Bannerman's Law (41 page)

She wrapped an arm around his head and steadied the
notepad with the other. She was able to focus now. The
note, in Nellie's hand, was addressed to him. It read:
Would it shock you to learn that a sweet old lady still
enjoys a good romp in the hay? Well, this one does. You
might try i
t
yourself. I have gone to the lake with Tom.
Will return after breakfast. I have taken your silly brief
case with me.

P.
S
. Have you told her yet that she's beautiful?

Ba
nn
e
rm
a
n
was in bed.

Unlike Weinberg, he would have preferred to sleep
while he could. It was not yet midnight, Pacific time, but
almost three on his and Susan's biological clock. Molly
and Elena had gone to their respective rooms. Lesko had
driven off in Yuri
Rykov's
car.

When Susan emerged from their bathroom, leaving its
light on, wearing nothing at all, a can of baby powder in one hand, Bannerman knew that sleep was not imminent.

She moved, gracefully, languidly, through the semi-
darkened room, past their bed to the window where she
parted the drapes. She stood there, in the light of the moon,
looking up at it. She sprinkled baby powder into the palm
of one hand and rubbed it, very slowly, along each arm
in turn and then against her throat, working lower.

Bannerman watched through hooded eyes. Next, he knew, she would do her breasts. She would linger over
them, far longer than necessary, one hand moving in cir
cles, kneading, caressing. The hand would then move to
the flatness of her stomach, then lower, over the tiny bulge
of her abdomen, then lower still. Her back would arch. She would shudder as if chilled. She would pretend to
have no idea that he was watching all this. No idea of its
effect on him. He was about to be manipulated again.

Someday, he said in his mind, he ought to tell her that this routine of hers had worked him only once or twice,
maybe three times. Certainly not the tenth time or the
twentieth. But he would not. He enjoyed being vamped.

She'd wheedled him into letting Billy teach her to
street-fight, and to shoot a few standard weapons, but not
into giving her a gun of her own. He still could not bear
the thought of it. He'd let Molly, not Ca
rl
a, teach her how to defend against a knife. Carla would have taught her to
use one. He'd had John Waldo show her a few things
about driving. Spotting a surveillance. Foiling pursuit.

All of these were essentially defensive skills. When
pressed, he could not justify saying no. But knowingly
letting her get into a situation where she might have to
use them was something else entirely. No, she was not
made of spun sugar. But she was no Carla Benedict either.

The vamping process was picking up steam.

Susan, just about now, would turn and she would say,
“
Oh
,”
or
“
Hi
.”
She would stand there, totally unself
consciously, making no effort to cover herself. She would
wait for an outstretched arm before coming toward him.

She would approach him, slowly peel the covers from
him, and she would turn him onto his back. Carefully,
barely touching, she would sit astride him. He would feel
a cool sprinkling of powder or, first, the touch of her lips
against his chest and the soft trickle of trailing hair.

“
Oh
,”
she said from the window.
“
Hi
.”

“
Um
...hi” Inthe
darkness, Ba
nn
e
rm
an allowed
himself a smirk. But he quickly made room for her.

She tossed back the covers and sat across his thighs.
He reached to touch her, not with any real expectation of
doing so but because this was where she would normally take both his hands and slide them under her knees, pinning them.

Her head came forward. The hair trailed. Her tongue,
this time, explored his chest. It caused him to squirm. Several minutes passed before he felt the powder.

“
Where did my father go
?”
she asked, in a soft mur
mur.
“
To meet that detective
?”

“
Ah
...
not yet
,
I don't think
.”

He did not enlarge on his reply. Susan had just elimi
nated her fathe
r
as the subject at hand. She would ask s
everal more questions, usually unrelated, before she eased
into it. It would begin with the phrase,
“
By the way
.
.
.
”

“
Then where did he go
?”

“
Who
?”

“
My father
.”

“
Oh
,”
Ba
nn
e
rm
an answered, stretching.
“
He wouldn't
have called from here. He'll move from phone to phone
for a while
.”

She sprinkled more powder onto his shoulders. She
began massaging them.

“
What were you two talking about? Just before he left,
I mean
?”

“
M
rn
m? When was that
?”

“
You walked out into the hall with him. Were you
talking about me
?”

“
Nope. Just some odds and ends
.”

