by R.J. Ellory
Freiberg smiled, angled his head to one side. ‘Whatever you were going to say, first and foremost, you are your father’s son.’
Harper shook his head. ‘I don’t know how to deal with this,’ he said quietly, almost to himself.
‘Sure you don’t,’ Freiberg replied. ‘Tell me someone who would know how to deal with this. You’ve been walking around the edges of this thing since you got here.’ He leaned forward, rested the backs of his forearms on the table. He held a matchbook in his fingers which he turned over, back and forth, back and forth, and Harper watched him do it, almost mesmerized. ‘This is a big thing,’ Freiberg went on. ‘This is a fucking giant, and not only do you have to deal with the reality of who your father is you also have to deal with all the attachments and extras. This thing with Evelyn . . . Christ’s sake, Sonny, I find it tough to get my head around that and I’ve known the woman for as many years as you’ve been alive. And, aside from everything else, you have Frank obsessive-fucking-compulsive Duchaunak treading on your toes every time you take a step left or right.’ Freiberg smiled broadly, and there was something in his eyes, something sincere and earnest, that made Harper feel as though the man had some inkling of what he was going through. ‘It all comes back to family, you know? Whatever the fuck else might be going on it all comes back to family. You had a mother, you have a father, and right now he’s laid up in St Vincent’s with a bullet hole in him, and what little life he has left they’re trying their damnedest to keep from leaking right out of that fucking hole, and the person that did that to him, the asshole who figured it might be a good idea to see the last of your father, well I can guarantee he’s somewhere right now eating his two hundred-dollar lunch, talking with his people and figuring out what he’s going to do with your father’s territory when he dies.’
Harper looked up suddenly, his eyes wide.
‘Sure as shit and shinola,’ Freiberg said. ‘His name is Ben Marcus, and he’s been snapping at your father’s heels for as long as I can remember. This guy is the source of all this trouble. If Ben Marcus hadn’t been such a greedy motherfucker, if he hadn’t gotten it into his head that his own territory and business wasn’t big enough, then your father would not have been shot. He wouldn’t be up there in St Vincent’s on a life support machine, Evelyn wouldn’t have had to confront the truth and pull your life to pieces, and you’d be somewhere down in Florida minding your own business and getting on with your life. That’s what Ben Marcus has done, and that’s what he needs to pay for.’
Freiberg sat back and nodded his head. He relaxed his shoulders and crossed his legs. He was silent, like he was waiting for Harper to say something.
Harper looked at Cathy Hollander. Cathy looked at Freiberg.
‘Ask her,’ Freiberg said. ‘Ask her about Ben Marcus. Christ, she was around the guy for God knows how long . . . if anyone can tell you what a complete asshole Ben Marcus is then there’s your girl. The man is dangerous, truly fucking dangerous.’
Cathy turned back to Harper.
Harper raised his eyebrows and Cathy averted her eyes for a moment.
‘Well?’ Harper asked.
‘He’s right,’ Cathy said. ‘Everything that Walt told you is right.’
‘That this Ben Marcus is responsible for the shooting of my father?’
Cathy did not respond.
‘Cathy? Is he? Is this guy the one who had my father shot?’
She nodded her head.
‘Is that a yes?’
She turned to look at him, dead-center, up close. ‘Yes,’ she said emphatically. ‘I believe Ben Marcus ordered the shooting of your father.’
The Gordian knot of emotions, tied tighter than Sunday shoes, started to weaken at the center.
Harper held it together. Not here, he thought. I cannot deal with this here.
‘And this Duchaunak character?’ he asked Freiberg. ‘This thing with Duchaunak’s fiancee? Is it true that she was killed in a bank robbery?’
Freiberg nodded.
Harper shook his head. He breathed deeply a couple of times. ‘And my father was responsible for this?’
