Pot of gold : a novel

by Michael, Judith

  "I assume they found her; her mother hasn't called again. Did they find her?"

  "I don't know," Brix said, his voice barely a croak.

  "You know damn well they found her; otherwise we would have heard from them. She's probably at home, unless you have some reason to think she's somewhere else." Quentin waited. "Then I'll call her at home, or you tell me what the hell is going on. All of it."

  Brix stared helplessly at his father. He could not think of anything to say except the truth, and the truth terrified him.

  "From the beginning," Quentin snapped. "All of it, from the beginning."

  Brix gave up. "She was in my office one day when I wasn't there." He stared at the toe of Quentin's gleaming shoe, and his voice was a monotone. "I told her not to do that, but she did, sometimes, and she saw a couple of Kurt's memos on my desk. I told her a million times not to read anything on my desk, but she did, she opened the folder, in fact, and read them, and sometime.

  I don't remember when, she asked me about them and I told her they didn't mean anything, that we were doing new tests and everything was fine, but she shouldn't talk about it because it could hurt our reputation, you know, if it got out. Something like that; anyway, she believed it, she said she wouldn't talk. And she didn't, I know she didn't, I scared her, she knew I'd drop her if she talked, but then she found out we didn't do any new tests and . . . oh, shit, I don't know, I guess she told somebody." Brix looked up. "But I didn't know it. I mean, I didn't know she told anybody until just now, when you told me."

  "So she wasn't in danger. Is that what you're saying.^"

  "How did her mother know about what happened in college.^" Brix burst out.

  "Lorraine told her."

  "Oh, fuck Lorraine," Brix muttered. He looked up. "But then you told her mother I didn't have anything to do with it, right? I mean, that was what you told everybody. That was the line."

  "Was she in danger.''"

  Brix was silent.

  Quentin shoved the telephone toward him. "Call her at home."

  Brix stretched out an arm. It felt heavy and reluctant. He picked up the telephone and slowly punched the numbers for Emma's home. He listened to the ringing at the other end; he let it ring for a long time. "She's not there." He hung up the telephone. "They're probably still in New York. Maybe they decided to stay another night."

  "Where is she.?"

  Brix cast a swift glance around the room, as if there might be a way out, then looked back at the toe of his father's shoe. "I guess she might be in the hospital. She got sick at the restaurant. I mean, she felt lousy, she went to the bathroom and then she decided to go back to the hotel. I didn't see her, I didn't want to wake her up, but I called this morning, early, and they told me she'd been taken to the hospital. They said it was her parents; I guess that was the guy her mother was with."

  "What was wrong with her.?"

  "I don't know; I told you, she didn't feel good—"

  Quentin picked up the telephone. "\'hich hospital.?"

  "She took an overdose! That stuff she was taking, you know, to help her sleep, Halcion, she took too much of it and she was drinking a lot at dinner and then she wanted a cognac and I didn't know she'd taken so much of that stuff so I said she could have one. I guess I should've said no, but she didn't tell me exactly—"

  "For Christ's sake." Quentin's body was rigid. "Did you see her take it.^"

  "No, she told me—"

  "She told you she took an overdose.''"

  "No, not just that way, I mean, she said she'd taken a few, to help her sleep, you know—"

  "And you let her drink at dinner.''"

  "I didn't know! I mean, I did know, but not how many. She didn't say how many."

  "What else did she say.'"'

  "That was it! That's all I know! She took a few, she said. But they found the empty bottle in her room—"

  ''How do you know that?"

  Brix stared at his father. Slowly, his body folded in on itself. He huddled in his chair.

  "You stupid bastard." Quentin burst from behind his desk, and Brix shrank as he came close. But he kept going, passing his son with barely a glance, to pace the length of the room, his head down. A deep rage, like a serpent, coiled inside him, its venom in his blood and bones. His chest and head felt constricted; he wondered if this was how a heart attack felt. He breathed deeply, trying to get past the constriction, trying to clear his head so he could think. Trapped, he thought. Fools all around me, and I could be trapped.

