The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (35 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

BOOK: The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)
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Another pause. “Your father is in Zurich. But we have no hotel for him.”
“My father, you said. But not Paul?”
“Miss Lesko . . . you'll really have to talk to Mr. Zivic. You might try him at the Greenfield Hill Clinic.”
Susan replaced the phone.
Damn.
Her father in Zurich. No hotel. Apparently without Paul. Which might mean that he's gone to see Elena. Which is fine except why the urgency? He's probably traveling on that same fake passport. And what did this have to do with Urs Brugg's urgent message to Paul?
We'll assume,
she decided,
that Elena is not pregnant and that my father is not being
summoned to do the honorable thing. And we'll grant that
my father did not need Paul as chaperone. So where is Paul?
She could, she supposed, ask Anton Zivic. Nice man. Seems second only to Paul in this Westport thing. But she didn't really know him. What about Molly?
Wait a minute,
she decided.
First let's see who else is gone
around here.
She found a phone book and flipped to the number of the Westport Library where Carla Benedict worked as a researcher. She dialed it, asking for Carla, planning to hang up if she came to the phone. But Carla wasn't there. Took a few days off. Probably back later in the week. One down, three to go.
She dialed Mario's. Asked for Billy. Same story. Two down.
“And Molly's away too?” she asked.
“No,” the relief bartender told her. “She's here. Want to talk to her?”
Susan hesitated. “Thanks. No. I'll just come over.”

Molly's presence, business as usual, surprised Susan as much as it gratified her. But there was no reason, she supposed, to assume that Paul would always travel with the same group of—specialists?—whatever—just because these three, plus that doctor they lost, were with him in Switzerland. She slipped into her coat, feeling for the car keys in her pocket. Her eye fell on the leather reclining chair near Paul's fireplace. She went to it, knelt, and reached beneath it. Her fingertips found the automatic pistol that he had slid under that chair two nights before. She'd half-expected Paul to have taken it down to the shore and thrown it far out into Long Island Sound. He hadn't. Must have had other things on his mind. She slipped it into her purse, down to the bottom, covering it with her wallet and two packets of tissues. She didn't know why. Yes, she did. It was because of all the phone calls, all the mystery, the hints of imminent violence. And because she was alone. And because she was damned if she was going to become a victim again.

 

They had barely spoken. Elena's car, a new Mercedes, wound silently up narrow streets following signs that read “Zurichsberg.” It was to Zurich, Lesko guessed, what Greenwich, Connecticut, was to New York except closer to town. It was where the rich people lived. Big houses. Many hidden behind walls or thick evergreens. He wondered if anyone there, in their whole lives, had ever cooked their own dinner or carried out a load of garbage. This was a mistake. He didn't belong here.
A chauffeur drove the car. A real one. Not a bodyguard. But Lesko had seen the second car, two men in it, that had pulled up fifty feet behind the Mercedes and stayed at that distance as it climbed the hill. He'd tensed when he saw it. But the chauffeur, holding the door for him, followed his stare and nodded a reassurance. He urged Lesko to enter quickly.
She was in the backseat. Her eyes shining, her lips moving. She seemed to be trying different words but all that came out was, “Hello, Lesko.”

Nor could he reply at first. She seemed even smaller than he remembered her. More vulnerable. She was wearing a dressing gown of some sort, loose fitting, Oriental. A dark fur had been draped over her shoulders. She could not use the sleeves because both arms were in slings. The left arm, shattered by gunfire, was encased in plaster. Metal screws protruded from the cast. The right arm rested on a lighter sling that kept pressure off her shoulder. Where her gown opened at the throat he could see the edge of a bandage. He had almost forgotten how badly she'd been hurt.

“You shouldn't be out,” he scolded her gently. ”I could have grabbed a taxi.”
“I'm fine,” she told him. “There is no more pain.”
Lesko knew she was lying. He knew what bullets did. And what they felt like.
The Mercedes climbed higher, past homes that became increasingly elegant and grounds more spacious as they drove. Lesko tried to imagine the house Elena would have chosen. The driver slowed and reached to press a button. Just ahead, on the left, a heavy gate swung open. Its ironwork had been covered with metal plates to obstruct the view within. The Mercedes entered. The chase car stayed at the curb outside.
There was a circular driveway, not so big, space for five or six cars at most. It led to a house that seemed more French than Swiss. A chateau. Sort of a salmon color trimmed in white stone that looked as if it had recently been sandblasted. The house was substantial but not huge. Not much land around it either. But what it had was richly landscaped with shrubs and rock gardens and an occasional bronze sculpture. The gate closed behind them. A woman stood waiting at the front door. She wore a nurse's uniform, her expression a mixture of exasperation and concern. Ignoring Lesko, she hurried to Elena's side of the Mercedes and helped her out of the car.
Inside, lots of marble. More sculpture. A main hallway with a curved stairway straight ahead and double doors on each side. The nurse opened one of these. It was the living room, Lesko guessed. Or the library. Many books lined the walls, some behind glass. There was a fireplace, freshly lit and blazing. Two plush chairs faced each other in front of it. There was a wheelchair next to one of them. The nurse tried to force Elena into it. She shook her head impatiently, stepped past the nurse and eased herself into one of the chairs. She beckoned the nurse closer, whispered something to her. More exasperation, a rolling of the eyes, but whatever Elena said to her, the nurse seemed to throw in the sponge. Elena patted her hand. “Danke,” she added. The nurse took her fur and left the room.
“The nurse knows it too,” Lesko told her. “Going out was dumb.”

