For All Their Lives (37 page)

“What do you want from me? What do you plan on doing with this information?” Alice demanded, a sick feeling settling in her stomach.

“I want what I always wanted, for Mac to be the governor of this state. It's not too late. Tell him to withdraw from the Senate race. He can still make a run for the governorship. I have the political power to pull this off,” the judge barked.

“Go to him yourself. You tell him.” Mac and a Vietnamese woman. A child, a boy. Men always wanted sons. Mac wouldn't care if the boy's eyes weren't Western. Mac had loved someone else. The thought was so horrendous, she thought she was going to throw up. While she didn't physically want Mac, the idea that he'd wanted someone else left her feeling sick.

“You'll do it, Alice. If you don't, I'll . . .”

“You'll what, Marcus?” Alice asked, trembling so badly she could hardly stand. “Don't you understand? He won't listen to me!” She was losing control, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“I'll tell him you welcomed me into your bed, and you did. I paid for your favors.”

“You got me drunk. You seduced me. Then you blackmailed me. I never went to bed with you willingly. Not once. You're an old man, Marcus. Why would I want you? You wait right here. I have something to show you. Don't leave, Marcus. I will not allow you to blackmail me, not now, not ever,” Alice screeched.

Her satin robe billowing out behind her, Alice raced up the steps to the second floor. She ran down the hall to the nursery, where she grabbed Jenny. She whirled and ran back downstairs, her breathing harsh and ragged. “Here,” she said, “is the result of what you did. Jenny is your daughter, not Mac's. And you know what else? Mac knows she isn't his, but he allowed me to give her his name. They have blood tests, Marcus. I can prove that Jenny is your daughter. You have a sister just like her. Now, what do you have to say, you son of a bitch!”

The look of revulsion on the judge's face repulsed Alice. She cried brokenly as she hugged Jenny to her breast. “Get out of my house! Mac's sterile!” she shrilled, the child's cries just as shrill.

The judge was halfway to the door when Alice plopped Jenny down on the floor to run after her father-in-law. She snatched at his arm, a maniacal look on her face. “If there's one thing we both know, it's that Mac is no liar. Leave him alone. If you tell the press about his . . . what you found out, then I will tell Mac you are the father of this child. Your silence for mine, Marcus. And support for Jenny in the form of cash. Once a month. And don't ever set foot in this house again. Your word, Marcus. Now!” Alice threatened.

“You wouldn't dare! You would never give up this comfortable life. Where would you go with a child like Jenny? Even if you divorce, no man will want a brat like that. So don't threaten me, Alice,” the judge said, his face a hateful purple. A huge vein in his neck bulged.

Once, Alice would have buckled, crying and whining to get her way. But now she was different, a mother. She stood her ground and said, “Try me.
I
have nothing to lose. You, on the other hand, have everything to lose. Remember what I said about a blood test? Shall my attorney get in touch with your attorney, or will you do what you and I both know to be right?”

She didn't expect an answer, and none was forthcoming. She watched as her father-in-law slammed his car into gear and careened down the driveway, taking half an azalea bush with him. Obviously, the judge needed glasses.

Alice slammed the door shut. She bent over, taking several deep breaths before she ran to Jenny and gathered the child in her arms. Jenny wiped her tears and slobber on the sleeve of her mother's dressing gown.

“Shhh, everything is going to be all right. Mama is going to make things right for you. Let's go upstairs and play with that pretty red ball. Please don't cry, Jenny. I'm doing my best.”

The child cried harder and louder, until Alice thought she would go out of her mind.

“I'll take her, Mrs. Carlin,” the nanny said.

“No,” Alice said sharply. “It's my fault she's upset, so it's up to me to calm her.”
I have to do this as punishment for the lie I'm living.

