Runner

by Thomas Perry

  "Of course," said Demming. "And what about your mother? If he's gone, will she be on your side and keep from asking questions?"

  "No," said Richard. "We'll have to think about her, too, I suppose. But not yet. Give my father some time."

  18

  The next morning, as Andy Beale drove into the parking lot outside the prison, he saw his detective Grace Kandinsky getting out of her car so he would see her. She turned her head at an odd angle to her left as she lit a cigarette, so he couldn't help following her eyes to see a woman in a black sedan across the lot. She seemed to be young, and had a sweet-faced attractiveness, with long blond hair. That had to be the replacement for the woman Grace had told him about, the one Demming had assigned to watch the prison. The blond woman took out her telephone while Andy parked his car a distance away from hers. He supposed she was going to report to Demming that he was here, but when he got out of his car and walked toward the prison entrance, he realized that she was taking his picture over and over with her cell phone as he walked. He looked the other way and pretended he hadn't seen her do it. It was always best to keep to himself how much he knew and how much he didn't.

  He went inside the prison entrance and separated himself from the proceedings emotionally. The prison officials cleared him and briefed him and made him wait. He reminded himself that the guards didn't have anything against him and no reason to be impressed by him. They just needed to be sure he wasn't going to hand one of their prisoners something dangerous or forbidden. Andy Beale had learned in the navy that a man who tried to resist authority was wasting his time. He could see that prisons were the same. Getting by was really just a matter of going where they pointed you and waiting quietly until they were ready to point you somewhere else. In due time he found himself in a visiting room, being ushered to a counter across from a man about fifty in khaki clothes. "Mr. Monahan?" he said. "I'm Andy Beale."

  Monahan sat down. "Hello, Mr. Beale."

  There was no handshake, no smile. Andy Beale sat down, trying to use the seconds before he talked to read Monahan's face. There was a lot of wrinkling around the forehead and eyes, where he saw a look of anxiety that he was sure predated the prison term by many years. Monahan had the look of a man who had gotten used to losing. "Mr. Monahan," he said, "the reason I drove up here today is to meet you in person and see whether you and I can help our children. I'm the father of a strong, healthy, successful son who's had his heart broken."

  Monahan was impassive. "Is that something I'm supposed to worry about? When you drove into this place did you happen to notice it was a federal prison?"

  "Maybe I'm just teasing myself with false hopes. I know from Richard that Christine loves you very much, so I thought she might have confided in you a little, and you would know what I'm talking about."

  "She does confide in me. I know who Richard is."

  "I'm glad," he said, in spite of the fact that Monahan's expression didn't indicate that he'd heard anything good. "Then what I have to tell you is that since Christine left, he's been absolutely devastated. He's always been a cheerful, optimistic young man. Now he's moping around all the time. For a few days he'll throw himself back into business and be in the office working from dawn until dark the way he always did, but it's not the same. I can see he's just desperate to take his mind off her for a few hours. I can see he hasn't slept much. His eyes are hollow and he never smiles. Then he'll exhaust himself and one day he won't even get out of bed. I'm telling you, I'd turn him over to the psychiatrists, except that I know what's wrong. All they could do for him is load him up with antidepressants, and that won't solve anything."

  "I'll be honest with you, Mr. Beale. When I first heard Chris was dating your son, I didn't encourage it. She was eighteen years old, and that's too young to be getting serious with anyone, let alone an employer, a man who is twice her age. He had no business putting her in that position."

  "I understand what you're saying," said Andy Beale. "I get the sense that you've spent most of your life the way I have—working in business. And we've both seen a lot of times when executives have fooled around with young secretaries, and been real users, and haven't cared about those young women at all. That's why the laws have changed and become very punitive about sexual harassment. But if you've talked with Christine about Richard, you know that isn't what was going on between them. I respect your worries, and I respect you for having them, but your daughter and my son are in love."

