Marked Man

by William Lashner

  “I can,” said Monica. “And it was brutal.”

  “Oh, you didn’t have much trouble, I’m sure, a girl as pretty as you,” said Lena.

  “I filled out a bit later,” Monica said, “but I was quite the gawky adolescent.”

  “How did Theodore save you?” I said.

  “He gave me a job, made sure my money problems were handled, made sure I finished school. It wasn’t handouts he was giving, it was better. He was giving me myself back. What I am now I guess I owe to him. And the way Bryce has grown up has been because of him, too. He took responsibility for her from the start. As soon as Scott left, Theodore sort of became the father figure in her life.”

  “When’s the car coming?” called out Bryce.

  Lena looked at her watch. “Any minute.”

  “Egad. Do you have that barrette?”

  “On the bureau. And not too much makeup. You know Uncle Theodore doesn’t like too much makeup.”

  “I know, I know. But I need something.”

  “Where’s she heading?” I said. “A date?”

  “No, thank God,” Lena said. “Bryce is only fourteen. She’s going to a screening. At the house. Theodore makes a big party out of it.”

  “You’re not going?” said Monica.

  Lena looked at Monica and smiled. “I’d rather get to know my sister.”

  Monica glowed from the light of the compliment, her eyes watered.

  Lena said that she now worked for Theodore. In the company. She was listed as an executive producer on some of the movies, but all she did, really, was answer the phones, manage the office, handle crises on the sets. It was a little stressful, working for Theodore was always stressful, but the pay was enough to keep the apartment and take care of Bryce. She dated some and had a few steady boyfriends in the last couple of years, but mostly she spent her time at the office, at Theodore’s house, or with Bryce. It was not the life she always dreamed of, but it was a good life. The mistakes she made had been her own, and everything good, besides Bryce, had come from Theodore.

  “He’s been very kind to me,” she said. “You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he has a heart of gold.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t know it by looking at him.”

  Lena gave me a pained expression just as the buzzer buzzed. She stood. Bryce ran into the room. Tight jeans, silk cowboy shirt, hair straight, makeup bright. She didn’t look fourteen, she looked weirdly adult, older than her mother.

  “I’ll be right down,” said Bryce into the intercom before coming over to hug her mother. She said good-bye to Monica and then turned to me and gave me a puzzled look before saying, “I guess I’ll be seeing you.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I won’t be late,” she told her mother, then skipped out the door.

  “Nice kid,” I said.

  “She’s my heart,” said Lena. “My life. I’d do anything for her. Everything that ever happened is worth it because of her.” She paused for a moment, clutched at her hands again. “I suppose you have questions.”

  “Yes, of course we do,” said Monica. “But it’s okay. You can talk about it later if you want.”

  “I haven’t even thought about it in years and years. It’s all like a dim memory of a movie I saw a long time ago, that starred someone I can’t quite remember.”

  “Let’s talk about it later, then,” said Monica. “When you feel more ready.”

  “Do you have a good life, Monica?”

  “I suppose.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I work in an office. I have a boyfriend.”

  “I’m glad,” said Lena. “I’m glad it worked out for you. How’s Mom and Dad?”

  “Fine. Sad. They never got over your going missing.”

  “It would have been worse if I stayed. I was sad when I left, but I had to go. The way Theodore explained it, I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way.”

  “The only way to do what?” I said.

  “To save everyone,” said Lena. “To save the family.”

  This is what Lena said she remembered. The details that slipped through her repressed memory of those days were vague. She had a hazy picture of her mother’s face. Her father, she remembered, was big, so big. And she liked to dance. She especially loved the concerts and the recitals. And her red shoes. She remembered being both so excited and so scared when she appeared on that television show. She had some memory of the joy of her childhood, but what she remembered even more was the terror.

  “Terror?” said Monica.

  “I could never escape it,” said Lena.

  He was always there, bigger than she, stronger than she, reaching for her, hitting her, grabbing her, hurting her. Touching her. Touching her where he shouldn’t have been touching her. Making her do terrible things. She didn’t understand, she was too young to understand, and even so she knew it was all too terrible to tell anyone. Everything that he did to her and made her do to him.

  “Who did this to you?” I said. “Was it Teddy? Teddy Pravitz?”

  “Who is that?”

  “Theodore.”

  “What are you thinking, and why do you call him Teddy Pravitz?”

  “That was his name then.”

  “I don’t remember that. But no, of course not. He never touched me, ever. But he listened. He was the only one who listened. He was nice, and he gave me candy and gifts, and he listened. I told everyone, and no one believed me, no one did anything. I told Mom, I told our priest. No one.”

  “What about Ronnie?” said Monica.

  “No. He thought I was making it up, too. But Theodore believed me. And he saved me. He took me away.”

  “Who knew Theodore was taking you?” I said. “Who did Theodore tell?”

  “No one. Not Mom or Dad, not his friends. No one knew. It was all a secret. If anyone was told, Theodore said, I would be put back into the house, and nothing would happen, and I would be at his mercy again, for the rest of my life. Or, if I was believed, I would be taken out of the house, and he would go to jail, and the family would be torn apart. I didn’t want him to go to jail, I just wanted it to stop.”

