Recoil (15 page)

Vasquez tipped forward in the rocker and got to his feet. He lifted an eyebrow in Mathieson's direction and stepped off the porch and walked away toward the trees. Mathieson followed him past the Cadillac to the far side of the clearing where Vasquez stopped and thrust his hands into his pockets. “I wasn't sure how soundproof those walls might be.”

“Why?”

“When I undertake a commission it's not my habit to cavil over details. Don't misunderstand this, but I wish you had told me you were having marital difficulties. It may make a substantial difference.”

“What makes you think—”

“I'm not an imbecile. I've got eyes.”

“Things are tough on Jan right now. Tougher than they are on me.”

“It's nothing that recent.”

“Aren't you getting a little out of line?”

Vasquez said, “Whatever program we settle on, you can be sure it will demand your full attention. If you're going to be distracted by emotional turbulence it will undermine your efficiency. How long have you been estranged?”

“Estranged? We've never been separated.”

“Don't quibble over definitions.”

“We've got an understanding.”

“You're still splitting hairs. I'm not prying out of seedy curiosity, you know.”

He regarded Vasquez dismally over a stretching interval. The undulating rasp of a light plane somewhere above the mountains distracted him briefly; finally he said: “It goes back to the first time. When we had to pick up and leave New York. Things started going sour then.”

“How old was your son?”

“Four. I suppose we both kept hoping the sores would heal. I think they still can. I want us to be the Mathiesons again, at least—we had a chance to get somewhere from that point. Things were better the last few years, much better than they'd been before. Now it's collapsed—she can't take any more of this pressure. It isn't her fault. She never asked for any of this.”

“She supported you in your initial resolve to testify against Pastor.”

“Yes. Maybe she didn't realize what it would cost. I know I didn't. They told me but I didn't listen. Not really—not in the gut. My own parents were dead, I was an only child—I had no one terribly close. I had to give up a number of friends. With Jan it was a lot worse. Her mother, her brother and two sisters, there was a young niece she adored. She hasn't communicated with any of them in eight years. Can you imagine what that's done to her? Her father died three years ago—we couldn't even go to the funeral. Bradleigh told us it was watched by one of Ezio Martin's goons.”

“Do you blame yourself?”

“I blame Frank Pastor.”

“Good. This would have no chance of success at all if you were overburdened with self-pity.”

“Self-pity doesn't come into it.”

Vasquez said, “Do you love your wife?”

“Of course I do.”

“You said that rather quickly.”

He drew a breath and closed his eyes. “You're a pill. Yes, I love her. Would I have stuck it out otherwise?”

“You might. Habit, addiction, fear of loneliness, consideration for the child. I'm sure there are men who stay with their wives even though the only feeling they have for them is hatred.”

Mathieson wheeled, angry clear through; he walked away several paces. To his back Vasquez said, “In any case things are threadbare.”

“You could put it that way.” He snapped it out viciously; he turned to face Vasquez. “Haven't you wormed enough data out of me yet for your computer? What's the readout?”

“I have only one further question. Do you believe that solving your difficulties with Pastor will restore your marriage, or at least give you an opportunity to salvage it? Or have things gone too far for that?”

“I think we can put it back together. But you're missing an important point. Whether my wife and I love each other or detest each other, it's all the same—she's stuck with me until this is finished. What else can she do? Go out on her own? Take Ronny with her? Pastor could find them. He'd find them and he'd use them to reach me. If you were thinking of forcing things to a head and putting some kind of ultimatum to us then you'd better forget it. She stays with me until this is finished.”

“I wasn't unaware of that factor.” Vasquez tipped his head to one side. “But it wasn't clear whether you were.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“You and your wife may not have a choice in the matter but I do. If she's going to be an irritant I'll put her and the boy in a safe place away from you until you've concluded your business. But if, on balance, she and the boy will render you more support and solidity than anxiety, then I'd prefer to keep you together. It's not a vital decision, perhaps, but it could prove important. And I assure you it's a decision best left to me. You're not sufficiently detached to make it sensibly. And since it must be my decision, it was necessary for me to pry.”

