A Season in Purgatory (37 page)

“Lies, lies, lies. Yes, I paid for your education, but it had nothing whatever to do with a bribe. People of great wealth have always helped the less fortunate. My reputation for truth is well known,” said Gerald.

“I beg to disagree with you, Mr. Bradley, about your reputation for truth. The first time I ever met you was in a limousine driven by Charlie after Constant was kicked out of Milford for having pornographic pictures of women eating each other’s pussies. We drove in silence most of the way across Connecticut from Milford to Scarborough Hill. I sat in the jump seat. I might not have been there for all the attention you paid me.”

“Where is this long story going?” asked Gerald.

“I’m getting to the punch line. When we reached Scarborough Hill, you said to your then sixteen-year-old son, and I quote, ‘You’re not like your brothers. You’ll always get caught. You could have lied, you damn fool, you could, should, have lied, said those pictures weren’t yours.’ ”

“Like Jews who can spot anti-Semites, I can spot a Bradley hater, and you’re one. I said no such thing, ever.”

“Yes, you did, didn’t he, Constant? So don’t talk to me about truth, Mr. Bradley. Tell Sims Lord I’ll see him.”

“Did you enjoy the Madonna movie last night, Sims?” asked Harrison, pointing to the screen of the projection room that had once been a ballroom. They sat looking at each other sideways on chairs that looked forward to the screen. Neither seemed anxious to begin the conversation.

“I did, yes. Did you?” asked Sims Lord.

“I didn’t stay for it,” replied Harrison. “All those socialites nattering away drove me out, those friends of Grace’s. Baba and Sonny and Thelma and the rest.”

“Hmmm.” He was having difficulty starting.

“I am aware that I am an accessory,” said Harrison, helping him. “Shall we start there?”

“That is the correct word, yes,” said Sims. “My criminal law mavens tell me that you could be charged with a variety of offenses, some of them serious, Harrison. Of course, I addressed my questions to them in veiled terms. What if? I asked. What if? No names. Suppose there had been such and such a crime, I said. Suppose there had been an accessory. That sort of thing. Nothing that could possibly be connected to an actuality. It is a common thing to do in the practice of law. Let me read from my notes here.” Sims reached in his pocket and took out his glasses. He put them on and reached into his inside pocket and took out a piece of paper. “Let me see here. Yes, yes, here it is. ‘Hindering a prosecution, being an accessory after the fact, conspiracy to obstruct justice,’ ” said Sims. “Of course, the specific laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.”

“Yes, yes, I am aware of those charges. But you forgot one. You forgot receiving a bribe. You forgot that I could be charged with that too, Sims,” said Harrison.

“Bribe?” asked Sims Lord.

“Yes, Sims, bribe. You remember bribe. Writing out checks? For travel? For a year in Europe? For a higher institution of learning? That sort of bribe.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sims.

“Oh, yes, you understand, Sims. You sent me the checks.”

“Helping out a poor boy on a scholarship by paying for his education is not a bribe,” said Sims Lord.

“When it pays for the poor boy’s silence, it is,” said Harrison.

Sims, angry, folded his paper and put it back into his inside pocket. He removed his reading glasses. He rose quietly and began to leave. At the entrance to the projection room, he turned back to Harrison, who had not moved from his theater seat.

“Have you given any thought to Grace Bradley in this? Are you not aware that she is a wonderful woman? I myself am not a Catholic, but it is my understanding that she is soon to be made a papal countess by the Holy Father in Rome for her outstanding work in Catholic charities. Do you have any idea what this will do to her? Have you no thought for that?”

“What is it you are saying to me, Sims? Because Constant has a nice mother, his crime should be overlooked? I want to make sure I understand. The problem with Constant is that his trespasses have been forgiven him over and over, all his life. And all of you know it. It’s not enough that his mother is a nice woman.”

“This is a tough guy,” said Sims Lord, reporting back.

“Harrison Burns a tough guy? That’s a laugh,” said Jerry, laughing disagreeably. “We all used to think he was a little light in the loafers, if you want to know the truth.”

“I don’t mean tough, like tough in the boxing ring, Jerry. I mean a tougher kind of tough, like integrity tough.”

“Did you read him what the charges would be against him?” asked Gerald.

“I did. He already knew.”

“And?”

