“Not compared to a piece of the Belding fortune.”
“The fool,” he said. “There wasn't an iota of a chance of his getting a penny, but he was a compulsive criminal, couldn't stop conniving.”
“Enter Donald Neurath, M.D. Fertility expert and meal ticket.”
“My, my,” said Vidal. “You're a thorough researcher yourself.”
“Was Neurath in on the extortion scheme?”
“He claimed not, said they presented themselves as a married couple—poor, childless Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. He insisted he hadn't been fooled, had sensed something wrong about them and refused to take her on as a patient. But Johnson convinced him, somehow.”
“You know how,” I said. “A trade. The porn loop in exchange for hormonal treatment for Linda.”
“More filth,” he said.
I said, “Still, Neurath knew too much. You had to finish him off somewhere out in Mexico—not far from here, I'd bet.”
“Doctor, Doctor, you give me too much credit. I've never finished off anyone. Donald Neurath drove down here voluntarily, to offer information. He owed money to loan sharks, was hoping for payment. I refused. On the way back, his car broke down—or so I've been told. He died of exposure—the desert does its damage quickly. As a medical man, he should have been more prepared.”
I said, “Is that how you connected him to Cable's scheme?”
“No. Linda came to me saying she could no longer work with Leland. Bearing a to-whom-it-may-concern note written on Neurath's stationery. In it he claimed she'd contracted some sort of vaginal infection. At first, I didn't suspect anything. Everything looked bona fide. I gave her ten thousand dollars' severance pay, and wished her well. Later, of course, I put it all together.”
“How did Belding react to her leaving?”
“He didn't. By that time he was feeling his oats, testing out his newfound confidence on other women. As many as he could get his hands on. Eventually, he began to flaunt it.”
Belding's transformation from recluse to playboy. The timing fit.
“What happened next?”
“Nearly a year later, Cable Johnson called me. Informed me I'd better meet with him if I knew what was good for Leland. We met at some tawdry downtown hotel, Johnson drunk and gloating like a top dog, strutting around, very proud of himself. He told me Linda had given birth to Leland's babies. He'd taken her to Texas to do it; now they were back and ‘the squeeze was on.' ”
Vidal raised his coffee cup, thought better of it, and put it down. “Oh, he thought he was a smart one. Had it all figured out. Cuffing my shoulder as if we were old friends, offering me cheap gin from a filthy bottle. Singing rude limericks and saying that now the Johnsons and the Beldings were going to be kinfolk. Then he told me to wait, left the room, and came back a few minutes later with Linda and his little gifts.”
“Three gifts,” I said.
He nodded.
Triplets. All that hormonal tinkering doing strange things to the egg, increasing the chance of multiple birth. Common medical knowledge today, but Neurath had been ahead of his time.
“Port Wallace's sole claim to fame,” I said. “Jewel Rae, Jana Sue. And poor Joan Dixie, born blind, deaf, paralyzed.”
“The pathetic little thing,” he said. “Some sort of brain damage—the place he dragged Linda to was primitive. Joan almost died at birth.” He shook his head, closed his eyes. “She was so tiny—not much bigger than a fist. It was a miracle she survived. Linda carried her around in a basket, kept cooing at her, massaging her limbs. Pretending her twitches were voluntary movement. Pretending she was normal.”
“Something like that would be tough for a squeamish man to take.”
“All three of them disgusted him. He'd always despised children; the idea of triplets made him ill. He was the ultimate engineer—accustomed to machine specifications, precision. Had absolutely no tolerance for anything that deviated from his expectations. Of course, Joan's deformities were an additional insult—the implication that he'd taken part in creating something defective. I knew him, knew how he'd react. I wanted to keep all of it from him, work things out in my own way. But Cable wanted it all, right now. Kinfolk. Linda had held on to a key to Leland's office. She went there one night when he was working late, brought the babies.”
He shook his head. “The poor, stupid girl, believing the sight of them would ignite his paternal pride. He listened to her, told her what she wanted to hear. The moment she was gone he phoned me and ordered me over for a ‘problem solving session.' Not that he wanted my input—he'd come to a decision: All of them would have to be eliminated. Permanently. I was to be the angel of death.”
“The babies were supposed to be killed?”
He nodded.
“All the villainy foisted on a dead man,” I said. “Some good storm trooper carried out the order.”
He drank, hacked, pulled a squeeze bottle out of his pocket and sprayed his throat.
“I saved those babies,” he said. “Only I could have done it; only I had enough of Leland's trust to disagree with him and get away with it. I told him infanticide was absolutely out of the question. If it ever came out he'd be ruined—Magna would be ruined.”
“A pragmatic approach.”
“The only one he understood. I pointed out that the babies could be given up for adoption in such a way that any link to him would be permanently obscured. That he could draft a new will specifically excluding any blood relatives, known or unknown, from inheriting a dime. At first he didn't want to hear it, kept insisting the only way out was the ‘unambiguous option.' I told him I'd carried out his assignments without questioning, but I'd quit before carrying out this one. And if those babies died, I couldn't guarantee my silence. Was he prepared to eliminate me, as well?
