Private Screening (10 page)

“Beautiful,” Stacy said when she had finished. “As played.”

Alexis's eyes opened. “That's very kind. How did you become interested in classical music?”

“I wasn't given a choice. When I was four, my dad found out I had perfect pitch. He hit a note, tuning the piano, and I told him what it was.”

“What did he do?”

“He was so excited that he got on the telephone and called every relative we had, trying to figure out where it came from.”

“Did he find out?”

“My great-aunt Dorothy has it. She's a teetotaler who belongs to the John Birch Society. Dad couldn't stand her.”

For the first time, Alexis laughed. She touched a key and looked up at Stacy, querying.

“A-flat,” Stacy said.

Alexis played another.

Stacy grinned. “F-sharp.”

“Damn,” Alexis said. “You really do.”

They laughed together.

“What's
this
performance?”

From the doorway, Stacy caught Parnell's complex look of worry and relief. Next to him was Jamie.

As Alexis rose, flushed with excitement, Stacy could see the girl she had been. Extending her hand, she said, “Senator, Stacy is an absolute treasure.”

His eyes crinkled. “And to think that when I rescued her she was a hopeless addict.”

“And to think,” Stacy told Alexis, “that you ever took him seriously.”

“An obvious mistake.” Alexis went to Stacy, kissing her on the cheek, and then took Jamie's arm. “Come, Senator—we'd better see to you.”

Parnell's eyes flickered to the piano, and then toward Jamie and his wife. Laughter trailed behind her.

Carefully, Parnell replaced the chair. “Thank you,” he said to Stacy. “Alexis seldom plays.”

“It was fun.”

As he led her from the music room, Stacy realized that her concert was less than two hours away.

9

“F
IVE
hundred dollars,” Marcia said.

Lord sat in the wicker chair. “He had me.”

She tossed her bra on the bed. “He had Jack Cole.”

“Same difference.”

She turned, interrupting her march to the shower. “Then you can't afford to be in private practice. Not this way.”

Silent, Lord found himself studying her slim body and fox-pretty face, with its light dash of freckles and brown hair and eyes. In seven years, he thought, nothing about her looks had really changed, except the way he saw her.

“What's wrong, Tony?”

“Nothing.”

“You're giving me that look.”

“It's not a conscious thing, Marsh. Whatever it is.”

She walked into the bathroom. She would weigh herself, Lord knew, and pinch her stomach for extra skin that wasn't there, as she had done since Christopher was born. When she leaned out again, he asked, “How much do you weigh?”

She smiled fractionally. “One-o-eight. Really, is it even a good idea for Jack Cole to have joint custody of his girl?”

“I think he's a good father. By the way, did you tell Christopher we'll have to skip the game?”

“I thought that was your responsibility.”

Her tone annoyed him. “Like making money?”

“You have a law degree, I had Christopher. I didn't have the opportunity.…”

“Sorry.” Lord held up one hand. “By now we could have this conversation in Swahili.”

More softly, Marcia said, “If you went back to the district attorney's, at least you'd be on salary.”

“I'd also be working for Ralph DiPalma.”

“He can't be
that
bad.”

“He's a psychopath in pinstripes. Besides, I've done that job.”

She frowned. “Well, you wouldn't go to a firm. With your record you could have doubled what you were making.…”

“I can't see working for someone like Danziger, either.”

Marcia watched him. “Or anyone else?”

Lord leaned against one armrest. “All right,” he said wearily. “Or anyone else.”

“But why are you
like
that?”

“My dad, I guess.” Lord inspected the label on his tie. “Each morning he put on his hat—and his work face with it—and rode in a carpool of other men in hats to an insurance department jammed with metal desks. The man he worked for was a bully. Every so often he'd raise Dad's salary a pittance and Dad thanked him, for my mother and for me.” Lord looked up at her. “Because he did,
I
went to an expensive college, when he never went at all. I love him for it, and he knows that. But what he'll never know if I can help it is that I hate what he had to do.”

“That was years ago,” she sighed. “Tony, why can't you join the human race?”

