I said, “He’s asked you for the ransom money, is that it?”
Channing was silent for a long moment, a faintly pained expression at the corners of his mouth. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Yes. A loan. I’m not in the habit of loaning money, not even to personal friends, not for any reason. And three hundred thousand dollars is quite a lot of money.”
I agreed that it was.
“But on the other hand, if the ransom isn’t paid and Gary is …” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. “If that were to happen, it would be on my conscience, do you see? I couldn’t bear a cross like that.”
“Are you going to give him the money?”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“Apparently not.”
“I suppose, when I asked you here today, I just wanted some reassurance that everything was going to work out-that Gary would be returned safely after the ransom payment, and that I would get my money back. Not that Martinetti wouldn’t repay it; he would, certainly, as soon as he was able. But that might possibly be a period of years.”
I said, without thinking, “And you wouldn’t like to have three hundred thousand dollars of your money not producing any returns.”
Channing looked at me sharply for a brief instant, and then he sighed audibly and carefully tapped the ash off the end of his cigar into a bronze ashtray. “I’m not a hard man,” he said, and there was a note of defensiveness in his voice. “Oh, I’ve stepped on a few people in my life; what successful man hasn’t? But I’m not a driving force, the way Martinetti is.”
“That’s your concern, Mr. Channing,” I said. I did not want to listen to any rationalizations this morning.
“Yes,” he said, “I suppose it is.”
I got on my feet. “If there’s nothing more, I’ve got to be on my way.”
“No, nothing more,” he said. He stood, too, and extended his hand. I took it. “Are you going to Lou’s now?
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there later this afternoon. It will take some time to gather the money together from various banks.”
I said I would see him later, and let myself out. I went quickly to where I had left my car, and got a toothpick from my coat pocket and chewed on it. I thought:
Jesus, it must be hell to live with yourself if you’re a like that.
I started the car and swung down onto El Cai Real and turned north there, toward Hillsborough.
* * * *
5
Martinetti was sitting alone on the terrace, at a wrought-iron table under a huge fringed umbrella. I could see him as I came up the path from the front gate, but instead of cutting across the lawn on the circular stepping stones leading to the terrace from an opening in the low retaining wall, I went peremptorily to the front door and rang the bell.
The thin dark-haired maid-Cassy-let me in and put my hat on the same hall table and escorted me wordlessly through the huge living room and through a sliding glass door at the left of the bay window. I did not see any sign of Karyn Martinetti or Proxmire, the secretary. The living room was dark and silent.
There was a white cloth spread over the table at which Martinetti sat, and on it was a silver coffee service and a crystal decanter of what looked like brandy. The cup in front of him was half full, and his face was flushed lightly. The gray eyes were sunken in discolored pouches, and had a haunted look to them; no magnetism on this day.
He turned the haunted eyes on me as I came out onto the terrace and put his chin down a half-point in greeting. I sat in the chair on his right. He said, hollowly, to the maid, “Bring another cup, would you please, Cassy?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and went away.
We sat there in silence for a time, looking out over the rippling blue-green water in the pool, to the drive and a high green bordering hedge beyond it. It was warm and quiet, and you could hear sparrows and fat-breasted robins chattering in the trees. I wanted a cigarette so badly that the thought of one made saliva flow hotly in my mouth.
I said finally, “No word yet, Mr. Martinetti?” but it was a rhetorical question. I could tell just by looking at him that there had been none.
He shook his head and put the coffee cup to his mouth and drank deeply from it with his eyes closed. A shudder passed through him, brief and violent, and then he put the cup down very carefully with hands that were steady only by an effort of will.
The maid came back with a china cup on a small silver tray and put the cup down in front of me and poured coffee from the silver service. Then she refilled Martinetti’s cup and went away again. I watched him add a couple of fingers from the decanter, and poured milk and stirred sugar into my own coffee.
I said quietly, “You ought to get some sleep, Mr. Martinetti. I can watch the phone for you.”
“No, I’m all right,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“Whatever you say.”
He drank from his cup again. I hoped he would not get drunk; in this sort of situation the clearer the thinking the better off everything was going to be. But he looked as if he could handle the liquor well enough, and I thought better of saying anything to him about it. If Gary Martinetti had been my son, maybe I would have felt like getting a little tight, too.
There was not much we could say to one another, and we sat and listened to the morning sounds. I drank coffee and chewed toothpicks and tried not to think about anything at all. An hour passed, and I knew I was not going to make it. My nerves were like the sparking ends of live wires. I kept telling myself to remember the cough, to remember my uncle who had died wasted of cancer, but I wasn’t coughing now and my lungs felt fine and it just wasn’t any goddamned use, not with the tension building inexorably with each passing second.
I excused myself and went along the lawn to the path and out to where I had left my car. In the glove compartment I found three packages of cigarettes that I had known were there all along. I got one of them out and tore it open and shook out a cylinder and lit it and breathed in the smoke like it was ambrosia. I closed my eyes and leaned against the side of the car, and there was a weak feeling of completion in the pit of my stomach, the kind of feeling you have after a sexual orgasm. I was not coughing, and the barrier was back up in my mind; I could not even tell myself what a weak damned fool I was.
I put the opened package and another one in my coat pocket and walked back across the footbridge, through the gate. As I approached the terrace, I saw that Karyn Martinetti had come out and was sitting next to her husband at the table. She still had that little-girl-lost expression in her eyes, but there was some color in her cheeks and she’d put on a touch of coral lipstick. The blond hair was pulled back severely into a ponytail and tied with a black velvet ribbon, and she was dressed in a thin white sweater and a wrap-around skirt and white tennis shoes.
She tried a smile for me as I sat down, but it was weak and painful for her and she put it away almost immediately.
I said, “Good morning, Mrs. Martinetti. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, lovely,” she answered in a dull voice. “I can’t remember when I’ve ever felt as lovely as I do at this very moment.”
“Karyn, for God’s sake!” Martinetti snapped at her.
She brought her arms up and hugged herself as if she was suddenly chilled. “I’m sorry,” she said very softly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down?” Martinetti said. “You aren’t helping us or yourself being down here.”
“I don’t want to be alone, Lou.”
“Cassy will stay with you.”
“I want to stay here.”
He moistened his lips. “All right, then.”
And the three of us sat, waiting. The sun climbed perpendicular in the pale blue autumn sky, and then started its slow and repetitive descent toward the western horizon. Cassy came out with a plate of sandwiches and some chilled raw vegetables, but none of us seemed to be very hungry. I smoked three more cigarettes, carefully, like a junior high school kid locked in the bathroom, and nothing happened in my chest. The tension was still strong in the air, growing stronger, but I could handle it now; I had my crutch back.