“Mr. Bilbro’s looking for you,” the receptionist announced as he got off the elevator. “And someone keeps calling and hanging up on the second ring. Is that a code or something?”
“No,” he started down the hall. Was she crazy? The code had been a terrible...
“Tyler, wait!” Jill Allen rushed up. “Bilbro’s looking for you. And he didn’t seem very happy. Are you dating Lauren Belli? I saw you two in the square during lunch.”
“We’re just friends.”
“Does she have the latest on our star fugitive?”
“I didn’t ask.” He started off, then quickly stopped again with her next tug.
“That car,” she asked. “A Lamborghini, I think you said. Did you ever get it?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Reaching his office finally, he frowned at Poster Boy’s messages, then quickly called.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Bilbro growled. “Do you know what time it is?”
Almost four - he checked his watch. “I got tied up on some Bar committee activities.”
“Get your ass up here... Now!”
The instant he dropped the phone, it rang twice. As he dashed out, it rang again. Damnit Mayson, not now. Taking the elevator up to sixty, he hurried down to Bilbro’s office. Poster Boy munched on a sandwich at his desk, his sleeves rolled up, coffee thermos on the credenza. ‘Ed Bilbro, Wall Street’s Blue Collar Lawyer,’ among his other claims to fame. “Late for lunch, isn’t it?” He dropped into the chair.
“Yeah?” Bilbro munched. “Late lunches, late associates. It’s been that kind of day.” Gulping coffee, he ripped open a bag of Fritos. “May he rest in peace, Morris picked a helluva time to get murdered. End-of-the-year is always crunch-time around here, like a vice on your nuts - especially when you have to waste time chasing associates all over the place.”
Not much longer, Poster Boy. “I’ll have those motions done before leaving tonight.”
“You should already have a draft for me to review. Bar committee activities, bullshit. You probably wasted the afternoon on some cozy lunch with a babe. Let me find out she works here and I’ll break your ass.” Munching Fritos, he said, “I couldn’t get the Garrison depositions continued. The witnesses are medical experts. Opposing counsel, some young prick at Anthony and Bartlett said it was too late to juggle things around since the good doctors had already set tomorrow aside out of their busy surgery schedules.”
In other words, Tyler glowed with fresh hope, you’re shit out of luck - and exhausted. He studied Poster Boy slumped in the chair. The fourteen-hour days and nut vices had taken their toll. “Let me handle the Breckinridge prelim and your problem’s solved.”
Bilbro studied him. “It’s tempting, I admit.”
“And also a piece of cake,” Tyler said. “I’ll simply submit the motions and using Morris’s strategy, stipulate nothing for the record. You can stay here and depose your high-priced surgeons.”
“Lamp would break my ass if he found out.”
“But he won’t. He’s in Washington through the weekend.”
“I don’t know,” Bilbro shrugged. “Aronson could handle the depositions. I just wish he was more familiar with the case.”
“Doesn’t sound too efficient to me,” Tyler sighed. “Wasting a day on a prelim when you could be here chewing on those surgeons’ expensive asses.”
“Hell, just do it!” Bilbro buckled finally. “Insist on liberal filing deadlines, and don’t stipulate a goddamned thing.”
He was glad later that Poster Boy hadn’t insisted on seeing the motions. What came off the PC that evening was essentially what had gone in, cosmetically brushed-up to fit the Breckinridge facts. The motions could be overhauled later. Federal litigation never ended; it just faded away when the clients could no longer pay the attorneys’ fees. By eight, the copies had been made and his briefcase was packed. He’d reached Lauren to confirm Mayson’s reservations had been made. If all went well, she’d be at the Naples Holiday Inn by noon tomorrow. “The room’s registered in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Butts,” Lauren had cheerfully explained.
“You got twin beds, I hope?”
“One king-size; the Butts like to snuggle. And Ralph, have her packed and ready at 6:20 sharp.”
His own flight to Logan was at 6:45 a.m. He’d be in Boston before Mayson left New York, if she left. He’d made no contingency plans. Everything depended on them reaching Naples, concern gripping him now as he left Frieda’s workstation with his loaded briefcase.
