Stone 588 (58 page)

Springer was staring at today's x-ray. He knew what he was looking at.

The Righting of Jake.

He had a pang of guilt for having doubted, but that was easily offset by joy.

"Where's Jake now?" Springer asked.

"Waiting on two. Do I have your consent, Mr. Springer?"

"Thank you, but no," Springer said and headed for his boy. He had a huge happy lump in his throat, and although he walked down the corridor it certainly felt like dancing.

In the most incorruptible, comfortable-looking casket money could buy, Elizabeth "Libby" Hopkins-Hull was placed on a stone shelf in the family crypt in Greenwich. Her shelf was directly above the one occupied by Audrey's mother, Gillian Croft.

Audrey thought of it as the reunion of a couple of high-spirited adventuresses, sensuous cavorters, both better off having each other to gallivant with on the other side. Audrey left all her regrets in the crypt, which was swiftly bolted and sealed. What she took away were only pleasant, easy-to-carry memories.

For the entire week after the funeral, Audrey was kept busy with legalities and other matters having to do with the Hull estate. She was rushed from one meeting to the next, day and night. She faced, down the lengths of conference tables, so many sincere-suited attorneys and their dry, affected competence that they all began to look and sound alike to her.

The attorneys soon discovered that she wasn't the sort to just take their word for everything and sign whatever documents they placed before her. They patiently patronized her when she wanted to know not only what she was being asked to sign but why. It put a sycophantic strain on their polish when she tried to cut through their legal triple-talk.

The attorneys and executives she met with kept referring to this or that Hull holding, this or that Hull position.

Audrey tired of it. She requested a list of the various businesses and ventures Hull was into, everything it owned outright, controlled, or had any stake in.

It wasn't, she was told, that simple.

"Fuck it," she said, causing the clearing of several old phlegmy throats. "Make it simple."

She didn't realize that she was trampling on their autonomies, that this thing called Hull was so far-reaching and complex, purposely structured in a way that would confound even those who believed they were overseeing it.

Naively trying to get to the bottom line of all the bottom lines, Audrey asked what did the Hull holdings aggregately amount to? (She was beginning to talk like them.)

In other words, how much was she, Audrey Hopkins-Hull, worth?

Did she mean personally worth or worth within the Hull Foundation or what?

How much could she, to put it plainly, count on? That's what she meant

They looked to one another.

Billions was the closest they could come to answering her. Billions.

Audrey, exasperated, asked one more question: Was there enough money so that she would never want no matter what she wanted?

They blew like correctly attired whales, as though it had been absurd of her to ask. More than enough, they told her, with emphasis on the more.

Not really satisfied but thus assured, Audrey graciously withdrew and let them get on with the business of making money. She'd been neglecting Springer, she thought, which was to say she'd been neglecting herself.

Springer did, indeed, feel somewhat deprived of Audrey all that week, but he too was kept busy—with classifying, pricing, and putting into inventory the goods from the Townsend haul and with having to keep convincing Gayle that it was all right for her to allow Jake to go out and play volleyball or whatever. Naturally Gayle found it difficult to accept that Jake was so soon wholly recovered, and nearly every afternoon there would be an SOS from Jake asking Springer to come over and liberate him.

Also, Springer was mentally preoccupied with trying to figure out how stone 588, stolen from his safe, had ended up in Wintersgill's hand. He imagined all sorts of explanations (a few were close to the truth) but not one, he felt, filled the gap acceptably. It bothered him that he'd never know.

Something else that weighed even heavier on his mind was what to do with stone 588.

Now it was Friday night and he was stretched out on the sofa in Audrey's living room. Ample light was being provided by the electric aura of the city. An Usquaebach and water balanced on his bare chest while he talked on the phone with Norman.

"I was sure you'd want it," Springer said.

'I'll admit it's tempting, but—"

"Any doctor would jump at the chance to have it."

"Not this doctor," Norman said.

"Why not?"

"I've given it adequate thought, Phil."

"Just tell me why not."