He had asked Lesko to warn the police that any
agreement, once made, must be kept. That once they agree
to no surveillance, and bearing in mind that the two who
shot Yuri were still unaccounted for, anyone caught following them will be presumed an enemy arid might never
get the chance to prove otherwise.

“
Did you ask him to talk to Uncle David
?”

Lesko's
dead partner. ”I
.
.
.
told him that if I had an
extra mind, another set of eyes and ears, I'd certainly
use them
.”

“
You have mine. You have me. And I'm real
.”

”
I know that
.”

“
Do you
?”

Bannerman chose not to rise to the bait just yet. He
was having too nice a time.
He felt her hands pressing against his forearms. Hold
ing them. The knees moved off. Her body backed away,
her hair with it. He felt it trailing lightly over his stomach, his abdomen, then lower. He felt only the hair. She was
teasing him with it.

“
By the way
.
.
.
”

“
Hmmph
.”

Her head came up.
“
Beg pardon
?”

“
Um
.
.
.
nothing. By the way, what
?”

“
Well, I was just thinking
.”
The hair came back down.
“
Ca
rl
a said she asked Claude to call her in the morning.
He'd call the Beverly Hills Hotel, right? And Molly says
the hotel is holdin
g
some maps of Sur La Mer for her
by now
.”

”Uh-huh
.”

“
But you told them they can't go back there. They
can't
even go get their things
.”

“
They knew that. Their hotel would have been staked
out within an hour of that mess in Burba
n
k
.”

“
They'd be arrested
?”

“
Unless we can make a deal, yes
.”

“
Would I
?”

“
Probably not. They'd photograph you
...
try to find
out who you are that way. One would follow you when
you leave. But the others would sit tight and wait for Carla
and Molly to show
.”

She sat erect, her head cocked to one side. ”Ban-ne
rm
an
?”
she asked.
“
Does your mind really work that fast or have you already thought about this
?”

“
Sending you over there? I've thought about it
.”

”I could be there when he calls
,”
she said quickly.
“
I'll tell him about Yuri and why Carla has to lay low. I
could offer to meet him someplace and take him to her
.”

Ba
nn
e
r
ma
n
felt himself go limp.
“
Not a chance,
Susan
.”

She reached for the bedside light and switched it on.
In almost the same motion, she vaulted into sitting position
at his side, resting on her heels, her hands on her thighs.
Sex must be over, he thought, grumbling.

“
Listen
,”
she said.
“
That phone call is our only chance
of making contact with him. If Carla can't be there, some
one else has to, right? And a man's voice would probably
scare him off
.”

Bannerman realized that.

“
Even if Carla
could
be there
,”
Susan pressed,
“
your
next proble
m
is getting her to help you catch him. You
heard her. She thinks this guy is her friend
.”

”
I know
,”
he said, frowning.

His initial thought, still taking shape, involved having Susan tell Claude that Car
l
a wanted to meet with him. She
would warn him not to say much over the phone. Someone
might be listening in. Short of a court order, which did
not seem likely this soon, Banne
r
man doubted that the
Beverly Hills Hotel would permit eavesdropping on a
guest. But better not to take the chance. And the warning might persuade him that this was no trap. She would tell
Claude that Carla was in trouble. That she needed him.
That Carla said she'd wait for him at the place where
Hickey had turned his car around to avoid being spotted.
He would know that she meant Rodeo Drive. Bannerma
n
could have a dozen people ther
e
by early afternoon.

“
Could Carla really be that
.
.
.
damaged
?”
Susan
asked, not unkindly.

“
That she'd think of Claude as a friend
?”

Susan nodded.

“
She could be that loyal
.”

Susan blinked. She started to speak but she fell silent.

Nor did Bannerman try to explain.
Instead, he
looked
at her. That lovely face. So clean. That marvelous slender body. Hardly a mark on it. No scars, save the one through
her eyebrow. A constant reminder that she'd once almost
died because of him. But, unlike Carla, there were no
deeper scars.

No, there was nothing fragile about her. She was very
much
Lesko's
daughter. Smart. Honest. Strong but not
tough. Never mean. She was exactly what he wanted
.
.
.
needed
her to be.

But what Susan needed, or thought she did, was some
thing else. She needed to be a part of it. An equal part.
Like the others. He'd tried, more than once, to explain to
her that it could never happen. People like Carla and
Molly, all of them, were born with something extra or
something missing. He was never sure which.