  “Was it Daddy who was hurting you?” said Monica.

  “Don’t you know, Monica? Don’t you know?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said.

  “Thank God. Then it stopped before you were born. Or it was only about me, which is what I always thought anyway. The thing that scared me when I thought about it was that it would keep happening with someone else. But Theodore told me that the only way to stop it and to protect me, to protect everyone, to keep the family from tearing itself apart, was for me to go away. That it would stop if he took me away, took me away to safety.”

  “Who was it, Chantal?” said Monica. “Who was touching you? Who was hurting you?”

  “You really don’t know.”

  “No, I don’t. Who?”

  “Which means it did stop. For everyone. Which is such a relief. Which means what I did was right. That leaving was right. For everyone.”

  “Who was it?”

  “My brother,” she said. “Our brother. It was Richard.”

  “Richard?”

  “And no one would stop him. It might have been jealousy, it might have been something he was born with, but no one would stop him. I wanted to kill him, to kill myself, until Theodore came along.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Monica. “Richard?”

  “He was so much bigger than me, so strong, and so angry. I couldn’t stop him, I just couldn’t.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” said Monica, slipping closer to Lena on the couch. “You poor, poor thing.”

  She reached for her sister, she put her arms around her, pulled her close. The two women broke into tears together. The lights dimmed, the camera pulled back, the music swelled.

  57

  “You keep pressing button, it very annoying,” came Lou’s voice over the squawk box beside the closed g
ate at the Purcell estate. “I have headache already. What you want?”

  “To see the new movie, to talk to the boss.”

  “He invite you back?”

  “Sure he did. Told me to come around whenever I wanted. Any good-looking women there tonight?”

  “Always good-looking women at screening party. You think you get lucky tonight, Victor Carl?”

  “Why not?”

  “My English not good enough to tell you why not.”

  “Oh, Lou, my guess is you could give Shakespeare a run for his money if you wanted.”

  “Okay, you smarter than you look, which maybe not so hard in your case. I let you in, but don’t eat all my canapés. They for invited guests only.”

  “Deal,” I said. A moment later the gate slowly opened.

  The winding, unkempt drive, the clutch of cars parked off to the side, the guy in a red jacket standing at the front entrance.

  “Beat the hell out of it, I don’t care,” I said as I handed over the keys. “It’s rented.”

  I expected the bare living room to be crowded with the rich and the beautiful, but it was mostly empty, a couple sitting on the floor off in the corner making out, a man standing by the window with a drink in his hand, looking dazed and confused. There was a tray of canapés on the coffee-table crate and Bryce on the couch, legs curled beneath her, paging through a magazine.

  “Where’s the party?” I said.

  Bryce looked up and smiled. Somehow her smile immediately brightened my day. I had the strange sensation that I was being smiled at by Chantal, the real Chantal.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.

  “Neither did I.”

  “Did you bring my mother?”

  “She decided to stay and talk with Monica.”

  Bryce seemed a little disappointed. “I guess that’s nice.”

  “It looks like Monica’s sleeping over.”

  “Like a pajama party,” said Bryce.

  “Just like,” I said. “What did your mother tell you about the name Chantal?”

  “Nothing. She told me today that some people would come by and call her Chantal and that she’d explain everything to me later.”

  “And you had no problem with that?”

  “My mom’s an actress, she’s always playing a part.”

  “And she acts for Uncle Theodore?”

  “When she’s not too busy at the office.”

  “I see. Where is everybody?”

  “In the screening room. Downstairs, just across from the billiards room. Theodore’s showing his newest film.”

  “Why aren’t you there?”

  “I’m not allowed. Theodore’s very strict.”

  I took a step forward, stooped down to speak with her at eye level. “How is he strict?”

  “He takes care of me, he looks out for me. I don’t know. He’s very nice to me and all, but he’s just strict. He likes to have me around but he doesn’t let me do anything. No boyfriends, makes me watch my language. He’s like an ornery grandfather or something, you know? I don’t know. He’s old-school about a lot of things.”

  “Okay,” I said, standing. “Good.”

  “When are you and Monica leaving?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be late for the plane.”

  “Don’t worry. That way?”

  She nodded in the direction of the stairs. I popped a canapé in my mouth and climbed down the stairs, following the sound to the screening room. An uncomfortably primal sound.

  It was a large room, larger than the living room, with all kinds of easy chairs and couches facing a huge screen. A video projector was attached to the ceiling, and the sound was being blasted out of a set of speakers hung fore and aft on the walls. The chairs and couches were mostly filled, the air was thick with smoke, the picture was bright, the dialogue was loud and sparklingly clear.

  Although how clear it needed to be to make out the “Ooh, baby, yeah, that’s the way I like it, do it again and again and again” is a little beyond me.

  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Sometimes, even though my experiences as a lawyer have hardened me to the hard facts of the world, I still find myself inexplicably clinging to a hope that all is not as foul as I imagine it to be. And inevitably that’s when I tumble into the cesspool.

