly, to recapture some of her former agility, and complete the task before Jane could find her seat on the front row.
The lobby had emptied of important men, but their cigarette and pipe smoke lingered. Laura pushed open the door to the ladies room.
Empty, as Nick had predicted.
She walked to the last stall. She opened and closed the door. She struggled with the lock. The sliding bolt would not fit into the slot. She banged it twice, the metal singing against metal, then finally got it to stay closed.
Laura was overcome by a sudden dizziness. She pressed her hands to the walls. She took a few moments to stabilize. The two drinks on top of her jet lag had been a mistake, but she could be forgiven her fatalistic choices on today of all days.
The toilet was old-fashioned, the tank mounted high on the wall. She reached behind it. Her heart fluttered as she blindly searched. She felt the tape first. Her panic ebbed only slightly as her fingers traced their way up to the paper bag.
The door opened.
“Hej-hej?” a man said.
Laura froze, heart stopped.
“Hello?” The man was dragging something heavy across the floor. “Cleaner here. Hello?”
“Just a moment,” Laura called back, the words choking in her throat.
“Cleaner,” he repeated.
“Nej,” she said, more stridently. “Occupied.”
He gave a vexed sigh.
She waited.
Another sigh.
Another moment.
Finally, he dragged whatever he had brought into the toilets back across the floor. He closed the door so hard that the stall door slipped its flimsy lock and creaked open.
Laura felt the sliding bolt press its finger into the small of her back.
Improbably, a laugh tickled the back of her throat. She could only imagine what she looked like, skirt rucked up, standing with a leg on either side of the toilet bowl, her hand up the back of the tank.
All that was missing was the sound of a passing train and Michael Corleone.
Laura pulled down the paper bag. She shoved it into her purse. She went to the sink. She checked her hair and lipstick in the mirror. She studied her reflection as she washed her trembling hands.
The eyeshadow was jarring. She had never really worn make-up in her normal life. Her hair was normally worn back off her face. She normally wore jeans and one of her husband’s shirts and a pair of her son’s sneakers that he normally left by the door.
Normally, she had a camera swung around her neck.
Normally, she was frantically running around, trying to book sessions, working sessions, planning recitals and rehearsals and practice and meals and time to cook and time to read and time to love.
But normal wasn’t normal anymore.
Laura dried her hands on a paper towel. She put on fresh lipstick. She bared her white teeth to the mirror.
The cleaner was waiting outside the ladies room. He was smoking, leaning against a large trash can that had spray bottles looped around the sides.
Laura suppressed the urge to apologize. She checked the paper bag in her purse. She pulled closed the zipper. The dizziness returned, but she managed to shake it. There was nothing to do about the churning in her stomach. Her heart was a metronome at the base of her throat. She could feel the blood pulsing through her veins. Her vision sharpened to the point of a tack.
“Dr. Maplecroft?” A flustered young woman in a floral dress approached from nowhere. “Follow me, please. Your panel will start soon.”
Laura tried to keep up with the girl’s brisk, almost panicked walk. They were halfway down the hall when Laura realized she was getting winded. She slowed down, letting her hand rest longer on the cane. She had to remain calm. What she was about to do could not be rushed.
“Madam,” the young girl pleaded, motioning for Laura to hurry.
“They won’t start without me,” Laura said, though she wasn’t certain, given Martin Queller’s reputation, that the man would wait. She found the pack of tissues in her purse. She wiped the sweat from her forehead.
A door flew open.
“Young lady.” Martin Queller was snapping his fingers as if to call a dog. “Where is Maplecroft?” He glanced at Laura. “Coffee, two sugars.”
The girl tried, “Doctor—”
“Coffee,” Martin repeated, visibly annoyed. “Are you deaf?”
“I’m Dr. Maplecroft.”
He did a double-take. Twice. “Alex Maplecroft?”
“Alexandra.” She offered her hand. “I’m glad for this opportunity to meet in person.”
A group of colleagues had congregated behind him. Martin had no choice but to shake her hand. His eyes, as was the case with so many before him, went to her hair. That’s what gave it away. Laura’s skin tone was closer to her white mother’s, but she had the distinctive, kinky hair of her black father.
Martin said, “I understand you now. You’ve let your anecdotal experiences color your research.”
Laura gazed down at the stark white hand she was holding. “Color is such an interesting choice of words, Martin.”
