Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy (26 page)

"Once."

The voice lowered. "Me too. Even had two little
daughters, just toddlers then. But things weren't going so good
between Adele and me — Adele was my wife. And the school, it was
running low on money and had to let go a lot of people with less
seniority than I had. The pressure started to mount because the rest
of us were expected to take on extra duties for less pay. John, the
pressure, all these expectations, at home and at school, started
building inside me. It was like living in a double boiler, and it
soured me. I lost interest in my teaching, my family, everything but
the coaching. I started to fixate on it, truth be told. Then the
school dropped the other shoe. Said they just couldn't see their way
clear to keep me on. I'd become 'marginal'."

"They fired you?"

"They didn't renew my contract. Discreet way to
fire a guy, eh? But it wasn't just the job. We lived free on campus,
nice little house, John. Nicest little house you'd ever want to see.
All brick and ivy, with hedges and flowers. But when I wasn't
renewed, all that was gone. I didn't have a job or a roof over my
family's head, not even the coaching anymore. I just plain broke
down. I was in an . . .institution for a time after that."

"For depression?"

"Oh, they had a dozen different names for it,
John. From a dozen different doctors pushing a dozen different drugs.
And none of them knew jackshit. I finally broke out of the blues
some, but only when I realized that it was the pressure of the family
as much as the job that did me in."

"Your family."

"Yeah. Adele could see it, too, last few visits
to the hospital. Came time to be discharged, like a year later, I
didn't have a job, and after what I'd been through, I couldn't
exactly see getting another one. Adele had already set herself and
the girls up separately, telling them their father was . . . dead."

"Bo, I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's not so bad. Life on the road, I mean.
And once a year, right around the holidays, I go back." Bo
passed a hand over an ear. "I get spruced up a bit, and I hitch
my way to where they live now. First time, Adele got flustered,
introduced me to the girls as a friend of their dad's from the old
school. They were so little when I went away, and I'd changed enough
in the years since, they didn't recognize me at all. They ask me
questions about what their dad was like when I taught with him, and I
get to talk with them about me, sort of, only with no pressure, no .
. . expectations."

"You never tried to . . ."

"What? Get back together again?"

"Yes."

"No. No, Adele and I knew that wouldn't work
out. Only one thing worse than losing the people you love, John."

"What's that?"

"Losing them twice."

The eyes moved away to MIT, the right hand massaging
the left wrist. "I'm sorry, John."

"About what?"

"About dragging my life into yours."

"Bo, that — "

"No. No, it was my deal, and here I've gone and
broke it."

After a minute I said, "You know that Gore-Tex
suit?"

Bo's face came back to me. "Huh?"

"Before you left. You said I'd be needing a
Gore-Tex running suit."

"Oh. Oh, yeah, right."

"I got one for Christmas. Any suggestions on
when and how to wear it?"

He let the wrist alone
and, for a moment, seemed not to breathe. Then, "Well. Well,
now, a couple of things . . ."

* * *

I spent most of the rest
of that January day at the office, servicing some smaller cases and
trying not to dwell on Bo. At home, I got a call from Inés Roja. She
confirmed that there still had been no more notes. Roja also told me
that Andrus and Tucker Hebert were back from the Caribbean and that
the professor still wanted to meet me that next morning. At the
Ritz-Carlton, no less. Inés sounded embarrassed saying that she
thought the Ritz required a jacket and tie, even for bacon and eggs.

* * *

I followed the maitre d' through the first-floor
dining room. The high windows permitted only filtered light from
Newbury Street to strike the crystal and silver spread before the men
and women attending power breakfasts.

"We're targeting the ten highest risk companies
in the . . ."

". . . course, live years down the pike, will I
still be . . ."

"And our long-term resources just might be
compatible with your short-term . . ."

". . . in which case, it would be mainly a
northeast program with an acronym of its own."

Maisy Andrus treated me to a radiant smile over the
rim of her china cup. She wore a white cotton turtleneck under an
Icelandic sweater, the hair a shade lighter from the tropical sun.
Her face was tanned, but without the worry lines or leathery look
some women her age suffer.

The perfect example of the good life. Maybe an hour
earlier, I'd left Bo, in rags on a cold bench.

Andrus suddenly appeared concerned. "John, is
anything wrong'?"

"No. Just thinking about something else."

The waiter came over with a cut-glass bucket of fresh
juice and took our food orders.

I said to Andrus, "How was the trip?"

The blazing smile again. "Indescribable. I
hadn't realized how much pressure I'd let build up inside, but Tuck
was right. A vacation in the sun with him was all I really needed."

"Good weather, then?"

"Perfect. We stayed at a place called Little Bay
Beach Hotel, around a point from the Dutch capital. Early mornings
until the tournament started, we'd snorkel out to the point. Just
light enough to see but before everyone else was up. Huge boulders
covered with sea urchins, black pin cushions with glass spines you
have to avoid. All kinds of other reef life: fish, stingrays, even
what Tuck called a 'rogue barracuda.' My God, it must have been five
feet long, hanging in the water, inches under the surface. Tuck said
it was nothing to worry about, that it was just waiting for us to
kill something it could share."

Andrus shivered, rubbing the back of her neck through
the cotton.

