Blacklist (36 page)

her nipples into red cherries against her whipped cream body, I’d ask what Ken would think when she raced home to undress and bathe. “Won’t he lean over you and wonder who or what he’s smelling over the bath salts.” At first she would laugh it away, but one day she explained the sad truth, that Ken was impotent, that he’d long since stopped leaning over her in the bath or bed or any other place.

It was Dryden who said that pity melts the mind to love, and maybe that’s when I started to love her, when I started to pity her. Maybe if she’d whined about it the first time she unbuttoned her white silk blouse, “I only fuck strange men because my husband’s impotent,” I would have despised her, but it was four months before I learned the truth, and then she never mentioned it again.

And Gene, who never missed anything, saw the pity and the love, and began coming to the apartment, where he pantomimed dismay at the rat droppings in the hall and uncurtained cracked windows in the front room. But it didn’t stop him hanging about after meetings. “I can run Rhona home and come back to finish discussing business with you, Herman. Do you need a buck for the laundry? Those sheets are going to get up and walk off that bed on their own pretty soon.”

Disgust didn’t keep him from lying in those sheets. It was the day after I’d found her there with him, the day I beat her (long red fingers on the whipped cream skin, red fingers from her red lover, red fingers turning to blue, blue blood of the master class, it would rule her in the end) the day she left and didn’t come back, the day I started to die.

The next twenty pages dealt with his dying: “Every man imagines he’s Jesus, or at least Trotsky, important enough for execution. That’s what I thought for the first five years I lay in the ground. Finally, I realized selfpity and booze were what really did me in.” He compared himself to Lulu: “… she was in the same boat as me, unloved, unwanted, but she didn’t turn her face to the wall. Instead she turned her back on all of us, went to Africa, painted her giant canvases whether anyone bought them or not.”

If Pelletier’s works were all-what had been Amy’s phrase? A something of clay-Lulu definitely stood in for Kylie Ballantine. Kylie continued her

work, she went to Gabon, she refused to be bowed down by Taverner’s spite in getting her fired.

And Gene stood for Calvin, the Boy Wonder. And Rhona … and Ken. MacKenzie Graham. He’d been impotent, so Geraldine turned elsewhere for love? Was that what she meant, when she said she and MacKenzie had so little in common?

I drew circles on my notepaper. Edwards Bayard had overheard talk as an adolescent about someone who looked just like his mother, and so didn’t seem to realize who his father was. Adolescent self-absorption, a fantasy yearning for the perfect father, made Edwards assume the neighbors were gossiping about him. And then his hurt and bitterness with Calvin kept him clinging to this adolescent version of events. Funny to see someone with so much education, and with the power of his personal wealth and his position in the Spadona Foundation, unable to let go of his adolescent view of the world.

I listed all the Bayards in one of the circles I’d drawn. In another, I put Darraugh’s family, starting with Laura Taverner Drummond, then Geraldine and MacKenzie, whose father connived with Laura to marry the two wild children. Their daughter Laura, named after the formidable grandmother. Darraugh, born in 1943. Darraugh’s son, young MacKenzie.

I slowly added a line joining the Grahams to the Bayards. Darraugh looked exactly like his mother. Everyone said Geraldine Graham had been a wild young woman. In his current illness, Calvin Bayard wandered to Larchmont in the dark. He had kept a key to the house. He had clutched me, crying, “Deenie.” Geral-deeme. She had spilled coffee all over herself when I reported it. Whatever Pelletier had thought about Calvin, the Boy Wonder, Calvin had loved Geraldine Graham.

I again imagined Darraugh as a boy-not galloping around the fields on his horse, but kneeling in bed in the middle of the night, head cupped in his hands, watching Calvin Bayard appear through the woods and let himself into Larchmont after the servants had locked the place up. He had stood up fiercely for MacKenzie Graham; he had weathered his grandmother’s fury by naming his son MacKenzie. Whether Calvin Bayard, MacKenzie Graham, or, for that matter, Armand Pelletier had been his birth father, MacKenzie was the man Darraugh loved. No wonder he hated Larchmont Hall.