“I have a talent.” Saying it, Lord knew this must sound like a catechism. “I need one big case, that's all.”

Marcia paused. “You're afraid of being ordinary,” she said finally.

It was so right that it scared him. “Yes.”

She let her body slump in resignation. “I wonder if Captain Ahab had a mortgage.”

“Not in California.” Lord smiled faintly. “But then he didn't have Christopher, either.”

Marcia did not smile back. “He's downstairs,” she said, and stepped into the shower.

“Hi, Daddy.”

Taking the last steps to the basement, Lord smiled. “Is that
all
, Christopher?”

His son dropped the rubber ball to start a running leap which ended in Lord's arms. He kissed his father on the cheek. “Boys don't kiss other boys on the lips,” he explained. “Not when they're six.”

“
I'm
not six. Besides, I still kiss Grandpa.”

“
And
Mom. Right?”

“Right.”

Face to face, they smiled at each other. But for a dash of freckles, Christopher was a six-year-old version of Lord—blond hair, blue eyes, confident smile, even the cleft in his chin. The resemblance was so marked that strangers laughed out loud; Christopher would laugh too, enjoying the effect they made. “I told the whole class we're going to see baseball,” he said.

“You did?”

“Uh-huh.” Christopher wriggled to the floor. “Clifton got mad. He's Chinese.”

“Did he stay mad?”

“A little. Afterwards, we were friends again. Sometimes we are, and sometimes we're not. When I play with Mikie.”

He headed for his toy shelf; a six-year-old's swayback made the purposeful stride a slightly comic swagger. Turning with a baseball cap on his head, he asked, “Are you wearing
that
?”

Lord mentally cursed Marcia. “I'm afraid we'll have to go tomorrow.”

His son's shoulders drooped; it was when Christopher was sleepy or disappointed that Lord noticed how small he was. “You said tonight, Daddy.”

“I know, mugwump. Something happened.”

“What was it?”

“It's kind of complicated.” Lord sat, patting the floor beside him. “I'm trying to help a man who has troubles.”

Christopher sat an inch or two from Lord. “What kind?”

“Lots, really. He got divorced, and then he lost his job and the money he was making.”

“And you're giving him more money?”

“I'm trying to help him get it back. You see, he has a little girl about your age, and since the divorce the girl's mommy won't let my friend see her.”

“Why not?”

“She's mad—her feelings were hurt. But I think my friend should get to be with his girl, and if he has money and a job, maybe the people who decide these things will let him.”

Christopher was quiet. Lord felt his shoulder against him.

“What do you think, Christopher?”

“I think daddies should be with their kids.”

Lord put one arm around his son, and then the telephone rang.

He listened until he was sure that Marcia wouldn't answer, and went to the phone near the stairs.

It was Cass. “Danziger called,” she told him. “He wants to meet with you tomorrow to discuss settlement.”

Lord glanced at Christopher. He had picked up the ball and begun bouncing it. “Did he mention a time?”

“Noonish.”

“Try to make it morning, all right? I'd like to keep the afternoon free.”

“I'll try.”

“Be firm with him,” he smiled. “Just leave a message with the sitter.”

“Enjoy the party,” she said dryly, and hung up.

Christopher was throwing the ball at an angle, trying to make it ricochet off the wall up into the Chinese lantern that Lord had hung for him. “What happens if you get it in?” Lord asked. “It'll be stuck there.”

Christopher's eyes danced. “That'd be delightful.”

“Delightful?” Lord grinned now. “Where'd you hear that?”

“That's what
you
said when the toilet stuck.” Turning, Christopher got ready to throw. “Let's make a rule—you have to stay here till I get the ball in.”

Lord leaned against the wall, smiling. “But by then I might be very old.”

“Not
too
old.…”

“Tony?” Marcia called. “The sitter's here.”

“Just one sec.” He scooped up Christopher and kissed him. “Got to run now.”

“But we didn't get to play.”

“You're going to need your rest. We've got a big day tomorrow.”

