Two Women (36 page)

Jane jerked her head towards the telephone, upon which she'd made two further calls after that to the gynaecologist. ‘Did he tell you why we were seeing Rosemary?'

Alice shook her head. ‘I didn't know you were.'

‘Something he didn't actually tell you?' It was weak sarcasm.

‘No.'

‘We were going to have a baby.'

Alice felt a physical lurch at the confirmation but didn't speak.

‘How do you feel about that?'

‘It will be wonderful …' stumbled Alice. ‘John would have … you will be a wonderful parent …'

The rigid face creased slightly, then cleared. ‘It wouldn't have made any difference if John was still alive? You'd have gone on sleeping together?'

‘Yes,' said Alice at once, holding the other woman's look. ‘I'm not ashamed. I know it's difficult for you to believe … I guess you never will … but I was never a threat to you … and I've tried to save you, literally save your life, because you don't know how bad things are.' She knew that Geoffrey Davis, whom Jane had told in another of her calls to block any legal move against John's bank, was the firm's lawyer. Presumably Burt, whose surname Jane had never used and to whom she'd repeated the blocking instructions, was the personal attorney.

‘You're right,' said Jane. ‘I don't know. So tell me about that, too. All of it, because I can't be hurt or betrayed any more, any worse, than I already have been.'

But she was, her face twisting as if she were in genuine pain when Alice told her everything. Alice held nothing back but conscious of Jane's stricken look said at the end: ‘I don't believe … John didn't believe … that your father did it willingly, in the beginning. John was sure he was tricked … cheated … and from then on was blackmailed into carrying on …'

‘And John tried to face them down … believing as he did that Dad and Janice had been murdered he still tried to face them down …?'

‘Yes,' said Alice, knowing the other woman's need. ‘That's how brave John was.'

‘But he told you, not me,' remembered Jane, stronger-voiced.

‘How
could
he have told you?' pleaded Alice.

‘I didn't believe you, not any of it, before. I actually thought you might be mad, although I didn't think you were going to harm me. But I believe you now. All of it …' Jane stopped, her voice catching. ‘I cried for Dad but I didn't cry for John, not properly. The drugs. And now I don't think I can cry, for either of them …'

She did though, so suddenly that Alice jumped at the wail and came forward in her ugly chair, watching helplessly as the sobs racked through Jane as they had racked through her, and finally Alice got up and went to the other woman. At the first touch Jane stiffened and went to pull away but didn't and then she let herself come into Alice's embracing arm and Alice began crying, too, and both women sat on the hard bed, holding each other, both weeping for the same man.

Initially there was an embarrassment at their holding each other, supporting each other, a few moments, once they recovered and stopped crying, of moving awkwardly around the room, neither knowing what to say, how to say it. So neither at first said anything.

Alice broke the impasse. ‘They'll say I kidnapped you.'

‘You did.'

They both sniggered a laugh, although still awkwardly.

Alice said: ‘Don't hate me.'

Jane said: ‘I don't know what to feel – how to feel – right now. I don't feel anything, about anyone. I don't think I know how to hate.'

‘We both loved John. He loved both of us.'

‘I don't know what to say to that, either. I don't understand it. Maybe I never will.'

‘That's how it is,' Alice insisted, wishing it hadn't sounded so flip.

‘I suppose I know that's how it was. I still don't understand it.'

‘Do you understand – accept – that we could both be killed, if we don't get protection?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Jane, you can't
suppose
so. You
know
so, surely!'

‘I …' Jane began, then corrected herself. ‘Yes, I know.'

She had to get back to the cabin: get John's picture, remembered Alice. ‘Why did you drive away like that?'

‘I told you. I didn't believe what you were saying: thought you were mad. These days have been mad. I don't know why I did it, at that moment. I just did. I don't like being manipulated. Everyone was manipulating me, telling me what to do, what pills to take, like I was a child.'

‘We've got to go back. Get safe.'

‘They can come for us here.'