He corrected her, “It’s Dr. Queller.”
“Yes, I heard about you while I was at Harvard.” Laura turned toward the man on Martin’s right; the German, judging by the sharp gray suit and thin navy tie. “Dr. Richter?”
“Friedrich, please. It is my pleasure.” The man could hardly be bothered to hide his smile. He pulled over another man, gray-haired but wearing a fashionable, teal-colored jacket. “May I introduce you to our fellow panelist, Herr Dr. Maes?”
“So good to meet you.” Laura shook the Belgian’s hand, feeding off Martin’s obvious disdain. She turned to the young woman. “Are we ready to begin?”
“Certainly, madam.” The girl escorted them across the hall to the stage entrance.
The introductions had already begun. The lights were darkened in the wings. The girl used a flashlight to show the way. Laura could hear the rumble of male voices from the audience. Another man, the announcer, was speaking into a microphone. His French was too rapid for Laura to follow. She was grateful when he switched to English.
“And now, enough of my babbling, hey? Without further ado, we must welcome our four panelists.”
The applause shook the floor beneath Laura’s feet. Butterflies flipped inside her stomach. Eight hundred people. The house lights had gone up. Just past the curtain, she could see the right side of the auditorium. The audience, most all of them men, was standing, their hands clapping, waiting for the show to begin.
“Doctor?” Friedrich Richter murmured.
Her fellow panelists were waiting for Laura to lead the way. Even Martin Queller had the basic manners to not walk out ahead of a woman. This was the moment Laura had waited for. This was what had forced her out of her hospital bed, pushed her to complete the excruciating therapies, propelled her onto the four airplanes she’d taken to get here.
And yet, Laura felt herself frozen in place, momentarily lost in what she was about to do.
“For Godsakes.” Martin quickly grew impatient. He strode onto the stage.
The crowd roared at his appearance. Feet were stamped. Hands were waved. Fists were pumped.
Friedrich and Maes performed a Laurel and Hardy-like pantomime of who would have the honor of letting Laura precede them.
She had to go. She had to do this.
Now.
The air grew suffocatingly close as she walked onto the stage. Despite the howl of cheers and applause, Laura was conscious of the hard tap of her cane across the wooden boards. She felt her shoulders roll in. Her head bowed. The urge to make herself smaller was overpowering.
She looked up.
More lights. A fugue of cigarette smoke hung in the rafters.
She turned toward the audience—not to see the crowd, but to find Jane. She was in the front row, as promised. Andrew was to her left, Nick to her right, but it was Jane who held Laura’s attention. They exchanged private smiles before Laura turned back to the stage.
She had to start this so that she could end it.
Microphones pointed rifle-like at four chairs that were separated by small side tables. Laura had not been part of any discussion regarding seating, so she stopped at the first chair. Beads of sweat broke out onto her upper lip. The harsh lights might as well have been lasers. She realized too late that this was the part she should have practiced. The chair was typical Scandinavian design: beautiful to look at, but low to the ground with not much support in the back. Worse yet, it appeared to swivel.
“Doctor?” Maes grabbed the back of the adjacent chair, holding it still for her. So, Laura was meant to go in the middle. She lowered herself into the low chair, the muscles in her shoulders and legs spasming with pain.
“Yes?” Maes offered to lay her cane on the floor.
“Yes.” Laura clutched her purse in her lap. “Thank you.”
Maes took the chair on her left. Friedrich walked to the far end, leaving the chair beside Laura empty.
She looked past the pointed end of the microphones into the crowd. The clapping was tapering off. People were starting to take their seats.
Martin Queller was not quite ready to let them settle. He stood with his hand high in the air as he saluted the audience. Poor optics, given Maplecroft’s line about Göring. As was the slight bow he gave before finally taking the chair center stage.
Now the audience began to settle. The last of the stray claps died down. The house lights lowered. The stage lights came up.
Laura blinked, momentarily blinded. She waited for the inevitable, which was for Martin Queller to adjust the microphone to his satisfaction and begin speaking.
He said, “On behalf of my fellow panelists, I’d like to thank you for your attendance. It is my fervent hope that our discourse remain lively and civil and, most importantly, that it lives up to your expectations.” He looked to his left, then right, as he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a stack of index cards. “Let’s begin with what Comrade General Secretary Gorbachev has dubbed the ‘Era of Stagnation.’”
