Revenant Rising

by M. M. Mayle

  “What crap can’t you buy?” Colin bursts into the room, closely followed by the flustered intern.

  Laurel springs to her feet, assures the intern she’s breeched no protocol by letting an intruder get past her, and instructs the girl to remain on duty for the rest of the day. Laurel then targets the intruder, who is by now kissing a blushing Amanda on both cheeks and playfully tousling her hair. He’s dressed in jeans, a wrongside-out sweatshirt, and a battered baseball cap. His hair is gathered into a slapdash ponytail, some of which protrudes from the back of the cap. His running shoes have seen better days and are trailing their laces. The outlandishly oversized black wraparound sunglasses he’s removing look more like the property of a recent cataract-surgery patient than someone in close touch with the haute monde. Registering disapproval is not a remote possibility because he’d only look better to her if he were naked.

  “You’re supposed to be catching up on sleep.” Laurel steps behind her desk rather than risk a replay of last night’s awkwardness.

  “Fat chance of that with all the commotion going on.”

  “What commotion? Are the paparazzi back?”

  “Wait a minute. My turn. I was askin’ what it is that you can’t buy. When I barged in here, I heard you sayin’ there was some sort of crap you just can’t buy. Were you talking about a belief or a product?”

  Amanda, who also sprang to her feet when he surprised them, has positioned herself behind a client chair, where she appears only too willing to respond. The warning look Laurel shoots at her lands without effect.

  “She was talking about a belief—Laurel doesn’t believe it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Amanda spouts.

  “Thanks, sweet pea, I’ll keep that in mind.” Colin winks at Amanda, who radiates impudence.

  Laurel would like to swat them both. Instead, she reaches into her carryall, produces a small tape cassette that she tosses onto the desk. “Start transcribing that,” she instructs Amanda. “Colin and I are going to a conference room where he can tell me—minus kibitzing—what’s brought him here today.” Laurel leads the way through the reception area.

  “Rock on!” Amanda calls after them.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Midday, April 7, 1987

  The only available conference room is the large one where they first met. Shit. She might better have held her ground and suffered the slings and arrows of Amanda’s outrageous fortunetelling rather than leave herself open to a fond backward look sponsored by these surroundings. She chooses a chair far removed from the one she occupied a week ago; Colin chooses one opposite, the same position he occupied a week ago, so her precaution amounts to nothing.

  Laurel folds her hands on the table in front of her, wishing for a pen to drum on the polished surface. “Very well,” she begins, “what’s this commotion that’s kept you from sleep?”

  “In a word—Anthony.”

  “What’s he done now?”

  “It’s not so much what he’s done, it’s his reaction to what I’ve done. He’s rather beside himself over the predicaments I’ve found myself in lately. I’ve told him everything so he wouldn’t be influenced by sensationalized reports, but I couldn’t protect him from his schoolmates. He seemed on solid ground till he went to school today and these little shits got to taunting him, as they frequently do. Now he’s convinced I’m about to be imprisoned for murder and will never be seen again. And this is not just another of his little dramas. He spewed sick for no other good reason and had to be brought home. Since then he won’t listen to me, my mum, Chris, Chris’s wife or anyone else tryin’ to talk sense into him.”

  “He refuses to believe you?”

  “He thinks I’m just humoring him when I promise everything’s all right. He thinks I’m just stringing him along—something his mother was practiced at.”

  “I . . . I’m sorry, Colin, I’m truly sorry. You’ll of course go home as soon as possible.” The room lighting seems dimmer, the air supply diminished by this pronouncement.

  “Yeh, I’m afraid I must. I’d go yet today, actually, but David says we’re not yet done with the assault charges even though the plaintiff’s now dead. He’s advising me to stay put till week’s end to be on the safe side.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” He flashes a hopeful smile. “Would you be willing to talk to Anthony? He knows who you are. He knows you’re a solicitor, he knows you can be believed because he’s seen you on telly giving the media what for, and he’s heard me speak of you often enough . . . in glowing terms, I might want to—”

  “Oh, no. No, I can’t do that. I can’t be involved in this.”

  “Why not? This wouldn’t be the first time you were called on to reassure a frightened little boy.”

  Motherless implied. At least he didn’t exploit the commonality in so many words.

  “Please, Laurel. I know you’ll know what to say. I know this is outside your regular—”

  “Way outside.”

  “I promise I’ll make it up to you. I will. Promise.”

  How? By kissing my sister again? By attempting to manhandle me in front of witnesses? By exposing me to further notoriety?

  Good sense ebbs away under his wheedling. “Oh all right, I guess it can’t hurt. Now? You want me to do it now?” she surrenders.

  “Now is good, now is fantastic.” He reaches across the table, displays a smile that could melt the polar icecaps, and grasps her hand. She offers no resistance until she realizes it’s her move; she should reach for the phone on the console behind her and pass it over to him. Eventually, she does.

  He punches in a long series of numbers while she scrambles for a way to address the child without talking down to him or overwhelming him with adult terminology. She’s still composing a script of sorts when Colin hands her the phone and a surprise.

  “My mum,” he says. “She’d like you to call her Rachel.”