"Most days, we stretched out on lounge chairs,
sometimes in the sunshine, sometimes back under thatched roofs on
poles. I drank when I wanted and devoured twenty thick paperbacks
just for fun. We wandered all over the island. The French side is
more pastoral, with sort of country restaurants, the Dutch side more
glitzy, with casinos and discotheques. I'd never go dancing at one of
those in Boston, my students would be all over it. But down there we
partied till sunrise, especially with the tournament people. Tuck and
his partner finished third in the Celebrity Doubles part, and I ate
the most spectacular things, including roast shank of ostrich at a
restaurant Tuck scouted out for our last dinner."

Andrus was gushing a little, but I didn't want to
interrupt with business until she turned to it herself. The waiter
provided a convenient break by bringing our meals.

In between bites of an omelette, she said, "Any
progress on my case?"

I condensed what I'd learned since the drive to the
airport, including Gunther Yary. I came down hard on the last note at
the law school and Hebert's dismissal on the phone.

"I'm sorry about Tuck, John, but he was doing
only what he thought was best, and he was right. Inés showed me that
note when I got back, and you know what? It didn't shake me. Not in
the least. I feel recharged, reborn."

Andrus rubbed the back of her neck again.

I said, "Sunburn?"

"No. No, some damned insect got me in bed, our
last night on the island. I can't even see the infection without
being a contortionist. Inés scraped it and applied some Bacitracin."
Andrus shivered again. "I hate that stuff, like somebody's spit
on you. Plus it itches like poison ivy."

"Probably a sign it's healing."

"That's what Enrique used to say." Andrus
left her neck alone, a bittersweet smile crossing her face. "You
know, I've been quite lucky that way, really. The two men I've been
with the most have been the best men I've known."

Her eyes refocused, and I think Andrus suddenly
realized I was still a widower.

Brusquely, she said, "So, we'll be leaving in a
day or two for California. I'll be back in mid-February for a
lecture, but only briefly. What, if anything, do you think you need
to do in the interim?"

"That depends. Who's going with you?"

"Tuck, of course. Inés is staying here. I'll be
mostly speaking and networking out there, not writing."

"Manolo?"

Andrus sighed. "He was terribly moody when we
got back. Like a neglected cat, if that doesn't sound inhumane. I
think we'll have to bring him with us, but more for his sake than as
a bodyguard."

"That last note. It went through the school's
interoffice mail."

"Yes?"

"It's possible that some of the outsiders, like
Louis Doleman — "

"Who?"

"The man whose daughter took her life after
reading your book."

"Oh. Yes, sorry. Go on."

"It's possible that someone like Doleman or
Gunther Yary could have figured out how that works, but more likely
it's somebody closer."

Andrus waved impatiently. "And therefore?"

"Something a cop said that I've been thinking
about. People who get their kicks scaring other people like to use
the phone for threats."

"Why?"

"It's more direct. More personal."

"But this one sends notes."

"Yeah. Why'?"

"Why notes, you mean?"

"Uh — huh."

Andrus caught the waiter's eye and placed her
utensils at two o'clock on the plate. "I have no idea."

"Maybe it's because you'd know his voice on the
phone."

"A possibility, to be sure."

"Professor, be sure of another thing, okay'?"

"What's that?"

"Maybe our boy doesn't use the phone because he
doesn't have any voice at all."

Andrus looked at me
strangely, then brayed a laugh loud enough to turn heads.

* * *

Walking from the Ritz in a snow Hurry toward my
office, I realized that neither Maisy Andrus nor I had mentioned Alec
Bacall. At Charles Street I turned right instead of continuing
through the Common. I couldn't remember hearing Bacall's address, so
I had to check three lobby directories on Boylston before finding his
building. Prewar (almost any war), it was opposite one of the oldest
burying grounds in Boston, a fenced square of gravestones dating from
colonial times.

Taking the elevator to the fourth floor, I knocked on
the door marked BACALL OFFICE HELP. Del Wonsley's voice sang out.
Wonsley was sitting at the reception desk in a tasteful waiting area,
holding a telephone receiver to his sweatered chest. "Hello,
John Cuddy."

"How are you?"

"Fine, fine."

"Is Alec in?"

Wonsley's tongue made a pass between his lips. "Just
a second."

Into the receiver he said, "Kyle? Kyle, I'm
going to have to put you on hold for just a moment. Okay."
Pushing one button, then another, Wonsley took a breath and said,
"Alec, John Cuddy's here. Do you . . . right. Right, I will."

Wonsley pushed only one button this time and didn't
muffle the receiver. "Go ahead. And try to be . . . up, okay?"

I said, "Okay."

Opening the inner door, I could see Bacall rising
behind a magnificent cherry desk. The flakes fell lightly outside a
tall bay window framing the Common across the street. There was a
large Kurdistan rug on the floor, a smaller one hanging on a wall.

Even though the room was very warm, Bacall wore a
cable sweater and his trademark double-pleated slacks. From a
distance of twenty feet, he looked stooped still but boyish, with
color in his cheeks and no bags under his eyes.

He said, "John. Good to see you."

Wonsley's comment about "being up" kept me
to "Same here" instead of a relieved "You're looking
well." Fortunately, too, because at close range the illusion
became transparent. The handshake was still like steel, but awfully
dry and almost brittle. And the face . . .

"Is there some development regarding Maisy's
case'?"

We took our seats, and I filled him in. Four times in
five minutes Bacall coughed deeply into a handkerchief.

After I finished, he said, "It sounds as if
you've worked diligently without flushing anything to wing."

"That's about right."

Bacall coughed again, harder and longer than before.
He tossed the handkerchief into the wastebasket and took another from
a side drawer of the desk. "Kleenex would be more sensible, but
I've always preferred cloth." He pursed his lips. "Did Del
say anything
to you?"