Palace Council (24 page)

“She's in New York a lot. She's on a couple of charitable boards. And, well, whenever she's in town—this is what I hear—she comes up to Harlem.” Gary leaned close, as if the driver could otherwise listen through the closed panel or the tube. “Sneaks up to Harlem. Leaves her driver, changes her hair, takes two taxis.”

“How could you possibly hear something like that?”

“I know people who know people,” said Gary, piously, as if reciting his catechism. “And some of the people who know people owe favors to the Hillimans.” He laughed at himself. “Well, actually, just about everybody owes favors to the Hillimans.”

“Erebeth,” breathed Eddie.

“What about her?”

Eddie shook his head. No point in telling Gary that the line was not that hard to trace. What he described sounded less like rumor and more like detailed surveillance—the sort of information that might show up in an FBI report. Hoover collected dirt on prominent people, and Lanning Frost, presidential timber, was as prominent as you could be without strolling into the Oval Office every morning. Erebeth Hilliman had contacted Hoover when Eddie was in trouble and made him call off the dogs. Presumably the pipeline still existed. The agents told Hoover, Hoover told Erebeth, Erebeth told Gary. Erebeth seemed to define power as getting people to take your calls. She wanted Gary to know that, too.

“Tell me the rest of the story,” Eddie said.

“Not much to tell. She comes up to Harlem in her disguises, she gets off on Edgecombe Avenue, she goes into a fancy building, she stays for hours, and, afterward, an unidentified Negro male helps her find a cab to head back downtown.”

“Edgecombe Avenue? Is it 409 Edgecombe?”

Gary laughed again. “No, Eddie. Get your mind out of the gutter. If she was having an affair with Kevin Garland, I don't think he'd be unidentified. No, it's in the 500 block.” They were heading into the park. Gary gazed out the window at what would soon be his front yard. “A tall man. Young. Very good-looking. Hey, that sounds like me, if I were only a Negro.” More laughter.

Eddie considered. The only fancy building in the 500 block of Edgecombe was 555, the Roger Morris Apartments. Although he no longer lived in Harlem, he kept tabs on who was doing what, mainly through Torie Elden. He teased himself with possibilities, running through residents in his head. Lena Horne. Joe Louis. But he was postponing the inevitable. Eddie knew perfectly well what tall, good-looking, muscular young man lived at 555.

Junie's old heartthrob, Perry Mount. The golden boy, who had dated Sharon Martindale and demanded that Eddie stop searching for his sister.

Margot knew Perry. Margot knew George Collier. Was it absurd to think that the two men might know each other?

“I think, if your driver can manage it, I'd like to go to the party now.”

“The party?”

“For Lanning Frost.”

“Can I come?”

“Invitation only.”

When Gary spoke, he sounded exactly like his aunt, and Eddie saw, for the first time, not his buddy but the heir. “I'm a Hilliman. I can get in anywhere.”

“Half a Hilliman,” said Eddie, their old joke.

But Gary never cracked a smile.

(IV)

I
T WAS IMPOSSIBLE
to move. Aurelia had told him that only forty people had been invited, but there must have been four or five times that number squeezed into the apartment to rub shoulders with Lyndon Johnson's near-certain successor. A couple of security men watched uneasily. Lanning himself had his jacket off and was playing the piano, while Margot stood off to one side, as if bored by the proceedings, although the sharp green eyes darted constantly. The crowd around Lanning was singing, mostly Cole Porter. He played admirably. The guests made no secret of their adoration. The room was awash in liquor. Kevin Garland circulated, whispering in an ear here, shaking a hand there. Eddie guessed he was collecting commitments for the campaign war chest.

“Thank you for coming,” said Aurelia, standing beside him. Eddie turned in surprise and, probably, delight. She gave him a delicate hug. “And you brought Gary.”

The millionaire grinned. “Actually, I brought Eddie.”

“Oh,” said Aurie, confused.

Eddie said nothing. He was, for a moment, afraid to speak. He had forgotten how she felt. Her warmth. Her scent.

So Gary spoke for him. “We came to check out a nasty rumor.”

The crack woke Eddie from his stupor. He rounded on his longtime friend. Had he always mistaken this naked cynicism for good humor, or had Gary changed under Erebeth's influence? “Stop it,” he said.

