"GREETING Helen on Sunday night, he was unprepared for his tender feelings: How welcome the k 'l'scent of her perfume, her very form, as he lifted his hands to embrace her. Ah, Helen. In her doorway, he took her in his arms and lolled her about. They both laughed. Even now, though, the thought, the ache for Sonny was not far away.
"Tell me of your journey," Stern insisted.
She described Texas, hot and desolate. You drive seventyfive on the highways and the city towers loom ahead through the shimmering heat and seem to come no.closer.
"You were bad while I was gone," she said. They were in the kitchen;
Helen was tossing a salad and Stern was making a faltering effort at assistance while he drank his wine.
"Me?"
"I called last night and got your machine. At eleven o'clock." She raised an eyebrow.
"I was working," he said. "Dixon's case," he added to enhance his credibility. He had attempted to reach Dixon all day. He wanted the man back in town at once. He phoned the island house directly a number of times, and finally called Elise, Dixon's secretary, at home-she could reach Dixon twenty-four hours a day, like the President. Today, however, Dixon was out of touch, lost under the Caribbean sun. Perhaps he had done the wise thing and decided never to return or, more realistically, wanted to enjoy, unencumbered, the last breath of freedom. Certainly, Dixon knew best how grave his problems were. There was a reason that he felt he had to get 'away.
In the meantime, Stern stood in Helen's kitchen, if not lying to her, then avoiding the truth. To what point? he wondered. He had no idea what to do. Go on? Long? Suffer?
There was at all moments this intense sensation of heat.
Sooner or later his resistance would erode; he would seek out Sonny and perform some lunatic act. Today at home, he had been utterly useless.
He came to rest, and sat, mouth agape, eyes caught, replaying all me same images in a heart-bursting swoon. He was hopelessly smitten. But what about the present? The world? Here was Helen, decent, capable, and kind. How should he treat her? He had no plans, except a vague inclination to avoid sleeping with her tonight, for the sake of decency perhaps, or more likely because he could not stand further stimulation.
Helen as usual had prepared a splendid meal, shrimp remoulade, his favorite, with two warm vegetables and potatoes. She wanted this to be a glorious reunion. Just last week, in speaking about Miles, Helen had said in the mildest, most casual fashion that when she divorced she could not imagine marrying again. There was no emphasis, but she clearly intended to describe that state of mind in the past tense. Stern had not missed the point but had pmdenfiy allowed the observation to pass. Now, over time, he would have to maneuver gently for distance.
They ate and chatted. He was grateful, even in his punished, overwrought state, for their constant amiability.
Stern pushed the potatoes aside with his fork.
You like those," Helen told him.
A Stern face: a world of emotions too hard to express. "I am contemplating a diet," he admitted.
"Dieting?" Helen took a bite, chewed once, and eyed him acutely. The intelligence flashed in her eye. He felt his stomach sink. What in the world had led him to conceive of her over the years as not bright? "I was right," she said.
"You're seeing someone younger, Sandy, aren't you?"
Now what? Why is lying so often the truth? Seeing? Oh yes, he was seeing. On the air, in the sky. A holographic projection. He was seeing solneone younger, all the time.
He had been still a few seconds. "Yes," he said.
Helen looked straight at him. She said, "Shit." A moment passed.
"Well," said Helen,
He coen utterly useless. He came to rest, and sat, mouth agape, eyes caught, replaying all me same images in a heart-bursting swoon. He was hopelessly smitten. But what about the present? The world? Here was Helen, decent, capable, and kind. How should he treat her? He had no plans, except a vague inclination to avoid sleeping with her tonight, for the sake of decency perhaps, or more likely because he could not stand further stimulation.
Helen as usual had prepared a splendid meal, shrimp remoulade, his favorite, with two warm vegetables and potatoes. She wanted this to be a glorious reunion. Just last week, in speaking about Miles, Helen had said in the mildest, most casual fashion that when she divorced she could not imagine marrying again. There was no emphasis, but she clearly intended to describe that state of mind in the past tense. Stern had not missed the point but had pmdenfiy allowed the observation to pass. Now, over time, he would have to maneuver gently for distance.
They ate and chatted. He was grateful, even in his punished, overwrought state, for their constant amiability.
Stern pushed the potatoes aside with his fork.
You like those," Helen told him.
