Dreams Die First (8 page)

His face was devoid of expression. “Mr. Lonergan is in the library. Your mother will be down in a minute.”

That was par for the course. Eight o’clock sharp meant that mother would be ready by eight thirty.

Lonergan was standing at the library window with a drink in his hand, looking out at the lighted swimming pool and tennis court.

“May I serve you a drink, sir?” the butler asked, as Lonergan turned toward me.

“What are you drinking?” I asked Lonergan.

“Dry martini.”

“I’ll have the same.”

“The house is just as beautiful as the day you moved in. Do you remember that, Gareth?”

“I don’t think so. After all, I was only about a year old at the time.”

The butler vanished after handing me the drink. I took a sip and it exploded in my stomach. Too late I remembered that I couldn’t handle martinis. I put the drink down carefully.

Lonergan studied me. “I had forgotten. Time moves too quickly sometimes.”

I didn’t answer.

“You look different,” he said.

“It’s the threads. Mother wanted me to show up straight.”

“You ought to wear them more often. You look good.”

“Thank you.” I went to the bar and fixed myself a scotch and water. “Martinis are too much for me,” I said.

He smiled. “One before dinner gives me an appetite.” He came and sat down on one of the couches. “Don’t you miss living here?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It’s a ghetto.”

“Ghetto?”

I sat down on the couch opposite him, the cocktail table between us. “The walls outside separate this place from the rest of the world. It may be rich, but it’s still a ghetto. Only the people here don’t want to get out.”

“I never thought of it like that,” he said. He took another sip of his martini. “I don’t like your paper. I’m withdrawing my advertising,” he said in the same conversational tone.

“You do and I’ll sue your ass off,” I said quietly. “We have a firm contract.”

“It’s an immoral paper. Pictures of naked girls and articles dealing with explicit sex. There isn’t a court in the land that would uphold that contract if I showed them a copy of the paper.”

I laughed. “I don’t advise you to try it. You have too many business interests that can’t stand examination. At least not on the basis of morality.”

“You mean that?”

I met his eyes. “You better believe it. You were the one who pushed me into this paper. What did you expect me to do? Follow Persky’s footsteps into bankruptcy? I went into this to make money, not to act as a Chinese laundry, giving you silk shirts for cotton.”

“How many copies did you put out?”

“Fifty thousand. That’s thirty-five more than Persky ever got out before. With a circulation like that, you’ll buy two more pages if you’re smart. Based on those figures, there’s no question in my mind that you can justify it.”

“How do you know they’ll stick?”

“They’ll stick. Ronzi’s nobody’s fool. He’s pulled out all the stops on this one.”

“Ronzi’s Mafia,” he said disapprovingly.

“So?”

“You don’t want to get involved with people like that.”

I laughed. “He warned me about people like you.”

We heard Mother’s footsteps coming down the staircase. “Come to my office Monday. We’ll talk about it then,” he said.

“There’s nothing to talk about. Besides, I’m busy. I’ve got the next issue to get out.”

We rose to our feet as Mother came in the room. I had to admit that she was quite something. At fifty-two, she didn’t look a day over thirty-five. Her face was tanned and unlined, her hair as blond as it had been when I was a kid, and her body lithe from the tennis she played every day. She came toward me and turned a cheek to be kissed.

“You look thin,” she said.

She could do it every time. Suddenly I was fifteen years old again. All arms and legs and no tongue.

She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Don’t you think he looks thin, John?”

A faint smile curved his lips. “I wouldn’t worry about him if I were you,” he said dryly. “He seems quite capable of taking care of himself.”

“He knows nothing about proper diet. I’ll bet he hasn’t eaten a green salad in months. Have you?”

“I didn’t know green salads were fattening.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Gareth. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“Mother,” I said sharply.

A sudden nervous tremor came into her voice. “What?”

I swallowed my irritation, realizing that it was as difficult for her to communicate with me as it was for me to reach her. There was no mutual ground on which we could walk. Sad. Down deep sad. I kept my voice light. “You look beautiful, Mother.”

She smiled. “Do you mean that?”

“You know I do.”

