Cotter pulled into an almost invisible driveway and up next to a beautiful fountain. A doorman wearing a uniform came out and opened Thomas’s door. Another uniformed man opened Michael’s door and said, “Welcome back, sir.”
“What is this place?” Thomas asked his friend.
In the foyer there were several well-dressed men and women walking, talking, waiting for an elevator.
3 0 2
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“It’s a hotel bar,” Cotter was saying. “You know, hotels have the finest bars and restaurants.”
The handsome young smoker led Thomas into a large room filled with small tables. At a table in a far corner sat Kronin Stark.
“What’s goin’ on?” Thomas asked. He stopped walking.
“Mr. Stark has something to tell you . . . about your brother.”
For a moment Thomas was half back in his dream. He felt as if the hotel floor were buckling under his feet. He pitched forward, but Cotter caught him and helped him to a chair in front of the giant.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Stark rumbled. “Clea Frank is coming to California to be with you.”
“What do you want with me?” Thomas said. “And what about my brother?”
“Your brother is about to go to jail for quite some time,”
Stark said.
“You’re crazy. Eric hasn’t done anything.”
“As you will,” Kronin replied with a slight bow. “Take a ride with me and I will explain the details.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere with you.”
“Fine. Leave then.”
Thomas looked at Michael, who smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“What’s going to happen to Eric?”
“Come with me and you shall be enlightened,” Stark said.
A Cape H ote l doorman opened the back door of the silver Rolls-Royce, and Stark crawled in like a badger waddling into his hole.
3 0 3
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
“Get in on the other side,” he said to Thomas. “Terry will drive us.”
“I’m not gettin’ in the back with you,” Thomas said.
“Suit yourself. Sit next to Terry then.”
Thomas got in the front seat next to the man he knew as Michael Cotter.
“Your name is Terry?” Thomas asked.
“Sure,” the sudden stranger replied. “Where to, Mr. S?”
“Let’s go up into the canyons. I like it up there.”
The one-time smoker drove off, turning right on Little Santa Monica.
Stark leaned forward and handed Thomas a large red enve-lope.
“Take it,” Stark said. “Look through the photographs.”
There was a thick sheaf of eight-by-ten glossy photos.
They were pictures of Monique and Madeline, Harold and Clea, Minas Nolan, Ahn, and another half dozen people that Thomas did not recognize. He paused at the photograph of a black woman in a straitjacket who was screaming hideously.
“That’s Nelda Frank,” Stark said. “Your girlfriend’s sister. A nice group, isn’t it? Good-looking people. You would never think that that sweet-looking Vietnamese woman is in the country on forged papers or that stolid Harold Portman has been embezzling funds from his boss for years. Your grandmother’s insurance company doesn’t know that she lied about a preexisting condition when she bought her policy. The doctor that kept her records back then has recently agreed to make amends for his wrongdoing.”
They were crossing Sunset, beginning an ascent into the hills.
“What I do to you, man?” Thomas asked, sitting with his back against the door, looking into the backseat.
“Three nights ago I sat with your brother and my little girl.
3 0 4
F o r t u n a t e S o n
She smiles at me. She kisses me hello, but her joy in me is over. She’s moved out of my house and chosen her man. My life is empty because of Eric Tanner Nolan.”
Stark brought both hands to his face as if he were about to melt into tears, but he did not cry. Instead his fat hands folded into fists.
“She’s gone from me and is never coming back. If your Eric died tomorrow, she wouldn’t even cry on my shoulder.
He has taken her heart from me.”
