Hailey's War (31 page)

“Yours?” he said. Marsellus was economical with language.

I shook my head. “My responsibility, but not mine.”

He nodded and then moved a little bit away from me to make the phone call. I didn't try to overhear what he was saying.

Then he returned and said, “Wait here. Someone will be here in about fifteen minutes.” He moved off into the dispersing crowd.

Not long after, a Lincoln Navigator pulled to the curb. There was a large black man in warm-ups behind the wheel, and another in the passenger seat.

“Miss Cain?” the passenger-side guy said after rolling down the window.

I nodded.

He got out and opened the back door for me. “You want me to hold the baby?” he asked. He had a soft, high voice.

“I got him,” I said. Even so, the security guy took Henry's diaper bag, like the driver of a hotel shuttle, before I could reach for it. Then, after I'd settled in with Henry, he closed the door and we pulled away into traffic.

We made no conversation as the SUV made its way across town, and the SUV's good construction and windows kept a remarkable amount of city noise blocked out. All I heard was soft, throbbing beats from the satellite radio, set at a low volume. Henry slept in my arms, a warm weight, peaceful.

The driver downshifted, and I looked out the window to see that we were making an ascent. In a moment, I realized that we were headed up into Beverly Hills.

Surely Marsellus wasn't having me brought to his home? Maybe I'd been thinking of life as war for too long, because it seemed all wrong. Home was where you went to ground. You didn't bring your
enemies there, even the ones who were no threat to you. Home was supposed to be a refuge.

Yet when the motorized gate slid back, I recognized the house. I'd read a lot of articles about Lucius Marsellus in my last days in Los Angeles, and some of them had pictures of his home.

The Navigator came to a stop and we got out.

I'd expected to be searched when we got away from the eyes of bystanders. That didn't happen. I considered remaining silent about the SIG I was carrying, but decided the wiser course was not to go into Luke Marsellus's home strapped and get found out later.

“I'm carrying,” I told the guard when we were on the front doorstep. “You want to hold it?”

He paused and considered. “Lemme see it.”

I pulled out the SIG and handed it to him. Expertly, he took out the clip, checked that there was no round in the chamber, and handed it back to me.

I followed him through the front door and into a tile entryway. I could see into a long, wide living room with a ceiling that was at least fifteen feet high. That was where the Christmas tree should have been, but it wasn't. There were no decorations of any kind, which suggested that there was no woman's presence in this house—that Marsellus's wife hadn't returned, nor had he met someone new.

“Which way?” I asked.

“Upstairs,” the security guy said.

He led me up a curving staircase and down a long hallway, then opened a door. He didn't go in, instead motioning with his arm for me to enter. I stepped inside and looked around.

It was a bedroom, as I'd thought. There was a twin-size bed and a dry, empty fish tank and a toy chest. The walls were blue. God, this was Trey Marsellus's bedroom.

My escort set down the diaper bag. “Mr. Marsellus should be up soon,” he said. “Does the baby have everything he needs?”

I nodded.

He withdrew, and the door clicked shut behind him.

I looked around. There was a stuffed bear on the dresser, a Dodgers pennant, a signed photo of one of the Lakers, personalized to Trey. But my eyes kept going back to that empty fish tank. It seemed emblematic of the room overall. Dry, because Trey's father couldn't bear to come into his room every day and feed the fish, but not gone, because he still hadn't been able to pack up Trey's room and make something else of it.

This was part of my penance, seeing all this. How much of my penance it was remained to be seen.

It was a good twenty minutes before I heard the door handle twist, like that moment in a doctor's office. I turned to watch Marsellus come in.

For a moment he just surveyed me, standing in the middle of his son's room, holding a baby. Then he pulled the chair out from Trey's child-sized desk and turned it to face outward. He gestured toward it, clearly indicating that I should sit. I did. Marsellus leaned back against the footboard of the bed, a position that was mostly still standing, and said, “Speak your piece.”

I took a deep breath and did. “I came here to tell you that I'm sorry about your son,” I said. “I went to the hospital the evening Trey died to say that, but your security men stopped me. After that, I was advised that you and your family might need some space.”

“And then what happened?”

“I left town.”

“Why?”

I knew he knew, but he wanted to hear me say it. It was as if Marsellus were handing me a shovel, wanting me to dig myself a deeper hole, but I wouldn't lie to him. I said, “Because it was suggested to me that you might not be able to forgive me.”
Come on, Cain, say it all
. “And that you might have me injured or killed.”

“Miss Beauvais suddenly being gone planted that idea in your head.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you go?”

“San Francisco.”

“Not very far.”

“I guess not.”

He rubbed his long chin. “Now you're back. Why?”

“That's the story I came here to tell you.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Do you know who Anton Skouras is?”

He considered and then shook his head no.

“Not a lot of people do. He's low-profile, but he's been called the biggest unindicted organized-crime figure in San Francisco,” I said, borrowing Jack Foreman's phrase, because I couldn't put it any better. “And this baby is his only grandson.”

I told Marsellus the story: Adrian and Nidia, my involvement, Herlinda Lopez's death, the tunnel, Gualala, and Nidia's death.

“Some of this can be confirmed by news accounts,” I said. “Adrian's obituary was in the
San Francisco Chronicle
, for example, as was an account of Herlinda Lopez's disappearance. Henry's kidnapping from the hospital was statewide news.”

“Good Lord,” Marsellus said, recognition sparking. “This is
that
child?”

“Yes.”

“You don't look anything like the sketch on the news, of the woman who took him.”

“That wasn't me.”

He shook his head. For the first time, I'd genuinely surprised him.

I went on: “Beyond the parts that were in the news, I can't prove the whole story. Although … can you hold the baby a minute?”

