Читать книгу The Innocents Club - Taylor Smith - Страница 15

As her plane touched down at Los Angeles International Airport, Mariah tried to tell herself that her only objective here was to do the job she’d been sent to do, and do it fast. Make contact with Yuri Belenko, see where his interests lay and file her contact report. If he seemed amenable to doing a little freelance work on the side, Ops would assign him a handler. Or not. Their call. As for her, she’d be free to pick up her rental car and the keys to the beach house, meet Lindsay’s plane and get on with a much-needed vacation. End of story.

That’s what she told herself. The truth was a little more complex, as truth tends to be.

They say time heals all wounds, but it’s not entirely true. Some never really heal. On the surface, recovery may seem complete, but certain traumas leave a residual weakness that lurks in a troubled soul like a subterranean fault line, prone to unexpected eruption. There was such a susceptibility inside Mariah, unknown even to herself—a deep, dark place where resentment simmered and bubbled like hot, sulfurous magma. Until now, it had never percolated up to that place where liquid rage hardens into cold calculated action. But it’s the nature of such fault lines to give way without warning, and the explosive results are nearly always devastating—even to innocent bystanders.

She checked into the Beverly Wilshire Hotel around noon, with an hour or so to kill before she had to head over to get the lay of the land at the Arlen Hunter Museum. The Romanov exhibit was set to open at six.

While she waited, Mariah decided to give Chap Korman a call. She tipped the bellboy who’d delivered her bag to her suite, then settled into a deeply upholstered wing chair, propping her feet on the bed’s quilted floral spread, and dialed Korman’s number from memory. In the twenty years since her mother’s death, when Mariah had become the reluctant guardian of Ben Bolt’s prolific output, she’d gotten to know the literary agent well.

“Mariah! I wasn’t expecting you for another couple of days.”

She smiled at the sound of his voice, although it sounded more wavery each time they spoke, Mariah thought sadly, anticipating the day when this last, best link to her past would be gone. Chap was alternately coy and grumpy about his age, but he’d been older than Ben by several years, so she calculated that he had to be at least in his mid-seventies by now. He’d long since left the bustle of New York to nurse his arthritic joints in the warmer climes of southern California, but he continued to represent a roster of long-time clients, even championing the occasional new one when he found a writer he believed in.

“I just got in. I’m staying at the Beverly Wilshire,” she told him. “I was drafted for a short-term assignment, so I had to come early.”

“Aha! A secret mission,” he said delightedly. “Can’t tell me what it is, right, or else you’d have to kill me?”

She rolled her eyes. “You read too many spy novels, Chap.”

“Hey, this is exciting. You’re the only spook I know.”

“Big thrill. I could introduce you to twenty thousand other grunts who toil away in the same obscurity I do.”

“So, is Lindsay with you on this covert job?”

“No, she’s staying with friends. She flies in Thursday.”

“Any chance you’ll take me up on my offer? I’m just rattling around this big old place, you know. There’s plenty of room.”

Chap had retired to a lovely, bougainvillea-covered house in Newport Beach, of all places—an irony that never escaped her, since she tended to think of Newport as “the scene of the crime,” having spent a fairly miserable youth there. Since she hadn’t returned to the place in twenty years, she’d never actually seen Chap’s house, except in photos. But his wife of fifty years had passed away the previous year, and Mariah knew he was lonely. She felt a twinge of guilt for not accepting the invitation.

“I really appreciate the offer. This cottage we’ve got is right around the corner. We’ll practically be neighbors. That’s the main reason I jumped on the place when the offer came up. I need some one-on-one with Lins, though. You know, kind of a mother-daughter-bonding-healing thing.”

“I thought as much,” he conceded, “otherwise I’d have gone all cantankerous on you. How’s that little copper-haired honey of mine doing these days?”

“Oh, Lord! She’s fifteen. Need I say more?”

“No, I guess not.” Chap had raised sons, not daughters, but he had a good imagination. “What about Mom?”

“Day by day. Isn’t that the conventional wisdom?” Mariah hesitated before confiding, “You know that assignment I mentioned? It’s at the Arlen Hunter Museum—the opening of the Romanov exhibit. I’m supposed to help baby-sit the Russian delegation.”

His heavy exhalation whistled down the line. “Oh, boy. I’ve been seeing ads for that show, and I thought of you. So? Is Renata going to be there?”

“I’m not sure. I imagine it’s a strong possibility, though, don’t you?”

“Probably. How do you feel about that?”

Good question. “Hard to say,” she said truthfully. “I was under a lot of pressure to take this thing on. In the back of my mind, it occurred to me there was a good chance I’d run into Renata there, so I thought about digging in my heels and refusing. But you know what? Somehow I couldn’t muster up the will. It’s like morbid fascination with a car wreck or something. Part of me, I admit, is sick at the thought of seeing her after all these years. But another part of me is dying to get a look at the old witch.”

“Facing your demons, huh?”

“Maybe. Either that or pure masochism.”

Chap fell silent for a long moment. “Talk about timing,” he said finally. “Did you get the package I sent you?”

“Package?”

“I overnighted it. I wanted you to see it as soon as possible. It should have gotten there today.”

“I’d probably left by the time it arrived. What was it about?”

“Your dad’s manuscript. You know,” the old man said thoughtfully, “it’s a shame the press found out about those papers so soon.”

“I know. I’m really sorry about that. God knows, I didn’t mean for it to get out. I was at a dinner with Paul Chaney. He was the only other person in the world besides you, me and Lindsay who knew they existed. He let it slip. We were in a roomful of reporters, so needless to say, the word spread like wildfire.”

“This Chaney—I’ve never met him, but he seems like a pretty savvy guy, at least on TV. And I thought the two of you were pretty close. Seems odd he’d do something so indiscreet, doesn’t it?”