  "The reason I didn't try to interfere was that I was in here," said Robert Monahan. "I wasn't in any moral position to tell anyone that what they were doing was wrong. And Christine has had to be independent, making all of her own decisions and working to support herself, since she was sixteen. All I could do for her was just to help her feel good about herself."

  "You're a sensible man," said Andy. "I admire you for that. If I'd known, I would have discouraged it, too, but Richard is the same—self-motivated, self-reliant, and not someone to come to his father for permission. You and I couldn't stop it, but maybe we can salvage it. Do you know what went wrong for Christine? What made her decide to leave him like this?"

  "Not specifically. Until recently I didn't know that she had moved in with him, and I don't know exactly what made her decide this was the time to leave. I do know she isn't planning to go back."

  Andy Beale looked down at his feet and shook his head. "Kids. They do these things on impulse, without thinking." He looked at Robert Monahan again. "You know she's going to have a baby?"

  "It doesn't make me happy, but I know. She'll be a good mother."

  "She's a girl you can be sure will be responsible. My son has told me a lot about her, and I saw a lot of her when she worked in our family business. But I use the word 'girl' intentionally. She's not entirely grown up."

  "And your son didn't give her much time to finish growing up, did he?"

  "You have my profound apology for that. He's always been a fine young man, and no fool either, until he fell in love. I was deeply surprised that he would ever take such a chance, put the girl he loved in that kind of jeopardy. He's not the first to do that, but it wasn't like him. I talked to him about it in pretty harsh terms, I can tell you. He said that at the time they were taking all the precautions, but maybe they got careless once because they both knew they'd be married before long and it wouldn't matter."

  "He asked her to marry him?"

  Andy Beale sensed the first bit of surprise, the first real interest in the conversation. It was like a spark on tinder, and he had to keep fanning it, trying to coax a flame into life. "He said they talked about marriage often, and she told him she wanted to. He told me he thought the only reason she was putting it off was that she wanted to wait to make it official until after you had been in here long enough to qualify for some kind of furlough to give her away at the wedding." He looked at Monahan in curiosity. "Was she being straight with him? Does the prison work that way?"

  "I asked if he actually proposed to her."

  Andy Beale sensed that this might be a trap. She might have told her father that Richard hadn't asked her. "They discussed it. I don't think he went through the whole production of getting down on one knee yet. I know he bought the engagement ring and a matching wedding band, and was keeping them as a surprise. I've seen them. The engagement ring has a three-carat diamond that cost him about fifteen thousand dollars. He said he was waiting for her to be ready to accept a proposal before he officially asked, or he would just make her feel bad." He kept his eyes on Monahan's, wondering if he had gone too far. He wished he could have brought a ring in here to show him, but that was against the rules.

  Monahan said, "What do you want from me?"

  "I want you to help me make my son happy. The reason you should do it is that it will make your daughter happy, too."

  "How do I do that?"

  "When you next talk to Christine, tell her what I've told you—that Richard's heartbroken because she left. He wants to marry her and bring her home
with him in time to have the baby. He loves her and misses her every hour of every day. He thinks she must have misunderstood something he said or did, and if she would just talk to him, he's sure he could clear it up."

  "You want me to say all that?"

  "Yes. I know that being in here, you worry about her all the time. Hell, I'm a father, too. But Richard will take care of her. He'll treat her like a queen for the rest of her life."

  Monahan folded his arms across his chest, and Andy Beale knew that this did not signal anything good. Monahan said, "Her story isn't quite the same as your son's. She's not going to take anybody's word fourth hand over her own memory."

  "I'm not asking her to, only to listen to what he has to say. Please. Things sometimes happen between a man and a woman that their fathers don't know, and probably shouldn't know. I don't know what made her mad. I just know he's sincere, and never meant for this to happen. If she won't listen to Richard, is there somebody she knows who will?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Somebody she trusts. Maybe somebody a little older, who can talk it over with Richard and then report back to her."

