The Quiet Game (20 page)

They hoot and run after us. This is exactly what they wanted. I admire Caitlin's courage, but she is writing verbal checks that I might have to cash with blood. In seconds the four of them have formed a line between us and the parking lot.

“She's a bitch,” says the one with the slurry voice. “But she's a fine bitch.” He jabs a finger toward Caitlin's crotch. “I'd sure like to get in those pants.”

“I already have one asshole in my pants,” she retorts in a voice like a saber's edge. “Why would I want another?”

The roughneck blinks, thrown off balance by the ricochet comeback. But
Spurling has his Academy Award–winning line ready. “How about sitting on my face when you say that?”

“If I thought you'd know what to do once I sat down, I might.”

Spurling sticks out his tongue and flicks it up and down like a snake. He's trying to force me to throw a punch, which I do not especially want to do, considering the odds. Chivalry is a wonderful concept, but just now it doesn't seem the most prudent of options.

Spurling is still wiggling his tongue when Caitlin pops him across the mouth with a closed fist. He's more surprised than hurt, but he must have bitten his tongue, because he's spitting blood on the concrete.

“You thucking cunt!”
he gurgles.

“Let's all take it easy!” I say, holding up my hands. “We were minding our business, walking along a public street—”

“Nobody wants you on this fucking street!” yells the one with the Jack Daniel's bottle. “Go back to Beverly Hills or wherever the fuck you live. We gotta make a living here, unlike you.”

A few club patrons have noticed our exchange and are moving toward us, but they don't look like ready sources of aid. I take Caitlin's arm, spin her around, and walk her toward the BMW. She hisses something indignant, but I'm not listening to her. I'm listening for the scuff of boots on gravel.

Soon enough, I hear it.

I shove her to my right and dart left, feeling a breeze as the whiskey bottle arcs through the space my head occupied a split second ago and smashes on the gravel of the parking lot. Guessing that someone will follow the bottle forward, I whirl and throw a blind punch.

Luck is always better than skill. I hear bone crack, or maybe nasal cartilage, then a strangled scream of agony as someone hits the gravel. Throwing the car keys at Caitlin, I yell, “The black BMW!” then whirl to face the other three, who jump me simultaneously.

We're wrestling more than fighting, but once they get me on the ground, they'll remove my teeth two at a time.

“She bit me!”
someone screams.
“She bit my fucking ear off!”

I would probably laugh had not serious blows begun landing on my skull. My thoughts instantly evaporate into survival instinct as I cover my head and try to keep my feet.

A wallop to my right temple obliterates my sense of balance, and I drop to my knees, glimpsing the silver toe cap of a boot just before it savages my ribs. Another head blow puts me on my back, and the fists come down in a steady hail. I see white flashes of light, and my ears are roaring. You hope you black out at a time like this, but I'm not that lucky. Every fist feels like I walked into a steel pole.

Suddenly a new sound breaks through the fog in my jiggling brain. A brief, percussive
pock
. Again:
pock-pock
. At first I think it's the sound of something hitting my skull, but no one is hitting me anymore, yet the sound goes on.
Pock! Pock-pock!

Rolling onto my side, I see three men cowering against a brick wall. A large uniformed man stands over them, hammering them mercilessly with a stick.

Deputy Ike Ransom.

Ike the Spike is beating Spurling and his redneck posse like willful dogs, his baton cracking shins, shoulders, elbows, and skulls with surgical precision. The flashing lights I saw must have been the arrival of his squad car.

“Penn? Penn, can you hear me?”

It's Caitlin. Soft hands try to pull me to my feet, but they haven't the strength to lift my frame.

“Count to five!” she orders, her voice electrified by fear.

“Is that what they teach you at Radcliffe?” I croak, wobbling to my feet. “I'm surprised you're not over there screaming about police brutality.”

“Screw them. They need to learn some respect for women.”

Two roughnecks have fallen facedown, but Ike shows no inclination to stop what he's doing. Spurling makes the mistake of lunging at the deputy and screaming “nigger,” which earns him a sweeping baseball-style lick that lays him out flat on the ground.

“Ike!”
I yell.
“Stop it, man!”

