Jericho's Fall (8 page)

Because you haven’t earned it
.

“If Mr. Lobb doesn’t turn up by tomorrow,” Beck said, “we should get somebody else up here.”

Pamela’s chilly gaze challenged her. “For what? To do the chores? Fix the roof?”

“Clean up the next dead dog,” said Audrey, in an ineffectual stab at defusing the mood.

“I’d feel better.” Beck knew this sounded lame. “We should have another man around. Just to be on the safe side.”

“The safe side? What are we supposed to be worried about?”

Beck was not sure how to frame her answer. She was the one with the misbehaving cell phone. She was the one being chased by a helicopter. She was the one who should be home with her daughter, and would be, but Jericho needed her. Suddenly that fact emerged with crystal clarity. Jericho Ainsley needed her. He had not summoned her out of caprice, or malice, or even to say goodbye. He had called her for a purpose.

A serious purpose.

She did not know yet what Jericho would ask of her, and she certainly did not know what her answer would be. But she knew she had to give him the chance. She had loved him once, and he had loved her back. Even though Dak insisted that Jericho had been eased out of public life, in Beck’s romantic image he nevertheless had tossed away his career for her, and, like it or not, her mother had raised her to a sense of obligation so powerful that few competing priorities could stand against it. Dr. Eisenstadt, her therapist, had tried to help her overcome her guilt about the end of Jericho’s career.

So far, without noticeable effect.

“Trust me,” said Beck.

“Trust
you?”
laughed Pamela.

“He’s ringing,” said Audrey, on her feet, but they all heard the same buzzer.

“I’ll go this time,” said her sister, and hurried off toward the stairs.

Audrey turned to Beck. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“You’re scared.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

But Audrey for once refused to let go. “Did Dak say something to you? If he did, you should tell us. It’s not right to keep it to yourself.”

Rebecca looked at the round, worried face. Audrey’s plump fingers were cradling the cross around her neck. “You sound pretty scared yourself.”

“I don’t like all these people coming to the house.” She glanced at the archway to the foyer. “And Pamela—she’s not usually like this. Really, Beck. She’s not. I know the two of you don’t get along, but— well, she’s worried. Maybe it’s just Dad dying. Maybe it’s something else. I don’t know. She hasn’t been herself since she arrived.”

“Since
she
arrived, or since
I
arrived?”

Audrey took a ferocious bite of her sandwich. “What is it with you two? My dad is upstairs dying, and you guys won’t even try to—”

She stopped. Beck’s cell was ringing. Audrey looked impressed, presumably
because they didn’t work up here. Beck lifted it slowly to her ear, knowing what to expect. And was not disappointed. A blast of static. The fax whine. With a shudder, she pressed the red button.

“Wrong number?” said a voice behind her. Pamela stood in the doorway. “He wants you, Beck.” Her tone was listless. “He’s agitated. He gets this way sometimes. Please don’t upset him.”

(ii)

Tonight was different. Tonight she was afraid. Not of Jericho. For Jericho. She climbed the wide stairs to the second floor while the sisters chattered in the kitchen, and she might have been back at Princeton, in the echoing stairwell at the Institute for Advanced Study, shivering as she made her way to Professor Ainsley’s drafty office. When she reached the landing, she almost expected to see the bookshelves and portraits that had lined the halls of the dingy but prestigious building. She stood outside the double doors to the master suite, hesitating with her hand on the knob, much the way she used to hesitate before slipping into Professor Ainsley’s office suite, and trying, with mixed success, to wheedle her way past Mrs. Blumen, the professor’s intimidating secretary, who had come up to Princeton with the great man when he left the Agency.

Then he takes up with a sexy teenaged seductress. That’s what we thought
.

That’s what Mrs. Blumen thought, too. Rebecca would hear it in the acid tone every time she called for an appointment; she would read it in the furious protective glare every time she showed up; she would sense it from the set of the broad back when she tiptoed out again, now and then slightly disheveled, and Mrs. Blumen was hunched over her typewriter, pounding away in anger until the nasty little harlot left. Of course it had never occurred to Mrs. Blumen, any more than it had to Phil Agadakos and his crowd, that Jericho might have been the seducer; that he might have taken advantage of a starry-eyed nineteen-year-old
who had bluffed and begged her way into his seminar, braving the boycotts and protests from those who wanted him kicked off campus for his crimes; that Beck herself might have been the wronged party.

