Heathern

by Jack Womack

  EIGHT

  661 hate to be in the same world with him," I said. Lester and I gazed out the living room window, through a lacing of dead branches toward the far-off river and the Palisades farther still. I'd never made money enough in my life to have paid for the drapes in Thatcher's house. "Not long after we started working for him I asked Bernard if he thought Thatcher was evil," I said. "He said it was like asking what jazz is."

  "The mysteries come soon enough, Joanna," said Lester, an unexplainable cheerfulness hanging over him. Thatcher's own holiday glee so infused his spirit that the day before he'd unexpectedly invited us to this year's Thanksgiving celebration. We were driven up; in those days the Dryden estate consisted of a couple of hundred acres running east from the Hudson River. A high granite wall girdled every inch. The main house dated from the turn of the last century, and had twenty rooms; for so long as I'd known him he'd planned to raze it and replace it with something cozier. While spying Thatcher's bounty I eavesdropped on the comments of others who believed themselves to be speaking freely, as I knew few better paths to enlightenment in this world.

  "Bernard told me not to worry about Tokyo," a man whispered. "Everything's under control."

  "You see the face on that new bodyguard?" a woman asked. "The little faggot?"

  "Psycho," said her companion. "Best kind to have, he tells me."

  A waiter glided past us, proffering a salver heavy with stunted olives and Velveeta-filled chicken livers; we declined. "You heard the official explanation yet?" Lester asked.

  "It's still in the oven, I suspect," I said. "Bernard must have taken the news better than I thought he would. I don't know what happened after they took me home Tuesday. Yesterday they were shut up in their offices all day. What tests were the doctors giving you?"

  "I don't know if I passed," he said. "They gave me a Bible to read. Maybe to get the story straight."

  "Probably want you to see what to avoid," I said.

  "Why'd Bernard look so gloomy?"

  "He and Martha usually spend Thanksgiving at home, watching the parade and having dinner afterward." Macy's -not part of Dryco-had announced that morning that they would no longer sponsor the parade, after that day's events; too many victims intended to sue. "Bernard once told me he'd come up here on Thanksgiving only if they served up Thatcher with an apple in his mouth."

  "Thatcher needed him up here?"

  "For punishment, perhaps. Doubtless we'll find out soon enough what's going on. He has something he wants us to do, I can tell-"

  "Wants me to do," said Lester. "Why didn't Bernard's wife come along?"

  "Martha refuses to have anything to do with Thatcher anymore."

  "What'd he do to her?"

  I shook my head. "Some people reach their limit sooner than others."

  "Then these must know no boundaries," he said, regarding the crowd engulfing us. The house's rooms were not large enough to dwarf multitudes; the twenty-five present made the space feel as cramped as a subway car. They laughed and joked among themselves as if they were having a good time. "Who are they?"

  "His closest surviving business associates," I said. "Us, Avi, Jake-"

  "They have to work even though the estate guards are here?"

  "Who else to guard the guards?" I asked. Since Tuesday Avi had avoided me as studiously as he'd avoided Lester, seeming fearful and ashamed. A third party negotiated for the retrieval of Gus's body, and so Jake went to Campbell's that morning before coming up, bringing along his own jar in which he could carry off the cremains. There'd been no autopsy; everyone knew how Gus died.

  "Aren't there any family members?"

  "Junior," I said. Thatcher Dryden, Jr. sat in a chair in a corner of the room, and could not have looked less comfortable had he appeared suddenly among a mixed populace in a strange city, naked and speaking a language no one understood. "I think he's fifteen."

  "Seeing him I'd have thought he was a foster child," said Lester.

  "His mother loves him, poor thing. He's more postliterate than Jake, I barely understand him when he talks. Susie insists he run the company eventually. Thatcher doesn't want him to. That's why he wants that computer in place." "He's the only other family member here?"

  "The only one alive," I said. "I don't know what happened to most of them. Bernard told me about Thatcher's brother once. He was older. He and Thatcher started the business, and then Susie came in on it. They took over the running of it after his brother was killed."

  "What happened?"

