Prodigy Page 5

  Mulling this over, she arrived at Siam Garden, the Chelsea restaurant Ellen Martin had suggested. She pushed through the dark glass outer door, and scanned the mostly empty, candle-lit interior.

  A smiling Asian hostess in a turquoise silk sheath dress approached. “Dr. Conyors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your party is waiting. This way, please.” The hostess led Ellen back toward a curtained alcove. The hostess pulled back a richly embroidered drape covered with gilt elephants and monkeys, and led Barrett into a cozy private dining room, the walls and ceiling hung with garnet-colored silk. In the center stood a carved teak table with two leather club chairs, one of them occupied by a tall blond woman in a beautifully draped black suit, holding a martini glass.

  The woman stood as Barrett entered. “Dr. Conyors, thank you for meeting at such short notice.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she said, taking Ellen Martin’s extended and perfectly manicured hand.

  “What are you drinking?”

  Barrett’s first response was to say nothing, but between the openness of Ellen Martin’s china-white smile, and the nest-like comfort of the room , she was lulled. “What are you having?”

  “Grey-Goose martini with Jalapeno-stuffed olives.”

  “Sounds good,” she said to the hostess, who stood by silently.

  “Another for me,” Ellen said. “So, come, sit … you must be wondering what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  Barrett smiled as she sank into the glove-soft chair. She looked at Ellen, with her symmetrical blond hairdo that cut off crisply beneath her ears, and was sculpted around the back of her head, like a high-fashion helmet. Her skin was flawless and glowed pink in the reflected light from the candles and the hanging silks. She was striking, but the squareness of her jaw gave a masculine cast to her features. “Have we met before?” Barrett asked, finding something both familiar and forgotten in Ellen’s clear blue eyes.

  Ellen looked back. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “But now that you mention it, you do look familiar … odd.”

  “It’ll come to us,” Barrett said.

  “You’re not from around here, though, are you?” Ellen asked. “There’s something in your voice …”

  “No,” Barrett admitted. “Late in the day I sound more like my mother’s Georgia.”

  “So is this very strange?” Ellen asked. “Meeting like this with a family member?”

  “Yes and no. As your brother’s conservator it’s not so strange. I think it’s a good idea that we try to stay on the same page.”

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that.” Ellen looked up as a waitress entered with their drinks and menus.

  Barrett took a first sip of the icy cocktail, and savored the tang of pepper and the cool bite of vodka.

  “How adventuresome are you?” Ellen asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “With food?”

  “Pretty much anything.”

  “This place does a wonderful banquet, they just keep bringing things until you can’t move, sound good?”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Barrett agreed, letting Ellen order.

  Once the waitress was out of earshot, Ellen leaned forward. A gold and topaz necklace dangled and refracted the candlelight. “I feel like there’s so much I need to tell you. I almost don’t know where to start.”

  “Does your brother know we’re meeting?”

  “I haven’t told Jimmy yet, but it won’t matter to him. He’s so used to my arranging things that it wouldn’t surprise him.” She took a long sip of her drink, “Sometimes I think half my life is spent trying to keep my brother out of trouble.”

  “You arranged his release from Croton.”

  “Yes, but not without a lot of effort … and expense. To be honest, I think that’s what finally tipped things, the fact that we’re paying for everything.”

  Barrett kept quiet, while making a series of observations about the woman, from the absence of a wedding ring, to her poise and ease in what might have been an uncomfortable meeting. She wondered why someone as attractive and articulate as Ellen was single and what it was that caused her to spend so much time advocating for her brother. And she couldn’t help but admire the subdued richness of the woman’s clothing and jewelry. Her own seasons’ past, off-the-rack navy Donna Karan suit felt graceless in comparison. “They were reluctant to release him.” Barrett finally commented.

  “That’s putting it mildly, all of which made no sense, considering they never actually proved my brother had done anything. The breaking and entering was the only thing solid, everything else was circumstantial. If I’d known what I now know, I would never have let my parents do that to him. If he’d gone to trial he’d have gotten what, a few months? Maybe less, but not eighteen years. It was so unfair.”

  “You were young.” Barrett offered, not wanting to argue that the charges might have gone all the way to murder one.

  “We were eighteen. My brother was only eighteen when they put him in that hell hole!”

  The curtain slid back and the waitress deftly slid platters of an assortment of steamed, roasted, and fried dumplings onto the center of the table. Pointing to each, she described the fillings, identified three varieties of dipping sauce, poured green tea, and left.

  Barrett skewered a roast-pork-and-water-chestnut dumpling with her fork, and while savoring the crunch and soothing peanut flavor, tried to draw Ellen out. “In reading the chart,” she said, “it sounds like your brother had a psychotic break at the time of the arrest.”

  “He did, but even so, he could have gone to trial. My parents were dead set against that.”

  “Because?”

  “Publicity.” She fished an olive from her drink. “They didn’t want the Martin name dragged through the press. The papers did a number on him anyway. But as time went on …” She shook her head, and took a deep breath.

