7191 (37 page)

No, thought Mack, sucking at the marrow of a spare rib, and neither will the jury. The old boy’s enthusiasm was infectious. He had a way with a word and a con man’s gift for making the outlandish seem perfectly reasonable. The jury would listen to this man and believe him.

Mack glanced at his wristwatch. Twelve forty-seven. At this moment the limousine transporting the sum and substance of his case and the salvation of his professional reputation would be speeding down the southbound lanes of the West Side Drive en route to Foley Square. Gnawing at the rib, which was cold and greasy, Brice Mack reasoned that traffic would not be a problem at this early hour and that even now they might have arrived at their destination.

Had it been possible for the youthful and hopeful attorney to have known that at this very moment, instead of proceeding on a southward course, the limousine, with the aid of a police car’s sirens to clear its path, was speeding westward towards the emergency room of Roosevelt Hospital containing the catatonic and moaning form of a very sick and very old man, certainly the porker whose ribs he had so rudely desecrated would have had its revenge, for Brice Mack would surely have choked on the last mouthful.

Janice got the news at three fifteen.

The phone was ringing as she and Ivy entered the suite at the Candlemas. Handed a number of messages at the desk - all from Bill and all marked ‘Call back. Urgent! 555-1461’ - they had hurried up to the room to comply, but Bill got to them first.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he shouted in a wild and hysterical petulance that Janice suspected was as much the result of alcohol as anger.

‘Out,’ she replied, affecting a calm for Ivy’s sake.

‘Out? Damn it, Janice! You were told to stick by the phone!’ His voice blasted in the receiver, causing static.

Janice felt an impulse to hang up but restrained it. Instead, she asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘What’s the matter?’ he mimicked. ‘Where the hell’ve you been, anyway? It’s all over the radio and TV!’

Janice resisted asking, ‘What is?’ forcing Bill to continue.

‘The defence’s case has collapsed!’ he shouted in a delirium of hostility and joy and proceeded to fill her in on the incredible happenings of the morning. And then - Bill’s strident voice rose to a new height of emotion as he delivered the real bombshell -James Beardsley Hancock’s sudden heart attack, the defence’s key witness out of the picture, perhaps for good…

‘Congestive heart failure,’ Bill blurted out. ‘The hospital’s last report has him deep in coma and critical. Brice Mack asked the court for a continuance till tomorrow morning in order to realign his witnesses, and damn it, Velie had to accede to his request because you weren’t there and he was afraid Mack would want to bring you on next…’

‘Oh,’ Janice said.

‘Velie’s pissed, Janice, and so am I. We had them off-balance, on the run. This whole damn business could have been over by morning. Now the bastards have time to regroup and re-form their strategy.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Janice whispered.

‘Damn it.’ Bill’s voice lost its edge of shrillness. ‘We just can’t go about doing as we damn please, Janice. We’re not living a normal life. We’re in a battle.’

‘I know.’ Janice’s soft reply held just the right note of ambiguity. She could feel him weighing what she’d said. When he spoke next, he was decidedly calmer.

‘How’s Ivy?’

‘She’s here. Would you like to speak with her?’

‘How is she, Janice?’ Bill insisted.

‘Okay… I think.’

‘You think? What does that mean? Is she sick or isn’t she?’

‘Her throat’s better, and the cough is gone.’

‘Well then, bring her back to the city with you!’

Janice was taken unawares. ‘When?’

‘Now. On the next train. It shouldn’t take you long to check out of that place.’

Janice hesitated. ‘She’d prefer to stay in school.’

‘And I’d prefer to have her home, where we can keep an eye on her.’

Janice protested. ‘But we’ll be in court all day.’

‘She’ll Be closer to us here than up there. I’ll hire a sitter, or a nurse, if you want. Pack her up and take her along, okay?’

A vein was throbbing in Janice’s temple. Ivy must not return to the city. She mustn’t give in to him on this point, and yet to raise the question of why she mustn’t would only rekindle his anger and bring on a new wave of scorn and contempt for fears he considered not only foolish but traitorous.

‘Janice?’ Bill prodded after a too-lengthy pause. ‘I’ll be expecting both of you down tonight, okay?’

Janice found herself stepping back warily from the receiver, not knowing how to answer him. Then, unexpectedly, surprising herself, she thrust the phone at Ivy and told her, ‘Here, darling, Daddy wants to say hello.’

The happy and assured smile on her daughter’s face brought a flush of guilt to Janice’s cheeks. It was difficult to stand there quietly and to smile as Ivy chattered innocently and with total unawareness that she had been used as the stopgap in an irreconcilable situation.

