The Duration (17 page)

I followed Jimmer's rented Range Rover slowly down Bramble and past the turnoff to my old house. The dashboard temp gauge on the Escalade read 15, and the woodland around Fleur-de-Lys seemed absolutely still. It was a long 2 miles downhill from the philistine comforts of the town center to the marble gates of Head-Connect, nothing in between but a few houses and some overgrown meadows. Head-Connect was famous for its restrictions on what you could bring in—it was sort of like a dietary airplane—and sometimes in high school, we'd see desperate spa guests trudging like refugees along the side of the road, heads down in shame, heading up to O'Brien's Market for nicotine and Oreos.

At the gatehouse, Jimmer went first, pulling up to the long plank across the drive and lowering his window. A guard leaned out of the gatehouse and waved a flashlight over the car like a wand. In my headlights, I could see Jimmer reaching for documents in an attaché case on the passenger seat. The guard had Jimmer press his palm onto a sensor. A second guard came out and walked around the car with what looked like a golf club. The process took about ten minutes. Then Jimmer was past and rolling slowly up the long drive.

I pulled ahead. The entry guard flagged me down. He was leaning out of a little cottage-like structure, a dwarf-house, but I could see the glow of monitors inside.

“Hello, sir,” he said. I didn't recognize him. “Can I just take a quick look at your identification?”

I reached for my wallet.

“I'm with him,” I said, gesturing to the taillights meandering ahead of me as the other guard, a younger guy no doubt lower on the totem pole, did whatever he did with the golf club.

The security guard gave the interior of the Escalade a quick once-over with his flashlight.

“Oh, I know, sir,” he said. “It's just protocol.”

The guard took my license and pecked on a keyboard, my data filling some sort of form. He held out the pad for me to press. When I took my hand away, an outline of it glowed on the screen.

“Thank you, Mr. Johansson,” he said. “Valet is just up the drive.”

I nodded to him, as if this was just one of many luxury spa entry exams I would endure this week, as if this was my life. He smiled back, a professional smile of both warmth and distance.

Up the drive, the pea-stones crunching under my wheels. Speed bumps. Walking paths and resting benches. Private villas appearing beyond an iced-over pond. A row of pines to the right, beyond which fifteen Jesuits lay buried. Relics from the mansion's brief Sisters of Mercy interregnum, once in the ground there forever. To the left, 50 yards of snow-dusted lawn and then the woods, thick and quiet. I tried to imagine a rhino trudging down this drive, battered and raw, having had enough. I looked, as I'd done in my youth, for a break in the woods, an entry-point that might have appealed to the mad, cloudy eyes of an ungulate, but, as always, none revealed itself.

After a hundred yards, the mansion came fully into view, glowing like a cruise ship on a white sea. Where before there'd been saplings and broken rock, now planters and smaller courtyards formed a moat around the ground floor, beyond which French doors opened out from the marble. On the second floor, tall half-moon windows, eight a side, looked out onto the lawns. They'd been broken and boarded up for years. Despite the season, despite the hour, they blazed like a portal to some galvanized era, lavish and imperturbable. As I approached, I could see trails wending their way from the main house out onto the property, lit every 50 yards or so by torches, half of them looping back and the other half vanishing into the distant tree line.

I bent my truck around to the left and into the graceful roundabout that led to the guest entrance and reception. The Head-Connect facilities occupied a series of one-story outbuildings, clean lines and glass wings radiating from and encircling the main mansion. This was all recent construction, tastefully done, the colors muted and local and blending with both sight lines and surroundings. No nuns had seen these buildings, no carriage-men or acrobats or midwives. They were new to me, even. I couldn't tell how big the place was, where it stopped. It felt like origami.

At the top of the rotary, six valets waited in pine green jackets, youngish, fit, but standing with a poise that marked them as professionals. Who were these guys? Private schoolers? Full-time valets? Actors from the Shakespeare troupe up the road? I couldn't place them. Felt like the twilight zone.

Jimmer was already out of his Range Rover, and the Rover was already gone, and a porter had already swept the sleek shoulder bag from his arm by the time I pulled up. As I looked right, to the entrance, my door opened on the left, and another valet stepped gracefully away from the truck.

“Welcome, sir,” he said.

I put the truck into park and got out.

“Bags?”

“Nah,” I said, fishing in my wallet for small bills. “I'm good.”

I pulled out a couple of ones and offered them up. The valet raised his palm.

“Thank you, sir, but not necessary,” he said. “All gratuities are included in your package.”

I nodded like I'd known that. My package includes gratuities. Not the first time I've heard that. Hey!

The valet extended his arm toward the entrance.

“Right through those doors there,” he said. “Enjoy your stay.”

I crossed to Jimmer, who was moving a thin stylus across a small flat screen. He looked up only long enough to confirm I was there, then walked in through the sliding doors to the Head-Connect lobby. I followed.

Inside, the lobby was bathed in flattering light. The floor was marble, edged with sound-swallowing rugs. A glass table in the middle of the room held a huge vase of snow-white calla lilies. Water fountains and warm wood. Modern, vaguely Native American art adorned the walls. Doors opened onto meeting rooms. Low tables held swaths of lifestyle magazines and glossy brochures. The banquettes coddled you. The mirrors made you look taller and less indecisive.

I scanned the lobby for a safe.

There was no safe.

Relief.

Jimmer was at the front desk, where a stunning young woman of indeterminate ethnicity was handing him a sleeve of keys and a dossier. I saw her gesture toward the concierge desk, off to the right, and signal for a porter to relocate Jimmer's minimal luggage to its proper place within the establishment.

