Dante's Numbers (39 page)

S
HE DID REMEMBER. IT WAS ALL THERE. JUST hidden, waiting to be let out into the light of day like an old poltergeist freed from the basement.

It must have been September. She could still feel the heat. Seventh-grade boys and girls, out on a trip to Crissy Field, doing the things schoolkids did. Working a little. Playing a little. Teasing…

Maggie Flavier could still picture herself on that bright distant morning, thin as a rake but tall for her age and with a look about her that turned men's heads. She tried not to notice. She felt alone and a little unhappy in San Francisco. This was her mother's idea, not hers. To flee Paris and an estranged father, to try to find some new life halfway across the world in a city where they knew no one, and had, as far as the young Maggie could see, no clear idea of what the future might bring.

She'd danced at the stage school in France, and men looked then. Her mother had watched and taken note.

They were so kind in the church school on Pine Street. They smiled a lot and listened to her. They didn't mind she hated trigonometry and algebra and preferred to dress up and play on the stage instead, always inventing something, stories, characters, voices, situations, imaginary people she created to fill the void inside.

These small and seemingly useless talents mattered, her mother told her. Because of the
auditions.
She spoke the word as if it possessed some magical power. As if it could save them. The young Maggie had no idea how. All she understood was that she possessed a burning, unquenchable need to be noticed, to be applauded. By her peers. By her mother, more than anything.

The notes had been coming for weeks, always unsigned, always written in a crude childish hand on cheap school notebook paper. They were, young Maggie thought, beautiful in a simple, babyish way. Flowery language. Sometimes bad French. Sometimes, she thought, better Italian, which she recognised from lessons in Paris. They were never coarse or dirty, like some she'd received, and some the other girls sent from time to time. All they spoke of, carefully, indirectly, was love. As if there were an emotion somewhere waiting for her to discover it, like a hidden Easter egg, a secret buried in the ground. Something ethereal, something holy, distinct from the hard, cold physical reality of the life she knew. She didn't really understand the words or the poetry, some of it so old she found the verses unreadable. So she threw them away mostly, until the last.

Had this unseen admirer written, simply,
Margot Flavier, je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime
, then, perhaps, she would have tried to understand. But nothing was that clear and sometimes the language was so florid, so odd, she thought it was a joke. Some times it scared her a little. She was young, she was exiled in a foreign land, with a strange and unhappy mother who wished to push her into a career about which she felt unsure, not that her doubts mattered for one moment.

Naturally, she told the girls. Barbara Ronson. Louise Gostelow. Susan Shanks. The trio who ran the class.

Naturally, when the final note arrived, they had an idea.

That last message came the day after she'd gone to the first successful audition of her life, taking time off school for the short flight to L.A. with her mother, spending hours reading the scripts, trying to make her fast-improving English bad again for a group of men and women who seemed to demand that. Afterwards, when they waited at LAX for the flight home, her mother had made a call on a public phone. When she returned, her face glowed with a happiness Maggie had never seen there before. Maggie had the part. Françoise in
L'Amour L.A.
A life mapped out in a single day, not that she knew that then, not that she felt anything much at all, except pleasure that this had produced joy in her mother.

Maggie had been surprised. She thought she'd fluffed her lines and failed the audition.

The next morning, she came into school and found the note tucked into the seam of her locker. It read,
Tomorrow at Crissy Field I will reveal my love.

Barbara and Louise and Susan had gawped at the scrawled, nervous handwriting, giggling, and then concocted the plan.

Out on the hot, dusty sand dunes of the Marina the following day, they'd played it out. While the rest of them walked with Miss Piper, making notes about the grass and the lizards and the birds, Maggie had detached herself, looking distracted, knowing full well what would happen.

Finally the teacher headed for the public washrooms, ordering them to wait. Maggie walked to one of the small huts owned by the park service and stood in its shadow, out of the burning sun. It took only a minute. Then he was there, staring at her, his plain face getting redder and redder, voice tripping over itself, his eyes, which were not unattractive, skittering over the pale, drifting sand, avoiding hers.