Marsellus looked taken aback, but then he held out his arms. I stood up and gave him Henry, who accepted the change equably. Then, as I had done with Julianne, I pulled down the neckline of my shirt, revealing the scar under my collarbone. I said, “This is what Skouras's gunmen did to me down in Mexico.”

If he was impressed, it didn't show on his face, but then Lucius Marsellus had probably seen some shooting scars in his day.

I said, “Do you believe me?”

Marsellus was slow to speak. Then he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I do, but I don't understand what it has to do with Trey, or me.”

I said, “Mr. Marsellus, it's fallen to me to look out for this child, but I can't, not in the long run. Skouras's men know who I am and what I look like. As long as Henry's with me, he can be found. And my resources are extremely limited. I can't start life over in Buenos Aires.”

“Miss Cain, are you asking me for money?”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn't do that.”

It took him a moment, but then he understood. “You want
me
to take this child?” he said.

I looked him directly in the eye. “I can never repay what I took from you, however accidentally. But this child is the son of a genius father and a beautiful and virtuous mother. I think he might really be something, with the right resources and the right guidance. If Tony Skouras is allowed to raise him, he'll make this boy in his image, and Skouras is a monster.”

Marsellus said, “Why take this child away from one gangster just to give him to another?”

“His mother would have done anything to keep him from being raised by Tony Skouras,” I said. “Nidia could have gotten money from him for giving up the rights to her child. She could have been set for life. Instead, she fled to Mexico, to live in poverty in some village in the Sierra Madre. Obviously, Adrian told her very bad things about his father. If you read about this man and pay attention, that's borne out. A picture emerges of a guy who's spiritually poisoned, a trafficker in human lives, obsessed with money and with winning at all costs.” I paced. “You, on the other hand, despite what you might do in the name of business, have never been impeached in your personal life. You seem to have a good relationship with your mother, your brother and sisters, your nieces and nephews. And you were said to be a devoted … a good …”

“A good father,” Marsellus said.

I nodded. “And beyond all that, this is a good tactical decision,” I said. “Your home is the last place Skouras would look for his half-white, half-Mexican grandchild.”

“And I'm supposed to make it look legitimate how?”

“You have money and connections,” I said. “You can make it look legitimate. Any good attorney could.”

“You've thought about this,” he said.

“Yes.”

“But you're not scared.”

“What?” It didn't seem to have anything to do with his line of questioning.

Marsellus steepled his fingers, tapping the tips against one another. He said, “Oh, you're polite enough, and respectful enough, but … I've lived a lot of life, Miss Cain, and I've seen a lot of fear in my day. It's not a feeling I'm getting off you.” He paused. “Why is that?”

Before I could answer, Henry began to fuss, his face crimping and reddening. Marsellus looked down at him.

“He's probably hungry,” I said. “I can give him a bottle.”

“No,” Marsellus said. “That boy's got a muddy diaper.” He gave Henry back to me. “There's a bathroom down the hall where you can see to him. After that, come to the first room off the staircase. We can finish our conversation there.”

The room Marsellus had directed me to clearly reflected a woman's tastes:
pale Victorian striped wallpaper, an antique escritoire, wing chairs. When I got there, after changing Henry's diaper and washing up in the bathroom, Marsellus was standing by the window.

He said mildly, “You should have come and talked to me a year ago.”

“I know,” I said.

He went on: “Trey was a very active child. Almost hyperactive. Me, he'd mind, but I'd seen him disobey his nanny repeatedly, run away from her when she'd told him to stay close to her side. I'd seen him run out into the street before, though he'd been told repeatedly not to. My wife and I were thinking of getting a man to look after him, someone who could take a firmer hand. But Miss Beauvais was a nice girl, and Trey liked her, so we put off that decision.” He paused, looking out the window. “When Trey died, I was very angry. Some of it was at her, and some at you. But a lot of it was at myself, for not doing something earlier.

“I have, like you said, a certain reputation in business. Some of that is deserved. Some of it is rumor and exaggeration. I don't always discourage that, since with fear comes respect. But a reputation like mine has unintended consequences. It was the reason Trey's nanny left town in the middle of the night. I assume she was acting on the same incorrect conclusion you later did, though to be fair to you, her disappearance gave you a little more evidence for it.”

Then he said, “The hardest rumors to combat are the ones that are never printed or even spoken in your presence. I know that some
people continue to believe I had Trey's nanny killed, and there's nothing I can do to fight that.”

I nodded.

Marsellus said, “The advice you were getting in the days after Trey's death, to give me some space, was that from Cletus Mooney?”

Again I was surprised. He saw it and said, “I didn't learn about the connection until months after you left town. A business associate of mine used to see you two together in the clubs. You went to high school together, is that it?”

“He's my cousin,” I said.

“Interesting guy,” Marsellus said. “Lotta people curious to see what kind of work he'll be doing when he's thirty.” He looked out the window again, then back to me. Finally he said, “This is a very big thing that you're asking me to do.”

“I know,” I said.

“What are you going to do if I say no?”

“Stay hidden as long as I can, fight if I have to fight,” I said. “I know this is a big thing I'm asking, a lifetime, really. But I think this baby's going to be something special. I think he'll have things to give you, not just you to him.”

Marsellus was quiet a long time. I resisted the urge to jump into the silence with more selling points.

Finally he said, “Trey is buried next to my father in Inglewood Park Cemetery. Go apologize to him, like you have to me, and then we're square.”

“You'll take the baby?”

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

In the first-floor entryway, Marsellus's man took out the clip to my SIG and reloaded
it for me, then handed it back.

Marsellus had accompanied me down, Henry in his arms. He said to me, “What are you going to do about Skouras? Do you expect to be able to hide from him forever?”

“I don't know,” I said honestly.

“I won't protect you from his people. You and I are square, but I don't owe it to you to start a war with an organization like his.”