Resurgence Read online

  The only thing of interest right now is the car that moved up to pass in the outside lane and stayed abreast instead of speeding by. The occupants, three teenage tough guys banded together in the front seat of an old sedan with mismatched doors, are looking at him. They’re making fun of him, pointing, laughing, jeering, and mocking in a way that reminds of high school days in Bimmerman when he was taunted for riding a girl’s bicycle.

  The temptation to do what he couldn’t do in the old days—fight back with any chance of winning—is so strong he can almost taste it. What he tastes for real when he cumbers himself from crowding the tormentors off the road, is blood from the place where he just bit through his lip, reason enough to take himself off the road till the old feelings run their course.

  A quarter of a mile later he does a law-abiding exit onto an auxiliary road that connects a stretch of strip plazas and stand-apart businesses. After he’s rolled to a sensible stop next to a furniture store, he jumps out of the El Camino like it might be tainted with leftover rage and sees right away that the stick-on “Superior Home Maintenance” sign that was meant to make him look believable in Glen Abbey is upside down. That must be what the bullyboys were laughing at, a discovery that doesn’t bring any real relief because now he has to wonder if the people of Old Quarry Court laughed behind their window curtains at the very same thing. Now he has to wonder if he made himself a standout instead of a blend-in.

  He peels off the sign, slides it behind the bench seat and turns his attention to a nearby combination motel and restaurant called The Speedwell. He locks the El Camino and walks the short distance to the restaurant entrance, where a sign says cocktails are served.

  The bar here is nothing like the one at the pub in the West Village; it’s a whole lot smaller, quieter, without any fake features to make you think you’re in another country or century, and at four-thirty in the afternoon, empty except for a nontalkative bartender and a lone drinker reading a real estate guide.

  Hoop downs a shot and a beer a lot faster than is sensible. But maybe he’s done with being sensible. And patient. He places a twenty on the bar and orders another setup. After one more, he takes a look at the menu, and in the spirit of the recklessness gripping him, asks for the chopped chicken liver platter that comes with marble rye, capers, cornichons, and scallions; all of it stuff he’s never had before.

  He sits at a table for the food part of his intemperance. He can’t hear the TV as well as when he was seated at the bar, but he can hear it well enough to know that the international entertainer they’re talking about on the five-thirty newsbreak is not one that concerns him.

  The only part of his meal he doesn’t care for is the little shriveled berry-like things that look like animal droppings and don’t add that much to the taste. He scrapes them aside and finishes everything else on the platter—including the fancy lettuce leaves that cupped the chicken liver. This earns him another drink—just the whiskey this time—then a couple more at the bar, where he starts thinking about the drive back to the North Bergen motel.

  He can make the drive—he’s held a car to the road with more liquor in him than he has now—but the way his luck’s been going lately, what if some other drunked-up driver hits him? Then what’s he going to do? If he did have a run-in with the cops, how would he explain the money in the gym bag, the Bowie knife in the tool case and other stuff—like those little waxpaper envelopes the headache powder comes in that are so easy to mistake for something else?

  Now he’s scared himself so bad he can’t even risk sleeping it off in the El Camino—not even if he moves it to a less noticeable spot. And now he needs another drink if he’s ever going to hatch a plan.

  Two more whiskeys later, when he thinks he has figured out what to do, he sees that the place has filled up while he was dithering. If he happens to make a jackassed-fool of himself by staggering when he leaves, he’ll have spectators. And if any of them should happen to laugh, they could get more than bargained for.

  He settles the food and drink bill and makes it to the lobby of the motel without staggering. There’s some gloat involved when he rents a room for the night even though he has other paid-for lodgings.

  In the parking lot, he’s not quite so surefooted on the approach to the El Camino to fetch the gym bag and tool case. On the way back to the motor lodge he steadies himself on other parked cars and a light pole till he reaches the outside stairs to the second floor, where they told him his room is.

  He’ll have to mind every step if he wants get to the top of these stairs without falling because the treads are see-through metal meshwork that makes him feel like a dog walking on glass.

  Queasiness stays with him after he reaches the solid surface of the second floor and gets worse when he finds his room and has all kinds of trouble opening the door with the plastic card they gave him instead of a regular key.

  Inside the room, he’s too dizzy to bother making comparisons to the North Bergen lodgings. He does, however, see that the television set is a whole lot newer, gets a whole lot more channels, and comes with a remote control that he chucks aside as he belly-flops onto a bed that commences pitching and tossing like a tilt-a-whirl at a roadside carnival.

  SIX

  Late night, April 13, 1987

  At Laurel’s request, they’re behind closed doors in the winter parlor without phone, telly, or, as she put it, majorly distracting architectural details to deal with. She’s nestled in a deep armchair with one of the housecats on her lap, only the second time today that she’s been more than an arm’s length away from him.

  Colin stops pacing and takes a chair at the game table, where Gemma Earle left a drinks tray. “Tell me again why David’s on his way here at this late hour? Makin’ a round of courtesy calls, is he?”

  “Very well, I’ll tell you precisely why,” Laurel says. “When he phoned with the preliminary toxicology report, I asked him to come. I think we both need a face-to-face with someone close to the situation and I’m sure David can use a break after the day he’s had. Is this going to be a problem?”

