The Inheritors (2 page)

I looked at him.

“I can’t run like I used to.”

I was silent for a moment. “Cut down on your fucking.”

He grinned. “I gave that up a long time ago. I even stopped going down to give a little head. I get dizzy.”

“If you’re trying to tell me that you’re going to die, don’t bother. I never thought you were immortal.”

He stared at me. His voice was genuinely shocked. “I always did.”

I lit the cigarette and turned away. The surfers were already testing the water. I could hear the sounds of their voices floating back on the wind.

“I’m selling out, Steve. I wanted you to be the first to know it.”

“Why me?”

“In a kind of way it’s like it was three years ago. And when I turn around, you’re the only one there. Only this time the shoe is on the other foot. I can’t hurt you, you can hurt me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I want you to come back.”

“No.” My answer hung flatly in the breeze. “I’m never going back.”

He put his hand on my arm. “You have to listen to me. Hear what I have to say.”

I didn’t answer.

“I can get thirty-two million dollars from Palomar Plate for my share of the company.”

“Take it and run,” I said.

“I would if I could. But that’s not all of it. They want a guarantee of continuity. And I can’t give it to them. But they said they’ll accept you instead of me.”

I stared at him for a long silent moment. “I’m not interested.”

“You got to come back,” he said intensely. “You know what I been through the last few years while you been sittin’ up there on the hill, countin’ your money and fucking your head off?

“I been sweatin’ out disaster. Three years of it. Nothing went right. Everything I tried went right into the shithouse. Right before my eyes I watched it all turn to ashes. Then I got lucky. I hit a big one. And suddenly everybody says Sam Benjamin’s got his touch back.

“But I know better an’ you do too. You set that one up for me an’ the only reason I went through with it was because it was the only deal where I still had credit. It wasn’t my touch, it was yours. I also know now that I can’t do it myself any more than I can stand on my head and piss straight up.”

He took a package of gum out of his pocket, pulled the wrapper off and popped a stick into his mouth. He held it out to me. “Diet gum. No sugar.”

I shook my head.

He took a couple of chews. “Nothin’ works anymore. Once I thought maybe the kids were the answer. Now I know better. We put too big a load on them. We expect them to give us our answers when they don’t even have the answers for themselves.”

“You know where Junior is?”

He didn’t wait for my answer. “Haight-Ashbury. Yesterday before we came here, his mother and I go up there to look for him.

“‘Denise,’ I say. ‘You stay right here in the hotel. I’ll find him and bring him here. Besides it’s raining.’

“So I take the limo and the driver takes me up an’ down the streets. Finally I get out and begin to walk. I walk up and down. I never seen so many kids. After a while I begin to feel like they’re all mine. I’m getting mixed up. So I lay a yard on a big black cop and in twenty minutes I’m up four flights of stairs, out of breath and in this freezin’ cold flat.

“Junior’s in there with about a dozen other kids. He’s got a Jesus beard, an’ paper showin’ through the holes in his shoes. He’s sittin’ on the floor, his back against the wall. He don’t say nothin’ when I come in, just looks up at me.

“‘Ain’t you cold?’ I ask him.

“‘No,’ he says.

“‘You look blue to me,’ I say. ‘Your mother’s over in the hotel. I want you to come over an’ see her.’

“‘No,’ he says.

“‘Why not?’ I ask.

“He don’t answer.

“‘I could get the cops and roust you outta here. You’re nineteen a’ you gotta do what I say.’

“‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But you can’t watch me all the time. I won’t stay.’

“‘What you got here? Freezin’ your ass off in this icebox when you got a warm clean room at home?’

“He stares at me a minute, then calls out, ‘Jenny!’

“This kid comes in from the next room. You know, with the long stringy hair an’ white face an’ large eyes. If she’s more’n fifteen I’ll go off my diet an’ she’s got a belly way out to here. ‘Yes, Samuel?’ she asks.

“‘Getting any action today?’ he asks her.

“‘Wild.’ She’s smiling happily. ‘The baby’s kicking field goals.’

“‘That’s the oldest trap in the world,’ I said. ‘I thought you were smarter than that. It’s not yours, you ain’t been out here long enough.’

