Conspiracy Theory(12)

Ryall stepped back, reached around on his bureau top for his tape recorder, and switched it on. He really was pudgy, in the way unatheletic teenagers are pudgy. He was round and white and soft, like something that had lain for a long time in the water and bloated. He rubbed the side of his face. His fingers were stubby too. It didn’t make much of a difference that he was always careful to keep them very well-manicured.

“This is Ryall Wyndham reporting from the Around the World Harvest Ball, Philadelphia’s most talked-about event of the preChristmas social season.”

He switched the recorder off. Christ, he thought. He sounded like a Walter Winchell imitation in a forties movie. What was wrong with him these days? If he’d had more money, he could have been married ages ago. The problem was, he could never understand how to get money, and that in spite of the fact that he was very good at keeping it. He tried to imagine himself going in to work every day as a banker, and all he got was an image of Porky Pig in a bow tie. He had actually tried law school—at Georgetown, acceptable but not stel-lar—and lasted less than a month. He could still hear his old English teacher at Canterbury—one more time, acceptable but not stellar—telling him that he just didn’t have a knack for respectability. Respectability. He ought to go into one of these things wired sometime. That would blow the game to pieces in no time at all. He could just imagine the look on Charlotte Ross’s face when she heard her voice coming out of a little black box, screeching, “I’m not going to have some goddamned car salesman spilling drinks on me all night just because he’s got his own foundation.” Car salesman. That’s what Charlotte Ross called the Ford, who didn’t have the right kind of money.

Ryall got his cell phone, and switched it on, and punched in the numbers for his office. He hated to say that he “dialed” the cell phone, even though everybody did, because he so obviously didn’t dial it. A dial was round. He listened to the ring and checked out his cuff links while he waited. They were good gold cuff links, engraved, from Tiffany’s. In the position he was in, he could not afford to settle for the fake. They settled for it, though. It wasn’t only Barbara Bush who wore faux pearls in the daytime.

The phone was picked up on the other end. “Marilyn?” Ryall said. “You have a minute?”

“I thought you were supposed to be at that party.”

“The car is due in about fifteen minutes. Don’t worry. I won’t miss it. Did you do that thing I asked you to, about the records? You didn’t call back—”

“I haven’t had time to call back,” Marilyn said, sounding cross. “And yes, I did do it. I made triplicate copies too, in case you start losing them, which you always do. I don’t know why you bother to do research, really. You can never hang on to anything for longer than a day or two at a time. You’re really pathetic.”

“Yes. Well. I’m sorry to cause you so much distress. Did you happen to notice anything that was in the records?”

“No. Why should I? I’m not a gossip columnist, Ryall. I don’t really give a damn what these people do. I don’t think anybody does. I think the paper just keeps the column on because those people are investors, or something, and they like to get some publicity. I know I never read that stuff. Or Town and Country, either.”

“Yes.” You had to be patient with Marilyn. She was a very good assistant. She kept the appointment book meticulously. She did whatever research she was asked to do. She answered the phone without sounding as if she wanted to bite somebody’s head off. It was just that she was a … cunt.

“I don’t see what your problem is anyway,” she said. “I can’t figure out if you’re obsessed with Anthony van Wyck Ross or with his wife. And neither of them are anything to be obsessed about. I mean, really.”

“Anthony van Wyck Ross is one of the most successful bankers on the planet,” Ryall said. “Get your head out of the social columns for a moment. He’s got more money than God. He determines monetary policy for half the world. Oh, not officially, of course, officially we’ve got all these government agencies. But in reality, that’s how it works.”

“Maybe. Who cares? And what do you need his transcripts from Yale and Harvard Law School for? I mean, truly, even if there was some kind of huge scandal, who would care? It’s not as if he’s Steven Spielberg.”

“You don’t think anybody would care if one of the most important men on earth was involved in something less than honest?”