Silent Treatment

by Michael Palmer

  The Garfield Suites was on Fulton, a block and a half from the World Trade Center. The cab ride downtown from the Crown Building took twenty minutes. Kevin rode quietly, staring out at the passing city, but seeing little. The remarkable changes in his life could not have come about much more abruptly had he won the lottery. To be sure, he was good—very good—at what he did, which for years had been to sell insurance. He had been a member of the industry’s Million Dollar Roundtable for sales five years running, a branch manager, and then a successful department head at the home office. For a relatively young man from the far wrong side of Newark, those were accomplishments enough. But suddenly, Burt Dreiser had started inviting him out to lunch, and soon after that, to dinner.

  What do you think of …? What would you do if…? Supposing you were asked to …? First came the questions, phrased and rephrased, over and over again.Then, with Kevin’s responses apparently acceptable, came the secrets. The sales force’s well-publicized roundtable had a counterpart, Burt explained, at the high executive level. But unlike the Million Dollar Roundtable, which was an industry honor to be extolled in ads, on letterheads, and on business cards, membership in this Roundtable was not only very exclusive, but very secret.

  By the time Kevin had agreed to become Sir Tristram, replacing Burt Dreiser as Crown’s representative, he realized that he already knew too much to refuse and remain employed. His rewards for accepting the appointment were the promotion, a generous raise, and an annual bonus of one hundred thousand dollars or one percent of what The Roundtable saved or made that year for Crown, whichever was higher. The deal was, Dreiser assured him, on a par with that accorded the other knights.

  Following the recent scare, a number of steps had been instituted by the knights to protect their small organization and its members. Adhering to one of them, Kevin paid off the cabby at Gold and Beekman and made a two-block detour to the Garfield Suites, cutting through a store, and doubling back once as well. Certain he was not being followed, he entered the hotel lobby. His reservation, under the name George Trist, was already paid for. Anyone trying to backtrack from that name to the source of payment would find only a dummy business account with a set of directors who had long ago died. Sir Galahad, in charge of security, did his job well. He was paranoid about details. And after the undercover reporter had been discovered, he had become, if possible, even more obsessive.

  Across the lobby, Kevin saw Sir Percivale waiting for the elevator. Percivale was with Comprehensive Neighborhood Health Care, the largest managed care operation in the state. Kevin knew that much about the man, but no more. Not his name, not his title at CNHC. Burt told him not to worry about such things—it had been three years before he knew the names of all six of the other knights. Their eyes met for just a moment, then Percivale was gone. Kevin glanced at his watch. In three hours they would be meeting, along with the others, on the nineteenth floor.

  He crossed to the registration desk. The secrecy, the code names, the nature of their projects … Kevin thoroughly enjoyed the intrigue and mystery that surrounded their small society. And gradually, he was learning to cope with the less appealing aspects of it as well—some of the methods employed to achieve their goals and, of course, the constant risk of discovery.

  Number 2314 was a two-room suite with a decent view of the World Trade Center. Kevin stopped in the living room and twisted open a Heineken from the ample supply in the refrigerator. Then he stripped off his tie and laid his suit coat over the back of a chair. He had just kicked off his shoes when he tensed. He was not alone. Someone was in the bedroom. He was absolutely certain. He took a step toward the hallway door. There were house phones by the elevator. He could call Galahad or hotel security.

  “Hello?” a feminine voice called out. “Anybody out there?”

  Kevin crossed to the bedroom doorway. The woman, in her early twenties if that, stood by the edge of the king-size bed. She had obviously been sleeping, and now was brushing out her waist-length, jet-black hair. She wore a bit too much makeup for Kevin’s taste, but in every other regard she was perfect. Her Asian features, her slender body, her high, full breasts, her legs. Perfect. Her emerald dress was wet-suit tight, slit up the right side to her hip.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  She set the brush down, smoothed the front of her dress, and moistened her lips before she spoke.

  “My name is Kelly.”

  “Who sent you here?”

  “I … I don’t understand.”

  Kevin glared at her. After what happened with the reporter, surely this was either a joke or some sort of test.

  “Where did you come from? That’s a simple enough question. How did you get in here? That’s another simple question.”

  Fear sparked in the woman’s dark eyes.

  “A man met me outside the door and let me in. Each of us was given a room number to wait at. I … I’m here to please you in any way that you want.”

  “Just sit down there and stay there,” Kevin said, motioning to the bed. “No!” he snapped as she reached behind her back for her zipper. “Just sit.”

  He stalked to the living room, slamming the bedroom door behind him.

  According to Burt Dreiser, the women had been part of second and fourth Tuesdays for most of The Roundtable’s six-year existence. Lancelot, who had been there from the beginning, was responsible for them. And until two months ago, there had never been a problem. Those knights who wanted sex had it. Those who wanted nothing more than a massage or a lovely companion for dinner got that. The escort service Lancelot employed was one of the most upscale and discreet in the city. But somehow, they had been penetrated—not by a cop, but by a reporter.

  Kevin snatched up the phone.

  “Mr. Lance’s room, please.”

