Part 10 (2/2)

”I'm visualizing a G.o.dd.a.m.n trust specialist,” Billy Dillon said. ”One of the old-line guys. One of those guys who's not too sure where the c.r.a.pper is in the courthouse. I told you. We're not mounting a criminal defense here.”

All that had been agreed upon and it had been agreed, above all, that no purpose would be served by further discussion of why Wendell Omura had introduced legislation hindering the development of d.i.c.k Ziegler's Sea Meadow, of how that legislation might have worked to benefit Dwight Christian, or of what interest Wendell Omura's brother might recently have gained in the Chriscorp Container Division.

”How exactly did you know that,” Inez said when she and Billy Dillon left Frank Tawagata's office.

”Just what I said. Business Week. Something I read on the plane coming down.”

”About Dwight?”

”Not specifically.”

”About d.i.c.k?”

”About some Omura getting into containers. Two lines. A caption. That's all.”

”You didn't even know it was Wendell Omura's brother?”

”I knew his name was Omura, didn't I?”

”Omura is a name like Smith.”

”Inez, you don't get penalties for guessing,” Billy Dillon said. ”You know the moves.”

10.

BY the time Inez and Billy Dillon got back to Queen's Medical Center that first day in Honolulu it was almost four o'clock, and Janet's condition was unchanged. According to the resident in charge of the intensive care unit the patient was not showing the progress they would like to see. The patient's body temperature was oscillating. That the patient's body temperature was oscillating suggested considerable brainstem damage.

The patient was not technically dead, no.

The patient's electroencephalogram had not even flattened out yet.

Technical death would not occur until they had not one but three flat electroencephalograms, consecutive, s.p.a.ced eight hours apart.

That was technical death, yes.

”Technical as opposed to what?” Inez said.

The resident seemed confused. ”What we call technical death is death, as, well-”

”As opposed to actual death?”

”As opposed to, well, not death.”

”Technical life? Is that what you mean?”

”It's not necessarily an either-or situation, Mrs. Victor.”

”Life and death? Are not necessarily either-or?”

”Inez,” Billy Dillon said.

”I want to get this straight. Is that what he's saying?”

”I'm saying there's a certain gray area, which may or may not be-”

Inez looked at Billy Dillon.

”He's saying she won't make it,” Billy Dillon said.

”That's what I wanted to know.”

Inez stood by the metal bed and watched Janet breathing on the respirator.

Billy Dillon waited a moment, then turned away.

”She called me,” Inez said finally. ”She called me last week and asked me if I remembered something. And I said I didn't. But I do.”

When Inez talked to me in Kuala Lumpur about seeing Janet on the life-support systems she mentioned several times this telephone call from Janet, one of the midnight calls that Janet habitually made to New York or Amagansett or wherever Inez happened to be.

Do you remember, Janet always asked on these calls.

Do you remember the jade bat Cissy kept on the hall table. The ebony table in the hall. The ebony table Lowell Frazier said was maple veneer painted black. But you can't have forgotten Lowell Frazier, you have to remember Cissy going through the roof when Lowell and Daddy went to Fiji together. The time Daddy wanted to buy the hotel. Inez, the ten-room hotel. In Suva. After Mother left. Or was it before? You must remember. Concentrate. Now that I have you. I'm frankly amazed you picked up the telephone, usually you're out. I'm watching an absolutely paradisical sunset, how about you?

”It's midnight here,” Inez had said on this last call from Janet.

”I dialed, and you picked up. Amazing. Usually I get your service. Now. Concentrate. I've been thinking about Mother. Do you remember Mother crying upstairs at my wedding?”

”No,” Inez had said, but she did.

On the day Janet married d.i.c.k Ziegler at Lanikai Carol Christian had started drinking champagne at breakfast. She had a job booking celebrities on a radio interview show in San Francisco that year, and by noon she was placing calls to entertainers at Waikiki hotels asking them to make what she called guest appearances at Janet's wedding.

As you may or may not remember I'm the mother of the bride, Carol Christian said by way of greeting people at the reception.

I'd pace my drinks if I were you, Paul Christian had said.

I should worry, I should care, Carol Christian sang with the combo that played for dancing on the deck a Chriscorp crew had just that morning laid on the beach.

Your mother's been getting up a party for the Rose Bowl, Harry Victor said.

Carol's a real pistol, Dwight Christian said.

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