Trace Elements, page 21
“You do have a copy of those printouts, don’t you?”
“In the computer.”
“Well, I must have put them in the grocery bag instead of the canvas one and . . .”
“Used them for kindling?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, darling.”
“It's okay. Don’t burn yourself up trying to rescue it. It’s all in the computer. Don’t worry. I’ll be down in a minute.”
On the rack before her were an assortment of jeans and ancient plaid flannel shirts bought in the boy’s department at Filene’s. There was one skirt, an ankle-length denim one with inverted wedges of gingham inset to give it a slightly flared line. It was twenty years old. She had designed and made it her sophomore year at Bryn Mawr. Then she had made about a dozen more for friends. It was considered quite original back then—pre-Ralph Lauren. She took it out and put it on. It still fit well. She took a faded blue and red flannel shirt from a hanger, put it on, and knotted it at the waist. From Charley’s dresser she borrowed a pair of argyle socks and then put on Indian moccasins that she had fallen in love with in a souvenir shop on Route 1 in Maine several summers before. She piled up her hair, fastening it with a barrette and jabbing in a few picks. She put Erase under her eyes, examined a few incipient crow’s-feet in the outer corners, and dabbed on some gray eye shadow. She looked at herself squarely in the mirror. Her “sexual flush” must have vanished. She reached for her blush and wondered if any cosmetic company had ever contemplated naming a rouge Pink Orgasm. Should she wear the diamond earrings that her parents had given her? They were discreet but she might end up looking like a Jewish Dolly Parton. No chance of that really. She unbuttoned her flannel shirt a button. “Am I that Cosmopolitan girl? Shit no,” she whispered and walked out of the bedroom. She went downstairs.
Von Sackler had the New York Times spread out beside him on the couch and held a damp dishcloth in his right hand. The cuff of the beautiful shirt was singed and pulled back.
“Oh no! You didn’t!” Calista sighed, looking at his hand.
“It’s nothing,” he said, opening his hand. There was a red mark across the inside of his three middle fingers.
She picked up his hand and kissed it. “Oh shit, Werner, you shouldn’t have gone burning up your hand on my account. I told you it was all in the computer.”
“It’s nothing, Calista,” he said rather sharply.
“Drink?” she asked.
“Of course. I was waiting for you.”
“Should we crack open the Wild Turkey?”
“Why not.”
“How do you like it?”
“On the rocks.”
“Good man,” she said and patted his hand.
He grabbed her hand and held it to his mouth for a few seconds. She started to pull away. He held on and whispered into the palm. “You're a good woman." Then she thought she heard him say “too good.” But she was never sure.
She got the drinks and put some Renaissance music on the tape deck. She wanted something delicate and ordered. She sat down next to von Sackler and took a sip of her drink. “In the winter it tastes great on snow.”
“Ah, I’d like that.”
“You’re welcome to come and try it,” she offered.
“Two days I go back to Germany,” he said, and stroked the back of her neck.
“With the little Ancon fellow?”
“With him indeed.”
“Think he’s got anything wrapped up in him?”
"Perhaps. The new radiography and spectroscopic studies of Heinz should tell a lot. The textiles certainly look promising, the outer layer at least.” He took a swallow of his drink. “What about you? What will you do?”
There was something that struck her odd about the question, or perhaps it was just the phrasing of it. Had he said “What will you be doing?” it would have sounded as if he were addressing her as a fully functioning mother and artist. Instead the question seemed tinged in a way, seemed to suggest “What, after me?” She had addressed him as a professional. She hadn’t said "What are you going to do in Germany? Who are you going to sleep with? Where are you spending Christmas? What are your New Year’s Eve plans?”
“I’m going to be doing what I’m always doing. Taking care of Charley and trying not to make Rapunzel look like a bimbo with long hair.”
He threw his head back on the chair and laughed softly looking up at the ceiling. “Funny! Funny! Elegant lady!”
She got up. “Let me start dinner.”