How could Susan possibl
y
understand that what Claude
had done to six young women would mean very little to
Carla? Carla had seen too much death and many of those
victims were just as innocent. On the other hand, he thought, how would he explain Molly? Goodhea
r
ted,
warm, compassionate Molly who could sit up all night
with a hurting friend, and who was Susan's admired
buddy, but who was every bit as deadly when push came
to shove.

“
Susan
,”
he said, reaching to touch her.
“
We'll see
how your father makes out with the police. But in the
meantime, I'm going to ask Elena to wait by
Carla's
phone
.”

“
Good luck
.”
She twisted her mouth.
“
My father will
rip your face off
.”

“
I'll talk to him. She won't be in danger
.”

“
Then neither will I
,”
she said firmly.
“
The difference
is that my father doesn't have to know I'm there
.”

He started to speak
...
to shake his head
...
to say
that he didn't even want Claude to know that she existed.
But she put her hand to his lips.

“
I'm not a child, Ba
nn
e
rm
an. And I'm not just some
one to fuck
.”

He winced.

“
Okay. Make love to
.”
She forgot. Paul Bannerman
doesn't use bad words. He only shoots people.

“
Paul
.”
Her expression softened. But once again, her fingers kept him from speaking.
“
You're going to tell me
that I'm much more to you than that. I already know it.
It's why I stay with you
.”

She held up a hand.
“
You're also going to tell me that
I'm not Ca
rl
a. I know that, too. But you want me to be
less than I am. That has to stop. And so does this
.”

“
So does what
?”

“
Me having to seduce you every time I want to take
a step forward. Besides, I'm a feminist. We're not sup
posed to do this shit
.”

He was silent for a long moment.
“
Becoming more
like
us.”he
said slowly.
“
That's your idea of per
sonal growth
?”

“
You're not listening. I don't need to be more. I just
won't be less
.”

Bannerman rubbed his chin. He rolled from the bed, t
aking the can of baby powder, not knowing why. He
wandered, not speaking, to the window. Her back was to
him, She knelt, facing his empty pillow. She had not
moved.

“
What if I say no? Will you leave me
?”

“
No
.”

He had expected a threat. At least a qualifier.
Not
unless
.
.
.
Only if
.
.
.
But the answer was no, quiet
but firm.

It should have relieved him.

But all it did, together with the sight of her proud
straight back, head held high, that marvelous hair gathered
in one hand, pulled over her shoulder, was to make his
desire come surging back. And with it, a thrill of fear.

For nearly all his adult life he had thought of those
close to him, even those he had come to love, as accept
able losses. And they knew that. There was no other way. He could not have functioned otherwise. But he knew, all
this time, that he was half-dead inside.

Since Susan, that had changed. Car
l
a saw it even before he did. She had nothing against Susan, really. She simply
knew the danger of caring too deepl
y.
‘
There are people
who hate you
,”
she said.
“
It gives them a way to hurt you
.”
And she was right. They had tried.

“
If anything happened to me
,”
he asked,
“
what would
you do
?”

“
I've
.
.
.
accepted that something could
.”

Left unsaid was that she, like Elena, had decided to
have a child. Unlike Elena, she had not told the man who
would father it.

“
If you had died last year
,”
his voice dropped to a
murmur, ”I think I would have gotten over it. I could
have gone on
.”

She said nothing.

“
But not now
.”
He groped for words.
“
You've
become so entwined with me, so much a part of me
that
.
.
.
and it's not at all that I want to hold you back.
The truth is I'm scared to death
.”

“
Nothing scares you
.”
She uncoiled, turning, rolling
onto her side.

“
You do. This conversation does
.”

“
Come back to bed. Make love to me
.”

He hesitated, blinking.

“
You've said some lovely things. Come to bed
.”

Banne
r
man sighed. Mostly in exasperation. The subject,
somehow, had shifted. Just once, he thought, he would
like her to stick with an argument to its conclusion. Just
once, he would like to hear her acknowledge that he
was right.

“
He probably won't even call
,”
Bannerman said.

She didn't answer.

“
And I need Car
l
a there if he does. He'd hang up as soon as he hears your voice
.”

“
He might
.”

“
Then what are we arguing about
?”

“
He might not
.”

Bannerman chewed his lip.
“
You'd talk to him. That's
all. You'd give him no information about yourself
.”