  Lancelot, Pat Harper of Northeast Life and Casualty, was the only member of The Roundtable whom Kevin had met before joining. In stature and appearance, Harper was anything but a Lancelot, with an expansive gut, ruddy complexion, fat cigar, and high-pitched laugh that were far closer to Dickens than to Camelot. Kevin had once played in the same foursome with him during an industry-sponsored charity golf tournament and had been beaten by a dozen strokes. Harper had a wife and three or four grown kids. Beyond that fact, Kevin knew nothing of the man except, of course, that he liked young, beautiful women.

  “Lancelot, this is Tristram,” Kevin said. “I thought we decided no more women.”

  “Ah, Kelly … What do you think of her? A ten and a half, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, except she’s not supposed to be here.”

  “Oh, lighten up, my friend. Life is too short. We decided no more women from the old escort service. Kelly and the others are from a new one. Don’t worry, every one of them has been checked out. There won’t be any more screwups.”

  The name the reporter had used was Desiree. She had spent two Tuesdays with Sir Gawaine and two with Kevin. The owner of the escort service had learned of Desiree’s duplicity from one of the other women, whom the reporter had tried to interview and who was certain that the impostor had recorded her sessions with her two clients. At Galahad’s insistence, the escort company was terminated immediately, and Roundtable meetings were moved.

  During the tense questioning that followed the discovery, Kevin learned a bit about Gawaine, the last member admitted to the group before he was. From the very beginning, Kevin had found the man’s button-down composure and varsity club accent threatening. Gawaine seemed to fit right in with the others, while Kevin’s hardscrabble Newark upbringing made him an instant outsider. Now Kevin knew that he and Gawaine had at least one thing in common: both were contented family men who had never wanted or received more than a massage and some conversation from their escorts.

  Apparently, however, Lancelot had been given the green light to start up again with a new service. Kevin was about to tell the guy that no more women were to be sent to his room. But he remembered one of Burt Dreiser’s warnings about The Round
table.

  “So much is at stake,” Dreiser had said, “that nobody trusts anybody. The best thing you can do is not to stand out in any way. Look and act like everyone else, arid you’ll do fine.”

  Kevin had drawn the conformity line at screwing the women Lancelot brought in. But he had never mentioned that to anyone. In fact, if he and Gawaine hadn’t been asked during Galahad’s investigation whether or not they were actually having sex with Desiree, no one in the group would have known.

  “Listen, Lance,” he said now. “Don’t take it personally. Kelly’s beautiful. I’m very pleased with her. I was just making sure there weren’t any problems. That’s all.”

  He set the receiver down and returned to the bedroom. Kelly, slowly stroking her thick mane of ebony hair, smiled up at him from the bed.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  The sight of her sitting there, her right leg exposed to the hip, sent an uncontrollable surge of blood to Kevin’s groin.

  “Everything’s fine,” he said. “Listen. How about calling room service and ordering dinner. Get anything you want for yourself. I’ll have a filet. Medium rare. And then maybe a massage. Are you good at that?”

  “I am very good at that,” she said.

  * * *

  Harry had lived in Manhattan for much of his adult life, but until today he had never been in Tiffany’s. With Mary Tobin’s help, he had freed up the last hour and a half to make earlier-than - usual rounds at the hospital and head home. The idea of doing something special for Evie had been his. The suggestion to do it at Tiffany’s had been Mary’s.

  Now, silently humming Joe Kincaid’s rendition of “Moon River,” Harry tried for George Peppard’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s nonchalance as a saleswoman laid one prohibitively expensive gem after another on the black velvet display cloth.

  “This tennis bracelet is quite charming,” she said. “It has alternating beautifully matched rubies and diamonds, each an eighth of a carat.”

  “My wife doesn’t play tennis too often.… Um … how much is it, though?”

  “Thirty-six hundred, sir.”

  Well, then, perhaps I could see something in a Ping-Pong bracelet?

  Eventually, he settled on a half-carat diamond pendant flanked by two small rubies. Evie loved precious stones. With the help, Harry suspected, of her ex-husband and ex-suitors, she had amassed a sizable collection by the time he started dating her.

  “I want to sell every piece I have,” she said, soon after they were married, “so we can buy a camper and drive across the country.”

  Harry knew that Evie had never been camping in her life and suspected that she would not be too enamored of black flies and blackened burgers. The declaration was part of her commitment to moving her life out of the fast lane and into whatever lane she perceived him to be traveling. Eventually, though, she stopped talking about the simple life and put her jewels into a safe-deposit box. They never did go camping.

  There’s nothing to worry about.… I hope this will mark a new beginning for us.… Everything’s going to be all right … Believe it or not, there are places I want to take you where you can actually wear this.… Harry considered then rejected any number of messages for the card, before writing simply “I love you.”

  I need to talk to you.… With Evie’s words playing over and over in his mind, he took a cab to the co-op they had owned since shortly after the wedding. The sixth-floor apartment, five decent-sized rooms and a tiny study, was in a well-maintained building on the Upper West Side, a block from Central Park. Over Evie’s eight-plus years there, the flat had changed, in her words, from “exquisite” to “adequate” to “small,” and, most recently, to “depressing.”