There was laughter from the crowd.
“Dr. Maes, let’s let you take this one.” Martin Queller was, it must be said, a man who could command a room. He was clearly putting on a show, teasing around the edges of the topic they had all come to see debated. In his youth, he’d likely been considered attractive in that way that money makes a boring man suddenly interesting. Age had agreed with him. Laura knew he was sixty-three, but his dark hair was only slightly peppered with gray. The aquiline nose was less pronounced than in his photographs, which had likely been chosen for their ability to garner respect rather than physical admiration. People often mistook personality for character.
“What of Chernenko, Herr Richter?” Martin’s voice boomed without the aid of a microphone. “Is it likely we’ll see the full implementation of Andropov’s arguably modest reforms?”
“Well,” Friedrich began. “As perhaps the Russians would tell us, ‘When money speaks, the truth keeps silent.’”
There was another smattering of laughter.
Laura shifted in the chair as she tried to relieve the pain radiating down her leg. Her sciatic nerve sang like the strings of a harp. Instead of listening to Friedrich’s densely academic answer, she stared off to the side of the audience. There was a bank of lights hanging from a metal pole. A man stood on a raised platform working a shoulder-mounted Beta Movie video camera. His hand manually twisted around the lens. The lighting had likely thrown off the auto-focus.
Laura looked down at her own hand. The thumb and two of her fingers were still calloused from years of adjusting the focus ring on her Hasselblad.
The month before Lila had died, she’d told Laura that she wanted to take photography lessons, just not from her mother. Laura had been hurt. She was, after all, a professional photographer. But then a friend had reminded Laura that teenage girls were finished learning from their mothers until they had children of their own, and Laura had decided to bide her time.
And then time had run out.
All because of Martin Queller.
“—the juxtaposition of social policy and economics,” Martin was saying. “So, Dr. Maplecroft, while you might disagree with what you call the ‘atavistic tone’ of the Queller Correction, I merely sought to put a name to a statistically occurring phenomenon.”
Laura saw his chest rise as he took a breath to continue, so she jumped in. “I wonder, Dr. Queller, if you understand that your policies have real-world implications.”
“They are not policies, dear. They are theories assigned to what you yourself have described as tribal morality.”
“But, Doctor—”
“If you find my conclusions cold, then I would warn you that statistics are, in fact, a cold mistress.” He seemed to enjoy the turn of phrase. It had appeared in many of his editorials and essays. “Using emotion or hysterics to interpret the datum opens up the entire field to ridicule. You might as well ask a janitor to explain how the volcanic eruption at Beerenberg will influence weather patterns in Guam.”
He seemed very smug about the pronouncement. Laura yearned to be the one who slapped that self-satisfied grin off of his face. She said, “You say that your theories are not policies, but in fact, your economic theories have been used to affect policy.”
“You flatter me,” he said, though in a way that indicated the flattery was warranted.
“Your work influenced the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in ’67.”
Martin scowled at the comment, but then turned to the audience and said, “For the benefit of the Europeans, you should explain that the Patients’ Bill of Rights was a landmark piece of legislation in the state of California. Among other things, it helped end the practice of institutionalizing people in mental hospitals against their will.”
“Didn’t the bill also cut funding to state mental hospitals?”
The smirk on his lips said he knew where this was going. “The funding cuts were temporary. Then-governor Reagan reinstated the funds the following year.”
“To previous levels?”
“You’ve spent your life in front of a chalkboard, Maplecroft. It’s different in the real world. The turning of government policy is as the turning of a battleship. You need a lot of room to make corrections.”
“Some would call them mistakes rather than corrections.” Laura held up her hand to stop his retort. “And another correction was that the following year, the criminal justice system saw twice as many mentally ill people entering into, and staying in, the criminal justice system.”
“Well—”
“The overcrowding of the California penal system has given rise to violent gangs, led to the re-incarceration of thousands and helped incubate an explosion of HIV cases.” Laura turned to the audience. “Churchill told us that ‘those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ My colleague seems to be saying, ‘Repeating our history is the only way we can stay in power.’”
“Patients!” He said the word so loudly that it echoed against the back wall.
In the ensuing silence, Laura asked, “Sir?”
