The Gate House (56 page)
Authors: Nelson DeMille
Tony would have said, “Fuck you,” but Kelly Ann was waiting to pounce, and I could hear Frankie, sitting next to her, mimicking his older sister, “No cursing, no cursing.”
Tony said to me, “I’ll let him know what you said.”
“That’s very kind of you. But I’d like to tell him in person.”
“Yeah. We’re workin’ on that.”
“Good. And my regards to his future widow.”
That seemed to confuse him, then he got it, and said to me, “Yeah, you too,” which wasn’t exactly the correct reply, but I got it.
We rolled up our windows and continued on our ways.
The question would be, “Why are you making things worse?” And the answer is, “Things could not be any worse, so there’s no downside to pissing off the guy who already wants to kill you.” In fact, it makes me feel better, and it might cause him to make a mistake. And that’s all I wanted—one mistake on his part, so I could kill him myself.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
—Exodus 20:12
I tell you there’s a wall ten feet thick
and ten miles high between parent and child.
— George Bernard Shaw
Misalliance
I
t was ten minutes past five, and the rain had arrived, though the Stanhopes had not. But Susan assured me, “They called ten minutes ago, and they just got off the Expressway.” She gave me an ETA of fifteen minutes, which was more than enough time for my second Dewar’s and soda.
Susan and I were in the kitchen, and Sophie had laid out hors d’oeuvres on the center island, which I wasn’t allowed to touch. Also, the caterer had arrived, and she and Susan had planned a few menus for the week. Plus, Sophie was going to live in the downstairs maid’s room for the next five days. This was a convenience for Susan, of course, but it also gave William and Charlotte someone to boss around besides their daughter, and it might even ensure that we’d keep our voices down if we all got into a screaming match.
The phone rang, and Susan spoke to someone and said, “Yes, we’re expecting them.” Susan hung up and said to me, “It’s the florist, finally.” She informed me, “There are guards now at the gates.”
I didn’t comment on that, though I did note all this preparation for the arrival of Mom and Dad. But I recalled, from my last life here, that William and Charlotte never seemed to notice or appreciate all that Susan did for them when they came to visit. Well, they were demanding parents, but yet they spoke of Peter as if
he
were the perfect child. In fact, he was a useless turd, but he knew how to butter up Mom and Dad, and he knew where his bread came from.
My other thought was that Susan was far too optimistic about her parents actually staying here. She’d had their old guest room cleaned and stocked with bottled water and snacks, and I was sure there were flowers for their room. I looked at Susan, and though I didn’t want her parents here, neither did I want her to be disappointed or hurt. I said to her, “Look, Susan, why don’t I go to a hotel—?”
“No. You are my future husband and the father of our children. You are staying here with me, Edward, and Carolyn.”
“But—”
“But I do want you to disappear until I get a drink into their hands.” She suggested, “Wait in the office with the door closed, and I’ll buzz you on the intercom. About fifteen or twenty minutes after they arrive.”
“They’ll see my car when they pull up.”
“I’ll tell them it’s my second car.”
“They’ll see that there are guards in the gatehouse and that I couldn’t be living there.”
“All right, do you want to greet them with me?”
“No, Susan, I want to
leave
. I’ll be back—”
“You are
not
leaving.” She explained, “You’re just hiding for a while.”
“All right.” So I grabbed a napkinful of hors d’oeuvres and my Scotch, then I looked at her and said, “Good luck.”
“John, just remember one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Half of a hundred million dollars.”
I smiled, and carried my hideout rations into the office and closed the door. The blinds were open, and I could see the florist van pull up. I watched as two men unloaded enough flower arrangements to bury an Italian funeral home.
I lowered the blinds so that William and Charlotte didn’t get a peek at their future son-in-law, and sat at the desk and checked my e-mail, ate hors d’oeuvres, and sipped my Scotch.
Susan had called Mr. Mancuso, and she told me that he’d given her some assurances, some advice, and also some of the same information about Anthony’s disappearance that he’d given me. He’d also told her that he was impressed with her courage, but that she needed to balance that with some extra vigilance, and so forth. Apparently, according to Susan, they were now good buddies, which made me happy.
