The Lasko Tangent (20 page)

“Oh that,” I said. It seemed years ago, and maybe someone else’s vacation. “New Hampshire.”

“Why New Hampshire?”

“My family owns a place up there, near the Maine border. If I schedule right, I can get it to myself.”

“You always go alone?”

“Usually.” Except for the girl in Boston, who had belonged there. I wondered if Brett went anymore. Of course she still lived there, in a way. Every so often I’d find a trace of her in the old house, like an artifact in someone else’s ruins.

“Isn’t that pretty solitary?” she was asking.

I took another hit. “Not really. I saw some friends from school for a couple of days. The best day, though, was alone. I hiked up Green Mountain, which is only a couple of thousand feet. Maybe an hour and a half worth of climbing. There’s an old ranger tower on top that gives you a perfect 360-degree of everything. The lakes and woods, farms, old villages, other mountains, all of it for miles. It was perfectly clear. I sat there for two hours. I hated to come down.”

“It sounds beautiful,” she answered softly. “It’s good to be alone without being lonely.”

That was right, I thought. Except for tonight. Tonight, alone would have been lonely, any way you cut it.

Mary was leaning back. She sucked on the joint, making small hollows beneath her cheekbones. “This dope is sensational.”

I thought about that. “Yeah, I think that’s how Pizarro slaughtered all those Indians. They were smoking this stuff.”

She smiled absently. I looked at her again. She was beautiful. No question. But that didn’t move me, right then. I was flashing back and forth between New Hampshire and here, past and future, the girl then and the girl now. Rod Stewart’s dope-and-whiskey voice cut through the haze.

I lit the second joint. It flamed, crackled, then took hold. I passed it to her, with another glass of wine for the cotton mouth. The room was very dim. Mary’s fine cheekbones left soft shadows on her face. I was floating now. Her sudden question seemed to filter through a word at a time.

“What do you want in a woman, Chris?”

It was as if she’d looked into my head and seen the girl. But her voice wasn’t intrusive, just curious. And I was stoned enough to try. “A lot of what I look for in people, I guess. Curiosity. Dislike for the easy answer. That in a good moment they can imagine what it’s like to be an old woman or a small child. That they are more than what they do, or what they are.”

“You don’t ask much,” she said smiling.

“Not much at all.” But I’d had it once and blown it.

The Jefferson Starship came on. I looked at Mary, wondering what she was thinking.

Her voice broke the quiet. “You know, Chris, you’ve been very lucky. You’ve never wanted—or needed—anything.”

“I keep hearing that.”

“No, I mean it. Half the girls I knew growing up were married at eighteen. Sometimes I hate looking back.”

I smiled. “No need. You’ve done a lot. That’s something else I like in a woman.”

She smiled back. I reached for her then. She looked at me with a clear, black gaze. Then her arm raised in a graceful arc and pulled me down.

Afterwards a long drowsy silence, warm in the dark. An hour, maybe more. No talk needed. She stirred against me. “Again?” she murmured.

“Uh-huh. Lust is the curse of my family.”

“The Pagets or the Kenyons?”

“Both.”

She laughed quietly, then stretched herself against me. The Starship was singing “Miracles.”

It turned out she had clothes in the car. She stayed until Sunday.

Sunday night I turned on the television. My theory was that there were other things going on in the world and that they would divert me. It worked for a while. There were famine conditions in India. OPEC had hiked the price of oil. You couldn’t breathe in Pittsburgh, and another Arab had hijacked another plane. Everything was fine until a familiar face appeared.

They had caught him in the Rose Garden, in a discursive mood. “When I was young,” the President was saying, “we had no money. No one in my family had ever gone to college. I scraped to get where I am.” The camera closed in. “It is my philosophy that everyone in this country has the right to lead a good and comfortable life, even become wealthy, although I myself gave up many opportunities to make money for a career in public service.” He sounded somehow disappointed. “So,” he was concluding, “everyone has the right to climb the ladder, and everyone in this country has the opportunity to do so. I especially urge our young people to consider that. It’s one of the great things about us.”

I nearly choked up with real tears. The telephone stopped me.

“Hello, Mr. Paget?”

“Tracy? Where are you?”

“At home. St. Maarten.” The long distance made the girl-voice smaller. “I haven’t heard from Peter.” Her sad question went unanswered.