  To Barrett, it appeared that Ellen was close to tears. “What is it?”

  “I thought this was going to be easier, but I guess if you’re going to be working with Jimmy you’ll find all this stuff out sooner or later. Our parents were not good people,” she stated bluntly. “As an adult, I can sit back and say they should never have had children … I hold them directly responsible for what happened to Jimmy.”

  Intrigued, Barrett waited.

  Ellen looked at her, “They wanted Jimmy locked away forever. When I was twenty-one, I tried to hire a lawyer to review his case, my father blocked me, said it was none of my business.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Ellen gave a bitter laugh, “You don’t know how hard I’ve tried to come up with rational explanations for the things my father did; it’s useless. One minute he’d shower us with gifts, and the next …” She stopped and reached back for the curtain, “excuse me, but I’m going to need more liquor to get through this.” She signaled for the waitress with her empty glass and then turned back to Barrett. “I think my father was clinically insane, and mother wasn’t much better.”

  “Insane how?”

  “Erratic, paranoid, addicted to pain pills … sadistic. You need more?”

  “Toward you?”

  “Yes. But mostly toward Jimmy; he got the worst of it.”

  “Physical abuse?”

  “Yes, but that’s nothing compared with the way he’d play with our minds. Our childhood was like some gruesome fairy tale. If anyone had known what was going on in that house … we should have been taken out of there. All of which is easy to say, but when you’re a kid, you think the stuff your parents do is normal. You have no way of knowing how sick it is. And to an outsider, things probably looked pretty good. Our family is very wealthy and has been connected in New York society for over a hundred years. My great-great grandfather was one of the founders of the Knickerbocker Club. And a couple years back I gifted our Newport cottage to the Historical Society; it’s now a museum. People see our kind of wealth and privilege and can’t imagine children be
ing tortured inside such a beautiful home.”

  “Was there sexual abuse?” Barrett gently asked, while thinking of her own financial straits, and wondering what it might be like to donate a mansion, or to own an oceanfront mansion and call it a cottage.

  Ellen paused as the waitress reappeared with drinks and fresh delicacies. As the curtain closed behind her, she resumed, “Yes, and I don’t know how much. We were both exposed to my mother’s indiscretions. She had a string of chauffeurs who were little more than male prostitutes. She and father slept in different rooms … different worlds, actually. I often wonder how they managed to conceive the two of us. When we were kids, and this is pretty sick, we’d sometimes spy on her in the carriage house. We used to think it was funny. Now, it just makes me sad.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Tons, but there’s stuff I can’t remember. I even went to a therapist a few times to try and get the memories back; it made things worse, like I was about to fall apart. So I stopped going, figured my brain knew what was best for me by just blocking stuff out. You see,” she said catching Barrett’s eye, “work is my therapy … But back to your question … I don’t think my father molested me … I don’t think so. But he did stuff to Jimmy.”

  “From what age?”

  “Young … you asked me why my parents didn’t want Jimmy going to trial?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think the real reason is they were petrified of what would happen if any of this came out. In their twisted way they decided better to lock their son away, than for people to know what kind of sick fucks they were!” Ellen looked up, “I’m sorry, I hadn’t intended to get into all of this. I’ve never told this stuff to anyone … it can’t go anywhere.”

  “Of course,” Barrett said, finding herself with a newfound sympathy for Jimmy Martin, and his elegant sister.

  Ellen reached down and grabbed a crispy duck roll. “So Jimmy ends up spending half his life locked up, and I take over the company after my parents’ death. Although fortunately for the shareholders, I got father to let me handle much of the business prior to the accident.”

  “How long ago was that?” Barrett, asked, recalling something in the chart about an off-site supervised visit when Jimmy was allowed to attend a funeral.

  “Three years,” Ellen said.

  “And that’s how you were able to get him out?”

  Ellen looked up, and gave Barrett a questioning look.

  “I mean,” Barrett said, “with your parents dead you were able to work on getting your brother out.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I took over, had the lawyers make me his legal conservator, and lobbied for his release. He’s my only family … unless you count a few second cousins who’re licking their chops over the fact that neither Jimmy nor I will ever have kids.”

  “Because?”

  “Boy, you’re good at this,” Ellen commented. “I used to think that after what my parents did to us, there was no way in hell I’d ever reproduce—that I’d never take that risk. But when I turned thirty I … shit! I’m sorry …” Ellen swigged her cocktail, “When I was thirty, my thinking shifted and I found myself really wanting to have a child. After all of those years of throwing myself into work; I began to think—what for? And all I could focus on was that I wanted a child.” Ellen glanced at Barrett. “Does this make any sense, or have I had one too many?”

  Barrett met her gaze, “No, it makes perfect sense.”

  “I thought that maybe if I had a child, I’d get it right. And give this kid all of the love we never had, raise a little person that could take over the business—or not—if they didn’t want to … but then I started to get all sorts of weird symptoms … headaches, hot flashes.” Her mouth twisted in a wistful smile. “I guess you can figure where this is going?”

  Barrett nodded.

