Palace Council (44 page)

Annoyed, Eddie rifled the pages. How much of the testament was going to be travelogue and culinary description? Aurelia touched his hand.

“He was writing for the ages,” she said. “He was conscious of his audience.”

“Meaning what?”

“You never read Pliny, did you? The Romans used to write this way.”

But all Eddie knew of Pliny was that Wesley Senior had once cited him in a sermon, drawing from his work some obscure evidence for the existence of Christ.

…bridging the courses with berry-filled crêpes instead of sorbet. Burton next served lobster tails, followed by a filet mignon, butterflied and grilled just a minute or two past medium rare. Naturally, each course was accompanied by an appropriate wine. After dinner we settled in the parlor with brandy and cigars. The maids had stoked the fire. Burton sat beside it, a cadaverous man with an angry smile. I was struck, even then, by the image of Burton as the devil, welcoming us to Hell. The image turned out to be less far-fetched than I imagined.

I was one of twenty men present at the meeting. Eight were Negroes, twelve were Caucasians. We were the Twenty, said Burton, flames at his back. We were the Council. He announced that he, along with several unnamed associates, had conceived a plan for setting America on the proper path. The plan was dangerous, he explained. The plan might lead to violence. And yet he was convicted—that was what he said, convicted—that the plan would succeed. Because of the risks, he and his associates would not move forward without submitting their idea to scrutiny. The twenty men present this August evening would judge the plan. We would weigh its merits, said Burton, with the hope of pardoning our offenses. This invocation of the liturgy was intended, I am sure, as a joke. No one laughed except Senator Elliott Van Epp, who sat beside me. Van Epp had indulged too freely in the excellent wines. If we judged the plan unworthy, said Burton, it would be discarded. Otherwise, the men in the parlor would become the overseers of the plan. Burton was a serious man. He was a spellbinder, a man of enormous charisma, and could exercise a near-hypnotic influence on those who listened too closely.

Burton himself freshened our drinks, pouring from the snifter. He asked if anyone wanted to leave. Now would be the time, he said. No records would be kept. No grudges would be held. The nervous twitter among the guests surprised me. The parlor was full of powerful men, but no one protested the subtle threat. Perhaps we were held by Burton's charm. Perhaps by curiosity. Perhaps by fear. One had the sense, sitting there, that Burton Mount commanded resources, legions, vast demonic armies, ready to be unleashed upon all those who dared defy his will. One had the sense that our only role was to approve, not to reject.

There is evidence to support this. After Burton began the formal presentation, Ralph Shands, a jazz pianist of considerable renown, leapt to his feet shaking his fist and said that God would not allow so evil a plan to succeed. Burton rang a bell. A maid appeared with the man's vicuña coat in hand, although how she could guess that he was leaving us, I have no idea. Two years later, the pianist died of a heroin overdose.

As to the presentation itself, Burton had divided it, like Gaul, into three parts….

“Very well done, Mr. Wesley.”

Eddie and Aurelia spun, trembling beams piercing the darkness, but found no speaker.

“Put your flashlights on the floor, please.”

Eddie complied at once. When Aurie hesitated, he snatched hers and put it down, too. He recognized the voice, and knew what they were facing.

“Eddie,” she began, but he waved her silent.

“Do you want us to put our hands up now?” he asked.

A shadow separated from the deeper shadows in the corner behind the chipped dresser. Eddie held Aurelia's wrist. She jerked her hand free, straightened her clothes. The shattered window allowed a sliver of light in past the decades of filth caking the panes. Not enough for them to pick out much, but the dull metal in the visitor's hand was certainly a gun. Eddie had no idea how long George Collier had been watching them.

“No,” the killer said. “Just put the pages on the floor, then step over to the divan.”

“How long have you been following us?” Eddie asked.

“I'm not the sort of bad guy who explains himself. That only happens in the movies. The pages, please.”

“Listen,” Eddie began.

“Please don't waste time, Mr. Wesley. If I have to shoot, I'm afraid I will be shooting Mrs. Garland first. Nothing personal.”