The Inner Sanctum was dark and quiet as he emerged from the elevator and hurried down the hall. Quickly he searched Nicole’s tidy workstation and then slipped into Lamp’s office. Snapping on the light, he dropped at the desk to call Mayson. With the second ring, he cut the line and redialed. One ring rolled into the next. Where the hell was she?
Dropping the phone, he turned his attention to Lamp’s desk. The top drawer was locked. Wasting no time to search for a key or risk breaking it open, he groped through the other drawers - a forage that rewarded him with paper clips, pens, rubber bands, calling cards... bullshit! He searched the credenza, then the file cabinets, tables and shelves, quickly reaching the end of a fruitless effort. Hadn’t he known this would be a waste of time? If Crenshaw held a clue to Morris’s murder, Lamp certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to store the records in his office.
Scanning the shelves, his eyes stopped at a corner picture he’d never noticed before. Picking it up, he studied the familiar subjects, their faces tanned and relaxed as they posed on the tee of a sun-splashed golf course. The toadish Mann was dwarfed between the tall gateposts of his friends, Lamp and Falkingham. Three golfing buddies, three lions of the law: two on the Supreme Court, the other the Dean of Wall Street. How long had they been friends? Did Mann or Falkingham know how Lamp had acquired the smiling scar around his eye? Replacing the picture, he recalled Falkingham’s first mention of his ill-fated career choice. “Greg Lamp could use a well-bred Virginia boy like you. And New York judges would find your manners right refreshing.”
He’d gazed at the ashtray full of Dunhill butts and longed simply for a smoke-free office. “New York’s crowded, sir. I’m not sure I’d fit in.”
“Nonsense,” Falkingham had lit another Dunhill, stretching his long legs across the desk. “If you build ships, you do it in your Daddy’s docks on the James. But if law’s your game, you play it on Wall Street. Next to D.C., it’s the most powerful legal arena in the world.”
“I’ll think about it, sir.”
“What’s there to think about? I’ll call Greg.” And so the grave mistake had been made.
A cynical Charleston aristocrat, Falkingham preferred to ridicule the law over his Jack Daniels rather than interpret it in the courtroom. A broad shouldered six-six, he was an imposing presence in his black robe and took great pleasure in browbeating lawyers. His piercing eyes could drop one with a scornful glance. In private chambers, he’d wrestle out of his robe and immediately light a Dunhill. “Those goddamned feeble-minded, liver-lipped lawyers get so tongue-tied in precedents they forget the law is ninety-nine percent common sense. Don’t they know their precedents don’t mean diddly squat to the Supreme Court? We create the only ones that matter.”
“We” meant the Court’s conservative bloc, specifically the four who voted together on major constitutional issues and who with one recruit, would become a majority capable of rewriting the law as it damn well pleased. And they’d soon have it. Longbridge’s nomination to replace retiring Justice Sampson was due any day. Certainly the nominee would be someone of the same conservative cloth as his first two, Falkingham and Mann. With Rixell and DeJarno, their voting bloc would become a majority with frightening power. What would they do, create some kind of Christian Utopia in... His eyes shot to the ringing phone. As Lamp’s recorded voice requested a message, the caller came on the line.
“This is Lieutenant Duke. An elderly couple stopped by the precinct earlier this evening. Apparently they’ve seen Corelli on the news enough times that it finally registered. They claim to have seen her get into a fancy black sports car on Seventy-First, Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, they didn’t get a good look at the driver. And they’re not sure of the car’s make but the man swears it’s a foreign job; Porsche, Lamborghini, who the hell knows? At least it’s a start. Does anyone at Lieber Allen drive a black sports car? Check it out, will you? I’ll call back in the morning. Thanks.”
As the recorder switched off, he quickly erased the message. How many at the firm knew about his new 911? Were he and Mayson safe in Manhattan for even one more night? Calling her again, he cut the line, counted and redialed. A dozen anxious rings later, he hung up. Why had she made that goddamned scene on the street Tuesday? Hadn’t she known it’d come back to haunt them? Shutting off the light, he grabbed his briefcase and left.
