That was a surprise. She’d taken it for granted it was the three men planning the robbery who’d discovered Daniel and had him shot, and quite naturally she’d wondered if they also knew about her. She whispered, ‘There’s somebody else? Who?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t care. Just so I get out of here. Lesley.’
‘What?’
‘The longer I’m here, the more the cops are gonna wonder about me. My background, my name. And I can’t have them take my prints.’
‘Oh.’
She sat back, considering him. He was really in a terrible situation, wasn’t he? Battered, weak, being pursued by killers he didn’t seem even to know, trapped in this hospital with police all around, and now it turns out his fingerprints would lead the police to something dangerous in his background. And the only person in the whole entire world who could help him was her.
This time, she wasn’t surprised by him, she was surprised by herself. She felt suddenly very strong. Her emotion toward Daniel Parmitt wasn’t love or sex, but it wastender. It was almost, oddly, maternal. Now, she was the strong one, she was the one who could help. And she wantedto help; she wanted him to know that when he asked the question, she would be there with the answer.
She leaned even closer to him, one forearm on the bed as she gazed into his eyes, seeing they weren’t really as dull as he pretended. She whispered, ‘How bad off are you, really? Can you walk?’
‘I don’t know. I can try.’
‘In the paper, it said you weren’t expected to live. Won’t that make these other people wait?’
‘Awhile.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll do it. I’ll see what I can arrange, and I’ll come back tomorrow.’
He watched her leave. The intern sat in the corner, writing.
7
Mrs Helena Stockworth Fritz was an extremely busy woman, never more so than since the death of dear Miriam Hope Clendon. There were the foundation boards to sit on, the press interviews, the arrangements for the charity balls, the lunches, the shopping, the phone calls with friends far and near, the yoga, the aura therapist, the constant planning for this or that event; and now the auction of dear Miriam’s jewelry, right here at Seascape.
And not merely on the grounds, but inside the house as well. Most times, charity occasions at Seascape were held out on the side lawn and the terrace above the seawall overlooking the Atlantic, but this time it was necessary to have the jewelry on display, and to have the auctioneer where all the attendees could see and hear him, and so it was necessary to open the ballroom at Seascape with its broad line of tall French doors leading out to the terrace and the famous view. So in the middle of all this frenzy of activity, the last thing Mrs Fritz needed was the delivery, three days early, of the musicians’ amplifiers.
Jeddings came with the news, to the parlor where Mrs Fritz was deep in concentration on her flower arranging. Jeddings looked worried, as she always did, and clutched her inevitable clipboard to her narrow chest as she said, ‘Mrs Fritz, deliverymen at the gate.’
‘Delivery? Delivering what?’
‘They say the amplifiers for the musicians.’
‘Musicians? We aren’t having musicians tonight.’
‘No, Mrs Fritz, for the auction.’
The auction. Yes, there would be music that night, of course, dancing and the drinking of champagne before the auction began, to loosen up the attendees. But that wasn’t till Friday, the day after the ball at the Breakers when the jewelry would first be publicly displayed, and today was only Tuesday. ‘What on earth are they delivering amplifiers nowfor?’
‘I don’t know, Mrs Fritz, they say this is the only time they can do it.’
‘Let me see these people.’
Mrs Fritz accompanied Jeddings to the vestibule, which was what they called the very well-equipped office at the front of the house, near the main door. Jeddings and two clerks operated from here, helping to keep all of Mrs Fritz’s many charities and social events and other activities on track, and the video intercom to the front entrance was here.
Mrs Fritz stopped in front of the monitor to frown at the TV image there. Once again, as always, that stray thought came and went: Why can’t these things be in color like everything else? But that, of course, wasn’t the point. The point was that, stopped just outside the gate, half blocking traffic, was a small nondescript dark van, containing two men. The driver was hard to see, but the passenger, a burly man with a thick shock of wavy black hair, was half-leaned out his open window, where he’d been speaking on the intercom and was now awaiting a reply.
‘Tell him,’ Mrs Fritz said, ‘this is a very inconvenient time.’
‘Yes, Mrs Fritz.’
Jeddings sat at the desk, picked up the phone, and said, ‘Mrs Fritz says this is a very inconvenient time.’ Then she depressed the loudspeaker button so Mrs Fritz could hear the reply.
Which was polite and amiable, but not helpful. Mrs Fritz watched the burly man smile as he said, ‘I’m sorry about that. I don’t like no dissatisfied customers, but they give us this stuff and said deliver it today, and we got no place to keep it. We got no insurance for this stuff. These amplifiers, I dunno how much they cost, I don’t wanna be responsible for these things.’
Jeddings covered the phone’s mouthpiece with a hand and turned her worried face toward Mrs Fritz. ‘We could store them in a corner of the ballroom, Mrs Fritz. They wouldn’t be in the way.’
