On Borrowed Time (9 page)

The head of that company was Sean Lassiter, and he came after me, both in the press and through intermediaries. I was actually told that Lassiter was going to “get” me; it wasn’t a physical threat so much as an inference that he would use his substantial resources to destroy my career.

That revenge never happened, and by all indications, Lassiter had landed comfortably on his feet. He managed to stay out of jail, and apparently to put away enough money to live very comfortably for a very long time.

I couldn’t imagine why I would be chasing another story about Sean Lassiter, and Garber could not provide any further help.

“Why did I come here?” I asked. “I mean, why you? How did I come to you?”

“You said it was by reputation. And a motivating factor was the work I have done in the field of memory. Apparently you had researched it and read some of my papers in the field.”

“I was worried about my memory?” I asked.

“You were floundering, Richard. You were forgetting things that had just happened, and remembering things that hadn’t. You were having increasing difficulty distinguishing between what was real and what was fantasy. It scared you, and you were looking for help. That was understandable and nothing to be ashamed of. It was actually a healthy reaction.”

“So it’s possible that eventually the fantasy took over, and the reality was wiped from my mind?”

He nodded. “If your mind needed to do that to protect itself, then it might certainly do exactly that.”

“Protect itself from what?” I asked.

“That is what we would work to find out.”

That was an invitation to become his patient on a regular basis, so we could explore the depths of my feelings … blah, blah, blah. I wasn’t having any of it. “Jen was … is … real.”

“The mind creates its own reality.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean actually real. Flesh-and-blood real.”

“I think on some level you know better than that,” he said. “Just the fact that no one else in your life has any recollection of her proves that to you on a conscious level. Unfortunately, the conscious level is not enough.”

“What about Allie and her sister?”

“Richard, I’m going to say something to you, to ask you a question, that you will not like hearing.”

“I have quite a bit of experience with that lately,” I said. “Pile it on.”

He nodded. “Have you considered the possibility that Allie is a creation of your mind as well?”

I didn’t want to tell Allie what Garber said. I’m not sure why, but it was probably because if Garber was right it tended to prove that Jen was not real, and that therefore she was not Julie. According to Garber, there had once been a time that I knew Jen was a fantasy, and I had been trying to claw my way back to the reality-based world.

Allie would be crushed by this news, and I didn’t want to be the one to do the crushing. There was also a chance that she would go to Garber’s office and punch his lights out; she was not exactly the shy, retiring type. But either way she deserved to be told, and I did so when we went out to dinner that night.

She wound up dismissing it out of hand. “I’m sorry, Richard, I’m not buying it.”

“You think Garber is lying?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean he’s right. Look, none of this has made sense from day one, and if I was only thinking logically, I’d be back home, curled up in the fetal position, whimpering. But that doesn’t get me anywhere; it doesn’t get us anywhere. So I’m going on instinct, and I’m going to continue doing so until I can’t anymore. You can join me or not.”

“He also questioned whether you are real.”

Hearing that actually reduced the tension, and she smiled at the ridiculousness of it. “Just what we need: psychobabble bullshit. Now let’s get serious, okay?”

I could have argued, but I didn’t. She was willing her energy level to be so high, and her focus to be so complete, that I was fine being dragged along by it. I felt a kind of relief that I didn’t have to be the driving force, that I was no longer alone in my search. “Good. What’s our next step?”

“I’m going to see Susan Donovan; I found out where she lives.”

“Where?”

“Up near Monticello, in the Catskills.”

“It’s not very far from Ardmore.”

She smiled. “Exactly. But I don’t want to call her again; I want to surprise her by showing up. I’ll get a better sense of how she reacts that way.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She shook her head. “No, if she sees you, she might panic.”

“You realize she could easily have nothing to do with this.”

“She was scared on the phone,” she said.

“Maybe she thought you were a bill collector.”

“Richard, let’s be a little more positive, shall we?”

I smiled. “Sorry; I’ll try.”

