Inheritance (79 page)

Chapter 29

AFTER daik, when the August sun had set and a cool breeze came up, Laura and Ginny went to the roof garden, taking with them the legal forms Ginny's lawyer had given her. "It seems extraordinarily simple," she said.

*The higher the numbers, the simpler it gets,*' Laura murmured wryly as she reread the documents. 'Tt always amazes me how much easier it is to spend ten million dollars than ten ninety-five."

A bird sang three pure notes in descending order, repeating them again and again; children threw Frisbees in the courtyard, the traffic sounds of Manhattan were a steady chorus in the background, and amid flowering shrubs and the perfume of roses, Laura signed a promissory note for ten million dollars. And then she and Ginny put their signatures to a purchase agreement for Laura Fairchild to buy Vii^nia Starrett's shares in Salinger Hotels Incorporated.

"Done," Ginny said with satisfaction. "But you're going to have a hell of a row when you go up there next week for the September meeting and ask them to approve it."

"It won't be the first time I've had a row with the Salin-gers,"

"I'd come along for moral support, but I guess I can't."

"No, we can't both legally be there."

"So you'll just show up at the meeting?"

Judith Michael

"Yes."

"With no warning?"

"With no warning."

"You're a brave lady. Or you're all fired up for revenge."

Laura was silent, and they sat quietly, holding tall glasses of iced tea and nibbling almond tuiles that Laura had made for dessert.

"Wonderful dinner," Ginny said. "You are one terrific cook."

"Rosa was one terrific teacher," Laura replied with a smile. "She still sends me recipes every week. She'll be here over Labor Day; come for dinner then. She won't let me in the kitchen when she's in the house, and she's still the best chef I've ever known."

"And a reminder of happy times."

"Yes, but it doesn't hurt as much as it used to. I have a lot of other good times to remember: with you, and Kelly, and Clay, and so many of my times with Wes." She smiled ruefully. "Do you know, all I'm remembering these days are the good times we had together."

"So you miss him."

"Now and then. Well, a lot, really, but mostly because I haven't met anyone else I like half as well."

"With all the men you go out with?"

"How many have you met that you want to see more than once?"

Ginny sighed. "There is a significant shortage of desirable males. Which doesn't mean some of them aren't okay in bed."

"I suppose. I haven't found any I want to sleep with. Most of them have such anxious eyes. And the ones who don't are so sure every single woman in Manhattan is desperate for a man that they think they don't even have to be interesting to get all the women they want. I'd rather stay in my wonderful house and read and listen to music."

"Not true."

"Well, not every night. I'd love to find someone who's just fun and not demanding. But it really is all right, most of the time. Sometimes I come home from a party and wonder why I bothered to go."

"Because you're looking for a man, and you can't find one sitting at home Ustening to music."

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*'I hate what that sounds like: a hunter stalking Manhattan, trying to snare a man."

Ginny laughed. "I know plenty of women like that. But you're too cool and quiet to be anything like them."

Cool and quiet, Laura mused, thinking of the angers and longings and ambitions that churned so violently inside her she wondered others could not see them.

"But you'll find someone before they will," Ginny said. "I have no doubt."

"I do. Fm almost thirty— "

"Ancient," Ginny said mockingly.

"Getting on," Laura said with a smile. "But what if I don't find one? What happens then? Do I dry up and blow away? Or dissolve into a puddle and evaporate? I'd still be here, and I'd figure out some kind of life. I'd make more friends, men and women, especially women: sometimes I like spending an evening with ^em more than with men. I'd run my hotels, and buy some more as soon as I could swing it, and do a lot of traveling and go to concerts and the theater and play tennis, and have a good life. Would that be so awfiil?"

"It's not awfiil; it's the way I live, and I'm having a hell of a good time. But I've had a husband and a couple of kids; I did the whole happy-family scene, before it fell apart. I've done the things most of us want. Don't you want that? Don't you want a family?"

