All the Devil's Creatures (27 page)

Also known as the Dame.

“Of course I haven’t,” Duchamp said without hesitation, rubbing his temples.

That woman.
Widow of her father’s younger brother—an unscrupulous, hard-drinking, womanizing old-time Texas wildcatter. To Kathleen, her Aunt Esther (whom she hardly acknowledged as a relation, and who likewise had hardly acknowledged Kathleen, who had seen Kathleen as a soft daddy’s girl useful only as marrying stock) represented all the corruption and cynicism that her father had fought against. A noble fight, doomed to failure.

Duchamp knew that his wife saw Esther’s connections as a necessary evil to further his own political career. But Kathleen could not know of the depth of his involvement with her aunt; she knew nothing of the Group, of the great Doctor’s grand designs. She could not know of the web that tied him to the Dame and the rest, the web his own father and Kathleen’s uncle had helped to weave together and from which he could not so easily extricate himself.

And so he repeated, taking Kathleen’s hands but not meeting her gaze: “Of course I haven’t had any more dealings with her. That phase in my life is over. All that matters now is you and the children and our home here. And that we give back.” He looked up at her at last. “These charity deals you throw mean a lot to me. Really.”

Kathleen’s eye’s softened. “Okay.” She squeezed his hands, and after a pause and a sigh she said, “How’s the preacher doing, by the way?”

“They don’t know. Or they aren’t saying. He was hurt pretty bad. The bomb exploded right outside his window, and I guess he was standing right there.”

“I know we had our political differences with the Carters, but really.” She shook her head. “That poor town. I don’t miss it. Aside from everything else, I’m glad you’re out of office. There can be no good from this. It will destroy everyone it touches.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, anyway, they probably won’t announce anything new tonight. Please, swim a few laps to clear your head, have a stiff drink and a hot shower. The guests will start arriving in about an hour.”

He turned back toward the television but kept his head down. He rubbed his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now I’ve got the caterers to deal with.” She turned off the television and left.

•

The partygoers fell into three camps: the old Dallas money (a relative term)—the scions of the wildcat oilmen of the 1920’s and ‘30’s who had built the modern city; the young bucks, flamboyant members of the creative class who owned sports franchises and swank new nightclubs that could sometimes attract top d.j. talent from L.A. and Miami; and, finally, the men Geoff called the European rogues of Dallas—hidden men from ancient families who had set up shop in the city with the sole goal of trading the democratic socialist tendencies of their homelands for the hyper-capitalism of New Texas.

So had Geoff and Tony explained, to give Marisol a sense of what to expect. Tony represented these people. Geoff had gone to school with them. Together, the two lawyers had educated her.

Marisol told them, sitting in the bar: “This isn’t my scene.”

“Sure, doll. But when it comes down to it, these North Dallas swells aren’t any different than the gangbangers and narcos who make up your client base. You’ll watch and listen and make the connections to who’s in dirty with who just like always.”

“And you’ll get those papers,” Geoff said.

“Right, Waltz. Piece of cake.”

Marisol hoped Geoff caught her sarcasm. The next night, she dressed and came up town. She arrived through the service entrance in the van with the rest of them. She had to brush off her
Norteño
Spanish.

Carrying a tray loaded with champagne, she pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen into the vast living room. The recessed lighting and vaulted ceilings cast shadows among the billionaires and wannabes huddled in small groups amid the faux French baroque furniture. Many of the men looked twice as old as their wives, skinny blondes in stiletto heels and designer cocktail dresses, but plenty of grand dames also stood around sipping martinis or scotch, peering about the room through botoxed eyes. Their dresses were less revealing but no less costly than those of the trophy wives.

She served them drinks and smiled and stayed silent. As she worked the room, she heard bits of conversation, none of them interesting, at least not to her on that night. “…
we plateau at fifteen a BtU, and they’ll be drilling that shale, mark my words
…” “…
in Taos all summer with her damn pottery
…” “…
went back east, but their girl’s happy right here at Hockaday
…”

A figure caught her eye—the Prince. He approached and he took a glass, but he gave Marisol no indication that he recognized her.