"Well, I'd probably start off with good intentions, telling myself that I'd only resort to using it whenever a case had me stumped or was hopeless. Before long, though, I'd be doubting my professional self, my decisions, every diagnosis. I'd begin to rely more and more on the stone. Not because of any weakness in my character, mind you. It's only human nature to want to be surely right. I would no longer have to know much, if anything at all, about medicine. Everything I've strived for all my life, all my years of study and training, would be superfluous, time wasted. I'd never even have to lay eyes on another medical journal, keep up with things, attend another symposium. There would be no more challenge for me."

"But you'd become a world-renowned doctor," Springer put in.

"I intend to become that anyway." Norman laughed to temper his immodesty. "You know, Phil, it's ironic — actually, in a way, perverse. Here we are striving so hard to overcome all the horrible physical puzzles and along comes a panacea, a cure-all, and it brings us to realize it's not the best thing that could happen. For some reason, perhaps having something to do with the ongoing collective spirit of mankind, we're better off with our two-steps-forward, one-step-backward ways, rejoicing in our discoveries, being grateful for them."

Springer couldn't argue with that.

"Besides," Norman added, "if I had stone 588 to work with I wouldn't even be a doctor, I'd be a shaman."

"So?" Resigned.

"So, by the way, I had lunch with Janet yesterday. We had an enjoyable talk. God, she's bright. She came down here for a couple of days with someone whom she referred to as her special friend. Seems to me she's smitten."

"Great for her. And what about your love life?"

"Let's just say it's an expendable necessity."

"Find someone," Springer urged. "Take time to look."

Norman too quickly promised he would. "Don't eat too many Eclairs au chocolat, " he said.

"That's not my department. So long, doctor."

"Take it easy, dealer."

A click again put 250 miles between the two brothers.

Springer lay there thinking that perhaps what he should do was just keep stone 588, sock it safely away, and only bring it out whenever there was an emergency. Wouldn't that be unconscionably selfish? The first time some friend was ill—the first time he even heard of anyone seriously ill — wouldn't he run and get the stone to make them well? And how many times could he do that, no matter how clandestinely, before word of it got out and he was descended upon by all sorts of people who had anything wrong with them? He'd become more of a miraculous attraction than Lourdes. He'd become a messiah. He certainly didn't want that.

Could he, then, hand over stone 588 to some well-established medical institution? No matter how ethical and well-meaning the institution might be, it would have to compromise itself. The stone took several hours to perform a Righting. Say, four hours on the average. That meant six people each day would be able to receive its benefits. Two thousand one hundred and ninety people over a year's time: a mere fraction of a fraction of the seriously ill of the world. Who would determine which two thousand one hundred and ninety out of the many millions most deserved to be healed? What would be the qualifications? Wealth? Probably; no—the way the world ran—surely.

He could, of course, let the government have the stone. Just drop it into the hands of power and let it be used for that. A dose of medical extortion to augment questionable statesmanship. Every ailing adversary who became a healthy ally would want to remain healthy, stay in line. No doubt that was why those two State Department guys, Pugh and Blayney, had been after the stone. They were only a taste of the extent the government would go to if it got wind of the real stone 588. Anyway, Springer decided, he wasn't that much of a flag waver.

What to do with stone 588?

Springer imagined himself throwing it away, imagined standing on a hill that he was familiar with up near the house in Sherman, the stone in his hand. Bringing his arm forward, letting it fly. He knew he wouldn't be able to doit.

He remained there on the sofa a while longer, considering alternatives. Then he picked up his shoes and his drink and went upstairs.

Audrey was among her pillows at the foot of her bed. She had on a pale blue silk charmeuse teddy and matching spiky heels. Her hair was severely slicked back, looked wet, and her eyes were darkly shadowed and penciled in an exaggerated way that gave them a strong oriental hint. She was wise about varying herself for Springer.

"The pendulum says we should stay at the Crillon," she said.

"I promised Jake the Ritz."

"I had Ainsworth arrange for a double suite at the Crillon." Ainsworth was the man who'd been chosen to take Wintersgill's place as head of the foundation.

