'Like an auto mechanic?'
'Yeah. But don't be a fool, play it real cool. He ain't there, don't ask no questions. Just leave and go back till he there. Catch my drift?'
Christos nodded. 'And this guy Carlos. He's good?'
Slick narrowed his eyes.
He said, 'Yo. Whoever the Slick know, he a pro. Now go.'
That said, Slick swiveled himself frontward on his barstool, a clear signal that the conversation was over.
But Christos didn't move. He was still leaning toward him.
Finally Slick looked at him and said, 'What's with you, man? We an item I don't know about? We gonna go steady, maybe get married?'
Christos said, 'There's one more thing - '
'Then say it. No reason to shout, just spit it out.'
Christos hesitated. He realized he was at the biggest crossroads of his entire life, and whether he committed himself and took the plunge, or chickened out and walked away, was totally up to him.
To him, and him alone.
Which will it be? he wondered. The same old shit, day in, day out, for the rest of my life? Or will I take a chance, do Gloria's husband, and see what happens?
Slick said, 'Hey, I ain't got all day, so say what you got to say.'
Suddenly Christos had the strangest sensation that he was outside his own body, floating high up in the air and looking down on his double— and that it wasn't him, it was his freakin' double who was asking, 'Where can I buy me a rifle? You know, with no paperwork? No ID or waiting period? Strictly cash and carry?'
And Slick said, 'Jesus Christ.' He said, 'Shit.' He said, 'Man, whatever you involved in, I don't want to know fuckin' nothing. We clear on that?'
46
Starry, starry night.
The moon had been waiting in the wings, pale and round and visible, while the sunset had burned itself out in a brilliant burst of pyrotechnics. Now with the sky blue-black and velvety, it was the moon's turn to show off. It began journeying across the star-filled sky, distancing itself from its squirming white twin in the sea below.
In Sunrise Bay, the water was like a sheet of black glass. Lamplight glowed yellow in Quicksilver's portholes, giving the illusion that there were two yachts, one upside down, both joined at the waterline like Siamese twins.
The generator was silent, the lights battery powered. Except for the occasional fish bursting through the surface before splashing back under, the only other sounds were the occasional creaks of the hull and Hunt's voice coming softly from below decks.
Dorothy-Anne was seated on a cushion in the cockpit, legs tucked under her, a light shawl around her shoulders. When Hunt stopped talking, she glanced toward the open hatch.
She could see his shadow moving about below, then watched it precede him up the teak steps. For a moment, his body seemed to block out the light completely, then it seemed to stream up behind him. He hit a switch and the lamps went dark.
He felt his way along the cockpit and sat down next to her.
'Everything's arranged,' he said. 'The P.I. will be at your office the day after tomorrow. I told him eleven in the morning was okay. If it isn't, I can call him back and change it.'
'Eleven's fine,' she assured him. 'I really appreciate your help.'
'Help!' He laughed softly. 'All I did was make a phone call.'
She looked at him. The bright full moon bathed him in sterling. Only his face was in shadow.
Her voice turned husky. 'Sometimes a phone call is enough. Poor Hunt. Always galloping to the rescue. First the Whitman's, now me . . . '
He smiled. 'I'm hardly the knight errant you make me out to be.'
'Aren't you?'
He laughed again and they sat there quietly, watching the moonlight on the water, neither of them speaking or touching, but feeling intimate all the same.
After a while she turned to him. 'Hunt.'
He looked at her.
'I have a question,' she said softy, 'but you don't have to answer it.'
'Okay.'
For a moment she looked away. When she turned back to him, her eyes searched his face. 'I mean it,' she said. 'If I'm poking my nose where it doesn't belong, just tell me and I'll butt out.'
'Why would I want to do that?'
Her expression didn't change. 'I'm serious, Hunt. If I'm out of line, just say so.'
He looked into her eyes. They were deep and pale and moonlit. 'You could never be out of line,' he said quietly.
