The Shadow of Your Smile (11 page)

“As I told you last week, that was my hunch, too, John,” Nan said. She reached for the envelope, took the picture out, studied it, then turned it over to read again the block printing with Monica’s addresses. “I have to show it to her,” she said reluctantly. “She might be annoyed that I didn’t give it to her last week, but that’s a chance I have to take.”

“I walked over to the hospital the other day,” John said. “I took some pictures from across the street to try to get the same angle of the steps and hospital that we see in this one. I think whoever took that picture was sitting in a car.”

“Do you mean someone might have been waiting for Dr. Monica to come out?” Now Nan’s voice was incredulous.

“It’s possible. Do you remember if anyone phoned last Monday to ask about her schedule?”

Nan frowned as she tried to sort out the myriad of calls that came into the office. “I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “But it isn’t unusual for someone like a pharmacist to phone and ask when the doctor is expected in. I wouldn’t even have noticed that as being unusual.”

“What would you have said if you had been called about her schedule last Monday?”

“I would have said that’s she’d be in around noon. There are often staff meetings at the hospital on Monday mornings and I don’t schedule anything at the office for her until one o’clock.”

“What time did she step out of the hospital with the Garcias to take that picture?”

“I don’t know.”

“When you give it to the doctor, please ask her what time it was.”

“All right.” Nan realized her throat was dry. “You really think that someone is stalking her, don’t you?”

“Maybe stalking is too strong a word. I checked on Scott Alterman, the ex-boyfriend, or whatever he was to the doctor. He’s a well-known, well-respected lawyer in Boston, recently divorced, and moved to Manhattan only last week to join a big-shot law firm on Wall Street. But he wasn’t the one who took the picture. Last Monday his firm had a farewell luncheon for him at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston and he was there.”

“Could he have had someone else take the picture for him?”

“He could have. But I doubt it. That doesn’t have the ring of truth
to me.” Hartman pushed back his chair. “Nan, thanks for the hospitality. The cake was delicious and every time I have tea brewed in a teapot, I promise myself I’ll never use a tea bag again.”

Nan stood up with him. “I’ll be very aware of anyone phoning to try to get the doctor’s schedule,” she said, then brightened. “Oh, I have to tell you something interesting. The Garcia baby, the one who recovered from leukemia, was in today. Just a cold, but you can understand the concern of the parents. Tony Garcia, the father, works part-time as a driver. He told Dr. Monica that an elderly lady he drove last week claimed to know the doctor’s grandmother. Dr. Monica told me she thought it had to be a mistake, because she never knew her grandparents, but I couldn’t resist following up. I called Tony and he gave me the lady’s name. It’s Olivia Morrow, and she lives on Riverside Drive. I gave it to Dr. Monica and urged her to give the lady a call. As I told her, ‘What have you got to lose?’ ”

20
 

In his office near Shubert Alley, in the theatre district of Manhattan, Peter Gannon stood up from his desk and pushed aside the sheets of paper that were littered over it. He walked across the room to the wall of bookshelves and reached for his copy of
Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary.
He wanted to look up the exact definition of the word “carnage.”

“carnage (kar’nij),” he read, “n. 1 the slaughter of a great number of men as in battle; butchery; massacre; 2 archaic, dead bodies as of men slain in battle.”

“That about defines it,” he said aloud, although he was alone in the room. Slaughter and butchery by the critics. Massacre by the audience. And dead bodies of all the actors, musicians, and crew who worked their hearts out to have a big hit.

He replaced the heavy dictionary, sat at his desk again, and put his head in his hands. I was so sure that this one would work, he thought. I was so sure of it I even promised to personally guarantee half the investment some of the big-bucks guys put in it. How am I supposed to do that now? The patent income has been finished for years, and the foundation is too heavily committed. I told Greg that I thought Clay and Doug were pushing too hard for those mental health and cardiac research grants, but he told me to mind my own business,
that I was getting plenty for my theatre projects. How do I tell them that I need more now? A
lot
more!

Too restless to stay seated, he stood up again. The musical extravaganza had opened and closed last Monday night. A week later, he was still adding up the cost of the debacle. One critic had written, “Producer Peter Gannon has effectively presented small dramas, suitable for off-Broadway, but his third attempt at a musical is once again a resounding failure. Give it up, Peter.”

Give it up, Peter
, he thought, as he opened the small refrigerator behind his desk and took out a bottle of vodka. Not too much, he cautioned himself, as he unscrewed the bottle and reached for a stem glass from the tray on top of the refrigerator. I know I’ve been drinking too much, I know it.

After he had poured a moderate amount of vodka into the glass and added ice cubes, he replaced the bottle, closed the refrigerator, and sat down again. Then he leaned back in his chair. Or maybe I
should
turn into a drunk, he thought. Blotto. Out of it. Not able to string two sentences together. Not able to think, but able to sleep, even if it’s a drunken sleep that ends in a blinding headache.

He took a long sip of the vodka and with his free hand reached for the phone. Susan, his ex-wife, had left a message telling him how sorry she was that the play had closed. Any other ex would have been thrilled that it flopped, he thought, but Sue meant it.

Sue. One more constant regret. Forget about calling her. It’s too painful.