“I don’t think he cares. I think he’s prepared to take the consequences. I think he wants to clear his life of this. I think having him here to the house with the entire family
might have been a terrible mistake. I think it might have reawakened his sleeping demons. That is what he called them, his demons. That is why he swims. He said it is the only time he feels at peace.”

“Fuck his demons. What’s the bottom line, Sims?” asked Jerry.

“I think this man is becoming increasingly a loose cannon in your lives.”

“Fatty Malloy sent me a newspaper clipping, Pa,” said Jerry. “I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Sims until I had talked to you.”

“About what?” asked Gerald.

“From the Scarborough Hill paper.”

“About what?”

“It says, ‘Police see progress in Utley case, but won’t offer details.’ ”

“I thought that story was over and out seventeen years ago.”

“It says since Mrs. Utley offered her fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest, several things have come to light,” said Jerry.

“Bullshit,” said Gerald. “That’s a totally bullshit item, meant to scare. That’s all. Nobody knows anything, except us and Harrison.”

They looked at each other at the mention of Harrison’s name.

“That’s what I mean,” said Jerry.

“Where is he?” asked Gerald.

“He’s swimming.”

“He’s always swimming.”

“What are we going to do, Pa?” asked Jerry.

Gerald rose and walked to the window and looked out at the sea. “You handle it, Jerry. Do whatever you have to
do. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be told. Understand? I don’t want to know anything.”

Jerry and Johnny Fuselli sat in the front seat of Constant’s red Ferrari Testarossa. The windshield was shattered from the accident. The grille and the left fender were badly damaged.

“Do you like this car?” asked Jerry.

“Oh, man, it’s my dream car,” said Johnny Fuselli. “How he could have fucked it up like this is beyond me. If I had a car like this, a Testarossa—I even like the sound of the name—I would be kissin’ its ass, morning, noon, and night.”

“It’s yours,” said Jerry.

“You’re kiddin’ me.”

“No. It’s yours. Pa said to give it to you. We’ll pay for all the repairs. There’s a guy in Southampton who repairs—”

“Have you asked Constant about this?” asked Johnny.

“He’d like you to have it, too,” said Jerry.

“Have you asked him? I mean, I don’t want to get my heart set on it, and then when he gets out of the hospital, he decides he wants it back, and then I got to give it up, after I fell in love with it.”

“Pa’s ordered him a new one.”

“Oh,” said Johnny. He thought for a moment. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s something I want you to do,” said Jerry.

“I figured that.”

“I’ll drive back to the city with you,” said Kitt.

“I guess I’m not getting the helicopter treatment on the way home,” said Harrison.

“There’s plenty of cars,” she said. “I have to play bridge
at Sonny and Thelma’s. I promised Ma. We’ll go after that. All right? About six?”

“I don’t want any marks on him,” said Jerry. “It’s a drowning, no more.”

“The guy’s a great swimmer,” said Johnny Fuselli. “He can swim for hours. He can swim for miles. I watched him with the binoculars yesterday.”

“He’s a great swimmer who drowns,” said Jerry, quietly. “You wear a wet suit. You wear a mask. You swim out behind him. Wait until he’s past the beach club. Wait until he’s past the public beach. He won’t see you. He’s looking ahead of him. You go underwater. You swim under him. You grab his arm. Or his leg. And you pull him under. And hold him under.”

“And he’s supposed to think it’s a shark? Come on, Jerry.”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” said Jerry. “The guy’s a danger, to you as well as us, you know.”

“Hey, listen, Jerry, this is not exactly in my line of work,” said Johnny. “I mean, let’s be totally practical here. For a secondhand Testarossa that’s just been wrapped around a telephone pole on the Montauk Highway, it’s not what you call an even deal.”

“Plus fifty thousand dollars,” said Jerry.

“That’s what I told the girl who was in the car with Constant she’d get,” said Johnny. “Plus her hospital bills.”

“Sixty thousand,” said Jerry.

“Pa, I want everyone out of the house this afternoon,” said Jerry. “I’ve made arrangements through Sims for you and Des and Sandro to play golf at the National. Be there at two. Don’t get home before five. Or later.”

“The National, huh?” said Gerald, impressed. “Wait till
Webster Pryde sees us at the National. I wish Constant weren’t in the hospital. Then I’d have the whole crowd there.”

“Have Sims buy you some drinks when you finish.”

“What’s this all about, Jerry?”

“Just do it, Pa. I don’t want anyone in the house this afternoon, except Bridey and the maids,” said Jerry. “Maureen and Freddy are going over to Quogue to visit some girl she was at Sacred Heart with.”