We ordered dinner, and tried to talk about something else. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, passing near the front of the restaurant on the way. It was then that I noticed the car across the street, with the device sitting on the window.

I went back to the table and sat down. “There’s a car across the street, with a man sitting in it, and something on the window.”

“So?”

“So I think the same car was across from the Carnegie Deli when we were having breakfast yesterday.”

“How can you tell?”

“The thing on the window; when I saw it the first time I thought it might be a siren, and that it might be a police car. It caught my eye, that’s all.”

“Did you see the driver?”

I nodded. “Yes, and it looks like the same guy, although I can’t be sure. He’s staring at the restaurant, just like he was doing last time.”

“Do you think he might have anything to do with you?”

I shook my head. “I can’t imagine what. It just struck me as an odd coincidence.”

“Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“I’m a reporter, Allie. I notice things.”

“So let’s find out what he’s up to,” she said.

“How?”

“Confront him; see how he reacts.”

Once again Allie was advocating the direct approach, but I thought I had a better idea.

“When we’re done eating, if he’s still there, I’ll leave alone. You stay behind and see if he follows me. Go to your hotel, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Perfect,” she said.

We didn’t focus too much on the man outside, and managed to have a pleasant dinner. But when we finished, he was still there, so I left alone. I grabbed a cab and went to the hotel.

About fifteen minutes after I arrived, Allie showed up. The excitement on her face was evident. “He followed you. As soon as your cab left, he pulled the device back inside the car, and then pulled out after you.”

“Is he outside now?”

“I didn’t see him, but he certainly could be. Either way, he left because you did. It was obvious.”

“Who the hell could that be, and why would he be following me?”

She smiled. “We’re getting somewhere, Richard. I can feel it.”

I let that be the final word, because I wanted to believe it. When I left, I walked twice around the block, looking for the man in the car and trying to figure out if anyone was following me.

I didn’t see him or anyone suspicious, though picking out suspicious people was never really a talent I cultivated. I finally hailed a cab and went home.

When I got into my apartment, the one that did not feel like Jen was ever there, I tried to focus on Allie’s proclamation that we were getting somewhere.

Damned if I could see it.

“They are aware that you are following them,” the Stone said.

Juice was no amateur; there was no way they could have made him. “That’s not possible.”

“This is not conjecture. I’ve just finished listening to their conversation at the restaurant last night.” He proceeded to recount it in some detail, ending with the fact that Kilmer left first to determine if he was being followed.

Juice was annoyed with himself and embarrassed. He had underestimated Kilmer and gotten burned. That would be the last time it would happen.

“He won’t see me again.”

“You are losing control of the situation,” the Stone said.

“No, I’m not. What else was on the tape?”

“Tape?” the Stone asked, making no effort to conceal his amusement. “Welcome to the digital age.”

“You know what I mean,” he said. The Stone had not been making a joke or poking fun. That wasn’t his style; Juice had come to realize the Stone made Osama bin Laden look like Don Rickles. Instead he was subtly asserting his superiority, and Juice knew it. “What else do I need to know about their conversation?”

“A transcript is being sent to you electronically, as always. You’re going to be a busy man.”

“What does that mean? I’m already a busy man.”

“Read the transcript and you’ll understand. I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, but this is a tightly controlled experiment. Its value is entirely dependent on that.”

“When are you going to make your deal?” Juice asked.

“That doesn’t concern you. But let me put it this way: My end is going considerably better than yours.”

An hour later Juice had read the transcripts of Kilmer’s conversation in the restaurant. He was angry, not at Kilmer, but at himself. To have been detected by an amateur like Kilmer was inexcusable. The Stone was right about that.

The Stone was right about one other thing as well. Juice was going to be a busy man.

Monticello, New York, is what passes in the Catskill Mountains as the big city. That hasn’t changed over the years, even though everything else about the Catskills has.

