The Innocents Club

The line fell silent, but when Frank spoke again, she was relieved to hear a little of her old friend in his voice. “It’s okay. The trip was business. That other, with Patty—it’s just not happening, that’s all.”

“Have you spoken to her lately?”

“A couple of weeks ago. She called to say hi.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Seems happy enough down there. Got a cocker spaniel, apparently.”

Poor Frank, Mariah thought. Replaced by a dog.

“Now tell me,” he said, “what are you doing out there? I thought you and Lindsay were supposed to be on vacation.”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh. And explain to me why you, of all people, got dragged into covering the Zakharov visit?”

“That, too, is a long story, if you know what I mean.”

“All right, not on the phone,” he conceded. “Just tell me this—whose idea was it?”

“Hmm…well, remember Wanetta’s old buddy?” Wanetta Walker had been a secretary in Frank’s old Soviet section, rescued by him from the clutches of a certain Jack Geist from Operations, who’d been making her life miserable.

“He sent you? Son of a bitch.” Tucker muttered. “You don’t work for him, Mariah. You should have said no.”

“I tried, but he pulled an end run on me. By the time he called me up to his office, he’d cleared it six ways to Sunday and it was pretty much a fait accompli. Anyway, not to worry. Job’s just a twenty-four-hour deal. I’m heading out shortly, in fact. But, Frank? On an altogether different matter, I need a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s kind of a hassle. It involves running over to the Courier Express distribution center in Falls Church. If you don’t have time for this, I want you to tell me, okay?”

“No problem. What’s the deal?”

“They tried to deliver a letter to my house this morning, but I’d already left for the airport. Apparently, it had to be signed for, so they couldn’t leave it. I called Courier Express and they said I could sign a release allowing a third party to collect it. There’s an office just down the street from my hotel. I was going to stop in on my way out of here and do the paperwork. I wanted to give them your name, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s this about?”

“It’s from my father’s old agent, Chap Korman.”

“Korman,” he repeated, and Mariah had the impression he was writing down the name. “You want me to hold the letter till you get back, or ship it to you out there?”

“I was going to ask you to send it with Lindsay, but now that I think about it, I’d rather you open the envelope as soon as you get it. I want to know what the hell’s inside.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

She exhaled heavily. “Chap Korman sent me a copy of a letter he received from some professor at UCLA who’s working on a biography of my father. Apparently, this guy’s come up with some kind of cockamamy theory that this manuscript I found—” She paused. “Maybe you didn’t hear about that? I came upon an unpublished novel and some other personal papers of my father’s a couple of months ago.”

“Yeah, I read about it in the paper.”

Mariah felt a tremor of guilt at the thought of Frank getting his news of her out of the newspaper. And seeing her photographed on Paul Chaney’s arm. Damn. “Right,” she said. “Anyway, this professor is apparently of the view that the manuscript was something my father stole. And it gets weirder. He’s also suggesting Ben was murdered.”

She expected derision or blunt dismissal of such an obviously stupid claim. A few pointed questions, at least. But all Frank said was, “I’ll check it out.”

“I just want to know where he’s coming from before I see him while I’m out here. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

“You’re not. I’m glad you called.”

She’d called because there was no one else she trusted more, Mariah thought, struck by the realization of how much she’d missed Frank these past months. The line went quiet again, but this time it was one of those comfortable silences between kindred spirits, like an easy hand on the shoulder—more like the way things used to be before everything had gone so sour for them both.

She wished he weren’t so far away and she weren’t so pressed for time. Now that they’d reconnected, she wanted to talk—about a lot of things, including the worst part of this assignment Jack Geist had dumped in her lap—the possibility that it would bring her face-to-face with her father’s old lover. But that, too, was a long story, and she had to get going to the museum. It was enough for now to know Frank was there.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said. “I knew I could count on you.”

His reply was almost inaudible. “Always.”

Chap Korman had a fourteen-carat heart and a steel-trap mind, even at the ripe old age of seventy-seven. But his knees seemed made of pure chalk, screeching when he hoisted himself unsteadily to his feet. Wincing, he leaned against the low brick wall between his front courtyard and his neighbor’s, and he waited for the pain to pass.