“Where’s your mother going to be?”

“Ma and Charlotte and Kitt are going to play bridge at Sonny and Thelma’s.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to see the Madonna movie in the village.”

“You saw the Madonna movie in your own house last night.”

“I’m seeing it again. I don’t want anyone in this house except the maids this afternoon.”

Each day of his visit, Harrison swam a greater distance in the cold water. He entered the water on the beach at the end of the road where the Bradley house stood. He swam out two hundred yards offshore until he was well beyond the waves and kelp. Then he turned and swam in a northerly direction. He concentrated on a goal. The first day he swam three miles. The second day he swam four miles. That day he turned in a northerly direction, planning to swim five miles. From the shore he was only a small head in the water. Then he was nearly out of sight. Even with strong binoculars, he was difficult to pick up in the rolling sea. He was never in a hurry. His pace was steady. His stroke was unvarying. His feet were in perfect accord with his strokes. His speed never changed. After a half hour, the process of swimming became automatic to him. He did it without focusing
on what he was doing. He concentrated all his energy into the center of his forehead. Oh, yes, oh, yes, he thought as a total calm came over him. He felt peace. He felt nirvana. He felt supreme.

Suddenly, from below, from beneath the surface, Harrison’s right foot was grabbed from behind in a viselike grip. He snapped from his reverie, and chills of fear passed through his body. Trying to swim forward, he felt himself being pulled from behind. In an instant, Johnny Fuselli locked the foot beneath his arm and with both his hands grasped Harrison’s legs above the knee as hard as he could and pulled him down beneath the surface. He released one hand from the leg and grabbed Harrison’s hair and held his head under the water. Harrison kicked furiously with his left foot. His heel connected with Fuselli’s face, and the water became clouded with blood. Fuselli let go of Harrison’s body.

On the surface, gasping for breath, both men vomited water from their lungs. Exhausted, they lay on their backs trying to regain their breath.

“I didn’t take you for a killer, Johnny,” said Harrison. “A remover of records, yes. A buyer-off of witnesses. A dumper of garbage bags, filled with evidence, but not a killer.”

“You would have been my first,” said Johnny.

“Look what I’ve spared you,” said Harrison. “There better not be any sharks around, or we’re both going to be goners, with all this blood.”

“You broke my nose,” said Johnny. He was having difficulty breathing. He put his hand to his heart. “You got some kick for a drowning man.”

“Who put you up to this? Gerald or Jerry?”

“Be careful of Jerry. He’s the one who’s out to get you.”

“You fucked up your assignment, didn’t you?”

“My heart was never in it,” said Johnny.

“Jerry’s going to be one freaked-out Bradley when he sees me walk in that house.”

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” said Johnny, sick and exhausted, his arms flailing, he choked and coughed.

“Johnny, I can’t drag you in. I would if I could, but I can’t. That fight tired me out. I don’t even know if I’m going to make it myself.”

“I’m too old for this line of work. I was going to be forty-six tomorrow. Once, I thought I was going to make the Olympic team.”

“Sorry I broke your nose.”

“Harrison, listen to me. You’re a nice guy.”

“Johnny, there’s something I’ve got to know. You’re the only one who can tell me. And I’ve got to know, John. Please.”

“What?”

“The garbage bag.”

“Huh?”

“The garbage bag that was in the trunk of Bridey’s car on the day Winifred Utley was murdered.”

“I don’t know.”

“Johnny, you drove her car, a Pontiac, and dumped the bag, the bag with the baseball bat and the bloody clothes that Constant wore when he killed Winifred Utley. Where did you dump the bag? Tell me, tell me. Please, Johnny. These guys, your great friends, the Bradleys, they were turning you into a murderer, Johnny. And if you’d been caught, you would have taken the rap, not them. Where did you dump the garbage bag, Johnny? Don’t go under, Johnny. Tell me. It could be your salvation. Don’t go under. Don’t, Johnny.”

It was six o’clock. Charlotte, carrying white peonies from Grace’s garden, had gone to the Southampton Hospital to visit Constant. “Oh, he’s so much better, really,” she replied to a reporter’s query. “That accident wasn’t a bit serious. A few scratches, a few stitches. More of an inconvenience, really. He’s so anxious to get on with the campaign in Connecticut. Yes, aren’t these lovely peonies. They’re from my mother-in-law’s garden.”