Revenant Rising

by M. M. Mayle

  He groans his way up from the couch, takes a few experimental steps on legs gone taut from yesterday’s beach workout and threatening to stiffen up altogether if he doesn’t follow through with vigorous exercise today. Towards that end, he rings Nate’s office and learns from an assistant there that the great man will be tied up in a board meeting for the rest of the afternoon. Using Nate’s home gym is enough of a concession; damned if he’ll tolerate suffocating onlookers.

  He alerts Bemus to bring the car round in a half hour and recognizes the clichéd irony of riding twenty or so blocks to a gym when walking there would measurably reduce the need for a workout. But after last night’s mood-shattering clash with paparazzi waiting outside the North Tower of the World Trade Center, he’s done chancing it in the open.

  Before ringing off, he verifies that Bemus is driver for tonight’s public appearance. That leaves just one more bit of bother to attend to—the booking of a seat on the first Brit Air flight out on Saturday. He can’t quite make himself do it. Not even with Anthony’s most recent pleas ringing in his ears and his mother’s unspoken concerns prickling his conscience. In the end, he foists the job off on the concierge so it will seem he didn’t have a hand in it.

  On the ride up Madison Avenue in light afternoon traffic, he concentrates on Laurel—not that he ever has to work at centering his thoughts on her. He summons mental review of the way she reacted last night when told a table was booked at Windows on the World—a restaurant, as it turned out, neither had ever visited. Whilst she didn’t actually clap her hands in anticipation, the effect was there. Traces of it remained throughout a meal she said would have been wondrous even if no food or drink was served, and he couldn’t disagree when her luminous presence was all the sustenance he needed.

  On the long crosstown block over to Fifth, he explores less stimulating avenues of thought, recalling her consistent delight in the nonsense verses he makes up for Simon, the undisguised pleasure she derives from nature, the single-minded conviction she brings to the righting of a wrong.

  At Nate’s building, nothing’s familiar except the actual doors. The doorman’s a stranger and the lobby’s been refitted and redecorated. The private lift—once he’s figured out how to code open the doors—is new since he owned space in the building and works twice as fast as the one it replaced. On fifteen, he steps into a grandly appointed foyer, where he taps in a second entry code and gains access to the middle of the three-level floor-through flat.

  The only thing familiar here is the layout, and he can’t be dead certain a few doorways and windows haven’t been repositioned. He glimpses artwork he’s only ever heard about and resists temptation to stop and register awe. The furniture is museum quality as well, and the monumental piano at the far end of the lounge can only be the vintage Bosendorfer concert grand Nate punned about picking up for a song at a distress sale.

  He cuts through the former library on the way to the kitchen and the stairs to the lower floor. Here, he’s helpless not to stop and admire the fabled Klimts. With their Byzantine overtones and mosaic-inspired decoration, they’re far more beautiful than expected. Staggeringly beautiful. Wondrous, to use Laurel’s word, and that starts him imagining her reaction to these erotically charged examples of the artist’s golden phase—the exact wrong thing to envision when so many sensations are hitting him at once.

  He drops into the nearest chair to acknowledge these sensations—these other reasons he’s shunned this place for so long. None are as clear-cut as the attempt to avoid Nate’s smothering attentions, but they exist if only in shadow form.

  Although she never lived here and never so much as popped by in her determination to occupy a landmark building on the opposite side of the park, there’s Aurora’s specter to deal with because of the time frame. By the same reasoning, the stream of nameless, faceless accommodators and enablers who moved through here in varying numbers and combinations are brought to mind. As are the recreational substances dispensed with reckless abandon when this place was a monument to wretched excess. Given free rein and direct sunlight, how much power would these beclouded memories have? Given similar access, how overwhelming might the deeper, more heavily shrouded memories be? Is he going to find out by sitting here?

  He enters the one spot that is familiar—the kitchen that’s a near-duplicate of the one he has at home, which is no big surprise because Nate was in charge of both renovations. Recalling that Laurel especially admired this feature when recounting her evening here, he pastes on a lovesick grin and heads for the stairs.

  On the lower level, the home gym Nate’s boasted of for months is tricked out with more equipment than is found in most commercial versions. Adjoining space includes a changing area, a stall shower, a sauna, and a massage table. A quick inspection establishes that the remaining space is given to servants’ quarters, laundry and utilities rooms, walk-in temperature-controlled wine vault, and fireproof records storage.

  Lacking proper workout attire, Colin strips down to his underwear and makes do with the beat-up trainers that have seen him through since Los Angeles. He’s a bit surprised to find mail scattered in the changing area as though someone’s reading was interrupted. A few pieces have slipped to the floor, others are in haphazard piles on one of the benches. Substandard behavior for Nate and inviting of more sloppiness. Colin drops his street clothes to the floor helter-skelter rather than hang them on the provided hooks.

  The treadmill’s the obvious place to begin and there, he encounters a long length of accordion-fold fax paper—the kind with the perforated margins—hanging over the control panel and trailing onto the floor. He flings it aside, adjusts incline and speed to an ambitious level and pushes off. Within fifteen minutes, he’s pouring sweat and feeling improvement in his legs. At the half-hour mark, his heart rate and respiration level off, and his legs feel loose enough for specialized activity.