Caitlin and I run toward him, but I'm not about to try to grab his baton. In his present state he might not be able to distinguish between white faces quickly enough to spare me a concussion. Caitlin isn't so timid. She steps between Ike and his targets and holds up both hands, creating a sight arresting enough to paralyze the deputy. Ike lowers his baton and turns to me, his eyes filled with sweat.

“You'd best get out of here quick. Police won't be long.”

Now isn't the time for extended thank-yous. I take Caitlin's arm and hobble toward the driver's door of the BMW.

“You're not driving,” she says. “Give me the keys.”

“I'm fine.”

“You took at least ten blows to the head. Your nose is bleeding. I'm driving you to the hospital.”

“My father can check me out when I get home. Get in the car!”

She scrambles over the driver's seat to the other side. I crank the car and pull slowly out of the lot. Ike's cruiser is already gone.

One circuit of the block takes me to Caitlin's green Miata, and I park in the street beside it. Double-parking is an old Natchez tradition.

“I can't believe you bit that guy,” I tell her, rubbing the back of my skull. “You fight more like a bar girl from Breaux Bridge than a blueblood from Boston.”

“When in Rome, right?” She slaps her thighs and yells, “
Whoooooo,
what a rush! That's the most fun I've had with my clothes on in a long time.”

“Yeah, loads of fun,” I mutter, but her excitement is contagious. Her face is flushed like a sprinter's, and her breath comes in short gasps.

“I assume that deputy was a friend of yours?”

“I'd say he's a friend of ours.” I give her a hard look. “We still have a deal, right? No story about that little altercation in tomorrow's paper?”

“Absolutely. No story.” She pokes me in the shoulder. “I told you I could hold my own.”

“I'm afraid that was just the first round. It'll get a lot worse.”

Her smile doesn't waver. “We can handle it.” She gets out of the car and closes the door, then leans into the open passenger window. “Would you be furious if I asked a personal question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you thought much about our kiss since last night?”

I'm glad for the dark. The black veil of her hair gleams in the window, framing her porcelain face, setting off her lips and eyes.

“Please tell me to drop dead if I'm out of line,” she says quickly. “It's just . . . I've been thinking about it. It literally curled my toes. And I wanted you to know that.”

A pulse of pure pleasure spreads outward from my heart. How do I answer?
Yes, I've thought about it a hundred times, in a way that's not even thought but a constant awareness of how your mouth opened to mine, the coolness and knowingness of it—

“Would you like to go to Colorado with me tomorrow?”

She opens her mouth but makes no sound.

“I'm flying up to talk to the lead FBI agent on the Del Payton case in 1968. But part of your job will be baby-sitting Annie. She's coming along.”

Caitlin is shaking her head in confusion. “Is this trip business or pleasure? Or a baby-sitting job?”

“I'm sorry—I didn't put that very well. It's business, but I'm taking Annie along for her safety, and we have a stop to make on the way. A place I can't take her.”

“Where?”

“Huntsville, Texas. The Hanratty execution.”

Her eyes go wide. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. You can be there when I interview the agent, but I need you to stay at the hotel with Annie during the execution.”

“The hottest ticket in journalism this week, and I'm going to be baby-sitting?”

“They wouldn't let you in the witness room anyway. It's your call.”

She purses her lips in thought. “I'm still not sure how to think of this. Do you
want
me to come?”

“Very much.”

“Then I will. But what if Annie won't stay in the hotel without you there?”

“Then I'll skip the execution. I don't really want to see it anyway.”

“She'll be fine with me. We got along great on the plane. Hey, what's this FBI agent's name?”

Caitlin's mention of that flight makes me remember her deception about her identity, and this makes me hesitant to confide Stone's name. I wipe my bloody nose on my shirtsleeve and look through the windshield.

“Penn, I could have the guy's life story before we ever talk to him.”

She has a point. “Dwight Stone. Crested Butte, Colorado.”

“That wasn't so hard, was it?” Her eyes are almost mocking, but they hold more understanding than I have seen in a long time.

“The answer to your earlier question is yes. I've thought about it since last night.”

A serene smile lights Caitlin's face.

“And I'd like to kiss you again.”

Her smile broadens.