A harpist played in the corner. After a while, a woman called attention with the ringing of silver on crystal. To Marisol, she looked familiar, and she supposed it was Duchamp’s wife. She introduced a small man who wore a frumpy but expensive suit, like eccentric English gentry. He stepped forward and nodded to brief applause and spoke, thanking the hostess and the guests and extolling the generosity and the vision of the city. This was a fete in his honor—of late an assistant curator at an august New York museum, hired now at great cost to head this shimmering and insecure prairie city’s premier institution.

The curator stopped speaking and took a humble bow. The music and the laughter and the clinking of glasses resumed. Then Duchamp emerged scurrying and timid through a doorway, as if this were not his home, as if he had just arrived from a great distance and he did not speak the language. Marisol watched him approach another man, a man of equal age but who exuded, even from across the room, more dignity and gravitas than Duchamp ever managed to muster even at the height of his Congressional career. Eschewing grace or civility, Duchamp pulled the man away from the couple with whom he conversed. Then they stood before an overwhelming wall of glass panes overlooking the patio with its illuminated pool. Duchamp’s captive wore a tailored gray suit with a yellow tie and matching pocket square and looked annoyed. Sparing a passing thought to Geoff Waltz, Marisol headed over, beginning almost to enjoy herself and the adrenalized high going incognito gave her.

•

Preoccupied with his knowledge of Marisol’s undercover job unfolding at that very moment, Geoff tried to relax with a single beer and an umpteenth viewing of
Casablanca
. His phone rang.

A computerized voice: “This is a message from the Prince.” Instructions to a nearby intersection followed. A car arrived, he got in without comment. Its driver frisked him and took his phone, assuring him he would get it back at the conclusion of his meeting. Heading out Northwest Highway and up Harry Hines past strip clubs and all night diners, Geoff felt no trepidation, only an angry determination to get to the truth.

•

His oldest friend, his brother for life from their days in the most secret of their Ivy League alma mater’s secret societies, looked sick upon Duchamp’s approach. Smiling through clenched teeth, he said, “You’re breaking protocol, Robert.”

Duchamp glanced at but barely noticed the Mexican woman in the caterer’s outfit standing beside them. Leaning in close to his friend (
the Patrician
), he said, “Please, things are ugly down there. You’ve got to help me.”

“Well, was the product recovered?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have nothing to worry about.”

The Patrician waved at someone across the room (a fake wave at a nonexistent person, Duchamp did not doubt) and made as if to walk off. Duchamp took his arm.

“I’m afraid they’ll somehow trace that white trash Monroe to me.”

“And well they may. None of my concern.”

Duchamp rubbed his eyes. Two laughing women walked by and took glasses of champagne from the catering girl’s tray.

“None of your concern? What would our father’s—”

“Our fathers are dead, Robert.”

Duchamp felt close to tears, like a young adolescent wounded and tortured by some careless act of his own doing.

“It’s that goddamn Prince. He’s cutting me out. If I could just get face-to-face with the Doctor, to explain … I know you can help. You’ve still got pull.”

“I’m afraid not, old chum.” And now his last friend did start to walk away. “Excuse me.”

“You know I could blow the lid off the whole thing.”

His smile never faltering, the Patrician rounded on his erstwhile confidant placed his arm across Duchamp’s neck, pulling him close. An embrace not of affection, but of domination.

“Now, now. Nobody likes a snitch. Besides, the Doctor has decided: we’re shutting the facility down. The Group ratified his decision. So you have nothing to worry about.”

Duchamp’s voice quavered. “I know all the players.”

“Do you now? It’s not polite to brag.”

•

Marisol could see the man beside her, Duchamp’s interlocutor, nod and smile across the room as if acknowledging an old acquaintance, but she followed his gaze and there was no one there to meet it. They spoke softly, but Marisol could sense the tension. And before the gentleman pulled Duchamp close and spoke into his ear, cutting off her eavesdropping, she did make out one phrase from the congressman’s lips that confirmed her and Waltz’s suspicions.

I’m afraid they’ll somehow trace that white trash Monroe to me.

Now to get the written proof.