Dorothy-Anne hesitated; not uncomfortable, merely choosing the right words. Then: 'Being in public service . . . ' she began. She pulled the shawl closer around her, one hand, like a decorative silver brooch, clasping the fringed ends together. 'I gather you must get quite a few petitions. You know, from constituents needing help?'
'A few!' He chuckled. 'That's putting it mildly. Inundated is more like it.'
'Which brings me to the Whitman's.'
'Yes? What about the Whitman's?'
'Well, you flew clear to Mexico to help them. And you made it plain you didn't want any publicity out of it. So with all the requests you receive, what made you drop everything and help them? There must have been something that gave their case priority over the others.'
'Oh boy.' He rubbed a hand down his face as thought to wash it. 'You really know which questions to ask.'
'It's like I said. You can always tell me to get lost.'
'No.' He shook his head and stared out to sea. 'It's just as well that you asked. There comes a point when it's time to air out the family closet. To free those unseemly skeletons, those . . . inconvenient embarrassments only the best families can hide so well!'
Dorothy-Anne reached for his hand. 'Hunt, if it's too personal—'
'No!' His voice was quiet but fierce, and he withdrew his hand from hers. 'There are things you have a right to know. I don't want us to have any secrets. What are we, ultimately, if not the sum of our truths?'
Dorothy-Anne sighed. Hearing so much pain and anger in his voice lanced her heart.
If only I could help alleviate his suffering, she thought. Then she realized that she could. By being a good listener. Sometimes that can make all the difference . . .
'Now, about the Whitman's,' Hunt said. 'You asked me why they struck such a chord, so I shall tell you. I grew up an only child, in a mausoleum of a house. One of the so-called Great Houses'—he snorted with contempt—'one of what I believe are referred to as the 'Castles of America.''
He paused, staring off into the star-spangled night.
'Naturally, it's got a name,' he said acidly. 'All great houses have to have a pretentious name. Did you ever notice?'
Dorothy-Anne shook her head. 'Actually I never thought about it.'
'Anyway, it's called Cascades. Apparently that evoked the appropriate images of grandeur. It's even been said'—Hunt's tone was mocking—'to be the West Coast equivalent of the Breakers or Biltmore.'
He laughed softly. 'Not quite San Simeon, though. And not for want of trying, you understand, but only because old William Hearst wouldn't be outdone.'
'Cascades,' Dorothy-Anne murmured. 'You sound as though you hate it.'
'Let's just say I dislike it, and leave it at that.'
'Because it was a mausoleum?'
'That, and what it stands for,' he went on. 'Oh, you couldn't begin to imagine it. One icy room of period perfection after another. Everything Louis This and Adam That . . . and peopled by servants as silent and invisible as ghosts. Don't get me wrong. I'm not making it into anything it isn't. Cascades is only a house. Perhaps even a great house. But what it isn't—what it never was, or ever could be—is a home.'
Dorothy-Anne looked at him. Anger and hurt were vivid in his celestially illuminated face. His hands, resting on his thighs, were clenched.
'But I am getting ahead of myself. To appreciate my sympathy for the Whitman's, you have to understand a little about the Winslow's. Specifically, the things you won't read about in Forbes or Fortune or Town and Country.'
> He paused, as if listening to great unseen schools of fish passing just beneath the water's surface.
'The Winslow fortune,' he continued, 'goes back to the Gold Rush of forty-nine. That's when my great-grandfather, a typesetter in Baltimore, headed West to seek his fortune. What he discovered was that there were more prospectors than gold, and that unfounded rumors and speculation were the norm. There simply were no reliable sources of information. And so, seeing that need, he filled it.'
'By starting a newspaper.'
He nodded. 'A single-sheet daily, to be exact. Yes.'
'And the rest, as they say, is history.'
'That's right. My grandfather went on to expand the chain and branched out into magazines and radio stations, and my father helped pioneer network television. Today, of course, we're into every conceivable form of communications—from the printed page to satellite TV, cellular phones, cable, you name it.'
'But how do the Whitman's fit into all this?'
'I'm coming to that.'