Freiberg laughed. ‘Was he fuck! That was Ben Marcus’s gig. That was a Ben Marcus job through and through. Half a dozen gorillas with semis and M-16s thundering their way around the place. No class Sonny, the guy has no fucking class. Granted, your father fronted the money but it was Marcus’s people that did it.’ Freiberg smiled. ‘Wake up and smell the java kid . . . you know exactly what I’m talking about. This isn’t TV, this is the real deal, the real fucking deal. This is what people like us do. This is the life your father led until Ben Marcus—’
‘Until Ben Marcus got someone to shoot him, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Jesus.’ Harper seemed like a man on the edge as he looked at Freiberg. ‘Evelyn was going to tell me about this. She said that Duchaunak believed my father was responsible for all his unhappiness . . . this is what she was talking about, wasn’t she?’
Freiberg shrugged. ‘As far as I know Duchaunak figures your father for everything from the Wall Street Crash to the Hearst kidnapping. What we got here is a cop who is supposed to be under some kind of psychological care, s’posed to be getting his thinking patterns ironed straight by some headpeeper. This is the kind of guy we’re dealing with here; the kind of person who’s devoted his time and energies to making your father guilty of everything that’s happened in New York for the last seven or eight years, probably much longer.’
Harper frowned. ‘But why?’
‘Why is he after your father?’
‘Right. Why does he think something like that if it isn’t true?’
‘Because your father has managed to sidestep the guy a good few times, and every time he does that Duchaunak loses the thread just that little bit further. He’s gotten himself a little fixated on the subject—’
‘Why this? Why does it have to be this way? Why couldn’t he be a schoolteacher? Why couldn’t he be an engineer or a computer guy, something like that?’
Freiberg smiled. ‘Same reason you’ll never really be a newspaper journalist.’
Harper frowned.
‘You’re a writer. There’s a whole lot of difference between a guy who can write a book, and some guy who puts together column inches for the daily rag. Hell, I’m not going to knock someone who works for the press, man’s got to earn a living right? But there’s a difference, one helluva big difference, between that and writing a whole fucking book.’
Harper nodded. There was a difference, no doubt about it.
‘So why’d you do it?’ Freiberg asked.
‘Write the book?’ Harper asked. ‘Hell, I don’t know, Walt . . . it was just there. I felt like I had to.’
‘You didn’t have a choice, right?’
‘I s’pose not, no.’
‘Well, that’s why your father does what he does . . . hell, that’s why we all do this. ’Cause we don’t have a choice. That’s the truth right there. We don’t have a choice.’
‘Don’t have a choice?’ Harper said, in his voice the strain of incredulity. ‘What d’you mean, no choice? How can you even begin to compare something like writing a book with robbing banks and killing people?’
Freiberg shook his head. ‘I’m not doing any comparing here,’ he said. ‘All I’m saying is that when it comes down to it, when you take everything away and confront the reason why someone does something – good, bad or indifferent – it all comes down to purpose. The guy has a purpose to do something, that’s the thing that drives him, makes him determined, and whether you’re talking about Frank Duchaunak or Edward Bernstein or Albert Einstein it doesn’t matter. The thing is the drive. What the guy feels is the drive. That drive is going to carry him forward, and where it carries him? Well, frankly, there’s as many different destinations as there are people, right?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Harper said.
Freiberg nodded, in his expression something that spoke of em
pathy, almost compassion for Harper’s predicament. ‘Then don’t say anything,’ he replied. ‘You do whatever you have to do with what I’ve told you. I’ve got to do what I have to do. I have to make this thing right—’
‘What thing?’
‘This thing with Lenny . . . with your father. Ben Marcus had someone shoot him and I can’t let that lie. Me and your father, well, me and your father have been as close as anything for a good many years, and regardless of the rightnesses or wrongnesses of what’s happened there is a certain justice that has to come about.’
‘You’re going to kill Ben Marcus?’
Freiberg laughed. ‘Hell no, kid, I’m not a murderer. I’m not going to kill Ben Marcus, but I am going to do something that’s going to make his life very difficult for a very long time.’
‘What’re you going to do?’
