Back Bay (5 page)

Peter Fallon read very slowly. He imagined Pratt’s terror growing with every word.

“I commanded my men aloft to reef mains’ls and tops’ls. As they were ascending, we were taken broadside by a wave that suddenly towered over us. We lost three seamen and, I regret to say, your son Horace, who had come on deck to observe the operation. In such heavy seas, we had no hope of finding him, though we did swing into the wind and make search. It was then my terrible duty to go below decks and inform his wife and son that Horace Pratt II was lost.

“I know, sir, that no words of consolation shall ease your pain upon reading this letter, so none shall be given.”

After his son’s death, Horace Pratt wrote to no one for months. Fallon surmised that he was in mourning. When he began to correspond again, Pratt dictated his letters, as though he no longer had anything personal to say. His tone again became terse and businesslike, and now, it masked his pain. Only occasionally did he reveal his bitterness in an outburst against the policies of Jefferson and his successor, James Madison.

As Fallon neared the end of the correspondence, he realized he had only an hour left before Mrs. Carrington’s daughter would come home. He decided to turn from the letters to the ledger books, cargo musters, and logs. Through them, he hoped to trace the changes in the nature and quantity of Pratt trade—the beginnings in 1780, the China success in 1789, the recession of 1808 caused by Jefferson’s embargo, and the grim years from 1812 to 1815.

The record for the third quarter of 1814 filled only five pages in its ledger. Four Pratt ships sailed from Boston and one returned. The others, Pratt assumed, were taken by the British. It was Pratt’s worst quarter. Fallon flipped through the crumbling pages. He didn’t think anybody had looked beyond page five in a hundred and fifty years, because the pages were blank. But toward the back of the book, Fallon noticed an envelope jammed between the end-leaves.

It almost fell apart in his hands as he read the address.

Fallon turned the envelope over. President Madison’s signature was written across the flap, and the outline of the American eagle was still visible in the wax seal. The words “The President’s Mansion” were embossed on the letter-head, and it was dated August 24, 1814, the day the British burned the Capitol and the White House. Fallon noticed that one edge of the paper was blackened as though it had been burned, as well.

Fallon read the note again. He had learned to categorize his research in three groups: the discovery which proved a theory and produced immediate satisfaction; the finding which fit with others to form a pattern he could analyze; the total surprise, which turned his theories inside out and caused him to stop right where he was. This note fell into the last category. He didn’t know what “DL” or “the Eagle” meant, and he didn’t know where Gravelly Point was, but he realized that he had stumbled onto something very unusual. Somebody in the White House had been acting as a Pratt agent, and whatever they were doing, it didn’t sound like official business, despite the President’s signature.

He studied the note for a time. Then, impulsively, he stuffed it into his pocket and began to sift for other references to “DL” and “the Eagle.”

“Excuse me, sir.” The voice was very soft, but it startled Fallon only slightly less than the sight of the speaker.

Geoffrey Harrison stood six feet five and weighed well over two hundred pounds. He slicked his hair flat, and his round face seemed to engulf his features. From Fallon’s position on the floor, he looked like an enormous China doll.

“I must ask you to leave immediately.” He spoke politely with an English accent that was authentic. “The family does not appreciate intrusions.”

With DL’s note in his sportcoat pocket and Harrison behind him, Fallon left the attic and went downstairs. He stopped briefly outside Mrs. Carrington’s sitting room. He did not go in. Mrs. Carrington sat at the piano bench while a middle-aged woman berated her for allowing strange visitors into the house.

“Damn, Isabelle,” Mrs. Carrington interrupted. “I’m sick of secrecy. He’s a young Harvard student with good intentions.”

“Mother, it is not good policy to allow people to go poking through our papers. Especially now.”

“I don’t understand any of this, Aunt Isabelle,” said the young woman from the sports car. “Grandmother’s been running this house for forty-five years. She doesn’t need you to be telling her how to run it now.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Carrington.

“Please, sir,” Harrison’s voice nudged Fallon gently in the small of the back. The door was closed behind him.

