Betrayals

by Carla Neggers

  Being a Sloan, he got past the receptionist with no trouble and almost got past Willa Johnson, Quentin’s secretary. But her boss had just gotten in, he wasn’t having the best of days, and Jared couldn’t just walk in, cousin or not, without her checking first.

  She checked. Quentin, it seemed, had no desire to see his cousin Jared.

  “I’m sorry,” Willa said, as if that ended the matter.

  It didn’t. Jared commented that he was sorry, too, and marched past her to Quentin’s office. He could hear her calling security, but that didn’t trouble him. Without hesitating, he pushed open the heavy walnut door.

  “Call off the dogs, cousin.”

  Quentin looked so pathetic Jared almost took pity on him. Then Mai’s face came to him. He could see her stubborn pout when he’d said goodbye to her in Tiberon, and he could hear her saying “Oh, Daddy” in that way she had, as if he was the biggest idiot who’d ever lived.

  And Tam’s face came to him. So trusting and innocent even as it crumpled in pain and horror when the first of the assassin’s bullets struck her. And Rebecca’s face, pale with shock, defeat, betrayal.

  Jared had no pity for Quentin Reed.

  “Jared—” Quentin’s voice cracked under the strain of seeing his cousin for the first time since Tam’s death. In his business suit and huge, elegant office with its stunning harbor view, he looked out of place, like a little boy dressing up in his father’s clothes and playing boss. He cleared his throat and pushed back his executive’s leather chair. He didn’t get up. “Jared, it’s good to see you, but I can’t visit right now. I wish you hadn’t barged in here like this.”

  Jared moved in closer, noting how awful his cousin looked. “What’s got you so scared? It can’t just be seeing me again. Has a certain white-haired man with a scar running from one end of his face to the other been to see you, as well? Come on, Quentin. Call off security and let’s talk.”

  “None of this concerns you.”

  “He was at my house and that concerns me.”

  Quentin jumped to his feet, but didn’t seem to know what to do with himself once he was standing. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, then pulled them out. He looked out his bank of windows, then swung back around to face Jared, as if he thought his cousin might decide to shoot him in the back.

  “Talk to me, Quentin,” Jared said, holding back his anger and frustration.

  Quentin drew himself up straight. “I have nothing to say to you. You were the one who walked out on your family. If you think you can just strut back in here and call the shots—well, you’re wrong.”

  Jared shook his head in disbelief. “You know, for years I felt a little sorry for you. You lost a father who had faith in you and were stuck with a mother who didn’t—”

  “My mother has faith in me.”

  “Think what you want to think. I’m just telling you what I thought. I quit feeling sorry for you when we were in Saigon together and you used Tam.”

  “I loved her!”

  “Right—sure, you loved her. Then why didn’t you marry her?”

  “Because of you, Jared,” Quentin said, as if that should have been obvious. He sounded pained and so sorrowful, Jared briefly wondered if he might be wrong, but he’d learned a long time ago that Quentin believed what he wanted to believe. He went on in that same pathetic tone, “You were the father of her baby. I would have come back for her, but Tam didn’t want me. She wanted you. How could I have married her when she didn’t love me?”

  The arrival of two beefy security guards spared Jared having to answer. They called him sir and were very polite about it, but they didn’t take his word for it that he was leaving. With a nod from their chickenshit boss, they took him to the elevator, stuffed him inside and joined him for the ride down to the lobby. Then they escorted him outside and mentioned they’d be keeping an eye out should he decide to bother Mr. Reed again.

  Jared glanced back as he crossed the plaza in front of Winston & Reed, where tulips were closed up in the gloom and pedestrians weren’t lingering today, and he saw the two beefs posted at the door.

  He gave them a mock salute.

  And then got out of there, fast.

  Quentin fled into his private bathroom, splashed cold water on his face and shook unscented cornstarch powder into his armpits and down his back, hoping it would absorb the sweat pouring off him. First Jean-Paul Girard, now Jared. Jesus, next thing Tam’s ghost would walk into his office and point her finger at him and demand to know why he’d killed her.

