~~~
"You're going to see who?" Kate demanded, accepting her youngest son in some bewilderment from the hands of her oldest. The light from her house spilled onto the front porch where this rendezvous occurred. "Alex, you look terrible," Kate went on, taking in the young man's haggard features. She turned on Chess. "What have you done to him?"
Chess stuffed his fists in his pants pockets. His jaw felt like steel. "I just talked to him. Though he deserves to get the sh— He deserves a good whipping."
Alex gave his mother a calm look. "Chess caught me copying the formula for Love."
"What?"
"He was going to sell it to an interested buyer," Chess snarled. "I'll give you one guess who that is."
Kate's eyes snapped back to Alex. "What is he talking about?"
Alex sighed, exhausted. "It's a long story. Basically, I was offered a hundred thousand dollars to get the formula for Love."
"What?" Kate was clearly astonished. "But you wouldn't do that. That's crazy."
"He would," Chess claimed. "And it's not so crazy."
Kate turned toward Chess, her eyes wide.
"For one thing, Alex needed the money," Chess said. "And for another...it's been done before."
"What?" This came from Alex.
Kate didn't say a word. She just continued to stare at Chess, her eyes huge on him.
Slowly but surely, understanding dawned. With it, an enormous cavern opened up inside of Chess. "You knew that," he claimed softly, not taking his eyes off of her. He hadn't believed he could feel worse than in the moment he'd seen Alex scribbling away with his flashlight. He was finding out that he could. He could feel a lot worse. Betrayal was like acid.
"You took them," Chess went on, ignoring the fact his mother looked like she was about to faint. "You stole the classic formulas last March."
She was so white now she was almost luminous. "I— Yes, I did."
Chess closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to wake up in bed next to Cookie and find this whole thing had been a terrible dream.
"Mom?" Alex turned his head to stare at her.
"Chess!" Kate reached out her arms, but Chess was already backing away.
Henry's betrayal—even Alex's—was nothing compared to this. His mother! His own mother had sent the company into ruin.
This was Korman's doing. All of it. Korman had to have been behind this, the whole mess. Turning, Chess made for his car. Dimly, he heard his mother calling him to come back. He ignored the entreaty. He could concentrate on one thing alone. Korman. He'd make the man pay. He'd make him pay if it was the last thing he did.
~~~
While Luther watched the end of the play, Cookie sat at the counter in the dressing room and wiped the blood from her face. She had half an hour before Luther would come around to take her home.
Cookie frowned as she removed the red-stained lace bodice from between her breasts. She felt uneasy. Chess was at home waiting for her, and she was anxious to get this talk over with and finally tell him about the baby.
Cookie was just throwing the lace onto the counter when she got one of her chills. She bolted upright as though a cube of ice had slid down her back.
There was someone there, watching. Cookie had never been more sure of it than in that moment.
Slowly, she made herself turn around.
Nothing. Just the faded decor of the dressing room, the racks of clothes, the props left over from other days.
I don't believe in ghosts, Cookie reminded herself, unable to shake the feeling of being watched. She needed to get home. Instinct told her that. Chess needed her.
She stood up, grabbing her clothes with more haste than normal. Luther might be disappointed, but she was going home now, as soon as she had dressed. She'd call a cab and be home, safe with Chess, in less than an hour.
~~~
By the time Chess pulled his black Porsche into the short driveway before Bernard Korman's townhouse, he was in a far calmer frame of mind. It had taken forty-five minutes to drive from Kate's house. During that time Chess had planned his assault.
He'd also pulled himself back under control. The pain his mother and half-brother had tried to inflict on him went into stasis. He couldn't afford to deal with it right then. He had to be cool, calm, and collected.
Chess shut the door of his car and jumped up the steps to Korman's front door. He made himself pause on the top step there, made himself exercise the control of another moment's wait. Then he leaned on the doorbell.
It didn't take long for Korman to answer the summons. He opened the door, wearing a bone-colored cable-knit sweater and a pair of wire-framed glasses.