It was an easy dinner. She had made what she called her winter vegetable salad in Cambridge before leaving and brought it up. It consisted of artichokes, fennel bulb julienned, red pepper strips, and radicchio. She put on some water to boil for a first course of pasta and began melting some Gorgonzola cheese with cream and basil in a double boiler for the sauce. The trout were cleaned and ready to go. She would pan fry them in butter with breadcrumbs, lots of mushrooms, and parsley. There was an Italian chardonnay and a Cortese di Gave chilling. And just in case things got intensely festive, she had a bottle of champagne on ice. Dessert stumped her. There was a box of chocolate truffles someone had given her in the freezer, but somehow that seemed rather minimal. She rummaged through the cupboards. There was a can of mangoes. Canned mangoes! Who would ever buy canned mangoes? Apparently she had at some time. Maybe she could do something with them. She threw them into the Cuisinart with the steel blade and hoped for inspiration. Just on the wall above the Cuisinart there was an index card with a quote from Carl Sagan that Tom had written down—“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must invent the universe.” Just think how the particle physicists, not to mention Julia Child, would laugh at canned mangoes, Calista thought.
“What magic are you up to?” Von Sackler put his arms around her. “You are a magician in the kitchen.”
“I know.” She smiled tartly. “So you won’t be shocked when I tell you that there’s a live rabbit in there. I’m turning him into a canned mango. Want to grate some lime for me?” While von Sackler grated the lime Calista whipped a cup of cream. “Okay, here goes,” she said, pouring some of the pureed mango into the whipped cream. “Hope this works.” She folded in the rest of the mango and put the bowl in the refrigerator.
The chardonnay would be slightly too flavorful to contend with the pasta Gorgonzola. So instead she opened the Cortese di Gave. They could switch to the chardonnay with the trout.
“Perfect, Calista! A fresh, excellently cooked trout, this fantastic vegetable salad, and that sybaritic pasta . . . and,” he took a swallow of his wine, “all this!” He gestured toward the window in the dining alcove of the living room. There was a full harvest moon rising that limned the bare branches of a magnificent maple.
“Two and a half weeks ago, the foliage was at its peak. That hill over there,” she pointed toward the right of one of the maples, “was an absolute conflagration of fall color.”
“What’s to the other side of the big tree?”
“Foundation of an old house, maybe a sugarhouse. It’s where I have my bigger garden.”
He took another bite of trout. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“My family. We’re all kind of food oriented. My dad’s in the restaurant supply business. My mom’s a good cook. We like to eat.” “Restaurant supply business?”
“Ummm.”
“Is it a good business?”
“He makes it good.” Calista was resting her chin in the cup of her hand and studying von Sackler as he finished the trout. He wants to know, she thought, if my family is rich, if that’s how I was able to afford to become an artist. She decided to cut him off at the pass. “I got my break as an illustrator because of my dad.”
“Really? How’s that?” He put down his fork and looked at her. The hooded eyes were very dark with no hint of light.
“He’d written a couple of books.”
“What on?”
“Trout fishing, and one on poker. He’s an expert at both, and he just, you know, got me in to see his publisher. So it was a lucky break.” “But you have to have talent, so it’s not just luck.”
“True, but you have to get a foot in the door.”
“Your father must be an interesting man.”
“Yeah.” Her eyes appeared smokey now. “So’s my mom, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I don’t want to talk about them now.”
She bit her bottom lip lightly. The hooded eyes narrowed and glittered. “I don’t want to talk.” The unearthly sounds of Yo Yo Ma’s cello were beginning to build. She had put the Dvorak concerto on in the middle of the pasta course. In three minutes or less the room would be throbbing with some of the most passionate music a human being had ever made. Calista began to untie von Sackler’s ascot. And to think she had worried about dessert! She stroked the beautiful shirt and began unbuttoning it. Then she unbuckled his belt. “This is what you call role reversal,” she whispered as she unzipped his pants.
“It is? I like it.”
“I thought you’d rise to the occasion.” She giggled and looked down.
“So I have,” he laughed.
