Dead Wrong (19 page)

In the elevator on the way up to the penthouse, Father Deutsch ventured, “Are you sure this is okay? I’ve never met your father, and he wasn’t expecting me. Did you see the look on the doorman’s face when I showed up with you? And that call to your father’s place—he wasn’t checking to find out whether your father was ready for us. I just missed by a hair’s breadth being left to cool my heels in the lobby while you went up alone.”

“Yes, I noticed all that. I also noticed that Dad had to think about it a while before he evidently agreed to see both of us. But,” he added, “I expected this to happen.” He grinned. “Otherwise I would have ripped the hide off that doorman for making us wait.”

“I’m still not so sure this is a good idea,” Deutsch persisted. “Your father didn’t invite me. And I’ve heard that nobody enters his presence without a clear and specific invitation.”

“Don’t worry about it. I think it’s—yes, providential, that Dad wants to see me now. And to make sure divine Providence is operating, I have you along.”

“But there’s no indication—”

“The indication”—Nash never lost his temper with Deutsch, but he was perilously close to doing so now—”came to us in the form of Father Koesler.”

“Koesler? But—”

“My father has even less to do with Koesler’s kind than we have. Yet Dad actually invited that aging maverick to see him. I think Dad knows the end is near. And I want you to be available and on the spot the moment he asks for the sacraments.

“If that doesn’t happen tonight, well, that’ll be God’s holy will. But at least Dad’ll be familiar with you … so that when he needs and wants you, you’ll be there, and he’ll be comfortable.”

Deutsch shook his head. “I don’t know …”

“I do!” Nash said emphatically.

The question was settled; Deutsch knew it would not be wise to pursue the matter.

The elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and they stepped out into the tiny vestibule.

Father Deutsch eyed the closed door, the obvious entrance to the apartment. “Do we just go in?”

A sardonic smile briefly crinkled Teddy’s mouth. “No one, nobody, ‘just goes in’ Dad’s place.”

The door opened, revealing an Oriental houseman in what appeared to be “hospital whites,” which were immaculate.

The two men stepped into the room.

It was, of course, Deutsch’s first visit. But unless his eyes were able to adjust to the dim interior, he wasn’t going to see enough to write home about.

It was a huge room, that much Deutsch could tell. In the early evening, the lighting was remote and indirect. The picture windows, which stretched the length of one wall, and partway along another, revealed the river, Belle Isle and Windsor, twinkling lights, and the rush-hour traffic plowing homeward.

After taking in what little he could distinguish, Deutsch noted the servant leaving by a door in the far side of the room. After a few moments he returned, guiding a wheelchair noiselessly across the room straight up to the waiting men. Then he took the visitors’ coats and hats and departed.

Deutsch had spent all but a few years in the Detroit area; like almost everyone else, he was acutely aware of Charlie Nash. Now he was astonished at the man’s appearance.

Until about fifteen years before, when he retired in favor of his son, Charlie Nash had been very much in the news. His photo ran in newspapers, magazines, and on television. He was involved in everything from celebrity functions, to ground-breakings, to court appearances when he was being sued—and regularly winning the judgment—or defending the destruction of wetlands.

Deutsch remembered him as a dashing figure equally at home in a dinner jacket or a hard hat.

But all that had little to do with this pathetic, wrinkled creature apparently confined to a wheelchair. Deutsch had deliberately to remind himself that he and Charlie Nash were about the same age— in their middle seventies. The priest recalled shaving this morning. No, the image in his mirror had not looked at all as decrepit as the senior Nash.

Now Deutsch understood why Ted had wanted him to come tonight. Over many long years, Deutsch had ministered to a long, long list of dying people. Charlie Nash qualified. Ted had been wise in bringing them together.

“How are you feeling, Dad?”

“Well as can be expected,” Nash replied, borrowing the routine hospital response.

“This is Father Deutsch, Dad.”

Nash looked the priest up and down. Deutsch was unsure whether to extend his hand. The question was resolved; Nash made no move whatsoever to shake hands.