Since Mariah’s call, he’d been busy planting a border of colorful impatiens along the wall. Thick, green gardener’s pads Velcro-strapped over his khaki trousers helped a little to relieve the agony of working on his knees, but getting up again was another matter. There was no escaping that gravity works, and that his old joints just didn’t support the weight of his body as well as they once had.

When he could finally move again, he knocked his trowel against the brick wall to dislodge clumps of loam, then slapped the dirt off his hands, viewing his handiwork with satisfaction. It was worth a few aches and pains. Emma’s garden was looking good again. He’d never really appreciated how much work it took to keep it up.

Seventeen years ago, when they’d first moved out from New York, it was the location of this property that had appealed to them. The two-story clapboard house fronted on Newport Harbor, with only a pedestrian walkway between the front yard and the boat slips opposite running the length of the peninsula. The view was of anchored sailboats, Balboa Island and the rolling hills of mainland Orange County beyond, rising above the masts.

Automobile access for the houses was via a nondescript lane at the back, a canyon of ugly garages at street level. But even that side of the house had had its secret potential—a spacious flat roof over the garage with a pristine and uninterrupted view west toward the Pacific Ocean, only a couple of blocks away. Just the place to add a deck to sit on in the evening and watch the setting sun.

The house had been run-down after years of hard use by summer renters, the front courtyard an arid wasteland of dead plants and broken flagstones. Chap and Emma had had the interior remodeled, consolidating two of the four bedrooms to provide a large library/office for Chap’s wheeling and dealing on behalf of his clients. They’d also had a spa and gazebo added to the new back deck off the master bedroom.

Em, meantime, had single-handedly transformed the courtyard into a lush and brilliant oasis. It had been her greatest pleasure, a work-in-progress right to the end of her life. Chap, a night owl, would wake each day at midmorning to the soothing sound of her off-key humming under the window and know she’d been at it since sunup. In the end, it was the wilting garden, not the doctors, that told him how sick she really was.

At first, after she died, he’d let the yard go. When weeds threatened to overtake her beloved roses, and the blue Cape plumbago grew so leggy it started pushing over the low picket fence along the front walkway, he hired somebody to bring it under control and keep it tidy. But the day he came home to find Emma’s roses butchered, Chap fired the gardener, dragged Em’s tools out of the garage and took over the job himself. Lately, he was enjoying it more and more, despite his arthritic knees. He even found himself humming Sinatra as he worked, just as Em had done—although he liked to flatter himself that his pitch was better.

“Hey, Chap! Looking good,” a voice behind him called.

Chap turned to see his neighbor being dragged out his front gate by a fat basset hound. At the other end of the leash, Kermit’s big feet scrabbled under his saggy, low-slung body, tripping over his necktie ears, following his massive nose in headlong pursuit of whatever thrilling quarry it was he’d scented this time.

Chap grinned as he lifted the trowel in a wave. “’lo, Doug! See Kermit’s taking you for your daily constitutional.”

Doug Porter grimaced. “No kidding.” He paused to wipe a fine sheen of sweat that was already forming on his bare scalp, close-shorn on the sides, bullet-smooth on top. “Listen, Chap, I’m glad I caught you out here. I was going to ask if your roses could be pruned back where they’re coming through the fence.”

Chap peered over. Sure enough, the climbers were beginning to wend their way into his yard. “Sorry about that. I never even noticed it,” he said, reaching for the pruning shears hooked over his back pocket. “I’ll cut ‘em back right now.”

“I hate to be a nuisance—”

“It’s no trouble.”

Chap started to reach over, but the hound rammed the gate and snorted his way through with a happy, basso profundo “Woof!” Chap turned and gave Kermit’s tricolor head a pat, while Porter strained to keep him from climbing up the old man’s frame. In his mid-forties, Porter was tanned and extremely fit, but the basset’s powerful leg muscles and low center of gravity made the daily contest between them an uneven match that the dog inevitably won.

“Your friends arrive yet?” Porter asked breathlessly. He was dressed in his habitual black silk shirt and black pants—his signature look, Chap thought, though it seemed a ridiculous outfit for dog-walking on a hot day.

“Mariah did. She’s up in L.A. Her daughter’s coming behind. They should both be here tomorrow.”