I had not told Susan about running into Tony because she had enough on her mind, but right after the incident I had called Felix Mancuso using Susan’s cell phone, and I left him a message on his voice mail relating my intemperate remarks to Anthony’s driver. I suggested that he or someone from his office might want to question Tony regarding his boss’s whereabouts, if they hadn’t done so already. I had also informed Mancuso that Amir Nasim was in the process of installing a full security system at Stanhope Hall that would rival whatever they had in place at 26 Federal Plaza, which was the address on Special Agent Mancuso’s card. I suggested, too, that he might consider updating Detective Nastasi, or I’d do that if the FBI and the local police were not sharing information this week.
I’m good at covering all my bases, and my ass, and my brain works well when my life is in danger.
Anyway, I checked through almost two weeks of e-mail, most of it from clients in London who couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that I was on an extended sabbatical, which reminded me that I needed to inform my firm of my decision to resign. And I also needed to inform Samantha of my decision to resign from her.
I should phone, but it was past 11:00 P.M. in London, so maybe I should just e-mail and get that over with, but that wasn’t the right thing to do . . . and, I thought, maybe I should wait to see what happened in the next thirty minutes. I mean, it could get ugly, but I knew that Susan would, as she said, put her priorities in order. The problem was, she had several priorities: me, the children, and the money, and they might be mutually exclusive.
So it might have to be me who needed to put the priorities in order, and by that I meant I might bow out if it came down to John or half the hundred million. Not to mention the children’s trust funds and Susan’s allowance.
While I was thinking about being noble and selfless, I could hear the florists going in and out the front door, and Susan giving them instructions in that upper-class tone of voice that was polite but unquestionably authoritative.
How, I wondered, was this woman going to live without money? I mean, those fucking flowers cost more than most people made in a month. Not to mention the stupid froufrou hors d’oeuvres, and the caterer, and Sophie . . . well, why think about that now? We had more serious problems, like staying alive.
I sent a few e-mails to friends in London, but I didn’t mention anything about quitting my job, relocating to New York, marrying my ex-wife, or the Mafia trying to kill me. Some of that could get back to my firm, or to Samantha. I mean, I was ready to burn my bridges, but if I somehow found that I needed to re-cross the pond, then I’d need that bridge.
I had e-mailed my sister, Emily, who was still living on some beach in Texas with boyfriend number four or five. Emily and I are close, despite our long geographic separations for the last dozen years. I’d told her about Ethel’s passing, and then gave her the good news about Susan and me.
I pulled up her reply, which said:
Wonderful. Love, Emily P.S. Wonderful. P.P.S. I’ll miss Ethel’s funeral, but I will not miss John and Susan’s wedding. Let’s speak when you get a chance.
I replied:
You are wonderful. Life is wonderful. Will call you when I can. Love, John P.S. The Stanhopes will arrive momentarily. Not so wonderful. But maybe good for a few laughs.
Regarding that, the doorbell rang. I peeked out the blinds and saw next to my blue Taurus another blue Taurus that I was certain was the Stanhopes’ rental car. I had this
wonderful
vision of William and Charlotte driving their blue Taurus through the gates onto Grace Lane and being met by a stream of machine-gun fire.
I could hear Susan exclaim, “Welcome!”
William the Terrible said, “Damned traffic in New York—how can you live here?”
Charlotte chirped, “It’s so
wonderful
to see you, darling!”
And so forth.
The happy voices disappeared down the corridor, and I turned back to the keyboard and began typing an e-mail to Edward and Carolyn:
Hi! Your grandparents have unfortunately arrived safely
. . . delete that . . .
Grandma and Grandpa have just arrived, and I’m hiding
. . . delete . . .
G and G just got here, and I haven’t yet said hello, so I’ll keep this short. Remember, when you get here, that your mother and I love you very much, and we love each other, and we will all try to make Grandpa and Grandma feel welcome and loved, and even Uncle Peter, that useless
. . . delete . . .
who may be joining us. Your mother and I will try to call you tomorrow, and let you know how things are going, or call us. Edward, if we don’t speak, have a safe flight. Carolyn, let us know what train you’re taking. Love, Dad. P.S. Your grandparents are worth a hundred million dollars dead
. . . delete.
