“We’ve known each other a long time; but you’ve never understood me at all.… Don’t make judgments unless you understand the men you’re judging.”
So this was it, thought Tanner. Tremayne was admitting it. He was part of Omega.
And then Tremayne spoke again and the conclusion was destroyed. He turned around and the look on his face was pathetic.
“I may not be beyond reproach, I know that, but I’m within the law. That’s the system. I may not like it all the time, but I respect that system!”
Tanner wondered if Fassett’s men had placed one of their electronic pick-ups in the garage. If they had heard the words, spoken in such sorrow, with such a ring of truth. He looked at the broken man in front of him.
“Let’s go into the kitchen. You need a drink and so do I.”
19
Alice flipped the switch under the living-room windowsill so the music would be heard on the patio speakers. They were all outside now on the pool deck. Even her husband and Dick Tremayne had finally gotten up from the kitchen table; they’d been sitting there for twenty minutes and Ali thought it strange they’d hardly spoken.
“Hello, gracious lady!” The voice was Joe’s, and Alice felt herself grow tense. He walked from the hallway into view; he was in swimming trunks. There was something ugly about Joe’s body; it dwarfed objects around it. “You’re out of ice, so I made a phone call to get some.”
“At this hour?”
“It’s easier than one of us driving.”
“Who’d you call?”
“Rudy at the liquor store.”
“It’s closed.”
Cardone walked towards her, weaving a bit. “I got him at home; he wasn’t in bed.… He does little favors for me. I told him to leave a couple of bags on the front porch and charge it to me.”
“That wasn’t necessary. I mean the charging.”
“Every little bit helps.”
“Please.” She walked towards the sofa if for no other reason than to get away from Cardone’s gin-laden breath. He followed her.
“Did you think over what I told you?”
“You’re very generous, but we don’t need any help.”
“Is that what John said?”
“It’s what he would say.”
“Then you haven’t talked to him?”
“No.”
Cardone took her hand gently. She instinctively tried to pull it away, but he held it—firmly, with no trace of hostility, only warmth; but he held it nevertheless. “I may be a little loaded but I want you to take me seriously.… I’ve been a lucky man; it hasn’t been hard at all, not really.… Frankly, I even feel a little guilty, you know what I mean? I admire Johnny. I think the world of him because he contributes.… I don’t contribute much; I just take. I don’t hurt anybody, but I take.… You’d make me feel better if you’d let me give … for a change.”
He let her hand go and because she didn’t expect it, her forearm snapped back against her waist. She was momentarily embarrassed. And perplexed. “Why are you so determined to give us something. What brought it up?”
Cardone sat down heavily on the arm of the couch. “You hear things. Rumors, gossip, maybe.”
“About us? About us and money?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, it’s not true. It’s simply not true.”
“Then let’s put it another way. Three years ago when Dick and Ginny and Bernie and Leila went skiing with us at Gstaad, you and Johnny didn’t want to go. Isn’t that right?”
Alice blinked, trying to follow Joe’s logic. “Yes, I remember. We thought we’d rather take the children to Nassau.”
“But now John’s very interested in Switzerland, isn’t that right?” Joe’s body was swaying slightly.
“Not that I know of. He hasn’t told me about it.”
“Then if it’s not Switzerland, maybe it’s Italy. Maybe he’s interested in Sicily; it’s a very interesting place.”
“I simply don’t understand you.”
Cardone got off the arm of the couch and steadied himself. “You and I aren’t so very different, are we? I mean, what credentials we have weren’t exactly handed to us, were they?… We’ve earned them, after our own Goddamn fashion.… ”
“I think that’s insulting.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be insulting.… I just want to be honest, and honesty starts with where you are … where you were.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I certainly am. I’m drunk and I’m nervous. Lousy combination.… You talk to John. You tell him to see me tomorrow or the next day. You tell him not to worry about Switzerland or Italy, all right? You tell him, no matter what, that I’m clean and I like people who contribute but don’t hurt other people.… That I’ll pay.”
