The Witching Hour

by Anne Rice

  Only his fear cooled her passion, and his fear never lasted very long.

  This morning, she had wanted to wake him up by clamping her mouth on his cock. But he needed his sleep now after all that had happened. He needed it badly. She only prayed he had peace in his dreams. And besides she was going to marry him as soon as it seemed polite to ask him. And they had all their lives in the First Street house, didn't they, to do things like that?

  And it seemed wrong to do what she'd done several mornings with Chase, her old palomino cop from Marin County, which was roll over next to him, press her hips against his flank and her face against his suntanned upper arm, and squeeze her legs tightly together, until the orgasm ran through her like a wash of blinding light.

  It wasn't much fun to do that, either--nothing, in fact, compared to being tacked to the mattress by an adorable brute, with a little gold crucifix dangling from a chain around his neck.

  He hadn't even stirred when the thunder rolled overhead, when the crack came so loud and sudden that it was like guns tearing loose the roof.

  And now, two hours later, as the rain fell, and the breakfast grew cold, she sat dreaming, her mind running over all the past and all the possibilities, and this crucial meeting, soon to begin.

  The phone startled her. Ryan and Pierce were in the lobby, ready to take her downtown.

  Quickly she wrote a note for Michael, saying she was off on Mayfair legal business, and would be back for dinner, no later than six. "Please keep Aaron with you and don't go over to the house alone." She signed it with love.

  "I want to marry you," she said aloud as she placed the note on the bedside table. Softly he snored into the pillow. "The archangel and the witch," she said, even more loudly. He slept on. She chanced one kiss on his naked shoulder, felt gently of the muscle in his upper arm, enough to drag her right into the bed if she lingered on it, and went out and shut the door.

  Skipping the fancy paneled elevator, she walked down the carpeted stairs, staring for a moment at smooth-faced Ryan and his handsome son as if they were aliens from another universe in their tropical wool suits, with their mellow southern voices, there to guide her to a spaceship disguised as a limousine.

  The small quaint brick buildings of Carondelet Street glided past in a curious silence, the sky like polished stone beyond the delicate downpour, the lightning opening a vein in the stone, the thunder crackling menacingly and then dying away.

  At last they came into a region of burnished skyscrapers, a shining America for two blocks, followed by an underground garage that might have been anywhere in the world.

  No surprises in the spacious thirtieth-floor offices of Mayfair and Mayfair, with its traditional furnishings and thick carpet, not even that two of the assembled Mayfair lawyers were women, and one was a very old man, or that the view through the high glass windows was of the river, gray as the sky, dotted with interesting tugs and barges, beneath the rain's silver veil.

  Then coffee and conversation of the most vague and frustrating sort with the white-haired Ryan, his light blue eyes as opaque as marbles, speaking interminably it seemed of "considerable investments," and "long term holdings," and "tracts of land which have been held for over a century," and hard-core conservative investments "larger than you might expect."

  She waited; they had to give her more than this; they had to. And then like a computer she analyzed the precious names and details when he at last began to let them slip.

  Here it was, finally, and she could see the hospitals and the clinics shimmering against the dream horizon, though she sat there motionless, expressionless, letting Ryan talk on.

  Blocks of real estate in downtown Manhattan and Los Angeles? The major financing for the Markham Harris Resorts worldwide hotel chain? Shopping malls in Beverly Hills, Coconut Grove, Boca Raton, and Palm Beach? Condominiums in Miami and Honolulu? And then once more references to the "very large" hard-core investments in treasury bills, Swiss francs, and gold.

  Her mind drifted but never very far. So Aaron's descriptions in the file had been completely accurate. He had given her the backdrop and the proscenium arch for this little drama to be fully appreciated. Indeed he had given her knowledge of which these clean-faced lawyers in their shining pastel office garments could not possibly dream.

