The Shadow of Your Smile

  Thomas Desmond had asked her to copy him on Greg’s appointments. “We need to know who he’s wining and dining,” Desmond had said. “I doubt they’re all in his official appointment book. We know some of his calls go through your office phones, but not all of them. We’ve wiretapped the people we suspect of tipping him off to mergers and acquisitions but all those calls that Gannon made to our other targets were on prepaid phones. Fortunately some of the guys who are passing on tips aren’t smart enough to use the phones we can’t trace.”

  “Many of Greg’s calls don’t come through me,” Esther had agreed. “Obviously he has a cell phone, but I pay the bills for it and it’s all routine stuff. But there are plenty of times when I try to pass on a business call to him in his private office and he doesn’t pick up. I’m supposed to assume that he’s on with the family or personal friends, but it happens so often he couldn’t just be on his regular cell phone.”

  Acutely aware that she had promised Thomas Desmond that she would provide evidence regarding Greg Gannon’s business activities, including his lunches with clients, Esther said, “Mr. Gannon, I’ve got you down for lunch with Arthur Saling. Shall I make a reservation for you?”

  “No, Saling wanted me to meet him at his club. He’s a potential new client and a big one. Keep your fingers crossed.” Gannon turned to go back into his own office. “Hold all calls until I let you know, Esther.”

  “Of course, Mr. Gannon.”

  For the rest of the morning it was business as usual. Then Esther received a call from Greenwich Village Hospital. It was from the executive director of development. This time she heard and understood the lack of cordiality that had previously been present in his voice. “Esther, this is Justin Banks from Greenwich Village Hospital. As you certainly must understand we are planning to break ground for the new Gannon Pediatric Wing. The pledge the foundation made has been overdue for six months and quite frankly it is absolutely necessary that it be fulfilled now.”

  Dear God, Esther thought, Greg made that pledge almost two years ago. Why hasn’t it been paid? Carefully she chose her words. “Let me look into it,” she said, her voice professionally calm.

  “Esther, that isn’t good enough.” His voice was rising. “The word is getting around that the Gannon Foundation is announcing grants that it has no intention of fulfilling, or at least not fulfilling until they have been so watered down that the purpose for receiving them is defeated. I and several of my associates insist on having a meeting with Mr. Gannon and with anyone and everyone on the foundation board. We want to tell them they simply can’t do this to the children we serve and hope to serve in the future.”

  18

  Monday afternoon, after his first day at his prestigious new law firm, Scott Alterman went for a run in Central Park. Over the weekend, he had been constantly berating himself. It had been a stupid and serious mistake to show up at the brownstone where Monica lived. He had startled her, maybe even frightened her, and that was not the way he intended to pursue her.

  He knew that four years ago he had come on much too strongly to her and should have had the brains to realize that Monica would never even think of dating her best friend’s husband.

  But now Joy and I are totally split, he thought, as he jogged through Central Park, enjoying the crisp autumn breezes. It was an amicable divorce and Joy even admits that getting married six months after we met was crazy. We didn’t really know each other. She came to work for the firm fresh out of law school and before it made sense I had bought her a ring and we’d made a down payment on a co-op facing the Common.

  It’s one of the reasons we put off having a family, he reflected, as he began to build his case to present to Monica. Joy realizes now that it was hurt pride that made her so adamant about trying to save our marriage. It didn’t do any good, of course. Three long years of being in counseling and trying to make it work were a waste. But I knew I’d never have any chance with Monica until Joy agreed that the marriage was hopeless. Now Joy admits that she never really believed Monica had been seeing me on the side. In the year we’ve been split both of us have been much happier . . .

  I wonder if I could get Joy to call Monica and explain that to her? Joy even said that I was more than generous in the settlement, turning over the condo and all the furniture to her. The paintings, too. They’re worth a lot more than when I bought them. I have an eye for good art. I’ll start a new collection.