“And what's the decision?”

“They stay with you. We go together.”

“Where?”

“It's a bit of a drive. Beyond Los Angeles—not too far north of the border. We'll drive down in the morning.”

2

It was in the mountains forty miles northeast of San Diego—a stand of trees along a stream, a little valley rising on all sides toward moonscape summits.

A gravel drive carried them in from the state highway. It threaded a notch in the hills and bent its way through canyons, switchbacking over a pass between peaks that were littered with gray boulders the size of great houses. On a farther slope he could see an eerie stretch of mountainside tufted with the seedlings and charcoaled stumps of an old forest fire.

The gravel road brought them up from the boxed lower end of the valley past a large pond: It was almost a lake. It didn't look stagnant and therefore there had to be some kind of earth-fault outlet that must carry its overflow under the surrounding mountains to the inland watershed beyond. Past the lake the driveway skirted along the long stand of cotton-woods and sycamores along the stream; a white three-rail fence ran along both sides of the drive. There were green paddocks and neatly maintained corrals, a huge brown barn, a variety of outbuildings. At the end there was a great lawn landscaped with stone-border flower beds and isolated evergreens trimmed into cones and balls. The driveway looped up through this rich greenery to the porte cochere of a big Victorian house—a graceful anachronism of gables and bay window and rambling wings.

“Good Lord,” Jan murmured.

“Vasquez certainly has a sense of the dramatic.”

Ronny said, “He owns all this?”

“It's not his,” Mathieson said. “He's borrowing it. He told me that much.”

Vasquez appeared on the veranda, emerging through a pair of French doors. He walked along to the porte cochere as Mathieson parked under it. He gave them the benediction of his welcoming smile.

They all got out. “What an extraordinary place,” Jan said.

Vasquez said, “If it looks familiar you must be an old movie buff.”

“I had a feeling I'd seen it before,” Mathieson said.

“The studios used it for location work on at least a hundred pictures. All those movies about the racing gentry in Maryland and Virginia—they filmed them here. It doesn't take a terribly keen imagination to picture Joseph Cotten crossing this veranda in jodhpurs.”

Vasquez came down around the car and reached inside to tap the horn: He honked it twice and the blasts startled Mathieson.

Ronny said, “Who owns all this?”

“It was the property of a man named Philip Breed—a Texas oil heir. He had several homes. At one time he produced a few motion pictures and he built this in the 1920s as his California headquarters—his company filmed a number of Tom Mix Westerns here. Breed maintained a stable of racing quarterhorses—he was one of the pioneers who built the sport up from nothing to its present level. This estate became a sort of retirement home for Breed's quarterhorses after their racing careers were ended. Some of those horses are still here. Breed died four years ago and the will is still being contested by a bewildering assortment of claimants. A trust organization maintains the property—occasionally the organization lets it out to film companies.”

Mathieson said, “I'm making an effort not to think about what this is going to cost us.”

“Virtually nothing, really.”

“Oh?”

“The principal trustee is a former client of mine. He feels obliged to do me an occasional favor. Of course you'll pay for your food, drink, laundry and incidentals. And I intend to bill you for Homer Seidell's salary while he's here putting you in shape.” Vasquez took the keys from him and opened the trunk of the car.

“Putting me in shape?”

Vasquez straightened. He turned a circle on his heels. “Where do you suppose he's hidden himself?” He looked at his watch. “By ‘putting you in shape' I mean subjecting you to a training program designed to teach you competence and confidence.”

Jan was listening quizzically. “What does that mean?”

“If you walk into a room with your enemy and you have absolute confidence you can beat him at any game he chooses to play, it's going to make a decided difference in the way you handle the situation.”

“I see,” Mathieson said.

“I'm not sure you do; but never mind, you'll find out soon enough. You could sum it up by saying we're going to war and you need to be taught some of the warrior's arts.”

