Stealing Flowers (34 page)

Sally called Isaac a workhorse, but I think
it was more than that. I believed she was developing a long-term
plan of taking over the company with me. She wanted a spy in Stan’s
office. I’d also heard Isaac’s recent partner, had been diagnosed
with the HIV virus. “Is Stan still in Italy?” I asked after I got
him comfortable with coffee in hand.

“He comes in this afternoon. I have been
asked to drop this off to you by Sally.” He handed me the files
concerning management’s salaries for the last decade. “Would you
like to come with Mary and me to the airport?” he said further.

“Should I?”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing
special.”

“I’m meeting Hiro for lunch. Does this suit
look okay?”

I wore a light-blue suit personally tailored
for me. “I don’t like the tie,” he said, “but the rest is
excellent.” I showed him several other ties and he picked out a
grey one with yellow cube-designs which somehow worked. I’d have
never put the two together in a thousand tries.

“Stan will ask me how you’re doing?” Isaac
asked. “What should I say?”

How could I ever tell Stan and Mary that it
looked like some of their oldest, most loyal people were robbing
them? Enormous sums were missing and had been missing for as long
as we had looked back, especially at Nexus Products and Constant
Batteries. They’d been reporting profits far below actual results,
but there were other discrepancies elsewhere as well. Two enormous
problems had presented themselves at exactly the same time. The
suit against The Family of Truth and the audit of Tappets. Hiro had
whispered to me that both were far more dangerous than they looked.
How he knew about the suit against The Family of Truth, I could
only imagine. Little got by him. “Tell him that our second audit is
way behind. How’s Dave doing?”

“He’s developed full-blown AIDS. He cheated
on me and I feel like kicking him out, but he’s dying and I’m not
infected. I guess I’ll be more generous than I ought to be. Tom
Robinson is playing the Palace tonight, do you want to go? There’s
a new place beside it that I want to check out afterwards. We could
have a few drinks.”

“That would be fine.”

Indeed, it was a fine night and I met many
acquaintances of Isaac’s. I wasn’t to see him again until our
company Christmas party at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. That
was Saturday, December 12, 1987, and it had settled into a cold
still night. They were forecasting a bad winter storm. Sally and I
both planned to stay at the hotel overnight, and before the party,
she had invited me up to her room. Her hotel room, similar to mine,
held two king size beds and an oak desk against the wall between
them. To the side, sat a small sitting-room with a large television
and two sofa-chairs. I could tell from the spotless carpets and
fine furniture that the hotel ran smoothly. I’d come to think that
one day we’d run Tappets that way. I felt I was doing well under
Hiro. I was after all working under immense pressure. Hiro thought
I was especially adept at being patient and obliging in stressful
situations. Already I’d earned a reputation as such. After a glass
of wine, I got nervous of Sally. She spoke too softly and touched
me too often. I rose to go, then suddenly she kissed me again. This
time I lost my resistance at once and soon we were under the
covers. As we made love, I found myself crying, and she cried too.
I grew alarmed, how would we ever be able to hide our love?

When we were laying in each other’s arms,
she whispered, “Tell me what you and Hiro are up too?”

“I’m swore to Hiro’s confidence,” I said,
“so, this must be kept secret until it’s official. Mom and Dad, ” I
corrected myself immediately, “Mary and Stan are being embezzled by
a group of their oldest allies. We’ve nothing solid. That’s why
we’re doing the second company-wide audit, beating the bushes, you
might say. You’ve heard Cheryl Garland has suddenly resigned for
health reasons and left the country.”, Cheryl had been the
president of Nexus and one of Mary’s closest allies, Sally nodded.
“That might explain her and a few others’ sudden departures. Not a
word to Una, Mary, or Stan about it for now. As for our litigation
against the Family, Hiro thinks it will be years in the courts and
that it’s become too dangerous. He thinks you should withdraw the
suit.” I looked her in the eyes. “So do I.”

She shrugged, indicating that she wouldn’t.
“Do you have trouble with what we are doing tonight?”

I shook my head but inside was terrified.
“Only my shame dampens my exuberance.”