As he was withdrawing his hand, the phone rang. When the caller’s number came up, he was tempted to pretend he wasn’t in his office. Knowing that would solve nothing, he picked up the receiver and mumbled a greeting.

“I expected to hear from you before this,” a querulous voice told him.

“I meant to call you. It’s been pretty hectic.”

“I don’t mean a phone call. I mean my payment. You’re overdue.”

“I . . . just . . . don’t . . . have . . . that . . . much . . . now,” Peter whispered, his voice strangled.

“Then . . . get . . . it . . . or . . . else.”

The phone slammed in his ear.

21
 

When she woke up on Tuesday morning, Olivia Morrow felt as if a quantity of her small stockpile of remaining energy had disappeared while she was sleeping. For some odd reason, a scene from
Little Women,
a book she had loved as young teenager, became fresh in her mind. Beth, the-nineteen-year-old who is dying of tuberculosis, tells her older sister that she knows she will not get well, that the tide is going out.

The tide is going out for me, too, Olivia thought. If Clay is right, and my body is telling me he is right, I have less than a week to live.

What shall I do?

Pulling on her reserve of strength, she got up slowly, put on a robe, and made her way to the kitchen. As she walked the short distance she was too exhausted to reach for the kettle and sat on a chair in the dining alcove until her breath became stronger. Catherine, she begged, give me direction. Let me know what you want me to do.

After a few minutes she was able to get up, make the tea, and plan her day. I want to go back to Southhampton, she thought. I wonder if the Gannon House is still there, and the cottage where Catherine and Mother and I lived . . .

The cemetery in Southhampton was where generations of Gannons
were entombed in an imposing mausoleum. Where Alex was entombed. Not that I have the feeling that he’ll be waiting for me on the other side, she thought sadly. Catherine was his love, but when she died she certainly wasn’t looking to be reunited with him.

Or was she?

A childhood memory that had been coming to the surface of her mind over and over in these past few days once again filled her mind. Am I making this up, or did I witness it? she wondered. Is my mind playing tricks or am I remembering seeing Catherine in her habit shortly after she entered the convent? I thought the novices were not allowed to see their families for a while. It was on a dock, and there was another nun with her. Catherine and Mother were crying. That must have been when she sailed to Ireland . . .

Why does that suddenly seem so important to know? she asked herself. Or is it that I am trying to reject death by dragging up scenes from my childhood, as if I could begin to relive my life?

She would call the car service and go out to Southhampton today. Even in a few days it may be too late, she thought. I wonder if I can get that nice young man who drove me last week? What was his name? Yes, I remember. It was Tony Garcia.

She finished sipping the tea and debated about forcing herself to have a slice of toast, then decided against it. I’m not hungry, she thought, and at this point what is the difference if I eat or don’t eat?

She got up slowly and carried the cup to the sink, rinsed it out, and put it in the dishwasher, suddenly acutely aware that this kind of mundane activity would soon be over forever.

In the bedroom she called the car service and was disappointed to learn that Tony Garcia was not coming in today.

“He’s supposed to be available,” an aggravated voice told her. “But he phoned to say that his wife and kid are sick and he has to stay home.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” Olivia said quickly. “It’s not serious, is it? He told me about his little boy having had leukemia.”

“Nah. It’s just a bad cold. I swear if that kid gets sniffles, Tony makes a big deal about it.”

“In his case, I would, too,” Olivia responded, an edge in her voice.

“Yeah, of course, Ms. Morrow. I’ll send a good driver for you.”

At noon the driver, a heavyset man with a windburned face, appeared in the lobby. This time she was already there waiting for him. Unlike Tony Garcia, he did not offer her his arm on the way to the garage. But he did tell her that he knew she was a good customer and that everyone said what a nice lady she was and if she wanted anything like to stop on the way to Southhampton if she needed a restroom, just say the word.

She had fully intended to ask him to take the tote bag with the Catherine file from under the blanket in the trunk, but decided against it.

I know by heart those letters Catherine wrote to Mother, she thought. I can read them in my mind. And I don’t want this man to get them out, then put them back in the trunk later. He’s obviously already discussed me with other people.

And why am I hiding the file? What is the point?

She had no answer, only an instinct to leave it in the trunk for the present.

It was one of those unexpectedly warm October days with the sun high and bright, and puffs of clouds drifting through a tranquil sky. But even though she had worn a warm cape over her suit, Olivia felt chilled. When they were on the way across town she asked the driver to slide back the cover of the overhead glass panel so that the filtered sun could warm the backseat of the car.

What was that prayer or psalm her mother kept at her bedside in her last year? It began “When in death my limbs are failing . . .”
Maybe I’d better look it up and start reciting it, she thought. I know it gave Mother comfort.

With the heavy traffic it took nearly half an hour to get to the Midtown Tunnel. Olivia found herself looking with new eyes at storefronts and restaurants, remembering the times she had either shopped or eaten in one or the other of them.

But after they had gone through the tunnel and were on the Long Island Expressway the drive seemed to go quickly. As they passed the various towns Olivia found herself reminiscing over friends long gone. Lillian lived in Syosset . . . Beverly had that beautiful house in Manhasset . . .

“I don’t have the street address in Southhampton,” the driver said as they approached the town.