“That angered—and shocked—him. From childhood no one had ever told him no. But he respected me for standing up to him, eventually agreed to my plan.”
“Nifty plan,” I said. “Including a consolation prize for your sister.”
“It was just after Henry's death. She'd sunk into a deep depression—widowhood, childlessness. Had been in seclusion since the funeral. I thought having the girls would do wonders for her. And she's not an imaginative woman. Would never ask where they came from, never want to know.”
“Was Joan included in the deal?”
“No. That Hope couldn't have handled. The corporation purchased a sanitarium in Connecticut, and Joan was placed there. She got excellent care. In the process, we learned about health care management, ended up buying up several other hospitals.”
“New names, new lives,” I said. “Except for the Johnsons. Was it you or Belding who thought of the dope dealer angle?”
“That . . . it wasn't supposed to happen the way it did.”
“I'm sure Linda and Cable would be comforted to know that.”
He tried to speak. Nothing came out. Atomized his throat, waited, and produced soft tones dry as a death rattle.
“It was never intended that Linda would . . . be part of it. She wasn't supposed to be there, was supposed to be out shopping. She posed no threat. With her brother out of the way, she could have been dealt with. I would have dealt with her. But her car didn't work; she was phoning for a taxi when things started to happen. Cable grabbed her, the filth, used her as a shield. She was shot by accident.”
“No way,” I said. “She wouldn't have let her children be taken from her without a fuss. She had to die. You either knew that from the beginning or chose not to see it when you set up the bust. That glitzy suite on Fountain—all the jewels, furs, cars—were to lull her and Cable into thinking Belding was agreeing to their terms. But both of them were dead the moment she stepped into his office with those babies.”
“You're wrong. Dr. Delaware. I had everything arranged.”
“Let's give you the benefit, then, and say someone rearranged your arrangement.”
He gripped the edge of the table. The look in his eyes overpower
ed the tan, the clothes, all that cultivated charm.
“No,” he croaked. “It was a mistake. Her idiot scum brother killed her—using her the way he'd always done.”
“Maybe he did. But Hummel and DeGranzfeld would have killed her anyway on Belding's orders. He was pleased with the job they'd done, rewarded them with Vegas jobs.”
He said nothing for a long time. Something—could it be real?—seemed to be eating at him, devouring him from within. He looked through me. Back into another time.
“Nonsense,” he said.
“Are you the father?” I asked.
Another long silence. “I don't know.” Then: “Leland and I have the same blood type: O positive. Along with thirty-nine percent of the population.”
“Nowadays there are precise tests.”
“What would be the point?” His voice rose, cracked and died. “I saved them. Placed them in a good home. It was enough.”
“Not for Sharon. She ended up naked, eating mayonnaise from a jar. Another plan gone wrong?”
He closed his eyes, grimaced, getting older by the second. “It was for the good of both of them.”
“So I've been told.”
“Sherry was a frightening child. I'd seen the signs of violence in her from the time she could walk. It worried me. I wondered about a bad seed—the Johnsons came from a long line of miscreants. Eventually it became clear that Hope couldn't handle both of them. Sharon was being persecuted—battered. It was escalating steadily. Something had to be done. When Sherry tried to drown her, I knew the time had come. But Leland couldn't find out about it. He'd forgotten completely about them, hadn't mentioned a word since the transfer. I knew he'd regard any change in plans as evidence that my way of dealing with the situation wasn't working. Would insist on doing it his way.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That Sharon had accidentally drowned. That set well with him.”
His lips began to tremble. He placed a manicured hand over his mouth to conceal the loss of control.
“Why banish Sharon?” I said. “Why not Sherry?”
“Because Sherry was the one who bore watching—she was unstable, a loaded gun. Having her out there unsupervised was too risky—for both of them.”
“That's not the only reason,” I said.
“No. Hope wanted it that way. She felt closer to Sherry, felt Sherry needed her more.”
“Punish the victim,” I said. “From a mansion to a dirt patch. Two retarded people as caretakers.”
“They were good people,” he said. He began coughing and, unable to stop, shook his head from side to side, gasping for breath. His eyes filled with water and he had to hold on to the table for support.
Finally he was able to speak, but so softly I had to lean forward to hear: “Good people. They'd worked for me. I knew they could be trusted. The arrangement was supposed to be temporary—a way to buy time for Sharon until I came up with something else.”
“A way to wipe out her identity,” I said.
“For her sake!” His whisper was harsh, insistent. “I'd never have done anything to harm her.”
Hand to mouth, again. Uncontrollable coughing. He placed a silk handkerchief to his lips, spit something into it.
“Excuse me,” he said. Then: “She had her mother's face.”
“So did Sherry.”
“No, no. Sherry had the features. But not the face.”
We said nothing for a long time. Then, suddenly, as if forcing his way out of a sentimental stupor, he sat up, snapped his fingers. The waiter brought him a glass of ice water and was gone. He drank, cleared his throat, touched his Adam's apple, swallowed hard. Forcing a smile, but looking drained, defeated. A man who'd sailed through life in first class, only to find out the cruise had gone nowhere.
I'd arrived at this place hating him, prepared to stoke my hate. But I felt like putting my arm around him.
