by Ron Hevener
“Yes, it is,” he said, holding her hand and hoping she would never leave. “Marry me, Sidney. Right now. City Hall. Before the press finds out what happened.”
“Well, it’s not how I pictured, Bennie, but, I guess if we don’t do it now, we never will.” They were still embraced when Sarah knocked on the door frame.
“How long have you been standing there!” Sidney asked, embarrassed.
“Long enough to know I wasn’t expecting a surprise like that!” Sarah smiled now. “Strange how we see what’s important at times like this,” she said, joining them and looking across the city. “Oh, I’m gonna miss him,” she sighed, leaning against the rail. “Millions of people out there. And only one of him.”
“We’ll all miss him,” Sidney Leigh said, putting an arm over Sarah’s shoulder. “He was really special.”
“Yes, he was…and who knows what might have happened if he…but…you need to think of yourselves now,” Sarah managed to say, and she meant it. “You’re making the right decision. And, hey, if you’re going to get married in a hurry, New York’s the place!” She kissed them both. “You guys are the light of my life.” She grew silent now, like a star whose thoughts no one else can know.
Maybe it was Sidney Leigh’s faraway look now that made Ben ask, “What is it, Love?”
“I just keep wondering…why was anybody following him?”
“And where was he going?” Ben said. “The guy at Customs said they’d been following him for a long time. It was about a lot of money, so we can pretty well guess it has something to do with the company.”
Sarah was listening now. “But that could mean almost anything,” she said. “It’s a hell of a big company, Ben.”
“Phantom Lake,” Sidney guessed. “But when they stop you at an airport, it’s the official government involved—not a shadow government like Wembly always talked about. I mean, this is pretty out in the open, don’t you think?” It was the question each of them was asking.
“You’re thinking the same as me.”
“Yeah,” Sidney Leigh said. “If it’s about Phantom Lake, it wouldn’t be the government after him.”
“It’s not about Phantom Lake,” Aunt Sarah said, with a knowing look they didn’t often see. “It goes a lot further back.”
“How far?” Sidney asked.
Ben sighed. “October, 1929, is my guess.”
“Can’t they let it go?” Sarah said, not explaining anything.
“What do you think?” Ben said. “They smell money. And, it’s the government.”
*
Later, Ben checked his phone. Trimble’s friend had delivered the message and the attorney was waiting for a call back. Ben responded and Theodore gave his condolences. “I’ll get hold of the agent at the airport and see what I can do to stop this,” he said. “You got his name?”
“Wilson,” Ben said. “He gave me his card.”
“I’ll take care of it in the morning. Where are you gonna be the next few days?”
“Here, I guess. We’ve got to let the papers know and take care of everything. And Customs is holding the horses and going through all our things. We’ll be here for a while,” Ben told him. He hung up, almost knocked on the door of the guest room as he went past to make sure Aunt Sarah was OK, and stopped. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he heard sobbing.
Sidney didn’t hear anyone crying. She was waiting for him on the balcony. “It’s peaceful here,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said, undressing without modesty by the light of a million candles. “Come here, you.”
CHAPTER 18
Lost
Diane Wallace glances at her notes and then off-camera. “You’ve said that press reports about Wembly DeCroy’s death may have been false. That this public figure—a major, world-class fashion designer—could have been murdered because he threatened to expose this alleged plot to smuggle uranium out of the country right under the nose of the American public. Forgive me, but does that make sense? Because if you were the good guys, why were the federal authorities involved…against you?”
“Alleged plot?” Ben says. “But it was obvious, Diane. The investigation into Wembly’s death, by French authorities, was minimal at best. They concluded it was accidental, as was reported in the press. But we believed otherwise. Then when reporters got wind of the detainment at Customs, and why, it was nothing short of crushing. I had lost both the heroes of my life, and now the media took hold of the story like a pack of wolves threatening to destroy everything the Brotherhood stood for—and everything we were trying to do. As for the authorities, well, for once what the tabloids said was true.”
* * *
New York City
Ben awoke to find Sidney standing by him, toast and jelly in her hand and on her lips. “Mmmmm,” he said lazily, not being one whose senses come rushing in at the crack of dawn.