“So,” Nash said, “this is the deacon.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Nash, I’m—”

“It’s Dad’s way of embarrassing me. He calls all priests deacon. But only when I’m around.”

“Well, Deac …” Nash began.

“He also abbreviates,” Ted interjected, “but generally only when he’s feeling good about something, or when, for whatever reason, he likes the priest.”

“Well, Deac,” Nash began again, as if his son had said nothing, “I’ve caught your show.”

“My …?”

“The service—Friday mornings!” Nash’s tone took on a decidedly pedantic quality. Deutsch could see where Teddy got his quick temper. But the priest suspected the son was no match for the father.

“Oh,” Deutsch said, “the Mass. But I thought that was on closed circuit, just to Nash Enterprises offices.”

“Father Art,” Ted said, “there is not very much going on at Nash Enterprises that escapes my father.”

“Not anything,” Nash corrected.

“I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you should be excluded from anything,” Deutsch said. “In fact, if there is anything I can do for you … if there’s any help I can extend, uh, spiritual, of course …”

“Don’t push it, Father Art,” Ted cautioned.

Charlie Nash was making some indefinable sound deep in his throat. It could have been laughter as well as choking.

“Mr. Nash,” Deutsch said, “is there something …?”

Still croaking, Nash waved his hand to indicate all was in control, though it certainly didn’t seem so.

“Deac,” Nash said when he could finally articulate, “you think I let you come up here because I was worried about my ‘immortal soul’?” The noise began again. This time a tear or two wended its way through the wrinkles in the old man’s face.

“Dad,” Ted said, “he’s only being solicitous, for Pete’s sake.”

“Solicitous!” Nash hacked. He tried to force himself to breathe normally. After much effort, he was able to manage a wheeze that, for him, was close to normal.

“No, no, Deac,” Nash said, “don’t count on hanging my spiritual scalp from your belt.” He turned to his son. “You know you shouldn’t have brought him, don’t you?”

Ted shrugged. “It was worth a chance. Let’s be open: You’re not all that well, and one of these days you’re going to have to get serious about what comes next.”

“What comes next,” Nash almost roared, “is death! What comes next is death! What is it about the word that frightens you, Teddy? Can’t you say the ‘D’ word?”

“Very well”—Ted’s tone took on nearly the same vehemence as his father’s—”death! It can’t be around too many more corners for you. It’s long past time that you should’ve started preparing for death.”

“I am.” Nash may have been smiling. It was difficult to tell. He fished around in a pocket of his wheelchair, came up with a cigarette, and lit it. Immediately, he began to cough as if he would bring up his insides.

Deutsch was horrified.

Ted, who had been through similar exhibitions many times before, looked on stoically.

When the coughing abated, Nash held the cigarette up as if it were show-and-tell. “This,” he said, “is how I’m preparing for death. Nothing else has been able to kill me. Let’s see what the weed can do.”

“Come off it, Dad,” Ted said. “You’re a Catholic. You raised me Catholic. You know what I mean. You should be preparing for what comes after death.”

Nash’s eyes narrowed. “Your mother raised you Catholic—super-Catholic, come to think of it.” He cackled briefly. “I didn’t raise you Catholic. I was stuck with it, being Irish and all. I raised you to be a businessman. And I didn’t do such a goddam bad job, if I say so myself. Your mother almost ruined my creation. If she hadn’t been so off-the-wall holier-than-thou, she might have succeeded.”

It took a moment for Ted to swallow what he considered a gratuitous insult to his mother. “If you didn’t want a priest,” he said, “why did you let Father Art in? Granted, you didn’t invite him and I was taking my chances by bringing him along. But you could and— by damn—you would have ordered him to stay downstairs, or to go home, for that matter. But you didn’t. You let him come up with me. Why? Why!” Ted finished on a victorious note. “Why, if you are so unconcerned about your soul, about death, about the hereafter?”

Nash licked his lips but didn’t seem to moisten them. “Would you gentlemen care to be seated?” As he spoke, he pushed a button on the chair’s arm.