“You’re spending too much time with Hiro,”
she said with a laugh and looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get
ready for the party.” She kissed me and again we made out,
exchanging our devotion, confusion, and love. I left with much
undecided, but of course, in my heart, there was no choice but the
one I’d already made. I’d a few drinks in the lounge bar and I
entered the Imperial Ballroom a half hour later a little
lightheaded. I spotted Mary and Stan up on a dais at the front of
the room talking to Ken Roxton. Crystal-chandelier-light shone
brightly down on the tables where huge vases of tall colorful
floral-arrangements adorned the dinner settings. It was incredible
and they were exquisite in themselves but sat on tables covered
with white table cloths embroidered with intricate floral
designs.

The presence of everyone in gowns and
tuxedos, the famous paintings on the wall of Angelo Vision, Mary’s
favorite American painter, and the polished hardwood floor made me
self-conscious for some reason. I sensed many people’s glances come
my way. Once Sally stepped into the room, the attention would shift
off me to her. I spotted Una and Isaac at a table to the right of
the dais and headed in that direction but Barbara Read, the
President of Tonal-Flex, intercepted me.

She wore a long cherry-red silk dress
accentuating her graceful figure. She was the youngest President at
Tappets and a protégé of Mary’s, and friend of Sally’s. She’d come
to Tappets years before from General Electric. Her short hair
emphasized her angular features, but I thought that she’d generous
soft eyes. She often did television spots for the Tappet financial
reports on PBS, or other news stations. I’d heard she had been
groomed for this by Sally. “I’d like you to meet my husband,” she
said introducing a tall man with short curly hair, who vigorously
shook my hand. I instantly liked him.

“Do you work with Tappets?” I asked.

“I’m a journalist with the Chicago Tribune.
Can I get you a drink?”

“That would be fine, a ginger ale.”

I sensed a flood of faces trying to get my
attention. I saw Donna Wader, the head of Thorp-Tools and her
husband, and nodded in their direction. I caught others at the bar
or near the piano. I saw Kyoto Takeshi, head of Tappet Tapes and
his lover, a beautiful Chinese woman who I’d seen before, but whose
name I couldn’t remember. “Look at Hiro,” Barbara said, “his suit’s
probably worth five g’s.”

“You’re not part of the fan club?”

“The Euro-Asian sections are reporting some
of the best earnings in the company,” she said. “Of course I
am.”

I laughed and her husband passed me a drink.
I watched silently as a gathering of police literally bustled up to
Mary and Stan. “I wonder what’s happened?” Barbara said softly.

“Something’s wrong,” I returned handing her
husband back my drink. “Excuse me.”

I stepped up to the dais where the podium
and speakers were located. Una sobbed uncontrollably. “What’s
wrong?” I asked Stan in alarm.

I sensed the crowd gasping in shock, but the
noise of collective surprise receded as I clued in, but a stranger
interrupted Stan’s answer: A lanky pale man in an crumply grey suit
came straight to me. “Are you Christian Tappet?” he asked me.

This question seemed to silence everybody
except Una. “Dad, what is it?” I asked, ignoring the man.

“Sally’s dead!”

The words hit so hard, that I felt nothing
at first. “That can’t be,” I said, “we just had a meeting
upstairs.”

“Excuse me,” the man interrupted again, “I
am Detective Fred Newel, NYPD Homicide.” He flashed his badge.
“Could I speak with you in private for a moment?” I looked at him
crossly. “Let me have a word with my parents.”

He stepped aside, though still within
ear-shot. “She’s been murdered,” Mary whispered and hugged me.
“She’s been shot to death. They’ve killed her, the bastards.
They’ve killed her! We should have had Peter protecting her. It’s
my fault.”

Stan put his hand on my shoulder, but his
attention drew to the homicide detective. He spoke in an angry tone
of voice which I hadn’t heard for years, if ever. “What do you
want?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Tappet,” the officer said,
“your son saw her last. We need to talk with him right away.”

Stan took a step forward so that he stood in
the detective’s personal space. “Apparently, he wasn’t the last one
to see her.” Stan quickly looked around. “Ken, I saw Sasha
somewhere. Will you go get her?” Ken sped off.

“Who is she?” Detective Newel asked.

“A company lawyer who’s done some criminal
work.”

Fred Newel rubbed his mustache and scratched
his forehead. “We don’t need her at this point.”

“Take us to our daughter!” Dad demanded.

“That’s not possible,” the detective
returned.

I looked from Stan to the detective. “You
better not wonder about me because of my meeting with Sally
tonight,” I whispered to myself, but he stared at me with what
could only be interpreted as open disdain.

