Hard Rain (38 page)

Bela's dry eyes regarded her without expression. Then he took Kate's photograph from her hand and stuck it in the corner of the silver frame. Jessie noticed that Leni had frizzy hair too, not much different from Kate's, or hers.

“I hate the fucking Russians,” Bela said.

He sat down in the easy chair and took out his book. “You like Verdi?” It was more a statement than a question.

“I don't know much about him.”

“I meant his music.”

Jessie's mind echoed faintly with the sounds of childhood Sunday mornings, when her father took control of the record player, but she couldn't sort them out. Bela was waiting for an answer. “I saw the film of
La Traviata
,” she said. “I liked it very much.”

“The film of
La Traviata?
” Bela's mouth pursed, as though he'd just tasted something bad. “Who was in it?”

“Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas.”

“Peh,” Bela said. “Who sang the father?”

“I don't remember.”

“Peh.” Bela opened the Verdi book, found his place and started reading. His eyes went back and forth; his wetted finger turned the pages.

Later, Jessie said, “Are you hungry?”

Bela didn't look up. “No.”

“I am.” It was true. She hadn't really felt hunger since the day Kate disappeared; all at once she was famished. She didn't want to look into the reasons too deeply. Sex lay at the bottom of it, and sex meant that life goes on, no matter what. That was the thought she would not accept.

Bela closed the book. “Okay. What do you want?”

“Let's just go across the street.”

“No. I'll go. You stay here. You don't let anyone in. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“No one in. No one out.”

“I've got it.”

“So. You got it. What do you want?”

Jessie almost said, “Nothing.” But she
was
hungry. “Scrambled eggs. Toast. Orange juice. Coffee. Bacon.”

“Bacon?”

“And maybe some kind of fish, if they've got it. Salmon or trout.”

“Scrambled eggs,” Bela said, rising. “Toast. Orange juice. Coffee. Bacon. Fish.” He looked up at her; he was an inch or two shorter. “That's the way Leni ate too. Like a man. But she didn't get fat.” He gave her a quick inspection. “You're not fat either.” It was a reluctant concession.

Jessie took a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet. “Here.”

Bela pushed it away. “I don't want your money,” he said, going to the door. “Lock it and use the chain.” He went out.

Jessie locked the door and slid the chain in place. Right away she wished she hadn't asked for so much food. What was Kate eating for breakfast? What had she eaten for the past twelve days? Jessie's appetite curdled inside her. She stood motionless in the middle of the room, paralyzed by her thoughts.

There was a knock at the door. Jessie went to answer it. She had one hand on the knob, the other on the chain, when she realized Bela couldn't possibly be back yet, unless he'd forgotten something. Like the key. She glanced quickly around the room, but didn't see it.

“Bela?” she called.

Silence. Then a voice, a cultured male voice, spoke. “Ms. Shapiro?”

Jessie was silent. She didn't recognize the voice. It certainly wasn't Mr. Mickey's or the real estate man's or the bag lady's strange high-low voice.

“Ms. Shapiro?” came the voice again. “I was told I could find you here.”

Why be silent? Whoever it was had heard her movements through the door. “By whom?” Jessie said.

“By my wife. Alice Frame.”

Jessie opened the door, but didn't unhook the chain. Outside stood a man in a down jacket and heavy tweed pants. “Senator Frame?” Jessie said.

He smiled. “You can call me Ed.”

Despite his casual turnout, he didn't seem like the kind of man she wanted to call Ed. He had well-barbered silver hair, manicured fingernails and a face that would have looked good on Mount Rushmore, or at least a postage stamp; now she recalled it from TV news reports and photographs beside newspaper stories she never read. She didn't call him anything. She just said, “I didn't tell your wife where I was staying.”

He smiled again. “Not exactly. But this is where everyone stays.” Jesse had never understood the phrase “practiced smile.” Now she did. “May I come in?” he said.

Jessie looked past him, to the restaurant across the road. Through the windows she saw featureless people sitting at tables, moving around; she couldn't tell which one was Bela.

“Or would you rather come out?” Senator Frame said. “I only want a few minutes of your time.”