Ava Winston stood at the concierge desk, looking at a computer monitor. She had her hair pulled into an upscale ponytail, a perfect golden spout pouring off the back of her head. I'd forgotten it was blond. In my memories she always wore baseball hats.

We approached, Jimmer more assertively than I. I think I was waiting for an invitation. When we crossed the 3-yard threshold, Ava Winston looked up. They must drill on that threshold, I thought, the perfect distance, remaining engaged and inconspicuous right up until the moment before a guest initiated contact, then fully present and ready to help. As if the guest was carrying a fob.

“Mr. O'Neill,” she said, her voice warm and smooth. “Welcome to Head-Connect at Fleur-de-Lys.”

She came out from behind the concierge desk and stood the perfect distance from Jimmer. She was in a charcoal skirt and jacket. Her hands were clasped behind her back. Her calves looked aerodynamic.

“We are so happy to have you join us.”

Jimmer nodded, acknowledging their gratitude. He looked around the lobby as Ava Winston continued to talk.

“We have a tour tomorrow morning after Welcoming that we recommend for first-time visitors,” she said. “Or I am happy to show you around now.”

Jimmer made a point of checking his watch, a thin, lovely thing that managed to look ostentatious in its restraint.

“Actually, I've got a couple of calls to make,” he said, handing me a room key. “Perhaps you can give my associate here a tour?”

He turned to me and winked.

“Of course,” said Ava Winston, looking at me quickly and then back at Jimmer. He was pretty clearly the main attraction here. It must have been some algorithm.

“You're in . . . ” She checked her console quickly. “Birch. That's a suite here in our main building. One of our bellmen will show you to it.”

Jimmer was already back on his tablet, ambling off toward an ascending hallway by the main desk as a shadow figure appeared to escort him.

“Thank you,” he said without looking back, unpresent, gone.

Ava Winston watched him go, a mix of professional attention and mild affront on her face. Then she turned to me. She looked at me for a second with a courtesy smile on her face, and then let it widen, almost grudgingly, into a toothier one.

“I know you,” she said. “Don't I?”

“No you don't,” I said. I was Obi-Wan and she was the storm trooper.

“You're Pete Johansson.”

“Nope.”

She turned back toward where Jimmer had gone and spoke in a low voice.

“Oh my God, and that's Jimmer,” she said. “James O'Neill.”

She looked for a second like she might snort-laugh, but pulled out of it.

“James O'Neill. He only booked the room yesterday, we didn't have time to double background.”

She turned back to me.

“You little fuckers,” she hissed, and punched me on the arm, and then immediately caught her breath and looked around the lobby to see if anyone had heard the profanity, if anybody was watching. Nobody was.

Ava grinned broadly.

“Sment,” I said. “Have you heard of it?”

“Sment the digital fragrance system?”

I nodded.

“Sment. He is Sment.”

She looked after him again.

“Huh.”

She turned to me.

“Well, that explains the deposit.”

“Sment,” I said, taking a deep, appreciative breath through my nose. “I'm using it right now, actually. A little something I call ‘Trouble in Marrakesh.'”

Ava Winston looked me up and down, the smile creeping back onto her face. She sniffed the air and frowned.

“I would have thought yours was factory-installed,” she said. She took my arm and led me down a long hallway out of the lobby. “Let's go.”

“It's great to see you,” Ava said, stopping me when we'd rounded a corner and were no longer visible to the reception staff.

“You too,” I said. Awkward pause, then hug.

Ava broke it and looked around quickly.

“How's your dad?” I said.

“He's good.”

Her cheeks flushed slightly.

“Sorry. I'm not used to coming across real people here. He's good! Oh man, he won't believe this. Ah, he retired a couple of years ago. Happy in his retirement. Still has a house here but spends a lot of time in Nevada.”

“Nevada?”

“One of the perks of working for the company. Family discounts. He's just about the healthiest sixty-eight-year-old on the planet. Or, at least, that's my goal for him.”

I nodded. “Got it. And you're here, doing this.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Right, come check it out.”

We kept walking down the hallway. On the wall there were charcoal drawings and chakras, shit that seemed to be trying very hard to be covertly motivational. Must have been working, because I felt like some yoga. Never did yoga before. Kelly used to do yoga. It looked like a lot of work.

“Guest rooms are this way,” Ava said, gesturing down a side passage. “Yours is down there to the left. The main spa building is straight ahead.”

I looked around. I hadn't seen another guest since we arrived.

“You guys do good business in the winters?” I asked.

Ava Winston nodded.

“We're fully booked. We were able to fit you in only because of a cancellation.”

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Around. You'll see. It's easy to fill your time.”

She paused.

“So, like, are you Sment too?”

I shook my head.

“Nah, I'm just along for the ride,” I said.

“Nice ride,” she said, a little self-congratulatorily. “What are you up to?”

“I'm a lawyer,” I said.

“In Boston, right?”

I nodded.

“I see Unsie sometimes,” she said. “He's my link to the outside world.”

We'd reached smoked-glass doors at the end of the hall.

“Wait,” she said, stopping short. She looked at me closely. “This is about Chickie Benecik, isn't it?”

I tried to look surprised.

“Pete, tell me it's not about Chickie Benecik.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, and as I said it I could hear that I had no future in the courtroom.

She could hear it too.

“Listen, I don't know what that stuff was about the other night—last night, Jesus. It was last night. But I swear to God, you better not screw around with me here. Sment or no Sment, I will run you guys out of here on a rail.”

I put my hands up.

“Ava, when have I ever screwed around with you?”