“Doctor.” Martin smoothed down his tie. He visibly worked to control his temper. “This law that you’re talking about was rightly called a Patients’ Bill of Rights. Those who left state mental hospitals were either moved into group homes or received out-patient treatment so that they could become useful members of society.”
“Were they capable of being useful?”
“Of course they were. This is the problem with socialists. You believe the government’s job is to coddle man from cradle to grave. That’s the very type of faulty reasoning that has turned half of America into a welfare state.” He leaned forward, addressing the audience. “I believe—and most Americans believe—every man deserves a chance to stand on his own two feet. It’s called the American Dream, and it’s available to anyone who’s willing to work for it.”
Laura indicated her cane. “What if they can’t stand on their own two feet?”
“For God’s sake, woman. It’s a figure of speech.” He turned back to the audience. “The group home setting allows—”
“What group homes? The ones run by Queller Healthcare Services?”
That threw him off, but only for a moment. “The company is privately held in a blind trust. I have no say over any of the decisions made.”
“Are you not aware that Queller Healthcare derives upwards of thirty percent of its annual profits from the management of group homes for the mentally ill?” She held up her hands in an open shrug. “What a wonderful coincidence that your position as an economic advisor to the state allowed you to advocate that government money should be diverted into the private, for-profit healthcare industry which has been the source of so much of your family’s wealth.”
Martin sighed. He gave a dramatic shake of his head.
“Your company is about to go public, is it not? You took on some very high-level investors going into the offering to make sure your numbers were up.” This was the reason behind the now of it all, why there was no turning back. “Your family’s fortune will grow considerably when the Queller model is expanded to the rest of the United States. Isn’t that right?”
Martin sighed again, shook his head again. He glanced at the crowd as if to pull them to his side. “I feel you have hijacked this panel with your own agenda, Maplecroft. It matters not one lick what I say. You seem to have your mind made up. I’m an evil man. Capitalism is an evil system. We’d all be better off if we picked flowers and braided them into our hair.”
Laura said the words she had lied for, stolen for, kidnapped for and finally flown nearly six thousand miles to say to Martin Queller’s face: “Robert David Juneau.”
Again, Martin was caught off guard, but he made an adroit recovery, once more addressing the audience. “For those of you who do not read the newspapers in northern California, Robert David Juneau was a black construction worker who—”
“Engineer,” Laura interrupted.
He turned, seemingly stunned that she had corrected him.
“Juneau was an engineer. He studied at Cal Tech. He was not a construction worker, though he was black, if that’s the point you’re making.”
He started to wag his finger at her. “Let’s remember that you’re the one who keeps bringing race into this.”
She said, “Robert Juneau was injured while visiting a construction site in downtown San Francisco.” Laura turned to the crowd. She tried to keep the quiver out of her voice when she told the story. “One of the workers made a mistake. It happens. But Juneau was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A steel beam struck his head here—” She pointed to her own head, and for a moment, her fingers could feel the rough scar on Robert’s scalp. “His brain started to swell. He experienced a series of strokes during the surgery to relieve the swelling. The doctors were unsure of his recovery, but he managed to walk again, to speak, to recognize his children and his wife.”
“Yes,” Martin snapped. “There’s no need to over-dramatize the story. There was severe damage in the frontal lobe. The man’s personality was permanently altered by the accident. Some call it Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome. Juneau was a competent family man before the injury. Afterward, he became violent.”
“You like to draw straight lines across a crooked world, don’t you?” Laura was repulsed by his cavalier assessment. She finally let her gaze find Jane in the front row. Laura spoke to the girl because she wanted her to know the truth. “Robert Juneau was a good man before he got hurt. He fought for his country in Vietnam. He earned his degree on the GI Bill. He paid taxes. He saved his money, bought a house, paid his bills, took care of his family, reached out with both hands for the American Dream, and . . .” Laura had to pause to swallow. “And when he couldn’t stand on his own two feet anymore, when it came time for his country to take care of him—” She turned back to Martin. “Men like you said no.”
Martin heaved a pained sigh. “That’s a tragic tale, Maplecroft, but who’s going to write a check for twenty-four-hour, supervised medical care? That’s three doctors on call, at least five nursing staff, the facilities, the infrastructure, the insurance billing, the secretaries, the janitors, the cafeteria staff, the bleach, the Mop & Glo, multiplied by however many seriously mentally ill people there are in America. Do you want to pay eighty percent of your income in taxes as they do in our host country? If your answer is yes, feel free to move. If the answer is no, then tell me, where do we get the money?”
