The Scarlet Thread (39 page)

Madeleine obliged. It was an ill-phrased telegram about a sick aunt who needed him, and he turned it very skillfully into a joke, reading it out to them.

“My friend thinks I need an alibi,” he said, “just because she has to have one herself. You will forgive me, won't you, if I slip back ahead of the party? She is rather special, and it's been difficult for her to get away.”

“Of course we don't mind,” Angela said. “Are you going somewhere nice?”

“Our original plan,” he said. “A little skiing, and a lot of après-ski!” His harsh, tuneless laugh rang out. He went to pack, to say his goodbyes, and to put space between him and all of them. If you're going, for God's sake hurry up and go. That was an old saying in his family. The departing guest was speeded off; those who lingered were not popular. Steven offered to drive him to Gatwick Airport, but he refused firmly.

“Jolly kind, but no, thanks. I'm not tearing you from the bosom of your family. I'll be back in Antibes in two weeks; I'll keep an eye on the villa and see what needs to be refurbished at the Poliakoff—you mentioned something about the cloakroom facilities.” Back to business, back to the safe relationship.

“Okay, you do that. Sorry you have to leave us.”

“Where will I contact you when I get back? Will you still be here?”

“No,” Steven answered. “I'm taking Angela and Charlie away after the New Year. Somewhere in the sun. I'll let you know.”

The doctor was sorry to see Maxton go; he cleared his throat and fiddled furiously with his pipe. Maxton understood that he couldn't say how much he'd miss his company. He shook hands and patted the old man on the shoulder. He had never dared such intimacy with his own father.

And then Angela came and kissed him on the cheek. He could feel the color sweeping up, betraying him. “Thank you for being so sweet to Daddy and to all of us,” she said. “Happy New Year, Ralph.”

“Thank you,” he said. “It's been the best Christmas I've spent in a very long time. Happy New Year, Angela. Take care of yourself.”

He sprang into the local taxi, waved to them and settled back. He had deluded himself with hope; now it was dashed forever. She belonged to Steven Lawrence, and she was pregnant with his child.

Back to the old life, Ralph, he said to himself as they drove away. He hummed a little tune. As a very small boy, he used to hum when he was unhappy. It gave him comfort.

The party was a success. Angela said so. Steven found it very dull. They were so low-key, these English people. They enjoyed themselves in whispers. He was charming and friendly to all of them and endured the inquisitive looks with patience.

Angela was in her element; Charlie too. Steven saw his son fitting in happily with boys and girls his own age, finding them fun. Steven thought them boring and stiff. He remembered the uninhibited, noisy parties back home, where the new year was welcomed in with shouts and music, everyone embracing and kissing, children of all ages romping around as midnight struck. He didn't say anything, but he couldn't wait to get to the sunshine of Morocco. And he had timed it deliberately. The twelfth of January, his cousin Spoletto had said.

On that day, he and Angela and their son would be thousands of miles away from newspapers and television. The Falconis were safe. That was all he needed to know. He wouldn't think about Clara and her father.

It was no concern of his.

Clara hated Christmas that year. She hated it because custom forced her family and the widowed mother and relatives of Bruno, her bridegroom, to spend part of it together. They gathered in Aldo's house for a big traditional dinner; they all exchanged gifts and drank toasts to the couple who were soon to be married.

Mrs. Salviatti was a fat, nervous woman, a gasbag who chattered on and on nervously till Clara could have screamed. She kept glancing at her son, saying to Clara, to Luisa, “Isn't he a handsome boy? Just like his father—and such a good son he's been.…” They were peasants, all of them, uncomfortable in tight suits, strangling in neckties, their women badly dressed; the children irritated her, running up and down without hindrance, indulged by doting parents, shrieking and getting in everyone's way. Clara hated them, and barely held on to her temper. Bruno, resigned now to his fate, was proprietary with her, forever pawing at her, until she snapped at him under her breath to leave her alone. He flattered her father, then preened in front of her. He'd given her a good ring; someone with an eye to the future had lent him the money. They all ate too much, and some of them drank too much too. One of the old Salviatti uncles fell asleep at the table. Aldo saw him, and his eye was cold. Someone got him up and took him to lie down. Several children cried from tiredness and over-excitement. There was much cooing and comforting. Clara felt as if she were in a waking nightmare.