“May I?”

She leans through the window and across the passenger seat, her eyes not closed like last night but open, inviting me into them. Our lips touch, and a perfect echo of the warmth I felt last night rolls through me. This kiss is passionate but more intimate, the crossing of another boundary together. She pulls back and peers into my eyes, then closes hers and kisses me once more.

When she pulls away this time, she has a Charlie Chaplin mustache.

“You've got blood on your lip.”

“My first war wound,” she laughs. “It'll wash off. What time do we leave?”

“Seven-thirty for the drive to Baton Rouge Airport.”

She touches her forefinger to my nose, then pulls back through the window. “Pick me up at the paper. I'll be ready.”

The trip to Baton Rouge airport takes eighty minutes, just enough time for Annie to adopt Caitlin as a big sister. Caitlin seems to know every TV character Annie does, outlandish names I can never keep up with but which Caitlin rattles off like the names of old friends. When I asked my mother if she thought Annie was ready for a trip to Colorado with Caitlin and me, she said, “Annie's ready. Just make sure you are.” When I asked what this meant, she gave me one of her looks and said, “Am I wrong, or is this the first extended time you've spent with a woman since Sarah died?” I told her she wasn't wrong. “Just don't rush it,” she advised. “Even chitlins smell good to a starving man.” Caitlin Masters is a long way from chitterlings, but there's no point in trying to explain this to my mother.

The short-term parking lot is easy walking distance from the Baton Rouge terminal. I carry the suitcases, Caitlin the carry-ons, and Annie her pink backpack. We check our bags at the door and go straight to our gate, only to find that our plane, which is parked at the gate, is running twenty minutes behind schedule. As irate passengers begin to deplane, Annie announces that she has to tee-tee, and Caitlin escorts her off to the ladies' room. I'm absently watching the gate when Olivia Marston walks through it.

I know it's Livy because of the sudden tightness in my chest. Also because the plane just flew in from Atlanta, her home for the past thirteen years. As soon as she clears the gate, she steps out of line and starts past the other passengers, not rushing but somehow overtaking businessmen who have five inches on her. Southern belles are notorious for traveling heavy; Livy travels light. Yet the single overhead-sized suitcase rolling behind her will contain a color-coordinated ensemble versatile enough to get her through every social event from a luau to a formal ball.

A belle by birth, Livy matured into something altogether different. The beauty of belles is a soft beauty: pliant curves and shapely baby fat. Livy is leaner, with enough sculpted cheekbone to separate her utterly from the peach-skinned debutantes who fill the ranks of the Junior League below the
Mason-Dixon line. Her eyes are a deep and brilliant blue, and the tailored jacket and skirt she's wearing bring out their color just as she intended.

Her name is actually Livy Sutter now, but I live in such denial about her marriage that the name Sutter never really registered. I remember it only on those rare occasions when I pass through Atlanta on business and in the tipsy midnight of a lonely hotel room pick up the phone book and flirt with the idea of calling. Of course, I never have.
Oh, John, that was Penn Cage, the writer. He's an old friend from Natchez. . . .
I'd rather die than be another “old friend” of Livy Marston's. Have good old John think of me with pity, knowing that every heterosexual man who ever met his wife fell in love with her to some degree. As far afield as Montreal and Los Angeles, I've had lawyers—upon learning that I'm originally from Natchez—come alive with questions about the fantastic Livy Sutter. Do I know her? Isn't she remarkable? Unique? Different somehow? That was certainly the opinion of the Pulitzer prize–winning writer-in-residence who made a fool of himself (in his sixties, no less) and ruined his marriage over Livy when she was a junior at UVA.

Twenty yards away from me, Livy slows and pans the concourse. She has her father's survival instincts. Her eyes pass over me, then return.

“Penn Cage,” she says, without the slightest doubt that it's me.

“Hello, Livy.”

She walks toward me with a smile that cuts right through resentment and regret. Her hair is the color of winter wheat in summer and just touches her shoulders, looking much as it did during high school. The last time I saw her (at Sarah's funeral) she had a short, severe, lady-lawyer cut. She must have been growing it out ever since. I like it much better this way. Probably because it fits the images that haunt my dreams.