The gentleman walked away and Duchamp looked so ashen and afflicted that Marisol feared he would faint or vomit. He bit his lip and turned and seemed to notice her for the first time. She met his wounded gaze and then diverted her eyes downward. He did not speak but grabbed a flute from her tray and downed the champagne in a gulp. Then he slid open the sliding glass door, crossed the patio, and re-entered the house through a French door opening onto a wing set at right angle to the room in which Marisol stood. Marisol worked the crowd and kept an eye on patio. When Duchamp emerged, he did not return to the party but walked straight to the vast garage, entering through a side door, as if making a shameful retreat.

The party wound down. Some of the men and a few of the non-trophy women had retreated to the den. A few others now sat by the pool on this warm and hazy night, smog and light pollution veiling any starlight.

Exiting to the patio with the tray and a folding platform to hold it, she stood facing the straggling guests, as if waiting to be asked for something, or waiting for them to leave so she could gather glasses. She stood with her back to the door and her hands behind her back, and with those hands she checked the doorknob. It was locked as she expected but it was only a simple doorknob lock, no deadbolt. She jimmied it with little difficulty, her shoulders barely jerking through her caterer’s coat as the popped the hardware free. A piece of metal clanked to the ground, but no woozy lounger turned his head.

She opened the door just enough for her thin frame and slipped into Duchamp’s study unnoticed. She did a quick search for papers—the desk was clear of clutter as if it were a display model in a furniture showroom. All polished mahogany with brass handles, engraved glass paperweights from various organizations (National Concrete Aggregate Consortium, Petroleum Drilling Research, Inc.) a few jejune pieces of correspondence, a pen set. No computer, no books.

She poked around the wet bar and it yielded nothing. Then she walked to the closet and looked inside. Old children’s Halloween costumes—Scooby Doo, Tweety Bird—hung from the rail. In any other house, Marisol might have been touched. Here, she felt a subsurface twinge of dread as if from a subconscious association, like catching a hint of an odor last smelled at a forgotten funeral.

She pulled at the loose carpet on the floor of the closet and discovered that the floorboards had been cut to form a trap door. Lifting up the boards and shining her flashlight into the crawlspace, she saw a safe embedded in concrete.

Marisol got onto her belly and reached down in the hole. Removing a penlight from her pocket, she examined the lock. She estimated it would take her seven minutes to crack it and pulled her tools from beneath her coat and got to work.

The safe revealed a stack of ledger books. She removed them without pausing to examine them. Below them were stacks of one hundred dollar bills and a cell phone. She left the cash and took the phone and stood up with the books. Opening a page, she saw random numbers and annotations—some sort of code, as she expected. It would take a combination of cryptology and forensics to decipher the books, to crack the code and then trace dollar amounts to bank accounts and, hopefully, to Jimmy Lee Monroe.

Taking one last look in the safe, books tucked under her arm, she saw something nestled beneath the cash, wrapped in a thin blanket. She bent back down and felt its shape—a cylindrical canister. Like the one she had held, and lost, in Eileen’s pod.

She saw the warped fetus in her mind’s eye.
Oh good God not you again.

But then before she could lift it out a woman spoke behind her with a subtle twang.

“Just what in the hell are you doing?”

Marisol stood and turned and saw Kathleen Duchamp in the doorway, pointing a tiny nickel-plated handgun at her.

•

Geoff stood chilly and alone in a warehouse on the western edge of the city, a commercial district of Korean importers. When at last the Prince emerged from the shadows smoking and in evening wear, he looked like 1948. Geoff thought:
he’s only lacking the fedora
. The Prince’s heels clicked and echoed in the cavernous space.

“You failed once, Mr. Waltz. Now you have veered onto an entirely erroneous path.”

“Look, my colleague found your little pickled beast, and one of Duchamp’s thugs almost killed her for it. She would have been at least the third decent, innocent person murdered over this deal—one of them a very good friend of mine. So enough with the riddles. You tell me what we’re after and how to tie it to Duchamp.”

The Prince chuckled. “You sound like you’re on a vendetta. But the weasel Duchamp is not the key. The key lies beneath that shuttered refinery two hundred miles east of here. Recall that a woman in your employ began this chain of events when she trespassed at that facility and stole—”