This was safe ground. Her ground. Her voice relaxed. “I have to. Youth is such a cult these days.”

Not with the young, I thought to myself. “Let me fix you a drink,” I said.

“I’ll have a glass of white wine. Less calories.”

I went around behind the bar and was taking the wine from the refrigerator when the doorbell chimed. I opened the bottle and looked quizzically at my mother. I had thought there were just going to be the three of us.

My mother read the question in my eyes. “I thought it would be nice if we had just one more person. To balance the table. A girl,” she said, taking the glass I offered her. “You remember her. Eileen Sheridan. She was really quite fond of your father.”

This was no time to argue, but I remembered that Eileen had still had braces on her teeth when my father died. Mother greeted her at the door of the library. Eileen had changed since I’d seen her last. A lot.

She held out her hand to me across the bar and smiled. Her teeth were California white and even. “Hello, Gareth. Nice to see you again.”

“Eileen,” I said. Her hand had the Bel Air touch—a cross between the effusiveness of the Beverly Hills girls and the limp politeness of the girls from Holmby Hills. Sincere, polite, cool warmth, I thought. “What are you drinking?”

“What are you drinking?” she asked. Right on. Find out what’s going in the establishment. Don’t make waves. Then I reminded myself that I’d done the same thing a few minutes before.

“I’m on scotch; Uncle John’s into dry martinis; Mother’s having low-cal white wine.”

“I’ll go along with the low-cal.”

There was a pause. “That’s a beautiful Rolls you have out there,” she continued, making conversation.

“Rolls? What Rolls?” Mother was annoyed. “You didn’t tell me you had a Rolls.”

“You asked me to wear a tie, Mother,” I said. “How would it look if I thumb-tripped my way up here?”

“If it’s not your car, whose is it?” My mother was not to be put off. Rich friends were okay.

“A friend’s.”

“That Mexican girl that answered your phone this morning?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, Mother.” I laughed. “She’s got a beat-up old Valiant that would never get past the guards at the main gate.”

“You don’t want to tell me,” she accused.

“Okay, Mother. If you really want to know, it belongs to a boy who’s living with me. He wants to be my slave.”

She didn’t have a clue to what I was talking about. “Slave?”

“Yes. You know, cook, clean, everything.”

“And he has a Rolls-Royce? Where did he get it?”

“He also has a rich father.”

The light suddenly dawned. “Is he—uh?”

I supplied the word for her. “Homosexual? Yes, Mother, he’s gay.”

She stared at me, her glass of wine frozen halfway to her lips.

“Dinner is served,” the butler announced from the doorway.

I smiled at my mother. “Shall we dine?”

Silently we went into the dining room. Mother had pulled out all the stops—the gold flatware, the Coalport china and the Baccarat crystal. The candles were glowing in the tall candelabra, the bases of which were covered with flowers.

“The table is just beautiful, Mrs. Brendan,” Eileen said.

“Thank you,” Mother answered absently. We didn’t exchange another word until the butler had placed the salad in front of us and left the room. Then Mother broke the silence. “I don’t understand you, Gareth. How can you do such a thing?”

“I’m not doing anything, Mother. All I said was that he is living with me.”

Mother stood up suddenly. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Margaret!” My uncle’s voice was sharp. “Sit down.”

She stared at him for a moment, then sank back into her chair.

“You invited him for a quiet family dinner,” Uncle John said mildly. “And you’ve been on his back from the moment he came in the door.”

“But—but, John.”

Uncle John didn’t let her continue. “Now we’re going to have a nice quiet dinner just as you said. And if you need any testimonials to your son’s manhood, let me tell you that he is more of a man than his father ever was.”

“May his soul rest in peace,” I said, putting on a slight brogue. I turned to Eileen. “It’s really been nice seeing you again.” Then I got to my feet. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Uncle John, but it doesn’t help. I don’t belong here and I haven’t for a long time. I’m sorry, Mother.”

Uncle John caught up with me at the front door. “Gareth, don’t be a child.”

My voice was bitter. “I’m not being a child. A child would sit there and take that shit.”

His voice was patient. “She’s upset. You know how important this dinner is to her. Please come back to the table.”