  Joy has the condo, a healthy bank account, a good job. Before I told my partners I was leaving I asked them to consider making her a partner and I think they may do it. She’s grateful to me for that, but she’s also a darn good lawyer and deserves it. I know she’s happy that I’ve left the firm. She doesn’t want to run into me every day. I’ve heard that she’s been dating different people, which is all to the good. God bless my successor.

  Scott had started his run on the West Ninety-sixth Street entrance to Central Park. He’d gone south to Fifty-ninth Street, then up the east side of the park to 110th Street, then down on the west side back to Ninety-sixth Street. With a glow of satisfaction at how easily he had handled the run, he returned to his rented apartment, showered, changed, then, sipping a scotch, settled in a chair that overlooked the park.

  Even without Monica in the equation I was happy to make the move, he thought. There’s more visibility for a trial lawyer in Manhattan than in Boston.

  Monica. As always, when he allowed himself to think about her, her face in every detail filled his mind. Especially, he thought, those incredible blue-green eyes that had looked so warm and loving when she told Joy and him how much their kindness to her father in the nursing home meant to her, and how she hoped that someday she would meet someone exactly like Scott. But those eyes had withered him with scorn when he had been fool enough to ask her to have dinner with him alone.

  Scott did not like to remember how dumb he had been to keep calling her, thinking she would change her mind. But she did have some feelings for me, he told himself. I know she did, he thought defensively.

  When did I fall in love with Monica? When did I stop seeing her as Joy’s best friend and start looking at her as a desirable woman, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

  Why didn’t I tell her to listen to her father’s suspicions about his parentage? She saw the photos her father had compared and immediately dismissed them. “Dad always tried to find his birth parents, Scott,” she had said. “He always used to point to a photo in the newspaper of someone whom he resembled, and wonder whether it was his own father. It was a sad, running joke. His need to know was so great, and of course never satisfied.”

  Scott felt his sense of well-being begin to slip away. There has to be a way to trace Edward Farrell’s birth parents. The resemblance between him and Alexander Gannon is absolutely startling. Gannon never married, but in 1935, he wrote a will which never mentioned a wife, but significantly left his estate first to his issue if any existed, and only then to his brother. There’s a good chance her father was right about his suspicions. Maybe telling that to Monica is the way to get her to see me. I want to marry Monica, but if that doesn’t happen, he thought ruefully, second best would be to represent her in court. As her lawyer, I’d receive a healthy percentage of any money she received.

  Scott cast a disdainful eye on the serviceable but ordinary furniture in his rented co-op. I’ve got to get busy finding a place I want to buy, he thought, a place where Monica might want to live someday.

  It isn’t just about the money in the Gannon Foundation that may be hers. I want her and I want everything for her.

  19

  On Monday evening, retired detective John Hartman phoned his neighbor Nan Rhodes. By now he knew that she sometimes met her sisters on Monday evenings, but he wasn’t sure whether it was a weekly commitment.

  A childless widower who had been the only child of two only children, Hartman, despite his wide circle of friends, often regretted that he had not been born into a large family.
Tonight for some reason, he felt particularly down and was immeasurably cheered when at seven thirty Nan answered her phone on the first ring.

  At his suggestion that he half expected her to be at dinner with her siblings, Nan laughed. “We meet once a month,” she told him. “Weekly, and we’d probably be resuming old battles like ‘Remember when you wore my new sweater before I even had a chance to wear it myself?’ It’s better this way.”

  “I’ve kept the picture of Dr. Farrell longer than I intended,” he said. “The fingerprints on it don’t match any known felon. Shall I slip it under your door?” Why did I make that suggestion? he asked himself. Why didn’t I ask if I could drop it off?

  He was delighted to hear Nan’s response. “I just made a pot of tea and sinful as it’s now considered, I bought a chocolate layer cake at the bakery. Why don’t you just come in and sit down for a few minutes and share it with me?”