“Hello to you, too, my husband-to-be in just a few hours. Or, don’t you remember last night on the balcony?”
“I remember the balcony,” he smiled. “The sofa. The floor. And this bed. Come here.” But her mind was on something else.
“Who’s the woman, Bennie?”
His eyes widened. “Are you joking?”
“There’s a picture in Wembly’s room. Maybe she’s a relative and we should call her—oh!” she said, spilling a plate of sliced oranges onto the bed.
“Yuck!” he said, pulling away.
“Well,” Sidney laughed. Aunt Sarah’s making breakfast and she says it’s all over the news, Bennie.” He was up, mummy-wrapped in a blanket and in the kitchen, before she could say more. Nothing more was said about any pictures.
“Good Morning, Aunt Sarah,” Ben said. “Did you sleep well?”
Ignoring the obvious, she said, “I found some eggs and bacon in the fridge.”
“Thanks,” Ben said. “Theodore said he can handle things and you should be able to leave soon.”
“I hope so. I’m going to quarantine to see the horses today. I can’t stand the thought of them being without us.”
“How soon till we can leave and get them back home?” Sidney Leigh asked, as Ben listened quietly.
“A few days,” Sarah said. “Not long.”
Ben finished off with a second glass of juice, preparing to go downstairs, meet with the staff and come up with a plan. How should I do this? he wondered. Am I ready? He would have to be presentable for the employees, as impeccable as Wembly, himself, would have been. He would need to hold something of Wembly’s—anything. On an impulse, he went to Wembly’s room and, childlike, opened the door. The room he had never entered. He needed something—anything—a shirt, a tie, a shoe. Then he saw it.
A small, golden frame holding through the years the snapshot of a racehorse surrounded by smiling faces in the winner’s circle at a racetrack, and Wembly’s note: “Delaware Park, 1968.”
Mouth dry, arms like rubber bands, Ben held the picture closer. The horse was Fashion Statement. The people were Wembly, Aunt Sarah, Sidney Leigh…and himself. A wave of warmth came over him. I would have loved being your son, Wembly. I would have loved it. And then his eyes wandered to an old portrait of a lusty, smiling young woman on the bureau, black hair swirling around her familiar, pretty face. A mother, perhaps? A sister, he wondered? A daughter?
The eyes, intelligent and haunted, looked back at him. The posture, like a lonely dancer’s, caught his heart. Suddenly, he knew why Ruthie had laughed at this very special man.
He wasn’t Wembly’s son.
Nobody was.
*
French ashes blew over City Hall wishing the new Mr. and Mrs. Hoover bon voyage; she in a white dress, and him wearing a DeCroy tux as rude photographers flashed questions meant to shock.
“Leave them alone!” Aunt Sarah hollered. “Back off!”
“Who’s the old broad?” one of them asked, jamming a camera in her face.
“None of your goddam business!” Sarah snapped back, sl
apping the camera out of his hands.
“Hey, lady!”
“That’s more like it!” Sarah fired back as she looked around at the others. “Who’s next?” she challenged the group of gawkers. There weren’t any volunteers. “You want a picture? How’s this?” she growled, scrunching her face and raising a fist as they hurried to a waiting taxi.
Inside, with Sarah making faces and cussing at reporters, Sidney whispered to Ben. “When it’s over—this whole Customs thing—can we go home, Ben?”
“Patience, Love,” he said, kissing her hand. “Theodore’s working on it.”
*
No horses were happier to step into trailers at a quarantine station than the Mattison Arabians were a few days later. Sarah and Sidney Leigh made sure every one of them was ready for the trip and all the water buckets were filled with wet hay.
“What about our stuff?” Sarah asked an inspector. “Our saddles and the rest?”
“You’re clean,” he answered. “The dogs didn’t find anything.”
“I’m not sayin’ that. I want my stuff!” Sarah said as loud as she could. “I’ve had some of those saddles and blankets since I was a kid.” She looked around. “NO comment!” she warned anybody within hearing shot.
