Elements of Chance

“What do you think?”

“I sure can’t see Victor parachuting from a 727,” John laughed.

“Are things bad enough that Victor would go on the run?” Mary asked casually.

“No you don’t,” John said, his voice lazy. “I’m a lawyer, remember? I keep my own counsel.”

“And you cover your own ass.”

“That too,” he agreed, thinking that she was really attractive in an understated way.

Across the lawn, Valerie came toward them, followed by her personal trainer. Both of them wore workout sweats. Strange, Mary thought, all of them pretending that it was all business as usual.

As Valerie approached them, Mary realized she looked strained. “I wish that thing would go away,” Valerie said, gesturing toward the helicopter. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”

“How was your workout?” Mary asked.

“Oh, it’s better to be doing something than just sitting and wringing my hands,” she said. “Didn’t you say that Elliott was going to come by?”

“What do you want Elliott for?” John asked. “Do you feel all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m just exhausted, that’s all.”

The intercom on the telephone sitting on the table buzzed insistently, and John reached over to answer it.

“It’s Kyle,” he said. “There’s going to be some news in five minutes.”

Quickly, they walked to the mansion’s music room, where Valerie had spent many hours, either practicing or taking lessons from Kyle. The room’s focal point was the magnificent nine-foot concert grand Steinway piano. The yellows, greens and reds of the sofa and chairs picked up the colors in the priceless Aubusson carpet, which covered most of the floor. The marble fireplace was deep enough to roast a boar. Even the sunlight usually caught the room in a way that made it warm, welcoming. On the screen, a network correspondent stood in front of a government building in Acapulco. “The five bodies recovered this morning from the Penn International jet have all been identified through dental records flown to the scene, although those names will not be released pending notification of next of kin. To repeat, four of the bodies, including that of the woman on the plane, died as a result of bullet wounds to the head. Tentatively, the fifth body is believed to have succumbed from smoke inhalation.”

“What did he say?” Valerie asked incredulously.

“They were shot,” Kyle said. “All but one man.”

The ringing of the phone cut through the shocked silence. Five times, six. Seven times. Finally, John picked up.

“Valerie,” he called from across the room. “It’s for you. It’s Raymond.”

She crossed the room and took the receiver from John’s hands. “Yes, Raymond?” she said stiffly.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “The dental records have confirmed that Victor is dead.”

“He can’t be,” Valerie whispered.

“Stop being a fool for once,” he said icily. “I’m not here to play your little games with you.”

For a moment, Valerie held the phone, unable to collect herself to speak.

“You did this,” she hissed into the receiver. “I don’t know why, or how. But you did this. I know you did.”

“I’ve decided that the funeral will be in London,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ve already spoken to Miss Furst, and she’s starting to make the arrangements.” He paused for a moment, and then he said, “It seems to me that if you plan to arrive in London two days hence, it should be soon enough.”

“Why can’t it be here?” she wailed. “I want Victor to be buried here.” The words seemed absurd, even as she spoke them. She didn’t want Victor buried anywhere, didn’t want Victor dead at all. He couldn’t be dead.

“This is a difficult situation,” Raymond said. “If you manage to pull yourself together, it will be somewhat less difficult. Now, let me talk to Mr. O’Farrell.”

“What about my children?”

“Miss Furst is arranging for them to fly to London immediately. The staff at the Regent’s Park house has been informed to expect all of you.”

“This isn’t what I want, Raymond.”

“Nobody cares what you want,” he said savagely. “I’m trying to be civil.”

“You don’t know what civil is,” she whispered before handing the phone to John.

“Victor is dead,” she said aloud to those in the room, “and it was Raymond who did it.” Her voice rose to a scream. “I know it was Raymond!”

“Valerie, dear,” Mary said, rushing to her side. “Come and sit down.” Putting her arms around the younger woman, she helped her to a chair where Valerie collapsed, sobbing, her face in her hands.

In a minute, John hung up the phone.

“Valerie,” he said tentatively.

She looked up at him, her eyes red, her cheeks wet with tears.

“Now, I want you to listen to me. Can you do that?”

She nodded slowly.