Freiberg shook his head. ‘As far as you’re concerned I’m not going to do anything. You don’t want to get involved. You don’t want to be any part of this thing, believe me. You have your own life. You should stay however long you feel is right, and if your father passes away then you have to make a decision about whether you want to stay for his funeral and whatever. You decide to go, then no-one’s going to stop you. You can go right back to Miami and pick up where you left off, make believe this was all some bad dream you managed to survive. You can forget about me, about Cathy, forget all about Evelyn, crazy mother-fuckin’ bitch that she is—’
‘Walt!’ Cathy interjected.
Freiberg sort of half smiled, looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry, no offence,’ he said. ‘Anyway, like I said, you have to make whatever sense of this you can. You have to decide for yourself, basically because no-one else is going to make any decisions for you; and if you need anything from me, if you need money, a plane ticket, whatever, then you only have to let me know and it will be taken care of.’
‘And Duchaunak?’ Harper asked.
Freiberg looked puzzled. ‘Duchaunak? What about him?’
‘I should tell him I’m going?’
‘Fuck him. You want to go you just go, that’s all there is to it.’
Harper looked at Cathy. She tried to smile but it seemed from the awkwardness of her expression that she was unwilling to venture any suggestions. Harper turned back to Walt. ‘You think I should go?’
‘I don’t think anything. Guiding principle of my life is to think as little as possible as often as I can.’
‘Seriously, Walt . . . you think I should go back to Miami and try to forget all of this?’
‘You can’t ask me something like that. How could someone else ever answer a question like that? If I make the decision then I’m the fall guy whichever way it goes. Anything bad happens then it’s going to be because I influenced your decision, right?’
‘I have a little more responsibility for myself than that.’
Freiberg smiled knowingly, almost sardonically. ‘Everyone has as much responsibility as they need until something comes along that they don’t want to be responsible for, know what I mean? You can say whatever you like, it isn’t going to change my view on this. There’s a thing I have to do. It’s a personal thing. That’s all there is to it. You’re no more involved in that than you are in . . . hell, I don’t know . . . whatever the hell else you aren’t involved in. This is a business matter, that’s all, and whether you stay or go isn’t going to make any difference in what I do. Do I think you should stay? Do I think you should go back to Florida? Those are questions I will not answer for you, because whichever way it goes I’m going to wind up wrong, you understand?’
Harper nodded slowly. He understood perfectly well. There was little else to say.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Freiberg asked.
Harper smiled wryly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘There isn’t any hurry. You can take whatever time you like coming to a decision. There isn’t a deadline here.’
‘I want to go back to the hotel,’ Harper said.
‘Now? You want to go now? We haven’t even finished lunch.’
Harper shook his head. ‘I don’t have a great deal of appetite Walt. I want to go back to the hotel and sleep for a while. This is too much for me to deal with. There are too many things I’m trying to work out, and I really don’t feel so good, you know?’
Walt Freiberg leaned forward and closed his hand over Harper’s. ‘I understand kid, I really do. This has all been a bit fucking much, right? Cathy here will get you back to the hotel, right, Cathy?’
‘Sure thi—’
‘No,’ Harper said. He glanced at Cathy. He felt awkward, perhaps couldn’t deal with being alone with her just at that point. ‘It’s okay. I want to go by myself. I’ll take a cab. I’ll just go out and take a cab and see myself over to the hotel. I need to have a rest. I need to get some space away from all of this and figure out what I’m going to do.’
‘Sure you do,’ Freiberg said. ‘You do whatever you want. Let us know if there’s anything you need and we’ll get it taken care of.’
Harper tried to rise from his chair. He was unsteady on his feet and Cathy Hollander reached out her hand to assist him.
Harper hesitated for a moment, and then he took it. He steadied himself, maneuvered his jacket from the back of his chair and around his shoulders, and edged out from behind the table.
He stood there for a moment, his face all but empty of expression, his eyes kind of flat and blank.
‘You’re going to be okay,’ Freiberg said without rising from his chair. ‘Things are going to work out, Sonny . . . they always do.’