U.S. senators were polite. They didn't hit people over the head with gasoline cans or kidnap them on unmarked yachts. Jessie unhooked the chain and opened the door. “Come in,” she said.

“Thank you,” he replied and having taught her “practiced smile” now demonstrated “courtly bow.” He glanced around the room. “Very nice,” he said. “I stayed here once—I mean in this very room.”

“When your son was at Morgan?”

The smile came again; Jessie wondered if it were something like a nervous tic, or perhaps the only facial expression a senator needed, like a pitcher with a good knuckleball. “No,” he said. “We had the cabin by then. This was for my tenth reunion. Nineteen fifty-three, it must have been. The next big one will be the fiftieth. I can hardly believe it.” The senator paused for a moment, as though contemplating the passage of time, and then said, “But I didn't come to bore you with reminiscence. My wife tells me you're married to an old acquaintance of my son.”

“I was. But …”

Senator Frame raised his eyebrows—prominent overhangs like snowy cliffs—and said, “Go on. I won't bite.”

“Your wife said she'd never heard of Pat.”

He spread his hands in an almost priestly gesture that spoke of compromise and forbearance. “Alice hasn't been herself lately. The business of the memorial has roused some old demons, I'm afraid.”

“So she did know Pat?”

“I wouldn't say ‘know.' Alice and I met him once or twice—if it's Pat Rodney we're speaking of.”

“We are.”

Senator Frame reached into his pocket. “I'd like to make sure.” He handed her a passport-sized photograph. Jessie felt his eyes on her as she examined it.

“That's Pat,” she said. A teenage Pat, his good looks incipient, his fair hair a few shades lighter then, not quite Sergeant Pepper length.

Senator Frame took back the picture, put it away. “Where do you and Pat live?”

“We're divorced. Both in the Los Angeles area.”

“Malibu?” he asked.

“No. I'm in Santa Monica, he's in Venice.”

“Ah,” he said. “The colorful names you've got out there.” He parted the curtains, looked out the window. The room seemed to make people do that, Jessie thought.

Senator Frame turned to her. “My wife says you're in some sort of trouble.”

“Pat and I have a daughter.” Kate's picture was still in Bela's silver frame. Jessie took it out and showed it to him. He barely glanced at it.

“Yes?” he said.

“They both disappeared.”

“When?”

“Almost two weeks ago.”

“Wednesday the nineteenth?”

“Not quite two weeks. It was the Sunday.”

“And this was in Los Angeles?”

“Yes.”

“Then what brings you here?”

Jessie didn't answer right away. The senator made another gesture that reminded her of priests and blessings. “We'd like to help, Ms. Shapiro. Alice and I. Unless you've got some other assistance?”

“Why do you want to help me?”

The smile came again. “I admire your bluntness, Ms. Shapiro—I see it more and more in young women these days. Perfectly understandable.” The smile faded, very slowly, like an actor prolonging his exit. “We'd like to help for the simple reason that your husband—your ex-husband—was a friend of our dear boy.” He opened his mouth to continue, then stopped and turned up his hands in a hopeless gesture. Dampness rose in the senator's eyes, not enough to overflow, more like two thin films of dew. He blinked and it was gone. “If you'll allow us,” he added.

“All right,” Jessie told him. “I'm here because Pat and Kate were seen in Vermont soon after they disappeared.” She told him about Buddy Boucher. “And there was another man with them.”

“Another man?”

Jessie found herself crossing the room, parting the curtains, looking out. She saw dead leaves blowing across the parking lot. “Senator Frame?” she said.

“Yes?” His voice was quiet and gentle.

“Were you given solid proof that your son died in Viet Nam?”

There was a long pause. Jessie turned. His face was very pale, much like the color of Mount Rushmore itself. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Jessie took a deep breath. “Is there any way he might have survived? Might still be alive?”

The water level rose again in his eyes. “I hope you have a good reason for putting me through this, young lady.”

