Morning Noon & Night (12 page)

“It’s incredible…!”

“After all these years…”

“Why didn’t your mother ever come back…?”

“I’m sorry we gave you such a bad time…”

Her smile lit up the room. “It’s all right. Everything’s all right now.”

Woody picked up the fingerprint card and looked at it in awe. “My God! This is a billion-dollar card.” He put the card in his pocket. “I’m going to have it bronzed.”

Tyler turned to the group. “This calls for a real celebration! I suggest we all go back to Rose Hill.” He turned to her and smiled. “We’ll give you a welcome home party. Let’s get you checked out of here.”

She looked around at them, and her eyes were shining. “It’s like a dream come true. I finally have a family!”

Half an hour later, they were back at Rose Hill, and she was settling into her new room. The others were downstairs, talking excitedly.

“She must feel as though she’s just been through the Inquisition,” Tyler mused.

“She has,” Peggy replied. “I don’t know how she stood it.”

Kendall said, “I wonder how she’s going to adjust to her new life.”

“The same way we’re all going to adjust,” Woody said dryly. “With a lot of champagne and caviar.”

Tyler rose. “I, for one, am glad it’s finally settled. Let me go up and see if she needs any help.”

He went upstairs and walked along the corridor to her room. He knocked at her door and called loudly, “Julia?”

“It’s open. Come in.”

He stood in the doorway, and they stared silently at each other. And then Tyler carefully closed the door, held out his hands, and broke into a slow grin.

When he spoke, he said, “We did it, Margo! We did it!”

H
e had plotted it with the ineffable skill of a chess master. Only this had been the most lucrative chess game in history, with stakes of billions of dollars—and he had won! He was filled with a sense of invincible power.
Is this how you felt when you closed a big deal, Father? Well, this is a bigger deal than you ever made. I’ve planned the crime of the century, and I’ve gotten away with it
.

In a sense, it had all started with Lee.
Beautiful, wonderful Lee
. The person he loved most in the world. They had met in the Berlin, the gay bar on West Belmont Avenue. Lee was tall and muscular and blond, and he was the most beautiful man Tyler had ever seen.

Their meeting had started with, “May I buy you a drink?”

Lee had looked him over and nodded. “That would be nice.”

After the second drink, Tyler had said, “Why don’t we have a drink over at my place?”

Lee had smiled. “I’m expensive.”

“How expensive?”

“Five hundred dollars for the night.”

Tyler had not hesitated. “Let’s go.”

They spent the night at Tyler’s home.

Lee was warm and sensitive and caring, and Tyler felt a closeness to him that he had never had with any other human being. He was flooded with emotions he had not known existed. By morning, Tyler was madly in love.

In the past, he had picked up young men at the Cairo and the Bijou Theater and several other gay hangouts in Chicago, but now he knew that all that was going to change. From now on, he wanted only Lee.

In the morning, while Tyler was preparing breakfast, he said, “What would you like to do tonight?”

Lee looked at him in surprise. “Sorry. I have a date tonight.”

Tyler felt as though he had been hit in the stomach.

“But, Lee, I thought that you and I…”

“Tyler, dear, I’m a very valuable piece of merchandise. I go to the highest bidder. I like you, but I’m afraid you really can’t afford me.”

“I can give you anything you want,” Tyler said.

Lee smiled lazily. “Really? Well, what I want is a trip to St.-Tropez on a beautiful white yacht. Can you afford that?”

“Lee, I’m richer than all your friends put together.”

“Oh? I thought you said you are a judge.”

“Well, I am, yes, but I’m
going
to be rich. I mean…very rich.”

Lee put his arm around him. “Don’t fret, Tyler. I’m free a week from Thursday. Those eggs look delicious.”

That was the beginning. Money had been important to Tyler before, but now it became an obsession. He needed it for Lee. He could not get him out of his mind. The thought of him making love with other men was unbearable.
I’ve got to have him for my own
.

From the age of twelve, Tyler had known that he was homosexual. One day, his father had caught him fondling and kissing a boy from his school, and Tyler had borne the full brunt of his father’s fury. “I can’t believe I have a son who’s a faggot! Now that I know your dirty little secret, I’m going to keep a close eye on you, sister.”

Tyler’s marriage was a cosmic joke, perpetrated by a god with a macabre sense of humor.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Harry Stanford said.

It was Christmas and Tyler was at Rose Hill for the holidays. Kendall and Woody had already made their departures and Tyler was planning his when the bombshell dropped.

“You’re going to get married.”