  But why should he be.'* He could manage events. He just had to think. The company first. He'd been thinking about the company since Claire left the night before, and it probably wasn't as bad as he'd thought then. Rumors were a fact of life in business, but they were ephemeral; the crucial thing was to counter them before they had a chance to take root. If a handful of insignificant people were talking about problems with PK-20, Eiger Labs would give a few interviews to carefully chosen reporters and get articles printed early in the new year, based on the test reports that Brix had altered. No one had seen the original reports; no one ever would. That would take care of the rumors, and it would still

  leave time to locate a new model, launch a second advertising campaign, heavier on TV than they'd planned, and make the scheduled release in March, or at the latest, early April. It would be tight, but it could be done.

  But his half-assed son wouldn't be a part of it. He turned and walked back to his desk and sat in his chair, looking across the polished surface at the slumped figure of his son. "How sick is she.?"

  "I don't know," Brix muttered. "All the nurse said was, she's still alive."

  "What did you put it in.'"'

  His father's voice was relaxed, almost friendly. Brix looked up. His father knew, and he wasn't angr>^ He felt a burden begin to lift, just as he had felt it lift before, in college, when his father took over. Quentin had been like a whirlwind then, making telephone calls, talking to people, telling Brix what to say and when to stay out of sight. He'd been just like God, creating the world. "The cognac," he said. "She never liked the taste."

  In the office, the air was very still. It seemed to settle around Brix like a shroud, and he shifted uncomfortably, as if trying to free himself. But it was too late; as soon as he said those words to his father, admitting everything, his father thought of him as dead.

  "Her mother found her," Quentin said.

  "I don't know how that happened. I mean, we've gone to New York a lot and nobody ever came ... I don't know what made things different this time,"

  "You don't know very much, do you.-^ You don't know how to keep the affairs of this company private, you don't know how to keep your girl quiet, you don't know enough to tell your father about something that could undermine the whole company, you don't even know that murder is a stupid waste of energy- that only weaklings think of; it's a weapon of impotent people, and it can backfire. Well, maybe by now you know that much, at least."

  "I was trying to help you!" Brix cried. "I was worried about the companv!" Quentin was silent. "I wanted vou to be proud of me!"

  "Christ." For a brief moment Quentin felt a wave of helplessness. He had no one to talk to, no one to share his problems. He missed Claire; she had a quiet way of listening and a clear

  understanding that he had come to rely on, even though he told her very little of what was most important in his life. He might someday have trusted her with some of his secrets, he might even have loved her, if they had stayed together. But she would not wait. Impatient and shallow, he thought. Like all of them.

  As for his son, he had never thought of Brix as anything but a weakling who took after his mother, neither a colleague nor a companion to his father. But he had thought Brix could have a niche in the company and be useful; after his graduation from college, when he had come meekly into his father's orbit, Quen-tin had been confident he would at least be useful.

  Well, not anymore. "You'll have to get out." His voice had a strain of wearine
ss in it that frightened Brix more than anger would have done. "You've gotten yourself out on a limb once too often; there's nothing more I can do for you."

  "Wait a minute!" Brix cried. He leaped from his chair and leaned over his father's desk, in just the pose his father had held earlier. "Wait a minute, don't say that! We're partners, I'm your vice president, I'm the one you ask to do things nobody else can do, like those test reports—"

  "You are not to mention those reports to anyone," Quentin snapped. "Is that clear.^ They don't exist, and if you say a word about them, I'll see to it that you never get another job, anywhere."

  "Another job.^ I don't need another job! I work here! I'm vice president!"

  "Not anymore. You don't have a title; you don't have a job. If you get out of here quietly, I'll write you a letter of reference that will get you a job somewhere, assuming you're not arrested for murder."