Cardone took two steps toward Ali and grabbed her left hand. Gently but insistently, he brought it to his lips, eyes closed, and kissed her palm. Ali had seen that type of kiss before; in her childhood she’d seen her father’s fanatical adherents do the same. Then Joe turned and staggered into the hallway.
At the window a shifting of light, a reflection, a change of brightness caught Ali’s eye. She turned her head. What she saw caused her to freeze. Outside on the lawn, no more than six feet from the glass, stood Betty Cardone in a white bathing suit, washed in the blue-green light of the swimming pool.
Betty had seen what had happened between Alice and her husband. Her eyes told Ali that.
Joe’s wife stared through the window and her look was cruel.
The full tones of the young Sinatra filled the warm summer night as the four couples sat around the pool. Individually—it seemed never by twos to John Tanner—one or another would slip into the water and paddle lazily back and forth.
The women talked of schools and children while the men, on the opposite side of the deck, spoke less quietly of the market, politics, an inscrutable economy.
Tanner sat on the base of the diving board near Joe. He’d never seen him so drunk, and he bore watching. If any or all around the deck were part of Omega, Joe was the weakest link. He’d be the first to break.
Small arguments flared up, quickly subsiding. At one point, Joe’s voice was too loud and Betty reacted swiftly but quietly.
“You’re drunk, husband-mine. Watch out.”
“Joe’s all right, Betty,” said Bernie, clapping Cardone’s knee. “It was rotten-hot in New York today, remember?”
“You were in New York, too, Bernie,” answered Ginny Tremayne, stretching her legs over the side of the pool. “Was it really that rotten-hot?”
“Rotten-hot, sweetheart.” It was Dick who spoke across the water to his wife.
Tanner saw Osterman and Tremayne exchange glances. Their unspoken communication referred to Cardone but it was not meant that he, Tanner, should understand or even notice. Then Dick got up and asked who’d like refills.
Only Joe answered yes.
“I’ll get it,” said Tanner.
“Hell, no,” replied Dick. “You watch the ballplayer. I want to call the kid anyway. We told her to be back by one; it’s damn near two. These days you have to check.”
“You’re a mean father,” said Leila.
“So long as I’m not a grandfather.” Tremayne walked across the grass to the kitchen door.
There was silence for several seconds, then the girls took up their relaxed conversation and Bernie lowered himself over the side into the pool.
Joe Cardone and Tanner did not speak.
Several minutes later, Dick came out of the kitchen door carrying two glasses. “Hey, Ginny! Peg was teed off that I woke her up. What do you think of that?”
“I think she was bored with her date.”
Tremayne approached Cardone and handed him his glass. “There you are, fullback.”
“I was a Goddamn halfback. I ran circles around your Goddamn Levi Jackson at the Yale Bowl!”
“Sure. But I talked to Levi. He said they could always get you. All they had to do wa
s yell tomato sauce’ and you went for the sidelines!”
“Pretty Goddamn funny! I murdered that black son of a bitch!”
“He speaks well of you, too,” said Bernie, smiling over the side of the pool.
“And I speak well of you, Bernie! And big Dick, here!” Cardone clumsily got to his feet. “I speak well of all of you!”
“Hey, Joe.… ” Tanner got off the board.
“Really, Joe, just sit down,” ordered Betty. “You’ll fall over.”
“Da Vinci!”
It was only a name but Cardone shouted it out. And then he shouted it again.
“Da Vinci.… ” He drew out the sound, making the dialect sharply Italian.
“What does that mean?” asked Tremayne.
“You tell me!” roared Cardone through the tease stillness around the pool.
“He’s crazy,” said Leila.
“He’s positively drunk, if nobody minds my saying so,” added Ginny.
“Since we can’t—at least I can’t—tell you what a Da Vinci is, maybe you’ll explain.” Bernie spoke lightly.
“Cut it out! Just cut it out!” Cardone clenched and reclenched his fists.
