Silent Partner (53 page)

Behind the desk sat Billy Vidal, bright-eyed and brush-cut, square-jawed and perfectly seamed.

His strong-tea tan was set off nicely by an ivory-colored turtleneck under a white cashmere V-neck. No cowboy gear for the chairman of Magna; he was Palm Beach polished, golf-course fit. His hands lay flat on the desktop, manicured, baby smooth.

"Dr. Delaware, thank you for coming."

His voice didn't fit with the rest of him—a hoarse, wispy croak, cracking between words.

I said nothing.

He looked straight at me with pale eyes, held the stare for a while, then said, "That was an icebreaker that fell flat." His last words petered out to a lip-sync. He cleared his throat, produced more laryngitic whisper. "Sorry for any inconvenience you've been caused. There didn't seem to be any other way."

"Any other way for what?"

"To arrange a chat between us."

"All you had to do was ask."

He shook his head. "The problem was timing. Until recently I wasn't sure it was wise for us to meet. I've been debating that issue since you started asking questions."

He coughed, tapped his Adam's apple. "But today, when you visited my sister, you made the decision for me. Things had to be done quickly and carefully. So once again, I'll apologize for the way you were brought here, and hope we can put that to rest and move on."

I could still feel the chafe of the cuffs around my wrists, thought of the copter ride, mainlining fear while waiting for Hummel and his golf cart, fingers up my ass.

Cute little dance, son. I knew my rage would weaken me if I let it take over.

"Move on to what?" I said, smiling.

"Our discussion."

"Of what?"

"Please, Doctor," he rasped, "don't waste precious time being coy."

"Short on time, are you?"

"Very much so."

Another staring match. His gaze never wavered but his eyes lost focus and I sensed he was somewhere else.

Page 322

"Thirty years ago," he said, "1 had the opportunity to witness an atomic test conducted jointly by the Magna Corporation and the U.S. Army. A festive event, by invitation only, out in the Nevada desert. We spent the

night in Las Vegas, had a wonderful party, and drove out before sunrise. The bomb went off just as the skies lightened—a supercharged sunrise. But something went wrong: a sudden shift in the winds and all of us were exposed to radioactive dust. The army said there was little risk of contamination—no one thought much about it until fifteen years ago, when the cancers began appearing. Three quarters of those present that morning are dead. Several others are terminally ill. It's only a matter of time for me."

I studied his well-fed face, all that glowing bronze dermis, said, "You look healthier than I do."

"Do I sound healthy?"

I didn't answer.

"Actually," he said, "I am healthy. For the time being. Low cholesterol, excellent lipids, a heart as strong as a blast furnace. A few lumps in my esophagus removed surgically last year, no evidence of spread." He pulled down the collar of the turtleneck, exposed a hot-pink puckered scar.

"Delicate skin, I develop keloid scars—do you suppose I should bother with plastic surgery?"

"That's up to you."

"I've considered it, but it seems a foolish conceit. The cancer's bound to return. Ironically, the treatment includes radiation. Not that treatment has made much of a difference for any of the others."

He folded his collar back in place. Tapped his Adam's apple.

"What about Belding?" I said. "Was he exposed?"

He smiled, shook his head. "Leland was protected. As

always."

Still smiling, he opened a desk drawer, took out a small plastic squeeze bottle and shot some kind of atomized spray down his throat. He deep-swallowed a couple of times, put the bottle back, reclined in his chair, and smiled wider.

I said, "What is it you want to discuss?" "Matters that seem to interest you. I'm willing to satisfy your curiosity on condition that you stop turning over rocks. I know your intentions are honorable but you don't realize how destructive you could be."

"I don't see how I could add to the destruction that's already taken place."

"Dr. Delaware, I want to leave this earth knowing everything's been done to cushion certain individuals."

Page 323

"Such as your sister? Isn't cushioning her what caused all of it, Mr.Vidal?"

"No, that's incorrect—but then, you've seen only part of the picture."

"And you're going to show me all of it?"

"Yes." Cough. "But you must give your word that you'll stop probing, let things finally rest."