CHAPTER 45

The Ice Cube Man Cometh

I skimmed the rest of the manuscript. Armand’s sense of personal grievance ran too deep for him to record a little thing like “Rhona’s” pregnancy, so he didn’t leave any hint about whether he or Calvin might have been Darraugh’s father. On the other hand, he heaped a lot of scorn on Toffee Noble-an offensive name for anyone, even someone totally imaginary. If Noble was supposed to be Augustus Llewellyn-and it sounded like him, with his basement printing press-Pelletier must have really hated him.

Llewellyn was a prominent Republican donor these days, but in the forties he’d hung out with Calvin and Pelletier and Kylie Ballantine at the bar where lodal leftists and labor organizers congregated.

Marc had read this manuscript. What if he’d gone to see Llewellyn after all: “I’m troubled, sir, by a manuscript Armand Pelletier wrote. It suggests you were some kind of fellow traveler in the forties.” Maybe Llewellyn wouldn’t want his-Republican pals, or his sailing friends, to know this. If he’d asked Marc to meet him after hours-“Come with me to New Solway, I’ll show. you what that setup, what those people were really like”Marc would have gone with him readily. Llewellyn did know all those New Solway people, after all. He was the one black member of the Anodyne Park Golf Course. Julius Arnoff was his registered agent as well as Geraldine Graham’s and Calvin Bayard’s-in his casual gossip with his clients, Arnoff had probably told Llewellyn about the nounous abandoning Larchmont Hall; what a shame it’s standing empty-the ornamental pool is filling up with dead carp …

“VI.! Wake up-you’ve gone catatonic on me.” Amy was shaking my arm. “Didn’t you say you had an appointment at four? It’s three-forty, and you’ve been blanked out for the last ten minutes.”

I blinked at her, trying to feel some urgency about my appointment. “Twenty to four? Yes, I guess I need to get going.”

I started to put the manuscript into my briefcase, but remembered it was the library’s a second before Amy squawked at me. “Sorry. Look, they’ll be closing the reading room in an hour. Do you think you could read this by then? Or get a copy made? If it’s a thingamajig, a clay something-“

“Roman a clef,” Amy interrupted, spelling it for me. “A novel with a key. I can read it and tell you what I think, and get a copy made, but it’s still a novel, even if it’s a novel with a key, and I don’t think you can rely on it for evidence.”

The librarian came over to ask if we would carry on our conversation outside; other patrons were complaining about our noise. Amy walked out with me.

“Not as evidence,” I said. “But come on: the article on ComThought you found said it started at an integrated bar on the West Side called Flora’s, where left-leaning intellectuals and labor organizers met. Pelletier’s manuscript talks about a West Side bar called Goldie’s where artists and labor organizers met. This manuscript casts light on all these people. Even if Armand is distorting what happened for the sake of his story, or because he saw himself as a victim at Calvin’s hands, or even at Augustus Llewellyn’s, the manuscript suggests that Llewellyn and Ballantine and Geraldine all hung out together with Pelletier and Calvin Bayard back before the McCarthy hearings. They all dabbled in Communism. Which might be the secret Taverner sat on for fifty years. Although it doesn’t explain why Taverner kept quiet until the night Marc came to see him.

I kicked a stone in irritation. “Damn it all! I’d better run. Look, just read the thing, will you-I’ll call you tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll read the blessed book, and I’ll make you a copy of it. Now

go, unless these are clients you want to blow off.” Amy gave me a push between my shoulder blades.

I sprinted past the dorms stuffed behind the library to Fifty-fifth Street, where I’d left my car. My clients were in the west Loop, on Wacker Drive, which the city had completely dismembered; by the time I found parking and ran back to their building, I was over twenty minutes late. Not good for my professional image. Worse, I had forgotten to put a pen in my bag and had to borrow one from the client. Worse still, I had trouble keeping my mind on their problem, which wasn’t fair, since they pay their bills on time. As I was looking at my notes in the elevator down to the ground floor, I saw to my embarrassment that I’d written “Toffee Noble” on my legal pad three or four times, like a schoolgirl with a crush.

The reports I’d read on Llewellyn said he still came to work every dayunless he was in Jamaica or Paris. I looked at my watch. It was five-thirty, and the lobby was thick with departing office workers. But I was only a ten minute walk across the river from Llewellyn’s building, and it was possible that he stayed late. I stuffed my notes into my bag and started north.

When I got to Erie Street, my optimism was rewarded: a navy Bentley with a license reading “T-SQUARE” was parked in front of the building. A uniformed chauffeur sat inside with the Sun-Times propped open on the steering wheel. That meant the great man was still in his office.