  And once again, it struck her as positively strange that Aaron and Michael had ever feared her displeasure for placing a tool of that power in her hands. They didn't understand power, that was their problem. They'd never sliced into a cerebellum.

  And this legacy was a cerebellum, wasn't it?

  She drank her coffee in silence. Her eyes ran over the other Mayfairs, who also sat there in silence, as Ryan continued drawing his vague pictures of municipal bonds, oil leases, some cautious financing in the entertainment industry and of late in computer technology. Now and then she nodded, and made a small note with her silver pen.

  Yes, of course, she understood that the firm had managed things for over a century. That deserved a nod and a heartfelt murmur. Julien had founded the firm for such management. And of course she could well envision how the legacy was entangled with the finances of the family at large--"all to the benefit of the legacy, of course. For the legacy is first and foremost, but there has never been a conflict, in fact, to speak of a conflict is to misunderstand the scope ... "

  "I understand."

  "Ours has always been a conservative approach, but to appreciate fully what I'm saying, one must understand what such an approach means when one is speaking of a fortune of this size. You might, realistically, think in terms of a small oil-producing nation and I do not exaggerate--and of policies aimed at conserving and protecting rather than expanding and developing, because when capital in this amount is properly conserved against inflation or any other erosion or encroachment, the expansion is virtually unstoppable, and the development in countless directions is inevitable, and you are faced with the day-to-day issue of investing revenues so large that ... "

  "You're talking billions," she said in a quiet voice.

  Silent ripples passed through the assemblage. A Yankee blunder? She caught no vibration of dishonesty, only confusion, and fear of her and what she might eventually do. After all, they were Mayfairs, weren't they? They were scrutinizing her as she was scrutinizing them.

  Pierce glanced at his father, Pierce who was of all of them the most purely idealistic and the least tarnished. Ryan glanced at the others, Ryan who understood the scope of what was at stake in a way perhaps that the others could not.

  But no answer was forthcoming.

  "Billions." She spoke again. "In real estate alone."

  "Well, actually, yes, I have to say that is correct, yes, billions in real estate alone."

  How embarrassed and uncomfortable they all seemed, as if a strategic secret had been revealed.

  She could smell the fear suddenly, the revulsion of Lauren Mayfair, the older blond-haired woman lawyer, in her seventies perhaps, with the soft powdery wrinkled skin, who eyed her from the end of the table and imagined her shallow, spoilt, and programmed to be totally ungrateful for what the firm had done. And then there was Anne Marie Mayfair to the right, dark-haired, pretty, forty years or more, skillfully rouged, and smoothly dressed in her gray suit and blouse of saffron silk, and more frankly curious, peering at Rowan steadily through horn-rimmed glasses, but convinced that disaster of one sort or another must lie ahead.

  And Randall Mayfair, grandson of Garland, slender, with a hoary thatch of gray hair, and a soft wattle of a neck spilling over his collar, who merely sat there, eyes sleepy under his heavy brows and faintly purpled lids, not fearful, but watchful and by nature, resigned.

  And when their eyes met, Randall answered her silently. Of course you don't understand. How could you? How many people can understand? And so you'll want control, and for that you are a fool.

  She cleared her throat, ignoring the revealing manner in which Ryan made his hands into a church steeple just beneath his chin and star
ed at her hard with his marble blue eyes.

  "You're underestimating me," she said in a monotone, her eyes sweeping the group. "I'm not underestimating you. I only want to know what's involved here. I cannot remain passive. It would be irresponsible to remain passive."

  Moments of silence. Pierce lifted his coffee cup and drank without a sound.

  "But what we're really talking about," said Ryan calmly and courteously, the steeple having fallen, "to be completely practical here, you understand, is that one can live in queenly luxury on a fraction of the interest earned by the reinvestment of a fraction of the interest earned by the reinvestment of ... et cetera, if you follow me, without the capital ever being touched in any incidence or for any reason ... "

  "Again, I cannot be passive, nor complacent, nor negligently ignorant. I do not believe that I should be any of those things."

