Silence

by Thomas Perry

  Till took a few seconds to scan the parking lot before he opened the door for her, but she didn’t say anything about his precautions. He led her to a blue Cadillac.

  “Where did you get this car?”

  “Same place as the last one. Before we went for our walk I called the agency and had a guy drive this one here and take the other one back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I could.” He opened her door for her.

  She stopped without getting in. “Is this a bad idea?”

  “Going out for dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think so. But you’ve been invisible for six years. I haven’t. You tell me.” He held his hand out toward the car seat, and she got in. He walked around the car, taking his time and turning to be sure he had surveyed the area in every direction, then got into the driver’s seat and started the car. “No explosion.”

  “Yet.”

  He took out the piece of paper she had given him and read the address again, and she said, “Go up that road and turn right at the light.”

  “You know the area?”

  “The ad had a map.”

  As he drove, she gave him the rest of the directions. The darkness of the roads once they were out of downtown Morro Bay made them feel anonymous and safe. The restaurant was beside a country club, so Till passed by it before he realized it must be the right place. He turned around in the road and came back. He was pleased to see that when he turned, there were no headlights coming toward him.

  The restaurant was a long, low white building with gray trim. Till drove to the edge of the lot close to it. The brass plaque beside the door said Aimee’s. He parked and they walked inside. As they approached the hostess, he whispered, “Is this the same as the picture?”

  “Exactly.”

  The hostess seated them and the waiter arrived. Wendy ordered them each a martini. Till said, “How did you know I liked martinis?”

  “I could say something witty and unkind, but I’ll just tell the truth. I remembered from six years ago, when we were stuck in that hotel.”

  The waiter brought the drinks quickly. Till lifted his icy glass and said, “To better food.”

  She clinked her glass against his. “To old friends.” She sipped her martini. “Wow. I forgot how good these taste. I haven’t had a drink in about five years.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I stayed out of restaurants at first, for obvious reasons. And nightclubs were a worse bet. Then, when you have young children, you forget there is such a thing as a martini.”

  Till’s appreciation for the restaurant had nothing to do with aesthetics. The room was light with a single entrance, so there weren’t places in the bar for unexpected people to sit without being seen clearly. The windows were all on the side of the building away from the road, a wall of glass overlooking a tee on the golf course. A long fairway stretched down and away into the darkness. He could see a glint of reflected moonlight somewhere out there, so he guessed there must be a lake. It was not impossible for someone to be out there watching the restaurant, but it was extremely unlikely.

  He could tell that when Wendy read the menu, she saw more in it than he did. “Interesting.” She pointed at a line of type. “This should be good, if you like warm salads, and I’d love to see what she does with this Thai-French chicken, but I’ve been thinking about paella.”

  “You order one, and I’ll get the other.”

  “Thanks. I love a man who can take big fat hints.”

  “I’m only up to it if you speak slowly and look right at me.”

  When the food arrived, they shared the entrées. Wendy tasted the chicken and said, “This is a very nice variation on the sauce that Sybil Weitz used at Veritable in Chicago. I wonder if Aimee worked there.” She sampled the paella and said, “Ooh, she’s good. This looks like a big mishmash—clams, shrimp, lobster, mussels, chorizo, pork, chicken, all flavored with saffron, so how can you miss—but it’s complicated to get it just right because the ingredients are all cooked and seasoned differently.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about the cooking side of things.”

  “I don’t anymore. But people don’t forget everything they know.”

  “You seem to be feeling better about things tonight.”

  “You noticed.”

  “Yesterday was pretty awful. I guess it’s good not to be scared.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “I’d say that’s a necessary condition—not to be actively scared. But you have to remember that I’ve learned to tolerate a certain level of insecurity in my life—just like you do.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t start questioning the source of a good mood. It’ll kill it.”

  “Not at all. I’m glad that you’re watching me closely enough to notice it, and I’m glad you mentioned it because it forces me to confess.”

  “Confess?”

  “Yes. I was smiling to myself because this is exactly the same as a fantasy I’ve had over the past six years.”

  “Really. Then I’m delighted to be at the table to see it.” He looked around the room, as though in new appreciation.

  “You’re an essential part of it.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes.” She sipped her martini, but kept the glass up and studied him over the rim. “You don’t think about having a beautiful evening by yourself. Somebody has to share it.”

  He met her gaze and understood. “I’m honored.”

  They ate in a leisurely way, each sampling the other’s entrée. The waiter arrived to clear the table, brought the dessert menus and coffee, then returned with sweet berries and sorbet, all with a deliberate air of unhurried politeness.

  As they shared their dessert and drank the coffee, Till had time to consider what he was about to do. It was going to complicate matters, it was unwise, and it was probably unethical. He waited through the elaborate ritual of the little leather folder. When Wendy paid the bill in cash, he nodded in approval. “Thank you for the wonderful dinner.”