He paused again, as if wrestling some internal demons before continuing. Then:
'The point I'm making is this. Since my family disseminated the news, they were in a position to exert a tremendous amount of power and influence. In the beginning, of course, this was limited to northern California.'
'But not for long.'
'No, not for long. Soon all the large cities in California had a Winslow newspaper, then all the Western states, and finally the entire country. Needless to say, our influence and power increased exponentially. And of course, the temptation to wield it was irresistible.'
'But surely your family wasn't alone in that. Look at William Randolph Hearst. He wasn't exactly an angel.'
'Perhaps not,' Hunt agreed. 'But that does not excuse us. Understand: I am not talking about mere editorial slants, or backing certain politicians while attempting, often successfully, to destroy others. Nor am I referring to exhortations for readers to vote for certain candidates or legislative propositions, all of which would benefit my family directly, though we were masters at that, too.'
'Then what are you referring to?'
'The abuse of power,' he whispered.
He sighed and tilted back his head and raised his eyes to the pockmarked moon, then looked at Dorothy-Anne and smiled bitterly.
'You cannot begin to imagine the power of the media. The great unwashed public wasn't always as savvy as it is today. There was a time when people were far more gullible . . . when the written and broadcast word was gospel—and went unquestioned. And naturally, we did not police ourselves. You don't, when you have the advantage.'
'You keep saying 'we' and 'us' and 'ourselves,'' Dorothy-Anne noted. 'Surely you can't hold yourself responsible for the misdeeds of your forebears!'
'No, but I can feel shame.'
His breathing had become harsh, and Dorothy-Anne listened to it as attentively as a doctor.
'You wouldn't believe the things we Winslow's were capable of! Bending the law and public opinion. Buying judges and entire police departments. Backing crooked politicians because we had them in our pockets. Pressuring crime victims to drop charges when it suited us, and arranging for trumped-up charges when that served our purposes. Oh, we thought we were a law unto ourselves.'
He shook his head.
'The way we manipulated the public—the way we misused its trust— was criminal!'
Hunt's exhalation betrayed a heavy sense of weariness. He leaned back and rubbed his face once more. Then, his voice quiet, his words slow, he recited a damning litany:
'Take the congressman at the turn of the century who inconveniently raped children, but conveniently looked out for our best interests on Capitol Hill. Or the alcoholic friend of my grandfather's, who was involved in a fatal hit-and-run. Despite eyewitnesses to the crime, sworn statements by the right people, by people like us, placed him a hundred miles away. At a fund-raiser to which he was never invited!'
Dorothy-Anne sat absolutely still. She could understand the anger burning within him. If only I could help ease it, she thought, or find the right words to say.
But she knew it was impossible. And she perceived something else, too.
This is the first time Hunt has confided about this to anyone. Not that he'd said as much. He doesn't have to. I can tell.
'The crimes,' he said disgustedly, 'are endless. Endless. Bribes, slander, ruination . . . I could go on for hours. There was nothing we would not stoop to in our quest to amass ever more power. But, experts that we were at fixing things, at hushing things up, guess where we were most proficient?'
Dorothy-Anne was silent.
'Burnishing our own image—what else?' He shook his head. 'Oh, but we glowed with righteousness! And how could we not? Consider the great pains we went to, always casting ourselves in the best possible light. Trumpeting our good deeds in voice and print as if they were news!'
Once again he gave a hollow laugh.
'And suddenly we were philanthropists. Patrons of museums and charities. Yes. We passed ourselves off as the self-proclaimed champions of the downtrodden, the voice of the common man—when, in reality, we were his greatest enemy!'
Dorothy-Anne winced against his burst of bitter mockery. She felt his pain as her own, a throbbing physical wound as if someone had stabbed her. She felt his anger and outrage.
'From my great-grandfather,' he went on, 'down to my grandfather and my late father . . . and now my mother . . . from the very start, we Winslow's were pros when it came to self-preservation. But what we were most adept at is what is nowadays called 'spin.' Long before there was a term for it, we were the original spin doctors. But do you know what really takes the cake?'
Dorothy-Anne shook her head.