  Silence, and once again Ryan to break it. Conciliatory and gentlemanly. "What specifically would you like to know?"

  "Everything, the nuts and bolts of it. Or perhaps I should say the anatomy. I want to see the entire body as if it were stretched on a table. I want to study the organism as a whole."

  A quick exchange of glances between Randall and Ryan. And then Ryan again. "Well, that's perfectly reasonable but it may not be as simple as you imagine ... "

  "Yet there must be a beginning to it somewhere, and at some point, an end."

  "Well, undoubtedly, but I think you're envisioning this, if I may say so, in the wrong way."

  "One thing specifically," she said. "How much of this money goes into medicine? Are there any medical institutions involved?"

  How startled they were. A declaration of war, it seemed, or so said the face of Anne Marie Mayfair, glancing at Lauren and then at Randall, in the first undisguised bit of hostility which Rowan had witnessed since she'd come to this town. The older Lauren, a finger hooked beneath her lower lip, eyes narrow, was too polished for such a display and merely looked fixedly at Rowan, her gaze now and then shifting very slowly to Ryan, who again began to speak.

  "Our philanthropic endeavors have not in the past involved medicine, per se. Rather the Mayfair Foundation is more heavily involved with the arts and with education, with educational television in particular, and with scholarship funds at several universities, and of course we donate enormous sums through several established charities, quite independent of the Foundation, but all of this, you see, is carefully structured, and does not involve the release of the control of the money involved, so much as the release of the earnings ... "

  "I know how that works," Rowan said quietly. "But we are talking about billions, and hospitals, clinics, and laboratories are profit-making institutions. I wasn't thinking of the philanthropic question, really. I was thinking of an entire area of involvement; which could have considerable beneficial impact upon human lives."

  How curiously cold and exciting this moment was. How private too. Rather like the first time she had ever approached the operating table and held the microinstruments in her own hands.

  "We have not tended to go in the direction of medicine," said Ryan with an air of finality. "The field would require intense study, it would require an entire restructuring ... and Rowan, you do realize that this network of investments, if I may call it that, has evolved over a century's time. This isn't a fortune which can be lost if the silver market crashes, or if Saudi Arabia floods the world with free oil. We are talking about a diversification here which is very nearly unique in financial annals, and carefully planned maneuvers which have proven profitable through two world wars and numberless smaller upheavals."

  "I understand," she said. "I really do. But I want information. I want to know everything. I can start with the paper you filed with the IRS, and move on from there. Perhaps what I want is an apprenticeship, a series of meetings in which we discuss various areas of involvement. Above all I want statistics, because statistics are the reality finally ... "

  Again, the silence, the inner confusion, the glances ricocheting off each other. How small and crowded the room had become.

  "You want my advice?" asked Randall, his voice deeper and rougher than that of Ryan, but equally patient in its mellow southern cadences. "You're paying for it, actually, so you might as well have it."

  She opened her hands. "Please."

  "Go back to being a neurosurgeon; draw an income for anything and everything you will ever need; and forget about understanding where the money comes from. Unless you want to cease being a doctor and become what we are--people who spend their lives at board meetings, and talking to investment counselors and stockbrokers and other lawyers and accountants with little ten-key adding machines, which is what you pay us to do."

  She studied him, his dark unkempt gray hair, his droopy eyes, the large wrinkled hands now clasped on the table. Nice man. Yes, nice man. Man who isn't a liar. None of them are liars. None of them are thieves either. Intelligently managing this money requires all their skill and earns them profits beyond the dreams of those with a taste for thievery.

  But they are all lawyers, even pretty young Pierce with the porcelain skin is a lawyer, and lawyers have a definition of truth which can be remarkably flexible and at odds with anyone else's definition.

  Yet they have ethics. This man has his ethics; but he is profoundly conservative, and those who are profoundly conservative are not interventionists; they are not surgeons.