“I don’t know if this is going to be harder on you. Maybe it will be easier. Victor wasn’t shot. He was the one who died of smoke inhalation.”

She nodded again.

“Now, as soon as the identification is released, the bank examiners and the IRS will be moving into the banks and all the companies. Do you understand that?”

“I understand,” she said in a tremulous voice.

“And I’m afraid the marshals will be moving in here.”

“But this is our home,” she protested.

“Well, yes and no,” John said. “The house is actually in the name of Penn International. So is everything in it. To the feds, all of this is just another asset of the corporation.”

“Do you mean I own nothing?”

“It’ll all have to be straightened out. It could take a long, long time. Years, even.”

“Is this what you meant when you said that things were going to get worse?” asked Mary.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing at her. “This is it.”

“And how bad are things?”

“Pretty bad.”

The jewelry, Mary thought, locked away in that safe-deposit box in a bank in Beverly Hills in Valerie’s name and her own, so that either of them could get to it if Valerie wanted to wear the real thing. Quickly, Mary ran a mental tape of what was there. Ten million dollars, easy, she calculated. And the jewelry, at least, was not a corporate asset. She realized she wasn’t going to mention the jewelry to John. She looked up at him. He was so handsome in his tennis whites, with his dark, curly hair, his well-muscled arms, his long, tanned legs. Still, Mary knew that John would go where the money was. To Raymond, not Valerie.

“None of this adds up,” Kyle said suddenly, as if he had been thinking about it for a long time. “Maybe Raymond engineered it, or maybe it was Victor. Or maybe it was both of them, and Raymond double-crossed Victor. But whatever, I’ve got to tell you, I agree with Valerie. Victor is alive.”

“What about the dental records?” John reminded him.

“With Raymond’s money and power, you think he couldn’t come up with some phony dental records?” Kyle asked incredulously.

“Oh, look,” John said. “Victor has been going to the same dentist in London for years. His dental chart checked out. What do you think happened, Kyle? Do you think Raymond got down to Acapulco and bribed somebody in the coroner’s office?”

“Come on,” said Kyle. “Raymond and Victor are two of a kind when it comes to money and power. Both of them know it can buy anything and anyone.”

Except for me, Valerie thought, feeling battered and miserable as she sat huddled in her chair. I’m the one who’s here for love.

Valerie was grateful when Dr. Feldman stopped by that evening to give her a shot. She lay in her bed in the silent room, her thoughts jumbled, as the doctor’s face loomed above her. She felt the almost imperceptible sting of a needle in her arm. Elliott’s face gradually drifted away, and she heard the soft click of her bedroom door as he closed it behind him.

How strange life is, Valerie thought, feeling herself slipping into a drugged sleep. Penn International is in ruins, and marshals will be in this house. And where will I be? How will I take care of myself? How will I take care of my children? Why has Raymond done this? It had always seemed impossible to her that Raymond could be Victor’s brother. Suddenly, everything seemed impossible, even her relationship with Victor. How could a seventeen-year-old music student from Los Angeles ever have met and married one of the world’s richest, most attractive men?

An image of herself at fourteen flickered through Valerie’s fogged mind. It was the summer of 1968, and she was an usher at the Hollywood Bowl. She stood in the aisles handing out programs while in the boxes, picnic baskets were opened and bottles of wine and champagne were pulled from ice coolers. Concertgoers draped white tablecloths over folding tables, and candles burned steadily in the still night. She glanced at the stage, where the orchestra was already tuning up for that night’s program of Debussy, Chopin and Rachmaninoff. Zubin Mehta was conducting, and the guest artist was Maria Obolensko, the pianist, making her first appearance in southern California.

Valerie, working at the Bowl for the second summer season in a row, handed programs to a couple hurrying to their seats, and to the tall man who sauntered along after them.

“Thank you,” he said, his English perfect but still with something faintly European in his voice. “You’re a very pretty girl. Your hair is extraordinary.”

Valerie felt the blood rush to her face, and she averted her eyes. A line, Valerie thought, handing programs to the next couple. She felt she was too skinny, with barely formed breasts. But she had always been secretly vain about her hazel eyes, sometimes green with flecks of yellow. She liked her shiny blond hair that was almost white, pulled back-tonight in a ponytail.

