Resurgence

by M. M. Mayle

  She could not be more right, he agrees as he eases the uber-pricey car away from the curb and into the Chandler driveway, where he’ll perform the final act of this charade by giving the place a cursory inspection as long as he’s in the neighborhood.

  Before going in, he thinks to jot down the particulars most likely to escape him, starting with the alphanumeric of the Michigan license plate, and finishing with the possible importance of a sign reportedly applied upside down to a flashy coupe utility vehicle. He caps his pen, closes the notepad, and is immediately hit with the feeling he’s left something out. But what? He reopens the notepad, reviews the seconds-old scribbles, and it comes to him. But not from these notes. He’s recalling a detail from his original run-in with Mrs. Floss, when she alleged that the day laborer in question didn’t speak much English. A significant detail now that the burden of proof rests on establishing the guy to be native, not foreign.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Late afternoon, May 23, 1987

  The key to 13 Old Quarry Court is still in the glove box. So are Amanda’s precise driving and entry instructions from his first trip here. Nate reviews the entry instructions, not that he needs to; he hasn’t forgotten that the key will open any of the exterior doors—a woeful security lapse in his estimation. But that’s not what he’s here for. He’s not here to find fault or make recommendations. This is simply a courtesy walkthrough to confirm the windows are all closed and no squirrels have invaded the attic, say. And to satisfy the assumptions of the ever-watchful Mrs. Floss.

  He lets himself in by the front door. Everything appears in order on the ground floor. The kitchen is as remembered, and the rooms off the central corridor appear undisturbed.

  On the second floor, he can’t be so sure. The day of the appraisal he didn’t bother coming up here, so unless something is glaringly out of place, he won’t notice. A kind of reverse Goldilocks thing is going on when he peers into bedrooms where beds have clearly not been slept in. Then it’s a voyeur thing when he encounters a large stripped bed which probably saw some heavy action a month or so ago. The last bedroom he comes to provokes nothing but curiosity. Why is it unfurnished and bare of decoration of any kind—even curtains? And why has money been left on the windowsill in plain sight?

  Nate instinctively pockets the money for safekeeping, at the same time realizing this must be the cash found by the hypercritical appraiser when he happened on Laurel’s girlhood hiding place. And doesn’t it just figure that the anal prick would gather up the bills and stack them in a tidy, however obvious, pile. This suggests the appraiser may have done similar with the so-called rodenticide in the attic, and encourages Nate to have a look at that situation.

  The door to the attic doesn’t reveal itself right away. He’s in and out of linen closets, bathrooms, and stairwells before he discovers the hatchway in a cedar closet and boosts himself through the opening and onto a fair-sized platform spanning several widths of rafters. Light from the closet shows the platform bare of all but a few sagging cartons and some outlines in the dust where luggage might have been stored.

  Yes, luggage, in all probability. Suitcases, weekenders, satchels, carryalls, gym bags. This is where Laurel said her brothers routinely tossed their gym bags—where a presumed spill of talcum powder led the sanctimonious appraiser to believe rodent killer had been distributed.

  Crouched down on his heels, he can just make out a whitish dusting of something between the rafters nearest the hatchway. He wets a finger, blots up some of the substance, rubs it between finger and thumb. On the gritty side. If it is talcum, it must contain an exfoliating agent. How good would that feel between your toes, or on your balls, say? He wets another finger, not yet convinced this is something he’d dare taste, brings up another sample that he holds to the light from the closet and knows without tasting what it is.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” He confounds himself with a nonstandard epithet, rocks off his heels and onto his ass. The platform takes on aspects of a raft set adrift in the middle of the ocean as he sits there contemplating evidence he has no idea what to do with.

  This discovery is in the category of returning to the Northern Michigan wreckage to find Aurora’s head missing. He wants to block it out, deny it as way too complicating a factor, and just get the hell out of here like it never happened. He wants to wash the tainted fingers with soap and water instead of sucking off the residue, thereby confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s coke that was sprinkled here.

