Bernhardt's Edge (13 page)

From earliest memory, she'd been ashamed of her mother. Whatever the ceremony—the National Honor Society, high-school graduation, college graduation—she'd wished her mother wasn't there.

Only later, much later, had she realized that her mother, too, had wished she wasn't there.

In contrast, Nick had always admired his father, admired the new cars, the flashy clothes, the booming salesman's laugh. In high school, Nick had it all: a car during his senior year, girls calling constantly, parties in the downstairs “rec room,” Cokes served by his mother with her bouffant hairdo—even an honorable mention on the all-state football team.

For Nick, it had all been too much, too soon—too easy. Because, when the house of cards suddenly tumbled down, and his father had shriveled before his eyes and his mother's voice had shrilled, Nick began to lose his way. He'd struggled, of course, done his best. But always, it seemed, he'd confused style with substance, appearances with reality. First he'd tried stock car racing—until he'd crashed. Next he'd gone back over the same ground, selling performance auto parts, drinking and bullshitting with the customers, as his father had done. Then, finally, there'd been the get-rich-quick schemes, each one a failure, each one leaving him a little less of a man inside himself.

And then there'd been the phone call…

She pushed the food away, and looked at the glass of wine, half full. Should she finish it? If she did finish it, she might not make her own phone call. To the extent that she knew herself, she knew that a small amount of liquor could blur her thinking, cloud her resolve.

Almost reluctantly, she pushed the glass away. She looked at the check, opened her purse, dropped some money on the table beside the check. She rose, left the restaurant, walked to the bank of open phone booths. She put her purse on the shelf beneath the phone, opened the purse. She found her address book, verified that, yes, she still remembered the number. She opened her coin purse, took out two quarters, deposited them in the telephone's coin slot. She stood motionless for a moment, receiver to her ear, hearing the buzz of the dial tone.

In the eleventh grade, she'd acted in the school play, an avant garde production called
Jaguar.
On the opening night, waiting in the wings for her cue, she'd felt numbed, suddenly immobilized, her throat dry, her limbs useless. For the first time in her life—and the last time—she'd seemed to exist apart from herself, a terrified stranger.

Until now, the last time…

Until now, when it was all happening again: the same slackness of the limbs, the same clenched throat, the same sense of helpless disembodiment as she touch-toned the numbers, heard the phone begin to ring. As she listened, she could clearly see the large, lavishly furnished room with its magnificent view of the ocean, the room she knew so well.

Three rings. Four.

“Yes?”

“This is Betty.”

A pause. Then, without changing inflection: “Yes, Betty. Where are you?”

“
I can't tell you that.”

“I see. I'm sorry to hear it, Betty. You believe that, don't you?”

“You had him killed. Didn't you? You tried it once here in Los Angeles. And yesterday—last night—you had it done. Didn't you?”

“We can't talk about it on the phone, Betty. You realize that.”

She made no response.

“Will you come to see me, so we can talk?”

“No,” she answered. “No, I can't do that.”

“You won't, you mean.”

“He said it was you, the first time. I thought he was wrong. I told him he was wrong. But he knew it was you—knew you gave the order.”

“Are you coming back, Betty? Eventually?”

“No.”

“I see.” He spoke softly.

In the silence, she could hear the noise of the telephone lines, a gentle sizzle. Was it possible that he could have the call traced? Could he have sworn out a warrant for her? Would he do that? She couldn't imagine. She'd never been able to imagine what he'd do. Which was the reason for his success, his incredible success. No one could predict what he'd do. Ever.

She realized that she was nervously clearing her throat, as if she had been called upon by a teacher, required to recite a lesson she'd only half prepared: “I'm going to tell them what you did—and why.”

“No, Betty. You can't. When you think about it, you'll realize you can't. It's important that you think about it. Very important.”

“I've got to go. I can't talk anymore.”

“Will you promise to think about it? Will you call me again, in twenty-four hours?”

“No, I won't promise that.” She raised her forefinger, broke the connection. In the receiver, she heard a small, decisive little click—possibly the most significant sound of her life.