The Catskills, back in the fifties and sixties, was where it was happening, at least if you lived in the New York metropolitan area. And if you were Jewish. And if you liked to eat a lot.

It was home to literally hundreds of hotels, the most prominent being the Concord, Kutsher’s, and Grossinger’s, and far more bungalow colonies. Big-name entertainment—Alan King, Zero Mostel, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Red Buttons—headlined in the showrooms. The facilities were remarkable: hotels featured indoor and outdoor pools, bowling alleys, ice-skating rinks, pro-style golf courses, and even skiing. The restaurants served thousands, and part of the lure was that one could order as many appetizers, entrées, and desserts as he or she wanted, for no extra charge.

Since the clientele tended to be old, the food didn’t contain that much seasoning, and walkers were sometimes lined up outside the showroom.

But it’s almost all gone by now. As the years go by, old people have a tendency to die, and in this case there weren’t young people to take their place. Part of this was because of the advancements in travel; it became almost as easy to take a flight to Vegas or Miami as it was to drive up to the Catskills. And Florida and then Arizona became the retirement destinations of choice.

Part of the decline came from a decades-long failure to bring in casino gambling. Local businesspeople saw it as the panacea, the miracle cure to save their way of life. Atlantic City residents might not agree at this point with that theory, but it never got tested in the Catskills. They’re still trying.

But Monticello was and is the hub. That is probably because of the presence of Monticello Raceway, which is still hanging on despite the economic tidal wave. Ironically, the racing is buttressed by slot machines and video poker, leaving table games as the last vestige of banned immorality in New York.

Of course, “hub” and “big city” are words that should be taken in context, since Monticello has barely six thousand residents. Two of those residents were Frank and Susan Donovan. Frank did well as a plumber, and in fact had two offices, in Monticello and Ellenville, and two other plumbers working for him. They worked mostly for companies, with some residential jobs to fill in when times were slow.

Frank was in his mid-fifties, and Susan was just three years younger. He talked about retiring; thirty-five years of twelve-hour days had been getting to him for a while. They considered moving to Florida or Arizona, though the irony that people moving to those places had killed the Catskills was not lost on them.

Juice arrived at their house just outside of town at a little before ten
P.M.
The back door was unlocked, so he easily slipped in unnoticed. Frank and Susan were upstairs, asleep in bed, so that’s where he headed. He entered their room, flicked on the light, and shot Frank through the head before he had time to lift it off the pillow.

Then came the part that Juice dreaded. He took Susan down to the living room and raped her, not because he had any desire to, but because he wanted it to look like a home-invasion robbery. Then he shot her as well, and proceeded to ransack the house. He took some cash and jewelry, not even enough to justify the drive up there, but again simply for appearance’s sake.

Juice was finished by ten-thirty, and deliberately left the front door ajar when he left. He was back in the city by midnight, and in bed by twelve-thirty. It was a decidedly unpleasant way to spend an evening, but it was necessary, and Juice knew it was his own fault. He should have killed the Donovans way back when the initial report about them was filed.

Allie finished the two-hour drive to the house at ten o’clock the next morning, guided flawlessly by the miracle known as GPS. She parked across the street and headed for the front door. It would be very annoying if they weren’t home, but she was still glad that she hadn’t called first.

When she got on the porch she saw that the door was partially open. After ringing the bell and getting no response, she opened it slightly more and peeked in. With Susan Donovan’s shattered body deliberately placed within her sight line, it was left to Allie to discover the horror that took place in the house the night before.

Once she did, she ran across the street, not so much out of fear, more from a desire to put a distance between her and the nightmare scene she had witnessed. Once she caught her breath, she called 911, and then Richard Kilmer.

Then she waited.

“Richard, Susan Donovan has been murdered,” she said, in place of “hello.”

She sounded shaken, and I had a thousand questions to ask her, but I only got in three before she told me that the police had shown up and that she had to get off the phone. Fortunately, she had time to tell me exactly where she was, and I was in the car and on the way up to Monticello within five minutes.