  After he’s made that confirmation and scrubbed at his hands like a latter-day Lady Macbeth, his thought processes recover. He comprehends that this finding may not have bearing on his concerns, that Laurel’s college-age brothers may utilize a little blow now and then. And that doesn’t have to mean they’re permanent write-offs, or that he’s compelled to report their leisure time activity to Laurel. No, not at all.

  He’s willing to make that judgment call, but not before giving the rafter spaces surrounding the platform a good groping. If he finds anything more than a light sprinkle, it’ll be another story altogether. And no one will be spared—not even Laurel.

  The only area of residue is the spot near the door. That increases the likelihood it was a one-time event, an accidental spill rather than a regular hiding place.

  When he drops though the hatchway onto the closet floor, his stiffened knees let him know he rode that raft of indecision a lot longer than thought. Without checking basement or garage, he lets himself out of the house the same way he came in. Because Mrs. Floss is presumed watching and nodding approval at the length of time spent on his supposed job, he does a parade lap of the court before squealing onto the connector road.

  On Route 3, he drives like he just stole the car. He cannot get home soon enough; he cannot talk to Amanda soon enough; he cannot begin to decide what all to tell her.

  The fast trip home does not provide the catharsis hoped for. When he hands the car off to the garage attendant, he’s no closer to deciding how much Amanda should be told. Has he gone full circle? Is ambivalence again his byword?

  In the kitchen, he checks for phone messages even though it’s too early to hear from Amanda. At five p.m. New York time, the evening’s far from over in rural Kent. Two, even three more hours may have to pass before she can break away from her hosts to place a discreet call.

  He forgoes the drink he was craving all the way home and heads straight for the study to collect his thoughts on paper.

  “And then what?” Nate muses aloud once the essentials of the bizarre experience are down in black and white. Go to the cops with a shitload of allegations based on chronic paranoia, coincidence, half-baked conclusions, fevered imaginations, and the testimony of an eyewitness who serves lunch to her long-dead husband? “Yeah, right,” he mumbles.

  The zeal that brought him this far is collapsing around him. Despite having more to go on than ever before, it takes a real act of will to call out-of-favor PI, Harry Newblatt, the logical means for determining if those Michigan license plates were issued to Jakeway.

  Newblatt’s usual answering machine foolishness is tolerated before the investigator picks up. Then, Nate states his business as though he’d never had issues with the guy.

  “I’m told the plates were originally issued for a blue ’seventy-five Jimmy and recently transferred to an ’eighty-six maroon and silver El Camino or Caballero. There’s reason to believe the transfer took place in New Jersey.” Nate spells out the identifiers on the plates, over-enunciating like he’s talking to a hearing-impaired three-year-old. “See what you can do. Okay?”

  Newblatt registers no surprise at falling back into favor, only reminds that it’s the weekend, not to expect results before Tuesday or Wednesday, and asks if a pinpoint is wanted on the coupe utility vehicle.

  “Wouldn’t hurt, and probably wouldn’t hurt to extend the search beyond Jersey. But if you should track it down, do not interfere in any way. I cannot stress that strongly enough. Do not mess with this guy, and d
o not report his location to anyone but me. Got it?”

  Newblatt indicates he’ll be handling the inquiry himself and instructions will be followed to the letter—oblique reference to the bungled Laurel Chandler surveillance and, under the circumstances, an adequate apology.

  Nate returns to the kitchen, prepares a generous vodka on the rocks and wanders into the library cum picture gallery to renew acquaintance with the Klimt portraits and contemplate his next move.

  It’s too late in the day to call the Edelweiss landscaping outfit. Chances are, Hoople Jakeway’s name never appeared on any employee roster, anyway. Not because he registered with a fake name, but because he never registered there at all. Why would he if his physical characteristics enabled him to infiltrate the ethnic group currently dominating the field of day laborers? And if gullible Mrs. Floss chose to take him for a foreigner, why would he do anything to dispel that notion—such as speak more than a few words of English?