  Not realizing that Nan was at once shocked at her invitation to him and pleased that he had accepted it, Hartman hastily grabbed a freshly cleaned cardigan from his closet and buttoned it over his casual shirt. Five minutes later he was sitting opposite Nan at her dinette table.

  As she poured tea and sliced a generous piece of cake for him, he decided that he would not hand over the picture immediately. He found himself savoring the warmth that emanated from Nan Rhodes. He knew she had a son. Always ask about the offspring, he told himself. “Nan, how is your son doing?”

  Her eyes lit up. “I just got a new picture of him with his wife, Sharon, and the baby.” Nan rushed to get the picture, and when she returned and he had made the appropriate comments, they began to talk about her family. Then the normally reserved John Hartman found himself telling her about his experience of growing up as an only child and how as a kid he already knew that someday he would be a detective.

  It was only after the second cup of tea and a small second slice of chocolate cake that he pulled the envelope with the photograph of Monica holding the Garcia baby from his pocket. “Nan,” he said soberly. “I’m a pretty good detective, and when I was working I would get a hunch about a case and many times I was on target. As I told you when I phoned, whoever was holding that picture has no known past history of crime. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something very wrong about the fact this picture exists and that Dr. Farrell’s two addresses are on it.”

  “As I told you last week, that was my hunch, too, John,” Nan said. She reached for the envelope, took the picture out, studied it, then turned it over to read again the block printing with Monica’s addresses. “I have to show it to her,” she said reluctantly. “She might be annoyed that I didn’t give it to her last week, but that’s a chance I have to take.”

  “I walked over to the hospital the other day,” John said. “I took some pictures from across the street to try to get the same angle of the steps and hospital that we see in this one. I think whoever took that picture was sitting in a car.”

  “Do you mean someone might have been waiting for Dr. Monica to come out?” Now Nan’s voice was incredulous.

  “It’s possible. Do you remember if anyone phoned last Monday to ask about her schedule?”

  Nan frowned as she tried to sort out the myriad of calls that came into the office. “I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “But it isn’t unusual for someone like a pharmacist to phone and ask when the doctor is expected in. I wouldn’t even have noticed that as being unusual.”

  “What would you have said if you had been called about her schedule last Monday?”

  “I would have said that’s she’d be in around noon. There are often staff meetings at the hospital on Monday mornings and I don’t schedule anything at the office for her until one o’clock.”

  “What time did she step out of the hospital with the Garcias to take that picture?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When you give it to the doctor, please ask her what time it was.”

  “All right.” Nan realized her throat was dry. “You really think that someone is stalking her, don’t you?”

  “Maybe stalking is too strong a word. I checked on Scott Alterman, the ex-boyfriend, or whatever he was to the doctor. He’s a well-known, well-respected lawyer in Boston, recently divorced, and moved to Manhattan only last week to join a big-shot law firm on Wall Street. But he wasn’t the one who took the picture. Last Monday his firm had a farewell luncheon for him at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston and he was there.”

  “Could he have had someone else take the picture for him?”

  “He could have. But I doubt it. That doesn’t have the ring of truth to me.” Hartman pushed back his chair. “Nan, thanks for the hospitality. The cake was delicious and every time I have tea brewed in a teapot, I promise myself I’ll never use a tea bag again.”

  Nan stood up with him. “I’ll be very aware of anyone phoning to try to get the doctor’s schedule,” she said, then brightened. “Oh, I have to tell you something interesting. The Garcia baby, the one who recovered from leukemia, was in today. Just a cold, but you can understand the concern of the parents. Tony Garcia, the father, works part-time as a driver. He told Dr. Monica that an elderly lady he drove last week claimed to know the doctor’s grandmother. Dr. Monica told me she thought it had to be a mistake, because she never knew her grandparents, but I couldn’t resist following up. I called Tony and he gave me the lady’s name. It’s Olivia Morrow, and she lives on Riverside Drive. I gave it to Dr. Monica and urged her to give the lady a call. As I told her, ‘What have you got to lose?’ ”

  20

  In his office near Shubert Alley, in the theatre district of Manhattan, Peter Gannon stood up from his desk and pushed aside the sheets of paper that were littered over it. He walked across the room to the wall of bookshelves and reached for his copy of Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary. He wanted to look up the exact definition of the word “carnage.”