  I need to talk to you.… Health? Money? The marriage? Her job? Could she possibly be pregnant? It had been so long since she had needed to speak with him about anything. Maybe she finally wanted to clear the air and start over again.

  There were two apartments on the sixth floor. The narrow hallway between them always seemed imbued with Evie—possibly some combination of her perfume, shampoo, and makeup. As usual the scent evoked powerful impressions of her. But this evening Harry was too distracted to pay much attention. He knocked once and then used his key.

  “Harry?” she called out from the bedroom.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be right out.”

  From her tone, he knew she was on the phone.

  Harry set the Tiffany’s box on the dining-room table and paced idly. The apartment was immaculate, brightened by several vases of fresh-cut flowers—Evie’s trademark. An Eric Clapton album was playing on the CD player. Clapton was one of Harry’s favorites. He wondered if Evie’s playing it now was significant.

  “You want a drink?” he asked.

  “I have a vodka and tonic on the kitchen counter. Just add a little ice for me.…”

  She must be off the phone.

  “… I’ll be out in a minute. I made reservations at the SeaGrill if that’s okay.”

  “Fine.”

  Harry tried unsuccessfully to read something—anything—into her voice.

  She emerged from the bedroom wearing black slacks and a red silk blouse. The colors looked smashing on her. Then again, most colors did. She kissed him on the cheek—nearly an air kiss.

  “Was it hard getting away from the office?” she asked, retrieving her drink.

  “Not really. Mary cleared my schedule and canceled me out with the band. She can do anything she sets her mind to.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  Harry couldn’t remember when Evie had last asked about his office staff—or, for that matter, the guys in the band or his co-workers.

  “The arthritis in her hips is pretty bad. But in general she’s doing fine. Are you okay?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

  She sipped her drink. Harry gave up trying to see behind the small talk and instead handed her the necklace. She seemed genuinely charmed and impressed by the gift and immediately replaced the gold chain she was wearing with it.

  “This is really very sweet of you,” she said, glancing again at the card.

  “I just wanted to be sure you know that everything’s going to be okay.”

  Her smile was enigmatic, but there was unmistakable sadness in her eyes.

  “You always tell me that things have a habit of working out the way they’re supposed to.”

  “That’s me. Harry Corbett, mild-mannered GP by day, impenetrable philosopher by night.”

  “Well, I think this time you’ve got it right, impenetrable one. Things do have a way of working out.”

  She gazed out the window, absently fingering the pendant. The early evening light glowed against her pale skin and highlighted her flawless profile. She was, if anything, even more strikingly lovely than she had been when they first met.

  “You … um … said you needed to speak with me.”

  Even as he heard his voice saying the words, Harry cursed himself for not having more restraint. If she felt ready to say something, she would have said it.

  She glanced at him and then turned back to the window. “I—I just wanted to spend some time talking together tonight,” she said. “After all, medical science may have broken through the envelope, but brain surgery is still brain surgery.”

  “I understand,” Harry said. But in truth, he was not at all certain that he did. “So … are—are you hungry?”

  “I will be by the time we get there.”

  “Want to walk?” The question was almost rhetorical. Evie was invariably in too great a rush to get wherever she was going to walk.

  “Let’s do that,” she said suddenly. “Let’s walk. Harry, this is a beautiful necklace. I’m really very touched.”

  Harry searched for the cynicism he had grown used to from her but found none. His fantasies about a return to the life they had once had began to simmer. Evie had already turn
ed and started toward the bedroom when he realized the phone was ringing.

  “I’ll get it,” she called out, hurrying down the hall. “I want to get my purse anyhow.”

  Harry shrugged and, still feeling uneasy, went to the kitchen and set his glass in the sink. Through the eight Bose speakers mounted throughout the apartment, Eric Clapton was reminding him that nobody knows you when you’re down and out.

  Down the hall in the bedroom, her hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the phone, Evie was holding a brief, hushed conversation.

  “No … no, I haven’t told him about us yet,” she said. “But I’m going to.”

  She set the receiver down and held the diamond pendant up where she could see it.

  “At least I think I’m going to,” she murmured.

  CHAPTER 5

  Galahad … Gawaine … Merlin … Tristram … they arrived at the nineteenth-floor conference room at prescribed times, in prescribed order, and by prescribed routes. Galahad had chosen the hotel and meeting room and set up the protocol. He had also checked the room for listening devices and cameras.

  Although the women from the escort service were hired to stay the night, Kevin Loomis—Sir Tristram—had sent Kelly away an hour or so before he left his room. He loved his wife and was satisfied with their sex life. But every man had his limits. Nancy did not like giving backrubs as much as she liked receiving them. Five minutes of uninspired kneading was about the best effort she could muster. But Kelly was tireless, and the sweet-smelling oils she produced from her bag would have pleased a potentate. Spending an entire night with her would have stretched his willpower beyond the breaking point.