“I think we’ll just stay right here, though,” she said. “I would hate to have to carry you over to that rug.” She pulled off her underpants and slipped onto his lap.
Chapter 36
Charley was sitting on the front step waiting for her when she pulled in the drive. “What’s wrong?” she asked, rushing up the walk. “Is it Grandma or Grandpa?” There was a horrible swirl of fear in the pit of her stomach.
“No, no. Nothing like that.”
“Are you sick?”
“No, I’m fine,” Charley said, opening his eyes wide. “It’s not a disaster, Mom. Not exactly.”
“Well, for Christ sake what is it, Charley?”
“I’ll tell you inside.”
Calista set the L. L. Bean canvas carry-all down in the front hall and shut the door. “Okay, you can tell me now.”
“Mom, the files on Wyoming have been changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. Those blowups of where the magnetic noise went haywire that we couldn’t figure out, they’re gone—erased now. It was a locked file. Nothing could be changed just by accident. Someone had to go through a few steps to unlock it and change it.”
“Who?” Charley looked down and didn’t answer. “Charley, you don’t think that Werner von Sackler did it? You don’t, do you?” Charley looked up slowly and nodded. “No!” whispered Calista. She sat down on the bottom step of the stair. “No! No! No!” She put her face in her hands.
“Well, we still have the printout, Mom.”
“No, we don’t! That’s just the problem.”
“What do you mean we don’t have the printout?” Charley screamed. “That was all we ever had!”
“Well, somehow it got into a bag with groceries and when Werner started the fire . . .” Calista’s voice began to dwindle.
“He used old grocery bags.” Charley finished the sentence.
“I wasn’t that upset because I thought we could print it out again.”
“We can, all except for the blowups of the crazy mag noise. Dammit to hell, Mom. You are the biggest dope! You just want to be with that creep. You don’t even care about Dad!”
There was a crack like a pistol. Within two seconds Charley’s cheek flared with a broad red streak where Calista had slapped him. Then she grabbed him and buried his head in her shoulder. “Don’t ever say that again. I’m sorry, but I just can’t bear to hear you talk that way. I love Daddy and you know it!” She was holding him so tight it hurt, and Charley could feel her heart beating through both their sweat shirts. “You’re probably right. Von Sackler probably did do it, and if he did, he’s a creep. He had keys.”
Charley pulled away. His face was a mess of snot and freckles. “But why would he, Mom? Why would he be in on the Gardiner thing?”
“I’m not sure, Charley. I’m not sure even if this is just limited to Gardiner. I think there’s something more going on. I sensed it when we were in Colin Mercer’s office.”
“How do you mean?”
“The way he looked when he asked you about those blowups. He wasn’t even looking at them. He was looking at you, as if he wanted to know if you knew their meaning. He knew the meaning. I’m sure.”
“What do we do now?”
“I have an idea.” She said it so quickly it surprised Charley. He was fully expecting her to say that she would have to think about it. “What is it?”
“Look, you’re going to have to trust me. It’s just an idea.”
“But I’m in on this too, Mom, and I understand more about those files than you do.”
“I know you do, Charley. But look, I lost the printouts. Now let me try to get them back.” Calista was talking around the real issue. She wanted Charley out of it now. It might be too late, but this thing, whatever it was, was becoming bigger. Bigger was it, or more frightening? And there was no place for a kid to be involved.
“Mom!”
“Look Charley, it’s four o’clock. It’s Halloween. Weren’t you planning on going trick-or-treating with Matthew?”
“Yeah.”
“Go trick-or-treating. What are you going as?”
“A ghost.”
“Look, I’ll pick you up at eight tonight at Matthew’s.”
“Well, all right.”
“Trust me, Charley.” She put her hand where the red streak was. “I feel real dumb asking this after losing the printout, but try.” She had almost said “after screwing up so terribly,” which would have been more than accurate. She would not waste her energy on being angry over von Sackler, at least not yet.
“Okay, where’s an old sheet?” Charley asked.
