Now the old man tilted his head back and closed his eyes. The friend wondered if he had drifted off to sleep. Perhaps it was best to leave, silently. But Ash jerked back. He had only been peregrinating in his memory. “I went up to the Houston Club this morning,” he said. “We have this round table for breakfast. Well, I admit it was kind of macabre, but some of the men there, some of the biggest men in town, mind you, they all gathered around me and they put their arms around my shoulders and they said, ‘We don’t know what you did or didn’t do. But you should have killed the s.o.b. years ago.’”
The friend raised an eyebrow but did not ask the obvious question.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Ash, “and the answer is no. Hell, no. If they had one iota of evidence against me, they’d of indicted me faster than a Tennessee minute. It’s just a bunch of fellas down at the courthouse with political ambitions.”
The friend rose. He knew that Ash would, if allowed, continue his meanderings until the sun took away his night fears.
“It’s water off a duck’s back, anyway,” said Ash. He seemed in the courtroom suddenly, defending himself, throwing out his long life for all to see and approve. “I’ve never had a bill I didn’t pay. I don’t have to worry about money. Did I tell you about the gas well that came in yesterday?” He searched about his papers for an envelope, found it, opened it, read of tens of thousands of cubic feet of natural gas spewing from the earth and into his pockets. “Ma and me won’t be going on the public tit any time soon,” he said, as he walked his friend to the door.
In another part of the big house, a telephone was ringing. But the old man did not let it interrupt. He was deep into his own mortality. “They tell me,” he finally said, “that at the temple of Abu Simbel, in Egypt, at a certain time in the early morning, for maybe fifteen minutes, the new sun shines through this little hole and it lights up the face of old Radames II. For this little moment of time, there is a golden light. Always has been, always will be. Ain’t that a hell of a thing!”
The friend agreed. The image was remarkable, coming as it did on a night when it was time to count bodies and wasted lives and the brutalities of abused power. Ash’s money had bought him nothing but tragedy. Even the great horse, Beloved Belinda, had perished in a bizarre accident. After the deaths of Joan and John Hill, the mare broke out of a barn during a thunderstorm, ran into a field, reared up pawing and screaming at the elements, was struck down fatally by a bolt of lightning.
Now, just as the friend took his leave, turning the knob of Ash’s front door, grateful to leave as a theatergoer would be to depart the house of Lear, he ventured a rude question. What would Ash have them write on his grave?
“Oh, hell, I don’t know,” said the old man brusquely. “Something like—‘Here lies Ash Robinson. He lived and he died and he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him.’”
The friend got into his car, but Ash called after him. He had one more thing to say. “You know that son of a bitch John Hill didn’t even want to buy my Joan a tombstone! A week before his murder trial, he finally runs out and orders one, just in case it came up in testimony. And have you seen that marker? It’s a crime.”
How Ash Robinson hated the tombstone that memorialized his Joan. In life, she had always been “Joan Robinson Hill,” and it was thus in all the newspaper accounts, etched on all the silver and gold trophies that were now darkening and unattended on the shelves of his room. They shone no golden light on Ash’s face. But in death, the granite slab did not even bear her father’s name. She was for the rest of time the chattel of the man Ash hated most—John Hill.
Some night he just might change that. Some night when it was very dark, when men could do their deeds without the glow of stars, the modest monument might topple and split and need to be replaced. That was on the old man’s mind. Failing that, it might even be necessary to lift his Joan once more—one last time—raise her from the earth, from the lonely, barren, sunburned grave that her husband had chosen, and carry her to a cool and green place, perhaps under the benevolent shade of a great oak at Chatsworth Farm, just around the bend from Beloved Belinda Walk. In a place like that, Ash could ease his heavy body down beside her. And there, with Joan at last able to sleep at the side of the only man who really loved her—and proved it—only then would their story finally, mercifully, be done.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas Thompson (1933–1982) was a bestselling author and one of the finest investigative journalists of his era. Born in Forth Worth, Texas, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and began his career at the Houston Press. He joined Life as an editor and staff writer in 1961 and covered many major news stories for the magazine, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As Paris bureau chief, Thompson reported on the Six-Day War and was held captive by the Egyptian government along with other Western journalists. His first two books—Hearts (1971), about the rivalry between two famous Houston cardiovascular surgeons, and Richie (1973), the account of a Long Island father who killed his drug-addicted son—established Thompson’s reputation as an originator, along with Truman Capote, of the “nonfiction novel.” In 1976, Thompson published Blood and Money, an investigation into the deaths of Texas socialite Joan Robinson Hill and her husband, John Hill. It sold four million copies in fourteen languages and won the Edgar Award and the Texas Institute of Letters prize for best nonfiction book. To research Serpentine (1979), an account of convicted international serial killer Charles Sobhraj, Thompson flew around the world three times and spent two years in Asia. His other books include Lost! (1975), a true story of shipwreck and survival, and the novel Celebrity (1982), a six-month national bestseller. Among numerous other honors, Thompson received the National Headliner Award for investigative reporting and the Sigma Delta Chi medallion for distinguished magazine writing.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 1976 by Thomas Thompson
Cover design by Kat JK Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4326-7
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
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THOMAS THOMPSON
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