  You can’t think like that!

  “Oh, Tam,” he sobbed, sinking his face into his hotel-weight hand towel. “Tam, Tam…whatever happened to us?”

  Forcing himself at least to feign calm, he dried his face and returned to his office, informing Willa he didn’t want to be disturbed. If she didn’t feel capable of monitoring his calls and visitors, she should commence finding a replacement at once. Ever the professional, Willa didn’t bore him with excuses.

  Then he dialed his mother’s Mt. Vernon Street number and held his breath until she answered. Even her hello sounded strong and ever-capable. Quentin felt tears spring to his eyes. Why did he always have to be the one to fall apart?

  “Mother, it’s me,” he said, and he could hear how small and inconsequential he sounded. “I wanted to tell you…I thought you should know Jared’s back in town.”

  Annette didn’t miss a beat. “How wonderful,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “So’s your blackmailer from Saigon.”

  Quentin’s heart pounded; he was sure he’d faint. He couldn’t speak.

  “Charming individual, isn’t he?” his mother went on. “Has he been to see you?”

  “Mother—”

  “Quentin, please, don’t try my patience. We both know what you did in Saigon. You were a fool and we’ve had to suffer for your mistakes. But that’s in the past. What I care about is now. We must be sensible and think about how we can resolve this situation to our advantage.”

  Ever since he’d been a little boy, Annette had always been able to see through him. No wonder she despised him.

  “He’s been to see you?” she repeated.

  “Yes.” Why lie?

  “I assumed he would, sooner or later. And Jared?”

  Quentin licked his lips, but his tongue was dry. He wished he hadn’t called, wished he had the fortitude to tell his mother to go to hell and hang up. Instead he said, “He’s afraid for Mai, I think.”

  “What a fool. Well, he’s not our problem.”

  “Gerard—he said he wants a collection of sapphires you have.”

  Annette sighed. “Yes, I know.”

  “What are they?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have them—”

  “He insists you do.”

  “He can insist whatever he likes, but he’s wrong. And at this point, Quentin, I’m afraid even if I did have them they wouldn’t be enough.”

  She suddenly sounded very tired, and Quentin hated himself for taking pleasure in even this limited sign of weakness. He didn’t mind strong women. Jane was strong. Tam had been, as well, in a different way. Why did his mother’s strength bother him so much?

  Finally, Annette said, “The sapphires aren’t really what Jean-Paul Gerard’s after.”

  “Then what is?”

  She answered, almost to herself, “I am.”

  Twenty-One

  Thomas Blackburn stared through the tall, paned windows of the Congregational Library reading room, gazing down at the Old Granary Burying Ground. Benjamin Franklin’s parents were buried there, and the victims of the Boston Massacre and Eliza Blackburn. Back in 1892, the Congregational Association had deliberately chosen the 14 Beacon Street site behind the old graveyard for their new building to assure those who used the private library would enjoy peace and tranquility long into the future. Their foresightedness had proven worthwhile.

  A squirrel scurried along the second-floor fire escape and hopped into one of th
e huge trees that shaded Old Granary, a perennial tourist favorite. Thomas could remember going to Eliza’s grave with his father, and taking Stephen for his first visit when he was five or six, and then Rebecca and Nate during one of his rare home leaves in 1960. Jenny had called him a ghoul and had confiscated the children’s charcoal rubbing of their famous ancestor’s headstone. Rubbings had since been outlawed, due to the damage they caused the stones.

  Thomas considered the reading room, with its original Tiffany ceiling, Persian rugs, fireplace and eighteenth-century portraits of famous churchmen, one of Boston’s great hidden treasures. The library itself was primarily a theological library, but it was also well-known for its substantial historical holdings, obtained by virtue of the Congregationalists having run the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until disestablishment in 1831. Thomas came to the library often, if, at times, only to think.

  As today.

