“You deserve it,” he said to Hickey.
Hickey, about to say more, only stared.
“There is no need to bluster, no need to threaten. You've done very well. The job is yours but I warn you, you're going to earn every dime of that salary.”
Hickey nodded. “Sure. Yeah.”
”I want you two to shake hands,” he said, “and I want you to mean it. We cannot have friction here.”
Carleton the younger made no move until he felt the bite of his father's nails. He extended his hand. Hickey took it. Carleton the elder clasped his own hand over theirs.
“Done,” he said, releasing them. “Give us ten minutes,” he said to Hickey. “No more.”
”I have to piss anyway,” Hickey said. He walked to the door.
“You're a good man, Mr. Hickey.”
Carleton the elder heard the click of the door and leaned toward his son. ”I want that man dead,” he said quietly. ”I want it done soon.”
18
By the end of her first hour with Lisa's computer files, Molly Farrell had ruled out any personal involvement between Lisa and the Campus Killer. There was no mention of him anywhere, no sign of interest or concern. Nor, in her diary file, was there any suggestion of tension between Lisa and any of the several young men she saw socially.
Molly came on a reference to an abortion that Lisa had apparently undergone two years earlier. She had used the diary to sort out her feelings about it and her reasons for not telling the father, a law student who had subsequently graduated and moved to Sacramento. They still kept in touch, just friends, no romantic involvement. Molly erased the entire entry. Carla could live without knowing it.
Except for a few other letters to distant friends, virtually all entries made in the last three weeks of her life had to do with a master's thesis titled, “The Panic of 1927—A Study of the Film Industry's Transition from Silents to Sound—The Economic and Human Cost.”
Molly scanned through it, stopping occasionally to read sections of it more carefully. She had no idea what she was looking for except, possibly, something new and interesting about an actress named Nellie Dameon. She tried to avoid becoming absorbed with the overall subject matter but, like Lisa, she found that she was especially struck by the human cost of the transition.
Lisa recognized that in any industry the loss of a livelihood can be frightening, even devastating. But there are always other jobs, no matter how humble, that can put bread on the table. What do you do, though, when you've been a star? Become a waitress? Pump gas?
In fact, some did. Molly found a reference file marked “Casualties.” It listed more than a hundred actors and actresses who were adored by fans one month, unemployable the next. Louise Brooks, Zeigfeld star, film star, ended up homeless for a time, living on a bench in Central Park. Later a sales girl at Macy's. Karl Dane, once billed as “The Funniest Man in the Movies” until his thick accent did him in, was reduced to running a hot dog stand near the main gate of the studio where he'd been a star. People avoided it. They were embarrassed for him. Dane shot himself in 1934.
The file listed many more suicides of one kind or another. Some used alcohol, others speeding cars; many did it with drugs. Lisa had written a long section dealing with the widespread use of drugs, especially cocaine, in the Hollywood of the twenties. Molly was surprised. She had somehow thought that recreational drugs were a more modern phenomenon. But she forced herself to scan forward. The drug scene of the twenties had no apparent relevance to the question at hand. What could Lisa have found that might explain why anyone would feel the need to kill her? Or to destroy these files once she was conveniently dead by another means?
Lisa's first mention of an asylum called Sur La Mer had made no impression on her. It was on her “Casualties” list. A number of movie people had been sent either there, near Santa Barbara, or to the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills.
It did not appear again until Molly came to a file marked “Field Trips.” Lisa had planned visits to both places and about a dozen others such as the archives at MGM/UA, Universal Studios, and the Hollywood Museum. She had apparently been welcomed at the Motion Picture Country House where she interviewed some of the very few survivors of the period but she was turned away by Sur La Mer. Her notes said that she would try again.
Suddenly, there it was. Lisa had typed the word PAY-DIRT\ Beneath it, NELLIE DAMEON TALKS. It was followed by a remembered transcription of their conversation. Molly read it and found it initially disappointing. All Lisa had had, apparently, was a brief conversation with an aged actress who seemed to think Lisa was one of her children. She, and someone named D'Arconte. There was another reference to an unnamed woman, born 1931 or 1932, who had a strawberry birthmark on her throat. This was followed by several terse notes in question form. Among them, “Why barbed wire and booby traps?” and “Per the young doctor, Feldman, who are these people?”'
“DiDi?” Molly called Lisa's friend who had been in the kitchen making phone calls. “Could you look at this?”
She made room for her at the screen.
Carleton Dunville the younger knew what was coming. He had heard the same speech from his father every year since his last in prep school, usually on the occasion of his birthday. It would begin with the words, You are a Dunville. It would last for six minutes. It would end, in this case, with a patient explanation of why Joseph Hickey had to die.
There was no need. Mr. Hickey was, and would remain, a blackmailer. It made no difference that he had committed at least two felonies in the process, he hoped, of guaranteeing his future. In fact he had little to lose and he knew it. If caught, he would strike a bargain. He would suffer, at most, a few months' inconvenience and the cost of a good lawyer. But his testimony would be a disaster. It would destroy the work of three generations. It might, in the end, ruin hundreds of lives.