‘… but I can’t come home now,’ Ivy beseeched. ‘Tomorrow’s the crowning, and I just can’t miss it. We all worked so hard on Sylvester. Please, Daddy, please let me stay!’

Her pathetic pleas to remain gradually found a receptive ear, and soon Janice saw the clouds of gloom disperse and sunshine return to her face.

‘Oh, thank you, Daddy,’ she cried. ‘And please don’t worry, I’m really feeling much better. I haven’t coughed once since we got to the room.’ Ivy’s eyes flicked towards Janice. ‘Yes, she’s here, I’ll put her on. And, Daddy, I love you—’

Janice’s grip tightened on the phone, and hearing Bill’s breathing on the other end, she cleared her throat.

‘Thanks,’ he said curtly. ‘Thanks a lot.’ His comment required no response, and she made none. ‘What’s this crowning all about?’

‘It’s an every-year thing they do at the school, with the snowman.’

There was a short space of silence.

‘You feel all right about leaving her there?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Janice said firmly.

His voice was downcast. ‘All right. Get down as soon as you can. I’ll wait dinner for you.’

‘Fine.’

Janice hung up the phone and turned to Ivy.

‘We must pack quickly if we’re going to get you back to school in time for dinner.’

‘I’m packed already,’ Ivy said a bit nervously. ‘Remember?’

Yes, Janice remembered. It was for an instant an effort to remember, principally because with memory returned the sickness in her heart, the feeling of dread that had relentlessly pursued her ever since Bill had left the night before. The things that had happened in - what? - less than twenty-four hours, things that Bill would surely have considered trifling and innocuous, were things which, step by step, had plunged her into

a renewed state of panic and despair.

*

It began Sunday night, several hours after she and Ivy had gone to bed - Janice in the bedroom, Ivy next door in the sitting room. Janice had considered sharing the big bed with Ivy and would have if Ivy had wanted to, but since she didn’t mention it, Janice didn’t encourage it.

After calling out their last good-nights to each other in the darkness, Ivy had asked, ‘Mom, what’s her name?’

The question troubled Janice, for she knew full well to whom Ivy was referring. Still, she had needlessly asked, ‘Who?’

‘Mr Hoover’s little girl.’

‘Audrey Rose.’

Janice could sense Ivy considering it.

That’s pretty.’

After another moment of silence. Ivy moved a thought closer.

‘Do you think she looked like me?’

‘No,’ Janice answered abruptly.

‘How do you know?’

‘He showed us a picture of her. She had black hair and dark eyes, and her face didn’t look anything like yours.’ Then, putting a cap on the conversation: ‘Shall we get some sleep now, darling?’

‘Okay. Good night.’

‘Good night.’

Later Janice was awakened by a slight disturbance. It was the soft creaking of the connecting door and the dying edge of a shaft of light as it closed.

Alerted by the possibility of illness, Janice quickly rose from the bed without turning on the lamp and quietly went to the door. She opened it a crack and saw that the light emerged from the bathroom at the far end of the sitting room. Ordinarily, she would have simply called out to Ivy and asked if anything was wrong, but some inner sense, vague and unspecific, stopped her from doing so. Instead, she silently padded across the ill-lit room to a point still some distance from the bathroom, but that afforded a clear view through the half-open door, whereupon she came to an abrupt stop.

Standing naked before the wall mirror, gazing transfixed at her own dimly reflected image, was Ivy. Her budding breasts pressed close to the glass, there was a strange, mad light in her eyes as they plumbed the eyes in the mirror, seeming to seek a route through the pale and glistening orbs and beyond, into the deep, impenetrable darkness that lay on the other side. For a moment, Janice thought it was the prelude to a nightmare - her proximity to the glass, the dazed, empty expression, her trance-like immobility all seemed to point in that direction - and she was about to enter when, all of a sudden, Ivy began to giggle: tinkling, high-pitched, girlish giggles directed at the image of herself in the mirror, at the eyes that returned the opaque, vacant gaze. Janice felt her knees trembling. The sight of her daughter’s nakedness, the bizarre laughter that seemed both childishly innocent and hideously sinister were totally mesmerizing. Then the laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started, and in a soft, taunting voice, Ivy began to croon the name.

‘Audrey Rose? Audrey Rose?’