"Chess." His tone held only mild surprise. His lips curved upward in a peculiar smile. "Somehow I knew you'd eventually land on my doorstep. Please. Come on in."
The man's calm greeting nearly threw Chess. He did not consider this a friendly house call. Nor should Korman.
Chess walked through the door. His first impression was that of elegance. His next was more vague and as disturbing as Korman's calm reaction to his arrival. It was loneliness.
No. Loneliness? So what? Chess turned on the man, his fists clenched.
"What did you do to my mother?" His voice was gritty. "How did you get her to give you the classic formulas?"
"Have a seat, Chess." Korman gestured toward a cluster of dark leather furniture and slipped his glasses off his nose. "Would you like a drink?"
The banal offer slipped the leash on Chess's control. He grabbed Korman by the collar of his sweater and hauled the man up to his nose. The physical sensation was enormously satisfying. "What did you do?"
"Blackmail," Korman answered calmly. His gaze remained steady and unwavering.
"Blackmail?" Chess repeated in disbelief. "What could you possibly have to blackmail her with?"
To Chess's utter amazement, the man smiled. Collar-tied by Chess, he actually smiled. "Now, I can't tell you that," he claimed. "She paid the blackmail."
Chess tightened his hold around the other man's neck, feeling murderous.
Korman closed his eyes. "But if it makes you feel any better," he managed to wheeze out. "She didn't give me anything I didn't already have. I already had the formulas, Chess."
Chess didn't relax his hold on the other man. "What?" he hissed. "How?"
Korman's breathing was labored. "David," he answered. "David gave them to me."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Chess released the man as though he'd been burned. "David?" He suddenly felt very weak.
With admirable aplomb, Korman adjusted the twisted collar of his sweater. "Yes, David Thibideaux."
The world seemed to be taking a revolution around Chess, leaving him turning in the middle and dizzy. He'd thought the list of his betrayers was at least confined to the living. "David?" he said once again.
"You look like you could use a drink. I have some brandy in the living room." Korman turned and walked off, leaving Chess to follow as best he could.
"Here." Korman shoved a glass snifter into his hands.
Chess took a sniff, almost reeled, and then managed to down a swallow. The world became significantly more stable. "David," Chess muttered once again. He glanced up at his host. "I don't suppose you'd care to explain?"
Korman's eyes narrowed slightly. "As a matter of fact, I've been waiting quite some time for the chance. Sit down, Chess."
Chess sat, but he promised himself he was going to take any story Korman spun with a great deal of salt.
Korman went to a wood sidebar and fixed himself a second snifter of brandy. "David came to see me. That must have been—oh, about a month before he died. He had a favor to ask."
"And your payment was the formulas?"
Korman leaned his back against the bar and smiled. "No. That was the favor." He took a delicate sip of his drink. "He told me he was dying. I was shocked and saddened. David was a good man."
Chess stared at him. "Yes, he was," he sai
d thickly.
Korman swirled the amber liquid in his glass. "He told me he wanted me to have something powerful to work with, something that could seriously injure Scents Allure. He asked me what I'd need. I told him the formulas for the classic perfumes."
Chess's heart began to beat hard. He could hear truth in Korman's tone. It was a truth he had a feeling was going to lead to places he'd rather not go.
Korman looked over his glass at Chess. "The next day he came back with the formulas."
Chess managed to speak. "Why?"
Korman's smile broadened. "Ah. That's what I didn't understand until much later. He told me he wanted Scents Allure brought to its knees but not completely annihilated. Chess, he wanted you absolutely desperate."
Something finally clicked into place. "Cookie," Chess breathed.
Korman nodded. "After I heard the terms of the will, I realized that was exactly what he'd been after. He wanted to make sure you'd marry her."
Chess looked at Korman. "But, my God. He took an awful chance, using you."
Korman raised his silver brows. "Did he? I think not. I think David knew perfectly well what he was doing. I've had a lot of time to muse it all over, and I think David guessed the truth."