'It's that nothing was ever enough,' he brooded. 'Steering legislature in our favor, hoodwinking our readers and listeners, even glossing over the nastiness so we smelled like roses to the public—we had to take it a step further. We had to rewrite our history within the family itself!'
'How do you mean?'
'Oh, you know,' he said. 'Lies. Twisted truths. Sins of omission. I'd only known the sanitized family history, the rewritten, edited version. I was never privy to the sordid secrets. I only learned the truth from my paternal grandmother. As she lay dying, she told me everything.'
He shook his head. 'Imagine! If not for her, I'd still be in the dark— the same as poor John Q. Public!'
Hunt fell silent then. A sorrowful look had come over his countenance. It was clear that his mind was neither here nor now, but in the past.
At his grandmother's deathbed, Dorothy-Anne realized.
'Grandmother Winslow told me these things in the hope that I might be different,' he said thickly. 'She said she couldn't rest in peace unless I swore an oath.'
'And so you swore it.'
'Yes. I was sixteen at the time.'
'And that's the reason you went into politics? To fulfill the oath and make up for the sins of the fathers?'
'Actually, the political arena wasn't my idea,' said Hunt. 'It was my mother's.' He smiled sourly. 'After a family has achieved great wealth, social standing, and fame, I suppose there's only one game left.'
'Politics,' Dorothy-Anne said softly.
'The ultimate power trip.' He nodded. 'You should have seen Mother when I acquiesced—although she wouldn't have been so thrilled if she'd suspected my motive.'
'By motive, I take it you mean your oath.'
'Yes, Dorothy-Anne. My oath. From the beginning, I had my own agenda. Of course, I wasn't naive enough to think that a single apple could make up for an entire spoiled barrel. But I was determined to make a difference, however small.'
'And when your mother found out you were your own man? That you were looking out for your constituents' interests rather than your family's? How did she react to that?'
He barked a short laugh.
'As you'd expect. I wish you could have seen her. She was furious! However, that only lasted about five second
s. True to form, she immediately seized upon my impartiality as an advantage. You must understand; Mother has an intuitive feel for these things. You could practically see visions of the White House dancing in her head.'
He gave Dorothy-Anne a sad little smile.
'But to backtrack: there was one family secret my grandmother did not share with me. I had to discover it for myself. Afterward, I thought she'd been holding out on me. But in retrospect, I realize I was wrong. She may have suspected the truth, but she couldn't prove it. If she'd been able to, I'm sure she would have told me.'
'Told what?'
Hunt stared out at the starry horizon, then slumped back and shook his head. For a moment he shut his eyes. His breath soughed like a moaning wind. Then he opened his eyes.
'Remember what I told you? About growing up an only child?'
'At Cascades. Of course.'
'And do you recall my greatest wish?'
'Yes.' Dorothy-Anne nodded. 'You desperately longed for a brother. Or sister.'
'And how. I would have given anything for a sibling—anything on earth! I hoped. I prayed. I made extravagant promises to God if he would only answer my prayers.'
He shook his head once more.
'Of course, it was not to be. And eventually, I resigned myself to that fact. And my prayers stopped.'
'I know how you must have felt,' Dorothy-Anne said softly. 'We have more in common than you think.'
'Then you understand.'
She nodded. 'Far better than you can imagine. My childhood was much the same. But continue. Finish your story.'
Taking a deep breath, he said, 'Five years after my grandmother's death, my father passed on. It was in June, a week after I turned twenty- one. Stanford had let out for the summer. Usually I would travel, roaming Europe or Latin America or the Far East. But since my mother was alone, I spent that summer at Cascades.'
'Where,' Dorothy-Anne murmured knowingly, 'you were lonelier than ever.'
'Which is putting it mildly. Anyway, on the seventh of August—I shall never forget that date for as long as I live—I was in my father's study, sorting through papers. As fate would have it, the telephone rang. Not the regular phone, but my father's private line. It had no extensions, and no one else was ever allowed to touch it. Somehow, it had slipped our minds to have it disconnected.'
Second Love Page 48