The possibility of Jericho’s fault had never occurred to them because they were trying to protect him, and when we love someone enough to offer protection, we prefer to imagine that the object of our affections is always in the right. Mrs. Blumen had taken care of Jericho Ainsley for most of his professional career; and now she was gone, as were most of his friends, and there was nobody left to protect him.

Nobody but three women who could not manage to get along.

(iii)

His eyes were closed when she took the chair beside the bed. A different book was on the night table now, a collection of classic chess problems. Jericho’s hand was chilly, but she kept squeezing it, wanting to gift him her warmth. She called his name, then again, louder, and he seemed to smile. He looked so healthy still. She wondered what kind of God would create a world where people had to die, and why Audrey worshiped Him. She wondered what Pamela was worried about, and whether Dak was as crazy as Jericho. She remembered Jericho in the old days. He had struck her as eccentric, but in possession of his senses: brilliant, and handsome, and commanding. She thought about their first night together, and how he had guessed that she was a virgin.
I know things
, he had told her, eyes fiery and delighted.
I just know things
.

And she remembered, too, the afternoon Jericho’s cousin Maggie, in those days lieutenant governor of Vermont, had come to talk to the seminar, back when they were still trying to hide their relationship. There were thirty-two students, and Beck’s seat was toward the back, but she felt Margaret Ainsley’s judgmental gaze on her for the entire two hours. The next day, she met Jericho in his office.

She knows
, Beck had told him.
Your cousin knows
.

She’s like me
, he said.
She just knows things
.

“Did you ask her?” he said suddenly, jolting Beck back to the present. She saw that his eyes were open. Maybe they had been open for a while. She realized that she had no idea, because she had been dozing.

“I’m sorry.” Rubbing her eyes. “The mountain air. Uh. Ask who?”

“Audrey. You were supposed to ask her why she quit the family business. Why she left her husband.” He gestured. “Pain pills. Give me lots. Don’t look at me like that. I can’t sleep without them, not for more than an hour. Maybe I’m addicted, but I don’t actually think it matters. Do you?”

She got the pills, poured water from the carafe. “Did you and Dak have a nice visit?”

“Help me turn on my side.”

She did that, too. His body felt warm and vigorous. It was difficult to accept that he might only have weeks. She remembered how her mother had shaved her father near the end, so that he would not have to go to the mortuary looking ragged. She wondered if anybody would bother shaving Jericho.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, we had a lovely visit. Simply lovely. Poor man. It’s driving him crazy. I bet by now he’s recruited you to keep an eye on me, hasn’t he?”

Beck was back in the chair, holding his hand. “What’s driving him crazy?”

“I won’t tell him, and he doesn’t know if I’m bluffing.”

“Won’t tell him what?”

A wolfish grin. “See? He’s recruited you. He would.”

“Nobody recruited me to do anything, Jericho.”

“Not yet, maybe.” He yawned. “But once you start working with me, you’re going to become very popular.”

“What exactly am I working with you on?”

He flashed the roguish grin she had once adored and pointed at the stack of pages from this afternoon.

“Your will?”

“It’s not a will. Ask Audrey. She’ll tell you what it is. I don’t have time to finish it. I want you to finish it.”

Because Audrey turned you down, she decided suddenly. This was what Dak was asking about, whatever was in the folder, and Audrey wanted nothing to do with it.

“What is it? In the folder?”

“Beck, listen,” he said, dying mind already on to another subject. But she was listening already. “Any unusual visitors? Anybody who seemed suspicious?”

About to dismiss the question, Beck had a thought. “There was one. A writer. Lewiston Clark. Red beard. He said he’s working with you on your autobiography.”

“Working with me. That’s a hoot. Acts like he wants to be my Boswell, but what he really wants is to be my Iago. My evil genius,” he translated unnecessarily. “He’s a fool, Beck. A pushy little fool. Called a couple of times. He wants me to tell him secrets. But I don’t tell secrets. I keep secrets.”