He stood facing the fire. He could not look at her because she was staring at him. her eyes alive with pleasure. It embarrassed him.

“It has been three weeks,” she said. ”I have indulged myself enough.”
“Yeah, well,” he admonished her, “it's going to be more like three months. That's not a skin rash you got there.”
“Sit. Lesko,” she said. “Please.”
He hesitated.
“Must I tell you that it hurts to look up at you?”
He took the chair opposite.
Elena eased her right arm out of the light canvas sling. She winced, then tried to disguise it with a smile. Lesko leaned forward as if to rise but she waved him off with a motion of her fingers.
“If I ask you why you came, Lesko,” she said, her breath catching, “what will you say? That you were passing through?”
Lesko made a face. He would have. “Truth is,” he told her, ”I came to see you. I been thinking about you.”
“Nice thoughts?”
“Yeah. Mostly.”
The qualifier caused her to drop her eyes. Lesko saw it.
“Not mostly,” he said. “All of them.”
A shy smile. Her fingernails picked idly at the stitching of her gown. “Will you tell me some of them?” she asked.
“Just”—he shifted uncomfortably—“Just thoughts.”
“Tell me.” She kept her eyes down. “Please?”
Lesko felt his color rising. He could not tell her of the times when he'd imagined himself holding her in his arms. Her face against his chest. Now and then he'd bring a hand to her cheek. Sometimes he would kiss her. Never on the lips. Just the forehead. A couple of times, back home, lying in bed at four in the morning, he'd imagined that she was there with him. But he had not imagined her there on purpose. It was a dream. The half-awake kind. Like when David Katz comes. Nor were they doing anything. She wasn't naked. She was just there.

”I thought,” he said with effort, “about how brave you are. And how bad I feel that you got hurt. And ... I don't know. Lots of things.”

She waited.
“And how you're so beautiful,” he said hoarsely.
She smiled. ”I am not. But thank you.”
“Don't argue.”
Her eyes fell again. ”I dream of you sometimes.”
Lesko blinked, startled.
“In my dreams,” she said slowly, “you have forgiven me.”
He let out a breath. ”I told you before. We're square. Forget that part.”
There was a knock at the door. The nurse entered. Lesko did not know whether he was annoyed or relieved. She brought a tray of coffee, which she set down at Elena's right hand. She stepped back into the hall and returned with a rectangular object that was covered with a cloth. She set this down as well and walked from the room. Elena tried to pour. The arm had no strength. Lesko crossed to the tray. He dropped to one knee and did it for her. His hand was shaking. He cursed himself.
“Do I make you ill at ease?” she asked.
“How do you like your coffee?”
“Black. Please answer. Do I?”
”I guess. A little.”
“Why?”
“Because you make me crazy sometimes, that's why.”
“Have you ever wanted to make love to me?”
Lesko needed both hands for his cup. “See that?” he said. “That's what I mean.”
“It is an honest question. I have certainly thought of you in that way.”
He had to put it down.
“Furthermore”—she forced firmness into her voice—”I have asked you to come visit me, even live here with me, as long as you like. I think this invitation deserves the courtesy of á reply.”
“Will you''—Lesko rubbed his face—“Will you please stop?”
“You Americans have an expression. Cards on the table.”
“Yeah, well, we have one about beating around the bush, too. It's also a custom.”
“And that opposites attract.”
“But not oil and water.”
She became subdued. “That is how you see us?”
“Elena.” He softened his voice into a reasoning tone. “Will you look at me? Take a real good look.”
”I have looked. You wish for proof?” She reached for the object the nurse had set by her chair. She tugged at the cloth that covered it. Lesko could see that it was a painting, framed. He moved to help her with it.
He sat back, stunned.
It was him. Ten years younger. Thirty years less angry. But the face was still hard. And yet ... contented. There were mountains in the background but they were low. It gave the feeling that he was standing on the highest peak, looking off in the distance, liking what he saw. When he could speak, he asked, “Who did this?”
“I did.”
“What, personally? You painted this?”
“From memory.” She wrinkled her nose. “Now I see the mistakes. But that is you, Lesko.”
”I wish.”
“You see? You think you are unattractive. You are not.”
Lesko grunted.
“Your manner is coarse, Lesko, but your features are not. You are an intimidating presence but I think much of this is deliberate. In any case, it no longer works with me because I have seen great tenderness in you. And integrity. And strength. You are a man. In my life I have met only one other like you. Perhaps two.”
Urs Brugg was one,
she said in her mind.
Paul Bannerman, perhaps, the other,
Lesko's color rose again. The last people who said anything like this to him, besides Susan, were the hookers when he was working vice. And that was because they knew he'd never hit on them for sex or money for not busting them.
He cleared his throat. ”I . . . admire you too.”
A hesitant smile. “You feel more than that, I think.”
His color deepened.
“Cards on the table, Lesko,” she said.
Lesko groaned inwardly. She was about to make him crazy again. But at least she was plowing straight ahead. Which was more his style. If she'd tried any of that feminine wiles shit he knew he'd be a puddle by now.
“You want cards?” He set the portrait down carefully. “Try these. My whole pension plus what I make on the side probably couldn't buy one of those statues you leave out in the rain. You pick up a new Mercedes every time your old one gets a window shot out and I run around by subway. Start hanging out with me and you've had your last invitation to anything fancier than awards night at the bowling alley.”

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