“Top shelf of the linen closet.”
As soon as Charley had left, Calista was on the phone. It rang three, four times. “Oh please be in!” They must be back from the Grand Canyon trip by now. She drummed her fingers on a piece of vellum and scowled at a wretched sketch of Rapunzel. She looked down at the new printout Charley had made of the Wyoming files. There would be no more monkeying around in these vague nether areas between science and humanities. She was going after a real physicist—the quantum-particle variety. “Hello?” She paused and was breathing shallowly. “Hello, Evelyn?”
“Yes?” The voice sounded slightly quizzical on the other end.
“It’s Calista Jacobs.”
“Well, so nice to hear from you dear. What can I do?”
This felt great already. It was like being able to crawl up into your mother’s lap again. But the best part was it wasn’t your mother, so she wouldn’t want to know every little rancid detail. It felt so great she hoped she wouldn’t cry.
“Evelyn ...” Her voice started to crack. “I need Oliver’s and your help badly! I think there’s something . . Her breath had started coming so short she could hardly breathe.
“Are you all right, Calista?”
“Yes.”
“I think maybe you should come over right now and talk to us in person.”
“Yes, that would be good.”
The Harrisons lived on the other side of the Cambridge Common on Willard Street near the river. She got on her bike. It would be much faster than dealing with the traffic in Harvard Square. She rode directly down Kirkland, past the Busch Reisinger Museum, crossed over to the Science Center, and whizzed by it along the path to Massachusetts Avenue. She crossed and took a slant across the Cambridge Common, cut through a short street by the School of Education, and then rode like fury out Brattle for a half mile.
Evelyn Harrison opened the front door and was impressed if not alarmed by Calista’s appearance. Her hair was wild and streaming out of its barrette, her eyes shiny and cheeks flushed.
“Come into Ollie’s study. He’s expecting you.” Calista followed Evelyn Harrison through a door on the right at the end of the entry hall.
She would always remember the photograph on the small table just as she entered the study. It was that of a beautiful young man. He looked like a nineteenth-century Romantic poet except for the fact that he wore a pin-striped suit of the 1930s style. It was a portrait of Robert Oppenheimer.
“Come in, Calista.” Oliver Harrison, short, wiry, and with a few strands of hair barely covering his scalp, stood up from behind his desk. “I think you know this gentleman.” A man with his back to her turned from a photograph he had been examining on the wall.
“Hello, Calista.”
“Colin!”
Chapter 37
“I’m not sure if wearing our costumes right into the Ritz is such a good idea, Charley. It might be a little obvious.”
“What do you take me for, some kind of nut? Listen, they kick you out of there if you try to go in without a tie. They would definitely arrest you in a Halloween costume, or whatever that is that you’ve got on.” Matthew was wearing a silver-foil box on his head and carrying a stick with a bundle tied to it, all part of his “Galactic Hobo” costume. “How many times do I have to tell you, Matthew.
You cover the Newbury Street exit. I’ll cover the Arlington one. We don’t go in. What stop is this anyway?”
“Kendall. We either have to stay on until Park and switch or get off at Charles and walk.”
“We'll switch. It’ll be quicker. Look, you don’t even have to wear your costume. He doesn’t know you.”
“And I don’t know him.”
“I gave you a good idea of what he looks like and he has an accent.”
"Do you have money for a cab, Charley?”
“A lot.”
Matthew had to admit that Charley’s planning was good. He had already managed to establish that von Sackler was in his room before they left on the subway, and had ensured, as much as possible, that he would either be there or not leave before five-thirty. Charley had left a message with the desk that a transatlantic call from Berlin would be coming at five-thirty. Charley now stood on the corner of Commonwealth and Arlington. He checked his watch. It was six-thirty. He had been there an hour. Von Sackler had not come out yet. He must be getting bored waiting for the call, Charley thought. He would certainly come out for a walk or something. Under his sheet he carried his Sky Talker walkie-talkie, a birthday present from three years ago, which he could use to communicate with Matthew on the other corner.