“Maggie…”

At that moment she didn't even remember his name. He was just
that boy.
The one with the stutter and the cheap clothes, the one whose father was something big and famous, not that anyone was allowed to know his name.

“Oui?”
she'd asked.

He bowed his head, held out his hands and tried to speak.

All that came out was “I lu… lu… lu… lu…”

It happened so swiftly she didn't have a chance to intervene, even if she'd possessed the courage. The three girls burst out from their hiding place and formed a ring round him, hands locked, eyes wild with glee, chanting, mocking.

Strapped to an old, hard bed in some place she thought was a shuttered movie theatre in the Marina, the adult Maggie Flavier could still hear that heartless song, see them dancing round him, a jeering circle of coarse, hard cruelty, eyes wild, voices cackling, taunting, chanting rhythmically…

I lu…lu…lu…lu…

I lu…lu…lu…lu…

I lu…lu…lu…lu…

She could see the way he'd stared at her, see how his bewildered eyes filled with tears.

Then the boy ducked beneath their arms and she'd watched, heart beating wildly in her chest, as he tore away down the beach towards Fort Mason, shrieking with shame and fury until his cries mingled with those of the gulls that hung in the sea air as if pinned to the too-blue sky.

She didn't speak much to Barbara and Louise and Susan afterwards. She blamed herself for showing them the letter in the first place. She wished, more than anything, to apologise to the boy. But it was impossible. Mickey Fitzwilliam never came to school again. He had no friends, and the teachers, when she asked, refused to tell her where he lived. For a while he was a burden on her conscience. Then other things intervened. Trips to L.A. to the TV studios. Work. A career. Her mother's growing frailty.

From that point to now…

She tried to imagine the distance, the journey, and couldn't. Not for herself. Certainly not for Mickey Fitzwilliam.

I
LU … LU … LU … LOVED YOU,” HE STUTTERED, clutching the old school badge.

“We were thirteen. We were just children.”

“I loved you!” he roared.

She couldn't think of anything to say.

“Did you never ask yourself why it was
that
day? Why then?”

“I was a child. I didn't ask myself anything.”

“He was the p-p-producer. Roberto. My dad.” The head was shaking again but there was only one voice left now, a young, frail one that sounded hurt and damaged. “He gave us money. He came by from time to time. Didn't want to see me. He just wanted my mom. That's all.”

“I don't understand…”

“He wanted to give me something. To ease his conscience. So I told him about you. About how you danced and acted and sang. About how beautiful you were. How your mom wanted to get you into show business. Everyone knew that. I got him to give you the audition. I begged him to give you that part. That was me.”

“Thank you,” she said simply.

“You were good, even then. Everyone wanted to look at you. They couldn't stop.”

She whispered, “ ‘But ‘o
o
can blame Françoise?'”

“Don't play those games with me,” he snarled. “I saw you. On the TV. Going around town. You never even noticed me. I
watched
you.” He stared hungrily at her. “I watched you change. All those nice parts in the beginning. The good girl. Sweet dreams and apple pie. Then…That first time you… t-t-took off your clothes.”

“Mickey…”

“Do you know what that did to me? Do you even care?”

She shook her head and said, “I did not know you then. I do not know you now. If I had…”

“While you were banging half of Hollywood, I was there. Didn't touch another human being. Not once. Waiting.”

“Mickey, please…”

“I stood outside the TV studio all night long sometimes. I knew what was going on inside. None of those bastards loved you. Not your actors and your rich guys and your pimps. Not some stupid Italian cop…”

“Stop this now!”

“I watched you every day of your life. On the screen. In the papers. On the Net. I was right there next to you in a store, an elevator, at the movies. You never noticed, did you? Never had a clue what you owed me. Why the hell do you think Roberto cast you for
Inferno
in the first place, huh? Some washed-up has-been dodging in and out of rehab so fast even the papers had given up on you? Why'd he
pick you
of all people?”