“I understand all the ushers are music students,” the man said.

“Yes, most of us, anyway,” she replied, looking up at him. His intent brown eyes scrutinized her almost as if he recognized her from somewhere. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the couple he had come with waiting impatiently for him. The Talbots. They were a handsome middle-aged pair, very social and very rich, whose pictures were always in the society pages.

“What do you play?” he asked.

“The piano.”

“Like Maria Obolensko?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Well, no,” Valerie said, unconsciously taking a step back. “Not yet.”

“I can introduce you to her,” the man said. “I’m Claude Vilgran, and I’ve known her for years. Perhaps you can play for her, my dear.”

“Claude, come along,” the woman called.

“What is your name?” said the man called Claude, his voice low, insinuating, as he leaned toward her.

“I don’t know you,” Valerie replied, as she felt her heart beating faster, her face flushing.

“You think about it,” he said, giving her shoulder a little pat as he turned to join his friends. Valerie looked after his well-tailored back as he strolled away, wondering why she felt so confused, so frightened. After all, he was a friend of the Talbots. Everybody knew them. But she had the oddest feeling that he had recognized her. Did she remind him of somebody else?

She put it out of her mind at the scattered applause that swelled in volume as Zubin Mehta, dark and handsome, dressed in white tie and tails, strode to the podium. Turning, he made a deep bow to the audience, his black curls cascading dramatically over his forehead. Straightening, he shot out a hand, smiling broadly. Maria Obolensko appeared out of the wings, wearing a low-cut red gown that was like a blaze of fire against her pale skin. Her black hair was pulled into a chignon at the nape of her neck, and her mouth was a bright slash of scarlet. Diamonds glittered in her ears, at her throat.

Valerie caught her breath. Someday, she thought, her eyes sparkling. Someday I’ll be standing there.

The crowd was quiet as the maestro raised his baton, and Maria Obolensko bent over the keys of the Steinway. Usually, Valerie would close her eyes and let the music sweep over her. Tonight, though, she found herself surreptitiously searching the boxes for Claude Vilgran.

As the lights came up for intermission, Valerie felt her body tense. Any minute now, she thought, there would be a tap on her shoulder, a card slipped into her hand. Claude Vilgran. It took her a few minutes to spot him in the crowd drifting toward the bar. He was deep in conversation with one of the other ushers, a tall girl of sixteen or so with flowing curly dark hair. Even from the distance that separated them, Valerie saw the same insinuating stance, the intimacy with which he leaned toward her.

Just some lecher with a taste for young girls, she thought, feeling like a fool. How did anybody ever learn what was real and what wasn’t?

The concert was a triumph for Maria Obolensko. A standing ovation, the beautiful sheaf of long-stemmed roses cradled in her arms. Two encores, and then, impossibly, a third. When the applause subsided, and Valerie was making her way up the aisle, she saw Claude Vilgran again. He was standing with the older couple in their box. Their eyes met as Valerie was caught up in the milling crowd.

She joined the passengers pushing onto one of the buses waiting in front of the Hollywood Bowl, keenly aware of her disappointment. It would have been wonderful to play for Maria Obolensko, really wonderful to meet such a great artist. It had only been a line, she reminded herself. Next time she would recognize a line for what it was.

At Sunset Boulevard, she transferred onto another bus, that took her west to Crescent Heights, in the middle of the Sunset Strip. Looming over the strip as far as her eye could see were huge painted billboards advertising Smirnoff vodka, Marlboros, movies. A new Beatles album. The Rolling Stones.

As Valerie stepped into the crosswalk, a boy sitting on the back of a convertible, his hair to his shoulders, his fingers spread in the sign of peace shouted, “Make love, not war.” Umm, he’s cute, she thought, smiling.

I wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t have my music? I’d probably be marching against the war in Vietnam, listening to the Beatles and the Stones, going out on dates. But there’s no time for that. She sighed as she walked past Schwab’s Drugstore. There isn’t time for anything, really, except my lessons, my practicing, getting ready for competitions.