Mariah’s free hand twisted the phone cord around her fingers until it began to cut off her circulation. “Funny you should say that. In my charitable moments, I try to convince myself it was an inadvertent blunder, but there are times when I think he did it on purpose. He had to know what a feeding frenzy the news would set off, and that I’d be forced to acknowledge the manuscript and journals existed.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Strangely enough, to try to be helpful. He thinks I should be making more effort to come to terms with Ben’s memory. And I have, to some extent, Chap, mostly to satisfy Lindsay’s curiosity. We went to visit Ben’s grave in Paris, after all. I’d never done that before. But Paul thinks it would be therapeutic if I went further—got involved in promoting this new stuff, for example. I’ve tried to explain that there’s a limit to how far I’m prepared to go with this father-daughter reconciliation, but he just doesn’t get it.”

“I’ve been getting nipped by this media feeding frenzy myself,” Chap said.

“I noticed you’d been quoted a few places. You seem to be holding them at bay pretty well.”

“I thought it best not say anything publicly until you and I had a chance to talk. But I got a letter from a prof out here at UCLA not long after the press reports started. His name’s Louis Urquhart. He’s working on a biography of your dad that’s supposed to come out in time for Ben’s sixtieth-birthday celebrations next year. By the way, I told you what the publisher’s planning for the occasion, didn’t I?”

“Repackaging and reissuing his whole collection?”

“Exactly. This Urquhart’s not the only one interested in Ben’s work these days. Might as well brace yourself, kiddo, because we’re going to see a spate of books and articles about Ben over the next little while. He seems to be in vogue all over again with a new generation of readers.”

“I know,” Mariah said. “Lindsay’s English class studied Cool Thunder this year. So, what did this Urquhart have to say for himself?”

“It’s a little complicated to go into over the phone, but he’s making some pretty serious allegations. That’s why I decided you’d better see his letter.”

“You’re making me a little uneasy here, Chap.”

“Did you really not go through these papers of Ben’s yourself, Mariah?”

“Not really. Skimmed a couple of chapters of the manuscript to see if it was something new or just an earlier draft of a book that had already been published. I told you, the only reason I even opened the box is that the rental locker where I’ve been storing my excess junk since I sold the house got flooded during the heavy rains this spring. I’ve been carting those papers around for years. When I realized they’d gotten damp, it was either chuck the whole lot or see if you thought anything should be done with them. I didn’t have time to do it myself.”

Or the inclination, she could have added. She’d looked just closely enough to see that there was some sort of work in progress there, as well as more personal papers. She hadn’t the competence to judge the fiction, she’d decided, and she certainly hadn’t the stomach to read Ben’s self-absorbed journal ramblings.

“I appreciate the trust it took for you to send these to me, Mariah,” Chap said quietly.

She felt her eyes tearing up, and hated herself for it. “I know you’ll do the right thing with them. Whatever you decide is fine with me.”

“Thank you, sweetie. But I’m afraid it’s not that simple. We may have a bit of a problem on our hands.”

“How so?”

“Look, maybe the best thing would be for us to get together with Louis Urquhart while you’re out here.”

“Oh, Chap, no. Lindsay and I are supposed to be on vacation. I don’t want to waste it hanging out with Ben’s adoring public.”

“I know how you feel, but this is not something we can ignore.”

There was something in his voice, graver than Mariah had ever heard. “Okay, now I am worried. What could possibly be so all-fired important that—”

“Urquhart thinks the manuscript of the novel was stolen from someone else, Mariah. And he thinks Ben was murdered.”

She answered with stunned silence.

“Now, I’m not saying I buy it,” Korman added quickly. “I admit, there were a few surprises in those journals of Ben’s, and the novel is unlike anything else he wrote. But it’s a big leap from there to what Urquhart is alleging. Bottom line, though? Urquhart could have blindsided us by taking his allegations public, but he didn’t. So I think it’s only fair to hear the guy out, and then we’ll decide together where to go from there. Okay?”

“But this is crazy, Chap! Murdered? We know how he died. At least, I always thought we did. Don’t we? Wasn’t my mother told that the French authorities did an autopsy when his body was found, and that he’d died of hepatitis?”

“She was, yes.”

“So how did we get from hepatitis to murder?”

“I’m not sure. That’s obviously one question we need to put to Urquhart—what evidence has he got to support his allegations?”

Mariah studied the nubbly, butter-colored wallpaper over the bed. “I don’t know. This sure smells like a muckraking publicity stunt to me. Like this Urquhart’s looking for a bestseller.”

“If it were anybody else, I’d agree. But Louis Urquhart’s one of the most respected literary academics in this country. His biography of Jack Kerouac won a Pulitzer Prize. I don’t think he’d be building this murder theory if he didn’t have some facts to back it up. Plus, he came to me first, remember, not the press.”

She exhaled heavily and glanced at her watch. “All right. If you think it’s really necessary, we’ll talk to him. I have to head off to the museum now. How about if I call you again when my work’s done? With any luck, I might have a free day tomorrow. Maybe we can get this out of the way before Lindsay arrives.”

“Sounds good. Meantime, I’ll let Urquhart know we’re willing to meet with him. And Mariah?”

“Mmm?”

“As far as Renata’s concerned? I know you and your mom and sister got a raw deal when Ben took off to Paris with her like he did. But Renata didn’t last long, did she? He tired of her pretty fast. People who know her say she never got over him, though.”

“Gee, that’s really tough.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel too much pity for her, either. Your mom always believed Ben was going to come back to you guys, only he died before he could make it. But whatever happened over there, one thing is sure: in the end, Renata lost. Remember that if you see her, honey.”

“No, Chap,” Mariah said wearily. “We all lost.”