“I’m sorry, Tracy. I haven’t either. I’ve been trying, really.” I couldn’t explain what had happened Friday, and couldn’t explain my weekend, even if I’d wanted to.

Her voice cracked. “Please—can’t you help me?”

“I’m going to Boston tomorrow. To talk to the police.” I paused. “I think they’ll want to help.”

“Do you think so?” A small hope breathed in her words. It made me feel guilty.

“Lieutenant Di Pietro’s a good man. I’m sure he’ll be interested.”

“Oh,” she said. I could envision her hopeful imagining: Di Pietro the compassionate, restorer of husbands. “Mr. Paget, you’ve made me feel better.”

“Please call me Chris. And if I’m not here, you can reach me through the office. Anytime you want to talk.”

“Thank you, Chris,” she said. “You’re very nice. I’d better get off now.”

I wanted to keep her on, but couldn’t imagine what to say. I gave up. “Take care of yourself, Tracy.” That was the last thing she wanted to do. But she said she would and hung up.

The President had disappeared. I turned off the tube and stared out the window.

No one called that weekend. I guess they figured I wasn’t worth calling anymore.

Twenty-Six

Boston was sunny this time, its warmth cut by a fresh breeze. That was something. I had begun to associate Boston with drizzle, corpses, and old girlfriends, like some back-lot of the mind where I stashed half-digested fears.

I picked up my bags and went straight to the car rental. The girl at the counter had a cute, pug nose and a fey expression which turned wary when she saw me, as if I were about to make an indecent proposal.

“I’m not here to make an indecent proposal,” I said, “just rent a car.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Well, that’s original anyhow.”

“I’ll take something cheap, if it runs. You know, this job must be great for your ego.”

Her smile was wry. “Not really. You should see the people who try to come on to me. Wrinkles and halitosis. The one today had breath bad enough to melt my fillings. God, I wonder what they’re like at home.”

“God knows. My personal thing is dressing up in a wet suit and flippers and jumping out of closets. But I could tell right away you weren’t that kind of girl.”

“Thanks,” she deadpanned. “Will a Mustang be OK?”

“If you don’t have an Edsel.”

“I rented the last Edsel to the guy with the bad breath,” she said, and took my name down on the rental form.

She handed across the keys and told me where the lot was. Then she looked at me. “Will you be returning the car here, Mr. Paget?”

“I think so.”

“Good,” she smiled.

You never know. I thanked her and started to leave. “About the wet suit and flippers,” she called out. “Try Radcliffe.”

The things college graduates were doing these days. I grinned and waved over my shoulder. But I didn’t feel all that funny.

I picked up the car and headed for town through the Callahan Tunnel. What was Mary doing today, I wondered.

I pulled up to the Ritz and left my car in front. A doorman took my bags. I stopped for a second and stared back onto Arlington. The street was quiet. The spot where he had landed was just another patch of cement. Beyond, the Public Garden was warm with slanted sunlight and alive with people and here and there a couple. It was as if it had never happened. I looked at my watch. 3:45. I turned and walked into the lobby.

I got myself checked into a room, a quiet one and not the one I’d had twelve days ago. Coming back to the Ritz had been a reflex. But I didn’t want a martini from the bar. I took the elevator down, slid into the car, and drove to the police station.

I parked a couple of blocks away and walked over. The station seemed less sullen in the sun. But the sergeant at the desk was just as fat and his eyes still as bleak as Cape Cod in January. I asked for Di Pietro. He told me to wait in a voice that went with the rest of him. So I waited, looking him over. Nothing there at all. Either he’d seen too much, or the hounds of boredom had seized his brain. I was leaning toward boredom when Di Pietro appeared and summoned me to his office.

I followed him back to the same cubbyhole and sat. He slid behind his desk, quickly for a big man, and leaned back in his chair. “What can I do for you, Mr. Paget?” he asked. The turtle stare was perpetual, I decided. I wondered how his kids liked it.

“Quite a bit.”

His gaze was neither friendly nor unfriendly. “What have you got?”

I ticked it off. “One, we’ve got testimony implicating Lasko in the stock manipulation. Second, I’ve got evidence indicating that Lasko used a guy named Martinson to help set up a dummy corporation. Martinson was forced to leave a Caribbean island when I flew down to investigate.” Di Pietro played with a penknife while I told him what I hadn’t told the agency. “Martinson could be very dangerous to Lasko. Indications are that he’s being kept in Boston, maybe at a place called the Loring Sanitarium.”