As I’d trotted up Franklin Street, I tried to figure out how to get past the hostile receptionist in the lobby. It was one thing to crawl through a culvert to get into Anodyne Park, but more difficult to get into an office building where they don’t want to see you. I still hadn’t come up with a good idea when I saw Jason Tompkin about half a block away on Erie. I broke into a run again. When I caught up with him at the light on Wells, I tapped him on the arm and called his name.

He turned, brows raised, then gave his cocky grin. “The lady detective. Well, well. Have you come to arrest me for killing Marc?”

“Did you kill him? That would be a help. I could stop trying to ask people questions that they don’t want to answer.”

“I think a gal like you would develop a pretty thick skin by now. No one

wants to answer a dick’s questions. Not even me.” The grin was still in place, but it pushed me back as effectively as a stiff arm.

“Yeah, well, even a rhinoceros starts showing wear and tear if it’s hit by enough big sticks. I don’t imagine you killed Marc Whitby, but maybe I’ve been barking up the wrong tree all week; maybe you got tired of his ambition and his standoffishness, got him drunk, and drove him to a pond to drown him.”

He stopped smiling. “I didn’t kill the brother. I just didn’t join in the choir of the blessed shouting `Hallelujah’ every time someone said his name.”

“If you do me a favor, I won’t ask you any more questions, or even expect you to shout `Hallelujah’ over Marc’s name. I want to see Mr. Llewellyn. Without having to sweet-talk my way past your receptionistshe’s one of the people who’s whacked at my rhino hide recently.”

“Ah, yes, the dulcet Shantel. I can’t get you in to Mr. Llewellyn. He knows all his staff, of course, because he owns us, and, anyway, it’s not like we’re Time, Inc. At the Christmas party or in the elevator, when our paths cross, he greets me by name: he says, `How are you today, Mr. Thompson. That was a nice piece you did for the last issue, a very fine piece of writing indeed.’ One year he called me Mr. Pumpkin.”

I laughed. “I’ll take my chances once I’m in the building. If he hasn’t left for the day.”

“And in return?”

“If you lose your dog, I’ll find it for you, no charge.”

“Dang. You must’ve known I have a cat.” He turned around and led me back to the Llewellyn building.

The chauffeur was still reading the Sun-Times, a good sign since it meant he didn’t expect to see the boss for a bit. Inside the lobby, the hostile receptionist was gone, replaced by a uniformed guard, who asked for my ID but didn’t make any objection to J.T taking me up in the elevator. After all, the place published magazines. Writers are always bringing in people to interview.

On the sixth floor, I got J.T. to let me use his computer to type up a note for Llewellyn. “Do you know that Marcus Whitby tried to see you before he died? He had read Armand Pelletier’s unpublished memoirs about the group that used to get together at Flora’s on the West Side. He went to see Olin Taverner after he read the memoir. The forties must have been heady days for you. Can we discuss them?”

J.T. kept shifting from foot to foot as we waited for my note to come out of the community printer. He quickly deleted my file from his machine, told me Llewellyn’s office was on the eighth floor and fled down the hall while I was stapling a business card to my note. By the time I reached the elevator bank, J.T. had disappeared.

When the elevator opened on the eighth floor, a woman about my own age was standing on the other side. Age was all that we had in common: the makeup on her cinammon skin was fresh but subtle, her hair was perfectly combed, her nails recently manicured. The wool in her rust-colored suit was that smooth soft weave that doesn’t make it into the stores where people like me shop. She looked me up and down as if she could see the tear in the lining of my own jacket before asking if I needed help.

“I’m here to see Mr. Augustus Llewellyn.” “And you have an appointment?”

“I know you’re not his secretary, and this is a confidential matter.” The name of the daughter who ran Llewellyn’s two women’s magazines came to me. “I suppose you’re Ms. Janice Llewellyn?”

She didn’t smile back. “Mr. Llewellyn is leaving for the day. If you don’t have an appointment and you want to-talk to him, you can call his secretary in the morning.”

Just at that minute, a door at the end of the hall opened, and Llewellyn came out in person, accompanied by a couple of young men and an older woman.

Janice called out, “Daddy, go back into your office for a minute, why don’t you. I’m going to get this person out of the building.”