“Not at all,” she said, fingers digging into Eddie's arm.

The gun glinted. “All the pages, including the ones you slipped inside your sweater, Mrs. Garland.”

“Turn your back.”

“Now, please.”

Out of ideas, hoping for a miracle, they put the papers on the floor as asked, then stepped back. “Sit,” he said. They did, being careful of the springs. The shadowy figure stooped, the gun trained on Aurelia. Gloved fingers moved. The testament vanished. “Close your eyes.”

Eddie refused. He stared hard into the darkness, wondering how it would feel, or whether there would even be a sensation. He remembered Vietnam, the bullets knocking chunks from the bodies of brave, frightened young men and whizzing on. A raw rubbery heat rose from his stomach. Where did professionals shoot you? The head, like Jack Kennedy and Martin Luther King? The chest, like Bobby? Aurie shivered in his arms. He was not ready to die, but he was not ready to admit it. At least he was with the woman he loved. She was whispering. Eddie held her more tightly. He heard “protect.” He heard “please, Lord.” A prayer, he realized, with a start. It had not occurred to him to pray. He heard “take care of them.” Aurie was praying not to get out of this mess, but that God would protect her children. His love surged, and, just like that, he removed her fingers and was on his feet, closing the distance between the settee and the place where he had last spotted the gun, ready to take the bullets to buy Aurelia a precious second to jump out the window.

He dived into the darkness, hoping at least to tackle Collier to the floor before he died.

And hit the floor himself, lying on threadbare carpet.

George Collier was gone.

CHAPTER
60

Cover Stories

(I)

I
N
A
UGUST,
a California judge was murdered in a botched effort to free black radical George Jackson from prison. Every revolutionary group under the sun was accused of being involved, including Agony, which many experts thought had died. But the politicians dredged it up, listed the group's crimes, demanded that the leaders be brought to justice. FBI agents interviewed Edward Wesley at his home in Washington, duly reporting that he denied having had any contact with his sister. They believed him. In fact, the interview was perfunctory. They did not press. Probably they had decided she was dead, and wanted to close the books on Agony once and for all.

By this time, Eddie and Aurelia had become an open, if occasional, item. People were not sure from one moment to the next whether to invite them to the same party. Actually, they were considered moderately scandalous. Their arrest inside Jumel Mansion back in May had made all the papers: trespassing, burglary, and destruction of public property, pled down within a day to malicious mischief. They paid their fines and were released, but the damage was done, twice over. George Collier had covered his escape by calling the police, and telling them what to look for; and he made Eddie and Aurelia so silly and conspicuous that any effort to explain what had happened would be taken for an absurd excuse.

“Why didn't he kill us?” Aurelia had asked as they drove upstate. She was smoking even harder now. Her hands still shook. “He should have killed us.”

Eddie glanced at her. “In Vietnam he told me he was under orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“Whoever he's working for. I'm not being facetious. It all gets back to Junie somehow. I can't work it out, Aurie. I can't seem to untie the last knot. But they can't harm a hair on our heads as long as Junie's at large. I'm sure of that part.”

“He used to be Senator Van Epp's bodyguard. So maybe now he works for Lanning Frost.”

“So what are you saying? That we're alive because Lanning is still grateful to your husband?” He had another thought. “Besides, didn't we agree that Lanning is not our actual problem?”

“Maybe Mr. Collier works for Margot.”

“But why would Margot want to keep us alive?”

Aurie grinned. “Happy memories?”

“Very funny.”

“I'm not joking.” She sounded irritated, and told him when he dropped her off that she thought they should have a little time apart.

“We just had ten years apart,” he protested.

“Twelve.”

“You see my point.”

They were in the foyer of her house. The children were at school. Tonight, with their suddenly infamous mom back home, they would sleep in their own beds for the first time in a week.

“It's going to be different,” she promised. “It's going to be fine. I just need some time to get used to things.”

She kissed him to prove it.