  It seemed he was never without his memories, and the older he got the more vivid they became. Gisela, Benjamin, Quang Tai…his wife, Emily; his son, Stephen. In the night when sleep eluded him, he would often wander in the garden among the shadows, talking to the friends and family he’d lost. He would explain, apologize, cry. They never answered, but left him alone in his anguish. He didn’t blame them. What was there to say?

  If only he hadn’t been such a fool.

  He could torture himself with hypothetical situations. Sometimes he did. He would see their faces with such stark vividness, and remember how they’d trusted and believed in him. Emily when, clinging to him, she would tell him her fears of childbirth, and he would reassure her that everything would be all right. It hadn’t been. Gisela, his friend, who’d wept on his shoulder in her despondency over the loss of her Jupiter Stones. He had made cavalier assurances to her, as well.

  Stephen, Benjamin, Quang Tai. All dead because Thomas Blackburn had insisted nothing would happen to them in that part of the Mekong Delta.

  It was true, he thought. He held himself responsible for his own son’s death, a solitary burden no parent should have to bear.

  He never let on to anyone the measure of his despair, of course. The sleepless nights, the agonizing walks, the countless times he would find himself drained and exhausted, perspiring and trembling like one of those stereotypical bony old men. He wanted no one’s pity. Even in those terrible moments of despair, the prospect of not carrying on never occurred to him. He would never give in, if for no other reason than to be there should anyone else have to suffer for his mistakes.

  “Grandfather?”

  The squirrel had scrambled back onto the fire escape and was teasing another thinner squirrel. Thomas watched for a few seconds, composing himself before he turned to this granddaughter. He had left a note at the house telling where he was. Another mistake?

  Looking pale and unusually serious, Rebecca held up a paper bag. “I brought sandwiches. You haven’t had lunch yet?”

  “No. Rebecca, something’s wrong—”

  “Can we eat in back?”

  They went back to the stacks, where they unwrapped their sandwiches at an oak table library volunteers could use. Thomas often worked in the climate-controlled rare books room. He poured a couple of cups of coffee and sat across from Rebecca.

  “You’re looking grim,” he told her.

  “I’ve spent the better part of the last two hours reading old articles on the ambush.” She didn’t need to specify which ambush; they both knew. “I discovered several coincidences that are too much for me to swallow.”

  He gave her a mild look, but it felt as if something hot and sharp had just been stabbed into his lower abdomen. “Did you?”

  Her eyes seemed huge in the dim light; she didn’t smile. “The driver of the Jeep that day was a Frenchman, a former member of the Foreign Legion. He was the only survivor, but he was believed captured by the Vietcong. I couldn’t find his name or anything about what happened to him.” She paused, then added bitterly, “I gather, though, that he’s still alive.”

  Thomas pushed aside his sandwich, roast beef with lots of red onion; he wouldn’t have blamed Rebecca if she’d sprinkled arsenic over the works. “Are you asking me what I know about him?”

  “I’m not finished. I did some more digging, Grandfather, and I discovered an old 1959 photograph from the Boston Globe. It was taken during the trip you and I took to France. I was just four, so I don’t remember much of what we did. But one of the things you did was show up at the funeral of Baroness Gisela Majlath.”

  She paused to assess Thomas’s reaction to her dramatic announcement, but he’d had many, many years to perfect his ability to maintain his composure under the most trying of circumstances. The only reason the Globe had bothered running that photograph was because he was in it.

  “For someone who never completed her college education,” he said, “your research abilities are impressive. Of course, most research simply requires tenacity, and you certainly have that, Rebecca.”

  “Gisela committed suicide.”

  “Yes, I know.” He breathed out, his memory of that dreadful day still fresh. “She was a friend of mine.”

  Rebecca was obviously restraining herself. “You never mentioned her.”

  “I had a great many friends I’ve never mentioned to you. I am a good deal older than you are, my dear. My friendship with Gisela was a quiet one.”

  Her eyes flashed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re being impertinent.”

  “Impertinent is one of those words that went out with Calvin Coolidge.”

  “I knew Calvin in his later years—”

  “Grandfather, Gisela Majlath claimed to have been a victim of a jewel thief called Le Chat.”