“So, what do you think? Would they like to come along and watch the fireworks from offshore?”

Porter had moved in a couple of months earlier, and this was the third or fourth time he’d held out an invitation to join him on his sloop, anchored in the harbor. Up to now, Chap had always found reasons to decline. Felt guilty about it, though. He had a sneaking suspicion his single neighbor was gay, and while his personal philosophy was a liberal live-and-let-live, a little knee-jerk anxiety always kicked in at the prospect of finding himself alone on a boat with the guy. But what did he think? That an overweight, arthritic senior citizen was in danger of being cast as a boy-toy du jour?

Porter seemed like a good guy, a gregarious architect who entertained all kinds of interesting people, from what Chap had seen. It would probably be a nice evening out there on the water, and Lindsay might get a real kick out of seeing the fireworks from that vantage point.

“I haven’t had a chance to put it to them yet,” he said. “I just talked to Mariah a while ago, but to be honest, I forgot to mention it. I hate to keep you on hold.”

“It’s no problem. I have to confess, I’d really love to meet them. I’m a huge Ben Bolt fan.”

Chap paused, momentarily taken aback at that bit of news. A curious offshoot of the Ben Bolt legacy was the almost cultlike following inside the gay community, despite Ben’s solid reputation as a ladies’ man. Sounded like Porter was one of those devotees.

“I have to tell you,” Chap said, “Mariah’s not—a fan, I mean. She was only seven years old when Ben walked out on the family. Doesn’t make for a lot of warm fuzzy memories on her part.”

The dog had turned back toward the gate, and his claws scratched the sidewalk in his anxiety to move on. “Kermit, sit, dammit!” Porter commanded.

A waste of breath if ever there was. The dog seemed deaf as well as single-minded. The tug-of-war continued.

“Incorrigible mutt. Thanks for the warning, Chap. I’d have spent the whole evening blathering on like some star-struck teenager if you hadn’t told me. I’d still love to have you all on board, though.”

“It sounds like something they might enjoy,” Chap admitted. “Can I ask them and get back to you?”

“You bet.” The other man finally conceded defeat and gave the scrabbling mutt his head. “Catch you later!” he called over his shoulder, breaking into a loping jog.

Chap waved after them, grinning, then turned back to the roses and started pruning the few that were encroaching on the Zen-like tidiness of Porter’s courtyard. He grunted as his short arms reached over the top of the pickets. If he had any brains, he’d walk around to the other side of the fence to do this, but he was tired, and he wanted to pack it in.

“Ouch! Damn!” he bellowed, nearly losing his balance as his bare fingers closed on a stem full of thorns. Now he knew why Em had always worn gardening gloves. He’d always thought it was just to protect her manicure.

When he’d finally cut back the last of the stragglers, he dumped them in the green waste recycling bin he’d rolled out to the courtyard, then gathered up the rest of the garden tools. His body was a mass of aching joints and muscles. He could do with a nap, he decided, dragging the bin and tools back to the side of the house. Then he had another thought—a wee drink, a nice soak in the Jacuzzi to ease his weary bones and then a nap.

He parked the bin in the narrow, shady passage between his house and Porter’s, then entered the garage through the side door. Brilliant light assaulted his eyes, bouncing off the concrete lane and gleaming white stucco of his neighbors’ high walls across the way.

Idiot. You left the garage door open.

He berated his absentmindedness. The neighborhood was virtually crime-free most of the year, but summer always brought a spate of burglaries—opportunistic crimes, petty thieves slipping through unlocked back doors, stealing wallets and purses while residents sat in their waterfront courtyards.

Chap walked out, glancing up and down the lane. Not a soul in sight. With its astronomical real estate prices and postage-stamp yards, the area attracted mostly professional singles and empty nesters, so there were no kids out riding bikes. Nor, with its narrow sidewalk and blinding, foliage-free glare, did the lane encourage strolling.

Satisfied the coast was clear, he went back in, rounding his old, silver-gray Jaguar to Emma’s worktable. He wiped down the tools with an old rag, then gave them a coat of oil, just as she’d always been careful to do, and replaced them in her red wicker gardening basket. He unstrapped the Velcro kneepads and hung them on their pegboard hook, then traded his old, mud-spattered Topsiders for the soft kid slippers he’d left by the inside door. His hand hit the button to close the garage door as he walked into the house.