Jessie fought off the urge to say, “I'm sorry.” She wasn't sorry enough to stop herself from going on. “I don't have proof,” she said. “But it's the only explanation for what's happened, unless you know for sure that he's dead.” She told him about the words on the blackboard and Gerald Brenner's passport.

Senator Frame's eyes dried as she spoke, but his complexion stayed chalky. “I don't know for sure,” he said when she had finished. “There was no … body, if that's the sort of thing you mean. But it was all confirmed by the Pentagon. Besides, all those stories of MIA's in jungle prison camps over there are just bunk. I've seen the intelligence reports.” He sat down in the easy chair, rather heavily. He stared at his shoes, thick-soled walking shoes made of rich, supple leather. “But it's possible. I guess. It's possible.” He looked up at Jessie. “Have you told the police about this?”

“Not about your son. That all came later. The police thought it was routine divorce warfare, or Pat on a toot.”

Senator Frame nodded.

“You and your wife disapproved of Pat, didn't you?”

“I had no opinion.”

“Your wife, then.”

“‘Disapprove' would be going too far. In any case, it's irrelevant now. Is anyone helping you, Ms. Shapiro?”

“Not exactly.”

“You have help then?”

“One or two friends.” She thought of Barbara and added, “The names wouldn't mean anything to you.”

“Here or back home?”

“Both.”

“You wouldn't have any friends in Washington?”

Jessie hesitated.

“A man named Keith, for instance?”

“No.”

He was watching her very closely, like a human lie detector, she thought. Then he bared his teeth again. “You have a friend in Washington now, Ms. Shapiro.”

“Thank you, Senator Frame.”

“Ed. Really. All my friends call me Ed.”

“Ed.”

“And may I call you Jessie?”

“Yes.”

“A lovely name. Biblical.” He rose and held out his hand. “And how appropriate. The Bible is full of miracles and this would be a miracle. To see my son again, I mean. A miracle. Here's hoping.”

She shook his hand. His skin was cold, almost as cold as Ivan's after the dive in Little Pond. “What are you going to do now? Call in the FBI?”

He frowned. “Not yet, I think. First we'll have a long talk with the army. We'll go from there.” He took a card from his pocket and wrote a number on it. “We're at the cabin on Mount Blackstone till the Monday after Thanksgiving.” He drew a map on the back. “Call if you need me.” He went to the door, then stopped and turned. “But don't say anything to Alice.” Another misty weather system moved across his eyes. “I don't want her heart broken again.”

He paused to let his words sink in. He was still pausing when the door opened and hit him in the back. He whirled. It was Bela, carrying a loaded tray. The next moment the tray was on the floor and a gun in Bela's hand. It happened so quickly Jessie wasn't sure where the gun had come from. He pointed it at the senator's chest. The senator backed away, into the easy chair. Jessie thought he was going to dive behind it.

“Who the hell is this?” Bela snapped at her, his eyes on the senator.

“Put that away,” Jessie said. “The man is a U.S. senator.”

“I don't care if he's President Roosevelt. My orders were no one in, no one out.”

Jessie saw the senator's eyes flicker in her direction. “He's trying to help, Bela.”

“Be quiet,” he said to her. And “Out” to Senator Frame.

The senator moved past him, looking at Jessie. There was no smile now. “You haven't been quite truthful with me, Jessie.”

“Out,” Bela said.

“She's right,” Senator Frame said to him. “I do happen to be a senator, and this kind of treatment—”

“Out,” Bela said, no louder than before, but more sharply pronounced. The reedy voice, the Hungarian accent, the gun—all now combined to make Jessie see Bela in a new light. He could be dangerous.

The senator saw that too. He went through the doorway, half-turning so he could keep his eyes on Jessie. “I didn't think you had this sort of friend. Where do you suppose his orders—”

Bela slammed the door on the rest of his question. He locked it and drew the bolt. Then he parted the curtains and looked out. Senator Frame was climbing into a big jeep, the kind that seemed more suburban than military in origin. He drove away.

Bela turned to Jessie. The gun was still in his hand, loosely held now, but pointing in her direction. “Leni used to do things like this too,” he said. “Stupid things. That's how come she got killed.”