  "Medellin was involved, as I heard it. They'd been dealing with Cali and some argument developed, Bernard told me Thatcher opened his refrigerator one morning and his brother fell out. That inspired him to do whatever it was that he did to gain control of their operation-"

  "What about Mrs. Dryden's family?"

  "She had a brother. He worked for Medellin. They found out, after-"

  "And Thatcher had him killed?"

  "Susie."

  A house guard loomed behind me, tapping my shoulder; I wondered if my fellow guests believed I let slip too many family anecdotes. "Mister Dryden wants to see you now," the lug said, then walked away. Taking Lester's hand in mine I walked him toward Thatcher's hall.

  "They have family skeletons, rather than trees," I remarked. Jake idled in the approach to Thatcher's study, browsing over Thatcher's coin collection; gold doubloons and eagles mounted in framed panels hung above the wainscotting, and the sconces' creamy lemon light made the coins shine like miniature suns. I noticed the black mourning band Jake had tied around his sleeve.

  "You all right?" I asked, stroking his shoulder; Jake never felt more than an animate assemblage of lumps. He nodded, blinking black eyes bright with red flecks. "You got Gus this morning?"

  "Solo," he said. "Pickupped. Did the drop bridgeways. Ashes to ashes to ashes, full fathom five." He jerked his head toward the doorway and quoted from his assignment. "Shake off slumber, and beware."

  Avi allowed us entry, keeping out of our sight as he opened the door, locking it behind us as we came in. There'd been six windows in Thatcher's study; he'd bricked them over and tucked the bricks beneath curtains. Redwood shelves sagging beneath the weight of thousands of old LPs lined the curtainless walls. Avi reclined on a black leather divan and concentrated his stare on a spot on the beamed ceiling. Bernard paced back and forth before Thatcher's desk, his movements recalling to my mind those of the polar bear once imprisoned in the Central Park Zoo, Thatcher propped his bare feet upon his cleared desk. Behind him were three filing cabinets kept forever locked, the ones that he claimed housed his most useful precautions. He spoke to me.

  "Hon, you know how I hate to see people get all carried away by their emotions."

  "You've carried me as far as I'm going-" I started to say.

  "Have a seat, son." Thatcher tugged at Lester's sleeve, and pointed to a nearby ottoman. "You too, Joanna."

  "Are you going to listen to me? You expect me to verify your account to Bernard? I'm not backing you up, Thatcher--

  "Bernard, haven't I been straight as a ruler with you?" I didn't look to see Bernard's reaction. "Moral support's kind of superfluous at the moment, hon."

  "There's no excuse for what you did," I said. "None at all."

  "Tell me, Lester," he said. "Does dining at the table of a murderer make the guest bad as the host?"

  "Sometimes," Lester said. Thatcher shrugged, and held out his hands as if expecting to have them slapped.

  "Smell dinner cooking?" he asked. "Hope you all went easy on breakfast. Got a treat coming up."

  Bernard sighed, sitting down in a wingbacked chair, giving all signs of having paced himself into a stupor. I stood before them, anxious to bear witness.

  "Even if you're blind to all others, Thatcher," I said, "don't you think you might watch out for yourself? Don't you think you could have been killed the other day? You think of that?"

  "My boys don't miss when they aim," Thatcher said. Avi ignored the compliment off
ered, and examined his nails as if searching for lingering stains.

  "It's insane, Thatcher. It's immoral. I've had as much of this as I can take-"

  "We were so busy yesterday I never got a chance to explain," he said. "It'd be a natural feeling, thinking I've not been on the up-and-up about this-"

  "Your explanations never explain," I said. "They rationalize, they make excuses, they lie. They never explain. What reason could you possibly have for murdering them except paranoia, Thatcher? You can't answer me, can you-?"

  "Where have you been working all this time, sweetness, a convent?" Bernard said, interrupting. "None of this should be new to you, it's only your first direct experience. Every virgin suffers pain when the moment comes."

  "It's been explained to your satisfaction?" I asked.

  "The agreement is signed, after all. Shouldn't judge a book by its writer."

