The Inheritors (42 page)

I nodded. “When do you think I will be able to visit?”

“With luck, in one week,” she said. “More probably sometime near the end of the second week. The first two weeks are the most difficult for the patient.” She got to her feet. “I will call you just as soon as I feel she is able to have you visit her.”

I rose. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to her room. She should be ready for us.”

I followed her out through the door that Myriam used. Now I knew we were in a hospital. The corridor was green and sterile. We went up a flight of stairs and down another corridor. She stopped in front of a door and knocked.

“Come in.” The gray-haired nurse opened the door. She turned to Myriam. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, dear.” She walked out past me and I went into the room. The door snapped shut and locked.

Myriam looked like a child in the white hospital gown, propped up in the bed with pillows. I glanced around the room. It was pleasant enough, but the only window in it was high on the wall, near the ceiling.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

Her lower lip trembled. “Frightened.”

I sat down on the bed and took her in my arms. I kissed her. “You’re doing the right thing,” I said. “It will be all right.”

The door opened and the nurse came back in, wheeling a small table on which various instruments were laid out. “Time for us to begin our work, dear,” she said cheerfully.

Myriam looked at me. “When will I see you?”

“The doctor says I can probably come up next week.”

“That’s a long time,” she said. “Why can’t you come before that?”

“I’ll try,” I said.

She held her arms out toward me. “Kiss me again, Steve.”

I kissed her and held her for a moment, then went outside into the corridor. The doctor was waiting there for me.

We began to walk down the hall. “How does she seem to you?” the doctor asked.

“Okay,” I said. “A little frightened.”

“That’s normal enough,” she said. “It’s a big step she’s taking.”

We went down the stairs and at the bottom she turned to me. She held something in her hand. I looked down at it.

“By the way, she had these hidden in the lining of her handbag,” she said.

I nodded. “I kind of expected something like that.” Now I knew where the heroin had gone.

“Do you think she might have any more on her?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Then don’t worry, Mr. Gaunt,” the doctor smiled. “If she has, Mrs. Graham will turn it up. She’s very good at that sort of thing.”

I thanked the doctor and went outside to my car. I drove down to Los Angeles International Airport and got aboard the three o’clock plane to New York.

The worst part of the whole thing was yet to come. Telling Sam and Denise about their daughter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was in the office early. Fogarty followed me with the coffee. She waited until I had taken my first sip. “There was a big panic here yesterday,” she said. “They didn’t know whether you’d be in time for the board meeting today and they couldn’t find you.”

I had some more of the coffee without answering.

“We were wondering whether to call Sinclair. It wouldn’t make much sense to have a board meeting without either of the executive officers present.”

Spencer was on vacation in the Caribbean. He had been gone almost a month. I look up at her. “I’m here.”

I knew she was curious about where I had been yesterday, but I volunteered nothing and she didn’t ask. She knew better. She began to run down the list of calls.

“Mr. Savitt wants to see you before the meeting. He would like to go over the new lineup before he presents it to the board for approval.”

“Ask him up as soon as we’re finished.”

“Mr. Regan called from the coast. He asked me to tell you that his board formally approved the sale of Symbolic Records stock to Sinclair. He asked that you call him as soon as our board approves so that the press release can be coordinated on both coasts.”

I nodded.

“Mr. Benjamin called. He asked me to express his satisfaction to you on the conclusion of the new deal. You don’t have to call back.”

“What deal?”

“Mr. Savitt tried to reach you yesterday and tell you. He bought a package of feature films from him.” She checked her notes. “That’s another thing he wanted to talk to you about.”

“Any other calls?”

“All routine. Nothing special.”

“Okay. Ask Mr. Savitt to come up.”

“Will do,” she said. She placed a folder on the desk in front of me. “There’s your copy of the agenda for today’s board meeting.”

I thanked her and looked through it as she left the office. But it was just a blur of words to me. Darling Girl’s face kept intruding between the paper and my eyes. The fear somehow mixed with trust in her young face.