Next item on the agenda: two or three fingers of scotch.

He carried the glass and bottle upstairs, setting the bottle on the nightstand. After a couple of sips from the glass, he set it on the rim of the spa and hit the controls to turn on the jets. He stripped out of his clothes on his way back across the bedroom to the bathroom, then showered off the garden dirt.

He was wrapping a towel around his waist when he heard a click. A door latch?

Chap stepped cautiously into the bedroom. Nothing. He padded out to the hall. His office next door was cluttered, as always, with manuscripts waiting to be read. He slid open the closet door. The space inside had been fitted with shelves to hold some of the overflow. There, on the bottom shelf, sat the cardboard box containing the trove of Ben Bolt papers Mariah had sent him.

Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he really needed an office safe. There wasn’t much of irreplaceable value in the room, but those papers were one of a kind. There were people who’d give a pretty penny to get their hands on an unpublished Bolt manuscript or his private journals.

No more procrastinating, Korman. Right after the Fourth, you call a contractor and get a safe installed.

Another noise interrupted his resolution-making. He stepped back into the hall, peering over the banister to the open area below. Mr. Rochester, the old black tomcat Em had adopted from the local animal shelter, was sprawled in a sunbeam on Emma’s favorite blue chintz chair, one rear leg raised high as he washed himself.

“Keep the noise down, will ya?” Chap grumbled.

Rochester peered up, blinked disdainfully, then went back to licking his rear end. The cat had stopped coming upstairs altogether. Too bloody fat to make the climb, Chap decided. During the months Em was sick, though, the animal never left her bedside except to eat or use the litter box. After she died, the cat had walked around the house yowling plaintively for days. Now, man and feline cohabited like some interspecies Odd Couple. Rochester lived on Em’s chair, ignoring Chap entirely except at mealtimes. Even then, the Fancy Feast got a suspicious sniff before he deigned to bolt it down.

“Stupid cat,” Chap muttered, returning through his room to the deck. He’d overdone it in the garden. His joints felt as if they were swelling. He should take a pill, but he was too damn tired to walk back to the bathroom cabinet.

Instead, he dropped his towel and climbed naked into the churning spa, as he habitually did now that Em was no longer there to fret about peeping Toms with binoculars. The nearest building high enough to see down onto his second-story deck had to be half a mile away. Odds were, nobody out there was looking, but if they were, his round, sagging, hairy-ape body made for pretty poor voyeuristic pickings. Anybody that hard up was welcome to the thrill.

Reaching for his drink, he took another long sip, then set it back on the edge of the tub and leaned into the molded seat and cushioned neck rest. Soothing amber comfort slid down to his center core. Chap closed his eyes, one hand lazily raking his matted chest. The warmth of the scotch, the sun and the Jacuzzi melted his aches and lulled him. This was as close to perfect as it got, he thought, lacking only Em to share it.

Suddenly, he felt a distinct vibration under his butt, like the tread of a nearby foot. His eyes opened to the brilliant blue sky, and he looked around. Em’s red geraniums swayed in the breeze, potted in the old whiskey cask she’d transformed into a dual-purpose planter and base for the green market umbrella that shaded their his-and-hers rattan lounge chairs. Except for chirping birds and the dull rumble of distant beach traffic, the afternoon was sunny, hot and blessedly silent.

Had he locked all the downstairs doors before coming up? The garage he’d closed—that much he knew. But the side door? And the front, leading to the courtyard and the walkway beyond? Must have. He hadn’t lived in New York for nearly sixty years without acquiring a few security tics, after all.

He strained to mentally retrace his steps. Hadn’t even used the front door today, he realized. Mariah had called just as he was getting ready to put the impatiens in the front bed. He’d taken the call in the kitchen, then gone out through the garage to collect the tools, the flat of plants and the recycling bin.

The side door of the garage was on a spring. Had he reset the lock?

He took another sip of his drink and settled back into the gently pulsing water. Check it later. He was a New Yorker. A onetime amateur boxer with a 17–0 record. Never lived timidly before. Wasn’t about to start now. Too tired to sweat it, anyway.

