Mr. X (70 page)

Suki glowed at me from beside the BMW, and Rachel said, “Star and I used to get together at our old place, Brennan’s. Grennie
Milton
certainly wasn’t going to walk in. I know it’s a little early for lunch, but all I’ve had today was a cup of yogurt at seven-thirty.”

“I never had breakfast at all,” I said.

“I just got up,” Suki said. “Brennan’s is right around the corner from me, and I haven’t been there in centuries. It’ll be like going back in time.”

“They still have that picture,” Rachel said.

“Ned, you have no idea what you’re in for. Do you know how to find it? Doesn’t matter, just follow us.”

“I know Brennan’s,” I said. “But I’ll follow you anyhow.”

Suki wafted up to her car. Rachel said, “Is one of Star’s aunts worried about placing someone in a nursing home?”

“Aunt Joy’s husband, Clarence Crothers,” I said. “He’s in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s.”

“Grenville put me on the board of Mount Baldwin, the best
elder-care facility in southern Illinois. I could call Liz Fanteen, the director, this afternoon and settle the whole thing in five minutes. Is Clarence ready to be admitted?”

“He has ripened on the vine, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’ll take care of it after lunch. That’s a promise.”

100

Rachel parked in front of the Irish bar on Fairground Road, and Suki and I found spaces around the corner. When I got out of my car, she was standing on the sidewalk, looking at me a little shyly. “I haven’t thanked you enough for your generosity. It’s amazing, Ned. You don’t even really know me.”

“It was supposed to be Star’s money. She would have done exactly the same.”

Suki put her arm through mine. “That’s the only thing that makes me feel right about accepting the money, even though I can’t afford to turn it down. I just want you to know how grateful I am.”

We filed into a long, dark interior with a polished mahogany bar on one side and wooden booths on the other, which opened into a dining room. A big man with graying temples smiled at us from behind the bar.

“Mrs. Milton,” he said. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.” His eyes met mine for a moment before he glanced at Suki and returned to Rachel. “Would you and your friends like a table in the back?” He gave Suki another glance, and his eyes softened. His entire face opened into a smile. “What do you know, Suki Teeter has come back to Brennan’s. As beautiful as ever, too.”

“Bob Brennan, you’re just like your father,” she said.

“You were a great crowd. Will Star Dunstan be joining you?”

A needle traveling at the speed of light went through my heart.

Rachel said, “We just came from her funeral. This is her son, Ned.”

“No,” Brennan said, shocked. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry for your loss, Ned.” He reached across the bar and engulfed my
hand. “My dad always liked having your mother in the place, and I did, too. Let’s set you up in back, and we’ll get you anything you like.”

He seated us and handed out menus. “The first drink is on the house.”

“I’ll have a Manhattan, please, and thank you, Bob.”

“Same here,” said Suki.

“Is that what she used to drink here?” I asked.

“One Manhattan, light on the vermouth, straight up,” Brennan said. I ordered one, and he went back into the bar.

Suki examined the walls. “This is spooky. Bob looks just like his father.”

“We have to show Ned the picture,” Rachel said.

“If you can stand it, I can,” Suki said. “Come on. Time for your history lesson.” She led me to the back wall.

Rachel said, “God, would you
look
at us?”

Just above eye level hung a picture of ten young women and two young men ranged along the bar in summery clothing. Unforced happiness shone from their faces. Radiantly beautiful, Star smiled out from between a stunning young Suki Teeter and an equally stunning young Rachel Newborn.

“Wow,” I said.
Wow
pretty much summed up my response. “This was your group?”

“Most of us.” Rachel named the girls in the photograph: “Sarah Birch, Nanette Bridge, Tammy Wackford, Avis Albright, Zelda Davis. Mei-Liu Chang, next to Sammie Schwartz. And that girl who got high on Benzedrine inhalers and talked in rhymes.”

“Georgy-Porgy,” Suki said. “She just published her second novel, she’s got two kids, no husband, and she’s the most satisfied person you ever saw in your life. I hate her guts.”

I asked what had happened to some of the others. Zelda Davis won a fellowship to Harvard and worked for the State Department. Sammie Schwartz had run off with a Hell’s Angel and now taught third grade in Arizona. Nanette Bridge was a partner in a Wall Street law firm. Moongirl Thompson had disappeared, literally, after telling her boyfriend she was going to take a walk up the beach.