A Stern face: a world of emotions too hard to express. "I am contemplating a diet," he admitted.
"Dieting?" Helen took a bite, chewed once, and eyed him acutely. The intelligence flashed in her eye. He felt his stomach sink. What in the world had led him to conceive of her over the years as not bright? "I was right," she said.
"You're seeing someone younger, Sandy, aren't you?"
Now what? Why is lying so often the truth? Seeing? Oh yes, he was seeing. On the air, in the sky. A holographic projection. He was seeing solneone younger, all the time.
He had been still a few seconds. "Yes," he said.
Helen looked straight at him. She said, "Shit." A moment passed.
"Well," said Helen,
He could not think of a single comforting word.
"I'll live," she told him.
Tongue, speak. He merely watched.
Helen got up from the table.
He found her by the island cutting board in the fancy kitchen Miles had built her before he set himself free.
Chin high, she watched the darkening sky through a broad window, her view partly obscured by an apple tree that had blossomed magnificently only a few weeks ago.
He touched both her elbows as he came up behind her.
"Helen."
She reached around herself to hold his hands."
"I knew this was too soon. I should have let you get over all of it."
"Helen, please do not-" Overreact? "Helen, this is not' ' "Yes, it is," she said. "You're hooked." She looked back at him.
"Aren't you?"
He closed his eyes rather than respond.
She turned away and crashed her fist squarely in the middle of her nose.
She'wanted desperately not to cry.
"I'm really being miserable."
"Of course not," he said.
"You didn't make any promises." She eyed him. 'How young?"
He considered avoidance and gave up the thought. "Forty," he said.
"Forty-one." Pregnant. One-breasted. Married to someone else. And not interested in me. The utter madness of it, for a moment, almost drove him to the floor with shame.
Helen shrugged. "At least you're sane."
He nearly groaned.
Eventually, they returned to the table. He offered no details of this new interest-how could he?-and Helen courageously refused to ask. She told him that Maxine, after her day with Kate, had remarked on Kate's drawn look; she did not have the glow of some pregnant women. Hearing the remark, he thought at once of Sonny, then was pierced to see how quick he had been to skip beyond his concerns for his daughter.
As soon as he had his coffee, he went to the closet for his hat. At the door, he took Helen in his arms, and she held him for a moment.
"You're not going to mind if I tell you I don't want to see you, are you?" she asked. "Under the circumstances?"
"Of course not." He kissed her briefly and walked into the tender night air, toward his auto, full of the pangs of terrible regret. Truly now, he was losing his grip. He had given up the best part of his actual life to indulge a high-school fantasy. But through all this immediate anguish, his heart still rose. One tie that bound, now severed. There were a thousand others, but his intent was clear. He was going to surmount all obstacles, each of them. He felt as valiant as a knight.
He walked down the suburban avenue with a determined step, full of momentary pain, and the winging feel of freedom, of wild, improbable dreams.
MONDAY was a day of unexpected communications.
The first was awaiting Stern when he reached the office.
Dr. CawIcy had called, Claudia said, and needed to see him.
She had compared schedules and agreed to a meeting at five o'clock at Nate's office. "He said it was personal," said Claudia, "and that he didn't want to see you at home.
That's all."
Personal and not at home. Mano a rnano, in other words-away from Fiona.
Nate had tiptoed around Stern for months.
Now he wanted a meet? Stern sorted the possibilities. Had Fiona spoken up, as Stern suspected she would? Were Nate and he about to have a scene? Perhaps Nate was going to clear the air completely-hand Stern the check and declare a lasting peace. His sense of intrigue for once was greater than his anxiety.
Later in the morning, he also heard from Mel TooIcy. Stern was on the phone, attempting one last time to persuade AUSA Moses Appleton to soften his position on Remo, when Claudia laid down a note saying TooIcy was on hold.
Stern ended his conversation with Moses promptly. "None of this goes any further," Tooley said. "Of course."
"Sennett's sneaking around like some spook. He hears I talked, he'll go ballistic. You didn't get this here."
Stern once more assured Mel of his confidence. "My guy is going in the grfind jury next week."
"I see. May I ask the terms?"
"Immunity. Letters. Court orders. I got him everything.
It was a white sale at the U.S. Attorney's Office."
"And the prognosis for my client?"
