Fever City (44 page)

‘It's about you. Don't you understand? Nick Alston was not your real father . . . '

H
astings only slowed down when he entered the lobby of the Roosevelt. Up until then, everything had been a fusion of fast-paced anxiety and anticipation; the streets and the people on them existing outside of the fevered trajectory of memory. There was only his yearning and his remorse. The one thing that had ever tempered the intensity of his mourning for Susan had been Betty Bannister. It wasn't alleviated; it was annihilated. Gone the instant her pink Cadillac convertible coasted into the garage, moving from blinding sun to throbbing shade, her green eyes camouflaging the trip wire he was about to stumble against. The look she gave him had been like a cunning knife, slotting its way quickly and effortlessly through the brittle defence of his rib cage, coring straight up into his heart—desire pumping from him like black blood . . .

And Susan's memory?

Gone, baby, gone.

Mrs. Bannister hadn't been a love affair, she had been a madness. A contagion. A pandemic of lust. Nothing existed except the next moment with her. Certainly not the ghost of Susan. If she had been watching, what would she have thought? Would Susan have been glad that he had finally been able to find an escape from the suffocation of his guilt? Or would she have been appalled at the ease with which he was able to toss her memory away, like a broken umbrella, as he knowingly walked into the face of the approaching storm?

The grandeur of the lobby—the marble, the ceiling, the glint of bronze and gold; the tick of clocks and tock of high heels and the sight of himself multiplying in unexpected mirrors took him by surprise; brought him back to the reality of New York, not Los Angeles; of autumn, not spring; of 1963, not 1959. Of all the deaths that almanaced the moments in between. Doubt whispered in his ear. What was he doing there? He was like a junkie who had gone cold turkey only to find himself staring yet again at the syringe. Did he really have to do this to himself?

He froze.

Ever since he had hung up the telephone in the bar, he had thought he had come to New York to see her. He had forgotten his mission. He wasn't there to kill a president; but to save a life—and maybe his own while he was at it.

Like most epiphanies, the realization comes too late, for no sooner does it hit him than he sees Betty Bannister waving from a balcony overlooking the lobby.

Uncertainty ends.

Compulsion begins.

The logic of addiction.

He hurries up the steps, her lips a warm promise of an evening of unfolding delight. The key flashes as they pass a lamp. A lock clicks. A door opens. His cold killer hands move across her body. She sighs, raising her chin the way she always used to, offering her throat to his mouth. Their lips meet. He looks at her eyes. She's crying. He slowly draws away.

‘What is it?'

‘Sonny called . . . ' There is a long, deadly pause. ‘He wants Nick Alston's son back.'

‘Did he say why?'

‘Jack's dropping LBJ from the ticket and when he's re-elected, he's firing Hoover. They're all afraid this time he's going to do it. Only the boy can stop him. Maybe not even that. But they want to try.'

‘Alston will never do it.'

‘Of course Nick won't. Sonny knows that too . . . But he says he has no choice. If he can't get the boy back, he's got to join with the rest of them. They're all going to kill Jack.'

Hastings goes over to the window, gazing out at the thrusting silhouettes of electrified buildings simmering in the night. He makes his decision, turning back to her.

‘Everything's going to work out fine. Just wait and see . . . We'll keep the boy safe and save the president. We can do it. Trust me.'

Born in Sydney, Tim Baker moved to Italy in his early twenties and lived in Spain before moving to Paris as director of consular operations at the Australian embassy in France. His short fiction has appeared in books published by Random House and William Collins, his non-fiction in books published by Penguin,
Time Out
, and Facts on File. He currently lives with his wife and son in the south of France.