"Why pretend that I have a choice?" I said. "If I don't give you what you want, you can always squash me. The way you squashed Seaman Cross, Eulalee and Cable Johnson, Donald Neurath, the Kruses."

He was amused. "You believe I've destroyed all those people?"

"You, Magna, what's the difference?"

"Ah. Corporate America as Satan Incarnate."

"Just this particular corporation."

His laugh was feeble and breathy. "Doctor, even if I did have an interest in... squashing you, I wouldn't. You've acquired a certain... aura of grace."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yes. Someone cared deeply about you. Someone lovely and kind—dear to both of us."

Not dear enough to stop him from erasing her identity.

I said, "I saw that someone talking to you at the party. She wanted something from you. What?"

The pale eyes closed. He pressed his fingers to his

temples.

I said, "From Holmby Hills to Willow Glen. Five hundred dollars a month, in an unmarked envelope. Doesn't sound as if she was that dear to you."

He opened his eyes. "Five hundred? Is that what Helen told you?" He produced another wheezy laugh, wheeled

his chair back, put his feet on the desk. He wore black silk corduroy slacks, tan lambskin kilties with argyle socks. The soles of the shoes were polished, unmarked, as if they'd never touched the ground.

"All right," he said. "Enough shilly-shallying. Tell me what it is you think you know—I'll correct your misconceptions."

"Meaning you find out how much trouble I could cause you, then act accordingly."

Page 324

"I understand how you could see it that way, Doctor. But what I'm really after is preventive education—giving you the whole picture, so that you no longer have any need to cause trouble."

Silence.

He said, "If my offer doesn't appeal to you, I'll have you flown back home immediately."

"What are my chances of arriving there alive?"

"One hundred percent. Barring acts of God."

"Or God pretending to be the Magna Corporation."

He laughed. "I'll try to remember that one. What is it then, Doctor? The choice is yours."

I was at his mercy. Going along meant learning more. And buying time. I said, "Go ahead, educate me, Mr. Vidal."

"Excellent. Let's do it like gentlemen, over supper." He pushed something on the desk front.

The gun display wall half-rotated, revealing a closet-sized passageway with a screen door that he opened to fresh air.

We stepped onto a long, covered patio, supported by gray-brown turned-wood columns and paved with rust-colored Mexican tile. Thick-trunked bougainvillea rooted in clay pots wound their way around the columns and up to the roof, where they spread. Straw baskets of donkey-tail and jade plant hung from the rafters. A large round table was covered with sky-blue damask and set for two: earthenware dishes hammered-silver flatware, crystal goblets, a centerpiece of dried herbs and flowers. He'd been sure of my "choice."

A. Mexican waiter appeared from nowhere and held

out my chair. I walked past him, crossed the patio, and stepped out into the open air. The sun's position said dusk was approaching, but the heat was midday strong.

I stepped back far enough from the building to take it in entirely: long, low, single-storied, textured mock-adobe walls, windows trimmed with the same gray-brown wood used for the columns. Flagstone walkways cut a swath through an acre or two of lawn bordered by yellow gazania. Beyond the grass was dry dust and an empty horse corral. Past the corral, more dust, miles of it, the biscuit-colored monotony broken only by clumps of aloe and Joshua tree, and paint-by-number splotches of ashen shadow.

And backing all of it, the source of the shadows: granite mountains. Majestic, black-tipped, knife-edged against a sapphire sky. Picture-postcard mountains, so perfect they could have been a photographer's backdrop.

My eyes swept downward, to a particular spot on the lawn, seeking out a wooden garden bench.

Nothing. But my memory placed one there anyway.

A posing spot.

Two little girls in cowgirl suits, eating ice cream.

Page 325

I looked back at Vidal. He'd sat down, was unfurling his napkin, saying something to the waiter as his wine glass was filled.

The waiter laughed, filled my glass, and left.

The former Billy the Pimp held his hand out to my chair.

I took another look at the mountains, saw only stone and sand now. The play of light and shadow on inanimate surface.

All the memories wiped out.

Vidal beckoned.

I walked back to the patio.