The apartment was black as he entered a short while later. How many cops would spend the night checking DMV records for every fancy black sports car on the East Coast? He’d driven his for the last time. Dropping his things, he turned on the light. “I’m home!” he announced.
Checking the study, he hurried down the hall to the bedroom and knocked on the door. When she didn’t answer, he entered, putting on the light. The bed was made, the room neat and orderly. Had she simply panicked and left, he wondered as entered the bathroom, flipping on the light. She was gone. Something had happened and... he froze at the soft scrape. Jerking back the shower curtain, he now found her huddled in the tub, her eyes swollen from crying. “What happened?” he reached to help her up.
“No!” she turned to the wall. “Leave me alone!”
“I’m sorry to be so late, but there were arrangements to make,” he dropped down to the tub. She’d cried wolf too many times. How was he to know this had been a real emergency? He turned her gently towards him. Her eyes brimmed with fresh tears. He gave her some tissue. “Now, what happened?”
Snatching the tissues from him, she blew her nose. “I hate you, Tyler. I really mean it this time.”
“No, you don’t. You’re frightened and a little mad...”
“A little mad! I called you a zillion times and you ignored me. They could’ve found me and taken me away in handcuffs. Put me in a cell with some lesbian maniac with hairy arms and tattoos.”
“Someone was here?” he asked.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Giving her more tissues, he waited as she blew her nose again. “Now, who was here?”
“How am I supposed to know?” She crumpled the tissue, missing the toilet with her shot.
“What did they do?” he asked.
“Which time?”
His eyes broadened. “They were here more than once?”
“Twice!” She stuck two fingers in his face. “The first time I knew it wasn’t you because you make such a dope of yourself blurting like Father Knows Best, ‘I’m home!’ And being in the study, all I could do was dive in the closet and wait an eternity, five minutes at least, as they thumped around the hall.”
He had a sudden suspicion. “During this eternity of five minutes, did you hear any humming?”
“Humming? What kind of question is that? I just recall being frightened out of my wits until they left and I crawled out to call you for the first of a zillion times. But you didn’t care I was in danger.”
“I care, Mayson, you know that.”
“Then why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Because I was making arrangements to get us out of here.”
“A lot of good that would’ve done if they’d carted me off to jail while you were making them.”
“But they didn’t.” It hit him now that she was wearing his William and Mary football jersey. All the new clothes and she’d been forced to scrounge through his footlocker for something to wear. “Tell me about the second visit.”
“Are you sure you have time? I hate to bother you with my problems.”
“I’ve been up to my ears in your problems all day. One more won’t make any difference.”
Her eyes gleamed insolently. “It was much later. I’d just gotten out of the shower when the front door opened again and they thumped down the hall. I barely had time to slip on your stupid shirt and duck in here.”
“In the tub, you mean?” he asked calmly.
“Of course in the tub!” she snapped impatiently.
“But if you’d just showered, it would’ve still been wet.”
Her glare scorched him. “I hate it when you do this. The tub was wet. My bony butt, too. But I would’ve sat in cow urine if it meant saving my life.”
“The person had a key, you realize,” he said now.
She frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Never mind; go ahead.”
“Anyway, they rummaged through the hall closet again.”
“That’s where the vacuum cleaner’s stored. No humming this time either?”
“Why do you keep asking that? How can I recall if they were humming? I was in mortal danger. Anyway, after rummaging through the closet, they thumped around the apartment again until finally the bedroom door opened, then quickly the bathroom door. I was so frightened. Sitting deadly still, I waited for the curtain to open, but it didn’t. Instead, the intruder just stood there, humming some stupid, ethnic melody. Spanish, I think.” Her eyes slit angrily now. “You know who it was. I hate you, Tyler! I really, really do!”
“Come on.” He pulled her up. “Another blow would be good.” He grabbed more tissue.
Blowing her nose, she crumpled the tissue then missed the can again with another toss. “Why are you gawking at me?”
“My football jersey,” he nodded.