(II)

T
HE CHILDREN DID NOT KNOW
what to make of her. She had left as Mommy and returned as this madwoman whose mug shot was on the front page of the papers, including their own
Ithaca Journal.
Aurelia sat them down on the bench in the foyer and told them that it had all been kind of a misunderstanding, but after something like this, people would say a lot of things about her that were not true.

Zora, going on fourteen, accepted this intelligence with grave acquiescence. She believed everything her mother said, always.

Locke, at thirteen, had a question.

“Are you gonna marry him?”

“Marry who?”

“That Wesley guy. The one who got you arrested in the haunted house.”

“He didn't get me arrested,” she said, gently. “I told you, it was all a big misunderstanding.” She hugged them both. “And, no, honey, I'm not going to marry him.”

Locke squirmed free. “Why not?” he demanded. “What's wrong with him?”

Aurelia was shocked. Zora told him to stop, and he did. Later that night, Zora told her mother that Locke wanted a father in the worst way.

“What about you?” asked Aurie, fearful of the answer.

“I think you're cool,” said her daughter, which was not, precisely, an answer.

Back in her office, Aurelia found concentration difficult. The students had gone on strike to protest the Kent State killings, and exams had mostly been canceled, but some of the more ambitious young strikers had snuck final papers into the faculty mailboxes, hoping not to be caught by their fellows. Aurelia's grades were already tardy. Her department chair asked if she needed time off. He spoke kindly, the way one does to the dying. In academic life, those who take time off tend to be forgotten very fast. Often the salary slot goes to someone else. Aurie told her chair not to worry. She worked double-time for a day and a half and got all the grading done.

In free moments, Aurelia pondered. The part of her that had always believed in America wanted to go public, to call reporters she knew, or perhaps have Eddie talk to his political contacts. But Eddie was dead set against the idea. With the divisions in the country, especially over race, he feared the path that public hysteria might take. Besides, he said, nobody would believe them: Mr. Collier, by arranging their arrests at Jumel Mansion, had cleverly shoved them to the political margins. Aurelia allowed herself, however reluctantly, to be persuaded.

Toward the end of June, she packed the kids into the car and made her annual pilgrimage to New Rochelle, visiting Kevin's grave. While the children fed birds around the pond, Aurie remained standing before the headstone, asking her husband for lots of advice, and, probably, lots of permission.

Two weeks later, Tristan Hadley, now separated from his wife, asked Aurelia out on a date. She refused. He asked if that meant that she and Eddie were a steady couple. She said she had no idea. Tris brightened. He sent flowers. He sent cards. She could not get him to stop. Tris pestered her and pestered her until she said yes out of sheer bone-weariness. Over dinner at Ithaca's one fancy steak house, while a woman who might have been Streisand sat nearby, Tristan produced a ring.

Aurelia almost fell out of her chair.

She told him that he was sweet but she was not a marrying woman. He accepted this, then asked if he could see her again. She said no. She said it nicely, but she said it firmly. Later that night, she called Mona. At first Aurie asked about her son's worrisome secretiveness, and his temper. Mona assured her that a degree of rebelliousness was normal at his age—especially against his mother. Then Aurie confessed her true purpose in calling.

“This whole thing is getting out of hand,” she said.

“If you'd say yes to one of these guys, the rest of them would go away.”

“I can't say yes.”

“Then quit dating.”

Aurelia decided she would. But when Eddie called to suggest that the two of them get away to the Caribbean for a few days once her children were settled at summer camp, she said yes fast.

“Just don't bring a ring,” she said.

The island they chose was Barbados. A very polite police detective followed them everywhere they went. In bed one night, they decided whom to tell.

(III)

T
HE DRAWING ROOM
had been refurbished since Erebeth Hilliman died. Out had gone the antiques and chintz. Now everything was modern and sleek and bound to be obsolete in another five years. It seemed to Eddie that there were fewer servants at Quonset Point, and, certainly, no domo, whether major or minor. They sipped fruit juice instead of sherry, because Gary Fatek was on a health kick. He did not have much time for them because his nephew Jock was waiting to see him, a spoiled preppie who was always in trouble.

