She began to replay their lovemaking, began to feel herself become aroused.
“Good morning.”
She looked up and saw Fallon standing in the doorway. He was dressed in shorts, T-shirt, and boat shoes without socks, and he was smiling at her. Suddenly she had a vision of his son from the previous day, and together with the casual clothes, there it was—an image of Fallon twenty-five years ago.
Samantha stared at him for a long minute, then returned the smile. “You should have stayed in bed,” she said. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about last night, and in a few minutes I probably would have slipped back upstairs for more.”
Fallon stood still, as if flabbergasted by the words. Then he smiled again, came to her, bent down, and softly kissed her lips.
“You certainly know how to make a middle-aged ego fly,” he said. He slid onto the chaise next to her, his face laughing. “And how to make my toes wiggle.”
Samantha laughed at the phrase. “Is that what I did?”
“Without question,” he said.
She leaned against him, kissed him again, then nuzzled his ear. “Next time I’ll have to remember to look at your toes,” she whispered.
Fallon turned toward her and slipped his arm around her waist. Samantha drew herself closer against him; felt her passion matching his own.
“Oh, Jack, I’m glad I caught you.”
Margot Reed came around the side of the house, dressed in a real-estate costume similar to the one she had worn a few days before—silk blouse and slacks, each full enough to hide the pudginess of her body.
She trudged forward, oblivious. The back of the chaise was to her, and Margot could only see Fallon’s legs draped over the far edge. She continued to prattle as she moved across the rear lawn.
“I had some clients in the neighborhood yesterday,” she said. “And when I told them your house might be going on the market, they said they just had to see it.”
Fallon twisted in the chaise, stuck his head out from behind its back, and stared at her. “Margot, this is really not a good time.”
His eyes were pleading, but still the woman moved on. Samantha’s head slowly rose into view above the back of the chaise, and the woman suddenly saw her, staggered slightly to one side, then came to an immediate halt.
“Oh … Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry.” Her neighborly, professional smile had evaporated, replaced now with shock and dismay, and a sudden, visible urge to turn and run.
Fallon stared into her wide-eyed face. Her blond hair seemed to have frozen into a sprayed, steel helmet, and the heavy makeup she wore looked as though it were about to crack and fissure. He forced a smile. “How about I call you later today, Margot?” he suggested.
The woman began to stutter, her head nodding repeatedly, as though disjointed from her spine.
“Of, course, Jack. Of course.” She glanced around, as if deciding where to run, then turned abruptly and retreated to the corner of the house.
Samantha began to laugh. The laughter became contagious, and Fallon began, too.
“Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry.” He pushed himself up, and threw a mock glance at his watch. “The local high school band is due in half an hour. They practice in my backyard every weekend.” He grinned at her. “So how would you like to pass the time until they get here?”
She reached out, took his hand, and let him help her out of the chaise. “I’m taking you up to your bed. And I’m locking the back door and putting a chair against the doorknob.” She had begun to laugh again.
“When the band gets here we’ll feel like we’re being serenaded.”
“You’ll be too busy to listen,” she said. Laughter boiled up again. “Oh, God, Jack. Did you see that poor woman’s face?”
8
CARTER BENNETT CRAWLED THROUGH THE HIGH GRASS and peered out toward the old T-38 tank that stood ten feet away at the crest of the hill. Slowly he brought his weapon up, spread his legs for balance, and using his elbow as a brace, leveled it toward the field of fire. A fly threatened the tip of his nose, but he ignored it, determined not to give away his position. His patience was rewarded as a face, covered in daubs of camouflage like his own, emerged from the other side of the hill. Bennett drew a shallow breath and waited. Gradually, the figure began to rise, the green and black battle fatigues coming up into the cool morning air. Bennett drew another breath, let it out slowly, and squeezed the trigger. A dull splat filled his ears.
“Aw shit!” The enemy kicked at the dirt in front of him. “Sonofabitch!”
Carter rose and began to laugh. His opponent stared at the bloom of yellow paint that stained the center of his chest.
“Goddammit. You nailed my ass good,” the enemy said.
Carter grinned with undiluted pleasure. “I heard you coming ten minutes ago, and just got in position and waited.”
“Sonofabitch. Musta been that loose rock I stepped on.”
“Perhaps you’re just old and clumsy,” Bennett said. He was still grinning at the man—so boyishly he could not possibly take offense.
“I’ll get your ass this afternoon in the swamp,” he snapped.
“Never happen,” Bennett quipped. “I’m invincible.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that, you cocky sonofabitch.”
Bennett threw his arm around the man’s shoulder, and they turned and started down the hill. The man was pushing fifty, or just past it. He was a local, a member of the VFW post that furnished almost a dozen of the tournament players, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War. Or so he claimed. He was also fat and awkward and an easy mark, and Bennett had been delighted when he had drawn him for the day’s war games.
They moved through a line of trees and across a small meadow, headed toward the judge’s shack. The man had his jungle hat off now, and was mopping the sweat from his balding head. Bennett could hear his breath wheezing past his teeth.
“You’re out of shape, George. You should spend a couple of evenings in a gym.”
