Act of Darkness(31)

All the way to the foyer, he thought about the floor plan at the back of the folder, and the names printed into the little squares of rooms.

That particular room, at that particular end of the hall, belonged to Patchen Rawls.





FIVE


[1]


GREGOR HAD NOT EXPECTED to have any trouble finding the study, because he hadn’t really believed there was any such thing as a “study,” just a small square of floor someplace whose demarcation from the rest of the house was more psychological than actual. As it turned out, he was grievously wrong. Getting to the bottom of the stairs, he stopped in the foyer and looked right, left, and down the center toward the back. He saw pictures of Janet, pictures of Victoria, and even more pictures of Janet. There was no sign of anyone who could be Dan Chester, or of anyone at all.

He might have stood there forever, lost in bemused contemplation of heart-shaped objects of every size and material and that same picture of Janet Harte Fox crammed into every conceivable type of frame, if he hadn’t been rescued by a blast of Chanel No. 5 and the sound of soft leather slapping against carpet. He looked up and saw a woman coming toward him, wearing a tight little smile that distorted her features and closed her eyes to slits. He barely recognized her. She was so much older, and so much less animated, than the girl whose picture surrounded him.

Janet Harte Fox.

She saw him register her and gave him a very different smile, one that pulled across the entire lower third of her face. It was, Gregor thought, no less nervous a smile than the other. She had to be a woman under a great deal of stain. She put her hand up to her hair and pulled at the ornamental pins stuck in it. One came out, and Gregor could see it had a wicked point.

She put out her hand to him and said, “It’s Mr. Gregor Demarkian, isn’t it? I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’m Janet Harte Fox.”

Gregor restrained himself from saying “I know.”

“I’m glad to meet you, too,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, I’m glad to meet anyone. I’m supposed to be on my way to the study, and I thought it was going to be easy to find, but—”

“But nothing is easy to find? Oh, yes, I know. This is a very deceptive house.”

It was, of course, the perfect description. He just wished he’d thought of it himself.

“There’s a lot more to it than I realized,” he said. “And less, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean there are so few walls. Of course. There aren’t nearly enough. It makes almost everyone crazy except my mother, and my mother is a very unusual woman.” Janet Fox thought about it. “In her wing of the house, though, there are walls. Were you looking for the Mondrian study or the Pollock one?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Mondrian has walls, and the Pollock doesn’t. I’d look for the Mondrian if I were you. I saw Dan Chester going into it a few minutes ago. That’s probably who you’re looking for.”

Gregor wanted to get a look at his watch, to see if he’d spent an unconscionable amount of time daydreaming or if Dan Chester had been more determined to be first at their meeting than he had. He was too fascinated by Janet’s obsessive pulling at those ornamental hair pins to manage it.

“Does the Mondrian study have Mondrian paintings in it? Your mother doesn’t seem to go in for paintings much.”

“She has some. The Pollock study has frescoes. In fact, it is a fresco: walls, ceiling, and floor. And she has portraits, too, in her own room.”

“Portraits of you?”

“And of herself, yes. And of my daughter—my daughter who died. That one was done from a photograph taken in the hospital. Stephen didn’t want it taken, but I did, and I’m glad I did. She never left the hospital alive.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “I’d heard you had a child that died. I’m very sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. Much too long ago for you to be sorry. I’m sorry. I’m prattling along like a Beverly Hills twit, aren’t I?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Well, I would. That’s what Beverly Hills is like, you know. Lots of parties full of people you’ve never seen before and are never going to see again, coming up to you and telling you all about how they have problems with premature ejaculation or why they left psychoanalysis for EST. If I was going to run true to type, I’d start telling you how sorry I am that I decided not to have any more children—which is true—and how enthusiastic I am about Stephen’s act, which I’m not.

“You’re not in favor of federal aid to retarded children?”