Osterman climbed out of the water and approached Joe. His hands hung loosely at his sides. “Cool it, Joe. Please.… Cool it.”
“Zurichchchch!” The scream from Joe Cardone could be heard for miles, thought Tanner. It was happening! He’d said it!
“What do you mean, Joe?” Tremayne took a halting step toward Cardone.
“Zurich! That’s what I mean!”
“It’s a city in Switzerland! So what the hell else?” Osterman stood facing Cardone; he wasn’t about to give quarter. “You say what you mean!”
“No!” Tremayne took Osterman by the shoulder.
“Don’t talk to me,” yelled Cardone. “You’re the one who …”
“Stop it! All of you!” Betty stood on the concrete deck at the end of the pool. Tanner would never have believed such strength could come from Cardone’s wife.
But there it was. The three men parted from one another, as chastised dogs. The women looked up at Betty, and then Leila and Ginny walked away while Ali stood immobile, uncomprehending.
Betty continued, reverting now to the soft, suburban housewife she seemed to be. “You’re all behaving childishly and I know it’s time for Joe to go home.”
“I… I think we all can have a nightcap, Betty,” said Tanner. “How about it?”
“Make Joe’s light,” answered Betty with a smile.
“No other way,” said Bernie.
“I’ll get them.” Tanner started back towards the door. “Everyone in?”
“Wait a minute, Johnny!” It was Cardone, a wide grin on his face. “I’m the naughty boy so let me help. Also, I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Tanner went into the kitchen ahead of Cardone. He was confused, bewildered. He had expected that when Joe screamed the name “Zurich” it would all be over. Zurich was the key that should have triggered the collapse. Yet it did not happen.
Instead, the opposite occurred.
A control was imposed; imposed by the most unlikely source imaginable, Betty Cardone.
Suddenly, from behind him came a crash. Tremayne was standing in the doorway, looking at the fallen Cardone.
“Well. A mountain of Princeton muscle just passed out!… Let’s get Him into my car. I’m chauffeur tonight.”
Passed out? Tanner didn’t believe it. Cardone was drunk, yes. But he was nowhere near collapsing.
20
The three men dressed quickly and manhandled the lurching, incoherent Cardone into the front seat of Tremayne’s car. Betty and Ginny were in the back. Tanner kept watching Joe’s face, especially the eyes, for any signs of pretense. He could see none. And yet there was something false, he thought; there was too much precision in Cardone’s exaggerated movements. Was Joe using silence to test the others, he wondered?
Or were his own observations being warped by the progressive tension?
“Damn it!” exclaimed Tremayne. “I left my jacket inside.”
“I’ll bring it to the Club in the morning,” said John. We’re scheduled for eleven.”
“No, I’d better get it. I left some notes in the pocket; I may need them.… Wait here with Bernie. I’ll be back in a second.”
Dick ran inside and he grabbed his jacket from a hallway chair. He looked at Leila Osterman, who was polishing the top of a table in the living room.
“If I get these rings now maybe the Tanners’ll have some furniture left,” she said.
“Where’s Ali?”
“In the kitchen.” Leila continued rubbing the table top.
As Tremayne entered the kitchen, Alice was filling the dishwasher.
“Ali?”
“Oh!… Dick. Joe all right?”
“Joe’s fine.… How’s John?”
“Isn’t he out there with you?”
“I’m in here.”
“It’s late; I’m too tired for jokes.”
“I couldn’t feel less like joking.… We’ve been good friends, Ali. You and Johnny mean a lot to us, to Ginny and me.”
“We feel the same; you know that.”
“I thought I did. I really believed it … Listen to me.…” Tremayne’s face was flushed; he swallowed repeatedly, unable to control the pronounced twitch over his left eye. “Don’t make judgments. Don’t let John make … editorial judgments that hurt people unless he understands why they do what they do.”