Then I thought of dead bodies, a pile of them, and said, “Your temporary plan stretched to permanence.”
He nodded. “I kept searching for another way, some other arrangement. Meanwhile, Shirlee and Jasper were doing a yeoman job—amazingly so. Then Helen discovered Sharon, made her a protégée, began molding her in a fine way. I decided nothing could be better than that. I contacted Helen; we reached an agreement.”
“Helen was paid?”
“Not with money—she and her husband were too proud for that. But there were other things I could do for them. Scholarships for her children, aborting a plan to sell off corporate acreage in Willow Glen for development. For over thirty years, Magna's guaranteed to purchase any agricultural surpluses and compensate for any losses below a specified level. Not just for Helen—for the entire town.”
“Paying them not to grow apples,” I said.
“An American tradition,” he said. “You should taste Wendy's honey and cider. Our employees love them.”
I remembered Helen's complaint:
They won't sell. . . . For all intents and purposes that keeps Willow Glen a backwater speck.
Keeping Shirlee and Jasper and their charge away from prying eyes . . .
“How much does Helen know?” I asked.
“Her knowledge is very limited. For her sake.”
“What will become of the Ransoms?”
“Nothing will change,” he said. “They'll continue to live wonderfully basic lives. Did you see any signs of suffering on their faces, Doctor? They don't want for anything, would be considered well-off by most people's standards. Helen looks out for them. Before she came along, I did.”
He allowed himself a smile. Smug.
“All right,” I said, “you're Mother Teresa. So how come people keep dying?”
“Some people,” he said, “deserve to die.”
“Sounds like a quotation from Chairman Belding.”
No answer.
I said, “What about Sharon? Did she deserve to die for trying to learn who she was?”
He stood, stared down at me. All self-doubt gone, once again The Man In Charge.
“Words can communicate only so much,” he said. “Come with me.”
We headed out toward the desert. He aimed a penlight at the ground, highlighting pitted soil, mammalian clumps of scrub, saguaro cactus stretching skyward.
About a half-mile in, the beam settled on a small, stream-lined Fiberglas vehicle—the golf-cart I'd visualized during my ride with Hummel. Dark paint, a roll bar, knobby, off-road tires. A forward-slanting M on the door.
He got behind the wheel and motioned me in. No blindfold for this ride. I was either trusted or doomed. He flipped several switches. Headlights. The whine of the electric engine. Another flip and the hum rose in frequency. We moved forward with surprising speed, twice as fast as the bumper-car pace Hummel had taken—the sadist. Faster than I'd thought possible from an electric machine. But then, this was high-tech territory. The Patent Ranch.
We rode for more than an hour without exchanging a word, sailing across stretches of chalky wasteland. The air was still hot and grew fragrant, a mild herbaceous scent.
Vidal coughed a lot as the vehicle churned up clouds of fine clay dust, but he continued to steer with ease. The granite mountains were faint pencil marks on black construction paper.
He flipped another switch and made the moon appear, gigantic, milky-white, and earthbound.
Not the moon at all, but a giant golf ball, illuminated from within.
A geodesic dome, perhaps thirty feet in diameter.
Vidal pulled up to it and parked. The surface of the dome was white plastic hexagonal panels framed in tubular white metal. I looked for the booth Seaman Cross had described, the one he'd sat in while communicating with Belding. But the only access to the building was a white door.
“The Basket-Case Billionaire,” I said.
“A stupid little book,” said Vidal. “Leland got it into his head that he needed to be chronicled.”
“Why'd he pick Cross?”
We go
t out of the cart. “I haven't the slightest idea—I told you he never let me inside his head. I was out of the country when he cooked up the deal. Later he changed his mind and demanded Cross fold up his tent in return for a cash payment. Cross took the money, but went ahead with the book. Leland was very displeased.”
“Another search-and-destroy mission.”
“Everything was handled legally—through the courts.”
“Burglarizing his storage locker wasn't exactly working within the system. Did you use the same guys for the Fontaine break-in?”
His expression said that wasn't worth responding to. We started walking.
I said, “What about Cross's suicide?”
“Cross was weak-willed, couldn't cope.”
“You're saying it was a genuine suicide?”
“Absolutely.”
“If he hadn't done himself in, would you have let him live?”
He smiled and shook his head. “As I told you before, Doctor, I don't squash people. Besides, Cross was no threat. No one believed him.”
The door was white and seamless. He placed his hand on the knob, looked at me, and let the message sink in:
Cross had poisoned the well when it came to Leland Belding stories.
No one would believe me. This day had never occurred.
I looked up at the dome. Starlight made it shimmer, like a giant jellyfish. The plastic panels gave off a new-car smell. Vidal twisted the knob.
I stepped in. The door closed behind me. A moment later, I heard the buggy depart.
I looked around, expecting screens, consoles, keyboards, a Flash Gordon tangle of electronic pasta.
But it was just a big room, interior walls sheathed in white plastic. The rest could have come out of any suburban tract home. Ice-blue carpet. Oak furniture. Console TV. Stereo components topping a record cabinet. Prefab bookcase and matching magazine basket. An efficiency kitchen off to one side. Potted plants. Framed samplers.
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