“He stares at me for a minute, then shakes his head sadlike. ‘You still don’t get it.’

“‘Get what?’

“‘What difference does it make whose baby it is? It’s a baby, isn’t it? It’s like every other baby in this world when it’s born, it’s whoever’s baby it is who loves it. And this one’s our baby. All of us here. Because we all love it already.’

“I look at him and I know it’s another world and I can’t make it. I take a couple of hundred out of my pocket and lay the two bills on the floor in front of him.

“A couple of kids go over and look. Pretty soon they’re all standin’ around in a circle, starin’ down at the money. They haven’t spoken a word.

“Junior picks it up finally and gets to his feet. He holds it out to me. ‘Can you change this for two fives?’

“I shake my head. ‘You know I never carry anything less than hundreds.’

“‘Keep it then,’ he says. ‘We don’t need that kind of bread.’

“Suddenly it was like all of them found their voices. In a minute there was a racket goin’ on like you ain’t never heard. Some wanted him to keep it, others wanted it returned.

“‘Shut up!’ Junior finally roared. They all fell silent, looking at him, then one by one went to wherever they had been in the room and it was quiet again.

“He came over and pushed the bills into my hand. I could feel the tightness and trembling in him. ‘Get off my back, don’t ever come here again. See what one little touch of your poison does. It’s tough enough for us to make out without having to fight that too.’

“For a second I thought of belting him. Then I looked into his eyes and saw the tears. I took the money. ‘Okay. I’ll send the chauffeur back upstairs with two fives.’

“I left without lookin’ back and sat outside in the car while the chauffeur went up with the money. All the way to the hotel, I was wonderin’ what to tell Denise.”

I looked at him. “What did you tell her?”

“The only thing I could. I told her I didn’t find him.”

He stuck another piece of gum in his mouth. “Denise wants me to get out. She says we got enough time left to put things back together. That somehow being Mrs. Big Shot don’t have the kicks for her no more.”

He looked me right in the eyes. “Don’t make me tell her I couldn’t find you neither.”

I turned away from him and stared out at the blue water for a long time. I wish I knew what I was thinking or what went through my head but like everything was a blank and there was nothing but the blue water.

“No,” I heard myself saying. “It’s too big.”

“What’s too big?” he asked.

I gestured to the ocean. “It’s too big to filter, too expensive to heat and I’d never be able to get it all into my swimming pool. And even if I did it all and could, somehow the water would never taste as if it came out of a well. No. Sam. This time I pass.”

We walked back to the car. Twice I started to speak to him, but when I looked over, I saw that he was crying.

By the time we got to the hotel, he was in charge again. He got out of the car. “Thanks for the fresh air. We’ll talk some more.”

“Sure.”

I watched him start into the lobby, his short arms and legs pumping him along in that peculiarly aggressive walk little fat men always have. Then I put the car in gear and went home.

The Volks was gone and the telephone began to ring almost as soon as I walked into the kitchen. There was a note taped to the wall next to the phone when I went to pick it up. I let it ring while I read the note.

It was written in a small, neat, respectful hand. I read it again and suddenly began to laugh as I picked up the telephone. I glanced out the window.

The drapes in the blonde’s room were open. “Hello,” I said.

It was a girl. “Steve?”

“Yes,” I didn’t recognize the voice.

The blonde came to the window. She was wearing a telephone in her hand and very little else. “I happened to be looking out when I got up and saw the Volks driving off.”

“So?”

“So how about coming over to your friendly neighbor for a little coffee and consolation?”

“I’ll be right there,” I said, putting down the phone.

And that was the morning.

New York, 1955–1960

BOOK ONE

STEPHEN GAUNT

CHAPTER ONE

It was only sixty-five cents on the meter from Central Park West to Madison Avenue but it was like a thousand light-years from one end of town to the other. I felt it as soon as I walked into the building.

The cool, high, white marble foyer, the semicircular onyx reception desk with two girls and two uniformed guards behind it, and the words in bold block gold lettering on the wall behind them.

Sinclair Broadcasting Company

I stepped up to the first girl. “Spencer Sinclair, please.”