  "Jesus Christ, Dad!" Brix leaned farther over the desk; he was almost lying on it. "You can't just drop me like this, it's not fair! I mean, I'm your son, you don't just kick out your son—"

  "I kick out any stupid bastard who's a liability to me. I moved heaven and earth to keep you out of jail once before, and now you expect me to do it again. Why should I.^"

  "Because you love me," Brix said, the words forced out in a sob.

  "I don't love you. I have no reason to." Quentin walked to the door and stood beside it. "Clean out your office by this afternoon;

  I have a lot of work to do to clean up the mess you've made, and I have to hire somebody to do it."

  I don t love you. The words were knives, cutting into his stomach, into his chest. He stood up. The son of a bitch, he thought. The fucking son of a bitch. But he could not afford to think of his father that way. He doesnt mean it. He's mad at me, that's all. He'll get over it; he loves me and he cant get along without me. He'll get old and he won't have anybody. That's probably what the bastard deserves. But once again Brix pulled his thoughts back. He could not be angry at his father, he had to make him love him again and he could not do that with anger.

  He straightened and turned to walk toward his father, to face him, their eyes close and on a level, but nothing happened. His legs were like stones and everything inside him fought to stay where he was, at Quentin's desk, far away from the door. "I haven't got any place to go."

  "You've got a place to live, and you'll find another job. I'll give you three months' salary. Plenty of time to figure something out. I suggest you stay in the neighborhood for a while. Whether she dies or not, moving to another state would look like running away."

  "Dad, I mean I don't have any place besides this. Eiger Labs. There isn't any other place. It's like ... I mean, it's like home."

  "It's not your home anymore."

  "Yes, it is! I mean, it doesn't just stop; I'm your son!" Brix looked at his father across the room and suddenly felt like a child, small and helpless. He began to cry. "You've got to take care of me. You always take care of me. I did everything I could for you, I wanted to help you and make you proud of me, and I did everything for you, not for me, and now you've got to take care of me—you've got to!—because I don't know where to go and . . . I'm in trouble. Dad, you know I am, and I need to be here, where you can protect me. That's what fathers do; that's what they do. Dad.'' You've got to take care of me!"

  "I don't give people second chances," Quentin said, and opened the door.

  Slowly, Brix stirred, moving like an old man, bent over, tears still running down his checks. "It's not fair," he said, and sidled past his father without looking at him.

  Quentin closed the door behind him. I don't give people second

  chances. He had said those words to Claire. And to how many others over the years? None of them work out, he thought. No one stays. No one gives me what I need.

  Once again he felt that wave of helplessness, and this time there was a small thread of fear in it. It shocked him. Christ, I'm letting that bitch get to me. It was ridiculous. There would be more women; there always were. Right now he had other things to think about. He had a company to run, a product to save, a future to guarantee. He sat at his desk and began to make a plan of action. And as he wrote, he gained strength. This was what he was best at: creating his own life, without worrying about other, weaker people. This was where he was king: Quentin Eiger, forging his own future.

  "It's our best guess that she took somewhere around three milligrams of Halcion on top of a considerable amount of alcohol," the doctor, Claudia Marks, said to the others in the waiting room. "If her prescription was for a one-quarter-milligram tablet, which is the most it should have been—did you ever see it.'' It would be pale blue."

  "No," said Claire. She looked at Gina and Hannah, They shook their heads.

  "But there was an empty bottle in her room," Alex said. "I gave it to the paramedics last night."

  The doctor nodded. "I saw it. It was for ten one-quarters. But sometimes patients use the same bottle for other pills. Do you know if she had more than one prescription.'' Were there more pills in her purse, for instance.''"

  "Not when I picked it up at the restaurant," Alex said. "She'd left it there when she ran out, after dinner, and I can't imagine anyone in the restaurant taking anything from it."

  "What about the dose.'"' Claire asked the doctor.

  "Three milligrams of Halcion is twelve times the dose that was prescribed, and it could be fatal, especially when combined with alcohol." She looked at Claire. "There have been cases of suicidal tendencies being exaggerated in patients taking Halcion; have you seen signs of that in Emma.'"'

  "No," said Claire. "I know she didn't try' to kill herself. I know Emma. It was an accident."