“Hey, you little smart-ass. I’ll show you this afternoon who the hell needs a gym.”
Bennett threw back his head and laughed. “I’m available for a side bet, George,” he said.
“You got it,” the man snapped. “Ten bucks says I nail your ass.”
“You’re on,” Bennett said. He only wished the man had some serious money to bet with. Carter knew just where he’d ambush him that afternoon. The fat, sorry, old fool wouldn’t have a chance.
They entered the judge’s shed and walked up to a small desk, behind which sat another fat, balding, middle-aged man. Another woodsy Vermont yokel, Bennett thought. He flashed a smile. “Do you want to tell him, or should I, George?”
“Score one for the little shit from the big city,” George snapped.
The judge turned to a scoreboard fixed to the wall behind him. Bennett’s name sat at the top of the list, along with three others who also had scores of seventeen kills and no defeats.
“That gives you eighteen, and keeps you on top,” the judge said.
“Just where I belong,” Bennett said. He was smiling again, the warmth of it hiding the contempt he held for both men.
“Be a different story this afternoon,” George said.
Bennett winked at the judge. “Just bring your wallet,” he said. He grinned again. “I want to take it off your dead body.”
Carter entered his cabin, laid his weapon on a small table, and stared across at the bed. His cousin, Eunice Whittaker, sat against a propped pillow, the sheet drawn up just below her small, round breasts.
“My hero, home from the war,” she quipped.
“I’m astonished to see you awake,” Bennett said.
“Astonished? I’ve been awake for nearly an hour,” she said. “Actually, I’ve been lying here trying to decide if you’d been killed, and if so, whether I should just go ahead and masturbate.”
Bennett grinned at her. “Why don’t we say that I was, and I’ll just sit here and watch.”
Eunice gave him an imperious smile, her blue eyes taking on a lascivious glow. “Actually, I’d rather you did it for me,” she said. “But first take that ridiculous paint off your face.”
Later, over breakfast at a small roadside restaurant, Eunice seemed particularly content. Her thin, angular, slightly pinched face had a certain glow, he thought, and there was even a slight upturn to her normally tight lips. Looking at her, he could see now how she would change over the years: first into middle age, then as an old woman—her face always tanned, but with gradually deepening lines; always bearing that certain elegance of wealth, but always lacking any degree of warmth. Yes, he thought, wealthy women of his class always aged elegantly, but never beautifully.
But now she was content, and Bennett seized the moment to raise the question of their behind-the-scenes stock acquisitions. Eunice’s eyes immediately widened, first at the realization they had been discovered, then at his solution.
“But the price of the stock has dropped. We will lose thousands.”
The horror in her voice made Bennett cringe. She could be obstinate, and that was not the reaction he needed. He forced one of his better smiles.
“Only temporarily,” he soothed. “And we must think of it as the cost of doing business—safely.” Eunice began to object—a loss was a loss in her eyes, even if it would be more than recouped over time. Bennett raised a mollifying hand. “The exposure is too great—more than I expected. But we can sell and immediately repurchase through the shell corporations I’m setting up. Any loss will be insignificant in the long run.”
Eunice’s eyes and jaw tightened. “It’s still a loss,” she snapped. “No matter how you paint it.” She leaned forward in an open challenge. “I thought you knew enough about Charlie Waters’s own activities that we didn’t have to concern ourselves with him.”
“I’m not worried about Waters,” Bennett snapped back. “But if that pompous old man has been able to stumble onto our little game, so can others who do worry me. The SEC, for one. I have no intention of ending up in some federal prison.”
Eunice twisted her napkin. “You realize we are risking both our trust funds—and that mine is almost quadruple your own.” She stared at him, hard. “Carter, I agreed to give you one third of my profits, but only because the return was so enormous, and the risk—according to you—nonexistent. Now I’m seeing very real, and very terrifying, risks.”
Bennett paused; forced another smile. “You’re seeing nothing of the kind. What you are seeing is very deliberate caution. Not to mention our agreement that any loss to you—should the price of Waters stock not rise as expected—will be made up by me.”
“And you’re not concerned about the four million dollars I’ve invested—half of my trust fund?”
“Not in the least. The money will triple over the next year. Two and a half fold at the minimum if I’m overstating. That’s a ten to twelve million return on investment.”
“With a third going to you,” she added coldly.
“With the guarantee that I’ll make up any losses from my so much more anemic trust fund.” He shook his head sadly, chastising her. “That leaves you with a profit of at least six million without risk of losing your investment. God, Eunice, for you it’s a deal made in heaven. One solely available because of my knowledge about what is taking place.”
Eunice turned and stared out the window at an empty Vermont highway. “Why am I suddenly not reassured?” she asked.
Bennett reached out and took her hand. “Be reassured,” he said. “Eunice, you know how I feel about you—how I have felt since we were children.”
The memory of their experimentations, which had begun years ago when each was an adolescent, finally brought a smile to her lips. Since they were only second cousins, the incestuous nature of their liaison was borderline at best, but the mere thought of it had always added a certain spice that each secretly relished.