“What?”

“You're not funny, Gary. Go bother somebody else.”

But the aplomb of the truly rich is unshakable. “No, thanks. I think I'll stay and bother you.”

Eddie turned his back. He took Aurelia by the arm, drew her off toward the front hall. People were shouting out songs for Lanning to play. A prosperous Caucasian was whispering in Margot's ear. She kept nodding gravely.

“What is it, Eddie? What's wrong?” Aurelia inclined her head toward his, offered the old mischievous smile. “We can't talk alone for more than a minute or two, or people will think—well, you know what they'll think.”

“I want to ask you a question,” he said.

She drew her Virginia Slims from her purse, tapped one into her hand, slid it between her lips. Eddie took her lighter, did the honors.

“So ask,” she said.

“How well does Kevin know Perry Mount?”

“I'm sorry?”

“What you told me about the testament—”

Aurelia stiffened. She remembered Mona's advice. And Kevin's fears. “I meant what I said five years ago, Eddie. We're never talking about that again. I wish I'd never opened my stupid mouth.”

But Eddie, as she often used to say, could be a mule. “I think there's a connection among the three of them. Perry, Kevin, and Philmont Castle.” He cast an eye back toward the parlor. “And Margot Frost. Maybe the Senator.”

“Eddie, what are you talking about?”

“The testament your husband was looking for. I think Perry—”

“I'm not going to listen to this. I don't know what's the matter with you. I think you've had too much to drink.”

“I don't drink any more, Aurie.”

“Well, maybe you should. Stop, Eddie, okay? Stop trying to involve me in—whatever you're doing. I've worked hard on my marriage, and I'm not going to let you wreck it. Marry Torie. Marry Cynda. Marry somebody. But leave us alone.”

She swept back into the parlor.

Eddie, following at a distance, found himself beside Margot Frost. He had no idea what to say. He did not believe for an instant that she was having an affair with Perry Mount. If she was sneaking off to meet him, the reason could only be, as he had intimated to Aurelia, that they were co-conspirators.

“Nice speech,” he finally said.

“Yes,” she agreed somberly, keen eyes still moving over the room, perhaps wondering in whose pocket additional contributions might be found. Was it really possible that this ambitious woman had a connection to a man like George Collier? Eddie saw no way to put the question.

“It's good to see you,” he said.

“You, too.”

Margot never looked up.

CHAPTER
35

A Conversation Is Postponed

(I)

A
ND YET
Aurelia was not nearly as confident as she pretended. True, Eddie had never been the same since the Kennedy assassination. He had soured on politics and largely soured on America. He saw conspiracies everywhere. But even a paranoid could, at times, be right; and, of course, Aurie possessed facts that Eddie did not.

In particular, facts about Kevin.

She threaded back through the throng, smiling and hugging and kissing as needed, searching for her husband. She saw Gary chatting with the deputy mayor. Margot was deep in conversation with a Democratic ward boss, who kept nodding his head to whatever Mrs. Frost was saying. The impromptu piano recital had ended. Lanning Frost was standing near the bar, sipping club soda. A florid balding man was berating the Senator about the campus “free speech” movement. Lanning nodded importantly. “Well, naturally, none of us really want our once-proud universities run by the kind of situation where anybody reaches the level of controversy we need to attain,” he announced.

The crowd cheered.

Aurelia grabbed her pastor by the arm, but he had no idea where Kevin was. She asked Chamonix Bing, lately divorced, who was very giggly, on the arm of a stranger. Chammie shrugged, evidently on her way out. Aurie asked one of Kevin's banking friends. He looked annoyed, pointed vaguely, went back to flattering the Senator. She finally found her husband behind the closed door of their bedroom, where he sat on a chair with his face in his hands. Kevin looked up at her approach. He was not crying, as she had feared. Nor was he drinking. He was exhausted.

“Honey?”

“I can't do it, Aurie,” he said, holding her hands. She sat on the arm of the chair, bewildered. “I'm not Burton. I'm not Matty. I'm just Kevin. I can't do it.”

“What is it, honey? What's wrong?” Cooing all the right things even as a sick tendril of dread began to rise. She stroked his neck. “What can't you do?”