Janice put a hand on the dresser to steady herself, then silently wheeled around and picked her way back to her own room, softly shutting the door behind her. Turning on the bed lamp, she consulted her watch. Twelve fifteen. The light from the lamp and the noises she purposely made alerted Ivy, and soon Janice heard the toilet flushing and her footsteps pattering across the floor back to bed. Janice waited a minute before opening the door and looking in on her. She lay on her side with her face to the wall and the blanket pulled tightly around her neck. Her pyjamas were on the floor next to the bed.

‘Are you all right?’ Janice asked.

Ivy turned to her mother with a sleepy face of candid innocence and sweetness of youth.

‘Umm.’ She smiled. ‘Had to go to the bathroom.’

Sleep eluded Janice for what seemed hours. The fears, the terrors, the complexities, the tangles, the unhappy moments, the fevered pace of the past months pursued her towards dawn with a harpy’s persistence.

She was awakened by a shaft of sunlight, hot and bright, digging into her eyes. For a split second she didn’t know where she was, only that a light was burning her eyes and that a voice was shouting, ‘Mom! Mom!’ She sat up.

‘Yes - what is it?’

Struggling out of bed, she ran to the door and flung it open. And saw Ivy, standing in her pyjamas in the centre of the sitting room, shock and anguish splitting her face, her blond hair tousled.

‘Mom, my things are gone. All my clothes - dresses, jeans, everything’!’

‘Gone? What do you mean, “gone”?’

Janice automatically moved towards the closet.

‘They’ve been stolen!’ Ivy persisted. ‘Somebody must’ve stolen them! Hairbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, everything! Even my medicine!’ At which point she coughed reflexively.

That’s impossible—’

‘Well, look for yourself,’ Ivy chided and, pointing to a chair

overflowing with clothing, added, ‘The only things they didn’t take are what I wore yesterday. And my hat and coat.’

Janice opened the closet door and saw the row of divested wire hangers. Her eyes drifted down to the floor, which was barren of shoes and boots. She felt a clammy perspiration on her forehead and strove to contain her anxiety so as not to upset Ivy further. Turning to the dresser, she casually opened each drawer to assure herself they were empty.

Ivy’s lips drew into a grim line.

‘Robbers must’ve come while we slept, Mom.’

Janice forced herself to smile.

‘What would robbers want with your clothes?’

Even before she finished the sentence, she noticed the suitcase peeking out from under the rollaway.

‘They didn’t seem to want your suitcase,’ Janice idly commented, dragging it out on to the floor and finding it heavy. Releasing the clasps, the lid practically exploded under the pressure of clothes, bottles, brushes, boots, shoes, all beautifully and expertly packed.

Turning to Ivy to question her about it, Janice was stopped by the look of stunned amazement on her daughter’s face, a look that was completely genuine and spontaneous, a look no actor could have simulated.

‘Who did that?’ Ivy said in a tiny, stricken voice.

‘One of us must have,’ Janice said lightly.

‘I didn’t!’ Ivy exclaimed, putting all the force she could manage into the denial.

There was no doubt in Janice’s mind that Ivy had some time during the night packed the suitcase, just as certainly as there was no doubt that she had no idea she had done so.

Later, at breakfast, Ivy suggested that Bill might have packed the bag before leaving for the city.

‘You know how much he wants me back home. He really doesn’t like my being up here. Maybe it was his way of saying so.’

‘You mean, like a hint?’

‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘It’s possible,’ Janice managed, putting down her coffee cup which was slopping over the sides from the trembling of her hand.

The time was not quite seven, and they were alone in the breakfast room. Outside was one of those infrequent mornings in midwinter when the sun seems to shed a warm and kindly light over the whole world. Ivy thought it would be fun having a picnic on the beach, and though it meant deserting her post at the telephone, Janice was quick to agree, hopeful that the therapy of salt air and sun-baked sands would help to calm her flesh and spirit. Her mind was a tempest of thoughts and conjectures, a whirling confusion of half-formed fears centring on the eye of a single fact: Ivy had packed her bag without realizing it. Why? What did it mean? If the act was beyond Ivy’s control, then Audrey Rose must have been the motivating force behind it. If so, was it merely a symbolic statement, or did it have a practical application? A packed bag could mean but one thing. A trip. Was Audrey Rose pushing Ivy back to the city? Back to home - and Hoover? Was this her scheme? If so, how had she thought to accomplish it? A girl of ten - alone - with no money and no real knowledge of travel? The questions dizzied her, bringing a shocked, curling smile to her lips and a look of dumbstruck wonderment to her eyes. If Bill were privy to her fears, he would certainly have her locked up.