The white-garbed young man entered the room. Wordlessly, he moved two spartan-looking chairs from the shadows of the wall to a spot nearby and facing Nash. Then, as silently as he had entered, he departed.

Ted and Deutsch seated themselves. The priest immediately began shifting about, seeking an endurable position.

“No reason you should be more comfortable than I am,” Nash commented. He would make no effort to make them feel at ease.

“So,” Nash said to either his son or the priest, “you thought I let a priest in here to prepare me for eternity. Now, why would I do a thing like that?”

“To ask God’s forgiveness for your sins before it’s too late,” Deutsch said righteously.

“Sins?” Nash raised an eyebrow.

“Just a few minutes ago, you used God’s name in vain,” Deutsch pointed out.

Once again there was that guttural cackle deep in Nash’s throat. “God’s name in vain! If I was worried about my sins, that one would be the least of my worries, as you two soon may discover for yourselves. No, I’ve got other plans for the deac here.”

“Other plans!” Ted sounded genuinely surprised. “Other plans for Father Art? You don’t mean that you’re going to let Father Koesler take care of your—”

“Koesler!” Nash almost spat the word. “Let’s get something clear. I called on Koesler. I called on him to talk to his ‘cousin,’ your lover. He was supposed to talk turkey to her and get her to leave you alone. Instead, the jackass talked to you!”

“How did you know that?”

Nash shook his head angrily. “I know what goes on at Nash Enterprises. I know what goes on in your life.”

Ted wondered whether his father knew about Nebo, the secret hideaway. He doubted it. Just once, Ted wanted to think that he had outfoxed the old fox. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” he said. “It wouldn’t have mattered which one of us Koesler talked to. There isn’t anything that could separate Brenda and me.”

“That so?” Nash looked piercingly from under his once thick black eyebrows. “Think again, sonny.”

“Never!”

“I’ll give it to you straight,” Nash said. “For one, you’re asking for it. Two, you deserve it. And three, I haven’t got time to pussyfoot around. “Thirty-three years ago, I had an affair with Maureen Monahan.”

“Brenda’s—?”

“For want of precise terms—her mother. She got pregnant and we broke it off.”

The fact that his father had had affairs did not surprise Ted. He wouldn’t have guessed that one of those was with Maureen Monahan. Nor was he at all troubled by his father’s choice of words. Of course
she
got pregnant. No
Nash
had anything to do with it. And
we
broke it off. Charlie Nash didn’t discard her.

But there was more.

“She had the baby,” Charles said. “God knows whose kid it was. Could have been mine. But I’ve never admitted it. The thing is, the kid became a public ward, until Maureen took it in and raised it.”

“If you think,” Ted said, “that I’m going to believe that Brenda is that kid, you’re sicker than I thought.”

“No, Brenda’s not the kid. Mary Lou is. Mary Lou Monahan is the kid.”

“Brenda’s sister? You can’t believe that I’m going to accept all this! Out of the blue—all of a sudden? Why should you dump this garbage on me now?”

“Because Maureen dumped it on me earlier today.”

“What?!”

“I’ve been waiting all these years for her to bring it up. Why she didn’t try to blackmail me earlier—years ago—I don’t know. But, for her own reasons, she picked today.”

“But … if this is true, why haven’t you ever told me? Why did you wait until now to clue me in?”

“You didn’t have to deal with it. You don’t even have to take care of it now. Maureen’s not the only one who’s been making plans.”

“You …?”

“Of course. I’m not about to be blindsided by some conniving slut. Okay, so she’s going for the jugular now. She’ll find that we’re ready.

“But first, I gotta tell you what we’re going to do. I gotta show you how to handle this thing. After I tell you all this, you decide for yourself how important Brenda is to you. If you don’t break it up, you’re a greater fool than I thought.

“This is where you come in, Deacon. Now, pay close attention, both of you. I’m gonna tell you just what happened thirty-three years ago. And, after that, I’ll tell you all that has to be done now.

“And this, Deacon, is how I’m preparing for my death. Now, listen.”

1960

C H A P T E R