“Married? That’s out of the question! I don’t…”

“Listen to me, sister. People are beginning to talk about you, and I can’t have that. It’s bad for my reputation. If you get married, that will shut them up.”

Tyler was defiant. “I don’t care what people say. This is my life.”

“And I want it to be a rich life for you, Tyler. I’m getting older. Pretty soon…” He shrugged.

The carrot and the stick.

Naomi Schuyler was a plain-looking woman, from a middle-class family, whose flaming desire in life was to “better” herself. She was so impressed by Harry Stanford’s name that she would probably have married his son if he were pumping gas instead of being a judge.

Harry Stanford had taken Naomi to bed once. When someone asked him why, Stanford replied, “Because she was there.”

She quickly bored him, and he decided she would be perfect for Tyler.

What Harry Stanford wanted, Harry Stanford got.

The wedding took place two months later. It was a small wedding—one hundred and fifty people—and the bride and groom went to Jamaica for their honeymoon. It was a fiasco.

On their wedding night, Naomi said, “What kind of man have I married, for God’s sake? What have you got a dick for?”

Tyler tried to reason with her. “We don’t need sex. We can live separate lives. We’ll stay together, but we’ll each have our own…friends.”

“You’re damned right, we will!”

Naomi took out her vengeance on him by becoming a black-belt shopper. She bought everything at the most expensive stores in the city, and took shopping trips to New York.

“I can’t afford your extravagances on my income.” Tyler protested.

“Then get a raise. I’m your wife. I’m entitled to be supported.”

Tyler went to his father and explained the situation.

Harry Stanford grinned. “Women can be damned expensive, can’t they? You’ll just have to handle it.”

“But, Father, I need some—”

“Someday you’ll have all the money in the world.”

Tyler tried to explain it to Naomi, but she had no intentions of waiting until “someday.” She sensed that that “someday” might never come. When Naomi had squeezed what she could out of Tyler, she sued for divorce, settled for what was left of his bank account, and disappeared.

When Harry Stanford heard the news, he said, “Once a faggot, always a faggot.”

And that was the end of that.

His father went out of his way to demean Tyler. One day, when Tyler was on the bench, in the middle of a trial, his
bailiff came up to him and whispered, “Excuse me, Your Honor…”

Tyler had turned to him, impatiently. “Yes?”

“There’s a telephone call for you.”

“
What?
What’s the matter with you? I’m in the middle of—”

“It’s your father, Your Honor. He says it’s very urgent and he must talk to you immediately.”

Tyler was furious. His father had no right to interrupt him. He was tempted to ignore the call. But on the other hand, if it was that urgent…

Tyler stood up. “Court is recessed for fifteen minutes.”

Tyler hurried into his chambers and picked up the telephone. “Father?”

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Tyler.” There was malice in his voice.

“As a matter of fact, you are. I’m in the middle of a trial and—”

“Well, give him a traffic ticket and forget it.”

“Father…”

“I need your help with a serious problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“My chef is stealing from me.”

Tyler could not believe what he was hearing. He was so angry he could hardly speak. “You called me off the bench because…?”

“You’re the law, aren’t you? Well, he’s breaking the law. I want you to come back to Boston and check out my whole staff. They’re robbing me blind!”

It was all Tyler could do to keep from exploding. “Father…”

“You just can’t trust those damn employment agencies.”

“I’m in the middle of a trial. I can’t possibly go back to Boston now.”

There was a moment of ominous silence. “What did you say?”

“I said…”

“You aren’t going to disappoint me again, are you, Tyler? Maybe I should talk to Fitzgerald about some changes in my will.”

And there was the carrot again. The money. His share of the billions of dollars waiting for him when his father died.

Tyler cleared his throat. “If you could send your plane for me…”

“Hell, no! If you play your cards right, Judge, that plane will belong to you one day. Just think about that. Meanwhile, fly commercial like everyone else. But I want you to get your ass back here!” The line went dead.

Tyler sat there, filled with humiliation.
My father has done this to me all my life. To hell with him! I won’t go. I won’t go
.

Tyler flew to Boston that evening.

Harry Stanford employed a staff of twenty-two. There was a phalanx of secretaries, butlers, housekeepers, maids, chefs, chauffeurs, gardeners, and a bodyguard.

“Thieves, every damned one of them,” Harry Stanford complained to Tyler.

“If you’re so worried, why don’t you hire a private detective or go to the police?”

“Because I have you,” Harry Stanford said. “You’re a judge, right? Well, you judge them for me.”

It was pure malevolence.

Tyler looked around the huge house with its exquisite furniture and paintings, and he thought of the dreary little house he lived in.
This is what I deserve to have
, he thought.
And one day, I’ll have it
.