  Given zero warning, Laurel can’t do otherwise. After being forced to exchange niceties with a total stranger, she feels even less prepared when Anthony comes to the phone.

  Muted voices in the background indicate the boy is being prompted. His subdued greeting indicates she’s not the only reluctant participant. From that, she takes her cue.

  “I didn’t want to do this either, Anthony, but your father was able to convince me good could come of it. Is that the same story they’re telling you?”

  She gets a muffled yes, but there’s no way of knowing if the clumsy attempt to show him they’re on the same side had any affect. Proceeding as though it did, she encourages him to act as her ally and produce something useful from their imposed liaison.

  Pausing at intervals to confirm that he’s still on the line and at least pretending to listen, she delivers a watered-down version of the Jockey Hollow credo, as she now thinks of her laughably naïve attempt to reconcile herself with media attention.

  Colin gives her a thumbs-up every time she makes what sounds like a valid point and encourages her to continue in this vein.

  “May I make some suggestions?” she asks and gets a hesitant go-ahead. “Please do not watch flashy television news or look at trashy newspapers, they can’t be trusted. And please remember that some friends are worse than enemies. Try to stay away from that kind, the ones who want to punish you because your father is famous and accomplished. Just stare them down, Anthony, and when they see they can’t scare you or make you angry, they’ll move on to another target. Do you know what that will make you?”

  His answer comes quicker than expected. “Yes, that’s exactly right. You will be the winner,” she responds and continues with another suggestion. “If it’s all right with your grandmother and with your dad, you should sleep in your dad’s bed until he gets home. You be man of the house or lord of the manor or whatever it’s called there in England.” After relaying Colin’s enthusiastic yes to the bed question and hearing similar from the other end, she begins sum
marizing.

  She reminds Anthony to place his faith and trust in those who love him and is immediately blown away when the boy questions her qualifications, asks her flat-out if she loves him, and if she doesn’t, why he should believe anything she says. Colin’s mother is audible in the background, first gasping and then chastising the boy for his cheekiness.

  “It’s all right,” Laurel says to whoever’s listening, and that necessarily includes Colin. “It’s all right,” she repeats in a stall for time. “Anthony, are you still there?” He is and he still deserves an answer. “You have good reason to ask, sweetheart, and I’ll give you the most honest answer I can at the moment. If ever I got to know you, I’m sure I’d grow to love you. But for now, you’ll have to take my word as a practicing attorney and as your father’s biographer that your father is in absolutely no danger of going to prison. Furthermore, I’ll do everything I can to make certain he returns home to you as soon as possible.”

  Colin only frowned a little when he realized what Anthony must have asked. Now he scowls as her commentary indicates she’s about to break the connection. He signals to her that she shouldn’t hang up just yet.

  “Probably wouldn’t hurt if you read the goodnight bit to Simon,” he stage whispers and slides a creased piece of Plaza Hotel stationery across the table. “I think the lad’s a bit wearied of me. Sound of another voice might be a welcome change.”

  “Now wait a minute.” Laurel holds her hand over the mouthpiece. “Do not push your luck.”

  “C’mon, Laurel, just do it. For the fun of it. For the good it’ll do.” He takes the phone away and directs whoever is still on the line to fetch Simon. After a pause, he begins priming her next audience. “Hi pumpkin, it’s Daddy . . . Yes, again, but this time I have a surprise for you. A special lady is going to read a new Jeremiah story for you. You ready, then?” He hands the phone back.

  “This is entrapment, you know,” she hisses at Colin while attempting to smooth out the paper and get a preview of the text.

  “The . . . the latest report from Jeremiah Barely-There,” she says into the phone by way of introduction, then reads:

  All’s in a muddle on Goosemud Road

  Since tea was hurried with the stopover toad.

  That sparkly fellow was unable to tarry

  Displaced, as he was, by a cassowary.

  A musical creature, he pretended to be,

  Supposedly set for a jim-jamboree.

  By plucking his fiddle with one big claw,

  He thought he’d become a huge audience draw.

  But the bird never heard of the gutstringer’s code,

  That a fiddle’s usually bowed, and seldom ever toed.

  So he’s doomed to be known as crassly cassowarious

  For strumming with his foot on a prize-ed Stradivarius.

  Colin snatches the phone away before she can gauge reaction, if any, from the little fellow. “Wasn’t that funny, Simon? Wasn’t that a hundred times more brilliant read by the nice lady?” he asks a child who couldn’t begin to grasp what all was truly funny and brilliant about the couplets.

  “Oh, it’s you, mum,” Colin continues. “He did listen, though? . . . He did smile? And he giggled, you say? It was all in the delivery, I’ll wager.”

  Colin winks at laurel and says goodbye to his mother, who he promises to call back later. He slides the phone back to her side of the table, “Okay, then . . . where were we?”

  “Prior to your entrapping me, we were about to discuss—”

  “You wanna just go ahead and give me hell for my sorry technique and have that out of the way before we get on with the . . . other?”

  “Giving you hell will keep. But before we do proceed with the other, I want you to make me a promise.”

  “Anathing. Just name it.”