  They walked to the car and Till opened the door for her, but she didn’t get in at once. She put her arms around him and kissed him. The kiss began as a gentle, tentative peck, but when he responded, the kiss deepened and became passionate. She broke it off and ducked her head to get into the car.

  He came around the back of the car and sat behind the steering wheel. “That was a nice surprise.”

  “It was very nice. But it wasn’t a surprise.”

  “What do you mean?” Till started the car and drove slowly toward the exit from the lot.

  “We’re not teenagers, Jack. We both knew exactly what the kiss would be like. We’ve lived too much not to be able to imagine it perfectly. I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you as soon as I saw you.”

  Till stopped at the end of the driveway and looked in both directions, preparing to pull onto the highway.

  She said, “You’re awfully quiet.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “You’re thinking about me.”

  “Yes.”

  Till drove back to the center of Morro Bay and down to the ocean, doubled back twice to be sure that they had not been spotted in the restaurant and followed, then parked the car in the hotel lot among the others. He and Wendy went up to the second floor, and he had her stay in the stairwell while he checked to be sure that they’d had no visitors in their rooms.

  When he was certain it was safe, he went to the door and opened it. She was already stepping into his arms. She had not been quite right about knowing. She was exactly as he had known she would be—beautiful, pale, soft, fragrant—and yet his imagination had been unable to anticipate the way he felt. There was no hesitation between them because this decision had first been made six years ago, and even though they had denied it, the wish had not gone away. Tonight it was as though they had been given another chance to make the right choice, to live the images that had come into their minds in bitter regret and longing during t
he years since then.

  Afterward they lay on the bed together, her head on his shoulder, and his hand caressing her naked back, moving slowly from the shoulder down to her narrow waist and along the curve of her hip. She sighed. “It sure took us a long time to get here. I’m so glad to stop waiting and wondering.”

  “I’m glad, too.”

  “I thought about you a lot after you left me at the airport. I don’t mean that day. I mean from then until now.”

  “You were hurt and alone and scared. It’s a natural reaction.”

  She raised herself up on her elbow and looked down at him. “Don’t belittle this. It’s not a weakness or a whim.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought about you a lot, too. I wondered about where you were, what you were doing.”

  “I dialed your number a few times. I even packed my bag twice.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “Things that seem stupid to me now. At first I was still afraid. Then I didn’t want anybody to think I was a failure who couldn’t survive a month on my own—but mostly you, because you were the one who had taught me and helped me get away. I told myself that if I was gone for a year or so, you would think better of me. After a year, it didn’t seem enough. After a couple of years passed, it was too much time. I began to think that I had imagined that you felt anything for me. Neither of us had ever said a word. I thought that if I suddenly showed up at your office, you would probably say, ‘Oh, yes. I remember your case. You relocated. How is that working out for you?’ I would stand there with my suitcase in my hand and no place to go, and start to cry. Then I married Dennis Donnelly, and I didn’t have the right to come to you anymore.”

  Till lay silent for a few seconds, not sure whether to say what he was thinking or not, but she knew the question was in the air.

  “It’s okay, Jack. Dennis knew it in advance. Ann Donnelly was a hiding place, and when it stopped fooling anybody, it was over.” She hugged him and lay still. “If you and I were really young or one of us were really naïve, I would say that the marriage wasn’t real, or that Dennis was such a bad man that it somehow didn’t count. But he’s a nice, ordinary guy, and the marriage was probably as real as most of them are. We told each other jokes, saved for our old age, and had sex. The only difference was that we both knew it might have to end suddenly. Now it has.”

  “Was yesterday really the end, or was tonight the end?”

  “You have me figured out. Tonight was the end.”

  “It’s a bit late to say that I didn’t want to harm him.”

  “Want to give me back?”

  “No.”

  “I haven’t treated anyone as well as I wanted to—including him—but I told him the truth. I even told him about you. I didn’t tell him your name, but I told him that it could end in two ways: if the killers came for me, or if you did.”

  “I’ve been wishing that this would happen since the first day six years ago. But I don’t know what’s after this.”

  “I don’t, either. I’ve kind of given up on making that kind of prediction.” She kissed him, her leg came across his belly, and she shifted her weight over him. She closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh. They made love again, this time slowly and gently, enjoying each other without the frantic uncertainty of a few hours ago.

  It was after ten when they were lying in the bed in lazy silence again. She sat up abruptly, and he said, “Something wrong?”

  “There’s one more thing I wanted to say.”

  “What’s that?”

  “His name is Scott.”

  “Whose?”

  “Kit’s boyfriend. His name is Scott. I heard her say his name that night.”