“We are the richest country in the—”
“Because we don’t squander—”
“From you!” she yelled. There was a stillness in the audience that transferred to the stage. She said, “How about we get the money from you?”
He snorted by way of answer.
“Robert Juneau was kicked out of six different group homes managed by Queller Healthcare. Each time he returned, they contrived a different reason to send him away.”
“I had nothing to do with—”
“Do you know how much money it costs to bury three children?” Laura could still see her babies on that crisp fall day. David whispering to some girl on the phone. Lila upstairs listening to the radio as she dressed for school. Peter running around the living room looking for his shoes.
Pow.
A single shot to the head brought down her youngest son.
Pow-pow.
Two bullets tore open David’s chest.
Pow-pow.
Lila had slipped as she was running down the stairs. Two bullets went into the top of her head. One of them exited out of her foot.
The other was still lodged in Laura’s spine.
She’d hit her head on the fireplace as she fell to the ground. There were six shots in the revolver. Robert had brought it back from his tunnel-rat duty in Vietnam.
The last thing Laura had seen that day was her husband pressing the muzzle of the gun underneath his chin and pulling the trigger.
She asked Martin Queller, “How much do you think those funerals cost? Coffins, clothes, shoes—you have to put them in shoes—Kleenex, burial space at the cemetery, headstones, hearse rental, pallbearers, and a preacher to bless a dead sixteen-year-old boy, a dead fourteen-year-old girl, and a dead five-year-old little boy?” She knew that she was the only person in this room who could answer that question because she had written the check. “What were their lives worth, Martin? Were they worth more to society than the cost of keeping a sick man hospitalized? Were those three babies nothing more than a goddamn correction?”
Martin seemed at a loss for words.
“Well?” she waited. Everyone was waiting.
Martin said, “He served. The Veterans’ Hospital—”
“Was overcrowded and underfunded,” she told him. “Robert was on a yearlong waiting list at the VA. There was no state mental hospital to go to because there was no state funding. The regular hospital had barred him. He’d already attacked a nurse and hurt an orderly. They knew he was violent, but they moved him to a group home because there was nowhere else to warehouse him.” She added, “A Queller Healthcare–managed group home.”
“You,” Martin said, because the well-respected thinker had finally figured her out. “You’re not Alex Maplecroft.”
“No.” She reached into her purse. She found the paper bag.
Dye packs.
That was what was supposed to be inside the bag.
Back in California, they had all agreed on the red dye packs, flat and slim, less than the size and thickness of a pager. Banks hid the exploding dye inside stacks of paper money so that would-be bank robbers would be indelibly stained when they tried to count their loot.
The plan was to see Martin Queller humiliated on the world stage, stained by the proverbial blood of his victims.
Laura had lost faith in proverbs when her children were murdered by their father.
She took a deep breath. She located Jane again.
The girl was crying. She shook her head, silently mouthed the words her father would never say: I’m sorry.
Laura smiled. She hoped that Jane remembered what Laura had told her in the bar. She was magnificent. She would find her own path.
The next part went quickly, perhaps because Laura had watched it play out so many times in her head—that is, when she wasn’t trying to conjure memories of her children; the way David’s feet had smelled when he was a baby, the soft whistle that Peter’s lips made when he colored with his crayons, the wrinkle in Lila’s brow when she studied how to frame a photograph. Even Robert sometimes haunted her thoughts. The man before the accident who had danced to Jinx Queller on the piano at the Hollywood Bowl. The patient who had wanted so desperately to get well. The violent inmate at the hospital. The trouble-maker who’d been kicked out of so many group homes. The homeless man who’d been arrested time and time again for theft, assault, public intoxication, aggressive panhandling, public nuisance, loitering, suicidal tendencies, making terroristic threats, willfully threatening to commit bodily harm.
“In some ways you were lucky,” Laura’s oncologist had told her after the shooting. “If the bullet had entered your back three centimeters lower, the scan would’ve never found the cancer.”
Laura reached into the paper bag.
She had known the moment she pulled it from behind the toilet tank that she was not holding the agreed-upon dye packs, but something better.
A six-shot revolver, just like the one her husband had used.
First, she shot Martin Queller in the head.
Then she pressed the muzzle of the gun beneath her chin and killed herself.