  Yes, the movie on that giant screen, Theodore’s newest film production, was baldly pornographic. Not pornographic the way some in this country would call a square sponge with buckteeth and tight briefs pornographic, I mean out-and-out, too-hard-core-for-late-night-hotel-television pornographic. I mean pornographic enough to shock me into almost swallowing my tongue and lead me into a coughing spasm that had many in the room turning around to stare at the disturbance.

  And one of the stares came from Theodore Purcell himself, with his ubiquitous thick cigar. He was sitting on a couch next to a tall lovely with elegant posture and a strong jaw. She had one arm over his shoulder, one hand on his knee, and she was whispering in his ear even as he stared at me.

  Purcell said something to the woman, she turned to look at me. Then Purcell struggled to his feet. Without saying a word, he passed by me and stalked into the billiards room.

  When I followed him inside, he closed the door behind us. The room was bright, quiet except for the moans slipping in from the screening. The tip of the cigar glowed. The cue ball made a lonely comment on the long brown table. From the window I could see the murky pool, glowing strangely in the night. I almost expected to see a body floating facedown, but then I remembered that only shows up in act 3.

  “Ahh, surprised to see you here, kid,” said Theodore Purcell.

  “I thought I’d check out your new movie,” I said. “I didn’t know you were making such fine family entertainment these days. How long have you been making porn?”

  “Not so long. It’s like guerrilla filming, in, out, and lots of dough. A few flops in this town and you’re on your back, but I’m building up my stake again, getting ready to return to the fray. I got a script that can’t miss. Best script I’ve read in years. Not a porn script, legit.”

  “The thing you showed me yesterday?”

  “Not that crap, that was just a test. What I got is the real deal. It’s genius, brilliant. Another Tony in Love, but better than Tony in Love. It’ll put me right back on top. You want a look?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I might need a line producer on the project.”

  “What about Reggie?”

  “He’s in over his head. I need a different kind of smarts, street smarts. Earn yourself a credit, get a start in the business. Hell, everyone wants to be in the business. You interested?”

  “Not a whit.”

  “Think about it. The offer’s open. But I’m surprised to see you here.” Purcell rolled the white ball hard against the far bumper and, when it shot back, he stopped it deftly. “I thought you’d still be with Chantal.”

  “She’s not Chantal. She’s a hoax, and not a very good one at that.”

  “She’s the real deal, kid.”

  “As real as anything in this town, I suppose, but she’s not Chantal.”

  “What does your friend Monica think?”

  “She wants to believe, she’s trying hard, but that doesn’t make Lena any less a fraud.”

  “And how are you so certain?”

  “Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,” I said. “She knew nothing about Chantal’s family life, her friends or uncles. When Monica mentioned Chantal’s cousin Ronnie, the cousin who was like a sister to Chantal, she didn’t know who that was. She tried to fake it, but Ronnie’s not a he, she’s a cute little blond girl who might have been the most important person in Chantal’s life.”

  “She’s repressed most of her early memories.”

  “Give it a rest, Teddy. She didn’t know anything that you couldn’t have known to tell her. And then you had her blame the wrong guy. Richard is not the beast type, it’s not in him. He�
�s a coward, always was. He was more sinned upon than sinner when it came to his sister, you ask me. But the biggest tip-off was that Lena said none of your friends knew that you had taken her. But we know that’s a lie. Charlie knew what happened to Chantal, didn’t he?”

  “He tell you that?”

  “Nope.”

  He rolled the cue ball against the far bumper again, caught it with a quick, violent snatch. “Then you’re guessing.”

  “Sure I am. That’s what lawyers do, but I’m right.”

  “If you have all the answers, kid, then what do you need from me? What are you doing here?”

  “I originally came to bring Bryce home,” I said.

  His blue eyes startled, his jaw slackened, his head tilted to the side. He was the very image of a man trying to figure out the impenetrable mystery of another man’s thoughts. He stuck his cigar in his mouth, sucked in a mouthful of smoke, and then he got it, all my worst suspicions, in one quick revelation he got it. And in that instant I could sense not the nervousness of guilt but the relaxation of someone who knows that his adversary doesn’t yet know enough to hurt him.

  “So you don’t got all the answers do you, kid?”

  “Some, but not all.”

  “Information’s power, kid. What you don’t know will ruin you every time. You got me all wrong. I’m no pervert.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “But I no longer think Bryce is in danger. Which means I still don’t understand what happened to Chantal. I thought for sure you were abusing her, and it got out of hand, and you killed her, but I don’t think that anymore.”

  “Course not. I just like kids, like having them around. And Chantal, she had something special about her. A toughness.”

  “So why did she go missing?”

  “Maybe she ran away.”

  “She was too young.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong about Lena.”

  “No, not that either, because something bad happened. I know that for sure.”

  “How do you know anything, you punk?”

  “Because Charlie has the painting, which tells me all I need to know. You stole it as an insurance policy, as something to barter in case something went wrong, but somehow Charlie ended up with it. I asked you point-blank why Charlie, and you didn’t have an answer, but I do. You gave him the painting to keep him quiet. It’s why you want to keep him away from Philly now, buy him off, make sure he won’t talk. Because he knows.”