they would have been bound up in this forever.
He had no idea that he was crying as he sat in the sachet-scented bedroom, slumped in one corner of his wheelchair.
But behind him, gently, Denise said, 'You all right, Greg?' And when he looked up at her, he felt very foolish, of course, and unmanly, tears silver on his cheeks. 'I'm fine.'
She grinned. God, she did have a cute, impish grin. 'Yeah, that's just how you sound, too. Fine.'
He had to laugh. He was sad, but she got him laughing, and he silently thanked her for it.
She came over and stood next to him and looked at the photograph. 'Is that Emma?'
'Yes.'
'Boy, she was really pretty.'
'She sure was.'
'You'll always love her, won't you, Greg?'
He smiled up at her. 'Actually I'm trying to not to.'
'Really? How come?'
'Because she didn't love me.'
'From what you said, I'll bet she did.'
'Well, not in the way I wanted to be loved anyway.'
'So, why should that stop you from loving her in the way you want to love her?'
'Because it makes me feel weak and foolish.'
She leaned over and kissed him on the side of the head. 'You know what it is?'
'Huh?'
'It's your pride. That's all.' Then she tousled his hair. 'You men. You're all alike.' She snatched the photo from his hand and said, 'Now, give this to me, and I'll go get it framed for you tomorrow. This is a great picture, and you should keep it someplace special in your duplex.'
She thumped him on the shoulder. 'And forget about your pride, Greg. You've got enough problems without that hanging over your head.'
By then, of course, he was laughing and laughing hard. She was treating him just like a child… and somehow making him understand (without hurting his feelings) that he was behaving just like a child.
From the back pocket of her jeans she pulled out a manila envelope and held it up. 'What's Brolan's partner's name?'
'Stu Foster. Why?'
'Well, he sure sent Emma a lot of letters. Or not letters, exactly. Envelopes. And-oh, yeah-and this tape that was inside this box of candy.'
'What?' Wagner said. Already he was trying to reason through what Denise was telling him and imagining how interested Brolan would be in this piece of information. Why would Stu Foster send Emma envelopes? Why would Stu Foster even know Emma to begin with?
'Here,' Denise said, handing him the envelope. 'There's a whole pile of these in a kitchen drawer. You want to go see them?'
Wagner, sounding as if he'd just discovered gold, said, 'Lead the way!'
30
He wore an earring. Foster had never quite gotten used to that, a guy wearing an earring. Much as he hated to admit it, the earring threatened Foster in some way.
But then, so did most everything else about Charles Decker Lane.
Lane was a thirty-seven-year-old man who'd inherited a small chain of ten motels from his father. That was back in the seventies, just as the Motel 6's and the other low-priced lodgings were moving into the mid-western market. Lane, an MBA from Northwestern, had been of the mind that people would ultimately tire of the low-enders. The average businessman wanted more than a closet-sized toilet that smelled of disinfectant and two double beds that were practically bunk beds, the way they almost piled on top of each other. Or so had been Charles Decker Lane's thinking in the mid-seventies, right before Jimmy Carter and the recession and stagflation happened and made Charles Decker Lane eat every foolish goddamn word he'd said. In February of 1977 he'd had 1416 rooms under his control. By April of 1978 he had fewer than 200-three frigging motels left out of the ten he'd started with, and not a one of them within walking distance of an airport. Or did they even have airports in Terre Haute, Indiana, site of two of the motels?
Which was when he discovered cocaine, first as a user, then as a distributor. Back when he got in, the thing was like a big Amway deal. There was even a certain amount of fun in it, not to mention just ducky profits. The chicks liked it especially. Even the country club bitches he met at his brother's would finally give in and fuck him if he offered enough cocaine. (His brother's wife thought that Charles Decker Lane would someday die of a state- injected terminal drug and told everybody this.) The white stuff made him lots of green stuff, but then things started changing, and for once in his young but unsuccessful life, Lane knew when to get out of something. The first thing he did was go to a chemical dependency clinic and get himself clean. Talk about a bitch. He hadn't cried this much since he'd found his first wife balling that nigger football player right in Charles Decker Lane's bed. (Lane had broken her nose, knowing that was the only satisfaction he was going to get, assuming that she was going to soak him in divorce court.) The second thing he did was tell everybody that he was clean and no longer dealing. He even went to a downtown dealer and turned over all his names and contacts free, gratis. (The guy was understandably suspicious that Lane here might be a narc.) Then he took all the lovely money he'd made dealing coke and put it in federally-insured CDs all over the Mid-west. He kept one motel for himself and used as his chief source of income the interest his ducky money was making for him.
Six years before, Lane and Foster met at a party one wintry night, got along, and started talking about all the ad execs who used Lane's sumptuously decorated motel as a sort of whorehouse. Foster, who was then in the employ of Richard Cummings and Associates, didn't start thinking about this till he and Brolan got fed up with Cummings's temper tantrums and decided to go out on their own. There were many ways to go about getting clients-you could wine and dine them; you could marry into the right family; you could even actually show them a few good ads you'd done over the years-but what with all the competition, Foster started wondering if there wasn't maybe a more interesting way to get clients. What if you had a motel room, see, where ad execs had their little trysts… and what if somebody had the room bugged with microphones and a videotape camera… and what if you presented the execs you had on videotape with the choice of exposure (no pun intended) or turning their accounts over to you? Could there be any faster way to get yourself five big-name clients in a very short time? All you had to do was concentrate on which execs were (a) players, and (b) liked some sort of kicks they considered shameful. They'd be begging you to take their accounts once you showed them the tapes. Thus was born the Foster-Brolan agency.
So, anyway, Charles Decker Lane's earring.
Foster had always been curious why a guy who wore Brooks
Brothers suits, a tie stick in every collar, cufflinks, and a hundred-dollar razor cut would wear an earring. Wasn't that a little like a bank CEO wearing a bone through his nose?
That day, though, Foster tried to forget the earring. He sat with Lane in the motel's coffee shop, telling him about Brolan.
'You mean he's figured it out?' Lane said.
'I mean, he's trying to figure it out.'
'And you think he's coming out here?'
'You can bet on it.'
'I just won't tell him anything.'
'You don't know Brolan. He's got one of those tempers.'
'Well, there's always Ernie.'
Ernie was the night bartender. He used to fight on one of the regular cards downtown. He had a smashed nose and wide, flat fists and a very bad temper.