‘There are things I want.' Only one thing, the thing she couldn't do – wouldn't do – without. Her only physical, tangible memory.

‘We drove for hours! I don't even know where the hell we are!'

‘We'll go back tomorrow.'

‘You want to stay here?'

‘No one knows we're here. That's what you said.'

‘It's filthy! Disgusting!' said Jane.

‘No one knows we're here,' repeated Alice. ‘No one would expect us to be in a place like this. So no one will look for us in a place like this.'

Jane looked around the stained, night-darkening room. ‘No. No one would,' she agreed and sniggered again, this time in head-shaking disbelief.

‘Tomorrow?' prompted Alice.

‘To what, after that?'

‘I don't know,' admitted Alice. ‘Some sort of life.'

They were still vaguely red-eyed but they'd washed their faces and combed their hair and touched up their lipstick, which was the only make-up either carried in their bags. They were the instant focus of the truckers in the suddenly hushed adjoining diner and to avoid it they took a booth and shrugged off the two direct, leering approaches to their table. When the waitress with drooping breasts, who clearly regarded them as competition, tried to deliver two unordered whiskies from a third hopeful, Alice said: ‘Take them back and say thanks. My friend and I don't need anyone else but each other, OK?'

‘They'll want to save you from yourselves,' predicted the waitress, relieved.

‘Tell them to go fuck themselves. It's fun,' said Alice.

Jane looked down to cover the smile. As the girl left Jane said: ‘You know your way around this sort of place?'

‘I go to the movies a lot.'

‘You would, I suppose, with time on your hands.'

‘Jane, you're allowed any sort of shot you want. I can't think of anything more to say than I've already said. Let's just get through tonight, tomorrow, until we get back to where they're waiting. Then you'll never have to see me, ever again.'

‘It'll ruin the firm, won't it?' suddenly demanded Jane. ‘Ruin my father's reputation. That's what both of them, Dad and John, were trying to prevent. That's what you said.'

‘I know what I said,' acknowledged Alice, concerned at the conversation. ‘I also told you John was convinced your father was murdered. And Janice. There's no way other than going to the Bureau.'

‘We should call them.'

‘We should,' agreed Alice, relaxing.

‘Not now, not right away. I want to think.'

‘Jane, there really is nothing to think about.'

‘Later,' insisted the woman.

The now friendly waitress returned, with iced water and place settings. She said: ‘I got nothing against guys like you, OK?'

‘Thanks,' said Alice.

The woman said: ‘Take the meat loaf. It's fresh. I wouldn't risk anything else.'

‘I'll have meat loaf,' said Alice.

As Jane nodded acceptance too, she said: ‘John didn't like meat loaf.'

Which was why she'd never made it for him, remembered Alice.

‘When?' demanded Gene Hanlan.

‘Two or three hours ago,' admitted Geoffrey Davis.

‘Two or three hours! What the hell …?'

‘Things happened,' said the Northcote lawyer. ‘Maybe it wasn't even two or three hours …'

‘She's under threat,' stopped Hanlan. ‘Serious, physical threat. People got to the cabin where she was before us. Wrecked it like they wrecked Litchfield. We don't get her soon, like immediately, she's dead. So where is she?'

‘She didn't say.'

‘For fuck's sake!'

‘Hear me out …'

‘I don't want to hear you out. I want you to hear me out. You're a lawyer, doesn't matter criminal or civil. You know what I'm saying? We've got a big-time, major investigation here. We lose getting Jane back – lose Jane – I'm going to charge you with wilful obstruction of justice and anything else I can think of and I'm going to recommend the Bureau move for your disbarment. You hear what I'm saying?'

There was a pause from the other end before Davis said, calmly: ‘Now you're going to hear what I'm saying?'

‘What?'

‘She's instructed me to file against any Bureau application for access to John Carver's estate or private affairs.'

‘She told me she would do that.'

‘She's instructed the family lawyer, Burt Elliott, too.'

‘I'm still listening.'

