Tycoon (41 page)

Now he had ten seconds. It was too late to be waved off. He was committed. Crossing the threshold of the deck, he chopped his power and raised his nose. The Skyray fell like a rock and hit the deck with a bone-jarring jolt. He pulled the stick into
his crotch until he felt the little tailwheel bang on the deck. The arresting hook caught a wire. He was thrown forward in his harness.

Deck crew surrounded the plane. They towed it off the landing deck. Another Skyray was less than a mile out.

“Lieutenant Lear,” called a crewman who climbed up to help him out of the cockpit, “you are to report immediately to the Protestant chaplain, sir.”

Whatever that meant, John knew it could not be good news.

“Sit down, son. I'm afraid I have very bad news for you. Your mother has died. And your stepfather as well. Get your gear together. A chopper will take you in to San Diego. A navy flight for Washington is taking off within the hour. You can be on it. When you get to Washington, there'll be a flight to New York. Your wife has been notified and will be waiting at the airport in San Diego to go with you. You've been granted thirty days' compassionate leave. Is there anything I can do for you?”

John shook his head.

The chaplain put both his hands on John's. “Why don't we share a moment of prayer?”

J
ACK AND
A
NNE HAD FLOWN TO
S
AN
D
IEGO FOR
J
OHN AND
Linda's wedding two months ago. Until now the couple had not had time to come east, and Linda had never seen the house in Greenwich. Also, she had never met Joni.

“She's very beautiful, John. I'm glad for you.”

“You told me to find a girl.”

“And you did. Wonderfully.”

“It didn't work out between you and Frank Neville, I guess.”

“He's a little prick.” She grimaced dramatically and then hugged her brother.

Joni made a point of finding a time to be alone with Jack. They sat down in the library, behind closed doors.

“Simultaneous heart attacks, huh?” Joni said skeptically. “If you believe that, you believe in the tooth fairy.”

“I don't believe it.”

“Are you going to try to find out what happened?”

“I'm not sure it's any of my business,” Jack said softly.

Joni lifted her chin and blew an impatient sigh. “If there's some kind of horrible scandal being covered up, we ought to know what it is. Anyway, John needs to know.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Jack promised.

D
AN AND
C
ONNIE
H
ORAN ATTENDED THE FUNERAL.
J
ACK
hadn't seen them in more than ten years. When he spoke to them, they shook his hand and were cordial.

“Could we have a little private conversation later?” he asked them.

“About what?”

“About what happened here.”

Dan drew a deep breath. “Why not? You and I can slip off and have a drink after the service.”

Anne, John, Linda, and Joni went to the Wolcott home when the funeral was over. Jack said he would join them in an hour and left the cemetery with Dan Horan. They sat at the bar in the Common Club. Jack had not been in the club for many years but paid his dues every year and was still a member.

“You've been decent about Kathleen,” Dan said. “She has no idea who you are, and you've never forced yourself on her or us. We appreciate that.”

“I'm capable of being decent,” said Jack dryly.

“We . . . have different values.”

“Granted. Understood. All right. Tell me something. How did Kimberly die? It's obviously a secret.”

“More than a secret,” said Dan. “It's a monumental scandal. I don't know the details, but the Boston police have covered it up under six layers of obfuscation. The world has changed, but the Wolcotts still have the power to cover up a scandal.”

“The simultaneous heart attacks—”

“No one believes that. Murder and suicide maybe. Maybe there were drugs involved. Alcohol, Carbon monoxide. But . . . not simultaneous heart attacks.”

“Okay. I don't really have to know the details. John wants to know. He . . . has a sense of—I don't know what you'd call it. Anyway, he's grieving. His wife is pregnant, and she is very curious about the mother-in-law she never met. Joni, frankly, doesn't give a damn. She's sorry her mother is dead, but—Well, I'm not going to pursue it. Did you see Joni's
Playboy
pictures?”

Dan nodded solemnly.

“Kimberly's reaction destroyed anything that remained of their relationship. Dan, I appreciate your seeing me. Give the little girl a kiss for me—without telling her it's from me, of course.”

T
WO WEEKS LATER
J
ACK SAT IN THE LIVING ROOM IN THE
Manhattan town house. Joni was in California. Rebecca Murphy, the private investigator, sipped Scotch and talked.

She had not aged. After fourteen years she remained the solid, acne-marked woman who still wore her light brown hair in tight curls. Jack had always wondered what kind of private life she had, but he had never asked. He'd told her he would be going home to Greenwich for the night and that she could sleep in the town house.

“Yeah, I found out what happened,” she said. “It's not pretty.”

“I was afraid it wouldn't be.”

“The maid and cook arrived about seven-thirty, their usual hour, so they could have a hearty breakfast ready when Mr. and Mrs. Hallowell came down a little after eight o'clock. But something was wrong. The maid found the door to the master bedroom suite open. The door to the attic was locked. She understood the significance of that. She knocked on the door. No response. She went down and told the cook, and the two of them came up and knocked again. When they got no answer, they called the police.”

“And . . .”

“The police found Hallowell stretched out on the floor. The autopsy said myocardial infarction. Mrs. Hallowell was hanging from two pairs of handcuffs on her wrists and locked on two big screw eyes in two rafters, arms spread like Christ on the Cross. Stark naked. She had screamed, probably—and screamed and screamed and screamed. Eventually she just hung on the handcuffs. That cut off her circulation. Blood clots formed and went to her heart. She died about three
A.M.
, after hanging there maybe five hours or more. Her back and her bottom were laced with ugly welts. A whip was found beside Hallowell's body. He'd been whipping the hell out of her. The exertion or— Anyway, he had a heart attack and died, leaving her hanging there with no way of getting loose.”

