THE FOURTH WATCH (31 page)

"Me too," I said. "But I would have thought it
to be...um...a bit understated for your taste." I was drinking a
Zombie. Tough guys don't use straws.

"Mike! Are you calling me a snob?"

''Not at all," I told her, smiling.

"My father used to bring me here all the time!”
She exclaimed in mock outrage. “The owners and the staff loved
him." Her eyes crinkled. ''How do you think. we got this table so
fast? Your wit and charm?"

“Perhaps."

A waiter suddenly appeared at our table. He
spoke not a word, but starred at us expectantly, a brilliant toothy
smile etched on his face, his hair oiled and knotted under his
skullcap. We couldn't decide, so we ordered a variety of dishes to
split. Hot Kung Pao Shrimp in water chestnuts with a spicy Szechuan
peanut sauce, Yu Hsiang Beef with red and green peppers, broccoli,
pea pods and straw mushrooms in ginger and garlic, Moo Shi Chicken,
Lo Mein and Pork Fried Rice. We ordered Peking Ravioli and Crab
Rangoon appetizers.

After the waiter had left us Carolyn said, "The
leftovers are going to my place."

"What about me?" I said.

"You can come to my place too."

''Don't tempt me."

She smiled and held my eyes, and then she
dropped them and stirred her drink with her straw.

''Hey, listen," I said, ''that check you sent
me, it was way more than I will ever need in this thing ...
"

''How do you know," she said, cutting me
off.

"Because I know my business."

"Yeah? Really? You have a lot of experience at
this International intrigue kind of work do you?"

"That's cute, but ... "

"Mike, you are already going half way around
the world and you don't even know what you're after yet. You've
hired a private investigator and who knows what else is going to
happen. I don't need the money. You're not breaking me. For all you
know you'll need more before this whole thing is over. If not..."
she shrugged, ''you can give it back at the end."

I shook my head but gave in.

An army of wait-staff descended upon us with
platters and bowls and teapots. I laid a foundation of Lo Mein on
my plate, then piled a little of everything on top. Carolyn ate
little bites of each item, putting little spoonfuls on her plate
and finishing one thing before tasting another.

Around a mouthful of food I said, "Has your
Father's ... has Samantha warmed up to the idea of what you're
doing any?"

She shook her head. "No. You have to
understand, Mike, my Father was her whole life. She fell hopelessly
in love with him, it was unbelievable really."

"Then why wouldn't she want to know if he was
murdered?"

''I don't know." She knitted her eyebrows.
"It's not that. I don't think she has given any thought to
believing that he was murdered. His death itself is too painful for
her to think about, so she doesn't want to hear about anything that
will make her think about it. I don't know if that makes any
sense."

''How did she meet your Father?" I asked
her.

"Sam's a geologist by training. She was a
Professor at Worcester State. Daddy loved state schools. He always
said that the kids who went to them got the best education because
there was a real world atmosphere about it all. Most of the kids
had to work a job or two at the same time that they were taking
classes. Pumping gas in the cold all day and burning the midnight
oil hunched over the books. Daddy had great admiration for that
kind of work ethic, and for the professors that nurtured it. Oh, he
knew that there were lazy ones who saw working for the state as the
easy way out, and he had no respect for that. But he used to take
applications from professors who were looking to better themselves,
and he'd fund trips and projects for faculty members that showed a
passion for their work. Sam applied to him for funds for an
expedition to Greenland, in the dead of winter to study glacial
formations and rocks and stuff." Carolyn laughed at the memory. "My
Father was in awe of her application. She wanted funding for
airfare and tents and communication equipment and gear and
supplies. There were no frills in her request. No academic retreat
in Orlando, no semester in Greece to write a PHD thesis, just this
woman and a small staff of guides and scientists, her tent and her
ropes, scaling icy rock formations to find something or other that
would advance geological eggheadedness. It blew Daddy's mind! He
called her in and talked to her, and then he funded the expedition,
and then he called her when she got back because he wanted to hear
all about it and somewhere along the way he fell in love with
her."

"That's quite a story," I said.

"I know."

''If you don't mind me asking, whatever
happened with your Mother?"

She smiled. ''Daddy's best friend. You're
wondering about that 'legendary womanizer' stuff, is that
it?"

"No, no. I. .. "

"Well, let me tell you, Mike, it was kind of
true, I guess, but only after my Mother and before Sam." She pushed
her plate aside. "My Mother died fifteen years ago, I was just
about 12 years old, cancer. Daddy was just making it big, opening
new stores all over, cutting ribbons and smiling with mayors,
finally achieving his goal, their goals really, and then Mom got
sick. All Daddy's money and all the fancy doctors that it would buy
were powerless against her illness. In the end they tried an
experimental therapy that had been successful with some patients.
My Mother was at the end of what they could do conventionally
anyway, and she wanted to give it a try. The plan was to introduce
poison into cancer cells and inject them into the blood stream in
the hopes that they would return to the source of the cancer and
kill it. At first they were encouraged, but within a day or two
they realized that it hadn't worked. Mom died within two weeks of
coming home."

''I'm sorry," I said.

"My Father was devastated. She had been his
center through it all. She gave him support and never complained
when Dad didn't know where his next paycheck was coming from. He
just couldn't believe she was gone. One day he just vanished. I
remember Teddy telling me that he had to go away on business for a
while. We had staff folks around, and Daddy had made arrangements
for a nanny for me. I didn't see him for months. Teddy told me
later that he really went to some island off the coast of South
America and stayed drunk the whole time. Teddy was older, and
working at Loading Dock then, and he said that Mr. Archer held the
business together.