Tyler talked to the butler, Clark, and other senior members of the staff. He interviewed the servants, one by one, and checked their résumés. Most of the employees were fairly new because Harry Stanford was an impossible man to work for. The staff turnover at the house was extraordinary. Some of them lasted only a day or two. A few new employees were guilty of petty pilfering, and one was an alcoholic, but other than that, Tyler could see no problem.

Except for Dmitri Kaminsky.

Dmitri Kaminsky had been hired by his father as a bodyguard and masseur. Sitting on the bench had made Tyler a good judge of character, and there was something about Dmitri that Tyler instantly mistrusted. He was the most recent employee. Harry Stanford’s former bodyguard had quit—Tyler could imagine why—and he had recommended Kaminsky.

The man was huge, with a barrel chest and large, muscular arms. He spoke English with a thick Russian accent. “You want to see me?”

“Yes.” Tyler gestured to a chair. “Sit down.” He had looked at the man’s employment record, and it had told him very little, except that Dmitri had come from Russia recently. “You were born in Russia?”

“Yes.” He was watching Tyler warily.

“What part?”

“Smolensk.”

“Why did you leave Russia to come to America?”

Kaminsky shrugged. “There is more opportunity here.”

Opportunity for what?
Tyler wondered. There was something evasive about the man’s manner. They spoke for twenty minutes, and at the end of that time, Tyler was convinced that Dmitri Kaminsky was concealing something.

Tyler telephoned Fred Masterson, an acquaintance of his with the FBI.

“Fred, I want you to do me a favor.”

“Sure. If I’m ever in Chicago, will you fix my traffic tickets?”

“I’m serious.”

“Shoot.”

“I want you to check on a Russian who came over here six months ago.”

“Wait a minute. You’re talking CIA, aren’t you?”

“Maybe, but I don’t know anyone at CIA.”

“Neither do I.”

“Fred, if you could do this for me, I would really be grateful.”

Tyler heard a sigh.

“Okay. What’s his name?”

“Dmitri Kaminsky.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I know someone at the Russian Embassy in D.C. I’ll see if he has any information on Kaminsky. If not, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

That evening, Tyler had dinner with his father. Subconsciously, Tyler had hoped that his father would have aged, would have become more fragile, more vulnerable with time. Instead, Harry Stanford looked hale and hearty, in his prime.
He’s going to live forever
, Tyler thought despairingly.
He’ll outlive all of us
.

The conversation at dinner was completely one-sided.

“I just closed a deal to buy the power company in Hawaii…”

“I’m flying over to Amsterdam next week to straighten out some GATT complications…”

“The secretary of state has invited me to accompany him to China…”

Tyler scarcely got in a word. At the end of the meal, his father rose. “How are you coming along with the servant problem?”

“I’m still checking them out, Father.”

“Well, don’t take forever,” his father growled, and walked out of the room.

The following morning, Tyler received a call from Fred Masterson at the FBI.

“Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“You picked a real beauty.”

“Oh?”

“Dmitri Kaminsky was a hit man for
polgoprudnenskaya
.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I’ll explain. There are eight criminal groups that have taken over in Moscow. They all fight among themselves, but the two most powerful groups are the
chechens
and the
polgoprudnenskaya
. Your friend Kaminsky worked for the second group. Three months ago, they handed him a contract on one of the leaders of the
chechens
. Instead of carrying out the contract, Kaminsky went to him to make a better deal. The
polgoprudnenskaya
found out about it and put out a contract on Kaminsky. Gangs have a quaint custom over there. First they chop off your fingers, then they let you bleed for a while, and then they shoot you.”

“My God!”

“Kaminsky got himself smuggled out of Russia, but they’re still looking for him. And looking hard.”

“That’s incredible,” Tyler said.

“That’s not all. He’s also wanted by the state police for a
few murders. If you know where he is, they’d love to have that information.”

Tyler was thoughtful for a moment. He could not afford to get involved in this.
It could mean giving testimony and wasting a lot of time
.

“I have no idea. I was just checking him out for a Russian friend. Thanks, Fred.”

Tyler found Dmitri Kaminsky in his room, reading a hardcore porno magazine. Dmitri rose as Tyler walked into the room.

“I want you to pack your things and get out of here.”

Dmitri stared at him. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m giving you a choice. You’re either out of here by this afternoon, or I’ll tell the Russian police where you are.”

Dmitri’s face turned pale.

“Do you understand?”

“
Da
. I understand.”

Tyler went to see his father.
He’s going to be pleased
, he thought.
I’ve done him a real favor
. He found him in the study.