“Because I can do my job,” she insisted, mainly to herself.

“So can a million other pretty women, all of them younger than you. I asked him. I
begged
him. One more favour for the bastard son. Keep him quiet. Ease an awkward little situation. Got to say that about my old man. He still has a Catholic sense of guilt somewhere, even when he's murdering people. You know when he came along and wanted someone else removed from that sweet scam of his, to keep up the coverage in the papers?”

She didn't want to listen to this. She didn't want to think about it.

“I screwed it up on purpose. I sent out Martin to get that almond stuff knowing you had that hypodermic handy.”

“I could have died.”

“If I'd wanted it, you would have. Don't you
see?”

It was the last thing she needed but the tears were beginning to prick in her eyes. “In God's name…what is it you expect me to do?”

“Fuck-you-kill-you…” he whispered. “Lu-lu-love you. I waited so long for this. Twenty years. I didn't want you to hate me. I
made
you, Maggie. I
rescued
you. I still can. There's just the three of us left now. Me, you, and my old man—and he won't be around much longer. Millions and millions and millions of dollars. It could last a whole lifetime. For the two of us.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, exasperated. “I don't understand…”

“The scam
, dummy. The one that jerk Harvey wrote you into when you were too bombed to notice. Once my old man's dead, there's a place in the Caribbean we can fly, walk in a bank, pick up the whole bundle, everything that was meant to go to him, to Harvey, Martin, those Lukatmi losers…It's all ours, Maggie. No more work. No more worry. You don't need to go down on some jerk in a director's chair. I don't have to slave away in construction until my old man calls and tells me to go do his dirty work. Everything will end perfectly. Don't you see?”

He didn't stutter when he felt confident. He didn't even look terribly threatening.

“Talk to me some more,” she said. “Come closer.”

Mickey Fitzwilliam laughed nervously, then patted down the sheets at the foot of the bed. He sat down, very stiff, very nervous.

“See, Roberto said this whole thing was really all for me in the end. The money. The tontine. All I needed was to cut the numbers a little.”

He snickered like a child and looked, briefly, proud of himself. “Well, a lot actually. Josh and Martin… that was pure improv. They came by my place bleating about how it was all going wrong…how
scared
they were. Pissed me off. Next day I just sent Josh a stack of letters demanding money and made it look like they came from Martin. Easiest thing in the world. Morons. They thought I was there to, like, mediate. You believe that? Then that idiot Tom Black calls me when he's on the run.”

Another voice, high-pitched. Terrified.

“ ‘Scottie, Scottie, ya got to help me. Like you promised…'”

A dark, malevolent gleam flashed in his eyes.

“I hate dumb people. Told my old man afterwards. Know what the great Roberto Tonti said? That I got lucky. That I oughta shut up. He'd take care of it. See me right. Call that luck? Does anyone get that lucky?”

“I'd call it fate.”

He smiled. “Me too. This was
meant
to be, Maggie.”

He scanned the room as if he was looking at something he despised.

“Roberto gave me this theatre. My inheritance. Bullshit. He couldn't make any money out of this dump. All these things… they were supposed to be his way of saying sorry. I'm not stupid. It was always about him. That scam was…his pièce de résistance. His big moment. Going out in a big blaze of glory. Look at me, Ma! Top of the world! All those years behind the camera. All those years watching actors get the applause. It ate him alive…”

“I saw that.”

“You did?”

“It was obvious. Tell me more.”

He inched a little closer and looked at her left leg, bare, half askew on the bed.

“I never touched a woman before. Not till today. When you were sleeping.”

Maggie Flavier gave him a stern look. “That's not nice. Touching a woman when she doesn't know.”

“I'm sorry. I just…” He shook his head. “I couldn't stop looking at that movie after my dad gave it to me back when I was a kid.
Vertigo.
It was the first piece of work he did in America, you know. I watched it right away, to please him. Said it was his movie, too, in a way. Then I saw you and you lived in the same place. It was like…”

He ran his tongue over his lips as if they were dry. “I'd watch it every day. Twice, three times sometimes. Got it in French and Italian, too. I could sit here and tell you every second, read you every line.”