I stared at him. I don’t think I had ever heard him say “please” before.

“Let it slide,” he said. “Being angry with her won’t make things better. For either of you.”

I nodded my head. He was right. I was acting like a child. Exactly the way I had always acted toward her. When it would get to be too much, I would go off and sulk. I went back to the table.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I said again and sat down.

We had the rest of the meal without further bloodshed.

CHAPTER 12

After dinner we went back into the library for coffee. The coffee was served in demitasse cups, and the cognac in preheated giant brandy snifters.

“Your father loved to have coffee in here,” Mother said. “He liked to sit on this couch and look out at the fountain and the lights in the pool.” Suddenly she began to cry.

Eileen put her arm around her shoulders. “You mustn’t cry, Mrs. Brendan,” she said. “It’s all in the past.”

“Not for me,” Mother said in a tight, almost angry voice. “Not until I know why he did this to me.”

“He didn’t do it to you, Mother,” I said. “He did it to himself.”

“I still don’t understand why he did it. All they wanted him to do was to answer some questions. The investigation afterward proved he had done nothing wrong.”

That was her opinion. But the facts were that the government recognized that they couldn’t put a corpse in jail. So they wrapped up the case and put it away. I looked at my uncle. His face was impassive.

“Maybe you could explain it to her, Uncle John,” I said.

“I already have. I told your mother that he was a fool. There was nothing they could do to him.”

I didn’t believe that and neither did he. He had one story for me and another for my mother. “Then what was he afraid of?” I asked. “He couldn’t be held responsible for the collapse of that school building.”

My uncle’s voice was expressionless. “Perhaps he was afraid that the politicians would lay the blame on him for their negligence in not placing stricter quality controls in their contracts.”

“Could it be that someone got to the politicians and made them ease up?” I asked.

His eyes were unblinking. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Uncle John is right,” I said. “Father lived up to the contract. If the contract wasn’t good, he was not to blame. But unfortunately, Father couldn’t convince himself of that. He knew the specs were substandard. So he did what he did and the only thing you can do is accept it. Once you do that, you can put it away and go back to living a normal life.”

“There’s no such thing as a normal life for me,” she said.

“Don’t give me that crap, Mother,” I said. “You haven’t stopped playing tennis, have you?”

Her eyes dropped. She knew what I meant. She had a thing for tennis pros and I knew that several of them had serviced her with more than just tennis balls.

“Have you ever thought about getting married again, Mother?” I asked.

“Who would want to marry an old woman like me?”

I laughed. “You’re not old and you know it. Besides, you’re a beautiful lady and you’ve got a few million in the bank. It’s an unbeatable combination. All you have to do is loosen up a little and stop dropping ice cubes if some guy wants to make it with you.”

She was torn, liking the flattery but wanting to assume the proper attitude. “Gareth, try to remember that you’re talking to your mother.”

“I remember, Mother.” I laughed. “And since I’m not the product of an immaculate conception, I want to remind you that it’s still fun.”

She shook her head. “There’s no talking to you, is there? Isn’t there anything you respect, Gareth?”

“No, Mother. Not anymore. There was a time I used to believe in a lot of things. Honesty, decency, goodness. But if you get dumped on enough, you get cured. I’ve been dumped on enough.”

“Then what is it you’re looking for?”

“I want to be rich. Not just simple rich like Father was, not even rich rich like Uncle John, but superrich. When you’re superrich, you’ve got the world by the balls. Money buys everything—society, politicians, property, power. All you have to do is have the money to pay for it. And the irony is when you have the money, you don’t have to pay for anything. People tumble all over themselves to give it to you for free.”

“And you think this paper will do it for you?” Uncle John asked, with mild curiosity in his voice.

“No, Uncle John. But it’s a beginning.” I got to my feet. “It’s after ten, Mother,” I said. “I’ve got some work to do.”

“What kind of work?”

“The paper has been on the stands in Hollywood since this morning. I’d like to check and see how they’re doing.”

“I haven’t seen a copy of the paper. Would you send me one?”

“Of course.”

Uncle John cleared his throat. “I really don’t think you’d be interested in that sort of paper, Margaret.”