The wedding presents had come flooding in. And a flood it was, from the humblest to the most important in the invited families. A lot of silver and crystal, for a second marriage. Wines by the case, linen and exquisitely embroidered cloths, ornaments, some of them garish, others fine antiques. Pictures with views of the old country. Clara couldn't stand nineteenth-century sentimentality, but Bruno liked the pictures and engravings best of all. She told him very early on that rubbish like that wasn't hanging in her house. Her wedding outfit had been ordered from Bergdorf Goodman. She chose it carefully, determined to look her best. What a contrast it would be to that other wedding, when she had gone to the altar in her virgin white, consumed with a young girl's passion for her bridegroom. She dwelt on her memories of that day: the marvelous singing in the church; the first sight of Steven waiting for her by the altar; the joy of their reception, everyone congratulating them, saying how beautiful she looked, how radiant with happiness; dancing the “Wedding Waltz” in his arms. There was no pain left in the memories now, or if there was, her hatred used it as a goad, urging her to the second marriage with a man she saw only as a means to an end—a life of power and independence, cleansed beforehand of all taint of feeling by an act of bloody retribution against her enemies.

And running through the fabric of that future life was a single scarlet thread. The agency she had created and controlled would find Steven Falconi. The search had already begun.

O'Halloran was a happy man. He liked his smart new office in midtown New York. He liked having two assistants to do the routine work, the boring grind that had been his lot for so long. He liked the battery of copiers and typewriters and recording machines; they signified money and success, like the gold-painted name on the frosted front door. Ace Detective Agency. She had kept the corny name. He liked the young secretary in the outer office; she called him Mr. O'Halloran and made him cups of coffee. Most of all he liked the money. His wife and children had moved to a new house and settled in. It was a decent house in the suburbs, with a garden and a new car in the garage. Finally, they were happy, and why shouldn't they be? He worked very hard and very successfully. He also worked hard because he was frightened.

His employer frightened him. Whenever she called him to come and see her, he could feel the presence of her father, as if he were on the other side of the door.

He had made a few discreet inquiries among his old contacts in the force. It was too late to turn back, so he felt free to find out a little more about his backers. All they had needed was the name Falconi. They immediately linked it with another, equally infamous, name: Fabrizzi. Aldo Fabrizzi had a daughter, who'd married a Falconi. Someone had fried him in a car, down on the coast. They were shit, those two families. O'Halloran had agreed. He said he was asking on account of a case he had on hand.

Then just you watch your step, his contacts had warned him. If it's tied in with the mob, don't touch it. The last private eye who went sniffing around ended up six floors down from his apartment window. They didn't leave much of his agency in one piece either.

O'Halloran promised to drop the case and tell his client to go look elsewhere. He went home to his new house and convinced himself that he was being too well paid to mind being scared. He just had to give that black-eyed bitch what she wanted. And what she wanted was dirt. Dirt of any kind. She'd put the first clients in his way herself. Divorce investigations; lousy stuff, as usual, but this time the quarries were rich, and their wives were out to screw them till the zeroes ran off the page. He did a very good job and they were satisfied. The fees were settled promptly. In his old business, he and Pacellino used to threaten to sue the clients, it was so hard getting the money. Word got around the moneyed circles that his was a very reliable agency. Other clients showed up, different from the women or their husbands or the smalltime businessman trying to trace a bad debt. There were corporations who wanted a check run on prospective employees, on their rivals' employees, searching for scandal of a personal nature if they couldn't pin anything else on them. O'Halloran had spent his life among petty criminals; when he left the force and set up with his old partner, he found the sins of suburbia no less unsavory.

