Spider Season (35 page)

“Is that what made you such a good journalist, Justice?”

“I imagine that was part of it.”

“What a shame, all that potential. And look what you did with it.”

“And now you get to feast on the carcass.”

She raised the flute in a mock toast.

“No hard feelings. Just doing my job.”

She tipped back her head and drained the bubbly.

*   *   *

Eventually, suitably plied with alcohol, the guests assembled in the main tent for the cutting of the multitiered cake and the requisite toasts. The speeches were alternately poignant, silly, and long-winded. Then they were over, the music started, and Kase led Templeton to the dance floor for a waltz. Maurice and I got some food and I bided my time while she danced with her father and each of Kase’s three brothers, until I finally saw an opportunity to cut in.

I told her how beautiful she looked and wished her a long and fulfilling marriage.

“You and the hubby certainly have a lot of friends,” I said. “There must be five hundred people here.”

She laughed, embarrassed. “It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?”

“Whatever makes you happy, Alex.”

“Larry makes me happy. He wanted a big wedding. My parents are thrilled. It will all be over quickly enough.”

“Your book’s a big hit. Congratulations.”

“There’s a good deal of you in it, you know. Everything you taught me. You helped me get where I am, Benjamin. I won’t ever forget that.”

I allowed a moment to pass. Then I said pointedly, “I see you invited Cathryn Conroy.”

“We’re friends. Why not?”

“As I recall, she helped you get your agent, the one that put together that great deal on your book.”

“Let’s not talk shop now, Justice. It’s my wedding day.”

We bumped into another dancing couple, so I led Templeton to an open space on the parquet floor.

“The thing is,” I said, “I’ve been wondering what Conroy got in return.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Conroy’s tough as nails, or likes to think so, and about as warm as frozen pizza. She doesn’t strike me as someone who goes out of her way to help a rival writer. Not unless there’s something in it for her.”

Kase’s best man, who appeared to be drunk, tried to cut in.

“Later,” I said. “The bride and I are talking.”

He looked offended but went away. I whisked Templeton back toward the middle of the floor.

“Can’t we just dance,” she asked, “and enjoy ourselves?”

“Conroy knows about me and my father,” I said. “She’s using it as the hook for her profile.”

Templeton regarded me curiously. “What about you and your father?”

“That when I killed him, it wasn’t entirely in defense of my mother and sister. That it was more like murder.”

“She’s writing that?”

I nodded. “She’s basing it on something I revealed to you, in confidence, several years ago. Something I’ve only told one other person, who swears he never uttered a word about it to Conroy or anyone else.”

Templeton stopped dancing and disengaged from me. The music kept playing and the other couples continued dancing around us.

“Cathryn’s using that in her story?”

“That
is
her story, Templeton. At least it’s the hook, the bombshell that’s going to make her piece a national sensation.”

Templeton put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God.”

“You understand the legal ramifications, don’t you?”

She reached out, seized my arm. “Benjamin, I never meant for her to find that out.”

“But she did, Templeton. And you told her, didn’t you?”

Templeton’s words began tumbling out, her voice quavering. “She invited me to dinner to celebrate my book deal. I had a glass of wine. You know how I am with alcohol, Benjamin. One glass and I’m a babbling idiot. She kept refilling my glass, urging me to drink up. She turned it into a girls’ night out, even refrained from drinking herself, making herself the designated driver. After a few glasses—”

“You just blurted it out.”

Templeton nodded, tears spilling over. “It was out of my mouth before I realized what I’d said. I tried to put it into context, explaining that it was only your impression of what had happened and that you tend to be extremely hard on yourself. Then I told her I didn’t really mean it. I tried to take it back, but I only made it worse.”

“And she ended up with something even more sensational than she’d hoped for when she poured you that first glass of wine.”

“I told her it was strictly between us, totally off-the-record.”

“But you told her after the fact, which doesn’t really count.”

“She didn’t record it, Benjamin. She didn’t even take notes.”

“That never stopped a determined reporter, did it? I’m sure she jotted your words down the moment she was alone. Probably on a cocktail napkin in the powder room.”