“They're asking too much now. Oh, honey.” Drawing her closer, he laid his face in her lap. “I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you. You were right. I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“It's out of control, like I told you, and, well—since Dad died? It's getting worse. The whole Council is scared.” He sighed and sat up straighter, although his eyes were wide and, unless she was mistaken, frightened. “After the party. We'll talk tonight.”

“Whatever you say, honey.”

“You deserve to know. You need to know.”

“Kevin, darling, whatever it is—”

He kissed her hands, then stood up. Shakily. “I have to go back out there, honey.”

“Not with that tie, you don't,” she said, and straightened it for him.

“Thank you, Aurie.”

“I'm here for you,” she said, and kissed him.

Then he was out the door and into the laughing throng, and it was Aurelia's turn to sit, and cover her face, and wonder what had happened. The years since Matty died had brought them so close together. Kevin had never been anything but affectionate and gentle and loving, and Aurelia had been everything for him that she could. He had held the firm together when people guessed he would not, he had taken her on vacations, he had rolled around with the children on the lawn, and he had never, ever sat in a chair and told her that “they” were asking too much of him, that he could no longer do—well, whatever he was doing.

Maybe Eddie was right. Not all of it—she refused to believe that Kevin was involved in anything sleazy—but, plainly, her husband was in over his head.

I'm not Burton. I'm not Matty.

Burton being Burton Mount—Perry's father.

Maybe Kevin only meant he could no longer run the firm. Fine. Sell Garland & Son to the highest bidder. They had money enough. He could retire young, and they could relax for the rest of their lives.

But Eddie had asked about a connection among her husband, Perry Mount, and Phil Castle. So maybe Kevin had not been talking about business after all. Maybe he had been talking about the papers she found in his safe eight years ago. Shaking the throne. All of that.

She would find out. Tonight, when the party was over, she would listen patiently to whatever Kevin had to say, and together, as a husband and wife should, they would figure out what to do next.

(II)

E
DDIE SAW
K
EVIN
in the hallway leading from the bedroom, and knew that he had to leave before Aurelia came out. She was right, of course. He should marry somebody. She would never leave Kevin. But Eddie, at heart a romantic, did not believe in marrying for any reason but love, and, so far, he had not managed to love anybody else.

Not that he had tried all that hard.

And he doubted that he would be able to try, in any serious way, until he found his sister.

The crowd was thinning. The security guards were unlimbering. Eddie realized that he had waited too long to depart, and now would have to wait longer, because Senator Frost and his wife were waving and handshaking their way out of the room. Kevin escorted them into the hall. Eddie looked toward the alcove, but Aurelia had not emerged. He sensed that something important had happened. He took a step toward the bedroom, then laughed at himself. He could not speak to her there. He noticed that Kevin had not returned. Of course not. He had to walk his guests all the way to their limousine.

Only a couple of dozen people remained. The caterers looked exhausted. Somebody asked for Eddie's autograph. Somebody else asked him about the war. Here was the best evidence that the party was truly over: people other than Senator Frost could now be noticed.

Wandering into the study, he noticed the winking light on the multi-line phone. Aurelia must be on a call. He wondered if it could be related to—

Chammie Bing was suddenly beside him. “Are you here by yourself?”

“What?”

“Because, you know, if you don't have plans, maybe we could have dinner or something.”

“Well—”

“We could go anyplace you want. Do whatever you want.” She was so ingenuous in her insinuation that he fought not to chuckle. Chammie might be single again, but she had been married to a friend of his.

“Actually, I do have plans,” he said gently, and they both knew he was lying.

Chammie's face fell. She opened her mouth to answer, and what came out was a tremendous thunderclap. The apartment shook. People screamed, including Aurelia, who came racing from her bedroom, shoes off, hair undone. She went to the window looking down on Edgecombe Avenue. They all did. The smoke obscured the view. Gary had materialized from somewhere. He was tugging at Eddie's arm and yelling in his ear. The hallway was chaos. The elevators were useless. The stairwell was packed, but they fought their way down. Edgecombe Avenue was swirling bedlam. The Senator's car was a ball of flame. It took hours to sort things out, but by evening everybody in America knew that Lanning Frost had survived an attempt on his life, the blast killing two people: the driver, who was holding the door of the limousine open, and the individual who was standing between the Senator and the car, a Negro businessman named Kevin Garland.

Jewel Agony took the credit.