  “carnage (kar’nij),” he read, “n. 1 the slaughter of a great number of men as in battle; butchery; massacre; 2 archaic, dead bodies as of men slain in battle.”

  “That about defines it,” he said aloud, although he was alone in the room. Slaughter and butchery by the critics. Massacre by the audience. And dead bodies of all the actors, musicians, and crew who worked their hearts out to have a big hit.

  He replaced the heavy dictionary, sat at his desk again, and put his head in his hands. I was so sure that this one would work, he thought. I was so sure of it I even promised to personally guarantee half the investment some of the big-bucks guys put in it. How am I supposed to do that now? The patent income has been finished for years, and the foundation is too heavily committed. I told Greg that I thought Clay and Doug were pushing too hard for those mental health and cardiac research grants, but he told me to mind my own business, that I was getting plenty for my theatre projects. How do I tell them that I need more now? A lot more!

  Too restless to stay seated, he stood up again. The musical extravaganza had opened and closed last Monday night. A week later, he was still adding up the cost of the debacle. One critic had written, “Producer Peter Gannon has effectively presented small dramas, suitable for off-Broadway, but his third attempt at a musical is once again a resounding failure. Give it up, Peter.”

  Give it up, Peter, he thought, as he opened the small refrigerator behind his desk and took out a bottle of vodka. Not too much, he cautioned himself, as he unscrewed the bottle and reached for a stem glass from the tray on top of the refrigerator. I know I’ve been drinking too much, I know it.

  After he had poured a moderate amount of vodka into the glass and added ice cubes, he replaced the bottle, closed the refrigerator, and sat down again. Then he leaned back in his chair. Or maybe I should turn into a drunk, he thought. Blotto. Out of it. Not able to string two sentences together. Not able to think, but able to sleep, even if it’s a drunken sleep that ends in a blinding headache.

  He took a long sip of the vodka and with his free hand reached for the ph
one. Susan, his ex-wife, had left a message telling him how sorry she was that the play had closed. Any other ex would have been thrilled that it flopped, he thought, but Sue meant it.

  Sue. One more constant regret. Forget about calling her. It’s too painful.

  As he was withdrawing his hand, the phone rang. When the caller’s number came up, he was tempted to pretend he wasn’t in his office. Knowing that would solve nothing, he picked up the receiver and mumbled a greeting.

  “I expected to hear from you before this,” a querulous voice told him.

  “I meant to call you. It’s been pretty hectic.”

  “I don’t mean a phone call. I mean my payment. You’re overdue.”

  “I . . . just . . . don’t . . . have . . . that . . . much . . . now,” Peter whispered, his voice strangled.

  “Then . . . get . . . it . . . or . . . else.”

  The phone slammed in his ear.

  21

  When she woke up on Tuesday morning, Olivia Morrow felt as if a quantity of her small stockpile of remaining energy had disappeared while she was sleeping. For some odd reason, a scene from Little Women, a book she had loved as young teenager, became fresh in her mind. Beth, the-nineteen-year-old who is dying of tuberculosis, tells her older sister that she knows she will not get well, that the tide is going out.

  The tide is going out for me, too, Olivia thought. If Clay is right, and my body is telling me he is right, I have less than a week to live.

  What shall I do?

  Pulling on her reserve of strength, she got up slowly, put on a robe, and made her way to the kitchen. As she walked the short distance she was too exhausted to reach for the kettle and sat on a chair in the dining alcove until her breath became stronger. Catherine, she begged, give me direction. Let me know what you want me to do.