Laura looked beyond the roof garden at the lighted windows of Manhattan's towers. Some of the windows were offices, but many were homes, with single people or with families, all of them with their own stories: love and loss and pain and joy. Voices carried to her from the courtyard below: the shouts and laughter of children, one of her neighbors asking his wife if she wanted to go with him when he walked the dog, another neighbor calling one of the younger children to come to bed. "Yes, of course I'd like a family." She paused. "But I have one, in a way. You and Rosa mother me, and Clay acts like a brother or sort of a son, I'm never sure which, and Kelly is like a sister. That's more family than a lot of people have. And I'm making new friends; I'd make more if I could find the time. I've got more than most people."

"Except there's a big space that's still empty."

Judith Michael

She looked again at the hghted towers. "I don't think about that very much. I have too many other things to think about. Lx)ok where I was eleven years ago. And now everything is going so well, and it all happened so fast, I get a little scared sometimes, as if it can't possibly last, and everything will come tumbling down around me."

"Avoid superstition," Ginny said. "It's disruptive in a well-ordered world. What's that? Is somebody here?"

There were footsteps on the stairs and then Clay stood in the doorway. 'The door was open so we came in. If I'd been a thief I could have walked off with the whole place, and you wouldn't even have known I was here. Hi, Ginny." He bent over and kissed Laura on both cheeks. "You look beautiful. Your hair's getting longer, I like it."

"Just a little. Hello, Myma, come and have some iced tea."

"I'd love some. We walked and it's awfully hot. It feels cooler up here."

Clay sprawled in a chair, drained one glass and poured another. *That saved my life. I was gasping for the last three blocks. I kept wanting to stop in a bar, but Myma wouldn't let me, even though my life was at stake. She's a tough lady."

"And—" Myma prompted.

"And we're getting married," Clay said, his words miming together. *The lady keeps telling me I need her, and I finally decided she's probably right."

Laura was smiling. 'That's wonderful; I'm so glad." She rose and kissed Clay and then Myma. "When will it be?"

"As soon as possible," Myma said. "Qay likes to change his mind at the last minute. He thinks it's a sign of flexibility."

"And she thinks it's a sign of inmiaturity," Clay said with a sigh. "Is there hope for this marriage?"

Myma smiled calmly. "There's hope for you; you're shaping up already."

Laura shot her a quick look. She didn't like Myma any better than she ever had, but she'd thought for a long time that she probably was good for Clay. Now she began to feel uneasy. She wanted Clay to have a wife, not a director.

But Clay was jaunty and unperturbed. "Shaping up is right. I've made more vows than a monastery full of monks. You have no idea how much I'm giving up for marriage—except

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that Vm hanging onto a couple bad habits so I don't totally lose my touch. See, it's like this." He leaned forward and touched Laura's hand. "You've done a lot for me; I owe you a lot. I don't know where I'd be without you—probably on the ran somewhere. I sure wouldn't be where I am, or have as much money, if I didn't have my job with the hotels. Your hotels. And I know you worry about me. So I thought it was about time I settled down."

Myma looked satisfied, but Laura wasn't. "Isn't it better to get married for love than to please your sister?" she asked lighUy.

"You're absolutely right," he said promptly. He reached out and took Myma's hand. "And Myma and I are in love."

"I'm glad," Laura said. It still didn't satisfy her, but she let it drop. How many times had she told herself she couldn't ran Clay's life, and didn't want to even if she could? It was enough that they were friends, and family, and could turn to each other if they needed to. "Now let me tell you my news," she said. "I've just become a shareholder in Salinger Hotels."

"Whatr' Clay looked confused. "Salinger Hotels? You own—? But you can't. The family owns it. They don't let anybody else in."

*There are three outsiders—^I mean three others. A long time ago, when Owen was building two or three hotels a year, he needed extra cash, and he sold part of his holdings to some friends. The only condition—^"

Clay let out a whoop. "You own shares in the Salinger Hotels? You own shares? How about that! You've got it all— the hotels and a piece of the company that son of a bitch took away from you. . . . You're going to sit at a board meeting with old Felix, and he can't kick you out! Hot damn! Hey, we've got to celebrate!" He stopped, a scowl between his eyes. "Condition? What condition?"

**The bylaws say that none of the board members can sell their shares without the approval of the whole board, unless they're selling to a relative of the Salinger family."