Hickey had, in any case, sealed his own doom. Not through his insolence. Not even through his venality. He had done so when he allowed that unnamed policeman to associate him, no matter how indirectly, with Lisa Benedict, opening a possible avenue of investigation that could, conceivably, lead to his association with Sur La Mer. But he had also, bless him, identified the primary suspect in his own death and even suggested the means.
“What was Hickey working on, officer?”
“‘The search for the Campus Killer, he said.' `
“On whose behalf, unnamed officer?”
“For one of the families, he said. He didn't say which.''
“We'll question them all. But he must have learned something. Got close.''
“I guess. Too close.''
“You are a Dunville,” Carleton the elder began, interrupting his reverie. It was as he feared. His father was adhering strictly to the script. “It is not something you chose,” he was saying. “Nor, God knows, did I.”
”I understand that, Father. And I understand where my duty lies.”
He said this last in the hope that his father might forgo the first minute or so of the speech in which he usually misquoted Emerson: “When Duty whispers low, Thou must, the youth replies, I will.” Or, depending on the circumstance at hand, he would quote Longfellow's observation that, in this world, a man must either be an anvil or a hammer.
Whatever.
The middle part of the speech was similar to those heard by every young man of his acquaintance who happened to be born into a family of wealth, influence, and social standing ... to say nothing of self-importance. It was an enlargement on the theme, You are a Dunville, as in, You are a Rockefeller, a Kennedy, or a Mellon; except that the burden of being a Dunville was infinitely greater and the advantages fewer.
A Mellon could choose to become, say, a marine biologist or a concert pianist. A Rockefeller could decide to be governor of any state in which he owned a house. A Kennedy could divorce. He might even marry a Protestant someday. A Dunville could do almost none of the above. He could marry—although none of them had. And he c
ould breed children to his heart's content, as all of them had. Sometimes on order, although there had not been much of that lately. It had been almost two years since Sur La Mer had a member of childbearing age. The girl, Lisa Benedict, might have served. She was certainly attractive enough although boyish in physique. On the other hand, perhaps not. Narrow hips. And her babies would probably have been redheads. There was seldom much call for redheaded children.
“Carleton ... are you listening to me?” Carleton the elder was frowning.
“Every word. Yes.”
His father had been well into the third part of the speech. It concerned riding the tiger. No way to dismount. It had grown too big. What his grandfather, Count Victor, had started as an accommodation for one or two fugitives had grown over more than sixty years into a network that defied the imagination. There were hundreds of them out there. Thousands, if one counted their progeny. Sons and daughters, most of them legitimate, some purchased. There were grandchildren. In-laws. There were people out there who were four generations removed from the founders of their families and of their fortunes. Families that three generations of Dunvilles had created. Not a one of which had existed before 1931.
Carleton the younger loved to look at the names, keep track of their lives, update their profiles. It was astonishing to watch, really. There were, among the Sur La Mer alumni, some thoroughly despicable people who had, over time, become relatively decent and productive human beings. Or who had produced second and third generations who were relatively decent. Perhaps their new environments had something to do with it. And their training, with annual refresher courses, certainly deserved much of the credit. And perhaps, over time, the infusion of new and less predatory genes through marriage. Carleton found that he took an honest pleasure in those who had done well. Some had built financial empires. More than a few had entered public life. There were, currently: one senator, two congressmen, two mayors, a federal judge, and assorted lesser officials still with bright futures ahead of them. Several had attended service academies and had risen steadily within the military. Some were educators. A few were even clergy.
These, the best of them, he rarely bothered. Only in the direst emergencies would their patriarchs be called on to do a service, as Don Corleone used to put it. For that, there were more than enough of the worst of them. For many who came to Sur La Mer as rotters continued to be rotters for generations to come. The Sniders of Philadelphia, for example. The Mareks of Los Angeles. Especially the Mareks.
From time to time, certain of these family trees needed pruning. Sometimes whole branches of them. But, as often, they were useful, if only to prune each other.
“It is the innocent,” his father was saying, “who need . . . and deserve . . our protection most of all.”
Ah! Now we were getting to it.
“If Hickey brings us down, he could bring them down as well. All of them. No matter how innocent, no matter how blameless, they would be publicly humiliated, hounded by the ... ”
“Father, I understand. Hickey must go. For the sake of the innocent.”
The older man's face showed mild annoyance. He searched his son's eyes for a sign of the sarcasm he thought he'd detected. He chose to believe that he saw none. Only an impatience to get on with the unpleasant duty that had been forced on them both.
“Use reliable people,” he said. “Not anyone on staff.”
“Of course.”
”I will see to Henry myself. He knows that you've never liked him.”
“That's decent of you, Father.” By all means, he thought. Mustn't let Henry die sensing a lack of affection.
“What are your plans for the Streichers? More important, how will you get those files back?”
“That ... is a difficult issue.”