Harper nodded without really absorbing what Freiberg had said, and then he turned and started walking towards the front door of the restaurant.
Cathy Hollander made as if to follow him.
‘Let him go,’ Freiberg said. ‘Let the kid go . . . he needs some time to himself.’
Cathy hesitated, turned and looked at Freiberg.
Freiberg smiled. ‘He got to you, didn’t he? Eh? Tell me the truth now, sweetheart . . . that boy did whatever he did and found his way under your skin. Tell me I’m wrong.’
Cathy Hollander said nothing, didn’t even crack her face with a smile. She merely turned at the sound of the restaurant door opening and the sight of Harper almost stumbling out into the street.
Freiberg smiled – all high, wide and handsome. ‘You know what they say sweetheart?’ he joked. ‘You want to find out if they love you, well you let ’em go and see if they come back.’
FORTY-SIX
Neumann smiled. He had a gold tooth three back on the right. It caught the light at an angle.
Ben Marcus leaned forward and steepled his fingers together. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I need a reason?’
Neumann smiled again. ‘No Ben, you don’t need a reason. Noone needs a reason for anything. I’m just curious, that’s all.’
‘Because she made a fool out of me,’ Marcus replied. ‘She was here and then she went with Bernstein, and she made a fool out of me.’
Sol Neumann shook his head and frowned. ‘I don’t get it. Best as I recall it was a straight deal. He wound up with the girl, fair and square, right?’
Marcus shook his head. ‘You’re missing the point Sol. It wasn’t that I lost. It wasn’t that she was the deal and she went with Lenny Bernstein. It was that she didn’t say a word, not one word of complaint. The fact that she said nothing made it clear that she wanted to go more than she wanted to stay with me. That’s why, Sol . . . as simple as that.’
‘So when? Before or after?’
‘After. The whole thing goes down and then you get her.’
‘You want me to do it personally?’
‘Whatever you like, Sol. You do it yourself or you have someone do it. All I want to know at the end of the day is that Cathy Hollander is dead, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Sol Neumann said, a little taken aback by the force of Marcus’s dislike for the girl. ‘Whatever you want, Ben, consider it done.’
&
nbsp; Marcus nodded. ‘Good enough,’ he said quietly, and went back to reading his newspaper.
*
Sometimes he takes out photographs. There are a few, perhaps four or five, and though she smiles, though she is laughing, none of them capture the spirit that was Lauren Sachs. Unbeknownst to Duchaunak she bears an uncanny resemblance to Anne Sawyer. Had he known this he perhaps would have believed that God was no crueller than when inflicting irony.
And when he holds the photographs he can see his hands shaking, and it is not the tremens of a drunk, nor the anxieties of a neurotic; it is the suppressed emotional reaction of a man afraid, a man both lonely and afraid.
This is a life, kind of. This is an existence, to apply the broadest sense of understanding to the term. This is what he is, and what he is seems altogether driven by something external. A planet in orbit that remains merely because of a star’s magnetic influence. Were the star to implode, or burn, or even shift its axis, the planet would spiral away into darkness and vanish. As if it had never been. As if it had been a figment of the imagination.
As far as Captain McLuhan was concerned there was no life. It ceased from the moment Duchaunak was suspended, and would resume when he was reinstated. If he was.
Duchaunak sets the pictures down on the kitchen counter. He touches each in turn. Five of them. In only one is he present, and at the moment of the taking, as the finger of the photographer was depressed to capture that split second, Lauren had turned her eyes fractionally to the right and smiled. As if at someone else.
There had been no-one else there but Duchaunak. He alone knew that. But now, now and forever, it seems that she is almost ignorant of his presence.
It breaks his heart.
It breaks his fucking heart.
Later, a vague collection of random and empty minutes, he gathers up the pictures and returns them to a worn and tired envelope.
He folds the envelope along all-too-familiar creases, creases that will soon come apart, but he will not throw the envelope away, for there in the right-hand corner as he turns it over, inscribed in her nonchalant hand, it says ‘Me and Frank, Summer ’96’.