D
ANIEL DUBOIS REPLACED THE
handset on its console. He remained motionless for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the phone. He was a small man, totally bald, with a large head and a shriveled body. The flesh of his face was sallow, cross-hatched by countless lines. The muscles on the left side of his face had slackened, leaving his mouth sagging and the lid of his left eye half closed. He wore a blue business suit, and sat in an elaborately appointed wheelchair, his partially paralyzed body angled slightly to the right. Fingers permanently crooked, his left hand lay helplessly in his lap.

The right side of the wheelchair was drawn close to the Regency table that served as DuBois' desk. Except for two telephones, both within reach of DuBois' right hand, the top of the table was uncluttered. Now, slowly, DuBois lifted the console phone with his right hand, set it aside, used a palsied forefinger to touch a single button on the console. He put the phone in his lap, pressed one of three buttons on the wheelchair's right armrest. The chair pivoted to the left, allowing him to look out through the floor-to-ceiling window, with its panoramic view of the ocean. Today the sky was overcast: long, leaden, low-lying clouds, roll upon roll out to the horizon, casting the water beneath a sullen gray.

When he lifted the phone to his right ear, the connection had already been made.

“Justin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You'll have to come over.”

“Right away.”

“Thank you.” He turned the chair again, pressed another button, spoke again into the phone: “Mr. Powers will be coming. Show him right in. And no more calls, please, unless they're critical.” He listened, then nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

He replaced the phone, and again sat immobile for a moment, once more staring at the phone, a modern-day electronic miracle. The push of one button connected him with his secretary. Press another button, and he was talking to Justin Powers. With equal facility, other buttons connected him to New York, and London, and Bonn, and Tokyo.

In an earlier age, the measure of a nobleman's power was the number of courtiers who attended him, or the number of swordsmen he commanded. Today, the telephone, not the sword, was the symbol of power. A touch of a button, a few words exchanged, and fortunes were made—or lost. In moments, lives were ruined—even lost.

He'd been eighteen years old—a brokerage clerk—when he'd gotten his first phone. A year later, he'd gotten a second phone, his first tangible talisman of success: two phones on his desk, one for outside calls, one for inter-office calls. It was 1929, the year of the crash—the year he'd first experienced sex. Looking back, remembering, it was plain that of the two—the second phone or Florence LeMay—the second phone had been infinitely more significant, more definitive. And secretly, perhaps, more satisfying.

At the thought, he smiled: a twitching of his mouth on the right side, making the sag on the left side more grotesque.

He touched a button on the chair's armrest, backed away from the Regency table, turned again to the window that framed the distant seascape. He would remain here until Powers arrived, in about twenty minutes.

Telephones and women…

If he chose to reduce his life to its symbolic essences, certainly a telephone and a woman would be primary. Years ago—twenty years ago, at least—when he'd been less stringent about his contacts with the outside, a man named David Griffin had gotten in to see him. Griffin had been recommended by Jack Curtis, whose instinct for the bizarre had always been amusing. “Give him fifteen minutes,” Curtis had urged. “You'll never forget it, I promise.”

Griffin's card had described him only as a “Heraldic Scribe.” He'd been a young man, energetic and smooth-talking, with a quick, engaging smile. He'd come directly to the point, saying that he sought a commission to execute the DuBois coat of arms. He'd already done considerable research, he'd claimed, already discovered that an ancestor on DuBois' mother's side had been an aide to Louis the Fourteenth. Then, getting briskly down to business, pencil poised over a pad of paper that he'd taken from an expensive attaché case, Griffin had inquired as to DuBois' primary “life interests.” Amused, he answered that he enjoyed power, paintings, and women, more or less in that order. Apparently Griffin had taken him seriously. A week later, unsolicited, he'd received a rough sketch of the “DuBois coat of arms.” Along with the obligatory knight's helmet and stylized battlements, the elements had included—yes—a moneylender's scale, crossed paint brushes, and the outline of a woman's body.

Could one vicariously experience the pleasures of the flesh once erection was no longer possible, and the body was infirmed? Sometimes, in his sixties, he used to wonder. And now, in his seventies, bound in his wheelchair with a safety belt, alone with his view of the ocean, with the best of his French impressionists hung on the walls, he knew the answer. Too late, he knew the answer.

Once, in his eighties, Montaigne had been asked whether he regretted having lost his sexual desires. Theatrically, the old man had raised a forefinger to his lips, dramatically demanding silence. “Do not speak so loudly, young man,” Montaigne had said, “lest the gods discover my bliss.”