 

N
O ONE IN
the political arena was surprised when Malcolm Carlin won the primary, which gave him the right to run against the Republican contender. He campaigned vigorously, day after day, sometimes for eighteen hours at a stretch. Over and over he told himself he was meant to do what he was doing. In the Senate he would get himself appointed to as many committees as possible. The Armed Services Committee, The Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs subcommittee—of which George Mc Govern was chairman—the Senate Foreign Aid subcommittee. He was going to plan his strategy just the way he did when he was on the Ho Chi Minh trail.

He thought about the pile of telegrams on his desk from
his men.
To a man they said, “Don't let us down. If you need us, get on the horn.” By God, he'd die before he let even one of them down. When he allowed thoughts of Casey, Lily, and her son into his head, he knew he'd made the right decision.

On October 4, months after winning the primary, when Mac felt he had the election sewn up tight, three things happened in rapid succession. The morning edition of the paper announced that Cambodia had opened its doors to provide sanctuary to the Viet Cong; the private detective Benny hired to find Bill Trinity called to say he'd located the elusive and reclusive Bill in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; and the evening edition of the paper carried a front-page article saying that Malcolm Carlin, the Virginia Democratic contender for the Senate, was rumored to have a mistress and an illegitimate son in Vietnam, both of whom he was trying to bring to the United States.

While Mac, Benny, and Sadie tried to come up with a solution to the devastating news story, Alice was trying to figure out how she could elude the newspaper reporters camped out at the end of her driveway so she could drive to her father-in-law's house in Georgetown. In the end she knew there was no way she could leave the house. The reporters would follow her. Her face a mask of fury, she dialed the judge's home.

Alice immediately launched into her tirade. Her voice dripped venom. “You went back on your word, Marcus. I told you what would happen if you did that. Right now there must be thirty or forty reporters outside this house. How dare you! You had no right!”

“Get ahold of yourself, Alice,” the judge barked. “I didn't tell anyone anything. I'm not a fool. If I found out about . . . the woman and child, what makes you think other people wouldn't find out the same thing? Nothing is sacred in a political campaign. What surprises me is they waited so long to spring it.”

“With just thirty-four days to the campaign it could destroy Mac,” Alice shouted angrily.

“Why, Alice,” the judge said mockingly, “I didn't think you cared. Why the sudden change of heart? After all, Mac has moved out of your bed, and if what you say is true, he was finished with you long before I tasted your . . . charms.”

“You are nothing but a dirty old man, Marcus. My skin crawls every time I think of you. Damn you, I'm trying to make up to Mac for what I did, for what you made me become. And now this. Mac doesn't deserve this . . . this kind of press. If that child were his, he'd be here with Mac now, and we both know it.”

With his reputation at stake, the judge knew he had to make Alice believe it. He did know it, that was the trouble. He hadn't leaked the story to the press. The only way he could do that was to issue a statement, something he had not wanted to do. It was all going wrong. Everything in his life was wrong. A vision of Jenny rolling and screaming on the floor made him wince.

“I'm coming right over. I want you dressed appropriately, with Jenny in your arms. Together we'll issue a statement.”

“I told you not to come here ever again,” Alice said icily.

“Then, my dear, I suggest you handle it yourself.”

“All right, we'll give the statement by the front door, and as soon as we've finished, you will get in your car and leave.” Alice had had to back down, knowing the judge was right. This time.

 

J
ENNY WAS IN
a good mood. She clutched an all-day sucker with a soft, curled stem in her chubby fist. Alice had her attired in a red velvet dress with a round Peter Pan collar. She herself was dressed in a simple skirt and blouse, with a sweater over her shoulders. She looked every bit the mother and housewife. The judge, when he arrived with the reporters he'd invited, looked staunch and stalwart, just the way a Supreme Court justice was supposed to look.

“It's preposterous!” was the judge's comment.

“My husband is a wonderful husband and father, and how dare you terrible people say such terrible, wicked things about him,” was Alice's comment.

“Are you saying the story is untrue?” a middle-aged reporter demanded.

“I'm saying it's preposterous,” the judge replied coldly. “It's a last-ditch effort by the Republicans to try and sway votes. Malcolm would never compromise his family in any way.”

“Mrs. Carlin, is there anything else you wish to say?”