  "No."

  "Come on," Andy pleaded. "Give my son a chance, at least."

  "I haven't seen Christine in over a month. I don't expect her any time soon. I don't even know what city she's in."

  "I accept that. But isn't there anybody who can give my son a phone number or an e-mail address? Anything?"

  "Not that I know of."

  Andy Beale knew nothing about Christine. He was reduced to a bluff. "What about that friend of hers, that Sandy or Sarah or Susan or whatever it was?"

  "Sharon?"

  "Yeah. What about her? Do you think she could set something up so Richard could get a message to Christine? Even if they're thousands of miles apart, I think Richard could make her know how much he cares."

  "You'd have to ask Sharon."

  "Do you have her address?"

  "No," said Monahan. "I don't have addresses. If anybody wants to reach me, they know where I am." He stood up and nodded to the guard across the room.

  Andy Beale tried to cover his disappointment by standing up, too. "Just think about what I said. The day they marry I'll give them each a wedding present of a million dollars. And I'll throw in a nice house on the beach."

  "I don't think this is about money."

  "Of course not," said Andy. "It's about love. I'm just trying to treat her like one of the family."

  "Good-bye." The guard had arrived, and he took Robert Monahan beyond the steel door.

  As Andy Beale walked out of the building he reflected that Monahan had surprised him. There was a part of Andy Beale that thought there might have been a time when the two fathers could sit down for a beer together—maybe out on Andy's boat—and learn to get along fine. But he had a bad feeling it wasn't going to work out that way this time. Whatever Richard had done, Monahan wasn't ever going to forgive him.

  Richard Beale was upstairs in his bedroom watching the Padres playing the Braves on the big-screen television when his cell phone rang. He got up off the bed and hurried to the desk where he had left the phone, and snatched it up. "Hello?" He waited to hear whether it was his father's voice or Christine's.

  "Hi, Richard."

  "Sybil?"

  "Yes, it's me. I'm in my car outside."

  Richard walked across the hallway to one of the spare bedrooms on the street side and looked out the window. He could see her sitting in his driveway in her red Corvette. "Is something happening?"

  "I was going by on my way out for a drink, and I thought I'd see if you were thirsty, too."

  "Did you just drive in all the way from Lompoc?" He began to walk to the stairs.

  "I flew, grandpa. These days we have flying machines."

  "You know, I'll bet I have everything here that they have in most bars. There's no loud noise, and you don't have to wait in a line to use the ladies' room." As Richard walked toward the front door, he glanced around the living room to be sure it was still neat and no clutter had accumulated on the white furniture.

  "I know," she said. "I've been to some of your parties. It might be a good idea to have a drink here even if we do go out. That way we can talk about business a little without feeling as though everybody's listening."

  "That's right," he said. He studied his reflection in the big mirror above the credenza by the door. His shirt was still looking un-wrinkled and the suit pants had held their crease. He looked good.

  He opened the door to beckon to her, and saw she was swinging her long legs out the car door. She was wearing a very short skirt, and her tanned thighs looked shiny in the dim light from the open door. She closed her phone and dropped it in her purse. "Sold."

  She walked to the door. She was as tall as he was, and as she passed him she brushed his cheek with her lips. There was an instant of perfume and soft breath, and then she stepped inside a few paces and turned around in a circle to look at the living room.

  "You've had this room redone recently."

  "About six months ago. You'd be amazed at how quickly things like furniture and floors wear when you live at the beach."

  "I could learn to live with the amazement. So where's the drink you promised me?"

  "What would you like?" He walked toward the bar at the end of the room.

  "Vodka on the rocks."

  "Grey Goose, Belvedere, Stolichnaya, Absolut, what?"

  "Belvedere."

  He went behind the bar, filled two glasses with ice, then set a tall frosted-glass Belvedere bottle beside them. "I'll put it here, where you'll be able to find it if you want another one."