Then Mary suddenly collapsed in Una’s arms
and Isaac drove us back home. We all stayed up, excepting Mary who
was sedated, crying for the most part. In the following days, for
some reason, I shrank inside with fear. No amount of telling could
account for the following hours, even days. They were horrible. The
First Law of Life for those born unlucky, especially orphans, which
in my stupidity I’d forgotten all about again, came down hard. The
night of the murder Detective Newel had indeed threatened to charge
me with Sally’s murder if I didn’t talk to them. I was prepared to
do so, but Sasha Washington convinced me at the time, she was at
the party, to wait until I had a more experienced lawyer in our
camp.

I couldn’t sleep that night and was up the
next morning, groggy and depressed, hoping the nightmare had ended,
but of course that was just the dream of a child. Hours prior to
her murder, I had committed an old, even ancient sin, and I was
afraid it would soon come out. Who would believe that it happened
just that once. The day started with never-ending phone calls, most
of condolences, but several of them were important. We received a
call from Peter saying that the investigator had found blood on
Sally’s remains which wasn’t hers, and sperm and hair samples. Una
and Mary left to make the funeral arrangements.

I realized that if they’d a sperm sample, it
would be mine and that I should tell Mary and Stan that Sally and I
had slept together that night. Stan took me down to the police
station with Sasha Washington, and other lawyers. They took hair
and blood samples from me which I willingly gave. Perhaps Stan had
used his influence to get a change of attitude. I met with this big
guy who everyone called the Fatman, or Fats, Detective Jack Cramer,
a detective with sparse thin grey hair, near baldness, labored
breath, and intelligent eyes. His view of me seemed much more
benign.

“I loved my sister,” I told him. “We already
know who killed her. It wasn’t me.”

“Who?” he said.

“The Family of Truth.”

I told him the whole story, including the
sordid deal in the room hours before the murder. He sighed when he
heard I was sleeping with Sally, and even I explained the situation
in its historical terms and that I wasn’t direct blood, his
estimation of me seemed to falter. Acting on his advice, and
ignoring both Stan and Sasha’s objections, I took two separate
polygraphs administered by two different professionals. Fats
supervised them and when they were done, gave me a smile and patted
me on the back. “Go mourn for your Sally, kid,” he whispered.
“We’ll get the bad guys.”

I didn’t miss that he’d called her my Sally,
not my sister; my instinct that day was to co-operate 100% with
Fats. I trusted him implicitly and he radiated goodness. Before I
left, I ran into Detective Newel. “Confessed, have you?” he asked
with an evil smile.

“How did a janitor get promoted to
Detective?” I returned. Dad was by my side and he gave me one of
his best frowns. Detective Newel stared me down with a look that
can only be described as pure hate. It was creepy.

On the way home, I told Stan what had
happened between Sally and I the night of her murder. Whatever his
reaction was, he completely hid it. We arrived home to thousands of
arrangements or wreaths or flower arrangements, but if it hadn’t
been for the sheer quantity, I would have missed it. I was clued
out. However, the amount was simply mind-boggling, and the phone
calls, and the house calls, never ended. Una was run off her feet,
but I cornered her in the pantry at one point and broke the news of
my indiscretion. She paled.

“This news might make you an enemy of Mary;
she’s no Stan! She forbid you one thing and you did it.”

“This isn’t the Garden of Eden,” I shot
back, “and she isn’t God!”

“This is nearly Eden and she’s almost
God.”

I went straight to my room without telling
Mary, and in my room, I watched reruns of Happy Days and The Mary
Tyler Moore Show. I was reading, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit,
by Sloan Wilson. The book was very disturbing because I felt I was
fighting a war too and needed a woman, a partner, to survive. I
loved Sally, but I knew my situation. I needed a stunning woman to
stand beside me personally and publicly; I phoned Susan Zucker and
left a message, but my heart was heavier than lead. To be truly
free in this world seemed impossible. We were collectivists and
fascists. Being human wasn’t such a fantastic thing. So much evil
existed that living in dignity and peace appeared hopeless. Una,
Mary, and Stan’s dream of universal peace seemed like an illusion.
Unlike them, people were ignorant and did bad things. I had
disobeyed the only people that ever cared for me. What was that?
How was it possible? Are humans so brittle; so hollow at the core?
I despaired.