He blinked at that last bit of information, as if it were unexpected. But his question doubled back. “Do you know what Lehman was going to tell you?”

“No.”

Di Pietro looked sleepy. “Well, some of this is interesting, but you haven’t told me anything about Lehman.”

“Maybe Martinson can.”

“You don’t know that. Just why do you think he’s at Loring?”

I reviewed it: Martinson’s “mental strain,” the call to Tracy, and Lasko’s connection with Loring. Di Pietro pondered it a while.

“It’s pretty weak,” he said. “Just what do you want us to do?”

“Go out to the Loring Sanitarium. See if Martinson is there. He may be in real trouble.”

He scowled. “I can’t do that.”

The frustration sharpened my words. “I wish I had your driving curiosity.”

He cut me off in a voice managers reserve for rookies. “Look, I’m a cop, doing a job you don’t know squat about. This may be your first murder, if it is one, but it isn’t mine. Now one real possibility is that Lehman was killed, not just hit and run. But it’s only that—a possibility. You can’t tell me what Lehman knew, and I can’t even begin to find out. His widow is a dead end. So all I’ve got are your theories, and I can’t book Lasko on that. Hell, I can’t even ask him anything smarter than ‘who killed Cock Robin.’ And like I said, we’re not geared to investigate big companies.”

“I’m sorry I let you down.”

He ignored that. “Another thing. The Loring Sanitarium is out of Boston. I’ve got no jurisdiction there. We’d have to go through the locals and I’d need a reason, which you haven’t given me. You know,” the quiet voice turned quieter, “it’s only on TV that cops have national jurisdiction. You’d be surprised how many times the Beverly Hills police don’t even ask me for advice.”

“That’s funny.”

“Not very.”

He had a point. It wasn’t funny. It especially wasn’t because I figured he was right. I felt reckless, at the end of my rope. “I’m just trying to keep Martinson alive while I put your case together.”

I knew as soon as I’d said it that it was stupid. Di Pietro spoke in a cold, even tone. “You know, Mr. Paget, I don’t much like you.”

“You know,” I snapped, “I don’t much care.”

He surprised me by almost smiling. “Then I guess we’ll both have to get over it.”

That was that. I stood. “Thanks.”

He looked up at me impassively. “Sure.”

I let myself out.

I walked out of the station and back toward the car, only half-aware, thinking of how well I’d done for Tracy.

I stopped when I saw a phone booth, remembering Stansbury. I stepped in and called.

“Mr. Stansbury, this is Chris.”

“Chris? You sound fuzzy. Where are you?”

“Boston.” There was silence. “I’m calling about the chips,” I prodded.

“Oh, surely,” he apologized. “They match.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I’m familiar with them and I did some tests. Those chips you gave me were manufactured by Yokama Electric. No question. I hope that helps.”

“It does, and thank you. I’ll call when I get back to town.”

“Do that, Chris.” I said good-bye and hung up.

I found the car. I got in and sat there, very still. I could be safe, or not. My choice.

There was a street map in the glove compartment. I took it and mulled it over. After a while I folded the map and turned the ignition. Then I pulled from the curb and headed for the Loring Sanitarium.

Twenty-Seven

The Loring Sanitarium was in Brookline, near the country club. I picked up Boylston Street until it turned into Route 9 by way of Brookline Avenue, figuring to get there about 6:30. I felt queasy. I had crossed the line. This was my own trip, against orders, and maybe into trouble. Martinson might not be there. And I’d no fixed plan if he were.

I had the pervasive sense that I hadn’t listened hard enough. That in the past four days someone had handed me the key, if I could only think. But I’d heard too much too fast, and was too unsettled to stitch it together. I got to Brookline disgusted and unnerved.

The Loring Sanitarium wasn’t tough to spot. It was the kind of building that could only be a sanitarium or a high school—a stark, tan-brick rectangle with a charmless Eisenhower-years design, two stories, in a bare field set away from houses. I knew it wasn’t a high school because there weren’t any signs. That and the isolation gave it a guilty, furtive air: the kind of place people didn’t look at when they passed.