Merrihew stood up and walked to the chair where he had tossed his coat, picked it up, and pulled it on. “I intend to see Merrihew Terraces finished in the next few years. Each time there’s a new death, it’s a setback in time and I don’t have time. I have early symptoms of Alzheimer’s, Meiklejohn, and in five or six years I might not care. But I do now. I’ll be in touch.”
He jammed on his cap and walked to the foyer with Constance at his side. “I’m sorry,” she said, and whether she meant Charlie’s refusal to take the job or Merrihew’s admission of Alzheimer’s was impossible to tell.
After Merrihew left, Constance picked up the bulging envelope and wandered off to her upstairs office and Charlie returned to the kitchen and the simmering chili. He tasted it again. Maybe some yogurt, he decided, wiping his eyes, to temper the fire. He had never heard of doing that, but it seemed reasonable.
At dinner later Constance took a bite of chili and, looking surprised, reached for her wine. Charlie took a bite. “It’s interesting,” he said. She buttered a piece of cornbread.
“His project is amazing,” she said then. “The mission statement says not a single inch of arable land will be used and the development will hold two hundred fifty houses, underground parking, a big clubhouse with swimming pool and gym, guest rooms. Real individual yards plus landscaped gardens. It’s really incredible.”
“He’s a nut,” Charlie said.
She pursed her lips. She knew that after the first call Charlie had looked up Merrihew and had found enough to make him want to have nothing to do with the man. He wouldn’t have anyway, she also knew. Charlie was as incapable of taking orders from such a man as Merrihew was incapable of not giving them.
“And he’s ruthless,” Charlie continued. “No opposition allowed. He squashes opposition the way a sane person would squash a bug.”
“It’s really visionary, a prototype of how to house people without sacrificing any more arable land.”
“He’s a nut. One of the richest men alive. Probably knocked off his own father to get out from under the hog farm. Dangled his mother over a cliff until she agreed to let him run things his way. He wants that mountain to stand for a thousand years with his name linked to it. Immortality. What are we going to do with that chili?”
She eyed it. “Maybe you could freeze it in ice-cube trays and we could bring it out from time to time to use as seasoning.”
A little later they had ham-and-cheese sandwiches and neither of them mentioned Merrihew again, or the chili, either.
Sitting in his cold empty kitchen, Charlie took a deep breath. Merrihew had said he’d be in touch, and Charlie had no doubt that he had kept his word. His fury did not diminish, and the ice in his midsection did not melt, but he was reassured. Merrihew would not harm her, just use her for leverage. He clung to that. It was Friday, and he was not expected home until late Monday or Tuesday. Time to consider his response to Merrihew’s opening move.
As silently as before, he went upstairs, gathered a few things to stuff into his duffelbag, picked up his laptop and the big envelope, returned to the kitchen. He tore open the bag of cat food and put it on the floor, then raised the lid of the toilet. She hated for him to do that, but the cats didn’t object. Then he went out through the porch, back over the fence to Mitchum’s house. He would make up a story for the Mitchums, borrow a car, go check into a motel, and make some phone calls. The goats did not meet him this time. They were getting milked.
Charlie had worked with Ron Shipley in the past and said that if he ever wanted another partner Ron would be it. That night at eleven, Charlie, Ron, and Lucinda Popke sat in a roadhouse near the village of Fall Creek, New Jersey. For the next several days Ron and Lucinda would be Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Callahan, a couple fed up with New York City, looking for a nice place in the country within commuting distance. Ron looked as bland as a minor accountant, reddish-blond hair thinning, wiry build, and an incredible memory. Lucinda was taller than he was, with hair dyed jet black and heavy eye makeup. She probably would chew gum while they were scouting the area, and no one would give her a second thought. People told her things and she talked as if she were paying absolutely no attention and never missed a trick. They would do.
“So that’s it,” Charlie said, pushing an envelope across the table to Ron. He had photocopied all the information Merrihew had left with him. “The construction site is about five miles from here. Who’s sore about the deal? Who loses? Who gains if it’s stopped in its tracks? Rumors, speculation, whatever you can dig out. I want it all.” He had given them the telephone number of his own motel room, ten miles away; they would not meet in public again and he would not come back to Fall Creek again.
Behind Fall Creek the Kittatinny Mountains rose, and up there Merrihew’s dream was being realized. Or not.
Constance felt as if her head were in a giant vise that tightened, relaxed, tightened again. She opened her eyes, then closed them quickly. The pounding was inside her head, in her temples, behind her eyes. After a moment she opened her eyes once more to a dimly lighted room. She was in a bed, still in her gi, her shoes off. Moving cautiously, she pushed herself to a sitting position, then didn’t move again for several seconds. Dizzy. It passed and she saw that the light was coming from another room through a partly open door. Also, there was a blinking red light on a phone on a bedside table. She was so dry, she couldn’t moisten her lips. Her tongue felt swollen and her eyes burned. She doubted that she could answer the phone, not with a mouth full of sawdust.
Moving with care, she got to her feet, but the dizziness was gone and she felt only an intolerable thirst and the pounding headache. She crossed the room to push open the door to a large bathroom. On the counter by the sink was an ice bucket with a bottle of water. Gratefully she opened the water and took a long drink, not bothering with the glass nearby. She drank again and saw a small medicine container, Tylenol. It held two tablets and she swallowed them both.
Holding the water bottle, sipping from time to time, she examined the bathroom. Lavish, with a gold Jacuzzi tub and a separate shower, a thick gold rug, heated towel racks... She went back to the bedroom and turned on a lamp, looked at the blinking light on the phone, but did not touch it yet. The room was luxurious by any standard. King-size bed, carpeting made of pale clouds, dressing table with silver containers of face creams and lotions, a hand mirror, brush, and comb; a chair and another table next to drapes that looked like raw silk... Bifold closet doors, one partly open, and two regular doors. The first one she tried was locked. The other one opened to a living room as richly furnished as the rest of the suite. Another door in that room was locked. There was a television and a rack of movie cassettes, a CD player, music discs, a small refrigerator, microwave. She opened more silk drapes and then a sliding glass door to a balcony with bars. Unrelieved darkness was beyond the bars.
With her headache more manageable, she went back to the bedside table and picked up the telephone. A woman responded almost instantly, in an English accent: “Dr. Leidl, you have not been harmed. The headache will be gone in a few minutes, but if you require medication there is Tylenol in the bathroom, and coffee in the carafe in the other room. I shall call again in half an hour.” The phone went dead.
Constance hung up, returned to the other room, and found the carafe on a table along with a bone-china cup and saucer. She poured coffee and sipped it.
Her headache was easing rapidly and she continued to explore her rooms as she waited for the next phone call. She found her watch on the dressing table: seven o’clock. She had been out for nearly seven hours. Some clothes in the closet — her size. A nightgown in a drawer along with underthings, all her size. She finished the bottle of water and looked inside the refrigerator. More water, wine, cheese, juice. Apples and oranges.