In the second that everyone stood frozen, trying to absorb the situation at the elevator, I walked up the hall and handed Llewellyn my note. He took it reflexively, but the two young men formed a barrier between him and me and ushered him back into his executive offices, along with the older woman. As soon as they had the old man safely inside, one of the young men reappeared and joined Janice and me by the elevators.

He seized my arm and said to Janice, “You go in with Daddy and call down to Ricky in the lobby; I’ll get her out of the building.”

He had the stocky build of a middle linebacker. I knew I couldn’t really fight him, but I never like being grabbed. And I was tired of being stiffed and pushed around by everyone I wanted to talk to. I moved into the circle of his arm and elbowed him sharply in the ribs. He cried out and dropped my arm.

“I’ll leave if your daddy doesn’t want to see me,” I said, moving away from him. “But you don’t need to help me.”

Janice had her cell phone out. She was starting a firm conversation with the lobby guard, demanding to know how I had come to be in the building without permission, when the door to the executive offices opened again. The other brother appeared. In a voice overflowing with astonishment and indignation, he announced that “Daddy” wanted to talk to me.

Janice and her brother glared at me, but Daddy’s wishes took precedence over their bruised egos, or rib cages, as the case might be. Janice’s plucked brows met briefly over her nose, but she kept from wrinkling her forehead. It pays to work for a woman’s magazine-you learn good tips on how to preserve your face. She put her cell phone into the side compartment of her briefcase and told me to follow her. Her brother stayed in step next to me.

When we got to the executive suite, the other brother took me into his father’s office. Augustus Llewellyn was sitting behind his desk, a leatherinlaid partners’ specimen that might have been a couple of hundred years old. There were a number of interesting antiques in the room besides the desk, but the one that caught my eye was an old hand press standing on an octagonal table.

I walked over to look at it. “Good evening, sir. Is that what you used to print T-Square on?”

Llewellyn ignored me, turning to his children and telling them they could leave. When the son I’d elbowed protested that I might be violent, his father managed a small smile. “If she harms me, you’ll know exactly who did it, and you can have her arrested. But for now I want to be alone with her. And that means you, too, Marjorie.”

The last remark was addressed to the older woman, who I assumed was the secretary I’d spoken to the day before. When all four had left, I pulled up one of the two contemporary chairs in the room and faced Llewellyn across his desk. He folded his hands in his lap but didn’t speak.

“I’m the detective whom the Whitby family-“

He cut me off. “I know that you and your underlings have been questioning my staff recently, young woman. Not much happens in this company that I don’t know about.”

“Then you know that Marcus Whitby wanted to see you shortly before he died. Did he talk to you about his meeting with Olin Taverner?”

“If he did, that would be of no concern to you.”

“You agreed to see me, Mr. Llewellyn,” I said gently. “I think if you knew what Taverner had told Whitby you wouldn’t need to talk to me. So I’m assuming you didn’t see Marc Whitby before he died.”

He nodded slightly, but didn’t offer any comment.

“Olin Taverner held on to a secret, or maybe a series of secrets, about people in New Solway, and people involved in ComThought-the Committee for Social-“

“Yes, I know what ComThought is, or was.” He cut me off again. “And I know Taverner was obsessed with it as a Communist front. I don’t think they were ever the threat to America’s safety that Olin claimed, but I had my fill, of the left at Flora’s all those years ago. They were a ramshackle lot who turned on each other like rats in a proverbial barrel. They had no real interest in the working man or woman, only in their stupid revolutionary rhetoric. America rewards self-determination. They could never see that.”

“Pelletier says you sat in on the committee’s beginnings at Flora’s.” I spoke flatly, as if what I were saying were undisputed truth, not my own unverifiable guesses “You say this is an unpublished manuscript.” Llewellyn tapped my note with his index finger. “How did you come to read it?”

“The same way Marc Whitby did-by going through Pelletier’s papers at the University of Chicago. It sounds as though Flora’s was an exciting place-meatpackers and novelists rubbing shoulders with dancers and journalists, a miniature Greenwich Village on the near West Side. Calvin Bayard dropped in from time to time, so you got to know him. And ultimately he guaranteed the loans that allowed you to abandon that hand press over there and move to real machines. What did you have to do in return, Mr. Llewellyn?”