  “I want you to put together Jeremiah’s observations in book form. I’ve asked you before, I’m asking again, and this time I want your promise.” “With you as motivator and editor, you may consider that a done deal.” “Wait a minute. I didn’t say I would—”

  “I’ll wait long as you wish. Meanwhile there’s this other book deal we need to talk about. Intermezzo, I believe it’s called, and I think we need to decide how the writing of it’s gonna go forward with me on one side of the pond and you on the other.”

  “Do . . . do we have to talk about it right now?”

  “That is what we’re here for, isn’t it? Isn’t that the discussion we were about to have before I pressured you into talking to my boys?”

  “I . . . I have other appointments this afternoon. You weren’t even scheduled for today. Remember? We agreed last night that my meeting with Nate this evening would satisfy the daily session requirement.”

  “Doesn’t satisfy me, though. Can’t exceptions be made? Can’t we grab some lunch and maybe take a walk somewhere? I have serious need to stretch my legs.”

  “I can order you a sandwich, some soup, or something, and I can probably arrange time for you at David’s gym.”

  “Forget it! Forget I asked! How could I forget how much bleedin’ trouble it is to be seen with me in public? I fucking forgot we can’t just pop into the nearest eatery, then take a stroll. Forgive me all to hell for forgetting! And don’t bother setting up anything for me at David’s gym. I’d have to take six other blokes along to keep the fucking gawkers at bay.”

  “Colin . . . Good lord, what’s gotten into you? Is any of that my fault? Why are you upset with me?”

  He swivels in his chair, turns his back to her. Some sort of struggle takes place before he faces her again. When he does, she can see in his face everything she wanted to forget about—the strain he’s been under for almost as long as she’s known him.

  “Sorry . . . I’m sorry, Laurel. That wasn’t about you.”

  “I should have known it wasn’t.”

  “But you know now.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I guess that’s the most I can hope for, then. Thank you. Thank you for everything, actually.”

  She walks with him to the elevator. “I’ll call you when I’m finished with Nate.”

  “Is that for dead certain, the get-together with Nate? Have you heard from him? Has anyone heard from him?”

  “He was here earlier today, but I didn’t see him. Amanda brought him up to date.”

  “I hope she gets hazard pay.”

  “She didn’t mention any specific problem.”

  “That’s odd, he’s not exactly known for mellowness when met with a string of difficulties. I think I’ll want to look into that, and while I’m at it, I’ll organize use of his gym. He has a full setup at his place, something I wasn’t thinkin’ about when I blew off his hospitality in favor of The Plaza. I can work out there for these last few days, and maybe that’ll keep me from goin’ off on you again.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  She’ll go off on him if the elevator doesn’t arrive this very minute. When it does arrive, she hurries away before he can say anything that might sound like goodbye.

  On the verge of hiccoughs—a condition no doubt brought on by Colin’s mention of grabbing some lunch—Laurel reenters her office, where Amanda appears relieved to remove earphones and push aside her steno pad.

  “The stuff in this Rayce Vaughn interview is twice as bad as I ever imagined.” Amanda stops the tape and grimaces. “Incredible . . . mind-blowing. . . .”

  “Yes, it is, and we’re not going to dwell on it right now. We’re not going to let anything drag us down. Have you called Nate to let him know you’re on for tomorrow night?”

  “Yes, and I told him you’re looking forward to your dinner meeting with him tonight.”

  “Looking forward could be something of an overstatement,” Laurel says while leafing through a fresh stack of phone messages. “Anything here need immediate attention?”

  “No. The sensation-seekers seem to be on pause, so the bulk of the nuisance calls are coming from literary agents and p
ublishing houses wanting a piece of the Colin Elliot biography action. Oh, and the periodicals wanting exclusive rights to excerpts.”

  “They can wait. Indefinitely. Anything else?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary except for that loony Mrs. Floss. She called several times. I took one of the calls myself while the intern was on break.”

  “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “Mainly to dither, I think, and to let you know your maintenance man didn’t show up until noon.”

  “Shit. I don’t have a maintenance man. I only told her I was looking for one, and now she’s at it again. Sunday night she thought she saw someone on my porch roof and went chasing after that hallucination with a broom. The day before, she thought my family still all lived at home and gave me food to share with them—this, after leaping out in front of my moving car to get my attention. I can see I’ll have to do something about her, if only for her own safety. But not today. Grab your belongings, we’re going to Saks and Bergdorf’s for starters and maybe to—”

  “Problem.”

  “What now?”

  “I don’t shop in those stores. I can’t afford to.”

  “Sure you can. You’re getting a bonus for all the extras you’ve taken on lately. And for completing the transcription of the Rayce interview on your own time because I need it tomorrow morning.”

  “Will do. Lead on.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  Midafternoon, April 7, 1987

  Hoop enters the house at 13 Old Quarry Court through the grade door of the attached garage. The door is screened by tall waxy-leafed bushes with pink-purple flowers and sagged enough in its frame that he only has to apply a little wrist pressure to spring the simple doorknob lock. Inside the garage he spots the opener device he saw Laurel Chandler use last night. If luck holds he’ll find out she depends on that instead of using a key for the inside door. His luck holds; when he tries the door to the house it opens to his touch.