  They do not even think in terms of great goodness, or saving thousands, even millions of lives. They cannot guess what it would mean if this legacy, this egregious and monumental fortune, could be returned to the hands of the Scottish midwife and the Dutch doctor as they approached the sickbed, hands out to heal.

  She looked away, out towards the river. For a moment her excitement had blinded her. She wanted the warmth to die away from her face. Salvation, she whispered inside her soul. And it was not important that they understand it. What was important was that she understood it, and that they withheld nothing, and that as things were removed from their control, they were not hurt or diminished, but that they too should be saved.

  "What does it all amount to?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the river, on the long dark barge being pushed upstream by the shabby snub-nosed tug.

  Silence.

  "You're thinking of it in the wrong way," said Randall. "It's all of a piece, a great web ... "

  "I can imagine. But I want to know, and you mustn't blame me for it. How much am I worm?"

  No answer.

  "Surely you can make a guess."

  "Well, I wouldn't like to, because it might be entirely unrealistic if viewed from a ... "

  "Seven and one half billion," she said. "That's my guess."

  Protracted silence. Vague shock. She had hit very close to it, hadn't she? Close perhaps to an IRS figure, which had surfaced in one of these hostile and partially closed minds.

  It was Lauren who answered, Lauren whose expression had changed ever so slightly, as she drew herself up to the table and held her pencil in both hands.

  "You're entitled to this information," she said in a delicate, almost stereotypically feminine voice, a voice that suited her carefully groomed blond hair and pearl earrings. "You have every legal right to know what is yours. And I do not speak only for myself when I say that we will cooperate with you completely, for that we are ethically bound to do. But I must say, personally, that I find your attitude rather morally interesting. I welcome the chance to talk with you about every aspect of the legacy, down to the smallest detail. My only fear is that you're going to tire of this game, long before all the cards are on the table. But I am more than willing to take the initiative and begin."

  Did she realize how very patronizing this was? Rowan doubted it. But after all, the legacy had belonged to these people for over fifty years, hadn't it? They deserved patience. Yet she could not quite give them what they deserved.

  "There really isn't any other way for either of us to go about it," Rowan said. "It isn't
merely morally interesting that I want to know what's involved, it's morally imperative that I find out."

  The woman chose not to respond. Her delicate features remained tranquil, her small pale eyes widening slightly, her thin hands trembling only a little as they held the pencil at both ends. The others at the table were watching her, though each in his or her own fashion tried to disguise it.

  And Rowan realized; this is the brains behind the firm, this woman, Lauren. And all the time, Rowan had thought it was Ryan. Silently she acknowledged her mistake, wondering if the woman could possibly perceive what she was thinking. We have been wrong about each other ...

  But one could read anything into such an impassive face and such a graceful slow manner.

  "May I ask you a question," the woman asked, still looking directly at Rowan. "It's a purely business question, you understand."

  "Of course."

  "Can you take being rich? I mean really, really rich? Can you handle it?"

  Rowan was tempted to smile. It was such a refreshing question, and again, so patronizing and so insulting. Any number of replies came to her lips. But she settled for the simplest.

  "Yes," she said. "And I want to build hospitals."

  Silence.

  Lauren nodded. She folded her arms on the table, her eyes taking in the entire assembly. "Well, I don't see any problem with that," she said calmly. "Seems like an interesting idea. And we're here to do what you want, of course."

  Yes, she was the brains behind the firm. And she had allowed Ryan and Randall to do the talking. But she was the one who would be the teacher and eventually the obstacle.

  No matter.

  Rowan had what she wanted. The legacy was as real as the house was real, as real as the family was real. And the dream was going to be realized. In fact, she knew: it could be done.

  "I think we can talk about the immediate problems now, don't you?" Rowan asked. "You'll need to make an inventory of the possessions at the house? I believe someone mentioned this. Also, Carlotta's things. Is there anyone who wants to remove them?"