She glanced at it sagging on her shoulders. The hem cut just above her knees, the same as her skirts. “It’s soft and warm. Do you mind me wearing it?”
“Of course not.”
“You obviously played a lot of football in it.” She picked at one of its many tears. “Did all the boys have one? I mean with the same colors and stripes?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The sporting goods store where you got it; did they have enough for everyone to look the same?”
“Mayson, this was my team jersey at William and Mary.”
She knew that, of course. She’d found the jersey in her idle rummaging and been unable to resist the temptation to slip it on. This was something, however, she had no intention of telling him. “Tyler, how stupid do you think I am? William and Mary doesn’t have a football team.”
“They most certainly do,” he answered. “A damn good one when I was there.”
“And who did you play? The Radcliffe Pussycats? The Mary Washington Muffins? Or... no, the Columbia girls played field hockey.”
“You shouldn’t ridicule a sport you obviously know nothing about.”
“I know enough to appreciate how stupid, dirty and violent it is - to the degree, in fact, that I can’t imagine you playing. Scraped knees and elbows? Soiled pants? That’s not you, Tyler.”
As he left, she quickly followed. “Then you really did play?”
“It doesn’t matter.” All-Conference Quarterback twice didn’t matter?
“What position did you play — shortstop?”
Entering the study, he turned on the recorder. “It’s no wonder you don’t like football. Who does in New York? The Jets are horrible. And the Giants...”
“Tyler, hi,” the first message clicked on. “It’s Rebecca, from McDougal’s last night.” The new Bellevue resident. Her sweet Virginia drawl brought an ache to his heart. “Tyler, I’d love to get together tonight. I’ll be back from the hospital at nine. Call me. Bye.”
“What about the Giants?” Mayson asked now.
“I was just going to say...”
“Tyler, it’s Meg,” the second message started. “Why won’t you return my calls? You’re not getting jittery over the firm’s rule against dating, are you? I assume we’re still on for tomorrow night. Eight’s good for me. See you.”
“The Giants are what?” Mayson asked again.
He frowned. What was she so hot about, Meg and the firm rule? “The Giants suck. That’s all I...
“That’s a lie. You just...”
“Tyler, hi, it’s Melanie,” the third message began. “How does a cozy weekend at Martha’s Vineyard grab you? I have my folks’ cottage through Sunday. Call me. Bye.”
“This is so disgusting,” Mayson said. “A pathetic parade of hormonal females. And the Giants don’t suck. You...”
“Tyler, it’s Mom,” the fourth message clicked on. “Dad and I wanted to make sure you’re all right. Today is... well, we all know what today is. Stafford said you sounded a little bluer than usual. You don’t have to call back. Just please make it home for Thanksgiving. We love you, sweetheart.”
Mayson watched his eyes dim as he turned to the window.
“Tyler, it’s Maria,” the fifth message played. “You’ll never guess what happened. Yes,” she laughed. “Mrs. Dandridge’s dinosaur broke again. I think she’s finally ready to bite the bullet and buy a new Kirby like yours. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I borrowed yours again. Say, when do the renovations begin? Can they get the work done in the next two weeks? Let me know. Bye.”
So Maria had been the intruder. First to get the Kirby, then return it and snoop at some fictitious renovation he’d made up to keep her away. “It wasn’t your fault.” Her eyes lifted to him at the window.
“I should’ve warned you about Mrs. Dandridge’s vacuum cleaner. A millionaire living on Park Avenue, who can’t part with a few bucks for a decent Kirby. I’m sorry for what you went through this afternoon.”
“Then tell me what ‘today’ is.”
“Our last in Manhattan.”
“I mean your mother’s call. She said we all know what today is. But she’s wrong. We don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes Tyler, it does; so much that your mother and sister called to make sure you were all right.” She watched as he slipped out then quickly returned with a shopping bag. Now she recalled the other thing that had been nagging at her. “Maria’s second visit was at five. The last scare occurred at seven. The NYPD. They identified themselves, knocked a half-dozen times, then left. When I couldn’t reach you, I hid in the tub convinced they’d return.”