Clay's scowl deepened. "So how can you own anything? Shit, Laura, Felix wouldn't approve it; his dumb brother wouldn't either. None of them would." He saw Laura and Ginny exchange a smile. "What's that about?"

Judith Michael

"I said they needed approval unless they were selling to a relative of the Salinger family," Laura said.

"But you're not a relative! You would be if you*d married Paul, but you didn't."

"I know that," she said evenly. "But I'm Alhson Salinger's sister-in-law."

Clay stared at her. Then his face ht up. "Ho-ly shit! Ben!"

"Who's Ben?" Myma asked.

And Laura and Clay told her.

By the end of September, Sam Colby had a stack of reports on Clay Fairchild and the other two vice presidents of OWL Development, who were also vice presidents of the Beacon Hill hotels. The two vice presidents were the kind of guys he might have liked to go bowling with, but to an investigator they were dull and quickly forgotten. But Clay Fairchild—ah, he was a different matter.

Gambling, Colby read from his reports. Very heavy stakes with very high-powered groups. And high Uving: fancy car, good clothes, expensive loft in SoHo, a string of girlfriends— a couple of them fairly well-known models who'd picked out jewelry that Clay paid for—and he had an account at Tiffany's where he bought jewelry for his sister; the clerk knew them both. He couldn't do all that on the salary Felix had said he probably made in his position. So either he won big at cards or he had another source of income.

Quite a pair, the Fairchilds, Colby mused. A pair. Well, maybe they were; maybe they worked the whole thing together. A brother and sister team! Wouldn't that make a film for Paul! Might even be made into a TV miniseries! And the star would be Sam Colby, who everybody thought was rocking and rotting away in a retirement village!

Except that . . . how the hell could he tell Paul?

Maybe he hates her, Colby thought; then there's no problem. But maybe he has a lingering soft spot for an old flame. Then I'd be tfie messenger with the bad news.

I won't tell him; I'll wait until I have something more definite, he told himself, and went off to meet him; they were having a drink at Paul's club. Colby had tried to stretch it to dinner, but Paul had said firmly that he and Emily had other

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plans. Colby thought it was mostly that Emily didn't care about Paul's filmmaking and didn't want it to interfere with their dinner, but whatever it was, the best he could do was drinks.

"How was Seattle?" he asked as soon as they sat down.

"I enjoyed your thief; he gave me a lot of background, and he did it on camera. He also sent you his regards."

"He's a good man." Colby was breathing deeply, absorbing through every pore the atmosphere of the Metropolitan Club: subdued, wealthy, and male. He eyed the leathers and gilt and intricate decor of windows and ceilings that recalled a grander age; he reveled in the pungent aroma of cigars; he sank deeper into his chair. He could have stayed forever. "What else did you do out there?"

"Looked up an old friend from college and did some sailing. Tell me about your investigation. How close are you to solving it? How much can I worm out of you?"

Colby laughed. "You can't worm things out of Sam Colby. But I guess it's okay to give you a rough idea. No more than that, though; don't push me for more. This is it: I've got a hypothesis, right? No proof, but strong assumptions based on intelligent analysis of information gathered over a period of time— "

"Sam, cut out the bullshit. I'm already impressed by you. Tell me what you've got."

"I am telling you. What would you think if you found something that all six robbery victims did, or experienced, within a few months of being robbed?"

"I'd think it was worth looking into."

"Right. That's what I've been doing." Colby stretched out his legs. It felt so good to talk to somebody who was intelligent and impressed by him. "This is what I found. The people involved in what those six victims had in common are in a perfect position to conmiit the robberies; they travel often enough to get to the locations where the robberies occurred and back again without attracting suspicion; they live in a way that requires a lot of money; and they have a history of theft and chicanery."

When he did not go on, Paul frowned in thought. "How many people, and how are they involved with the victims?"

Judith Michael

•Two people, and they're executives in a corporation that all six deal with on occasion."

Still frowning, Paul repeated it to himself. He wasn't sure why Colby seemed so afraid of giving away his hypothesis, circling around it like a wary cat, but it was pretty clear that, given time and camaraderie and enough scotch, the whole story would come out. He signaled for another round of drinks. **It's not a crime to be an executive in a corporation or do a lot of traveling or need a lot of money or have a history of theft."