"Bad."
"Very bad. There's a bunch of papers and tickets my guy wrote and your guy told him how to do it, every i, t, a,d comma."
"I see. And your client recalls this clearly?"
"Like a vision. My guy was new to the business, 'didn't know what was going on, so all this stood out." Mel waited.
"You know that song and dance."
Stern said nothing. John had done the predictable thing.
There was justice in this. Dixon, after all, deserved what he was going to get.
"He really feels like shit about this," Tley said. "You know, it's family stuff. Very messy. Well, I don't have to tell you."
"No," Stern agreed.
"I keep telling him ho's got to think 'Me first." He doesn't have a long way to wander on this thing. If he fucks around with them, they land on him with both feet."
Tooley meant that MD's records implicated John as well.
Whatever John's protests that all this had been over his head, the prosecutors knew that no one, no matter how naive, could have regarded this maneuvering as wholesome.
But wanting its case to be ironclad, the government preferred to have John's testimony, rather than a woebegone lower-down sharing the charge and defense table with Dixon.
This, too, was an entirely' predictable turn of events.
"He'll look like a whipped dog up there, if that does you any good." Mel was talking about John's trial testimony.
That would be another lawyer's problem, in any event.
"When does he appear before the grand jury, Mel?"
"A week from tomorrow. I don't think the indictment's far away.
They've got it all pretty well organized. I imagine they're going to D.C. for RICO approval right now."
"Yes," said Stern again. T-he racketeering charge, the one by which the government would divest Dixon of the business in which he'd invested a lifetime, required approval in Washington. Stern would have to request an audience at the Department of Justice.:The bureaucrats in D.C. would sometimes act with greater restraint than the U.S.
Attorney, although there were unlikely to be any soft hearts in this case.
TooIcy and he concluded with a vague promise to speak again. It was unlike Mel to be so forthcoming. Usually there was a hidden agenda, two or three of them, in fact.
Was it possible he was actually acting at Sennett's instruction?
Yes-but it would be hard to mislead Stern about the testimony of his daughter's husband. That probably accounted for Mel's candor, the fact that Stern would inevitably learn about this. Realizing that, TooIcy wanted credit for being the first with the news. Stern drummed his fingertips on his desk and picked up a cigar.
Of late, he had taken to twirling them between his fingers, unlit, never letting the ends touch his lips. Dixon was going to have to be made to think seriously about a guilty plea. In cases like this, the best that generally could be managed was to agree to a staggering financial penalty in hopes of sharply limiting the time in jail. Whatever was hidden in the islands, many of the visible assets here were in jeopardyrathe stone house, the chauffeured cars. Dixon would want to save what he could, for Silvia's sake.
Perhaps Stan would accept forfeiture of a discrete sum-millions-and Dixon's resignation from the business in lieu of all the stock.
In the meantime, Stern would have to call Kate-and John-take them to dinner as soon as the grand jury appearance was past. Dixon's wayward path had detoured the life of his family long enough. Stern wanted to be sure that his daughter, and even his son-in-law, knew that he was prepared to go on with this episode in the past. If Dixon decided to resist the government, Stern would help him search for another lawyer; the time was at hand. That, however, would not be a complete solution.
It was difficult to imagine a family gathering with Silvia, whose husband was in prison, occupying one corner and John, who sent him there, the other. Stern let a sound of some distress escape him. They would all remember this year.
Nate's nurse, who showed Stern back to the consultation room, seemed familiar-he had seen her timid smile and slender good looks somewhere before. Stern watched the young woman depart and spent an instant trying to place her, before Nate bade him sit in a gooseneck chair of maroon leather.
They asked, conventionallY, about one another's health, then lapsed into silence. Stern had never been here and that fact seemed to underscore the unusual nature of their meeting-right faces, wrong setting. The atmosphere grew tenebrous. The consultation room was far more ample than Peter's, furnished, like the Cawley home, out of Ethan Allen, with an imposing wallpaper of green vertical stripes and a heavy paddle-shaped clock on one wall. Nate sat in his long white coat behind a substantial walnut desk, his certificates arrayed about him, rocking a bit in his tall leather chair. Eventually, he eased forward and came to the point.
"I want you to know, Sandy, that I'm going to ask Fiona for a divorce."
