by Alice Orr
“Why ever not?” Forth scoffed. The gun was still leveled at Memphis, who had stopped in his tracks when he saw Bennett approaching. “Why should this sea trash merit such concern?”
“Because I love him,” she said.
Memphis had been planning his next move. Her words chased those plans straight out of his head. He looked up at her. His heart told him the tears glistening on her Cheeks weren’t for her brother. An answering emotion surged from Memphis’s chest to his throat. He had to swallow to keep it from rising farther. He needed his head clear for action now. The first thing he had to do was turn Forth’s attention away from Bennett again.
“And I love her,” Memphis said.
Forth spun back toward Memphis. “All the more reason for me to shoot you down where you stand,” Forth said, aiming the gun even more deliberately at Memphis. “The thought of my sister with the likes of you is preposterous.”
“Think about what you’re saying, Forth,” Bennett said. “Don’t get yourself in any deeper. Father’s lawyers can help with what has happened so far, but you mustn’t make it any worse.”
“Father’s lawyers.” Forth gave a short, scoffing laugh. “A fat lot our father would ever do for me. You’re the golden child, my dear, not me. Father lets me know regularly what a disappointment I am to him, whether I care to hear it or not.”
The resentment in those words put Memphis even more on guard. He didn’t dare make a dash for the gun just yet. There was too much chance Forth would turn it on Bennett. Memphis had to get Forth’s mind moving in another direction.
“I’ve got a feeling your father would be pretty impressed with this operation you set up on the Fiddlehead,” Memphis said. “Seems to be a very tricky scheme to me.”
“Very tricky indeed,” Forth said, sounding proud of himself.
“How does it work exactly?” Memphis asked. “You have the Fiddlehead transport goods past customs. I understand that part. What kind of goods would that be?”
Forth studied Memphis for a moment, then shrugged. “What harm can it do to tell you now? I am apparently being put out of business, so to speak.”
Memphis didn’t want Forth to think about how desperate his situation was. He might do something just as desperate then.
“So tell me what exactly you’ve been bootlegging,” Memphis said.
“Whatever the market would bear. Lately, the real money is in black market computer chips. An associate of mine gets them from the Orient to the Caribbean, all via the rag trade, garments knocked off in Asia. I bring them from the Islands to the States.”
“I didn’t notice any extra clothing aboard the Fiddlehead.”
“Nothing that obvious is necessary. Computer chips are very small. Enough of them can be sewn into the linings of my own personal wardrobe to make quite a haul. A small fortune’s worth, in fact.”
One of the owners did have a closet on board, and there was a lock on it. Memphis had never paid that any special attention till now.
“Why did you need so much money, Forth?” The anguish in Bennett’s voice made Memphis want to run to her again. He had to hold himself back from doing that.
“I happen to have a few obsessions the trust fund doesn’t cover,” Forth was saying. “Gambling for one. Women for another.”
“Was Pearlanne Fellows one of those women?”
Memphis wished she hadn’t asked that. He steeled himself in preparation for another shift in Forth’s mood, a return to belligerence. Luckily that didn’t happen.
“Pearlanne was an obsession indeed,” Forth said. “Unfortunately, the obsession was mutual. She was far too avid for her own good and far too candid, as well. She found out more about my business than was healthy for her to know. Then she wasn’t smart enough to keep it to herself, or such was my suspicion.”
“You killed her for that, didn’t you?” Bennett sounded more stricken than ever.
“Yes, Sis. I fear that I did. I had to do so to protect my business. I truly had no choice in the matter.”
“Was Quint in that business with you?” Bennett asked.
“Mr. Straight Arrow?” Forth laughed. “You must be joking. Good old Royce, however, was involved up to his ears.”
“Was it your number I called from his car phone last night?”
“Exactly, my dear.”
“Then you sent those two hoodlums to kill Memphis and me.”
Forth shifted uneasily up one step then down again. She had taken him into touchy territory once more. Time for Memphis to create another diversion.
“Where is good old Royce anyway?” he asked. “We thought he would be here tonight.”
“Taken off for parts unknown, I would suspect,” Forth said. “You spooked him this afternoon when he saw you at the Water Club. I didn’t expect to be seeing him again after that. Royce was in this strictly for the thrills. He was looking for some excitement to put a stir in that blue blood of his, but only till the going got truly dicey. I always knew he would make a run for it then. I imagine the police will be overtaking him soon. Royce really hasn’t much talent for the outlaw life.”
Memphis was amazed at the way Forth could stay so cool in the middle of what had to be the final act of his life as a free man. There was no place for him to run.
“Apparently, I haven’t enough of that talent myself, either,” Forth said, sounding like the air had suddenly gone out of his balloon. “Otherwise, I might have made less a scramble of this. I didn’t even have the nerve to do in old Pearlanne myself, had to have Nick take care of it. Of course, I meant you to take the blame, old man.” He looked at Memphis. “Invited you to the Stuyvesant so that would happen. Thought it was damned clever of me, too. Even planned to have my colleagues make you disappear for good so there’d be no worry about what you might reveal when the police gave you the third degree. But we can see how that turned out, can’t we.”