  “Not for me. The current crisis transcends any problem I might have with tolerating his company. And I’m not the one who had the row with him on the plane and shunned him for most of the flight and gave him the cold shoulder when we went our separate ways yesterday.”

  “That was . . . unfortunate, but those issues are necessarily set aside—transcended, as you say—in light of new developments.”

  “You can leave off with the euphemisms. The blow’s been felt and absorbed and I’m not gonna go into hibernation again if someone says in so many words that Rayce is dead.”

  “I’m sorry. Perhaps I’ve been a little too—”

  “Solicitous and hovering. Yeh, you have. Everyone has. Been giving me the rubber glove treatment, the lot of you.”

  “Rubber glove? I don’t understand.”

  “David once suggested I was receiving rubber glove treatment instead of kid glove treatment. This was when I first started raising hell about the way I was being handled. I forget the exact context, but he meant I was being treated more like a lab specimen than a spoilt rock star, and the term stayed with me.”

  “I see.”

  “Be damn certain you do because I don’t fancy kid glove treatment either.”

  “Timely advice. Starting now, the gloves are off.”

  “Put that way it sounds like we’re getting ready to fight with no holds barred.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re not, but I do think I’ll leave you to debrief David on your own and I can’t promise I’ll still be awake when you come to bed.”

  “Wait a minute. You said we both needed a face to face with—”

  “That was before I was shown the error of my ways.”

  “You pissed?”

  “Heavens no. I’m relieved. And I think you’ll be relieved to have an unbuffered session with David knowing that you won’t be pampered.”

  The barking of the outdoor dogs announ
ces David’s imminent arrival and hurries Laurel from the room before he can challenge her reasoning.

  “Laurel won’t be joining us?” David says when he’s shown in by Sam Earle, then answers his own question by remarking that Laurel has to be overwhelmed by all that’s befallen her in the past seventy-two hours and undoubtedly in need of time for reflection. “Tomorrow’s soon enough to let her know that by insisting I brief you in person, she wasn’t posing an inconvenience.”

  “She knows that, she figured you could use a break from the madding crowd.” Colin ignores the other tripwires in David’s minefield of comments and points him to the chair Laurel just vacated. “Drink? Have you had dinner?”

  “I could use a drink—whatever you’re having.” David’s only other deviation from his starched norm is to loosen his tie and open his collar. “By madding crowd you can only mean Rayce’s immediate family. Laurel said you were on the receiving end of some unpleasantness from Nicola and now it seems she’s inflamed the others. Ex-wives and old girlfriends are coming out of the woodwork, competing to assign blame, and brawling among themselves over the funeral plans. I’m well out of that, I can tell you.”

  David accepts a large whiskey without ice and drinks off a third of it at one go, “Am I to understand you’re at odds with some of the initial findings?”

  “That’s put mildly.”

  “Do you want to specify?”

  “No. Start at the beginning. Start with when you first heard and I’ll jump in when I have a question or can’t agree.”

  “So . . . from the beginning.” David crosses and uncrosses his legs, “I was called around seven-fifteen this morning by Rayce’s personal assistant. He was alerted by the housekeeper who found it odd that Rayce’s bedroom door was open and his bed not slept in when she initiated her early morning rounds. She might simply have decided he bunked in another bedroom for variety’s sake if she hadn’t noticed a light on in the bathroom of the master suite. To spare potential embarrassment, she announced herself, but there was no acknowledgement. She then knocked on the partially open door, called out again, and again received no answer. This caused her to enter the bathroom and discover him sprawled on the floor in front of the toilet.”

  “Bleedin Jesus, tell me he wasn’t found like—”

  “He wasn’t. He hadn’t been sitting on the toilet when it happened. The scene indicated that he’d just finished urinating and flushing when he was struck down, because the toilet seat was up, the water in the toilet bowl was clean, his fly was open, and his penis was exposed. To reinforce that supposition, there was no urine on the floor to suggest loss of bladder control at the time he went down.”

  “You saw him like that yourself?” Colin says.

  “No. I’m quoting from the police report. When I got there the body had been repositioned by the paramedics in order to assess his condition.”

  “But you saw the body.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know then that it was a dead body with no chance for resuscitation?”

  “Yes. Everyone knew. The housekeeper knew when she found him—he was cold to her touch—the medics had to know without turning him over, but certain basic procedures were nevertheless employed.”

  “Did you see the drugs they’re saying were found at the scene?” Colin asks.

  “No drugs per se were found at the scene. Nor any paraphernalia. Not even any baggies or wrappers. However, a drinking glass containing drug residue was found in his study and from that residue the initial determination was made.”

  “What’s meant by drug residue?”

  “In this instance, a mixture of water and cocaine hydrochloride—coke in soluble form—and enough was left to provide a reasonably accurate field analysis.”

  “What did that show?”

  “That the solution was remarkably potent. Alarmingly potent, I should say. It contained a very high ratio of coke to water, raising doubt that the mix was purely accidental. And the abnormality of ingestion rather than insufflation also lends credence to the suicide theory.”