“That's not exactly what I had in mind when I came to you.”

“You put yourself in my hands, didn't you. You're paying for my judgment.” Vasquez's abrupt expression of amusement took him by surprise. “Never mind—I enjoy melodrama.” Vasquez went back around the car but before he could reach the horn Mathieson saw a man appear at the corner of the house carrying a golf club.

“Ah. Homer.”

The man walked forward with a sailor's gait, shoulders rolling and head rocking, legs bowed, moving on the balls of his feet. He was no taller or wider than Vasquez but he had the chest and biceps of a weight lifter. He had the pitted narrow face of a street thug.

Vasquez made introductions. Homer Seidell wasn't a knuckle-crusher but his grip was authoritative. He had an odd brief smile—as if the skin around his mouth was stretched too tight.

He lifted the suitcases out of the trunk. “We're putting you in the Ronald Colman suite. It's the best digs in the house.” It was the voice of a much bigger man—husky but powerful.

Vasquez held the door for them. Ronny dashed inside fearlessly. The vast center-hall foyer was hung with oil landscapes but they might as well have been Gainsborough portraits; the space was darkly paneled and dominated by an enormous pewter chandelier and a sweeping rosewood staircase.

Homer Seidell said, with amusement, “Welcome to boot camp, Mr. Merle.”

3

The suite had two huge rooms connected by a bathroom whose marble decor and gold-plated plumbing reminded him of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

Homer Seidell deposited the luggage on ottomans and Vasquez stood in the door with a proprietary air identifying the amenities and facilities: There was a Mrs. Meuth who would look after their housekeeping needs; there was a Mr. Meuth, the groundskeeper; there was Perkins who looked after the place's mechanical needs and had charge of the livestock.

“Perkins can help you pick out a steed for your adventures. It would be wise if you confined your riding to the valley. It should give you enough elbow room—there's an area of some thirty square miles to explore. Perkins prefers that the horses not be taken into the foothills. You'll understand that—it's very rocky terrain.”

Ronny gulped. “Yes, sir, I understand.”

Vasquez turned to Jan. “It's an ideal topography for us. This house sits on the highest spot in the valley. On horseback the boy will be able to see the house from any point, and be seen from it.”

She took his meaning. Vasquez told her, “This will be your home for a while. Settle in, make yourselves comfortable. Incidentally you'll find quite a good film collection in the library—prints of several hundred excellent motion pictures. Mrs. Meuth can help you with the projectors. There's also television throughout the house, of course. Meuth does the shopping, usually twice a week, and he always returns with newspapers and magazines. The swimming pool is immediately behind the house. There's an indoor pool as well, in the north basement, but it isn't kept heated this time of year. If you prefer golf there are three holes laid out on the west lawn. Mrs. Meuth is employed to provide cooking for whatever guests are present but she doesn't take offense if you care to do your own from time to time. If you'd like to choose your own menus you may give Mr. Meuth a shopping list—his next scheduled trip is tomorrow morning.”

“Are we confined to the estate?”

“You're not prisoners here, Mrs. Mathieson, but if you elect to go off on excursions I should appreciate your giving me twenty-four hours' notice so that I may bring down a few members of my staff to escort you.” He glanced at Mathieson: “Naturally such services will be billed to you. But you understand the necessity.”

“Yes.”

“We'll take your husband off now. I'm afraid you and the young man will have to fend for yourselves most of the time.”

“We'll manage. Thank you.” Her face came around toward Mathieson. “Good luck.” She was smiling but he couldn't fathom what might be behind the smile. Unnerved he followed Vasquez down the corridor with Homer Seidell; they went downstairs and Vasquez strode right out the front door. “May I have the keys to your car?”

He passed them over and Vasquez handed them to Homer. When Homer pulled the car away Vasquez said, “If you want the car it will be in the garage beside the main barn. The keys will be in it—we don't have thieves up here.”