“God!
I—”

“Mr. Wolcott didn't have to ask the detectives or the coroner to cover it up. They didn't want to release the story.”

Jack closed his eyes. “I'll tell my children you managed to confirm the simultaneous heart attack story.”

1956

J
ACK AND
A
NNE DECIDED TO CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS WITH
an extended party. They invited John and Linda to come and stay as long as they could, and John managed to get ten days' leave. Anne called Linda's parents in Pensacola and invited them, too. They expressed their gratitude but did not come. Joni said she could take a few days off and spend them in Greenwich. Bob and Dorothy Lear were invited but chose not to come. Anne called Harrison Wolcott to invite him and Edith, but he said Edith could not travel that far.

So the household for a week included Jack and Anne; Little Jack and his sister, Anne, who was called Liz; John and Linda; and Joni.

For a noon-to-midnight party on the Saturday before Christmas, they invited Curt and Betsy Frederick, Cap and Naomi Durenberger, Herb and Esther Morrill, Mickey and Catherine Sullivan, and several neighbors. Jack also called Sally Allen and invited her to come and bring Len.

Priscilla took charge of party arrangements, as always, and suggested that for Saturday night a houseboy be added to the staff. She and the cook could use help that one night.

Every year Anne lit a menorah on the days of Hanukkah. She had bought their menorah, on her trip to Berlin in 1946. It
had tiny oil lamps instead of candles, so was more nearly in the tradition of the holiday than were the ones with candles. Guests observed, some of them with a little surprise, that both a menorah and a Christmas tree were alight in the same room. On the days of Hanukkah, Anne and Jack exchanged small gifts and on Christmas Day, much grander ones. Joni was familiar with this holiday tradition. It surprised Linda, but she told John she loved it and would follow it in
their
home.

The arrival of Sally Allen was the highlight of Little Jack's holiday. He was ten years old and had watched
The Sally Allen Show
many times, though he had remained skeptical that his father knew the star or had anything to do with her show. His sister Liz accepted the arrival of a television star in their home as something entirely normal and to be expected.

Little Jack and Liz were were not to be regarded anymore simply as “the children”; they were young people who already had ideas about who they were and who they wanted to be. They had been allowed to see the
Playboy
spread of Joni. Little Jack had screwed his eyes shut and said, “Ooooh!” Liz had said, “Lovely, lovely! Am I going to have boobs like hers someday?”

Both of them were handsome children, and their parents were proud of them. No part of the holiday celebration was off-limits to them. They went to bed whenever they felt sleepy and not a moment before. Their governess, Mrs. Gimbel, remained with the family, not so much because she was needed as because she had become a member of the household.

Len Leonard, Sally's former husband and the father of her child, bore only a slight resemblance to the burlesque comic Jack had encountered in Toledo. He looked healthier and happier and was well dressed, as Sally had said he would be when he had money, but he still slicked down his hair with oil. He approached Jack when he saw him standing alone for a moment.

“I can't express my gratitude to you, Mr. Lear.”

“You're a writer because you are a writer,” Jack replied. “I didn't take you on for any other reason.”

“I've written what I hope is a good introduction to television for Miss Lear. I put my all into that, Mr. Lear.”

“I'm sure you did, Len. If the show bombs, it won't be your fault.”

Betsy Frederick also caught Jack for a private moment. “What do you think of Curt's retiring?” she asked.

“He can't.”

“Why not? He'll be sixty shortly. He says he's tired.”

Jack shook his head. “Retirement will make him more tired than he ever thought he could be.”

“Jack . . . We know how Kimberly died. I mean, it nearly killed me. I—”

“My children don't know.”

Betsy blinked away tears. “What a way to go! There's gotta be some kind of fuckin'
dignity
someplace!”

“Well, dignity is in doing, in achieving. And in satisfaction, too.”

“Curt doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in the saddle.”

“There's no dignity in retirement. What would Curt do? Play golf? Fish? I'm fifty, close to fifty-one. I want to work until the last five minutes. I allow myself that much time for the heart attack. Five minutes. And when they stuff me into the body bag, I may sit up and say, ‘Wait a minute! We've gotta do something about—'”

Betsy forced a weak smile. “Anne may have different ideas.”

He spoke a little later with John. “You're a married man, with a child coming. Have you thought about asking the navy for a less dangerous assignment?”

John shook his head. “The navy has spent millions of dollars training me for what I do. I don't see how I could ask to be relieved of the duty.”

“Besides, you love it.”

“I love it a little less now.”

John and Joni talked. “How's it feel to be a celebrity?”

“John . . .”

“Two pilots sent their copies of
Playboy
along and asked me to get your autograph on the centerfold.”

She shook her head. “That's embarrassing.”

“You
will
do it, though?”

“Oh, sure.”

“I'm sorry Neville turned out to be an ass. Would you like to date a pilot?”

Joni shrugged. “Casually. If I'm in California.”

“Aren't you going to be, actually? I thought you were going to do a TV show.”

“Yes, I am. I'll be in Los Angeles for a month, I suppose.”

“What will you be doing on
The Sally Allen Show?”

“Believe it or not, I'm taking dancing and singing lessons. I'm going to dance with Mac Reilly. I'm petrified.”