Chapter Six
On Thursday, Ransom Towers sat down for lunch with his godfather, William Bass, at the Old Ebbitt Grill on Fifteenth Street.
It was the sort of place to see and be seen in DC, which is why Bass preferred it.
Ransom didn’t care for that sort of thing, but he liked the building itself.
The restaurant was old, and it had a story to it that was reflected in every aspect of each room.
Large-game trophies hung on the walls, shot by Teddy Roosevelt himself.
There was a mahogany bar that ran the length of the room, and oil paintings hung in gilded frames.
There were murals painted on the ceiling and antique gas chandeliers and large exposed crossbeams. It felt warm and homey, lived in.
They were seated in the main dining room at a white-clothed table, a platter of iced New England oysters between them.
“I miss these when I’m away,” Bass said, prying the tender meat from its shell with his oyster fork.
Ransom took a bite of his own oyster, the meat sweet and firm and briny, like tasting a bite of the ocean. It reminded him of home. It reminded him of Cliffhaven.
“Oh, there’s Gordon Bailey,” Bass said, nodding toward the other side of the room. He raised his voice, calling out, “Gordon!”
A portly middle-aged gentleman ambled toward them from a booth in the corner. He had ruddy cheeks and was well dressed in a nicely tailored suit.
Ransom gave a small, polite nod to the man and then averted his gaze back to his oysters, not wanting to be drawn into tiring pleasantries and small talk.
These types of interactions were as choreographed as a dance; Ransom was familiar with the steps, but he did not wish to partake.
One man would inquire about the well-being of the other.
The other would make some joke about aching knees or a bad back.
He would, in turn, ask about the other’s family.
They would schedule a tee time and part ways.
There was a measured rhythm to it, like a waltz.
One, two, three, four. And one, two, three, four.
“Terribly nice fellow,” Bass said when the man had gone. “Owns a telecom company out of Boston. Not a bad person to know. Not a bad person to know at all.”
Ransom gave a noncommittal grunt. He hated schmoozing, networking, the transactional nature of forced social interactions, even as he recognized their necessity.
It made him uncomfortable, and he had no interest in it.
He did it because he had to, not because he liked it.
As a boy, he had always imagined for himself a quiet sort of life, outside the public eye.
Or, at least, as much outside the public eye as someone with the last name Towers could get.
He’d wanted to earn his architecture degree and settle somewhere off the beaten path in a house he built with his own hands.
He dreamed of working for himself, designing homes and churches, community centers, and schools for small towns.
Places people lived and breathed in, slept and dreamed in.
Nothing like the glossy monstrosities that existed in the city or the sprawling stone house that he had grown up in.
But all that had vanished with a single phone call.
Ransom still remembered where he was when he heard the news of his brother’s passing.
He was at Columbia, in his first semester of his master’s in architecture program. He’d been in the library, reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities, when he’d gotten a page from Bass. Ransom had called him back from a phone booth in the front hall.
“We’ve been trying to reach you,” Bass said. “Theo’s had an accident.”
Theo had been skiing with his friends in Tahoe, celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday.
He’d fallen on a particularly steep and slick run and hit his head.
He’d drifted into a coma before they could get him to a hospital, and when the doctors tried to airlift him to San Francisco for emergency surgery, he died in transit. Epidural hematoma, they said.
Ransom had wandered back to his reading booth in a haze to gather his things.
He’d closed his textbook and never reopened it.
After that, it still amazed him how quickly the pieces of his life had rearranged themselves.
With Theo gone, there was a legacy to be upheld, a duty to be done.
Towers men were not private citizens; they were public servants.
His father had taught him that. The Towerses were congressmen and senators, mayors and governors.
Ransom’s great-great-grandfather, Arthur James Towers, was a simple settler who had come west before California was even a state, looking for land and fortune.
When he’d heard the Mexican government was going to expel them from their land, he led a group of thirty men to take control of a Mexican outpost in Sonoma and arrested General Mariano Vallejo, in what became known as the Bear Flag Revolt.
He gave an impassioned speech declaring California to be an independent republic and raised a white flag with a grizzly bear and a red star.
During the following year, in the Gold Rush of ’49, Arthur James Towers became independently wealthy, and when California was annexed by the United States in 1850, he ran for one of the two seats in the Senate and won.
Every generation who came after him, every son and son’s son, had followed suit.
His son, Remington Towers, had served in the United States Congress and was a driving force in creating Yosemite National Park.
Augustus Towers, Ransom’s grandfather, had been governor of California, was a close friend of President Harry S.
Truman, and had played an integral part in the creation of the United Nations.
And Ransom’s own father, Charles, had served in the House of Representatives for twelve years.
He was instrumental in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and when he withdrew from Congress to be closer to his family, he became mayor of San Luis Obispo, a job he held until his untimely death.