Valerie saw that the lights in her family’s apartment were still burning. Even before she put her key in the door, Valerie could hear Muffin, her mother’s miniature apricot French poodle, panting and scratching on the other side.

Valerie scooped the little dog into her arms as it licked her face, wild with joy. On the flowered couch, her mother lay asleep, her bleached blond hair in blue rollers and her coarse face lathered with the latest rejuvenating night cream. Her voluptuous body was wrapped in a tired yellow terrycloth robe.

With the little dog cradled in her arms, Valerie crept across the room to her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes as she turned on the light. Her twin bed was covered by a white chenille bedspread. A nightstand with a reading lamp stood in the corner, next to the desk where she did her homework. The shelves were filled with Story Book dolls dressed in costumes from different countries.

Her father wouldn’t be home for a few hours. He was working as a bartender at a restaurant with a piano bar a couple of blocks away, he said, from the place where Nat King Cole had been discovered in the forties. He knew all about things like that. Al Hemion usually worked as an agent, booking dates in clubs and at piano bars. His clients were either the ones who tried for the big time and should have made it, or the ones who had just been kidding themselves from the beginning. When things were slow in the business, it was back to bartending. At least it paid the bills—or some of them, anyway. But sometimes, Valerie would lie in her bed, the pillow over her head, trying not to hear the ugly fights her parents had about money.

The big issue of the moment was the Cadillac El Dorado that Al had just bought. It was red, with a real leather interior that smelled wonderful.

“How are we going to pay for it, Al?” Vicki said the day he drove it home. “It’ll be repossessed like the last one. Isn’t it bad enough we have every bill collector in town after us?”

“You gotta keep up appearances in this town. You know that,” Al shouted.

“God, I never should have married you,” Vicki went on. “You’ve never been anything. You never will be.”

“You dumb cunt!” he finally yelled, storming out of the apartment. Valerie and Vicki sat there, looking at each other for a moment. Then, with a little sigh, Vicki turned on the television set and went into the tiny kitchen to get herself a beer.

At one time Valerie’s mother had been a contract player for Twentieth Century–Fox. When one of her old movies came on television, she would scream for Valerie to come and watch it with her. Vicki Drew was the gum-chewing waitress, the girl behind the counter in a department store, the moll sitting beside the gangster who was just about to be blown away. In those faded movies of the early fifties, Vicki was blond and luscious, with her big sensuous mouth that always looked as if she had just run her tongue over it.

“Sorry about that scene, baby,” Vicki sighed, sipping her beer. “God, he never learns. Marry a rich guy, baby, so you’ll have beautiful things.”

“Mom, I don’t even have time to date. I love my music. That’s enough for me.”

“You’re fourteen,” Vicki replied, patting Valerie’s arm. “Wait a few years.”

Some evenings when Al was working, she and Valerie would go through Vicki’s old scrapbooks. Vicki would cry at the sight of herself in a black-and-white publicity still, fair and pouting, looking over her bare shoulder to seduce the camera’s eye. Or, she would be in a two-piece bathing suit, her shoulders thrown back, her big breasts thrust forward, her long, pretty legs demurely crossed at the ankles, as she leaned against a palm tree. And there were snapshots of Vicki holding Valerie in her arms, her brassy blondness overwhelming the tiny, pale infant who looked at the camera with pleading eyes.

These days, Vicki worked as an extra, or as a manicurist at a beauty salon on the Sunset Strip.

Valerie remembered how frightening her parents had seemed to her when she was a baby. Their largeness, their loudness, had seemed to take up all the space available. When Valerie was a young child she pretended she was really a princess who had been kidnapped from the castle and her real parents, the king and queen, would find her one day. The fantasy made her feel guilty until a couple of her girlfriends happened to say that they had the same fantasy.

Valerie had been picking out little tunes on Al’s upright piano since she was old enough to scramble onto the bench. One of Al’s clients convinced Al and Vicki that Valerie should have lessons from a qualified teacher. Valerie remembered the tears of frustration as she spent hours practicing basic exercises and hating her demanding teacher, Nancy Carroll. By the time she was five, though, all of the hard work had started to pay off. She was playing Bach, Chopin, and Mozart with a technique that was precise and elegant.