Florence LeMay…

She'd be seventy-six now, if she were still alive. Her body would be shriveled, her voice cracked. Like him, she would lie awake in the night, chronicling her infirmities, wondering how the next day would differ from the day just past. Did she remember him, as he remembered her? Of course, in later years, she would have heard of him. Everyone who read newspapers would have heard of him. But, before she'd read about him, Florence could have forgotten him—as he had forgotten, long ago, so many others, so many anonymous women, in so many darkened rooms.

Had
Florence LeMay forgotten those few minutes in her living room, on the couch, the two of them coupled so urgently, so artlessly? It was, he knew, a possibility, a distinct possibility. Because, for Florence, it hadn't been the first time. So, like him—like everyone else on earth—she could have forgotten. She could have—

The console was buzzing. From a small holster on the left arm of the wheelchair he took a cordless phone.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Powers is here, Mr. DuBois.”

“Thank you. Send him in, please. No calls.”

“Yes, sir.”

He propelled himself behind the desk, maneuvering into position just as Powers came through the door, which Katherine closed soundlessly behind him. As always, Powers wore a dark suit, gleaming white shirt, perfectly knotted regimental tie. And, as always, his manner was stiff and studied, a second-rate actor who'd played one part so long that he'd finally managed a limited credibility.

“Sit down, Justin—” He gestured to one of two antique armchairs, placed to face him across the Regency table.

“Yes. Thank you.” Powers placed his attaché case on the floor beside his chair, sat down, crossed his legs, arranged his trouser creases, absently tugged at his shirt cuffs—all without looking directly at DuBois.

“Did everything go smoothly last night?”

“I—ah—” Simultaneously, Powers seemed to both nod and also shake his head. Finally: “Yes. Th—there weren't any problems, that I know about.”

“Good. Has the second payment been made?”

Powers swallowed, then nodded: a single ill-at-ease inclination of his head, a mannerism that evoked a child's discomfit, compelled to perform in the presence of adults.

“I don't mean to press you,” DuBois said. “I'm not asking for details.”

“I know—” Powers nodded again, then raised an uncertain hand. “It's just that this, all this, it's—” He broke off, searched for the words. His eyes, DuBois saw, were hollow, his gestures ineffectual, an embarrassment to behold. “It's unsettling.”

DuBois permitted himself a small, half-paralyzed smile. “I always enjoy your choice of words, Justin. Understatement, it's a gift—” Ironically appreciative, he nodded. “‘Unsettling,' indeed. Very good.”

This time, Powers made no response. At his temple a vein had begun to throb.

“The reason I asked you to come,” DuBois said, “is to tell you that Betty just called, not more than an hour ago. She was upset. Very upset. Which is understandable, of course. One reason for the, ah, exercise, after all, was to make her think, shake her up. But it's impossible to limit these reactions, once they're started. That goes without saying. So—” Regretfully, he shook his head. “So we may have to deal with Betty, too.”

“Deal with—?” As if he couldn't comprehend it, Powers frowned fretfully, moved forward in his chair, focused his gaze intently on DuBois. “You mean—?” Clenched on the arms of the chair, his hands were knuckle-white.

DuBois nodded. “It's possible. It was always a possibility. For now, though, I want you to find her, keep her under surveillance. I have reason to believe that she's here, in fact. In Los Angeles.”

“Here?”

DuBois nodded. “Perhaps it's the moth and the flame—the victim drawn inexorably to his fate. It's a phenomenon that's always interested me, the extent to which each of us is preprogrammed, governed by an elaborate set of psychological reactions that is incredibly predictable. Science is learning more and more about genetics—physical traits that are immutable. I suspect the same predictability is applicable to psychological traits. Day to day, we think we're free to make choices. But I suspect we may be deluding ourselves. I suspect that one's persona is immutable, formed partly by genetics and partly by experience, otherwise known as habits. And habits, I submit, are actually nothing more nor less than well-worn electrical pathways embedded in the circuitry of the brain. That's not stated very precisely, I admit. But when we consider that, more and more, science is discovering that electricity is actually the elemental component of all matter, then I think the theory holds up.”