A shiver ran down Chess's middle. He had a terrible feeling the world was going to start spinning again. "The truth."
Korman nodded. "About me and Kate."
Chess felt glued to his seat. For a moment, all he could do was stare at the man. Then a cold, clear rage began to fill him. He stood up, starting toward Korman. "You'd better not be saying what I think you're saying."
There was a great sadness in the other man's eyes. "What do you think I'm saying?"
"You were not having an affair with my mother. I won't believe it." The idea was too ludicrous to consider. Korman Cosmetics was their business rival. Kate had fought them with every bit as much ferocity as Chess all these years.
Korman again swirled his drink. His eyes were close upon Chess as he approached. "No, I wasn't having an affair with her. Not while she was married to David, at any rate." He looked down at his glass, apparently unable to meet Chess's eyes any longer. "Nor while I was married to Maria, for that matter."
It took a long, long moment for the meaning of the man's words to register. During that moment, which seemed to last forever, one fact after another clicked into place in Chess's mind. Times, dates, places.
"And I would have been married to Maria," Korman stated, adding the last and necessary fact, "thirty-nine years ago next month."
Disbelief gave way to shock, which in turn transformed to fury.
"You," Chess hissed, unable to control the hot blood pounding through his veins. "You son-of-a-bitch. You made my mother pregnant and then left her!"
Korman's glass of brandy dropped to the floor. His head snapped back as he uttered a pained cry, and his hands went to cover the blood that began spurting from his nose.
Chess didn't realize he'd struck the older man until he felt the sting on his knuckles.
He looked down at his hand, dumbstruck, and at the same time heard Korman make a sound mixed of pain and laughter.
"I imagined a lot of possible reactions when you found out," he half-groaned, half-chuckled. "But I have to admit that wasn't one of them."
Chess looked over at him. It sank in that he'd just hit an older and weaker man. "Where can I find some ice?"
"Freezer. Down under there." Korman gingerly tested his nose for breakage. "Damn, but you have a mean right cross."
Chess silently found a dish towel under the counter and poured all of the ice cubes from the little bar freezer into the middle of it. He experienced a sudden need to keep his hands busy, to prevent thinking. He wasn't ready to think yet. "Bathroom," Chess demanded, holding the towel full of ice.
"This way."
Chess successfully banished those invading thoughts as he followed Korman, holding his nose, into the roomy powder room. There Chess put down the ice, found another clean towel, wet it, and started to wipe the blood from Korman's face. It wasn't an act of compassion but the continuing need to keep those dangerous thoughts at bay.
"Here, I'll do that." The older man took over, cleaning and then scrutinizing the damage in the mirror.
Chess, also looking into the mirror, felt as though he were seeing the other man for the very first time. He saw the thick, curling hair that had probably once been black. He saw the eyes that were the exact shade of green as his own. And there were more subtle details: a cleft of chin, an arch of brow, even the lift of his lips as Korman gave a faint, wry smile.
"Amazing," Korman said. "Isn't it?"
Then the thought broke through. He had to think it. My father. Quickly, he picked up the dish towel full of ice and handed it to Korman. But he couldn't push the thought away. Not any more.
My father.
Lifting his chin, Korman hefted the ice against his nose. "I don't think you broke it," he remarked with a grunt. "Just as well."
Chess stared at him in the mirror. Now that he'd let it out, that one thought filled his brain. My father. The question he'd worried over for more than three decades came out of his mouth. "Why didn't you marry her?"
Korman's eyes met his in the mirror. "I would have. She didn't come to me until you were already a half a year old, and my new wife was pregnant."
A sound came out of Chess that wasn't quite sympathy, although it wasn't pure rage, either.
"Kate said she didn't want me to marry her. She said all she wanted was for me to leave her—and you—alone." Korman dabbed the ice at his nose and lowered the towel. His eyes lowered, too. "She wanted my promise that I'd never try to contact you, never tell you who I was." He lifted his shoulders, echoing an old helplessness. "At the time, under the circumstances, I didn't see how I could refuse her anything."