“He said you had something for him. Notes. Papers, maybe.” She eyed the thick document.

“Then he’s a lying little fool.” A crafty look came over the tired face. “You remember him, Beck, don’t you? Young Mr. Clark?”

“No. But he acted like he remembered me.”

“I’m quite sure he did. You were rather a memorable undergraduate my dear.”

She was surprised. “Was he at Princeton?”

“Practically led the protests. Against me. Invaded my classroom. Figured he must have hit on you, the way you got around.”

Beck let this thrust slip past her. She was recalling the incursions, the ragtag group of angry students who would barge into the seminar every other week or so, chanting their slogans, waving their signs. And she remembered, hazily, a scrawny kid with red hair—

“That was him?”

A nod. “G. Lewiston Clark himself. ‘G’ is for ‘Gordon,’ and that was what he called himself in those days. Gordon Clark. Arrogant little prick then, arrogant little prick now. Lewiston Clark. Get it? That’s the
problem with journalism today, isn’t it? Lot more interested in being clever than being wise. Gordon Clark. Think he wound up with a
summa
, didn’t he? A
magna
, anyway.”

She shrugged. She had no idea. Those who drop out of college rarely keep close track of the achievements of those who finish.

The hand came up and seized her wrist. “Don’t let him have it. My notes. Promise me.”

“I promise.” She patted his hand. “What’s he up to? He said you’re working together. Why would he tell an obvious lie like that?”

“I wouldn’t know, my dear. But Mr. Clark is the mercenary sort of writer. He writes only books that can get him on television. Scandals. Lies. If you want to know what he’s up to, find out who’s paying him.”

While she considered this, he grinned again. “Now, don’t worry, Beck. My papers aren’t what Dak is looking for. Not sophisticated enough.” Whether he meant his old friend or the papers was unclear. “Don’t worry,” he said again, subsiding.

“I won’t worry.”

“Good girl.” The fire was gone again. “And ask Audrey. Don’t forget.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “Don’t let Dak make you feel guilty. You don’t owe him anything. Neither do I.” His eyes were closed. All at once the words were an effort. “They forced me out, Beck. They shouldn’t have done that. They all got together. They forced me out, and now it’s my turn.”

“Your turn to do what?”

No answer.

Rebecca waited a bit, whispered his name, stroked his hand. When he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, she bade him good night, kissed his forehead, stood up, headed for the door.

“Becky.”

The voice froze her. He had not called her Becky since—well, since. “Yes, Jer-Bear?” she said, the nickname slipping out before she thought about it.

“It’s not my will.”

She moved back toward the bed. He was trying to sit up, eyes alive with a desperate energy. “You told me, honey. Please rest.”

He smiled, and slept.

Or pretended to.

(iv)

She was tempted. She knew he wanted her to be. She had held his hand for a while, just like last night, but now was on her way to the door, and there it was, the very folder he wanted her to protect and also to finish, a couple of hundred pages, sitting there unguarded. She turned toward the bed. He was on his side, back turned toward her. He would never know.

And yet he would. Of course he would. Jericho just knew things, and whether or not he was awake, he had left the folder as some kind of trap. That was how his mind worked, sick or well. All the world was conspiracies, and counterconspiracies, and whether one was plotting the overthrow of another government, a corporate takeover, or just your everyday seduction of a wide-eyed student, all Jericho cared about was coming out on top.

Dak, she was thinking. Dak would find the papers useless. Jericho had said so. But Phil Agadakos knew what was going on, and he had promised her information, as soon as she had something to trade. And he had no way to know that the papers were not what he was looking for.

Beck slipped into the hall, leaving the papers undisturbed as she shut the door behind her.

CHAPTER 8
The Deputy

(i)

The town of Bethel was thirty-two miles from Stone Heights, most of the road downhill, and pointed away from civilization. The first white settlers had been members of a separatist religious sect, and a mossy plaque in Veterans Park commemorated the founders with noble lies about their brave battles against the local Indian tribes. Jericho, she remembered from the old days, was a great admirer of the plaque.
You tell a lie long enough and loud enough
, he used to say,
and it’s the man who knows the truth who sounds like the idiot
.