  He hops off the treadmill onto a section of slippery thermal paper and damn near takes a header. In the course of cursing the homeowner and kicking the offending paper aside, a name leaps up at him that more effectively ends the workout than would have a nasty tumble. He drops down on the floor and reads through the entire length of fax, word by damning word. Then it’s a tossup whether the chill he feels is from his cooling sweat or is given off by what amounts to Nate Isaacs’s resignation.

  How long he sits there—head in hands, elbows on knees, offending fax folded back onto itself—is hard to say, but his sweat has dried, and his legs have tightened up when he gets to his feet. He’s pulling on his jeans when his new-and-improved vision takes in a detail on a piece of mail marked personal and confidential. This envelope is segregated from the others on the bench and marked with the return address of the American Institute of Creative and Performing Arts—the Icon award blokes. A quick once-over of the letter inside is enough to identify it as appropriate coda to the fax.

  Colin finishes dressing. With great care and deliberation he puts everything back the way it was—including the treadmill settings. Keep the blighter guessing. Keep the shit-for-brains wondering if he’s been found out. Then when the fuckwit knows he has, keep him stewing in his own juice the way Anthony’s made to suffer when he trips himself up; keep the arsewipe on his toes till the time’s right for hanging him out to dry.

  Colin leaves the flat the way he came in, tapping in newly memorized security codes before and after using the lift. He waves off the doorman’s offer to hail a cab and takes his chances on the avenue. He runs the twenty blocks back to The Plaza against the considered advice of orthopedists everywhere. And Dr. Nate, of course.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Afternoon, April 9, 1987

  The mind-numbing board meeting ends sooner than expected and the car is pointed in the general direction of the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel after he ransoms it from an hourly-rate parking garage in the Financial District. Given time and opportunity, with no cabby or chauffeur to bear witness, why not scope out little Ms. Amanda Hobbs’s neighborh
ood in a semi-industrial section of Brooklyn?

  Inside of an hour, Nate is satisfied that Amanda’s humble abode is the main reason she dragged her feet about accepting his invitation to the bash for Rayce. And he’s willing to bet the secondary reason had something to do with wardrobe. What he’s not sure of is whether or not Laurel Chandler filled both lacks, and if by offering to share her hotel room, she was doing herself or Amanda the favor.

  On the return trip through the tunnel, he shifts to the thornier subject of what to do about Colin’s near-irrational crusade for independence. The recent clash over the missing address card is an excellent barometer of pressure levels. But so are the recent murders of the two bottom-feeders with links to Colin—make that three bottom-feeders if Cliff Grant is included in the tally. The ongoing attempt to tie those three slayings together and forecast what, if any, meaning they have for Colin is becoming an albatross of gigantic proportions.

  Nate obeys the second impulse of the afternoon—this one he can blame on the albatross—and veers off the northbound avenue at Christopher Street and from there, moves into the unfamiliar territory where the late Gibby Lester conducted his filthy business.

  He has more to go on here than he did in Brooklyn. The intern who gave up Amanda’s home address didn’t provide landmarks, only a street name and a set of numbers. For this search, he can rely on details recalled from Brownie Yates’s original survey of the territory back in ’84, when both private and public agencies were putting the squeeze on Lester.

  Tapped into that recollection, Nate watches for a substantial stone building—a bank building—said to dominate the corner it straddles. To one side of it should be a lesser brick building with black awnings said, in Brownie’s effusive way, to resemble the half-lowered eyelids of a career seducer. According to Brownie, he should also see the name of the emporium spelled out in florescent-pink lettering—a name he doesn’t immediately recall, either from Brownie’s long-ago report or from recent mention in the tabloid press.

  But that shouldn’t matter. That’s not what interests him. What does interest him as he vectors in on the 4th street location is the potential for the sort of clandestine investigation he pulled off in California. And it might be worthwhile to cozy up to a few locals, counterparts to the stoners who freelanced opinions on the Venice Beach Boardwalk. It might be interesting to learn if there are any corollaries, if any Hispanics were seen in the vicinity of this crime scene, as went the story of a Venice burnout who, for a nickel bag, described Cliff Grant’s presumed yardman—allegedly seen carting away trash the day of the beheading—as Hispanic. What would that prove, though? Who isn’t blaming Hispanics for damn near everything these days? Hasn’t that become a standard profile on both coasts?

  Alert now for anything recognizable, he spots the outline of the bank building a block away. And from a block away, he can see that the bank is no longer a bank. It’s been converted into pub—a poor parody of a pub except for the sign displayed high above the entrance. Flat against the building and catty-corner to the intersection, the sign is painted in a primitive style and depicts a life-size female figure of another era carrying her severed head by the hair.

  “Jesus . . . Jesus . . . Jesus.”

  He stops the car halfway down the block. What are the odds? What are the actual chances of encountering a symbol of such relevance? What kind of a nutjob would ignore this degree of relevance? He wants to laugh and he will as soon as he stops shaking.