Jack came into the office. We shook hands while Fogarty placed his coffee in front of him. He waited until she had left the office. “You don’t look well.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I’m just tired.”

He was silent for a moment. “Maybe you can grab a vacation after the board meeting.”

“When Spencer comes back,” I said. “The bylaws of the company state specifically that one of us must always be around.”

“When is he coming back?”

I shrugged. “The end of March, beginning of April. Sometime like that.”

“That’s two months off.”

“I’ll make it, all I need is a good night’s rest.” I changed the subject. “Bring me up to date on the Benjamin thing. I thought you were dead set against it.”

“I was,” he said. “But Sam came in himself last week without Dan Ritchie and offered me a whole new proposal. He gave us our choice of the package for three million dollars. I got him down to two and a half and then skimmed the cream. I picked the twelve best of the lot. That’s a million and a half less than he had asked before.”

I didn’t say anything. Sam was no fool. With the additional financing he had gotten from me, he didn’t have to be sticky. Between the two, he had managed to put together six and a half million dollars.

Jack mistook my silence for disapproval. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s fine.” I said. “What happened to Ritchie?”

“I don’t really know,” he answered. “I heard they had a fight. Ritchie was supposed to come with the money from the sale of films to television and he struck out. Meanwhile Sam got financing somewhere so he canned him. Ritchie’s pissed off and threatening a suit. But, as far as I know, that’s all scuttlebutt.”

“New York is a fun city.”

“Yeah. Something going on all the time,” he answered. “Can you go over the scheduling now?”

“Yes.”

He took out the charts and schedules. I looked down at them. The same old shit. The headings across the top of the page were always the same. NBC, CBS, ABC, and SINCLAIR. I was bored with it.

***

It was after five o’clock by the time the board meeting was over. I went back to my office and put in a call for Sam.

He came on the phone in high humor. “I’ll make a rich man out of you yet,” he said. “By the time I buy the stock back from you it will be worth double what you loaned me for it.”

It was the first laugh I had that day. “You can ruin my tax picture for ten years with something like that.”

“In that case you better be nice to me,” he said. “Or I’ll pay you what I owe you.”

“I’d like to see you,” I said, turning serious.

“Why don’t you come up to the house for dinner? Only Denise and Junior will be there.”

“I thought Junior was away at school?”

“He just got kicked out,” he said. “They caught him smoking marijuana or masturbating or maybe both in the men’s room. You know how kids are nowadays.”

“I know,” I said. For a moment I almost canceled out. But it was his daughter and he was entitled to know. Now. “I can’t make dinner because I’m catching the nine o’clock back to the coast. How about a drink?”

“Where would you like to meet?” he asked.

“I’ll be at your apartment at six thirty if that’s all right with you.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

***

I got out of the limo in front of the apartment house. “Don’t go away,” I said to the chauffeur. “I don’t know just how long I will be.”

He nodded and I went into the building. I lit a cigarette going up in the elevator and dragged on it. It wasn’t going to be easy. There were a million other things I’d rather tell them.

The maid, Mamie, let me in and I followed her to the library. Sam and Denise were already there and the maid brought me a Scotch on the rocks without my having to ask for it.

“You look so serious,” Sam said as I took it. He laughed. “I don’t know whether I didn’t like you better when you were on martinis.”

I forced a smile. “Cheers,” I said. Even the whiskey tasted lousy.

Junior came into the room. “Hi, Uncle Steve.”

“How are you?”

“Don’t ask him anything,” Sam said. “He’s a bum.” But there was tolerant humor in his smile. “Imagine a son of mine getting caught doing a stupid thing like that.” He turned to Junior. “What was such a big rush? Why didn’t you wait at least until you got back to your own room?”

“Oh, Father,” Junior said in a disgusted voice. He looked at me. “I wasn’t the only one that got busted. There were four of us sharing one lousy little joint.”

It wasn’t getting any easier.

Denise started from the room. “Come, Junior. We’ll leave them to talk business.”

“Don’t go,” I said.

She stopped almost at the door and looked at me. There was an expression in her eyes that made me think of her for the first time as Myriam’s mother.