"I have confirmed reservations at the Ritz," Springer told her, settling it.

"Well," she said, "we'll keep the Crillon suite as a backup. Who knows, perhaps the Ritz will run out of linens or something. What time do you want to leave?"

"Our flight is at ten Sunday morning."

"What flight is that?"

"Concorde."

"Oh. I forgot to tell you. Ainsworth arranged for one of the Hull jets at Westchester. A seven-oh-seven or something. It'll save us from having to go through all that rush and hassle at Kennedy, and we can take off whenever we're ready. I thought we might leave Saturday night and sleep in nice big beds all the way over. Doesn't that sound the better way to go?"

"I already picked up our tickets," Springer said.

"No problem. Ainsworth will see that they're returned or whatever."

Springer wondered why he so resented Ainsworth. He hadn't yet even met the man. Maybe Wintersgill had soured him on Ainsworths, but then, maybe that wasn't it at all. "We're flying Concorde and staying at the Ritz," he told Audrey firmly.

"Yes, sir, boss," she said, tongue in cheek. She brought her knee up and examined the healed-over skin where she'd scraped it on the roof of St. Patrick's. She tilted her head, glanced up at Springer, and when she saw that he wasn't aware that her eyes were on him, she used the chance to steal some from him and thought how much, how marvelously much, she loved him and always would, and that never would she let anything come before him, no matter what it cost her. Life without him would be for her like floating along without feet, like reaching out without hands. He was the love of her life, this life and the next and the next, just as surely as he had been her love before and before and before. She wanted him. She wanted him now. She felt herself go wet with her want of him.

She got up and put a Maureen McGovem on the stereo. Maureen started with "The Very Thought of You."

Springer sat in the chair kitty-comer from the foot of the bed. Instead of taking off his socks he put on his shoes.

"Going somewhere?" Audrey asked calmly.

"I have to meet a guy."

"Who?"

"Just a guy. Business."

"Before pleasure."

"I shouldn't be long."

She suspended time with a couple of long silent beats. Even her stance was candid. "You know, of course, I fully intend to have my way with you as soon as you get back."

Springer didn't get up and go over and kiss her because he knew if he did he wouldn't be able to leave. He smiled his I-too-want-you smile at her with his mouth and eyes and went into the dressing room. He put on his Audemars Piguet watch. Counted out and put to pocket five one-hundred-dollar bills. In the front left corner of the top drawer of his dresser was the precious Czar Nicholas II Faberge box that Libby had given him. It contained stone 588. He decided against the box, took only the stone. For extra measure he went into the Mark Cross leather box in which Audrey kept her current everyday jewelry. He hastily chose a pair of plain gold ear clips and a casual gold bracelet set with pale various-colored Ceylon sapphires.

When he passed through the bedroom to go downstairs, Audrey, among her pillows again, was reading her Blavatsky and taking the first bite of a Heath Bar. To not see Springer go, she didn't look up.

As soon as Luis spotted the guy he was for doing him.

Not Frankie. Frankie thought the guy looked too easy, the way he was walking along like nothing could happen. No one walks along like that at night in New York. It was almost like the guy was asking for it. Could be a setup, Frankie believed, a cop who'd put the clamp on them when they made the move. Last thing Frankie wanted was to do a cop. Luis was still a juve. All Luis would get was another lecture from a judge. Frankie had turned eighteen. His next time he'd do time.

They were on Lexington Avenue between 81st and 82nd on the west side of the street. About mid-block, so they looked enough like they were waiting for a bus rather than a score. It was a good area for them, only a block over from Park. Rich people were always walking their dogs, were braver with their dogs. Luis and Frankie had made moves and scored okay around there a few times.

Frankie gazed down Lex. It didn't matter either way about the guy any more. The guy was gone. Frankie was sorry now that they hadn't done him. It would have been a good thing, he felt.

Luis made Frankie feel worse about it by bringing up the watch, the flash watch they'd both noticed the guy was wearing.

Frankie said it was probably a fugaze. Lots of people were going for shit watches, rip-offs of Rolexes and Cartiers, all kinds.