As he walked toward his car, Fallon heard angry voices and slamming doors. The young woman burst out of the house and hurried past him. She was tall and slender and loped along like a jogger.

“I’m sorry if I caused any trouble,” he said.

She didn’t look at him. She jumped into her car and started the engine.

He approached the car. “I said, I’m sorry.”

Still, she didn’t look at him.

“I haven’t been treated like this since I asked Eleanor Emerson for a date in my freshman year,” said Fallon.

She smiled at him, but she wasn’t happy. “I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but I’m in no mood to talk right now. You’ve caused my grandmother a great deal of annoyance.”

“That’s not what you were saying in there.”

She glared at him. “I’m trying to be nice to you. Don’t spoil it.”

“Sorry, but I’m a little confused.”

“So am I. Every time I…” She paused. She didn’t confide in strangers and didn’t want to seem too friendly. “You’re some kind of professional student, aren’t you?”

It was Fallon’s turn to be annoyed. Even a scholar was better than a professional student. “I’m a historian.”

“Well, whatever you are, my brother may be able to help you. He’s been all through the papers in the attic, and he knows everything about the family history. You can contact him by calling the law office of Pratt, Pratt, and Carrington.”

“Thank you. What’s his name?”

“Christopher Carrington.”

“What’s yours?”

“Is that important?”

Fallon smiled. “You really are like Eleanor Emerson.” Her short blond hair and rather prominent jaw reminded him of a number of girls he’d known, most of them from Wellesley College.

“Evangeline.” She threw the car in gear and drove off.

It was getting chilly. Fallon turned up his collar and looked once more at the house. Harrison was watching him from the sitting-room window. He smiled and waved. It had been a very strange visit.

Philip Pratt, president and chairman of the board of Pratt Industries, sipped his gin and tonic and watched a pair of young breasts glide past. He loved California. He had considered opening a West Coast office many times, but beyond a large and unprofitable chunk of American Center Films stock, the purchase engineered by Pratt himself, the corporation had little business in California. So Pratt contented himself with an occasional trip to Hollywood, where he visited the lot, lunched with young actresses, read scripts, and lounged by the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

This trip, however, he was traveling under an alias.

The girl was about twenty, and she had been strolling around the pool for half an hour. Pratt was forty-eight with mostly gray hair, but in swim trunks he looked thirty. He could no longer resist. As the girl walked by, he smiled.

“Mr. Pratt, I suggest you save your energy.” Bennett Soames, Pratt’s personal secretary, sat beside him and sipped club soda. He was wearing a blue pinstripe suit and a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep the sun off his face.

“You underestimate me, Mr. Soames.”

“Remember that you have an appointment in half an hour.” Soames sounded like a schoolmaster.

Pratt smiled and called for another gin and tonic. He rarely disagreed with his personal secretary and never made a move before consulting him. Bennett Soames believed in order and efficiency. Pratt knew that without Soames to keep his schedules, smooth his way, and remind him of his priorities, his world would collapse.

A porter brought a white telephone to Pratt’s side. “Call for you, sir.”

Pratt took the receiver. “Weatherman here.”

“Mr. Weatherman? This is Sally Korbel. I’m in the lobby.” Her voice was warm, seductive.

“I’ll be there in a moment.” He hung up. “She’s here.”

“May I make a suggestion?” asked Soames.

“By all means.”

Soames was rankled by the condescension in Pratt’s voice, but he let it pass, as always. “Business first.”

“Would you like to come along to supervise?”

Soames said nothing. He did not allow himself to show anger. Although he was not perspiring, he removed his rimless glasses and wiped his face.

“That’s good. It’s a one-man job, anyway.” Pratt clapped Soames on the shoulder and left him in the sun.

Pratt’s room overlooked the pool and was filled with sunlight that reflected off the water. He stood by the window so that Sally Korbel would be forced to look into the glare. He studied her silently and liked what he saw. She was tall and full-breasted, with brown hair cut very short and a deep tan. If her face had a flaw, it was the stingy mouth, which seemed out of proportion with the rest of her features.

“I like to get business out of the way first, Mr. Weatherman.”