“This concerns you too,” I said.

She came slowly toward me. “Has it got something to do with Myriam?”

I nodded.

Instinctively she moved toward Sam. I saw her hand search out and find his. She didn’t speak. Just looked at me with a secret fear in her suddenly white face.

I took a deep breath. “Myriam signed herself into Vista Carla sanitarium yesterday morning.”

Sam still didn’t get it. “Is she sick?” he asked in a puzzled voice.

“Yes,” I said.

“Why didn’t she let us know? After all, we are her parents.” He was beginning to get angry. Suddenly he stopped and looked at me. “What’s the matter with her? Is she pregnant?”

“No,” I said. They were probably the most difficult words I ever spoke in my life. “Myriam’s on drugs. She’s addicted to heroin. She went into Vista Carla to try to break the habit.”

“Goddamn it!” Sam roared. He turned to Junior. “Samuel, go to your room!”

“No,” Denise said. “She’s his sister. Let him stay.”

“You and your ideas,” Sam yelled angrily. “Let her become an actress. That’s what she wants. Didn’t I tell you that they’re all nothing but whores and bums? Now I hope you’re satisfied.”

Denise stood there silently, the tears welling in her eyes. I watched her fight to control herself. After a moment, she turned to Sam. “I’ll pack a bag.”

“No!” Sam roared. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“But she’s still my baby,” Denise said. “And she needs me.”

“She didn’t need your help to get into it,” he snapped. “Let her get out of it the same way.”

Denise stared at him for a moment, then walked from the room. He turned to me.

“How did you find out about it?”

“She was at my house the night before last,” I said. “I went into the bathroom and found the hypo.”

I saw the blood climb into his face. His eyes were suspicious narrow slits behind the shining glasses. “What was she doing at your house?”

I didn’t answer.

He gripped my lapels with strong fingers. “Answer me, Goddamn you!”

I stared deep into the anger in his eyes. I pushed his hands away. “She was staying with me,” I said.

I never thought a man of his size and bulk could move that quickly. Too late, I saw the blur of his arm, then the pain exploded in my stomach and I bent almost double. I twisted trying to avoid the blow coming down at me. I caught it between my neck and shoulder and pitched forward to the floor. Another sharp pain exploded in my ribs as he kicked me. I tried to roll away from him.

“Papa! Papa!” Junior screamed, grabbing at him.

“Keep out of this!” He pushed Junior away violently. “I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch!”

I grabbed the edge of the couch and began to pull myself to my feet. Sam came toward me. I stared up into his face, almost unable to move.

Junior flung himself at his father again. “She was in love with him, Papa! She was always in love with him!”

This time Sam half turned and struck him. The boy slammed back against the library shelves. The books began to tumble and fall around him. “I said, keep out of it!”

The boy stared at him with horror-stricken eyes as he turned back to me. I was on my feet now, but I still had to hold onto the couch to keep from falling again.

“You sick bastard!” Sam said, staring at me. “You had to have her too. All the cunts in the world aren’t enough for you!”

I saw his arm go back, but there was no way in the world I could lift my arms to block him. I just didn’t have the strength.

Then, suddenly, Denise was between us. “Sam!”

He stood there, frozen, his fist still cocked.

“She’s twenty-two, Sam. And she’s a woman, not a child,” Denise said. “Steve didn’t have to come and tell us anything if he didn’t want to.”

He kept staring into her eyes. “Get out of my way,” he said harshly.

“She’s my daughter, not yours, Sam,” she said quietly. “Leave him alone!”

He blinked as if he had been hit. Slowly his hands fell to his sides. In spite of the pain, I felt pity for him as he seemed to shrink before my eyes. He walked to the door and then turned back to us.

But it was only Denise he spoke to, I did not exist for him anymore. “If you take one step to go to her,” he said in a shaking voice, “neither of you have to come back!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I followed Dr. Davis into her office. “It’s not been easy for her,” she said. “She’s having a very difficult time.”

I didn’t speak.

“I’m not quite sure that you should see her even now.”