Astor tucked away the memory. There were other secrets within these walls, other lies that best remained concealed.
The black belt.
Astor climbed the stairs slowly. He held the piece of blue stationery with the word Cassandra99 in his hand. The stationery came from one place and one place only. The top right drawer of his father’s desk. He did not stop to admire his father’s portrait. Nor did he marvel at the Swarovski crystal chandelier made a century earlier for his Imperial Majesty, Charles I, the last Emperor of Austria. His pace quickened with each step, so that when he reached the first-floor landing and started down the hall, he was moving briskly and passed his father’s bedroom without peeking in.
Later, he told himself. There would be time after he searched the office.
Astor stopped in his tracks.
There was no later.
Edward Astor was dead. He would never have the chance to explain. He would never have an opportunity to reconcile with his only son. The time for that was gone. Astor would have to reconcile for both of them. He was done running.
He retraced his steps until he stood at the doorway to the bedroom and peered inside. The room was as he remembered it: the vast bed with the white bedspread, the maple furniture that might have served a founding father, the windows looking over the orchard and the expanse of Oyster Bay.
He stepped inside the room like a man mounting the gallows.
The black belt.
The punishments always took place here in his parents’ bedroom, and in the early evening. There was a strict protocol about them, a procedure that never varied. It began with a summons, his father’s operatic baritone trumpeting his name from upstairs.
Master Robert Frederick Astor.
Always the full name. Always uttered without a trace of malice or anger.
Come.
Astor had only vague memories of the actual crimes. Once he had played with his father’s double-edged razor blades and cut himself. When asked about the gash on his finger, he had lied and said he caught his hand in the medicine cabinet. The evidence was discovered lurking at the bottom of his parents’ toilet, where he’d tried valiantly to flush it away. Astor was mischievous by nature. Fibbing came easily. Even then he had courted trouble. At some point, boyish dares hardened into adolescent transgressions. The sentences were never unjust.
With dread he would climb the stairs. (It was years before he’d learned to camouflage fear with arrogance, bravado, or confrontation.) Trembling, he waited at the bedroom door, palms sweating, stomach sick with anxiety.
Enter.
There stood his father, Edward Everett Astor, Wall Street supremo, chairman of the school board, pillar of society, a man of untarnished rectitude. He was not a tall man, but broad across the shoulders and barrel-chested. He wore his hair slicked back with pomade. At day’s end, a few strands hung loose and he had the rough, capable air of an accomplished seaman. He had removed his jacket and tie and stood with his white shirt unbuttoned. In his hand he gripped his black crocodile belt, folded double, and in the manner of Bligh on the Bounty, he tapped it threateningly on his thigh.
How do you plead, Master Astor?
Guilty, sir.
Astor had learned early on never to proffer excuses. Excuses were an extension of the crime and merited further beating.
The punishment is ten lashes.
Astor advanced to the bed. He lowered his trousers, then his underwear, and bent over, hands scrubbed, trimmed fingernails clutching the bedspread. A final indignity demanded that he himself signal the punishment.
Please begin, sir.
The strokes were administered crisply and with brute force. The punishment was meted out in full.
One.
Astor heard the snap of leather against flesh and jolted in his shoes. He was breathing hard, the paper in his hand crumpled into a ball. He looked around the room, half expecting to find his father still there, belt in hand. He met only his reflection in the mirror. He stared at himself, remarking on how much son resembled father.
Astor sat down on the bed. Carefully he flattened out the stationery. He felt lighter, somehow freed of a burden. The past had no claim on him. From here on out, his actions were his own. He was not assisting his father out of guilt or fear or some long-repressed need to repent for sins either real or imagined. He was helping him for another reason.
Because it was the right thing to do.
The monk circled the home to the rear. When he was sure the older man could not see him, he dashed across the lawn and mounted a short flight of stairs to the raised back porch. He peered in a window. The kitchen was as large as his childhood home. The door was locked. So were the three windows nearest him. He needed only three seconds to climb the drainpipe and hop onto the roof that skirted half the second floor. He ran to the wall and pushed his body against it. He paused, finding his center, then peeked into the window to his right. The room inside held two single beds. The door to the interior hall was closed. He tried the window and found it locked, too. The next window was locked as well. A wraparound terrace met the corner of the roof. He hopped the railing and landed on the decking. He waited again, allowing his heart to slow, his senses to come to life. He had no idea where in the house Astor might be, or if he was alone. The Audi had already been parked in front when he had arrived. It had become necessary to use other means to ascertain Astor’s whereabouts and intentions since he had destroyed his phone.