  In the salon, he strikes a few notes to check the tuning of the Bosendorfer grand and rejects another option. Attempting to track down the tri-state area manufacturer of magnetic signs that recently fabricated one with the word “superior” in the display, is just plain laughable. Everything’s superior these days, whether referring to a rating or a place.

  Nate circles back to the kitchen, adds ice to his drink and takes a seat at the housekeeper’s planning desk, where he acknowledges that timeframe won’t be easy to establish, either. Did Mrs. Floss ever say exactly when the supposed foreigner was first observed? Or when he was last seen? Would she be able to now?

  The phone rings before he can further defeat himself with that problem.

  “Yes!” he answers, suddenly hopeful that Amanda has been able to make an early night of it in Kent.

  “I kinda doubt that gung ho greeting was meant for me,” Brownie Yates says, his coarse regional twang unmistakable. “But don’t hang up till you’ve heard what I’ve got to say. You with me?”

  “Yeah, go ahead,” Nate says, infused with another kind of hope because Brownie wouldn’t dare call here without something important to say.

  “St. Joseph’s Hospital. West Village. My balls. Your money. Get the drift?” Brownie says.

  “I’m starting to.”

  “Good, then get this. Sheer persistence and a judicious application of currency surfaced Hoople Jakeway’s name on the hospital guest list the day the Sid Kaplan jerk-off was carved and stuffed.”

  “No shit!”

  “No shit,” Brownie echoes.

  “Don’t say another word. Not now, not on the phone. Meet me at P.J. Clarke’s in an hour. Bring everything you’ve got.”

  “And you bring cash. I’m out a grand.”

  “Fuckitfuckitfuckitfuckitfuckit,” Nate mutters while placing an international call to Colin Elliot’s main number in Kent. Although his luck has improved, there’s no reason to believe the improvement precludes Colin answering the phone.

  He’s ready for a heated exchange or a hang-up, but Rachel Elliot answers and blessedly agrees to pass his call off as having originated with Amanda’s service.

  Amanda calls back within minutes. “I thought we agreed to talk later,” she says sounding mildly alarmed, maybe even a little annoyed.

  “We did, and I intended to wait, but something’s come up. I have to go out.”

  “Oh?”

  “To meet Brownie Yates.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yeah, and here’s the deal. Turns out my day was more productive than first thought. Things are happening, things are coming together and I need help. I need you. Here. With me.”

  “Are you saying you want me to flat-out dump Colin?” she says after a worrisome pause.

  “No, not at all. I’m not asking you to choose sides, only to take a few days off to . . . to check on things at home. You’ve been gone quite a while and, as I recall, you did leave home on very short notice. Isn’t it inevitable that things there have piled up, that certain things require your personal attention? And isn’t this the best time to take a break—while you’re between acts—with the concert success behind you and the tour not yet begun?”

  “Okay, okay, okay, already. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “As soon as possible. Concorde. On my dime.”

  He’s encouraged that she doesn’t argue about the mode of transportation or who’s paying for it. But on the other hand, she’s not making any promises. She’s not making much sense either. Or so it seems until he figures out that she’s rattling on about meetings to be taken and reports to be distributed because she can be overheard at her end. No point, then, in adding anything to the urgent request. Or personalizing it if she’s unable to respond in kind.

  On the cab ride to the legendary watering hole on Third Avenue, ambivalence settles over him again. Everything seems to have more than one answer. He should have told Amanda it was an emergency.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Afternoon, May 27, 1987

  Colin forcibly breaks their lip-lock, producing a soft gasp from Laurel. He applies his mouth to her throat, then to the hollow between her collarbones, and on to the valley between her breasts. She emits a louder gasp that’s all the encouragement he needs to lavish attention on erect nipples and graze the gentle swell of her belly before picking up her scent and following its lead.