“What about me, Forth?” Bennett asked. “Did you plan to have me disappear, too?”
Forth sighed and smiled sadly. “Alas, Sis, you’re too like our dear mother. You think me much more of a decent sort than 1 am. I’ve always been willing to do whatever was needed to keep my life running smoothly, just as long as I could pay someone else for the dirty work and cover up nicely afterward.”
“But why would you need to kill her?” Memphis couldn’t help but ask. “She didn’t know anything.”
“She’d come to know you, old chap, apparently quite well, or so it seems now. I couldn’t be certain what you would tell her or whether you might win her to your cause. She was a loose end I simply couldn’t afford to leave unsnipped.”
Memphis was almost too focused on Bennett and the way she was biting down hard on her lip to hear the movement behind him. Then he saw that Forth must have heard it, too. Suddenly his quietly resigned manner was gone. He stared at the doorway behind Memphis for a moment then turned and hurried up the stairs toward Bennett. Memphis looked back to see what Forth had been staring at. The corridor was unnaturally still beyond the doorway. While the three of them had been talking, someone had cleared out all of the people. Memphis could almost smell the police poised just out of sight with firearms at the ready.
Bennett! They could shoot Bennett by mistake!
Memphis looked up the stairs. Bennett and Forth had already disappeared into the restaurant.
THERE WAS REALLY NOWHERE to run. Bennett knew that, and she was certain Forth did, too. He was only going through the futile motions now, playing the scene out to the end. He had a gun, of course, but she no longer feared he might use it on her. She sensed that he was even past using it on Memphis. The strongest likelihood was that Forth would turn the gun upon himself. Bennett had accompanied him without resistance in the hope of preventing his self-destruction. Unfortunately, she didn’t truly believe she had that kind of influence over him. Only one person did. Perhaps Forth was thinking this, too. Perhaps those thoughts were what drew him through the restaurant and out onto the terrace overlooking
the Sculpture Garden, and Dilys St. Simon standing below.
“Is your sister all right?” Dilys asked him. “You haven’t harmed her, have you?”
“No, Mother, I have not harmed her.” He sounded very calm.
“And, Mr. Modine. Have you harmed him?”
“No, Mother, I haven’t harmed anyone. At least, not today.”
Dilys nodded gravely, still looking up at him from the deserted patio where only a scattering of abandoned glassware and a few overturned chairs attested to there having been a party tonight at all. Even the corridor beyond the glass wall to the museum was empty—except for several policemen crouched low on either side of the doors to the garden area.
“It is finished then,” Dilys said, also speaking calmly.
“Yes, Mother, it is,” he answered.
“Then, my son, you must do the gracious thing and cause no one any more difficulty than has already been done.”
Forth hesitated a moment. “You are exactly right, as always. I must do the gracious thing. Besides, even I am wise enough to know when all is lost.”
“And to remember who you are and what you represent.”
“Yes, Mother, that, too.”
Bennett tensed in fear of what he might do next. Then he lifted the gun and tossed it over the railing. It clattered against the stones below.
In what seemed like less than an instant several officers swept out onto the terrace from the restaurant and Forth was in their custody. Memphis appeared just behind them and took Bennett into his arms. She clung to him but could not move her gaze from her mother’s tear-streaked face below.
Epilogue
Even a year later, the sadness hadn’t totally deserted Dilys St. Simon’s heart. No one was more aware of this than her daughter. Dilys took responsibility for allowing Forth to grow up as weak and corrupt as he turned out to be. Fortunately, she could also take joy in the prospect of a first grandchild soon to arrive. Dilys raised a finely arched brow when Bennett joked about calling the baby Eloise after the little girl in the children’s story who lived at the Plaza Hotel. Dilys may have understood that this was a private joke between her daughter and new son-in-law, but she was too discreet to say so.
Bennett and her beloved husband still saw Dilys regularly despite how involved they were in their project for homeless children. Memphis taught them to sail while Bennett introduced them to books and drawing and playing music. He emphasized responsibility and hard work, while she allowed their spirits to express themselves. Dilys told every philanthropist she knew that this was without doubt only the first of many works these two loving people would perform to make the world a better place.
Meanwhile, Dilys had offered to research the Atlanta Modines regarding Memphis’s supposed family resemblance.
“I don’t think so,” he replied.
“That’s right, Mother,” Bennett said, staring up at the man with whom she had so incredibly and miraculously found true love. “We have each other and a life ahead together. That’s all we could possibly need.”
“Amen to that,” said Dilys St. Simon, and heaven help anyone who might dare to disagree.
eISBN 978-14592-7569-0
MANHATTAN HEAT
Copyright © 1996 by Alice Orr
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All characters In this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all Incidents are pure Invention.
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Excerpt
About the Author
Books by Alice Orr
Dedication
Cast of Characters
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Copyright