The girl looked up. “Your name, please?”

“Stephen Gaunt.”

She flipped a page in her book and ran her eyes down a list of names. “Mr. Gaunt, that’s right. You’re down for ten thirty.”

Involuntarily my eyes went to the clock on the wall behind her. Ten twenty-five.

She turned to one of the guards. “Mr. Johnson, will you escort Mr. Gaunt to Mr. Sinclair’s office, please?”

The guard nodded, smiling pleasantly, but all the while his eyes were coolly appraising me. Without waiting I turned toward the main bank of elevators.

“Mr. Gaunt.”

I stopped, turning toward him.

He was still smiling. “This way, please.”

I followed him across the corridor to a small group of elevators almost hidden in the rear of the foyer. He took a key from his pocket and placed it in a lock and turned it. The elevator doors opened.

He let me walk into the elevator in front of him, then pulling the key, followed me. As soon as the doors closed, a bell began to ring.

His voice was still pleasant. “Do you have anything metal in your pockets?”

“Only some change.”

He made no move to start the elevator. “Anything else?” He saw the bewildered look on my face. “The bell you hear is an electronic metals warning system. Pocket change is not enough to set it off. You must have something else you’ve forgotten.”

Then I remembered. “Only this. A silver cigarette case a girlfriend gave me.” I took it out.

He looked at it for a moment, then took it from me. He opened a small door in the panel in front of him and placed it inside. The bell stopped ringing immediately.

He took it out and returned it with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gaunt, to have to disillusion you, but it’s only silverplate over metal with a nickel base.”

I put it back in my pocket with a grin. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

He turned back to the panel and punched a button. The elevator rose swiftly. I looked up over the door at the blinking lights. There were no numbers, only X’s.

“How does Mr. Sinclair know what floor he is on?”

The guard’s expression was serious. “He has a key.”

The elevator slowed and stopped, the doors opened. I stepped out into an all-white reception room. The doors closed as a young woman came toward me.

She was cool and blonde and dressed in basic black. “Mr. Gaunt, this way, please.”

I followed her to a small waiting room. “Mr. Sinclair will be with you in a few moments. There are papers and magazines here. Would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee?”

“Thank you,” I said. “Black, with one sugar.”

She left and I sat down, picking up the
Wall Street Journal
. I flipped to yesterday’s closings. Greater World Broadcasting was at 18 off an eighth, Sinclair Broadcasting, SBC, was 142 up a quarter. It wasn’t only a thousand light-years from Central Park West, it was seventy-two TV stations, a hundred markets, and five hundred million dollars.

She came back with the coffee. It was not only hot and black but it was also cool, served in Coalport china that Aunt Prue would have been proud to keep in her cabinet. “Only a few minutes more,” she smiled.

“That’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got time.”

I watched her walk away again. She had good movement, it was all there, but like everything else in this office, very contained. I wondered what she would do if I grabbed her ass.

She was back just as I finished my coffee. “Mr. Sinclair will see you now.”

I followed her out of the waiting room, through the reception hall to a door. There was nothing on it, not even PRIVATE. She opened it and I walked through.

Spencer Sinclair III looked exactly like the pictures I had seen of him. Tall, slim, beautifully turned-out, thin nose, thin mouth, square chin, cold, intelligent, gray eyes. Altogether he didn’t much show his years.

“Mr. Gaunt.” He rose from behind his desk and we shook hands. His grip was firm and polite. Nothing more, nothing less. “Please sit down.”

I took a chair in front of his desk. He pressed a button down on his intercom. “Please hold all calls, Miss Cassidy.”

He returned to his seat and we looked at each other for a few moments. Then he spoke. “We finally meet. I’ve been hearing so many things about you. It seems you have a talent for making people talk about you.”

I waited.

“Are you curious about what they’re saying?”

“Not really,” I answered. “It’s enough that they talk.”

“You’re supposed to be a comer,” he said.

I smiled at that. If he only knew just how right he was. I had a date to take his daughter Barbara to an abortionist right after lunch.

He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and glanced at it. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ve had personnel do a little rundown on you.”