  32

  MICHAEL DENSMORE stepped out of his office carrying his briefcase. It was late—after ten o’clock—but he wore his suit coat with the middle button closed and his tie straight. He was disciplined about the way he presented himself, even when he was only taking the elevator down to the parking level where his car waited in its reserved space. Over the years, he had found that even if the only person he met on the way was a young secretary working late or a janitor on the night cleaning crew, his appearance gave him an advantage. His look made it clear that he was the boss, not just because he had good clothes, but because his standards were not a facade that he let down at five o’clock. When he was in his private office making telephone calls or reading legal files, he always hung his coat on a proper wooden hanger behind the door—or at least a chair—so it would not wrinkle, but he put it on before he gave his secretary permission to admit anyone he didn’t know well. There was a padded hanger downstairs in the Mercedes that matched the interior of the car. He would use it to hang the coat behind him in the back seat while he drove.

  He was a successful, wealthy man, and he wanted to look like one. He had been prosperous since he had become a partner in Dolan, Nyquist and Berne. He had saved money, and also, by degrees, broadened his offering of services, so his income had continued to grow. He had begun as a straight criminal-defense attorney specializing in white-collar crime. Then clients began to pay him for acting as negotiator or consultant in a few delicate business deals that needed legal adjustments to remain viable. A few times, it had meant drawing up papers for a limited partnership that did not list one of the partners because his name might attract the wrong kind of attention. There were a few deals in which getting the necessary permits and licenses had been expedited by his personal assurances and a few envelopes full of hundred-dollar bills. After that, he’d begun to arrange introductions, putting together people who had projects with people who had money to invest. Soon he was forming pools of investors who couldn’t explain where their dollars had come from, and wanted profits without having their names written down. Now he earned more money making these arrangements for clients than defending them in court.

  Densmore was largely satisfied with his public self, but there were still certain parts of his private life that shocked and disappointed him. He was approaching the end of his fourth marriage, and that period was always a depressing and dispiriting time. Lawyers learned a great deal about unpleasant corners of the human psyche, but there was nothing like divorce to complete their education.

  Being divorce-prone was like having a bee-sting allergy. The first couple of breakups had hurt a little. The third had been severely painful because he’d had so much more to lose, and he had gone into shock. He didn’t know how he was going to get through the fourth.

  Densmore had met his current wife, Grace, five years ago, just as his third marriage had entered its guerrilla-warfare phase. His third wife, Chris, had begun sneaking around, looking at receipts and financial records. She had begun paying attorneys and private detectives to look into the size and shape of his fortune in preparation for her all-out attack.

  Grace appeared in front of his eyes when he arrived at a charity event for arthritis at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and suddenly the divorce became urgent. Within a month, he had begun trying to expedite his divorce from Chris. He agreed to give in to some of her ridiculous demands just so he could get the process over, but appeasement was a foolish strategy. Chris and her lawyers became more greedy and inquisitive about what he was hiding. After a few months, their prying and spying alarmed a couple of Densmore’s most difficult clients.

  Densmore went to the house to meet with Chris, who had by then learned he was spending every night at the Peninsula Hotel with Grace and had stopped speaking to him. When he arrived, he listened tolerantly to a long, irrelevant diatribe about what a bad husband he had been. Then he approached his problem carefully and delicately. “As you know, I am an attorney specializing in the defense of people who are charged with criminal infractions. Many of these clients are innocent. Others have, at some point or other, made serious mistakes, and I must guide them in their dealings with the legal system. My arrangements with them are, by law, privileged and confidential. Your snooping into my professional affairs in search of hidden money i
s upsetting some very important clients.”

  “You know what, Michael? I find that I no longer give a shit about your problems. My detectives have already found four or five accounts that you absentmindedly forgot to mention in your settlement papers. My lawyers tell me I could get you in big trouble.”

  “If your people think they’ve found anything like that, they’re mistaken,” he retorted. “Accounts that don’t belong to me sometimes have my name on them because I have power of attorney, or I’m holding funds in escrow. I don’t own them.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Look, Chris. I’ve never talked to you about the details of my law practice, so you’ll have to trust me. If I lose these clients, it will cut into the value of my practice and the value of my personal assets. That means I will lose half and you will lose half.”

  “Trust you?” Her expression was unspeakable, a mixture of revulsion and ugliness. “I trusted you not to humiliate me.”

  When he saw that expression, he almost lost hope, but he didn’t dare to give up. “I haven’t humiliated you, Chris. If it takes a goddamned detective to find out about it, then I’m being discreet.”

  “Not discreet enough, I can tell you.”

  “Chris, the reason I came here is that several clients in question are upset. In addition, any one of them is capable of being paranoid, angry and defensive about being investigated. Any one of them could react in very scary ways.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”

  “No, I’m not, Chris, they are. I’m trying to stave off a fucking disaster, and you don’t seem to be capable of listening to reason.”

  “This discussion is over.” She stood up, turned, and stomped off into the bedroom. When he followed her, he discovered that it had been fitted with a deadbolt.

  Two days later, Chris’s lawyer, Alvin Holstein, was found dead. His office had been gutted. Files, computers, disks, tapes, and even scratch pads had been loaded into a truck during the night and carted away. Pieces of the private detective Chris had hired were found over the course of a week along Interstate 15 between Barstow and Baker.