The suicide, when Cardynge read Lisette’s ultimate refusal?
Or the refusal itself? Was it in character for her? Yamamura’s mind twisted away from the room, two days backward in time.
108
The Unicom Trade
He was faintly relieved when she came to his office. Not that the rights or wrongs of the case had much to do with the straightforward task of tracing Bayard and explaining why he should return. But Yamamura always preferred to hear both sides of a story.
He stood up as she entered. Sunlight struck through the window, a hurried shaft between clouds, and blazed on her blonde hair. She was tall and slim, with long green eyes in a singularly lovely face, and she walked like a cat. “How do you do?” he said. Her hand lingered briefly in his before they sat down, but the gesture looked natural. He offered her a cigaret from a box he kept for visitors. She declined.
“What can I do for you, Mrs. Cardynge?” he asked/with a little less than his normal coolness.
“I don’t know,” she said unhappily. “I’ve no right to bother you like this.”
“You certainly do, since your husband engaged me. I suppose he is the one who told you?”
“Yes. We saw each other yesterday, and he said he’d started you looking for his son. Do you think you’ll find him?”
“I have no doubts. The man I sent to Seattle called in this very morning. He’d tracked down some of Bayard’s associates there, who told him the boy had gone to Chicago. No known address, but probably as simple a thing as an ad in the paper will fetch him. It’s not as if he were trying to hide.”
She stared out of the window before she swung
DEAD PHONE
109
those luminous eyes back and said, “How can I get you to call off the search?”
Yamamura chose his words with care. “I’m afraid you can’t. I’ve accepted a retainer.”
“I could make that up to you.”
Yamamura bridled. “Ethics forbid.”
One small hand rose to her lips. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Please don’t think I’m offering a bribe. But” She blinked hard, squared her shoulders, and faced him head on. “Isn’t there such a thing as a higher ethic?”
“Well-11 … what do you mean, Mrs. Cardynge?”
“I suppose Aaron praised Bayard at great length. And quite honestly, too, from his own viewpoint. His only son, born of his first wife, who must have been a dear person. How could Aaron see how evil he is?”
Yamamura made a production of charging his pipe. “I hear there was friction between you and the boy,” he said.
A tired little smile tugged at her mouth. “You put it mildly. And of course I’m prejudiced. After all, he wrecked my marriage. Perhaps ‘evil’ is too strong a word. Nasty? And that may apply to nothing but his behavior toward me. Which in turn was partly resentment at my taking his mother’s place, and partly” Lisette stopped.
“Go on,” said Yamamura, low.
Color mounted in her cheeks. “If you insist. I think he was in love with me. Not daring to admit it to himself, he did everything he could to get me out of his life. And out of his father’s.
110
The Unicorn Trade
He was more subtle than a young man ought to be, though. Insinuations; provocations; disagreements carefully nursed into quarrels” She gripped the chair arms. “Our marriage, Aaron’s and mine, would never have been a simple one to make work. The difference in age, outlook, everything, I’m not perfect either, not easy to live with. But I was trying. Then Bayard made the job impossible for both of us.”
“He left months ago,” Yamamura pointed out.
“By that time the harm was done, even if he didn’t realize it himself.”
“Does it matter to you any more what he does?”
“Yes. IAaron wants me to come back.” She looked quickly up. “No doubt he’s told you otherwise. He has a Victorian sense of privacy. The sort of man who maintains appearances, never comes out of his shell, until at last the pressure inside gets too great and destroys him. But he’s told me several times since I left that I can come back any time I want.”