The churning of the Jacuzzi lulled him like rolling waves. Like being on a boat, he thought, drifting. Porter’s boat. Mariah. And Lindsay…fifteen, already! Last time he’d seen her? Her dad’s funeral. A heartbreaker even then. Like her mother. Grandmother, too. Incredible Ben would abandon his pretty wife, Andrea, for a man-eater like Renata Hunter. Human nature, Chap thought…no accounting for it.

He reached for his drink. Misjudged the distance. His perspective was all wonky, he realized idly. Fingers only brushed the glass. It tumbled in slow motion to the deck, each amber drop distinct as it splashed on the wooden planks.

Chap felt his butt slide a little on the smooth plastic bottom. So tired. His head lolled on the cushioned rest. He looked back toward the bedroom. Squinted, then frowned. Was that someone in the doorway?

“Hey, you,” he called. Thought he did.

Did he?

Figure in the doorway never moved. Half hidden in shadow. Just a grim smile. Teeth gleaming like a goddam Pepsodent commercial.

Well, let him stand there, Chap thought grumpily. Guy wasn’t going to make the effort to be sociable, neither would he.

He lay back and closed his eyes. So comfortable.

He felt himself slipping a little more. Opened his eyes. Guy in the doorway still watching him. Why? he wanted to ask, but he felt a little dizzy. Short of air. Inhaled deeply and slipped again on the slick plastic, his body pivoting. Almost on his side now, shoulders underwater.

Be up in a minute, Em. Just gonna grab forty winks here, okay?

So sleepy. A deep sigh. Another long slip on the smooth bottom, his head bumping on the hard plastic edge as Chap Korman sank beneath the churning bubbles.

Chapter Six

The quiet was beginning to get on Tucker’s nerves. When he started hearing the building breathe, he knew he was losing it.

Logically, he knew the deep thrum permeating his office walls was the reverberation of massive air conditioners. Their primary function was to cool—not people but a vast array of supercomputers, satellite receivers and transmission devices—sensitive equipment that bristled day and night, processing the agency’s sensory input and outgoing commands.

Once aware of the pulsing rhythm, though, Tucker couldn’t shake the sense he’d been swallowed alive by some huge beast of prey.

He glanced at his watch, wondering if he had time to run out and pick up Mariah’s letter from the Courier Express distribution center in Falls Church. The place was open till 10:00 p.m. He had plenty of time. What he didn’t have was patience. Geist’s secretary had phoned down over four hours ago to tell him to stand by to be summoned upstairs for a debriefing on his Moscow trip. Now he was itching to walk out.

It would have been premature to tell Mariah this Urquhart character might not be as far off base as she thought. Better to find out what the professor knew, then decide what to do about it. This should have been ancient history by now, Tucker thought grimly. She had enough on her plate. Damn them all to hell, anyway.

One file sat on his desk a little apart from the others he’d pulled from the Navigator’s crate. He’d stumbled across it not long after talking to Mariah. Finally, the pieces were falling together. His late-night message from the courier. His cryptic conversation with the Navigator in Moscow. And the reason why he, in particular, had been chosen to receive this loaded gift.

Tucker had met with Georgi Deriabin late at night in a modest dacha on the outskirts of Moscow—although recognizing the infamous Navigator had required a leap of imagination on his part.

Deriabin was tall and skeletally thin, with weathered skin the color of mustard. His wispy white hair was shorn to a stubble, leaving his head almost as smooth as Tucker’s own. On closer examination, Tucker saw the ravages of chemotherapy. When the old man reached out to shake hands, Tucker was afraid he’d crush those birdlike bones.

“I’m glad you could come, Mr. Tucker.”

“Hard to turn down such an intriguing invitation.”

The wizened figure just smiled and shuffled ahead of him into the cottage. Most of the ground floor seemed to consist of a small sitting and dining room. A cloth-covered table had been set for two, a bottle of vodka nestled in an ice bucket alongside.

Since Tucker’s arrival that morning, he’d spent the entire day at the Intourist Hotel, waiting, as directed, for further instructions. The smell of onions, sausage and other good things now was a painful reminder he’d eaten nothing all day except a protein bar he’d taken from the emergency-rations stock of the Company plane that had flown him in.