That year, she was one of the children selected to perform for the Southwestern Musical Society. She stood in the wings, waiting her turn, wearing a white organdy dress embroidered with yellow daisies, and a yellow bow in her pale hair. There were butterflies in her stomach as she heard, for the first time, her name announced by the mistress of ceremonies and hesitantly walked onto the stage to polite applause. As she made a little bow to the audience, she heard the cheering from the middle of the second row, and smiled gratefully as she saw Al and Vicki, beaming with pride. After that, it was easy.

6

Max Perlstein, the brilliant composer and studio musician, occasionally took on a promising piano student, and when Valerie was ten, Nancy Carroll arranged for her to audition for him. Valerie had been terrified, not knowing what to expect. He was very nice, though. He was very casual. Tall and thin, he had long blond hair down to his shoulders. He wore jeans, a shirt, and loafers with no socks.

His house in Bel-Air sat on a half acre of land. It was low and rambling, vaguely Spanish, with light hardwood floors and very little furniture in the living room. Sofas flanked the stone fireplace, and a chunk of glass on a base served as a coffee table. The Steinway, of course. Several good oriental rugs. A few large expressionist paintings. Hundreds of books. Two German shepherds.

Valerie sat stiffly on the edge of one of the sofas as Max and Nancy bantered and laughed about mutual friends. Looking around the huge room, she realized the only times she had ever seen a house like this was in movies or in magazines.

She performed what she had rehearsed for months with Nancy, remembering her teacher’s words. “Feel the music.” She played a Beethoven sonata, part of a Mozart concerto, and finally a Bach fugue. Finishing, she turned toward Max. He was leaning forward, the expression on his face interested.

“Your technique’s pretty good,” he said, smiling. “Let’s try it out for a couple of weeks to see how we work together.”

“You did it,” said Nancy as they left, hugging her. “You’re on your way now.”

Valerie soon learned the routine of the house. A maid came in twice a week, and occasionally one of Max’s girlfriends would sun herself by the pool while Valerie had her lesson. Max pushed her into the master’s program at UCLA, and she played for Zubin Mehta, for Georg Solti, and for other conductors and musicians passing through Los Angeles. She even played for Vladimir Horowitz one heady afternoon, and dreamed for days of his kind words for her performance.

At fourteen, Valerie looked like a twelve-year-old. When she made any kind of public appearance, Max had her dress in little Peter Pan collars and pleated skirts, her shining blond hair in a ponytail.

“Musicians, mathematicians, and poets all hit when they’re young, kiddo,” Max told her. He prepared her for the Young Musicians Foundation competition, in which two hundred contestants from all over the country competed for the prize of fifteen hundred dollars and a concert tour with guaranteed publicity.

Valerie played her way through the series of eliminations at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Her interpretation of Beethoven’s Appassionata in the finals brought her a standing ovation and first place.

The concert tour included appearances throughout California. “Fire … poetry of sound … vibrant,” said the Los Angeles Times, who called Max to arrange an interview with her. There was another interview with the Herald-Examiner, and others with the classical music stations.

“Great news, kiddo,” said Max, waving a piece of paper at Valerie as she arrived for her lesson. “You’ve been offered a scholarship to the London Conservatory of Music. A grant’s been established by Penn International. They’re a world-wide banking outfit. It’s recognition, Valerie. It’s the next step. You win every competition, you got some press when you won the Young Musicians Foundation award, the concert tour got you some more. It’s all building. It’s the next step.”

“I can’t do it, Max,” she said. “I’m not ready to leave you.”

“Don’t count on me, kiddo. I’ve always been straight with you about why I took you on. Somebody did it for me when I was at that point in my own career, and it’s my way of paying my dues. We couldn’t have gone on forever. You’re going to need a manager soon, and I can’t do it. I have my own life, and my own career. Now that I’m scoring films, I don’t have a lot of teaching time.”

“But my mom and dad, they’d never let me go.”

“Get serious,” Max chided. “You’ll be staying with a woman named Anne Hallowell. She’s a lady, with a capital L. A big patron of the arts, and mucho bucks.”