فصل 60

Chapter 60

MASON VERGER’S majordomo, Cordell, was a large man with exaggerated features who might have been handsome with more animation in his face. He was thirty-seven years old and he could never work in the health industry in Switzerland again, or have any employment there that put him in close contact with children.

Mason paid him a large salary to be in charge of his wing, with responsibility for his care and feeding. He had found Cordell to be absolutely reliable and capable of anything. Cordell had witnessed acts of cruelty on video as Mason interviewed little children that would have moved anyone else to rage or tears.

Today Cordell was a little concerned about the only matter holy to him, money.

He gave his familiar double knock on the door and went into Mason’s room. It was completely dark except for the glowing aquarium. The eel knew he was there and rose from his hole, hoping.

“Mr. Verger?”

A moment while Mason came awake.

“I need to mention something to you, I have to make an extra payment in Baltimore this week to the same person we spoke about before. It’s not any kind of emergency basis, but it would be prudent. That Negro child Franklin ate some rat poison and was in critical condition earlier this week. He’s telling his foster mother it was your suggestion he should poison his cat to keep the police from torturing it. So, he gave the cat to a neighbor and took the rat poison himself.”

“That’s absurd,” Mason said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Of course it’s absurd, Mr. Verger.”

“Who’s complaining, the woman you get the kids from?”

“She’s the one that has to be paid at once.”

“Cordell, you didn’t interfere with the little bastard? They didn’t find anything in him at the hospital, did they? I’ll find out, you know.”

“No, sir. In your home? Never, I swear it. You know I’m not a fool. I love my job.”

“Where is Franklin?”

‘Maryland - Misericordia Hospital. When he gets out he’ll go to a group home. You know the woman he lived with got kicked off the foster home list for smoking marijuana. She’s the one complaining about you. We may have to deal with her.”

“Coon doper, shouldn’t be much problem.”

“She doesn’t know anybody to go to with it. I think she needs some careful handling. Kit gloves. The welfare worker wants her to shut up.”

“I’ll think about that. Go ahead and pay the welfare clerk.”

“A thousand dollars?”

“Just make sure she knows that’s all she gets.”

Lying on Mason’s couch in the dark, her cheeks stiff with dried tears, Margot Verger listened to Cordell and Mason talking. She had been trying to reason with Mason when he fell asleep. Obviously Mason thought she had left. She opened her mouth to breathe quietly, trying to time her breaths to the hiss of his respirator. A pulse of gray light in the room as Cordell left. Margot lay flat on the couch. She waited almost twenty minutes, until the pump settled into Mason’s sleep rhythm, before she left the room. The eel saw her go, but Mason did not.