  "Reality's a tricky business, hon," said Thatcher. "No sooner you get used to the way you think it's sitting than it flips right over on you. You have to be ready to jump before it does. Once we explain, you'll understand why there couldn't be any other response. You're sensible as Bernard is when it comes to cold, hard fact-"

  "Your facts are slipperier than reality," I said. "And I'm not that sensible."

  "You've tried to give the impression you are," said Thatcher. "You're being as hard on me as you are on yourself, hon. That's not fair to either of us. What kind of heathern you think I am?" His face was angelic; his eyes, moist as a calf's. "Just a question of putting a chokehold on reality before it puts one on you. You got to try, 'cause if you don't, then you deserve to get anything life throws on you." He doodled on a pad as he spoke, marking out small circles and then slashing them through with x's. "That's the trouble people have when they're out on the edge. Stay out there long enough, you're bound to get cut at some point." He shook his head. "Most people can't bear the sight of their own blood. But once you get used to your own you don't mind anyone else's quite so much."

  "There's no reason for any of it, Thatcher."

  "Everyone has reasons, Joanna," said Bernard. "Every reason imaginable."

  "A little background first," said Thatcher. "What's the rule of thumb interrogating those who won't give, Avi?"

  "The thumbrule is that if the subject hesitates, the family will be lost," Avi said, reciting with less elan than had Lester's students. "If the family is absent, use their memory. If the family is present, work with them physically. If the subject is a wife, use the husband. A son, the mother. A father, the daughter."

  "Monday night a father with daughters broke," said Thatcher. "One of the doctors spilled his guts, you might say. Seems our man Jensen is taking the air at Montefiore, up in the Bronx."

  "What does he have to say for himself?"

  "Ask the turkeys in the kitchen what they have to say for themselves," Thatcher said, laughing. "He's more than zombified, as it turns out. An irreversible coma. Doubt he's much for idle chitchat at the moment. Truth cries when it comes, all right. Now who do you think had him shipped up there? Old second gunman himself."

  "Gus-?"

  "Got in a little far over his head this time," he said. "After a while it must have affected his mind, having to keep new realities straight all the time. Working in Cuba but doing for America. Working in Mexico but doing for Cuba. Russia and Libya and Italy and who knows where else. To this day I don't think he knew who he was working for in Dallas, and would he have been surprised ..."

  "If he was even there," said Bernard, in a voice less direct than usual.

  "He was there all right," Thatcher said, reaching behind him and patting his files. "I guess even you still have trouble sometimes with cold, hard facts." He winked at me. "In any event, it's to be expected he'd be prone to freelance when the right offer came along. Wonder now what else he got into we haven't found out about yet."

  "The doctor told you Gus was involved and that's why you had Avi shoot him?"

  "You think I kill people just 'cause I like the sound they make when they hit the ground?" he said, sighing. "Bernard, pick up on this. I'm going to get my throat so raw jawin' if I'm not careful I won't be able to eat my turkey."

  Though I hadn't noticed before, I became suddenly aware that no one in the room but Lester would look into my eyes; my wishful thinking made me think that perhaps they could no longer bear to see what they saw reflected.

  "We were told," Bernard said, "that the poison, while of Caribbean origin as claimed, was introduced into Jensen's system not long after Jensen arrived at Newark, more than likely by means of a needle jabbed into his neck. The poison was too dilute to have the preferred effect. Gus made a boo-boo, to be pithy about it-"

  "No doubt you've inferred that he was hired by Otsuka for this?"

  Thatcher's face lit up as if he were my father, and I'd told him I'd gotten all A's on my report card. "See how naturally this comes to you once you get the hang of it?"

  "I insisted that Gus be kept viable for prolonged interrogation, to uncover such facts as we could and to try as well a new method the boys have been working on," Bernard said. "As I knew I would be, I was overruled--

  "We'd have never got anything out of him," Thatcher said. "Nobody ever did."

  Bernard shrugged. "Could have gone through Jake."

  "True ..."

  "Was Jake involved?" He couldn't have been, I realized; he was still alive.

  "Ain't no mud on Jake's shoes," said Thatcher. "Gus had an eye for talent, I'll give him that."