There was plenty she wanted to say, but she held her tongue. “Just that I believe in my husband implicitly, and I know in my heart Malcolm would never bring a scandal upon this family. Family is sacred to Malcolm.”

Afterward the judge said, “You carried it off, Alice,” his eyes glued to the mess Jenny was making of her dress. His eyes, Alice noticed, still expressed revulsion.

“Go to hell, Marcus,” she spat. “I told you I don't want you here, so get out.”

His eyes were still on the child, who was trying to stick the sucker in her ears. “I'll leave when I'm certain the reporters are all gone,” he said in a sick-sounding voice. “I kept my word, I did not leak this story. With the threats you made, what would be the point?”

“How do I know you didn't tell someone else, and that's the one who leaked it?”

The all-day sucker landed on the judge's snowy-white shirt. He brushed at it as though it were contaminated. “Again, what would be the point? Look, Alice, I simply didn't do it.”

Alice snorted, a very unladylike sound. “No, I guess you didn't. I can see the fear in your face, Marcus. If I ever find out you had anything to do with this, in any way, I will keep my promise. Believe me, I will.”

Jenny, too big to be in her mother's arms, squealed to be set down. She yanked at Alice's hairdo with sticky hands.

“She belongs in an institution,” Marcus said through tight lips.

“That's one place she will never go, and don't ever say that to me again. Say good-bye to your daddy, Jenny,” Alice taunted.

The judge slammed the door in both their faces. “Come along, sweetie, I'm going to clean you up, and then we'll play with your new doll house. Mama loves you,” Alice crooned as she took Jenny upstairs to the nursery.

At his campaign headquarters, Mac made a statement on the evening news. It was a short, complete denial. In a voice shaking with compassion, he explained who Lily Gia and her son were. He ended with a plea. “Lily Gia is dead. She was a nurse who took care of your sons, saved their lives, and then had the misfortune to fall in love with an American doctor who refuses to acknowledge the child he gave her. The boy deserves a better life than an orphanage can give him. I was prepared to adopt him, and I still am, if that is possible, since his real father wants no part of him. That's all I have to say, ladies and gentlemen.”

Beyond his news appearance, Mac refused to comment. “It's up to the voters who they believe,” he told his campaign workers. “I'll take my chances with them.”

“That's good enough for me,” Benny said.

“Me too,” Sadie agreed, her eyes alight with pride.

“Benny, can I see you a minute, in private?” Mac said as soon as Sadie was out of earshot.

In a tiny room filled with stacks of campaign literature, Mac told Benny about the phone call he'd had earlier from the private detective.

“He honest to God found him!” Benny yelped.

“Found him and he's goddamn alive,” Mac hissed. “Where the hell is Perth Amboy, New Jersey?”

Benny shrugged. “He's alive! We should kill him, Mac, for what he's done to Sadie. We're going there, right?”

“Just as soon as we can scare up a map of New Jersey, square things away here, and get something to eat. It's almost midnight now. If we drive all night, there won't be much traffic, and we'll be there when he wakes up. What do you say?”

“Listen, I'm game. I can't wait to see this guy. I've got this picture of Bill in my head of what he looks like now. How about you? I never thought they'd find him. Do we bring him back with us?” Benny asked anxiously.

“Even if we have to hog-tie him.”

“They call that kidnapping, buddy. Since you're a public figure, maybe I'd better do the hog-tying.”

 

T
HE CAMPAIGN WAS
forgotten, as was everything else, when the two friends set out for New Jersey in Benny's Land Rover. They drank coffee and ate sandwiches Carol had prepared at the last minute as they tooled along the turnpike. Their conversation consisted of ways they could torture the still-faceless Bill. When they ran out of possibilities, they tried to guess what Sadie's reaction would be when they marched Bill into the bar.

Six hours later, Benny pulled the Land Rover into a service station.

“We're in Perth Amboy,” Mac said as they waited to have the tank filled at a Texaco station. “Ask this guy where we are and how close we are to Elm Street.”