He wasn’t surprised. With a thousand Feds providing reinforcement, checking every home in Manhattan suddenly seemed a feasible plan. “Did they know it was my apartment?”
She shook her head. “I guess it was a random check. But the next one might not be.”
He told her about Duke’s call. “They’ll soon learn about my 911. Let’s hope it’s after we’re gone.”
Her eyes filled with remorse. “Tyler, I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself Tuesday afternoon.”
“You were just frightened.”
“I was a pain in the ass.”
“You still are,” he said, pulling the accessories from the bag: clippers, thinning shears, hair coloring, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
“Yuk!” She frowned at the glasses.
“They’re pretty awful,” he smiled. “But you’ll get used to them.”
The surgery began minutes later. Sitting cross-legged on the study floor, she cringed with the first snip, then watched her dark locks flutter to the towel. “I don’t see why I have to look so ugly!”
“I doubt we’ll be able to accomplish that.” He wielded the clippers behind her.
Fretfully she reached for her wine on the table.
“Damnit, sit still!” Gulping his Molson, he then grabbed two chunks of cheddar, giving her one.
“Don’t I get a cracker?” she complained.
He dumped several in her hand. “Now shut up and sit still.”
“I don’t take orders from stupid gavonnes!”
“Listen goddamnit, I have clippers here.”
As her shoulders slumped he snipped again, quickly falling into a rhythm. “Oh!” She glanced at the hair accumulating on the towel. “I hate this.”
“I guess you’d rather spend the next fifty years in Attica with Lucky.”
“The Lips! Why can’t you get that straight?”
He paused to inspect his work. “What does a bob look like?” Her head dropped as she muttered in Italian. “Very short, I guess.” After another minute of furious clipping he stopped, the length now gone.
“Are you going to tell me the plan?” she asked. “Or am I supposed to guess it?”
Reaching again for the shears, he explained it in between snips. “Doesn’t Lauren have a cousin without bobbed hair and granny glasses?” she fretted.
“Just be thankful she has one.”
“Can she be trusted?”
“Yes, Mayson, she can.”
“Because she’s in love with you?”
“I didn’t ask her motive.”
“Tyler, do you think Lauren’s beautiful?”
“Not as beautiful as you —at least when you had hair.”
“Ooohhh!” Grabbing a fistful of hair, she broke into another Italian staccato. Ending the butchery finally, he plopped a grape in her mouth and sat back to inspect the damage.
“You’re cringing, Tyler. Is it really that bad?”
“Worse actually.” Smiling, he sipped his beer. “I’m joking; you’ll do fine tomorrow, don’t worry.”
She replied, “I won’t do anything but worry until you walk through that hotel room door.” After years of avoidance, at last there was another door to face. “Tyler, you need a good meal before we start this odyssey. How about a steak?”
“Thanks, but it’s time to dye your hair.”
Springing up to the mirror, she absorbed the stranger’s reflection. An inch remained maybe. She plucked at the short, cropped hair. Madonna mia, she had sideburns!
Rising too, he studied her closely. The bobbed hair drew attention to her thickly lashed eyes, enhancing their fawnish innocence and her cheekbones’ high arch. By removing the distraction of hair he was forced to appreciate just how beautiful she really was. “It’s awful, isn’t it?” she asked.
“It’s fine.” He began gathering the clumps of hair.
“Tyler, what’s wrong? You’re so quiet suddenly.”
“I’m not quiet,” he answered. “I’m busy.”
“Will you tell me what ‘today’ is?”
“No.” Dumping the accessories and hair in the bag, he tossed her the tube of hair coloring. “Now get started. It’s late.”
A dark shadow had fallen over him suddenly. “Tyler I wish you’d talk to me.”
“And I wish you’d get in the goddamned shower.”
“I want to know what ‘today’ is,” she insisted.
“The day we leave New York; now get in the shower or I may get a hankering to put you in myself!”
“Hankering? What’s ‘hankering?’” As he started towards her, she fled down the hall.