  Sybil splashed vodka into the glasses as Richard walked around to her side of the bar. She clinked her glass against his, then sipped. Then she walked toward the back of the house to the sunken sun-room with large windows that looked out on the swimming pool, the beach, and the boiling white surf far down the sand. "It's so beautiful out there. I love the ocean."

  "Me, too," he lied. "This house is a great place to come after a stressful day. The sound of the ocean is probably the most restful sound there is."

  Her eyes moved to the pool with its artistic arrangement of fake boulders and its waterfall and the bubbling spa at the end of it. "Can we go outside?"

  He opened the French door and followed her out to the lighted pool. He pulled a deck chair close to the spa, then another, and sat down. She strolled around the edge of the pool to the spa, then kicked off one sandal and touched her toe to the water. "Warm." She looked around. On one side was the house, and the walls on the other three sides sheltered the pool from view.

  She stepped out of her other sandal. "I guess the main reason I stopped by was that I wanted to apologize for screwing up yesterday. I was in the Lompoc prison parking lot watching for your girlfriend, and then I spotted the woman I'd seen with her in New York. Naturally, I followed her. She pulled over and waited for me on the road away from the prison, and I thought she must be trying to lead me away so Christine could go in. That made me too hesitant. After that I overcompensated and chased her, and almost got smeared by a truck in an intersection. And then, well, let's just say I could have handled it better. I'm sorry."

  "Steve said it would have happened to anybody."

  "I don't like it when things like that happen to me." She stared at him over her glass as she took a drink. "We'll still get your girlfriend back for you."

  "She's been gone for a month and a half."

  Sybil shrugged with mock concern. "Poor thing. I'll bet you're really horny."

  He laughed, partly out of surprise, and partly because no other response came to him in time. "That wasn't what I thought you were going to say."

  She sat at the edge of the spa and put her feet in.

  Richard said, "If you'd like to go in the spa, you're welcome."

  Sybil cocked her head and looked at him.

  He added, "There are lots of bathing suits upstairs. Christine left all of her c
lothes and things here. With a two-piece suit the difference in height wouldn't matter, right?"

  "You'd better get rid of all of her things, Richard. If, by some remote chance, anything goes seriously wrong, those clothes could hang you." She looked away, and took a sip of her vodka. The ice clicked against her teeth to signal the glass was empty. "Maybe I will go in the water."

  "I'll get you some suits to choose from."

  "Just bring towels and that bottle of vodka." Sybil stood, pulled her tank top over her head and off, then pulled her bra down and turned it so the hooks were in front, took it off, stepped up onto the deck and out of her short skirt and her panties, and tossed her clothes onto the deck chair. She pretended not to notice Richard standing there staring at her, then raised her arms and turned all the way around to show off her thin, graceful body. "Feel free to look. You might as well get your money's worth for yesterday's mistake."

  "Thank you," he said. "I feel a little better already."

  She stepped down into the spa and sank low in the water. "This is great. Come join me."

  Richard turned and went inside, then returned with the Belvedere bottle and two long yellow beach towels. He undressed and left his clothes on the other deck chair, stepped into the spa and sat beside Sybil. He refilled her drink, sipped his own, and then put his arms around her and gave her a kiss that in a slow, leisurely way became more and more passionate and greedy.

  After another minute or two they both pulled back in a mutual, silent agreement, and sipped their drinks. Sybil looked at Richard with amusement for a few seconds, then took another sip of her drink. "Okay. I guess you're right. I do owe you the whole deal. Kiss me like that once more, and then we'll go inside to wherever it is you like to fuck."

  They moved together in the warm water and shared a long, silent kiss. When they parted again, Sybil sighed, then opened her eyes. She stood and got out of the spa, quickly wrapped herself in one of the thick towels, and moved toward the French door. Over her shoulder she called to him, "Bring the bottle with you and I'll throw in a blow job."