HE ATE, fiercely, obsessively, an impeccably mannered cobra. Striking at his food, cutting it into tiny pieces and tenderizing it to puree before ingesting. Guacamole ostentatiously mixed tableside by the waiter, using a rough stone mortar and pestle. A salad of wild greens and marinated onions. Homemade corn tortillas, newly churned butter, barbecued swordfish steaks, six kinds of salsa, pork loin roast in some kind of sweet, piquant sauce. A Char-donnay and a Pinot Noir he took pains to inform me were estate-bottled at a Sonoma winery run by Magna exclusively for its own consumption.

A couple of times I saw him wince after swallowing, wondered how much of his pleasure was gustatory, how much appreciation that his mouth still worked.

He'd accepted a second portion of pork before he noticed my untouched food.

"Not to your liking, Doctor?" "I'd rather be educated than eat."

Smile. Dice. Puree. The human Veg-O-Matic.

"Where are we?" I asked. "Mexico?" "Mexico," he said, "is a state of mind. Someone witty once said that, though for the life of me I can't remember who—probably Dorothy Parker. She said all the witty things, didn't she?" Cut, chew. Swallow. I said, "Why did Sharon kill herself?" He lowered his fork. "That's an end point, Doctor. Let's proceed chronologically." "Proceed away."

He drank wine, winced, coughed, kept eating, sipped some more. I looked out at the desert as it darkened to madder-brown. Not a sound, not a bird in the sky. Maybe the animals knew something.

Finally he pushed his plate away and tapped his fork on the table. The Mexican waiter appeared, along with two heavy black-haired women in long brown dresses. Vidal said something in rapid Spanish. The table was cleared and each of us was served a pewter bowl of green ice cream.

I took a taste. Cloyingly sweet. "Cactus," said Vidal. "Very soothing." He took a long time with the dessert. The waiter brought coffee flavored with anise. Vidal thanked him, dismissed him, and dabbed his lips.

Page 326

"Chronological order," I said. "How about starting with Eulalee and Cable Johnson."

He nodded. "What do you know about them?" "She was one of Belding's party girls; he was a petty crook. A pair of small-town hustlers trying to make it in Hollywood. Not exactly major league dope dealers."

He said, "Linda—I always knew her as Linda—was an exquisite creature. A diamond in the rough, but physically magnetic—that intangible something that can't be bought at any price.

Back in those days we were surrounded by beauties, but she stood out because she was different from the rest—less cynical, a certain pliability."

"Passivity?"

"I suppose someone in your line of work would look at it as a flaw. I saw it as an easygoing nature, felt she was the right woman to help Leland."

"Help him with what?"

"Become a man. Leland didn't understand women. He froze up when he was around them, couldn't... perform. He was far too intelligent to miss the irony — all that money and power, the country's most eligible bachelor and still a virgin at forty. He wasn't a physical person, but every kettle has its boiling point and the frustration was getting in the way of his work. I knew he'd never solve the problem by himself. It fell upon my shoulders to find a... guide for him. I explained the situation to Linda. She was amenable, so I arranged for the two of them to be together. She was more, Dr. Delaware, than a party girl. "

I said, "Sexual favors for a fee. Sounds like something else."

He refused to be offended. "Everything has its price, Doctor. She was simply doing, thirty years ago, what a sexual surrogate would do today."

I said, "You didn't just pick her for her personality."

"She was beautiful," he said. "Likely to stimulate."

"That's not what I meant."

"Oh?" He sipped his coffee, said, "Tepid," and rapped his spoon on the table three times. The waiter appeared out of the darkness with a fresh pot. I wondered what else was concealed out there.

He drank the steaming liquid, looked as if someone had poured acid down his throat. It took several moments before he tried to speak, and when he did I had to lean forward to hear: "Why don't you tell me what you're driving at."

"Her sterility," I said. "You picked her because you thought she was unable to bear children."

"You're a very bright young fellow," he said, then raised his cup to his lips again and hid behind a cloud of steam. "Leland was a very squeamish man—that was part of his problem. Not having to worry about taking pre-

Page 327

cautions was a point in her favor. But a minor factor, a bit of messiness that could have been dealt with."

"I was thinking of something a bit messier," I said. "An heir born out of wedlock."

He drank more coffee.

I said, "Why'd you think she couldn't conceive?"