The Quiet Game

"No. You just talked about how wonderful it would be if we were both there. What I can't believe is that you let your parents think I had gotten you pregnant. You did, didn't you? That's the root of all the pain that came after."

She takes a deep breath and sighs. "I suppose I did."

"Suppose, nothing. You didn't have the guts to admit you teased Ray Presley into raping you, but you didn't mind letting me take the blame for knocking you up."

"Penn, you don't understand. When Ray took me home that night, he threatened me. He said that if I told my father what had happened, he'd kill my mother."

"Your mother?"

"He knew I wouldn't care about myself. Ray said my father might kill him for hurting me, but he'd thank him for killing my mother. And on some level… I felt like he might be right. Daddy was such a bastard to Mother back then."

A wave of shame rolls through me, shame for thinking Livy was so selfish and shallow that she would let my family pay for something that was someone else's fault without any excuse. But the shame passes quickly. Livy is twisting the truth even now.

"You're lying. I don't mean about the threat. I'm sure Presley threatened you. But you've always cared about yourself. More than anything else. And I don't think you would have bought Ray's threat, not for long. He was scared shitless of your father. He still is, in some ways. And when Leo decided to go after my father out of revenge, you could have spoken up. You could have said, Daddy, it wasn't Penn. But you didn't. You knew why he took that suit, and you never said a damn word to change his mind."

"It was too late by then. I was at Virginia and-"

"I flew up there to see you! And you said nothing. You're gutless, Livy. I never knew that about you until now."

"I suppose I am. About the big things."

"Just like your father. He wanted a man dead, but he didn't have the balls to do it himself. He was district attorney, and he arranged to have an innocent man killed for profit."

"That is such bullshit."

"You think so? You'll find out different tomorrow. Your father and Ray Presley set up one of the most heinous murders I've ever come across, and J. Edgar Hoover covered it up to keep your grandfather happy. To keep them pulling for Nixon in the sixty-eight election."

"What are you babbling about?"

"Never mind."

Her face has taken on a strange cast. "I met him once, you know. Hoover. When I was a little girl. Up in Jackson with my father."

"Oh, they were big buddies. And the root of their friendship was the murder of Del Payton."

She shakes her head as if I'm hopelessly insane.

"By sundown tomorrow your father will be indicted for murder, unless he can kill my witnesses. And he's trying hard, believe me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your father and John Portman tried to kill me last night."

She shakes her head. "You're lying."

"When have you known me to lie, Livy? Ever? Your father killed for money and power in 1968, and he'll do it now to cover his ass. That's all he's ever been about. He's played every angle and skimmed every deal, from factory locations to backroom adoptions. Everything's money to him."

Livy has gone still. "What do you mean, backroom adoptions?"

"Come on. That can't be news to you. I saw a record of the private adoptions he handled over the years. He did about twenty of them, and yours was one. Jenny's, I mean. For big money too. Big for those days, anyway."

She reaches out and touches my arm. "Tell me what you're talking about."

"You really don't know? Remember those records you and Leo took out of his office last week? The ones he tried to burn?"

"Yes." -

"There was a scrap of paper in there, a record of income from adoptions. He pocketed thirty-five grand off of yours. One of the highest prices paid for any baby on the list. I guess he wanted top dollar, since the baby came from his gene pool."

The blood has drained from her face.

"Look at it, if you don't believe me. I've been carrying the list around in my wallet since the day Jenny told me her story. I thought it was a record of our child being given away."

"Let me see it."

I pull out my wallet and fish the scrap of yellow paper from the bill compartment. Livy snatches it away and holds it up in the blue glow of the streetlight across the road, trying to read in the dark. Her face is in shadow, but after a few moments the paper starts to quiver in her hand.

"That son of a bitch," she murmurs. "That son of a bitch."

"You still think I'm lying?"

"That he would profit from my pain like that…"

"I doubt he gave it a second thought. Making money was his habit. Everything that passed through his hands had to turn a profit. You should know that better than anyone."

She looks up at last, her eyes empty of everything but desire for the truth. These are the eyes I knew in high school. "Do you really believe my father ordered Del Payton's death?"

"It's not a question of belief. I know."

"You can prove it?"

"If my witnesses reach the courtroom alive."