  "Even if Jake had been domesticated enough to participate in these shenanigans, there was no reason to involve him. It was a one-to-one action. The fewer to know, the better. As far as Jake knows, his teacher was killed in the line of duty. It's good for role models to illustrate the drawbacks as well as the benefits of a career."

  "You knew about this Tuesday morning?" I asked Bernard.

  "It's my job to know," he said. "Don't give me that look." His stare suggested to me that he'd long before decided I could never truly understand. "Gus's fatal error was trying to drag the doctors into it after he screwed up. He was apparently the one who conceived the brilliant idea of having them forge the certificate. They carried out his wish, signing that particular doctor's name, only later realizing that she was in no condition to see to anyone's death but her own."

  "See what happens when you rush?" Thatcher said.

  "If the intention was to kill Jensen," I said, "why didn't Gus finish the job?"

  "They wouldn't let him," said Bernard. "Isn't that won derful? That our doctors chose to abide by the Life Acts astonishes me. They've never shown themselves averse to circumventing these petty legalities in the past."

  "Bernard," Thatcher interrupted, glancing at me, "that's touchy. Get on with it."

  "By that point the corpus was in their care, and had been seen by too many. They had to do something. Afterward, then, Jensen sped northward on the uptown express, leaving behind only an officially recorded and duly vouchsafed death."

  "Do you think Jensen actually said anything to Gus in the car?" I asked, trying to ignore Thatcher's apparent concern. "On their way over-?"

  "Oh. 'Can you keep a secret?"' Bernard quoted, and laughed. "It's rare to come across people who can sound so much like a bad screenplay in such strained circumstance. He said it, nonetheless. Jake slid open the divider when Jensen collapsed, and he and the driver heard him say it."

  "So what's the secret?" I asked. Neither answered. "Do you know? Does it matter?"

  "We're working on it," said Thatcher. "Obviously he was ready to spill the beans to somebody. I'd like to think he intended to do the right thing and tell me. He sure wasn't working with Gus. Why would he have even brought it up, whatever it was, if he had been-"

  "All inferences and select facts do, however, point to Otsuka's involvement," said Bernard. "We did trace the two individuals mentioned on the note discovered."

  "Once we ascertained it was Mystic, Connecticut that was referred to.
" Thatcher reached over to shake Lester's knee until Lester grimaced. Had I owned a pet I'd never have allowed Thatcher to hold it.

  "Didn't Gus search Jensen's apartment?" I asked.

  "Police found the note at his sister's," said Thatcher. "Even a blind hog roots up an acorn now and then. Avi's investigating Jensen's apartment again tomorrow to see what might have been overlooked. He lived up on the Concourse, didn't he?" Avi nodded. "I think it was his grandmother's place. I guess it was cheap--

  "You own the building, Thatcher," said Bernard. "It was a perk."

  "What about those two individuals you mentioned?" I asked. "Where are they?"

  Bernard coughed, and eyed his nails as he took his hand from his mouth. "Shot while trying to escape, sadly ..."

  "Both of them?" I asked. "In both countries?"

  "That struck me as kind of odd myself ..." Thatcher said.

  "We're dealing with backwater elements in each port," said Bernard. "It's to be expected. Corrupt officials are like cockroaches, you can't get rid of them."

  "But we've made a firm connection. Just haven't discovered the exact scale of the operation yet-"

  "How convenient that the facts correspond so well to the theory," I said.

  "Isn't it, though?" Thatcher, as ever, pronounced isn't as idn't; certain speech patterns of his youth he deliberately retained, that those who didn't know him might be lulled into thinking that his intelligence was less than theirs. "I had my hunches. You heard Otsuka the other day, Joanna. Calling me a Nazi. Making fun of America. His talk was all sugar when he wanted to sound sweet but you could smell the vinegar underneath."

  "It's evident now why he agreed so readily to that thirty percent cut," said Bernard.

  "It is?"

  "Rule of the agreement is that operations already in progress by one country won't be interfered with by the other," said Thatcher. "Thanks to Jensen, they have an operation in progress. So if we try busting it up in the usual way they can cut the whole deal cold, and at this moment that'd give 'em the edge. They've already transferred their bank accounts over to Europe and back home, isn't that right?"