Stern was dumbstruck, not by the news, of course, but by the notion that this was Nate's revelation.
"Are you asking my advice, Nate?"
Not really. If you have some, I'll take it."
"No," said Stern, then added wickedly, "It may be expensive." Nate let the back of his hand drift out in space: no matter. He could afford it.
Stern found his jaw setting harshly, as if them had been a graft of iron. "Have you told Fiona?"
"Not exactly. I wanted you to know first."
"Me to know?"
"You," said Nate. He fiddled with the little ornaments on his desktop, an onyx-bladed letter opener, a matching paperweight; then, eventually, he folded his hands. "Sandy, I don't care," he said. "About what happened between you and Fiona."
"I see," said Stern.
"She told me."
"Apparently." He had his feet on the floor and his hands in his lap. So far, he was holding on better than he might have expected.
"I found a piece of your mail in the john off our bedroom a couple weeks ago. We ended up having it out then."
"My mail?" asked Stern, but he realized then what Nate meant: Marta's note, the one Stern had carried out of the house that night. He had been looking for the letter just the other day, having been unable to reach Marta by phone and wondering when she was due to arrive.
"As I said," said Nate. "I don't care. I really don't. It sounds a little b'tzarre to say I don't care, but I don't."
"Very well."
"You slept with Fiona, so you slept with her." Nate threw up his hands magnanimously.
Stern found that he had hold of both arms of the chair, his fingers gripped down to the studs; perhaps he feared that the furniture was going to fly. Slept with his wife! What had she done? Fiona's killer instinct, he saw, had taken her far from the facts. Did she think that, by setting them even, she could get a new start with Nate? No, Stern decided, probably not. Fiona had just hunkered down, abandoned all caution, and taken her greatest pleasure-retribution: I want to see the look on the dirty bastard's face.
"Am I to respond?". he asked eventually.
"You don't have to."
"Because, to say the least, Nate, you have not received an accurate portrayal." Stern stopped then, recognizing his dilemma. What were his lines? 'It is not true, Nate, that I fucked your wife. I only attempted to do so." That would not be an especially stirring defense.
Nor, for that matter, did Nate seem to believe him.
"Listen, Sandy, that's not the point of this."
What was the point? Stern studied Nate, who did not quite have the fortitude to look back. He had always taken Nate as a person of little malice-a healer, a caring type, with that easy, quiet manner that many women took for masculine gentleness. All in all, in spite of Stern's moments of dizzy rage, those judgments held. Nate had no real will to do injury. Instead, he muddled about, full-of warm feelings and covert impulse, inadvertently knocking over lives like plates in a china closet. He had grown up in Wyoming and had come to the big city as a medical student. At times, he still liked to play the befuddled cowboy.
Over the years, Stern had decided that pose concealed laziness, sloth, a weakness of spirit. That was why'he so easily surrendered to female temptation or, more pertinently, maintained his unsatisfying life with Fiona. The same remained true now.
He clearly savored the sheer ease of the solution Fiona's supposed confession presented: You've screwed my wife, and I don't care. Now take her off my hands and let us go on in peace. The matter of Clara was far from his mind-a secret he took to be entombed and thus forgotten. He dealt merely with the present. Fiona could be dismissed and cared for in a single stroke, and at a cheaper price. He would dust off his hands and move on.
Assessing all of this, Stern, amazingly, felt at considerable advantage.
Not so much with the facts. That Fiona was lying was almost beside the point, She'd said what she'd said. Go disprove it. But he was much better equipped than Nate to deal with a circumstance of this sort. He saw suddenly, decisively, how this would play out, and knew that Nate, whatever his plans, was about to be badly outflanked. He told him so directly.
"I believe, Nate, you have miscalculated."
Nate pulled a face. He was going to deny any cunning, but thought twice of that and Said nothing at all.
"Were I you, Nate, I would proceed to divorce court with caution."
Nate stiffened. Clearly, he had more here than he had bargained for. He flipped hand again, as he had before.
"Sandy, I- Listen, this isn't a holdup. Or whatever. you think. Don't take it that way."
"No, of course not," said Stern. "I know you would not mean to threaten me. Nor I you."
"You?" asked Nate.