  "Or someone gave it to her," Alex said. "Could someone do

  that, without her tasting it or being put off by a change in the taste of something she was eating or drinking?"

  The doctor looked at him gravely. "You're saying someone tried to kill her."

  "It's something we have to think about. Could it be done.^ In a glass of water, for example.^"

  "Halcion is poorly soluble in water, so the answer to that is no. But it is highly soluble in alcohol."

  Alex looked at Claire. "They had three bottles of wine for dinner, and then cognac. I talked to the waiter on the telephone today. He saw Emma drink her cognac all at once; he said it was as if on a bet. Or as if she didn't like the taste."

  "She doesn't," Claire said, trembling. She folded her arms, holding herself in.

  "He also said she went to the bathroom around the time he brought the cognac, as if she were ill. He was worried about her, he said."

  "So she left the table and the cognac was there and so was Brix," said Gina. There was a silence in the waiting room. "But wouldn't it take a long time for twelve tablets to dissolve.^" she asked.

  "Not if they'd been crushed to a powder," Claudia Marks replied. She turned to Alex. "Do you know with whom she had dinner.^"

  "Yes."

  "And you suspect him of trying to kill her.^"

  "It's something we have to think about," he said again.

  "Do YOU know where to find him.'^"

  "Yes."

  "Then you must pursue it."

  "There's no question of that," Alex said. "I've called a friend who knows someone in the Norwalk Police Department. I imagine they'll be talking to him today."

  "Fast work," said Gina, thinking of her own telephone call. They had both felt they had to do something, as if going after Brix and his father would help keep Emma alive.

  "We can't tell Emma," Claire said.

  "She'll know," said Gina. "Either she took an overdose or somebody gave it to her; how else could she have swallowed it.'^"

  "She didn't take an overdose," Hannah insisted.

  "I don't think she did," Gina agreed. "So she'll know that somehow she swallowed a hell of a lot of Halcion at dinner."

  "I wouldn't worry about telling her now," said the doctor. "When she wakes up, you won
't want to bring it up, so you have a while to think about what you're going to say. If she asks, I'd change the subject. I don't think she'll be concentrating on anything for a while."

  "But she's fine," Hannah said, not asking a question. "She's just sleeping now; she's not in a coma."

  "She's sleeping, but we don't know yet if any damage has been done to the central nervous system. We'll know better tomorrow."

  "Thank you," Claire said, and held out her hand to the doctor even as she took a step to go back to Emma.

  "Mrs. Goddard," the doctor said, "she'll sleep for several hours; why don't you get some rest.'^"

  "I'm fine," Claire said, and walked down the corridor. Alex thought she looked small and defenseless beneath the bright fluorescent lights, a slender figure in a dark blue suit. She walked with heavy steps amid the bustling nurses and doctors, who moved purposefully about their tasks while Emma's family could only wait.

  "Is there any reason why I can't sit with Emma and her mother.^" Alex asked.

  The doctor looked at him consideringly, knowing he was not a family member, but liking his quiet stability and the deeply sustaining way he and Claire looked at each other, the sureness of affection between them more pronounced than in many married couples. "Don't broadcast it," she said, "but go ahead."

  "Thanks." Alex grinned. He turned to Gina and Hannah. "Do you want to go home and wait to hear from us.''"

  "No way," Gina said. "We'll go to a hotel. Is that all right, Hannah.'"'

  Hannah nodded. "But I think I'll stay here for a while longer. It's better to be close. I don't feel so helpless."

  "How long do you think we'll be here.''" Alex asked Claudia Marks.

  "I'm not thinking about sending Emma home yet. I wouldn't even guess. You go ahead; I'll stop in again before I leave tonight."

  Alex found a plastic chair and placed it close to Claire's. He took her hand and they sat together, watching Emma. Claudia Marks came back and was with Emma a few minutes and then left. "Call me anytime; the nurses have my home number. And I'll be back at six-thirty tomorrow morning."