"You should have married her—before."
Korman shot him a keen, pained glance. "I was planning on it. We had words. She went away with her family to Maine. I thought she was through with me."
The worst part was that Chess could see it. He could see the whole situation and even understand. "I wanted to hate you." He gave a short, harsh laugh. "I have hated you, by God."
Korman wore the saddest smile Chess had ever seen. "At least I got your attention."
Chess actually felt a smile grow over his face. "Always."
With a wince, Korman put the ice back on his face. "It wasn't exactly the kind of attention I wanted, but you learned the business."
"I—?" Chess closed his open mouth. "Yes, I did at that." A funny sensation began to creep over him.
Korman gave a nod. "Go upstairs. In my bedroom in the closet, you'll find a box on the floor. Bring it down here. I want to show you something."
That peculiar sensation wrapped around Chess like a cloud. He backed out of the bathroom gratefully, needing breathing space. Then he turned and took the stairs two at a time. He felt lightheaded, not all there, a little drunk.
The box was on the floor of the closet, just as Korman had said. Squatting on the carpeted floor of the walk-in closet, Chess removed the cardboard lid. Yellowed newspaper clippings and other assorted papers sifted through his fingers. There was a christening announcement from Kate's father's church, a brochure from his boarding school, copies of his report cards, graduation announcements. Down at the very bottom was the photograph that had been in the newspaper from his wedding.
Chess paged through the papers a second time. This was a dream: an old, dead dream. All his life someone had been watching him, someone had cared. He'd never guessed. He'd never imagined that his father—whoever he might have been—had had the slightest interest in him.
"All of that I collected on my own." Korman stood, leaning in the open doorway. The snifter was back in one of his hands. "I kept my part of Kate's bargain." He took a long sip of his brandy. "But after David passed away, I decided I'd been patient long enough. I began putting pressure on Kate to let me meet you on true terms."<
br />
Putting the box down, Chess remained kneeling on the floor. "The blackmail," he interpreted.
Korman, looking unrepentant, nodded. "That didn't work."
The softness drained out of Chess. "So you moved onto Alex."
Korman, about to take another sip, froze. "Alex?"
"You went to a lot of trouble to con him into stealing the formula for Love." Chess's jaw clenched. "He was an innocent in all of this."
Korman lowered his glass, his expression sober. "I couldn't agree more. And I've made no move to obtain the formula for Love."
Chess rose to his feet. "What about the hundred grand you offered him, knowing he had gambling debts?"
"A hundred grand? I don't know what you're talking about." Korman's face expressed deep concern. "I've thought for months that there was someone else after that perfume. Someone who was using me as a smokescreen. I told Kate as much—and Cookie."
"Cookie!" Chess dropped his eyes to his watch in horror. It was well past midnight. "Cookie. I completely forgot!" If he raced, he might just get home before she arrived.
"Chess." Korman put a restraining hand on Chess's shoulder. "Chess, we have to find out who's behind this."
"I know." He pushed away the other man's hand. "And we will. Just as soon as I manage to convince my wife not to leave me."
There was an expression of bafflement on Bernard Korman's face as Chess rushed out the door.
~~~
Before she took off her costume, Cookie realized she'd better write a note to Luther explaining her change in plans. She was in the middle of doing this when the outer door suddenly opened.
Startled, Cookie looked up to see Diana standing there.
"Oh, Cookie, I'm so glad I caught you." Her hair was down and she was wearing pants.
"What is it, Diana? What are you doing here?" The dread Cookie had experienced earlier took a deeper dive.
"It's Chess." Diana visibly swallowed.
Staged, Cookie thought, her actress reflexes picking up on Diana's gesture. But then, half of what Diana said and did seemed staged to Cookie. The woman gave off strange vibrations, tonight even more so.
"Chess caught Alex stealing the formula for Love," Diana told her.
Call it Love Page 31