“Follow me,” a bored and overweight security staffer said, walking as slow as she could to a big locker and swinging it open. “I guess that’s your shit.”
Cooler blankets, halters, bridles, saddles that might be repaired at a good Amish leather shop, jeans, shirts, bras, suitcases, hangers, horse brushes, boots. “They were going to keep it,” Sarah said in a low voice to Sidney Leigh and the others.
“Let me help you with those,” Ben said, when it came to the torn and wrinkled costumes Wembly had so carefully made. Touching the glittering beauty that matched the spirit of his lonely teacher, he hugged the flowing costumes in his arms, looked to the sky…and winked.
* * *
Pennsylvania Dutch Country, Mattison Farm
Home never looked more beautiful, as they rolled in the long drive lined with its dogwood trees and pines, and brood mares running along the pasture fences. From the trailer, the show horses whinnied to their friends in the pastures. They had missed their farm—so delicate and vulnerable, when you really thought of it. So difficult to hold on to against the erosion of taxes, lawmakers and destroyers of anything beautiful and above the ordinary.
“Too quiet for a just-married man,” Aunt Sarah said, at the house. “Are you sure you don’t want us to go along with you to Trimble’s?”
“I can handle it,” Ben said, of the unavoidable, dreaded visit. But he was thinking about more than Trimble. “We’ve had a long trip,” he said. “Why don’t you and Sidney rest up. I’ll be back tonight.”
*
Trimble’s office in Harrisburg waited like the web of a spider.
Taking Route 322, Ben took 2nd and drove toward the Capitol campus, searching out the address, noticing a group of schoolkids on the obligatory class trip for a taste of government. Suddenly, that taste wasn’t so sweet anymore.
Inside the downtown office building, he met hallways, elevators, doors with gold letters spread across a glass window. Press buzzer. Enter. Step onto plush, grey carpet and see the receptionist blocking further access. Give your name to the barracuda.
Slide onto the nearest chair, near a stack of typical office magazines. Pretend to read.
Wait. Pretend to read.
Wait. Pretend to read.
Wait. Pretend to read.
Remembering Wembly saying, “Life is quick! She can pull on her silk stockings and be gone before you wake!” Ben noticed it wasn’t Lady Life coming out of one of the offices and tramping past. More like an angry client who just got his bill.
“You can go in now,” the barracuda told him.
Trimble, looked pale. Pouring himself a drink, he turned to Ben. “How ’bout it?”
“Never touch the stuff,” Ben said to the dismayed Trimble.
“A little young to be on the wagon, aren’t you?”
“I just said I never touch Scotch,” Ben smiled. “Any champagne?”
“Still in Paris!” Trimble managed a laugh.
“One can wish,” Ben said, remembering better times.
Trimble gestured toward a chair. Seated in front of the broad, glass-topped desk, Ben could smell Scotch swallowed by the gulp. Composure regained after a while, Trimble buzzed his secretary. “The Hoover files, please.” His attention on Ben now, he said, “Uh, sorry about Wembly, Ben. He’ll be missed.”
“What did you find out?”
“Just wait, Ben. She’s bringing the files.”
“I’m anxious,” Ben said.
“Understood. It isn’t every day a guy gets himself in trouble with the Feds.”
Referring to an uncomfortable atmosphere in the office from the client before him, Ben asked, “Is this a bad time?”
“That?” Trimble said, brushing off the incident. “Happens all the time.” He reached for the folders his secretary handed him now. “Thank you, Jody.”
Funny how barracudas can give such blonde smiles when they want to.
“Here are your passports back,” Trimble said, handing over the dark blue tickets to freedom.
“How’d you manage that?” Ben wanted to know.
“Connections, Kid. You’d be surprised how many times those airport inspectors need lawyers.” He took another swallow.
Ben relaxed a bit. “Does this mean we’re off the hook, then?”
“Not entirely,” Trimble said. “There was a price.”
“How much?” Ben asked, wondering who, exactly, the price must be paid to.
“In a manner of speaking, it’s already been paid, although, I’m not sure you or Sarah…”
“Or Sidney,” Ben interjected.