He explained to his father that the fax number to which they had been sent had been traced. It was the number of a message service in Los Angeles. Ruiz had gone there this morning, before dawn. The machine at the message service had a relay function. It was set to route any transmissions from Streicher to a second number. The machine printed out that number. It was in New Mexico, Santa Fe specifically, where, as Alan Weinberg, Streicher now has a house. Ruiz is on her way there now, he said, but he doubts very much that she will return with the files.
“Why is that?” asked Carleton the elder.
“Because it's too easy. The second machine is somewhere within Streicher’s Santa Fe exchange but it is unlikely to be in his house. Even if she finds it, it seems too much to hope that she'll find a hundred feet of fax paper dangling from it.”
“She might find more than that. Knowing Streicher, that machine is likely to be booby-trapped.”
Young Carleton blinked. He had not considered that.
“You think Streicher lied about having a confederate on the other end?”
“It seemed a bit pat, yes. There wasn't much point in coming to Sur La Mer in the first place if he hadn't broken off all contact with his past. Furthermore, Ruiz saw Bonnie Streicher’s eyes when she saw his cover note asking for my death in retaliation for his. She is sure that she saw confusion in them. If so, either she knew nothing of an assassin sitting on the other end, which seems unlikely, or her husband was making it up as he wrote it.”
Carleton the elder pursed his lips. “And yet he sent the documents. Are there machines that will hold them? Unprinted, I mean?”
“Yes. Until a code is punched in.”
The older man raised an eyebrow. “So, if Luisa does not return,” he said, “we'll know that she found the machine and that the transmitted documents have probably been destroyed.”
Young Carleton said nothing. He tried not to show his anger.
A small loss, thought the father. Ruiz. A disgusting creature really. Even if she did try to stop Henry from using the Benedict girl it was probably out of jealousy. “We have no one else,” he asked, “who can trace that machine to its location?”
“We do. They're working on it. Streicher would expect no less. But there's still the matter of a booby trap. The point was to know that those files were destroyed unseen. Probably will not do. We cannot act on probably.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Streicher has promised that he will abide by his contract in every particular. There's no question that he's tired of being hunted, for his wife's sake if not for his own. The only reason he did all this was out of concern that we would exact vengeance for Henry.”
His father's hand made a flitting gesture.
“Like it or not,” young Carleton continued, “short of finding that machine and standing there as it prints out those files to no eyes but our own, our hands are tied. My suggestion, failing that, is that we take him at his word.”
“That is unacceptable.”
“Why?” The son spread his palms. “There's no risk to us. The only risk is to those whose profiles he has and only then if he tries to blackmail them. If he doesn't, none of our clients will ever know they've been compromised. If he does, no place on earth will be safe for him.”
Carleton the elder scowled. “Just chalk it off, you say. Go merrily on with our lives.”
“Father, if you have an alternative . . . ”
“Have you considered making him talk? Telling where that machine is? How to disarm it? Whether, in fact, anyone else has seen those files?”
“Yes, I have.”
“And?”
“It crossed my mind to drug them. But they only eat what the members eat. We'd have to drug them all and it would probably kill half of them.”
“What about during surgery? Is any more scheduled?”
The younger man shook his head. “Their bandages come off tomorrow. It's possible that Streicher will need more work on that eye but he will not, in any case, accept general anesthesia. Even if he would, his wife would be standing beside the table with an automatic weapon.”
“You could . . . lull her. Overpower her.”
Carleton the younger made a fac
e. “That's Bonnie Streicher, Father. She does not lull ”
The older man rose to his feet. He began pacing. On a sudden impulse, he stepped to the door and opened it, half-expecting to see Joseph Hickey's ear pressed against it. He did not. Hickey stood some fifty feet away, his back to him, smoking a cigarette near the main entrance. A security guard, the one who still limped, sat at a small desk in between. Hickey could not have listened. Hickey turned. Carleton the elder smiled and held up one finger. He closed the door.
“How soon can you see to him?” he asked his son.
“This evening, if all goes well. I'll use Marek's people.”
“Have you considered that he might have left a diary, a tape recording . . . that sort of thing?”
Carleton the younger understood. Insurance. He shook his head. “That seldom happens in real life, Father,” he said. “The risk of premature discovery is as great as any deterrent value. Nor is there any point to a deterrent unless he's told us it exists.”
“Let's hope,” his father sniffed, “that Mr. Hickey shares your . . . ”
”I will see to it,” he said, biting off the words. “There will be a search. I will deal with this.”
His father, less than reassured, reached for a change of subject. “This business about Nellie,” he said. “Is there anything to it?”
“That she can talk?” he shook his head. “It's hard to imagine that she kept silent for sixty years just to have a chat with the Streichers or with some college student who sneaked onto the grounds.”
“How else could Streicher have known about the files?”
“He said he didn't. He feared for his safety after . . . Henry. He said he was looking for anything at all that might give him some leverage.”
“And you believed him?”
Carleton the younger could no longer mask his annoyance. “Does it make more sense to believe,” he snapped, “that Nellie Dameon, of all people, knew the contents of my safe and gave it to the first person who seemed to enjoy her movies?”
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