I read the e-mail, not sure if I should send it. I mean, Edward and Carolyn knew there would be some friction between me and their grandparents, and the children were adults, so I needed to treat them as such and give them a heads-up. My letter seemed positive, but they’d understand the subtle hint that there could be a problem when they got here. I had no idea what Susan had told them on this subject, if anything, but I needed to be proactive, so I pushed the send button and off it went into cyberspace.
To kill time, I went online and typed in
in-laws, perfect murders of
, and actually got a few hits.
Next I went onto a Web site that an American client had told me about, which showed aerial views of homes and commercial properties around the country. I’d actually used this site once in my work for an American client, and I’d even checked out Stanhope Hall and Alhambra a few months ago during a nostalgia attack.
Within a minute I had an aerial view of Stanhope Hall taken this past winter, which showed me just how huge the main house was. I could also see the hedge maze, the love temple, the tennis court, the plum orchard, and even the overgrown burned-out ruins of Susan’s childhood playhouse, which was about half the size of a real cottage.
I zoomed in on the gatehouse, then moved to the guest cottage and the nearby stables. Then I shifted the view toward Alhambra, and I could see the long, straight line of white pines that separated the estates, and I thought of Susan’s horseback rides from Stanhope Hall to the Alhambra villa.
This photograph, of recent vintage, did not show Bellarosa’s razed villa, of course, or the mock Roman ruins, or the reflecting pool; it showed the red-tiled roofs of the new mini-villas and their landscaping, and the roads that connected them.
I zoomed in on Anthony’s house with the big patio and the oversized pool, then I moved the view back toward the pine trees and the Stanhope estate, and the guest cottage.
On the ground, it was a circuitous route from Susan’s cottage to Anthony’s villa, but from the air, as I suspected, it was only about five or six hundred yards—a third of a mile—between the two houses.
Note to self: If I was jogging cross-country to Anthony Bellarosa’s house, I could be there in less than five minutes; and it was the same traveling time if Anthony Bellarosa was coming this way.
T
he intercom buzzed, and I picked up the phone and asked, “Did they faint or leave?”
“Neither. But they’re over their initial shock.”
“Are they ready for another shock when I tell them we’re not entering into a prenuptial agreement?”
“Let’s limit it to one shock a day. It’s your turn tomorrow.”
“All right. Where are you?”
“I’m in the kitchen, making them martini number two, but I’ll be in the living room in a minute.” She said, “I’ve made you a stiff drink.”
“Good. See you there.”
I walked out of the office into the foyer. I took a minute to recall twenty years of their bullshit, then I entered the living room.
William and Charlotte were sitting near the fireplace in side-by-side chairs, and Susan was sitting on a love seat across from them. Between them was a coffee table covered with plates of hors d’oeuvres, and I could see that William and Charlotte had fresh martinis in front of them, and Susan had a white wine.
I considered running toward them with my arms out, yelling, “Mom! Dad!” but instead I said simply, “Hello,” and walked toward them.
Susan stood, then William and Charlotte rose without enthusiasm.
I first kissed Susan, to piss them off, then I extended my hand to Charlotte, who gave me a wet noodle, then to William, who gave me a cold tuna. I asked, “So, did you have a good flight?”
William replied, “Good enough.”
Susan said, “Sit here, John, next to me. I’ve made you a vodka and tonic.”
“Thank you.” I sat next to Susan on the love seat, and she took my hand, which came to Mom and Dad’s immediate notice and made them wince.
Schubert was playing softly in the background, and the room was lit with candles and adorned with flowers. Sort of like a funeral home.
I sipped my drink and discovered it was pure tonic.
William the Color Blind was wearing silly green trousers, an awful yellow golf shirt, and a shocking pink linen sports jacket. Charlotte had on pale pink pants and a puke green blouse, and they both wore these horrid white orthopedic walking shoes. I’m surprised they were allowed to board the aircraft.