“Oh, my God. She’s really going to use it? You’re sure?”

“The article’s been scheduled. It’s a done deal.”

“I’ll talk to her, Benjamin. I’ll contact the magazine and deny that I ever said those things.”

“I think it’s a little late for that, Alex.”

She burst into tears and I realized the couples around us had stopped dancing. Then Lawrence Kase was striding across the floor. The music went silent behind him. When he reached us, he put an arm protectively around his bride.

“What is it, Alex? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “Just a little betrayal between friends.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Kase demanded.

“Oh, God.” Templeton broke away and ran across the dance floor, her pretty braids and baby orchids trailing.

Kase turned his fury on me. “What the hell have you done now?”

“Fuck you, Kase.”

He motioned to his brothers and they were on me like bouncers at a Sunset Strip club. They grabbed me by both arms and hustled me out of the tent. Maurice rushed to my side, trying to keep pace as the three brothers kept me moving.

“Benjamin, what on earth is happening? What did you say to Alexandra?”

The three Kases dragged me past the reflecting pool as guests stepped aside, staring. Then we were passing through the opulent house and down the drive to the street, where they dumped me near the curb to wait with other departing guests for the next shuttle.

Maurice caught up a moment later, as I stood and brushed myself off.

“Benjamin, what have you done? Alexandra was in tears.”

“Screwed up again, I’m afraid.”

“You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“I wish the explanation was that easy.”

A bus finally arrived but filled up quickly, and we had to wait for the next one. Before it came, Conroy appeared, weaving in her high heels down the sloping drive. She had a champagne bottle that was half-empty in one hand and an iPhone in the other. When she reached the end of the drive, she plopped down on the curb and guzzled straight from the bottle. As she lowered it to come up for air she noticed me standing nearby.

“My agent just called,” she said. “Someone put together a rather unflattering story about me, claiming that I’ve been plagiarizing other writers. Apparently, it’s all over the Internet. It’ll be in all the newspapers tomorrow. My agent tells me it’s loaded with examples, documented to a fucking farthing.”

“You should be pleased,” I said. “So much of what you see on the Web is pure crap.”

“Forgive me if I don’t laugh. I don’t suppose you know anything about it, do you?”

“Sorry, no comment.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?”

“That it’s time to find a new agent?”

Conroy showed me a sour face. “The editors at
Eye
will kill my piece. No respectable publication will ever touch it. Or anything else I write. The blogs won’t even be interested in what I’ve dug up about you. They’ll zero in on the plagiarism angle like buzzards on roadkill.”

“Tough break,” I said.

She suddenly grew weary of the sparring. Her bravado evaporated like bubbles from dead champagne.

“Yeah, tough,” she said, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular.

A shuttle bus pulled up and I helped Maurice climb aboard, then followed after him. Conroy stayed behind, plopped forlornly on the curb. As the shuttle pulled away I looked back to see her tilt the bottle, guzzling like there was no tomorrow.

THIRTY-FOUR

Dusk was approaching as I turned off Sunset Boulevard and cruised down the hill to Norma Place.

By then, I’d filled Maurice in on what had transpired between Templeton and me at the wedding, including, reluctantly, the details surrounding my father’s death. Maurice was seriously put out, running out of patience with me after years of watching me leave wreckage in my wake. In a strange way, though, it was good to see him so angry, to see the old spark flaring up, even if I happened to be the fuel. By the time we reached the house, he’d vented his unhappiness with me and was leavening it with his characteristic kindness and understanding.

“Perhaps your father’s death was as you described it, Benjamin. Perhaps not. Memory is a slippery thing. Each of us perceives certain events in our lives through the prism of our own needs.”

I pulled into the driveway, switched off the ignition, set the brake. Birds and crickets chirped in the gloaming.

“You’ve always looked for the dark side in life and in people,” he went on. “Don’t you think it’s possible that you’ve done the same with yourself? Imagined the worst and then remembered it that way until it calcified in your mind as something you now see as fact?”