Brennan brought in the drinks and took our orders: a salad for Rachel, hamburgers and fries for Suki and me.

“Remember Sujit? Remember the Big Indian?”

“Could I forget them?” Suki said. “When Sujit went back to
Bombay, she created a huge national scandal. Two or three cabinet members had to resign. The Big Indian makes avantgarde films. Her real name is Bertha Snowbird.”

“I’ve seen some of Bertha Snowbird’s films,” I said. “She’s really good. Which one is she?”

We returned to the back wall, where Suki pointed out a fierce young woman with straight, center-parted black hair, athletic shoulders, and lioness eyes. A man of twenty-five or twenty-six with matinee-idol cheekbones and close-cut blond hair had his arm draped around her neck.

“Who’s the guy?” I asked.

“Don Messmer,” Suki said.

Messmer smiled at the camera with the self-consciousness of a man who knows that he is simultaneously out of his depth and onto a good thing. At the other end of the group, a dark-haired man with a cigarette in his mouth leaned against Sammie Schwartz. “Who’s the other guy?”

“He taught English at Albertus,” Rachel said. She raised her half-empty glass to her mouth and drained it. “His name was Erwin Leake.”

I saw Piney Woods sitting on a bench in Merchants Park.
Follow a shadow, it still flies you;/Seem to fly it, it will pursue
.

“Why isn’t Edward Rinehart in that picture?”

Rachel said, “Edward hated having his picture taken. Suki, remember that time—”

Around a mouthful of hamburger, Suki said, “Sure do.” She held up a finger and swallowed. “The other time, too.”

“Why were we so
stupid
? Someone takes his picture, and he smashes the camera. Three months later, Sujit takes his picture on the street, and he grabs her camera and rips out the film. Shouldn’t we have been suspicious?”

“We thought suspicion was bourgeois,” Suki said. “How are you doing, Rachel?”

Rachel Milton finished her second Manhattan. “Not all that well, actually. It’s
rotten
that Star died. And my husband decided that he needed something new in his life, namely a thirty-five-year-old iceberg who is a whiz at estate planning. He has his heart set on marrying this iceberg.”

“How old is the guy?” Suki asked.

“Seventy-two, but that doesn’t bother him. He’s in love. If
Grennie hadn’t fallen in love, he’d be selfish, but of course this way everything’s all right. Have you ever been married?”

“Officially, once,” Suki said. “Unofficially, two and a half times. Rachel, you forgot I married Roger Lathrop!”

“The harpsichordist who wiggled his fanny when he played. I remembered as soon as you told me. I want another drink, but not a Manhattan. A glass of white wine.”

“I’ll have another Manhattan.”

I waved at Bob Brennan.

Suki turned to me. “I told you about Roger. We went to Popham College, and six years later the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor made him artist in residence. Both of us were happy to get out of Popham, believe me. And then.”

“Fatal words,” Rachel said.

“
And then
, Roger told me I was inhibiting his artistic progress, although I was not to take it personally.”

“What was the bitch’s name?” Rachel asked. “I bet she was a student.”

“His prize pupil, Sonia Skeffington. She went to Michigan instead of me, and I came back here. I’d rather not talk about the unofficial husbands. One of them was really great, but he died while he was out on his daily five-mile run, and the other two turned out to be human fortune cookies.”

Twenty minutes later, Suki said, “When I saw Star in the hospital, I thought my heart was going to break in half.”

“Me, too,” Rachel said.

“You didn’t go to the hospital, Rachel.”

“Oh! You’re right. I was horrible that day. I was nasty to everyone.” She did her best to focus on me. “I was nasty to you, too, wasn’t I?”

“Semi-nasty,” I said.

“Grennie had just reminded me that my services would no longer be required. Suki, I have a tremendous idea. We should both get married to Ned.”

“That would be adventurous,” I said.

“He maybe looks too much like Edward,” said Suki. “He’s much nicer, though.”

“Edward wasn’t nice at all. That’s what we liked about him.”

“Edward didn’t care about anybody. Not even Star. But you know who did? Don Messmer.”