He gazed at her, frankly, greedily. “After a little while it was you I saw, not some dumb old actress no one's ever heard of. You in that car. In that dress.” He blushed again, looked younger. “In bed, in that apartment.
My
apartment. Bought it with my own money. Robbed a bank in Reno. Self-made man. Wasn't taking everything from Roberto. I got my dignity.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “That movie…it kind of got inside me.”

“They do sometimes.”

He edged closer still and, as she watched, gingerly put his hand on her knee, looking all the time, anxious for her approval. His fingers closed on her skin, squeezing, as if she were some kind of lab specimen.

“Not hard,” she told him. “That's not nice.” She held up her arms, with the rope dangling from the wrists.
“This
isn't nice.”

She leaned forward as if to kiss him. The rope was just short enough to stop her. She moved back into place with a sigh.

“A woman can't make love tied to a bed. Not a good woman. That's what hookers do. Dirty women. I don't want to be a dirty woman. I won't do that. Not for anyone.”

“I-I-I d-don't want that, Maggie. I
never
wanted that. All that fuck-you-kill-you stuff. Jesus…All I wanted was to be with you. Like we should have been from the beginning. Now we've got the money, we can…”

His words drifted into the nothingness of acute embarrassment.

“We can what, Mickey? Tell me. Please.”

“We can be like normal people. A couple. We can live where we want. Paris, maybe. On a desert island. Or a farm in the country with a-a-animals…” He squeezed his eyes shut and blushed. “Kids maybe. All in good time. We don't have to do it right now. I don't expect that. I just… sometimes. Sheesh. Sometimes I'm not
me.
“

He took his hand off her knee, then mumbled, “We don't even have to do
it
till after we're married. I'd like that. It would be the right thing. In the circumstances.”

“In the circumstances…” she echoed, cursing herself for letting a little of her fury show, glad he didn't notice. “I can't kiss you if my hands are tied, Michael. Can I call you Michael? Is that OK?”

“If you like.”

He looked at her, mouth open, a little idiotic. Then he went back to the chair, scrabbled on the floor, came back with the knife, and sat next to her on the bed.

“The reason I never messed with girls is my old man told me. They screw with you. They fuck your head. They gobble up your whole life, until one day there's nothing left.”

“Some girls. Not all.” She held out her hands. “It depends how you treat them.”

“Yeah.”

He reached over and sawed through the loop of rope on her left wrist, then her right.

“I didn't tie them tight, you know. I didn't want to hurt you. Not ever.”

“I realise that.”

She took his right hand, the one with the blade, slipped forward, angled her body against his, heard his breathing catch, turn short and excited.

“Are you going to hold a knife even when you kiss me, Michael?” she crooned.

“Oh…”

He looked at the thing, shamefaced, then released it. She heard it clatter on the floor, and then, before he could even look at her again, Maggie Flavier was on her feet, trying desperately to remember some of the things she'd learned in the few self-defence classes she'd taken a couple of years before.

But her mind was a blank, so she did what came naturally. She jerked back her arm and elbowed him so hard in the face that the blow sent something electric running up and down her funny bone, and she screamed.

Mickey Fitzwilliam crumpled, clutching at his nose. Blood leaked out between his fingers. He was moaning and whimpering like a child.

She didn't wait. She ran to the door, jerked on the handle. The door didn't budge. There was an old-fashioned key in the lock. In her mind's eye she was already rushing outside, into the bright, safe world, screaming at the top of her lungs for all her life was worth.

The trouble was the key wouldn't turn.

He was curled on the floor near the bed, snarling at her, a different Mickey again, the one who'd been there when she regained consciousness. The one who snatched her, stripped her, put her inside someone else's old dress, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

He didn't care that snot and blood were pouring down over his lips, dripping off his chin.

“Guess that solves our conundrum,” he said in a nasal slur.