  At the urging of the motorist behind him, he moves forward into the intersection, then angles past the Gibby Lester establishment. He takes only a fleeting impression, just enough to see that it’s as Brownie described, with the addition of crime scene tape, and that it appears impregnable if he were still inclined to have a look inside.

  Any thoughts of scoping out the hospital where Sid Kaplan was slain evaporate as he negotiates his way back to the avenue and heads north.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Afternoon, April 9, 1987

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you until the party tonight.” Laurel looks up at David, who has, as usual, barged into her office unannounced—without even knocking.

  “There are a few things I’d like to go over with you, and I won’t get a chance later.” David sinks into a client chair and crosses his legs as though planning to stay a while.

  “No you won’t, and it won’t just be because of your wife’s presence tonight.”

  “Before I ask what my wife has to do with anything, I’d like to hear the other—”

  “I shouldn’t have to remind you that your wife still views me as a threat. She’s made that plain from the beginning, even though she was clearly the victor. Any time we’re thrown together at one command performance or another, she—”

  “Victor? What in hell are you talking about?”

  “She won, David. She was able to marry you and give you children when I wasn’t.”

  “That’s not the way it happened and you know it. You and I had already concluded nothing could come of our relationship when she arrived on the scene.”

  “Maybe you had.”

  “So had you, Laurel. Do not attempt to rewrite a history that’s seen us amicably survive what we once were. And whatever you do, do not attempt to rake me over the coals for something—”

  “Not to worry, the coals have all cooled. No glowing embers left, not a one. You might want to mention that to your wife when she’s shooting me dirty looks.”

  David bridges his temples with thumb and pinkie finger, his long-established means of tabling a disagreeable subject. “You force me to wonder whose bed you got out of on the wrong side this morning.”

  “Nice try.” Laurel takes up a letter opener in lieu of pen.

  “And to wonder why you’re staying in town this week. I heard you’re at the Phillipe. The commute’s finally gotten to you? I knew it would, sooner or later.”

  “Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

  “What the hell has gotten into you? All I’m after is a civil exchange, a simple progress report, and here you are, girded for hand-to-hand combat.”

  “You know, I could probably use some hand-to-hand combat . . . hand-to-hand anything . . . whatever. Get on with it. What do you have to know that just won’t wait?”

  “How the Elliot project’s moving along and if you’re any closer to reaching a decision about coming on board with me. I realize I’m rushing things to ask this soon, but it would give me great pleasure to be able to announce tonight that you’ll be joining my division when you make it official with the firm.”

  “And delivering Colin Elliot into your management fold while I’m at it.” Laurel taps out a broken cadence with the letter opener.

  “That is absolutely uncalled for.” David uncrosses his legs and corrects his posture.

  “So is your hoping to announce recapture of me to a gathering that includes your already distrustful wife.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I’m not. I don’t find being dangled as an enticement at all flattering.”

  “I won’t dignify that with a response.” David grips the arms of the chair as though readying to rise—or attempting to restrain himself.

  “Very well. I dare say we’re done here, then.”

  “We’re done with the unwarranted sniping part of the program, if that’s what you mean, and if you’d rather not update me on your progress with Colin, fine. I can always check with him directly.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Laurel lets out a long ragged sigh. “Give me a second to figure out where we left off.” She forsakes the letter opener and makes a show of flipping through the documents on her desk, although none are related to the present subject.

  “To refresh your mind,” David says, “the last time we updated was at the studio, the night Colin was about to be hauled away for murder one. Since then, I understand Nate Isaacs has been deposed—”

  “Don’t you wish.”

  “Yo
u know what I mean. Since then, I understand you to have taken Nate’s testimony pertaining to the ruinous events in Northern Michigan. There, is that better?”

  “Ruinous. You said ruinous like you were describing a lost cause. I knew it. You’d already written him off, hadn’t you?”

  “Slow down. Written who off?”

  “You abandoned Colin. You went to East Bejesus or wherever it was, rattled a few cages, jerked a few judges around, and then hightailed it out of there.”

  “Wait a minute. Is that what this nastiness is about?” David slaps the arm of the chair. “You’re upset with me because I didn’t maintain some sort of vigil at Colin’s bedside when he was injured? Good lord, girl, he was at death’s door.” He slaps the chair arm again. “No one except Nate gave him much of a chance, and once I took care of the legal concerns, my presence served no real purpose. Besides, considering the state he was in, Colin wouldn’t have known I was there and—”

  “Oh, but I think you’re wrong.” Laurel drums her fingers on the arm of her chair. “I think he very well may have known you were there. Just last night he talked a little about the aftermath. He knows he did not sustain blunt trauma injuries to the head and was never in a conventional coma. He also knows that as his physical recovery progressed, he had a certain amount of awareness—enough, they told him, that he was able to cooperate with the physical therapists to some extent. He said when they’d done as much as they could for him in Colorado, he wasn’t considered a wholly lost cause because there remained the slim possibility that his so-called neurological deficit was, in fact, a dissociative disorder.”

  “Then you’re saying—he’s saying—that his disconnect could have been a defense mechanism.” David strokes his chin as though he’d suddenly sprouted a beard.