“I don’t understand what you’re—”
“That’s very important,” interrupted Tremayne. “He should try to understand. That’s one mistake I never commit in court. I always try to understand.”
Alice recognized the threat. “I suggest that you say whatever it is you’re saying to him.”
“I did and he wouldn’t answer me. That’s why I’m saying it to you.… Remember, Ali. No one’s ever completely what he seems. Only some of us are more resourceful. Remember that!”
Tremayne turned and left; a second later Ali heard the front door close. As she looked at the empty doorway, she was aware of someone else nearby. There was the unmistakable sound of a quiet footstep. Someone had walked through the dining room and was standing in her pantry, around the corner, out of sight. She walked slowly, silently to the arch. As she turned into the small narrow room she saw Leila standing motionless against the wall, staring straight ahead.
Leila had been listening to the conversation in the kitchen. She gasped when she saw Ali, then laughed with no trace of humor. She knew she’d been caught.
“I came for another cloth.” She held up a dust-rag and went back inside the dining room without speaking further.
Alice stood in the center of the pantry wondering what dreadful thing was happening to all of them. Something was affecting the lives of everyone in the house.
They lay in bed; Ali on her back, John on his left side away from her. The Ostermans were across the hall in the guest room. It was the first time they’d been alone together all night.
Alice knew her husband was exhausted but she couldn’t postpone the question—or was it a statement—any longer.
“There’s some trouble between you and Dick and Joe, isn’t there?”
Tanner rolled over; he looked up at the ceiling, almost relieved He knew the question was coming and he had rehearsed his answer. It was another lie; he was getting used to the lies. But there was so little time left—Fassett had guaranteed that. He began slowly, trying to speak off-handedly.
“You’re too damned smart.”
“I am?” She shifted to her side and looked at her husband.
“It’s nasty, but it’ll pass. You remember my telling you about the stock business Jim Loomis was peddling on the train?”
“Yes. You didn’t want Janet to go over for lunch … to the Loomis’, I mean.”
“That’s right … Well, Joe and Dick jumped in with Loomis. I told them not to.”
&n
bsp; “Why?”
“I checked on it.”
“What?”
“I checked on it … We’ve got a few thousand lying around drawing five percent. I figured why not? So I called Andy Harrison—he’s head of Legal at Standard, you met him last Easter. He made inquiries.”
“What did he find out?”
“The whole thing smells. It’s a boilerplate operation. It’s rotten.”
“Is it illegal?”
“Probably will be by next week.… Harrison suggested we do a feature on it. Make a hell of a show. I told that to Joe and Dick.”
“Oh, my God! That you’d do a program on it?”
“Don’t worry. We’re booked for months. There’s no priority here. And even if we did, I’d tell them. They could get out in time.”
Ali heard Cardone and Tremayne again: “Did you speak to him? What did he say?” “Don’t let Johnny make judgments.…” They had been panicked and now she understood why. “Joe and Dick are worried sick, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I gathered it.”
“You gathered it? For heaven’s sake, these are your friends!… They’re frightened! They’re scared to death!”
“Okay. Okay. Tomorrow at the Club, I’ll tell them to relax.… The San Diego vulture isn’t vulturing these days.”
“Really, that was cruel! No wonder they’re all so upset! They think you’re doing something terrible.” Ali recalled Leila’s silent figure pressed against the pantry wall, listening to Tremayne alternately pleading and threatening in the kitchen. “They’ve told the Ostermans.”
“Are you sure? How?”
“Never mind, it’s not important. They must think you’re a horror.… Tomorrow morning, for heaven’s sake, tell them not to worry.”
“I said I would.”
“It explains so much. That silly yelling at the pool, the arguments … I’m really very angry with you.” But Alice Tanner wasn’t angry; the unknown was known to her now. She could cope with it. She lay back, still concerned, still worried, but with a degree of calm she hadn’t felt for several hours.
Tanner shut his eyes tight, and let his breath out. The lie had gone well. Better than he had thought it would. It was easier for him now, easier to alter the facts.