“My God, what happened to you?” she asks.

For a moment I'm confused, but it's the bruises she's noticed. Last night's altercation left me looking quite a bit worse for wear.

“I ran into the welcome wagon.”

She shakes her head as though this is about what she would expect from me, then leans forward. Livy is a big hugger, but I have never submitted to this. Her hugs somehow put you at a remove even as they seem to pull you in. Remembering my aversion, she drops one hand and squeezes my wrist with an intimate pressure, her eyes already working their subversive spell upon me, blurring my critical faculties, creating a juvenile desire in me to please her, to make those blue eyes shine.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I'm on my way home. To Natchez, I mean. My mother's having health problems. Dad's been after me to come visit, so when he called this time, I decided to spend a few days with them.”

Her health was good enough to toss a drink in my face two nights ago,
I think. Maybe “health” is a euphemism for alcoholism. If they intend to try an intervention with Maude, I don't want to be within a hundred miles of it. In fact, I'd recommend Kevlar body armor to the participants.

“What about you?” Livy asks.

“I'm on my way to Huntsville Prison.”

“Oh, God, the Hanratty thing. It's all over the news. Midnight tonight, right? Are you required to be there?”

“No. The victim's family wants me there.”

She shakes her head. “You always were one for duty.” In a lighter voice she says, “I still see your books in all the airports. And it still makes me jealous.”

“Come on.”

“I mean it. I make great money, but I'm compromising every day for it. You're living the life you always talked about.”

“You talked about that kind of life too.”

She blushes, but before she can reply Annie is tugging my trouser leg. I reach down and scoop her into my arms. “Hey, punkin! You remember Miss Livy?”

Annie solemnly moves her head from side to side. I was stupid to think she'd remember anyone from the funeral.

“My hair was shorter then,” Livy tells her. Like Caitlin, she makes no attempt to talk baby talk. “I sure remember
you
, Anna Louise.”

I can't believe she remembers Annie's full name. The female memory defies explanation.

Suddenly something brushes my shoulder. It's Caitlin, holding out her hand to Livy.

“Caitlin Masters,” she says, cutting her eyes at me as she gives Livy a professional smile.

“I'm sorry,” I apologize, far too late.

“Liv Sutter,” Livy says, giving Caitlin's hand a firm shake.

Liv
Sutter. Another thing I'd forgotten: Livy's name metamorphosed as she progressed through life. She wasn't like a Matt who suddenly insisted on being called Matthew to be taken more seriously. Her name actually got shorter with each incarnation: “Olivia” in grade school; “Livy” in high school; and just plain “Liv” in college and law school. And there was never any question of people not taking her seriously—Livy Marston Sutter is as serious as a garrote.

“You two obviously know each other,” says Caitlin.

“Oh, we go way back,” Livy explains, laughing. “Too far back to think about.”

“We only go back a couple of days,” Caitlin replies. “But we're looking forward to Colorado.”

There's nothing quite like the meeting of two beautiful women of the same class. I would never have guessed that Caitlin had a catty side. Livy is ten years older but gives up nothing in any department. The friction is automatic.

“How's John?” I ask as Livy studies me with new interest. “Her husband,” I add for Caitlin's benefit.

“We're separated. Six weeks now.”

So, Sam Jacobs's gossip was accurate. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I should have gotten out of it five years ago.”

This bombshell leaves me tingling with a sense of unreality. We all stand around feeling awkward until Caitlin takes Annie from my arms, points at the broad picture window, and says, “Let's go look at those big airplanes!”

They're quickly swallowed by the crowd, but not before Caitlin gives me a reproving look over her shoulder.

“Who was that?” Livy asks.

“The new publisher of the
Examiner
.”

“You're kidding.”

“Her father owns the chain.”

“Ah.” Livy feels comfortably superior again. “Nepotism run amok. She doesn't seem your type.”

And what's my type? Dead saints and ghosts from my youth?
“I think my type is changing. Rich heiresses seem like a good place to start.”

Livy gives me a look intended to make me feel guilty, but we share too much history for me to be taken in by that.

“How long will you be in Colorado?”

“A couple of days.”

“Call me when you get back. We should get together and talk.”