“That’s right. You’re married now. I saw it in the papers. Well, I’m not sure any of you are going to like what I had to do. Apparently, you—or maybe it was Sarah—made an impression on them. Not all of it good!” He shook his head and laughed. “I know that woman doesn’t like me,” he said, in a moment of human-ness, “but I sure respect her.”
“The price?”
“Oh, just a few souvenirs, that’s all. Damn lucky to get off with your hide, I’d think! Case dismissed!” he added, with flair.
“What kind of souvenirs?” Ben asked.
“Just the usual,” Theodore said with a satisfied smile. “A little cash, a few promises.”
For Theodore, Ben’s silence was acceptance. “Thank you, Theodore,” Ben finally said. “There’s something personal I’m wondering about.” He opened his briefcase. “I know it was business. I understand that. But I have reasons to be curious about the agreement between my mother and grandfather. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Theodore said, always knowing the time would come for this, and new marriage was a time for wondering about such things. “I negotiated it myself.”
The canyon of Ben’s soul riveted tight. Every rock, every fissure, every pebble of his life made a natural fit as he heard Trimble saying, “Ezra got what he wanted. And your mother was handsomely compensated to remain silent.”
“Compensated.” Ben repeated.
“The liquor license for The Temple wasn’t cheap. And a lifetime allowance to keep it afloat.”
“If it was purely a financial arrangement, Ben said, “then what was in it for him?”
“He got—exactly—what he wanted. He bought himself somebody to raise and leave his fortune to and he skipped right over Ruthie. And I helped him. Like I always did.”
Something about that last part had a bitterness to it that stuck with Ben.
Trimble laughed. “Did you really know your grandfather?” He laughed again, louder this time and maybe at himself. “Ezra needed you! We all did! There was a pile of money to manage. A pile of it! And when Ruthie tangled up with that French artist and his kind of friends, it scared the shit out of him! Ruthie was h
is only heir! She’s a moody woman. He didn’t know what the hell she’d pull, if she ever got her hands on that kind of money and power. Back then, he was scared, man!
“I can tell you now, Ezra was running from the law, but he had a plan to make things right. But he wasn’t going to live forever, and things like this take a long time. Who else did he have besides Ruthie? His wife was nuts—Hell, Mary was nuts even before they put her away! You should have seen that woman, walking along the road at night in her underwear for Christ’s sake, like a goddam country whore! She’d watch soap operas all day long and accuse Ezra of having affairs. Affairs!” Theodore laughed. “That guy didn’t even know the meaning of the word. All he cared about was growing his money tree. He did crap you don’t even dream about! I know! Hell, Ben! That’s why he kept me around! I knew too goddam much!”
“But what about Wembly?” Ben asked. “He was a smart man. I know Grandpa was in business with him—the store is where the meetings were held. And I know he was my mother’s friend. They almost married.”
“Come on,” Theodore said in a cool way. “He wasn’t her type. Oh, he was OK to pal around with. But Ruthie likes her men!” He laughed like he should know and the thought of it curdled Ben’s belly.
“I want to see her,” Ben said firmly now. “We have to talk about business.”
“Forget it! She’s a woman who does things her own way. She made up her mind about Steitzburg. And everything in it. That includes you, son.”
If he had known Ruthie better, the knife might have cut deeper.
“That town did a number on her! I’m not saying she didn’t want you—even now, I wouldn’t say that. But that town turned on her, Ben. She was a fun-loving, beautiful young woman who sang her heart out for them and they turned on her like a bunch of blood-thirsty, self-righteous phonies. If there’s one thing I can say for Ruthie, she’s honest. She calls a spade a spade.”
Nobody had ever talked about her like this to Ben before.
“Do you know what shunning is?” Theodore asked him. “Do you know how it feels when people you knew all your life suddenly treat you like you’re a leper? When they look away? When they won’t say your name? She’s a singer, Ben. That’s all she ever wanted to be. She believed every word she sang to them. If it was a love song, she believed it with all the kindness and beauty in her heart. Oh, I’m not saying she was perfect. Ruthie has a mean streak nobody can explain. But the only love she really could be sure of—besides Ezra—was that church and that town. And they just dropped her.”