"When Daddy came home, he plunged back into
work with a vengeance, but he also became a little wild. He spent
more time with his cars and his horses and toys. It was as if my
Mother's death had given him a glimpse of his own immortality or
something. He worked hard and he played hard and there's no
question that he had his stable of bimbos. Every time I saw his
picture in the paper he'd have a different one on his arm. But he
never brought them home - to our house anyway. I'm sure he had
apartments all over, I'm not saying he didn't, but he shielded me
from it as best he could, and I never got angry or felt threatened
in any way. When Sam came into his life, I was twenty or so. She
was friendly and she made my Father happy so we all got along.
Daddy never made me feel for one second that he was replacing my
Mother, or that anyone ever could replace her. I'm sure he was
loyal to her during their marriage- and to Sam during theirs. What
he did in between ... “ She shrugged.

''How about Teddy? What did he think about Sam
and all?"

"He was fine with her too. Sam was easy to get
along with and she never came across as a threat of any kind. She
wanted to fit in with us." Her eyes smiled at the corners,
"besides, he wasn't in a position to do any complaining. My Father
was not a big fan of Ellen in those days, thought she was a gold
digger. Teddy had just gotten married and it was a very touchy
situation. I think they decided, without discussing it, that they
would leave the subject of each others love lives alone in order to
preserve peace in the family."

"Why did Red think Ellen was a gold digger?" I
asked.

She thought about that. "I don't know. My dad
was not a snob. Not at all. He was a working man. He admired hard
working people. Ellen was kind of...I don't know ... crude when she
first started coming around. You probably didn't notice," she said
smiling, "but Ellen is quite beautiful."

"Really?" I said, returning the
smile.

"Yeah, right," she said. "Well, anyway, when
she first started dating Teddy, she'd be around, and like, she
didn't seem to have much modesty. She'd come over to the house for
a swim in a thong and two bottle caps and lounge around all hanging
out everywhere and be draped all over Teddy. And she had this snake
tattooed on her ankle!" Carolyn rolled her eyes. "She'd show up for
dinner, or at family things, on holidays or whatever, dressed kind
of trashy, I mean...that's not right... she always had beautiful
clothes and everything but they were tight and slinky, you know
what I mean? Always had her boobs on display. She dressed elegantly
but provocatively – how's that?"

''I don't know how I would have been able to
stand it!"

She made a face at me. "Anyway ... she was like
an advertising executive at a fashion magazine in New York or
something. I think she was a model first." Carolyn's drink was gone
now and she chunked her straw around in the ice. ''I think my
Father was a little suspicious about what she saw in
Teddy."

I decided not to tell her that I had been
wondering the same thing myself.

"Teddy's just Teddy, you know. He's warm and
funny, and he has a heart of gold, but ... " She
shrugged.

"But Brad Pitt he ain't," I offered.

"Right. I'll tell you though. I never got the
same feeling about her that Daddy did. She always seemed to just
love being with Teddy. What do they say: 'opposites attract'?
Teddy's kind of shy and Ellie's a bit of a wild child, but once
they got going, they were always together. Teddy loves her and she
sure seems to love him. But Daddy never took a liking to her. She
knew it too. Once he told her to stop parading around his house
like a slut." Carolyn rolled her eyes. "What a hornet's nest that
turned into. Teddy went crazy. He never yelled at my Father, never!
But he did that day. He called him an ignorant old fool, and told
him to stick his money and his job. He said, who the hell did Daddy
think he was treating Ellen like that? And just where did he get
off calling her names when he was going around town with every
broad that wagged her ass at him. My father was purple with rage!
He went through this whole 'you're out of the will and get out of
my house' routine. Teddy told Daddy that he was almost forty years
old, and if he thought he was going to let some senile old bastard,
having a midlife crisis, decide who he'd see and when he'd see
them, he was out of his mind. He told my Father that he was most
likely going to marry Ellen, so he better get used to it, or get
used to the fact that he wasn't going to have his son around
anymore.

''I know Ellen felt awful about the whole
thing. She tried to stop Teddy from leaving, but she went with him,
and he stayed with her for a week or so until my Father went down
there and apologized. Daddy loved Teddy, and he knew that he
couldn't tell him how to run his life. He swallowed his pride and
told Teddy he was sorry, and he apologized to Ellie too, although
I'm not sure how genuine that was. Anyway, that's when the kind of
unspoken truce began."

"How'd they meet, Teddy and Ellen I
mean?"

"Through her job, I think," Carolyn said. "The
name of the magazine was 'New You' and they had just opened up a
Boston office as part of some company expansion program, I guess.
Ellen ended up in some kind of high level role here. The magazine
did a story on Loading Dock, its 'exotic allure' or some such
thing. One of the hats that Teddy wore at the time was publicity.
'Director of Public Relations' or whatever and she showed up with
the reporter that did the interview. Pitched an advertising
campaign that Teddy liked and sold Daddy on. The magazine published
a pretty favorable piece on the company and I guess one thing led
to another."

The waiters came back and cleared our table.
They left us some tea and two fortune cookies on top of the check
in a little tray emblazoned with dragons. Carolyn poured the tea
into small, delicate cups and I broke open my fortune
cookie.

"Well?" she said raising an eyebrow.

"Lets see here, 'You will meet new friends
through your work'" I read. ''Hey!” I said, "that's pretty good," I
met her eyes across the table and smiled. "You're a new
friend."

She returned my smile, her face coloring just a
little. "Thanks," she mumbled.

She picked up her cookie, unwrapped it and
broke it open.

"What's it say?"

"Down boy," she told me, and read the message
to herself. She went beat red. "These things are stupid," she
said.

"What's it say?" I asked again. "Come on." I
grabbed the paper from her hand.