‘I had another call,' continued Davis. ‘Guy said he was a lawyer, representing clients for whom George Northcote worked exclusively but to whom John had written severance letters. I asked around, among the partners. No one knew anything about it …'

‘You got names?' interrupted Hanlan, anxiously.

‘I finally asked Hilda Bennett, John's PA. She wrote the letters and kept file copies, obviously. We've got the names of all five, all registered in Grand Cayman. It was doing that which took the time.'

‘Who's the guy who called?'

‘Wouldn't give a name. Told me I'd understand when we met.'

‘When?'

‘Ten thirty tomorrow morning. I put it back until then because I thought you'd want to know. Be here, waiting.'

Hanlan didn't respond for several moments. ‘I think I owe you an apology.'

‘Yes,' said Davis. ‘I think you do.'

It was late, past nine, before Charlie Pedtrie got back from Trenton, believing he had made all the arrangements possible with the Cavalcante
consigliere
and anxious to meet those of the other four New York Families within the hour. But Stanley Burcher had to come first. There had been telephone conversations with the other
consiglieri
from Trenton and none of them were happy with what Petrie was going to order but no one had been able to come up with an alternative that was better to get back what was in Citibank.

The slight, self-effacing lawyer was waiting patiently in the familiar Algonquin lounge, the brandy snifter beside the coffee the only thing out of the ordinary for this most ordinary-looking of men.

Petrie ordered brandy for himself, needing it, and said: ‘Well?'

‘Fixed, for tomorrow morning.' Burcher was frightened, of too many things to know precisely about what. Of the man sitting opposite and what the people he represented could and would do to him. Also, for the first time in his life, of openly putting himself forward as an emissary of such people. The urge to run, to escape from them and from what might happen to him, had grown since he'd spoken to the Northcote lawyer until now it was a knot, something he could feel, deep inside him.

‘Why couldn't you go today?' demanded Petrie.

‘He couldn't make today. I'm approaching him, remember?'

Petrie hesitated. He didn't want to frighten further the obviously already frightened man but it would be ridiculous sending him in unprepared. He said: ‘There's a complication.'

‘What?' demanded Burcher, brandy bowl suspended in front of him.

‘Alice Belling somehow snatched Jane Carver … got the Carver woman to go with her. I don't know how. They're together, somewhere in the Catskills.'

For several moments Burcher's mind refused to assimilate what he was being told and what the consequences were. Then he said: ‘But there's no point … no purpose in my seeing the Northcote lawyer. Even if he accepted my argument about returning property no longer theirs to keep, Jane Carver is the only person who could legally get it out of her husband's personal deposit box.'

‘I want you to make the meeting,' insisted Petrie. ‘We've got to be ready.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘We didn't know there was a relationship between the two women,' said Petrie. ‘There obviously is and they obviously know what's in the box. The FBI are looking for them, but for kidnap, according to conversations we've intercepted. We've got some inside tracks. We're going to end this Thelma and Louise shit by tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. We know the car they're driving, the plate number even. We get them, we hold Alice while Jane co-operates, meets the lawyer you're going to meet and gets our stuff back.'

‘What about the FBI?'

‘Alice Belling is our insurance the FBI don't get told, by anyone, that Jane's back until we've got our stuff. When we've got that, all the Feds have is a kidnap that's nothing to do with us. No proof of anything else.'

‘What's Alice Belling going to tell them?'

‘Nothing,' said Petrie. ‘Alice Belling isn't going to tell anyone anything. She won't be able to. Neither will Jane Carver, after she's done what she's told.'

It was madness, Burcher decided. He didn't want to get involved in madness.

Neither of them undressed nor got beneath the covers, reluctant to have the sheets anywhere around them. Both spread their jackets over their pillows to keep their faces away from the physical contact and there wasn't much talk after the near argument that erupted when they'd got back to the cabin, Alice now demanding that they go at once against Jane's insistence that they were staying.

‘I need time to think … to think about everything,' was Jane's repeated refusal.