We should?
“Why don't you call me? Then I can skip speaking to your father.”

She lets this pass. “I will. Wait and see.”

“I'd better find Annie. We'll be boarding soon.”

She reaches out and takes my hand. “It's strange, isn't it?”

“What?”

“Twenty years after high school, and suddenly we're both free.”

I can't believe she said it. Gave voice to something I would not even allow myself to think. “There's a difference, Livy. I didn't want to be free.”

She pales, but quickly recovers and squeezes my hand. “I know you didn't. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put it that way.”

I take back my hand. “I know. I'm sorry too. I've got to run.”

I turn to go in search of Annie and Caitlin, but after ten steps I stop and look back. I don't want to. I have to.

Livy hasn't moved. She's looking right at me with a provocative expression of both regret and hope. She holds up her right hand in farewell, then turns and disappears into the crowd.

“Daddy, was that lady a movie star?”

Annie and Caitlin have reappeared at my side.

“No, punkin. Just someone I went to school with.”

“She looks like somebody on TV.”

She probably does. Livy is a living archetype of American good looks: not a Mary Tyler Moore but a warmer, more accessible Grace Kelly. A
Southern
Grace Kelly.

“
I
didn't think she looked like a movie star,” Caitlin announces.

“What do you think she looks like?” I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer.

“A self-important B-I-T-C-H.”

“Hey,” Annie complains. “What's that spell?”

“Witch,”
says Caitlin, tickling her under the arms, which triggers explosive giggles. “The Masters intuition never fails,” she adds, looking up at me. “You've got it bad for her, don't you?”

“What? Hell, no.”

“Daddy said a bad word!” Annie cries.

“Daddy told a fib,” says Caitlin. “And that's worse.”

“I think I need a drink.”

The ticket agent announces that first class will begin boarding immediately.

“First love?” Caitlin asks in a casual voice as we move through the mass of passengers funneling toward the gate.

“It's a long story.”

She nods, her eyes knowing. “If short stuff here goes to sleep on the plane, that's a story I wouldn't mind hearing.”

Perfect.

 

Airplanes work like a sedative on Annie. After drinking a Sprite and eating a bag of honey-roasted peanuts, she curls up next to Caitlin and zonks out. At Caitlin's suggestion, I move her across the aisle to my seat and, when she begins to snore again, move back across the aisle beside Caitlin.

“You're going to make me drag it out of you?” she says.

I say nothing for a moment. Certain relationships do not lend themselves
to conversational description. Emotions are by nature amorphous. When confined to words, our longings and passions, our rebellions and humiliations often seem melodramatic, trivial, or even pathetic. But if Caitlin is going to help me destroy Leo Marston, she needs to know the history.

“Every high school class has a Livy Marston,” I begin. “But Livy was special. Everyone who ever met her knew that.”

“Marston? She said her name was Sutter.”

“Her maiden name was Marston.”

“Marston . . .
Marston
. The guy you asked me to check out? The D.A. when Payton was killed? Judge Marston?”

“He's Livy's father.”

“God, it's so incestuous down here.”

“Like Boston?”

“Worse.”

Caitlin calls the flight attendant and orders a gimlet, but this is beyond the resources of the galley. There seems to be a nationwide shortage of Rose's Lime Juice. She orders a martini instead.

“So,” she says, “what made her so special?”

“How many people were in your graduating class?”

“About three hundred.”

“Mine had thirty-two. And most of those had been together since nursery school. It was like an extended family. We watched each other grow up for fourteen years. And those thirty-two people did some extraordinary things.”

“Such as?”

“Well, there's high school, and then there's life. Out of thirty-two people we had six doctors, ten lawyers, a photographer who won the Pulitzer last year—”

“And you,” she finishes. “Best-selling novelist and legal eagle.”

“Every class thinks it's special, of course. But in a town as small as Natchez, and a school as small as St. Stephens, you have to have something like a genetic accident to get a class like ours. Our football team had eighteen people on it. Everyone played both ways. And we were ranked in the top ten in the state in the rankings of public schools. That's ranked against schools like yours, with seventy players on the squad. Our baseball team was the first single-A team in the history of Mississippi to win the overall state title.”