Setting his bag by the front door, he grabbed a fresh Molson and returned to the study. Sipping pensively, he gazed at his cherished posters. More than memories, they were pieces of him - too real, too close to discard. But he was leaving them just as he was leaving his expensive Porsche, which he coveted far less.
Minutes crept as he drifted from one reflection into the next. Clowns cackled, lion tamers’ whips snapped, the organ resonated. The grandstands trembled, first in the circus tent then the Pasadena Coliseum. The crowd roared as the Redskins streaked onto the field, the Super Bowl blimp floating across the crystal sky. The vivid images now sprung to life as her warm fingers slipped through his, her soft lyrical voice in his ears - in the Coliseum, the circus tent, the dark movie theater. Everywhere they’d been... Looking up he now found Mayson in the doorway. She’d slipped back into his jersey but not the jeans, her slender legs bared, velvet soft, like her face.
“You were lost in your posters.” She toweled her hair. “The football games or the circus?”
“I was just thinking.” He sipped absently.
“About leaving them? I’m sorry for that.”
Wearily he watched her wrap the towel turban-like around her head, then drop down beside him. “Since this is autumn, can I assume you were entranced by the football posters?” she asked.
“Assume anything you want,” he said.
“Tyler, what’s wrong? Please tell me. I never realized you weren’t always the happy-go-lucky guy you seemed at the firm. But you’re not. You brood like the rest of us and get grouchy. And you...”
“I get the point!” he snapped.
“And something else. Your eyes...”
“What, Mayson? It’s too late to start being mysterious. What about my eyes?”
“They’re always so restless, except like now when we’re sitting here. The hall posters.” She glowed with fresh intrigue. “Are they related to ‘today?’ “
“If I say yes, will you stop?”
“No.”
“Then no; now let’s look at your hair.”
She swished off the towel. Like magic the blond nubs sprung from her head; a shade darker than Lauren’s. “You’ll need to color it again in the morning.” He settled the glasses on her delicate nose.
“Well?” she asked anxiously.
They masked her large, dark eyes even with a careful study. For the first time, he felt confident. “They’re good. See for yourself.”
Rising she peeked cautiously in the mirror, then stomped her foot. “Yuk! Am I the Beverly Hillbillies’ Granny or Little Boy Blue?”
“Neither.” He unfolded the sofa bed. “You’re Deborah; then at the Naples Holiday Inn, Mrs. Ralph Butts. Damn Lauren.” He grabbed pillows and sheets from the closet. “I can’t believe she did that.”
She ventured another peek. “Tyler, I hate this.”
“Damnit Mayson, quit griping and go to bed.”
She glared as he stretched out comfortably on the foldout. “I said I’d sleep out here tonight.”
“I make the rules in my house. And in this case, guests sleep in the bedroom. Now go to sleep.”
“If I don’t, I suppose you’ll hanker again?”
“If I must.”
“You don’t scare me.” Her eyes drifted over his fully dressed body. “I said underwear was all right.”
Rising obediently to undress, he hung his clothes in the closet. As she left, he dropped back on the cot and snapped out the light. He was out in seconds, but then jerked back and was kicked.
“Move your big butt, Mr. Butts!”
Switching on the light, he found her looming in his jersey — a clownish mascot, hugging two pillows under her chin. “You can’t sleep out here,” he said. “It’s not proper.”
She said, “Since when did proper ever stop you?”
“You mean with my puttanas? That’s different.”
“You’re damn right it is. Don’t even think of putting your philandering paws on me. Now scoot over.” She kicked him again. “I said I’d sleep out here tonight and I meant it.”
“Honestly.” He rolled over. “Must you be such a pain in the ass every second of the day?” He watched her drop primly on the foldout. “Anything else before I turn the light out?”
Fluffing the pillows, she slipped under the covers. “Go ahead; only no hands, feet or snoring.”
Blackness swallowed the room. Again he was out in seconds, then... “Goddamnit, what now?”
“Am I really that different from the others?” she asked.
“Very different,” he sighed.
“Oh...” The sheets rustled as she turned away.
He’d hurt her feelings. “Mayson?”
“Yes Tyler?”
“A good different, I meant.”