I said nothing. He squeezed my hand.

“Give yourself a break, Benjamin. If not for yourself, dearest, then the rest of us. Because you’re driving all of us crazy.”

I smiled, despite myself. So did Maurice. He’s back, I thought. Or at least slowly returning, from that cold, remote place to which grief had taken him.

Then his smile faded and he said very pointedly, “Sometimes, one never knows the real truth about certain things.” His eyes drilled into mine, making his message unmistakable. “And maybe that’s just as well, Benjamin. Maybe it’s necessary at times, because it allows us to survive emotionally and keep going.”

*   *   *

Maurice went into the house to lie down, suggesting we meet up later for dinner, maybe even go out for a hearty meal at Boy Meets Grill.

I headed up to my apartment, where I found a single message waiting for me on my landline. It was from Judith Zeitler, asking me to call her immediately.

I erased it, went to the kitchen for a glass of water, took a leak after that, and was about to phone Zeitler when a call came in. The caller ID told me it was Jason Holt. I considered letting my voice mail take it, thought better of it, and picked up the receiver.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Benjamin. Waiting for you to come back and see me.”

“Have you now?”

“Such a shame about Fred,” he went on. “I read about it in the newspaper. A spider bite, imagine that. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Of course, he was quite old, wasn’t he? How’s Maurice holding up, by the way?”

“I wouldn’t try to make light of it, Holt. Not after what you’ve done.”

“Am I supposed to be afraid, Benjamin? Of what? That you’ll report me to the police? Do you really think I’m worried about that?”

“Apparently not.”

“You should have stayed in touch, Benjamin. All I asked for was your friendship. A little consideration. Some quality time.”

“You’d better tell me something interesting, Holt, because I’m about to hang up.”

“Did I mention that I have a gift for Maurice?”

That kept me listening.

“No, I don’t think you did.”

“I’m not sure when I’ll deliver it. I think I’ll surprise him. Surprises are so much fun, don’t you think?”

“I think he’s had enough surprises recently.”

“I went to a great deal of trouble to get it, you know. I imported it all the way from Australia.”

Except for my father on that fateful day when I was seventeen, I’m not sure I’d ever loathed anyone as much as I did Jason Holt at that moment. But I feared him just as much, feared what he might do to Maurice.

“Maybe I could come up and get it for him,” I said.

Holt perked up.

“You’d really do that?”

“I’d get a chance to see you as well,” I said, “to spend a little of that quality time you mentioned. Maybe you and I could be buddies, after all.”

“You don’t mean that, Benjamin. I don’t believe it for a second.”

“I’ve been lonely, Jason. It’s finished between Ismael and me, you know.”

“Is that true?” He sounded pliant, hopeful. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“For all I know, he already has another boyfriend.”

“Good riddance, I say. You deserve so much better, Benjamin.”

“Maybe you were right, Jason. Maybe you and I were meant to be together.”

“Do you really mean that? Because I won’t be toyed with, Benjamin. I won’t have you playing with my emotions. Not ever again.”

“We go back a long way, you and I. We have some history together. That means a lot as one grows older and finds himself alone.”

His words came urgently now. “Fred’s death really was an accident, Benjamin. The spider wasn’t meant for him.”

“For me then?”

“I just wanted you to pay attention to me, that’s all!”

“I’m paying attention now, Jason.”

“You’re serious? You really want to see me?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“Oh, Benjamin!”

“Are you at home?”

“Standing on the terrace, looking out at the city. The light’s lovely up here in the early evening. Maybe we could go out for a nice dinner and catch up. I know the most divine little café in Larchmont Village.”

“I’m on my way, Jason.”

*   *   *

I lost the blazer, necktie, and slacks and slipped into jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes. Then I rinsed my face in cold water, taking my time, determined to think this through and not rush things. When I felt ready, I left quietly, hoping not to disturb Maurice. I shifted the Metro into neutral and pushed it down the drive and out to the street before switching on the ignition. Then I climbed behind the wheel and headed toward the Hollywood Hills.