As they left, Lord watched him in the rearview, waving through the screen door. Their home was tucked into a hillside, with trees surrounding it and a deck overlooking the Noe Valley district; idly, Lord reflected that this was the only house his son had ever lived in. “You look nice,” he said to Marcia.

“I try to. Actually, I'm looking forward to meeting James Kilcannon. He certainly comes across on television.”

Lord adjusted the rearview. “With or without makeup?”

“That's mean, Tony. I really do like what he stands for.”

When Lord did not answer, Marcia turned on the radio.

10

S
POTTING
faces at the party, Stacy guessed the lives they led.

She and Jamie stood in the living room, chatting with guests brought over by Alexis or Jamie's aides. Around them, people drank and talked until their turn arrived. Nat Schlesinger hovered on Jamie's left, murmuring the names of those with money to give, then easing them to Stacy before they used up too much time. Like the lead in a drawing-room comedy, Jamie made his role look effortless; no one but Stacy knew that he was working hard at something he disliked. But for her, watching people was a distraction from twenty thousand other people, waiting. Her stomach was empty.

“This must be so
different
for you,” the overdone blonde in front of her condescended.

Smiling, Stacy answered, “That's what makes it interesting,” and then the aging coquette stared up at Jamie.

“Oh, Senator,” she trilled, “I must think of something clever to say to
you
.”

Jamie laughed, taking her hand. “Just be nice to me.”

Amused despite her edginess, Stacy looked around the room.

Teeth flashed; heads bobbed; mouths moved that made no sound; waiters served champagne and drinks from silver trays. No one really stood out. For sport, Stacy guessed that the pinstripes and alert, attentive looks belonged to lawyers or investment bankers; the continental suits, affected languor, or young faces without character to real estate speculators, and those with an inheritance; the silk handkerchiefs and bright-eyed animation to restaurateurs and decorators and younger entrepreneurs; the blue or gray suits and added bulk to older self-employed businessmen or local politicians. One of these, a man whose red hair was cropped to bristles on a pink fleshy neck, talked to a blond man in a tan linen suit who studied him with keenness but without respect.

This man, Stacy decided, didn't look like the others.

He was in his early thirties, she thought, and the slimness and clean angles of his face suggested exercise. His ridged nose and ice-blue eyes were those of a model in a cigarette ad, but their effect was more arresting. Part of it, she realized, was the stillness of someone in perfect control of his own thoughts.

“It's been
so
nice to meet you, Miss Tarrant.”

Nat had steered the woman back. “Thank you,” Stacy replied.

As the woman paused, Stacy sensed that her face was being checked for lines. “You're in such an
odd
business, after all. Aren't there a lot of drugs?”

Stacy smiled cheerfully. “
And
sex.”

The woman looked startled; Stacy felt Jamie's elbow nudge her own. “But it's normal sex,” she added. “Mostly.”

“Oh—I see.”

Stacy's smile widened. “It's been nice to meet you, too.”

As the woman retreated, staring, Jamie murmured, “I really never wanted to be president.” He did not sound amused.

Wondering if she should try to eat an hors d'oeuvre, Stacy glanced back at the room.

The women, she reflected, pretty well matched the men. Some had the tailored clothes and confident air that went with having jobs. Others were so perfectly coiffed and dressed that they spent too much time at it to work. Stacy reflected that these last ruffled both the middle-class girl and feminist in her; she thought it bad taste and unliberated to dress like an ornament from
Vogue
. But the small brunette with the blond-haired man merely puzzled her.

She had a thin, pretty face, slim figure, and a quick, high-strung smile. Like the blond man, she dressed simply and well, but they were quite different in manner. Listening to the red-haired politician—that was how Stacy had pegged him—she flashed all the nervous party animation her companion would not. She leaned slightly away from him. He did not look at her.

What set him apart was his manner of watching.

Flickering across the party and back to the politician, his gaze seemed meant not to ingratiate but to dissect. She wondered what he was doing here; if he had ever been anyone's fan, it was probably so long ago that he couldn't remember. Then it struck her that he might be some relative of Alexis's.