  “Early menopause,” Ellen shrugged. “Apparently it runs in the family. As for Jimmy, I don’t see him as the marrying type. I’d also be worried with him around kids.”

  “Has he ever done anything like that?”

  “Pedophilia?” Ellen asked, “God, I hope not. But I’m a realist. I know my brother has problems. I don’t think having him around kids is a good idea.”

  “How has he dealt with being out? After eighteen years that’s quite a transition.”

  “Yes and no. He’s not really free, is he?”

  “No,” Barrett agreed, having read through the stringent rules confining him.

  “Certainly he’s happier, and he’s playing cello again, and considering his time away from it, he sounds great.”

  “Cello?” Barrett perked, remembering some mention of it in the histories.

  “Yes, music is probably the only thing that kept us halfway sane growing up.”

  “You play, as well?”

  “I did…very little now … piano. Jimmy was always the star. My brother was a child prodigy. My playing was more in the range of competent accompanist.”

  “Did you do competitions?” she asked, flashing on an old memory of two beautiful blond children, the boy on cello, his sister on piano.

  “Yes,” Ellen met her gaze, and smiled. “That’s where we know each other, isn’t it?”

  “Oh my, God. That’s it!” But the three-hundred-pound Jimmy that Barrett had seen that one time at Croton bore no resemblance to the cherubic blond boy who invariably took first prize in the music competitions that had been such a major part of her childhood.

  “You play piano, don’t you?” Ellen asked.

  “Yes, but like you, it’s hard to find the time to practice.”

  “But you were good. You won some competitions, didn’t you?”

  Barrett’s cheeks flushed.

  “ … yet you went into medicine. You could have had a concert career.”

  “Long story, and not terribly interesting. Was that what Jimmy wanted to do?”

  “Yes, and I think a part of him wonders if it’s too late now. He had a recording contract, and the horrible irony is that two days before his arrest he won the Dubrovnik cello competition.”

  “Really! That’s impressive.”

  “I know, and the one thing that gave him any comfort—his music—was taken away for eighteen years. I think more than the things father did to him, or some of the horrible stuff that happened at Croton, not having his cello broke him.”

  Barrett resisted the urge to reach across the table and take Ellen’s hand, to try and comfort her. “You really love him.”

  “I do,” she stated, struggling to keep her emotions in check. “I guess for me it boils down to there are two loves in my life, Martin Industries, which my father nearly ran into the ground, and my brother.” Draining her drink, she added, “In a way they’re kind of similar, they both need a lot of work, but they both have incredible potential.”

  ___

  Two hours later, Barrett parted with Ellen outside the restaurant.

  “Can I give you a lift,? Ellen asked, easing into the backseat of a waiting black Lincoln.

  “No, thanks.”

  She was about to say more when Ellen added, “I’m so happy that you decided to work with Jimmy. I’ve got a good feeling about this, and who knows,” she said, harking back to one of their many topics of discussion, “maybe cello playing can be his way back. I guess it comes down to whether or not he’s still good enough for the concert stage.”

  Barrett watched as the limo pulled away. Her head felt light, but good. Three cocktails and a sumptuous meal had been what the doctor ordered. And the conversation, she had to admit, was one of the most interesting ever. She hadn’t come prepared to like Ellen Martin, but there was something heroic about the CEO who had endured and overcome the horrors of her childhood, and was now in the driver’s seat of a Fortune 500 corporation that ran the gamut from high-rise real estate to breakfast cereal. And their joint history of having done the kiddie concert circuit was an odd connection. Piano playing for Barrett had been the ticket to many
things, but fifteen years ago she had turned down a full Juilliard scholarship to pursue medicine. As she had reminisced with Ellen about the weird world of child prodigies, she discovered that her childhood dream of one day playing major concert halls still smoldered. So many memories, the warmth of the spotlight, of walking toward the conductor, of her feet making first contact with the pedals, her fingers poised over the keys, her wrists in perfect alignment, Sophie’s Polish accent reminding her to breathe.

  Lost in thought, she wandered the four blocks north to her condo. There had been other parts of the conversation, however, that had left Barrett unsettled. As always, when hearing stories about cruelty to children, her heart went out to the victims—to Ellen and Jimmy. But her life in forensics, and her research into the development of sociopaths, had shown that children who’ve had those experiences never leave them behind. She saw it in Ellen, as she had talked about what the abuse had done to her, and how she had sublimated those feelings into funding a charitable foundation that aided battered women and their children. Her ears had perked when Ellen mentioned her spotty memory and brief stab at therapy. Maybe it was nothing, but it carried the diagnostic whiff of a traumatized child who walls off bad periods of time, maybe to recover the memories as an adult, and maybe not. But for Jimmy, who by Ellen’s account had endured far worse, she suspected that his coping had not been so adaptive. There were clinical terms for it, reaction formation, identification with the aggressor, but it came down to a couple of things; abused children grow up to either become the exact opposite of their abusers—such as Ellen—or, as was more common in men, they turned into their abusers, perpetuating the cycle.