  Thomas picked a bit of onion from his sandwich and nibbled on it. “Why is it,” he said rhetorically, “that when the young stumble upon something new to them they assume no one else could possibly have known about it before they did? Yes, Gisela told the police this Le Chat stole some gems that had come into her family—”

  “The Jupiter Stones.”

  The woman was annoyingly thorough. “Correct.”

  “And no one believed her, so she threw herself into the Mediterranean.”

  “Baldly put, but apparently, also correct.”

  “Apparently?”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  She digested that for a moment, then asked, “Do you want to tell me about Le Chat?”

  “Why should I?” he replied testily. “Obviously we both already know.”

  Rebecca was so rigid, Thomas thought she would crack and crumble any second. “The police were going to arrest a popular Grand Prix driver named Jean-Paul Gerard as Le Chat, but he disappeared.”

  “And you’re assuming he turned up in Vietnam in 1963 and again in 1975.”

  “I know he did.” Rebecca swallowed, still working at controlling herself. “I found an old photograph of Gerard in his racing days. Turn his hair white and add some scars and we’ve got our Frenchman.”

  Thomas stared up at the milky glass flooring of the stacks. He hated this kind of deception. And for years he’d dreaded precisely this confrontation with his granddaughter. “Rebecca, you’ve done enough digging,” he said. “Now stop. Drop this before you end up getting yourself or someone else hurt. Yes, Jean-Paul Gerard drove the Jeep when your father, Benjamin and Tai were killed in 1963. He was captured and spent five years in a jungle prisoner-of-war camp before escaping during the Tet Offensive in 1968. He’s the Frenchman who participated in Tam’s killing in 1975.”

  “And he blames you for what happened to him?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Rebecca inhaled, an obvious act of self-control. “Has he been to see you?”

  “Not yet. I haven’t seen Jean-Paul in twenty-six years.”

  Her gaze was ice. “Lucky you.”

  Thomas shrugged. What could he say? He and Rebecca had never really talked about 1963. If he had his way, they never would. An unc
omfortable silence descended between them. The two sandwiches and coffee remained untouched.

  Finally, Rebecca asked, “You knew who I was talking about when I described this Jean-Paul Gerard yesterday, but you didn’t mention him.”

  “Correct.”

  “Why not?”

  “What would have been the point?”

  She didn’t answer. “What have you told Jared that you haven’t told me?”

  “Nothing. Rebecca, Jean-Paul Gerard was a bitter and dangerous man before his captivity. I can only imagine what he’s like now. You should do everything you can to avoid him. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Are you protecting me,” she said angrily, “or yourself?”

  Thomas rose, neither hurt nor insulted, simply determined to have his way—and that didn’t include defending himself to his furious granddaughter. “I’m doing what I feel I must. If that’s insufficient for you, you’ll have to decide for yourself what to do about it. I’ve given you my advice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m not terribly hungry.”

  Neither was Rebecca. She threw down her sandwich and watched her grandfather return to the reading room. The Frenchman—this Jean-Paul Gerard—had been a jewel thief and race-car driver on the Riviera in 1959. He had driven the Jeep the day of the 1963 ambush that had left Quang Tai, Benjamin Reed and Stephen Blackburn dead.

  Twelve years later, Gerard had shot Jared Sloan in Saigon.

  Now, fourteen years later, he had turned up in San Francisco and Boston.

  Why?

  Was there a connection among 1959, 1963 and 1975?

  Yes: him. One Jean-Paul Gerard.

  And the Blackburn family. Thomas Blackburn had attended the funeral of one of Gerard’s robbery victims. He had arranged the trip into the Mekong Delta. His son—another Blackburn—had been killed. And, in 1975, Rebecca Blackburn had saved Mai Sloan and gotten her, Jared and herself out of Saigon.

  Along with the Jupiter Stones. She mustn’t forget those. Were they another connection?

  “I was your father’s friend, and I believe—I know he would have been proud of you.”

  But how could a man like Jean-Paul Gerard and Stephen Blackburn have been friends?