  “Only in the minds of those who didn’t know him. Anyone acquainted with Rayce for more than fifteen minutes would never stand still for this bloody suicide rubbish.”

  “That describes what Laurel said when I called earlier with these latest findings, and I’m sorry to have to say the same thing I said to her.” David downs the rest of his whiskey in one draught. “That the evidence pointing to this conclusion is difficult to ignore.”

  “Not whilst I’ve got breath left in me, it isn’t. I don’t care if you tell me evidence was found suggesting he ate the shit with a soupspoon. Rayce was not one to kill himself deliberately and he knew way too bleedin’ much about coke to bring it about accidentally. There has to be another explanation.”

  “Colin, believe me, I wish there were. But for now, it’s all we’ve got.”

  “Give me a reason, then. Tell me why a bloke coming off one of the best gigs of his entire career, headed for a sell-out tour of Europe, and all but guaranteed multi-platinum sales of a new album, would want to check out just now? And I’m only talking about his professional life. I’m not taking into account the accomplishments of his personal life that saw him clean and sober of his own free will, finally at peace with himself and those around him, and with every fucking thing to live for.”

  “You’re not postulating anything I haven’t been asking myself all day. There are no clear-cut answers. There may never be. Even the media is sidestepping motive, which isn’t keeping them from supporting the suicide theory.”

  “Do you support it?”

  David joins him at the game table and pours himself a generous refill. “My long and informed relationship with the deceased says I should not, but—”

  “The fuckwit medical examiner says you should.”

  “Something along that line.”

  They drink and debate for another hour, then call it a night by agreeing to disagree. After escorting David to one of the guest suites, Colin looks in on the lads. While realigning Simon to sleep lengthwise on his cot and retrieving Anthony’s bedcovers from the floor, he begins to recognize the benefit of purging misgivings and strengthening opinions in an open exchange, and he can only thank Laurel for providing the opportunity. Now he can’t get to her quick enough.

  A light’s been left on in the far corner of the bedroom. She’s asleep, as forecast, and doesn’t stir when he strips down and climbs in beside her. She could be an illusion, something so wished-for it only seems real; she could be transient, prey to the same unknowable, unpredictable forces that claimed Rayce. And there might also be monsters under the bed, ghosts in the cupboard, and a flock of pterodactyls on the roof. He holds her as close as he can without awakening her.

  SEVEN

  Early morning, April 14, 1987

  Laurel awakes in the anemic light of the lamp left on when she went to bed. Colin isn’t so much wrapped around her as applied to her, and must have been that way for quite a while because she’s much too warm, her upper body is cramped into an uncomfortable position, and one leg is numb. Extricating herself without waking him will take some doing, but he only grunts once or twice as she works loose and eases from the bed.

  She’s drawn to the oriel window. Through heavy overcast, natural light seeps from the horizon onto the terrace below. How many times has she resorted to window-gazing when answers couldn’t be found elsewhere? How long has she been doing this? Did the practice begin with Colin, when Colin Elliot was synonymous with conflict, or did it predate his acquaintance? Did she ever really expect to find solutions on the other side of a pane of glass—in thin air, as it were—or was the exercise simply a delaying action? As it is now.

  Aware only that it’s Tuesday of Holy Week, she’s impervious to the hour, as she has been since yesterday when the sky fell in and time stood still. Time that should have been moving ahead in joy and amazement instead of bogging down in shock and amazement. She tiptoes out of the bedroom
, ashamed of such selfish thoughts. But she can’t be the only one having them. What of David? He certainly had other plans; his managerial hopes and expectations have been dashed with one stunning blow; down deep he has to be incredibly pissed.

  Because she can’t guess what this day might bring, and because someone else unpacked and put her clothes away, she has trouble deciding what to wear and, once the decision is made, finding all the components. Dressed in the understated skirt, sweater, and suede boots she wore on the museum excursion two weeks ago, she sets out for the kitchen.

  Coffee is already made when she gets there. She therefore expects to find Gemma Earle or Rachel already on duty before remembering that the coffee maker has an automatic brew feature set for six a.m., fifteen minutes ago. Alone, as far as she can tell, she pours herself a cup and carries it outside to the arcade. Where she’s not alone. David is there, looking a little ragged around the edges and motioning for her to join him.

  They take shelter in neighboring arches and silently watch a steady rain intensify the already vivid green of the surrounding lawns and plantings. Several moments pass before David speaks.

  “Knowing how you must feel after my regrettable comments on the plane, asking me here was an unusually selfless gesture . . . even for you.”

  Laurel holds tight to the cup of coffee she has yet to taste. “We’re not going to speak of what was said on the plane.”

  “Yes, we are. In light of recent events, it’s imperative that you understand where I was coming from when I implied that rock stars are a subspecies and England is the far side of the moon. I want this out in the open, I want it known that was defensive sour grapes speaking . . . that I was being a sorehead because I wasn’t planning on losing you.”

  “This is not the time, David.”

  “Oh, but it is. I took a cheap shot and I should be made to pay for it.”

  “Very well. You asked for it. Do you know what rankles me most? That before you found him so lacking, you promoted Colin as someone with whom I would have a great deal in common.”