  For him, the week since they were last able to manage anything out of the ordinary—anything beyond a muffled, abbreviated hump beneath the covers—has passed like a month in solitary with his hands tied behind his back.

  He’s going at her now like it’s their first time and he’s afraid it’s their last; he could feel a bit sheepish about this level of desperation if her ardor didn’t match his, as demonstrated by her little yips of pleasure and madly inflaming twistings and turnings.

  As their mutual temperature rises, she becomes more vocal and more powerful in her responses, crying out full voice and arching off the bed, hips lifting, fingers digging into his scalp as he feasts on her.

  She’s all gasping greed when he comes up for air and she insists his length into her in one hard thrust. The strength of her grip on his arse—the hand-prints she’s leaving there—says there’s no holding back; the scrape of her teeth against his shoulder says he’ll be marked there as well; they both could be marked by the strenuous clash and bash that culminates in madly reverberating satisfaction.

  They separate as abruptly as they coupled—he rolling onto his back, she onto her stomach, both breathing hard, eyeing each other warily, as though in disbelief.

  “I love you,” she mouths.

  “I love you, Laurel Grace Chandler,” he says just audibly and they drift on those pronouncements for a while.

  Hidden away in a seldom used guestroom in the north wing, no one will come looking for them here. But he can wager all their usual haunts will be searched the minute Simon wakes from his lie-down and Anthony returns from an outing with Sam Earle. And he can be dead certain the phone will be ringing when they emerge from this stolen interlude.

  David Sebastian’s London office chimes in a minimum of three times a day with a fresh dose of unfinished business, and that doesn’t include numerous calls from chief troubleshooter, Amanda. Of late, Bemus’s voice has joined the daily chorus of demands that go into mounting a full-scale musical invasion of the Continent.

  Chris will have been here—or may still be here—with Jesse and Lane set to pop in at any moment. Celebrity stragglers from last week’s memorial concert may still be lurking about for one last hurrah. Household staff are necessarily in evidence; vendors and purveyors necessarily come and go with tiresome regularity. Dogs, cats, and even roosters are free to intrude and interrupt at will.

  “I’m sorry,” Colin says without warning.

  “Good lord,” Laurel says, turns on her side, goes up on one elbow. “What on earth for? You have nothing to be sorry about, believe me. That was . . . I hardly know what to say . . . that was off the scale.”

 
; “Yeh, wasn’t it though, but I’m sorry we had to sneak off like this, that we’ve never been alone, actually.”

  “We were alone the day that counted most and it’s not as though you sprang the children on me. I didn’t come here thinking—”

  “It’s not just the lads. It’s the lot of it. It’s everything. You were hardly here a day when we lost Rayce, followed by all the commotion that went with that. Then there was the pressure chamber of gearing up for the Albert Hall gig, and now the getting ready for the bleedin’—”

  She leans over and kisses him. Hard. Long enough that she’s got him thinking about encores. But before that proves possible, she breaks away, salvages her knickers from the floor and wriggles into them in a vastly entertaining way.

  “You sound like you need a break as much as Amanda,” Laurel says as she positions her breasts in the bra she just put on—a sight almost as pleasing as watching them burst free when she undresses.

  “I nearly forgot she’s on holiday.” He accepts that the party’s over and stabs a leg into his pants. “Where was she off to, did she say?”

  “New York, and I wouldn’t call it a holiday, just a change of scenery. She said there was a huge backlog of personal things she’s ignored since she came to London on such short notice.”

  He puts on his jeans, no longer distracted by Laurel’s motions. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”

  “You’re not. She was very clear about her plans Saturday night, right after she took the call from her service—”

  “When I was still laughing my arse off over what she was made to suffer at the oast house.” He zips up and pulls on a T-shirt. “This call from her service, what was it about?”

  “How should I know? I didn’t take the call, your mother did. And even if I had answered, it wouldn’t have been my business to question—”