“I haven’t been able to find her, Ms. Harte. I think she’s working at the school today.”
“Working at the school.” Victoria bit her lip. “I wish I could talk her out of working at that school.”
“I think she likes it, Miss Harte.”
“I don’t. I think she—never mind. Do you know if she’s seen the papers this morning?”
“No, Ms. Harte. I know she knows all about the Act in Aid of Exceptional Children. Is that what you were worried about?”
“Yes,” Victoria said.
“She was interviewed on the radio this morning,” Melissa said, diffident, as if she didn’t want to take credit for something anyone could have done. “I made a tape for you, if you’d like to hear it.”
“Of course I want to hear it.”
“I took a call from Mr. Chester, too, Ms. Harte. Making sure we’d be at the cocktail party tonight.”
“Is Janet going to be at the cocktail party?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll be there. Sometimes I wish we’d spend more time in Washington. I’d like to know more than I do about Mr. Daniel Chester.”
“Miss Rawls called, Ms. Harte. She said it was extremely important you get in touch with her.”
Miss Rawls. Victoria made one of the faces that had been her trademark in the series of screwball comedies that had first made her famous and began to root around in her pocketbook for the cigarettes she almost never allowed herself to smoke. In a way, Miss Rawls was her fault too, because she had introduced the little slut to Stephen. Miss Rawls had introduced herself to Dan Chester, however, and it was Dan Chester who did Stephen’s pimping.
For just a second, Victoria wondered what would happen if she told Melissa the whole story as far as she knew it, and then sent the girl out to discover who had done what when and whose idea it had been to go ahead with it. Stephen Fox. Dan Chester. Kevin Debrett. It had to be one of those three. The one thing Victoria was sure of was that Janet hadn’t known a thing, and wouldn’t have known even afterward if the three of them had been careful enough. Which they never were.
She lit up with one of the hotel’s matches and closed her eyes. “Melissa,” she said, “could you do me a favor? Find out what Miss Rawls will be wearing to this cocktail party.”
“Miss Rawls will be at the cocktail party?” Melissa sounded shocked. Melissa was very good at sounding shocked.
“Since Miss Rawls is in town,” Victoria flicked an ash at the small pile of newspapers on the floor, “Miss Rawls will insist she be at this cocktail party. Just to make sure everything looks normal. Find out what she’s going to wear. And when we get there, stick to Stephen. Hang on his arm and don’t let him out of your sight. Is that clear?”
“Of course, Miss Harte.”
“I’d have you hang onto Dan Chester,” Victoria said, “but I think that kind of cruelty is probably in violation of labor law.”
[4]
THE NEWS OF STEPHEN Fox’s introduction of the Act in Aid of Exceptional Children had been in that morning’s Washington Post, and although Dr. Kevin Debrett had expected it to be there, the actual sight of it, tucked into the bottom right-hand corner of the front page with a headline in twelve-point type, came as something of a shock. Just what was shocking about it, Kevin didn’t know. There was certainly nothing in the particulars to surprise him. The act Stephen had finally introduced had been the same one hammered out over months of late-night meetings in this very building. Its provisions for private clinics, direct billings to the federal government, and extended therapy had been written by Kevin himself. It was just that, seeing it there, he began to think of the entire project as an unacceptable gamble, a slap in the face of fate. Kevin had been a very lucky man. His luck had held, he thought, because he’d always known enough not to strain the limits of it. The Act in Aid of Exceptional Children was going to strain those limits to the point of disintegration. It was as if, having won the lottery, he’d decided to take his money and bet it all on a horse.
He tapped his fingers against the thick glass top of his desk and sighed. He was a relatively young man, only in his forties, and he was already more of a success than he had ever expected to be. Dan Chester had promised him that, back when they were all at the University of Connecticut, and Dan Chester had delivered. It was funny to think, now, that Kevin had so resisted the idea of becoming a doctor. He hadn’t been all that good at science, and he had hated the sight of blood—he still hated it. God only knew he’d had no interest in Serving His Fellow Man. But Dan had insisted, and when Dan insisted he got what he wanted, maybe because when he insisted he always turned out to be right. Kevin had suffered his way through three years of premed, four years of medical school, and an interminable residency in obstetrics. Dan had vetoed Kevin’s plan to specialize in psychiatry, as being too chancy and not quite scientifically respectable. Kevin had had to get down in the muck and mire, and he had done it. He’d borrowed a lot of money from his mother to outfit his office and set up shop just outside Hartford, in one of those suburbs where insurance company money kept the prices of most things high and the price of obstetrical services astronomical. He’d practiced until he was locally well known and then, on Dan’s suggestion, after Stephanie Fox had been born damaged and then died, had abruptly switched fields, into the study and care of children with Down syndrome. Kevin Debrett had always been an excellent researcher, no matter what the subject, and he liked spending his time among the dry pages of aging books and even more quickly aging journals. The human body was too fluid and inconsistent for him, too wet. Every time he delivered a baby, he found himself appalled that there was so much blood.