"I," said Stern. "But let me offer a word of warning, nonetheless. Do not, Nate, attempt to involve me in your bloodbath with Fiona. Do not dare. After all, we both know, I am not a witness to your good character or your veracity." Nate wound his head about as if he'd been kicked. "Jesus," he said.
"If I am placed under oath, Nate, I shall speak truthfully about all matters. Including those most painful to me. Do not think that pride will prevent me from disclosing the manner in which you and Clara deceived me."
Nate for an instant was absolutely still, his mouth open in a small dark o. Then he took his hand and covered his eyes.
He heaved a bit.
"Look." Nate eyed his desktop, considered his thumb.
"Look," he said again.
"Yes?" said Stern. He had known, instinctively, that Nate would be "As as chosen to speak plainly, Nate, let me do the same: there is a large check which I believe you owe Clara's estate." Nothing-no scruple, no sense of taste, not even the recollection of his own discomfort-could dull Stern's delight in this moment. With a whetted look of absolute malice, he considered Nate, who sat back in his tall chair, his sparse hair in disarray from the sudden pulling at his face and scalp, looking overwhelmed, sorely confounded, scared.
"I was afraid you were going to say that," said Nate. "I have a lawyer looking into this matter."
"I was afraid of that, too."
Stern nodded. He finally understood Nate's plan. He'd held the check, not merely to hide it from Fiona's future attorney, but from Cal now. He wanted to see if the coast was clear or if he'd been discovered.
"I would suggest you do the same, and have the attorneys make contact," said Stern.
Nate absorbed that in silence, but finally looked at Stern.
"I knew you'd find out eventually," said Nate. "I've eaten myself up alive about this whole thing. You may not believe that, but I have.
Really. It's on my mind every day. I know you probably think I'm responsible for what she did. At the end."' "I do not blame you solely, Nate. I offer you that solace.
I am sure that the ultimate denouement was a shock to you as well. But I bear you heavy resentment, notwithstanding.
Clara's choice to take a lover was, of course, her own. But as a doctor, Nate, particularly one experienced with this sort of' '-Stern waited, then fastened something down in himself and pushed on-"this sort of sexually transmitted disease and its course, I would certainly have expected you to have exercised greater care. And I take it from what I see that you were eutirely indifferent to Clara's needs at the end."
"You think I mistreated her?"
"How else am I to feel?"
With an unhappy look, slumped in his chair, Nate nodded, mostly to himself.
"Not to mention the fact that you abused me, Nate, and our friendship.
You lied to me. Quite boldly."
Natc again closed his eyes, then licked his lips so he could speak.
"I was afraid of what you would do when you found out. I admit that.
But I want you to know something-I followed her lead. At all times. I did what she wanted."
Cornered, cowod, Nate took a coward's msp0nse. He blamed Clara. He was too weak-perhaps to focus upon the sheer nasty bite of these words. But this meanness, intended or not, hit Stern like a blow. Yes, of course.
This was the rebuke he had coming: she liked it. For an instant, he was 'close to responding with gutter obscenities. Even when he recovered, his accent, to his own ear, suddenly seethed peculiarly distinct.
"Nate, you are a scoundrel."
"Jesus," Nate said again.
Stern resumed his feet. This confrontation, long imagined, like so much else, seemed far more difficult in actuality than in prospect. He had no wish to prolong it. But Nate's comment still left a wake of ruthless emotion.
"One last word, Nate," said Stern. "A piece of friendly advice." Nate, who, all in all, looked thoroughly wrecked by this conversation, sat up on alert: he knew something else was coming. And he was certainly correct, for 'Stern had had a flash of the insight that for three decades had 'saved his life in the courtroom, some adrenalizexl ability of the synapses to suddenly connect, no more explicable than the gift of tongues or flight. "I suggest you fire your nurse before you head off for divorce court. Fiona has some damaging evidence, and the cross-examination will be even nastier if that young woman remains on your payroll."
The nurse was there, fiddling with some charts, when Stern threw open the office door. She had taken a message from his office and handed Stern the slip. He did not bother examining it now. He was in a courtrom mode, playing for appearance, knowing his behavior would be carefully recounted. He looked her up and down, just like that, an entire once-over, which she took in almost innocently, with the same uncertain smile, the same unruffled bland beauty.
Then he showed himseft out, having decided, with liona's videotape well in mind, that the young woman belonged to that small class of human beings who look worse with their clothes on.