“An excellent philosophy.”

“You know my price?”

Pratt took four hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and held them out. She hesitated.

“I’m a big tipper,” he said. “I want this to be a pleasant afternoon.”

She took the money and stuffed it into her purse. “For four hundred, I can guarantee it.”

“Excellent.” Pratt took off his trunks.

“Very nice,” she purred. She knew how to please her clients. Her wraparound skirt fell away easily, then she unsnapped her halter top. She was wearing nothing else. She took a few steps toward Pratt and placed her hands on her hips.

“Before I go any further, is there anything special you’d like?” She sounded to Pratt as though she really liked him. She was a professional.

“A poem,” he said.

Her voice grew cold. “What kind of poem?”

“Actually, just a few lines.”

She spoke evenly but firmly. “If you want me to read nursery rhymes and play Mother Goose, take your four hundred back and find another girl.”

He approached her and put his arms around her. “I want nothing of the sort. Let’s forget I said it.”

She relaxed.

An hour later, Pratt ran his finger down her spine and into the cleft between her buttocks. She shivered and moved her body toward him.

“Now about that poetry,” he said.

She rolled over and sat up. “I’ll do it if it’s not too freaky. You’re a nice guy and all, but I don’t like freaky scenes.”

“My dear, I rarely pay for the services you render and did not request you for professional reasons. Although”—Pratt prided himself on his charm—“it was a pleasure doing business with you. I asked for you specifically because I collect poems, and I think you may have one that I’m interested in.”

“Well, I’m not interested.” She jumped out of bed and began to dress. “If you want poems, go to a library.”

Pratt slipped into a pair of beige slacks and a striped St. Laurent shirt. “I’ll explain on the way.”

“To where?”

“Your place.”

“We’re not going to my place.”

Pratt opened his wallet and took out a wad of bills. “There are ten one-hundred-dollar bills in my hand,” he said. “They’re yours. You pay no taxes on them, nor does your madam take a commission. All you need to do is take me to your house and help me find what I’m looking for.”

The money softened her. “Before we go anywhere, you tell me what we’re looking for.”

“Have you ever heard of John Milton?”

She thought for a moment. “Wasn’t he with the Morris Agency?”

Pratt smiled. He was hoping she’d be ignorant, but this was extraordinary. “He’s a poet. About eighty years ago, an old woman up in Monterey embroidered a series of samplers with quotes from his poems. I’ve collected several of them. I need one more to complete the set. It’s a gift for my wife.” Pratt wasn’t married. “She collects samplers.”

“What makes you think I have this thing?”

“Well, if my research is correct, the old lady was your great-grandmother.”

Sally Korbel recalled that her mother had given her two boxes of family junk just before she died. Sally had never looked through them. “I think I know what you’re looking for,” she lied. “But I want payment in advance, and no refunds if it’s not there.”

Pratt offered her five hundred. She took it.

The stucco apartment building spread like pink mold across the Santa Monica neighborhood. “Twenty units, one-two bedrooms, no vacancy.” Pratt read the sign with great interest. California real estate was an excellent investment.

Sally Korbel’s apartment was three rooms with white walls, green carpeting, and a view of someone else’s bedroom windows.

“A high-priced professional like you should be living in Malibu,” said Pratt.

“I pay three-fifty for this place, and that’s cheap if you want to live three blocks from the beach.”

She slid back the ceiling panel above her bed and took down two boxes. Pratt tried to seem relaxed as they dug through photographs, news clippings, and envelopes stuffed with old letters. In the bottom of the second box, they found it. The frame was scratched and the glass was caked with dust, but a quotation from Milton was woven into the cloth in brown and red threads.

Pratt read it to himself. “So he with difficulty and labor hard/Mov’d on… /Sin and Death amain/Following his track, such was the will of Heav’n,/Pav’d after him a broad and beat’n way/Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling Gulf/Tamely endur’d a Bridge of wondrous length/From Hell continu’d reaching th’utmost Orb/Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse/With easy intercourse pass to and fro/To tempt or punish mortals, except whom/God and good Angels guard by special grace.”