But the rich were something else. They knew how to root in the garbage and come up smelling sweet. And then, just before Christmas, she had sent for him unexpectedly. He had gone to the brownstone and was kept waiting. It looked like one of those places featured in women's magazines. When she came in, he got to his feet. She didn't apologize for keeping him so long. She didn't even ask him to sit down. She just walked up to him and held out an envelope.

“This is your Christmas present, Mike. I haven't time to gift-wrap it. And there's a personal favor I want you to do for me. You personally. The details are in that envelope. I'm getting married in January, so I won't be around till mid-February. But I want you to start in on this right away. And have a merry Christmas, won't you?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Falconi. And the same to you. Congratulations on the wedding. He's a lucky guy.”

“I'll tell him,” she said, “in case he doesn't know. See yourself out, will you?”

He opened the envelope in the car. There were ten thousand dollars and details of the favor she'd mentioned. He was to find her husband, Steven Falconi, who she believed was still alive. She believed he had faked his death and run off with another woman.

She emphasized a visit to one of the city's best-known restaurants, Les Ambassadeurs, giving a date over two years before. She suggested—he noted her tactful way of putting it—that he start with a list of all the diners that evening and go on from there. A previous investigation had come to nothing because the operative had inquired directly about Steven Falconi. He sure had; O'Halloran grimaced. And someone had made scrambled egg out of him. He was going to step very carefully. If this lady asked a personal favor, you didn't send your regrets. He had a feeling you would end up very sorry. No assistant could be trusted with this one. He sighed. When she said “personal,” that's what she meant. He would have to take the case himself. He sat thinking about it when he got back to his office. So Falconi wasn't dead. The burned-out corpse belonged to someone else. Or so she thought. First thing was to check the details and the death certificate. He decided he'd better get on it right away, before she took time off from getting married and asked him what the hell he was doing about it. He banked the ten thousand in his personal account, and the next morning left New York for the town nearest the site of the accident. It was a real hick place, with a few scattered houses, a shabby supermarket and a gas station. The local police patrolled a wide area. He started with the back files of the county newspapers before he went anywhere near the police.

He noted that the dead man's brother had identified his remains. So if the lady was right, her in-laws were part of the cover-up. If she was right. He wasn't sure about that yet. Women could get obsessional about husbands, even a dame with ice in her veins, like “the lady.” He called her that to himself and to his wife, whose initial curiosity he'd quelled with some glib lies, putting twenty years on Clara Falconi. She wanted an investment and some fun poking into other people's business. It might be kinky, but it sure as hell paid plenty. His wife didn't bother after that.

The local papers had made a big story out of the dead man in the burned-out car. A cigarette and a gasoline leak were blamed. It was all good clean provincial stuff. But to an experienced nose like Mike O'Halloran, something about it stank. Especially the low-key funeral—a cremation, for Christ's sake. Any mafioso worthy of the name was planted with full Catholic rites. Falconi's brother had made the arrangements. To them, it was the way you buried a dog. Unless you wanted to make sure nobody exhumed the corpse.

He wasn't surprised to find that the ashes had been scattered, and the funeral service confined to the immediate family. They killed each other like other people swatted flies, but they had their rituals about death. When a big man died, his assassins sent flowers and often wept at the graveside. It was part of the tradition of respect. Whoever got barbecued in that car, it wasn't the son and heir of Lucca Falconi. He didn't ask around anymore.

Whoever did it must have had contacts in the area. They might still be there. O'Halloran went back to New York and took his employer's advice.

He started his investigation with the dinner reservations at Les Ambassadeurs on the date Clara had given him.

He didn't try to bribe the maître d'. He didn't show a wad of dollar bills to the barman or the girl at the reservation desk. He went to see the manager and told him what he wanted. He had a story ready, and it sounded plausible. He gave the manager his card, and the manager was impressed by the office address. And by O'Halloran. He was well dressed, quiet-spoken. He had shed the provincial gumshoe image under Clara's brutal tutelage. She ordered his suits, she told him how to present himself to people like the suave and clever man who ran the smartest restaurant in New York.