She stared across at him and lowered her voice. “I definitely like your penis better than your plots,” she said.
“But my plots will make us richer than we ever hoped,” he said.
Samantha’s kiss left Fallon breathless. He felt imbued with inflorescence; as though someone had erased all the mundanity of the last twenty years; left him suddenly less the middle-aged man stumbling through life but now surprisingly vital, virile, and yes—inexplicably—wanted.
They were standing on the platform awaiting Samantha’s train. It was five o’clock and a handful of middle-aged denizens were headed into the city for Sunday evening dinner. Fallon was oblivious to them, could not have said if any were neighbors or a gathering of ambulant gypsies.
“Despite the unexpected guests, it was quite a weekend,” she said. “I wish we could play hooky from work.” She raised her lips and kissed him on the point of his chin.
“I know,” Fallon said, recalling it all. “My toes are still wiggling.”
“You and your toes,” Samantha said. “It’s a devious fetish.”
She laid her head against his chest and hugged him. The man was a joy, she told herself—tender, self-deprecatingly funny, and uncommonly sensitive—yet all man, minus the annoying machismo she had encountered so often, and throughout the day she had felt an irrepressible need to warn him about the threats to his own survival that lay ahead. She felt it again now—again torn between professional ethics and a growing moral certitude that she should speak.
She eased back, hoping to find some commonality. “Jack, I learned something the other day you should know about.” Samantha hesitated, searching out some phrasing that might play to the ethical balancing act she sought. His words stopped her.
“You found out we’re all on Carter’s hit list, right? Everyone over forty-five?”
“I haven’t seen any final list yet,” she said. “But, yes, I think you’ll all be on it. And quite a few who are younger, too. Just to make it all appear kosher to the courts.” Her eyes took on an imploring quality. “There’s not much I can really tell you.” Another pause. “I haven’t been told the when or the how of it.”
He placed a finger on her lips stopping her. “Some of us have figured out what Carter’s up to. We’ve even formed a little club to deal with it. Or to try to.” He noted the surprise on her face. “And I plan to see Charlie this week.” He inclined his head to one side. “I don’t know if it will do any good, but I plan to take a shot at it.”
Her eyes blinked again. “Do they know about your … club?” The fact had registered in the legal corners of her mind, the synapses of which were now screaming class-action suit.
“Not yet,” Fallon said. “But we intend to make our presence felt. Subtly, of course. If the company reacted badly it might prove painful to some of us.”
Samantha nodded; thought: Yes, I think so, too.
The train conductor opened the doors and called for boarding. Samantha found herself wanting to say more. Instead she kissed Fallon again and boarded the train, then turned and waved. Her heart was pounding, and she knew it came from more than one source.
Fallon waved back. He thought she looked very beautiful. And a bit wistful, too.
9
“I EXPECT YOU’LL WANT TO START IMMEDIATELY?”
Carter Bennett smiled across his desk. “The sooner the better.”
Willis Chambers sat on the edge of the visitor’s chair, his position not one of anticipation or concern, but rather intended to spare the knifelike crease in his trousers. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and lank, with a sharp widow’s peak that caused him great concern, a long, slender, patrician nose, and close-set, almost piggish brown eyes that, together with an unpleasant, near-permanent scowl, spoiled any chance of being considered handsome. Chambers had been a classmate of Bennett’s at Princeton but, unlike his college chum, had bypassed financial studies at Wharton—viewed then as the graduate school of choice for his generation—opting instead to take an MBA at Rutgers. Yet despite this failing—in Bennett’s eyes—the two had remained friend
s, and a year earlier, when Waters Cable had found itself in need of a new director of human resources, Bennett had lobbied to bring Chambers on board. Willis Chambers, he had reasoned, had both the nature and proclivity of a seasoned hatchet man, exactly the qualifications Bennett sought. Even more important to Bennett, Chambers would do precisely as told without any irritating concerns of conscience. The faint, unappetizing smile that now came to Chambers’s lips assured Bennett he had made a good choice.
“Where would you like to begin?” Chambers asked.
He had been summoned to Bennett’s office to discuss resignations the company hoped to force, and the means best suited to achieve them.
Bennett served up another smile. “There’s a certain psychology involved,” he said. “At least that’s my view of it.”
Chambers nodded, but said nothing. In many ways he and Bennett could have been clones. Each lived with a certitude of his eventual suecess. Each eschewed any concern for his actions. But where Bennett did his worst with a pleasingly handsome smile, Chambers projected a certain harshness. Bennett was simply smoother, and far more clever at dissembling.
“I think we start with people high enough up the ladder so it’s noticed. Visibility is key here.” Bennett raised a cautioning finger. “But only a few at first, and not anyone who is currently overwhelmed with personal problems.” He pursed his lips. “Heavy medical bills, that sort of thing. People like that tend to dig in and wait things out. And that’s not what I want. I want people whom others respect, and who can afford to think about a voluntary relocation. That way, when those who really can’t afford to leave receive similar treatment, they’ll look back and see what good old Joe did, and they’ll be a bit easier to push toward the door.”
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