“How much of this do you actually know?” he asked when they were done, folding fleshy fingers over his knee. “How much of it is speculation?”

“We can show you our notes,” said Eddie. He and Aurelia were on the low Scandinavian sofa, holding hands.

“Notes on conversations with each other,” Gary pointed out. “You see the problem, don't you? The central player isn't you, Eddie. It's Aurie. And the world will say she compiled these notes from two sources, both of whom she was sleeping with. Correction. Three sources, counting her husband.” He held up a hand in apology. “I know you weren't sleeping with Tristan Hadley, but my sources say the whole academic world thinks you wrecked his marriage.” He stood up and began to pace. “I'm not saying I don't believe you. People are dead, and it can't all be coincidence. And not by natural causes. Two or three murders, a suicide, a ski accident.” He was at the window, looking out on his private beach. “And Mr. Collier. My sources tell me things about him, too.”

“What things?” said Aurelia, when she realized that each of the two men was prepared to wait the other out.

“George Collier is an assassin. Well, maybe you guessed that. He's done a job or three for our government, details unavailable. His military appointment is cover. Which agency actually employs him, my sources can't find out. But he's a legend in the secret world, so they tell me. His particular expertise is making sure that every job he does is blamed on somebody else. He doesn't leave unsolved crimes lying around for some journalist to pick up later. If you have Mr. Collier as an enemy, well, maybe you should move in with me. My place is a fortress, and, frankly, I could use the company.”

“I don't think he's going to hurt us,” said Eddie, wondering why Gary was refusing to face them. “I don't think he's allowed to.”

“Yes. You said that. But you're putting an awful lot of faith in something a killer told you in a Saigon hotel.”

“He could have killed me in Saigon. He could have killed us both in Harlem.”

Gary shook his head. “No, no, Eddie. You're missing the point. He couldn't just shoot you in Jumel Mansion. What good would that do? I just told you, he doesn't leave unsolved crimes lying around. He plans his murders for months, from what I hear. Maybe years.”

Eddie and Aurie looked at each other. Both understood that there was something the leader of the Hillimans was having trouble getting out.

“Let's say you're right,” Gary continued. “Let's say your theory is true. What do you think we should do about it? You think because I have more money than Midas I can wave my hands and make people disappear?” He was suddenly very agitated. “You don't have evidence to arrest anybody. You could say, let's beat Lanning Frost. Well, fine. I'll finance as many campaigns on the other side as you want. How's that? You dredge up the candidates, I'll buy them.” A long pause. Too long. “Or were you thinking of a more direct form of action?”

So there it was.

Gary was asking if they wanted him to hire a George Collier of his own.

“Of course not,” said Eddie, quite alarmed. “That's the craziest thing I ever heard.”

“We're not killers,” said Aurie, eyes wide as she began to understand. “You're talking about assassination, Gary.”

The billionaire laughed, and turned to face them. He leaned on the sill and folded his arms. Now that he had broached his idea, the tension seemed to have evaporated. “You know, Eddie, what Lanning Frost said to you was true. If your opponent has dirt on you, you better have more dirt on him. And if your opponent has Mr. Collier on his side—follow me?”

He offered them a guest room, but they decided to drive back to Manhattan that evening after dinner. In the carport, he told them they should call him if they changed their minds.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” fumed Aurelia as they sped along the interstate.

“No, it wasn't,” said Eddie. “He was delivering a message.”

“That he thinks we should kill somebody?”

“No. If we'd said yes, he'd have found some excuse. No. That whole speech was to let us know he won't lift a finger to help.”

“But that's impossible! He's”—a momentary stumble—“your friend!”

“Not any more,” said Eddie. “We're on our own, honey.”

As they drove on through the darkness, Eddie remembered his first and only meeting with Erebeth Hilliman, more than a decade ago. He would never be a real writer, she had lectured him, until he read Milton.

John Milton—author of
Paradise Lost.