There was a rarity and an honor in the legacy his father and forefathers had built; Ransom understood that.
How many people knew the history of their family beyond living memory?
How many people knew the names of their great-great-grandfathers?
Their occupations? The marks they had left on the world?
The Towers family history was interwoven with the history of their nation.
As long as it persisted, they would too.
Was all that to end with him? When Theo was alive, he could carry that banner.
But now, there was no one but Ransom. For him to slink off into anonymity, to serve only himself and his own desires, would be selfish.
He was a part of a whole, a cog in a wheel, a piece of something much bigger than just himself.
He was a Towers, first and foremost, “Ransom” a very distant second.
His family name was like a shiny cape draped around his shoulders, one that he could never take off.
It was the first thing people noticed about him and, his father had taught him, the most important part.
“How’s the new caretaker working out?” Bass asked, pulling Ransom back to the present.
Ransom shifted his weight in his chair. “Good, I think,” he said. “It’s been . . . quiet.”
He’d been back in DC for two weeks now, and he’d yet to hear a peep from Cliffhaven.
No frantic phone calls that Miss Rojas had quit in the middle of the night.
No telegrams about snakes in her bed, or superglue in her mascara wand, or Ex-Lax in her coffee.
And no news was good news. Perhaps Saoirse had finally settled down, accepted her confinement, and put an end to her childish pranks and hazing rituals.
More likely, Miss Rojas had endured them quietly and was proving that she could handle herself.
Ransom knew that none of Saoirse’s antics were really aimed at her victims; it was him whom Saoirse was trying to punish.
She resented him for keeping her there at Cliffhaven, like a child, like a prisoner, locked away from the world, under constant supervision.
When he’d pulled her out of Choate, she’d railed against him.
Instead of coming home, she’d taken a train to New York City and booked a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where she slept all day and threw loud parties all night, drinking excessively and running up exorbitant room service bills.
He’d sent the police to collect her then, and there was nothing she could do.
He was her legal guardian, and in the eyes of the law, Saoirse was a child.
Somehow, he’d managed to keep that affair out of the papers.
At home, Saoirse had tried to buy a bus ticket to Tijuana, so he canceled her credit cards and froze her bank account.
When she tried to drive herself, he revoked her license and took away her keys.
Now, when he sent someone to look after her, she sent them packing.
It was a chess game played from three thousand miles apart, a whole country between them.
“It has been quiet,” Bass repeated, a thick crease between his brows. “Yes, I’ve noticed that too.”
“Saoirse’s still not speaking to you either, then?” Ransom asked.
Bass shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s unsettling, this quiet, like the quiet before a storm.”
“You think we need to do something to get back in Saoirse’s good graces,” Ransom said, as if reading his mind.
Bass nodded. “Yes. Before it’s too late.”
Ransom didn’t have to ask him what he meant; they both knew.
When Saoirse turned eighteen, she came into her trust, and there was little they could do to contain her then.
Ransom could picture it: the morning Saoirse turned eighteen, her bags would be packed.
With her newfound adulthood and inheritance in tow, she’d be out the door as soon as the clock struck midnight—to LA, to New York, to London, to God knew where. And he’d have no recourse to stop her.
“What do you suggest?” Ransom asked.
“Her spirits are low. We should give her something to look forward to,” Bass said. “A chance to see that we’re her friends, not foes. That we’re not as obstinate as she seems to think. A party, for her birthday.”
Ransom bristled at the idea, but he tried to keep an open mind. “How many people?” he asked.
“No more than two to three hundred,” Bass said. “The guest list should be substantial but exclusive.”
Ransom’s eyebrows shot up. “Absolutely not,” he said. “That’s out of the question.” He shuddered to think about all the ways his sister could expose herself in front of that many people.
“Think of it this way,” Bass said. “Better to have it under your own roof, where you have some control of things, some oversight. If we do not give it to her, she will just go elsewhere to find it. You know what happened in New York.”
Ransom sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I know what happened in New York.”
He couldn’t afford another fiasco like that. He might not be able to keep it out of the papers this time.
“I can take care of the details, make the arrangements,” Bass said. “I just need your blessing.”
As his godfather and his father’s best friend, Bass had been a constant fixture in Ransom’s life, a presence at every birthday party, every Thanksgiving, every family Christmas celebration.
It was as if, in lieu of having a family of his own, Bass had become a part of theirs.
Now, with Ransom’s parents gone, Bass was the closest thing he had left to a father.
After the plane crash, Bass had been the one to break the news to him and his brother and sister.
Bass had arranged the funeral, sat next to them in the front pew during the service, stood vigil at the reading of the will.
He had always had their best interest at heart. He wouldn’t steer them wrong.
Ransom sighed. He didn’t like it, but perhaps Bass was right.
“Very well,” Ransom said. “Make the arrangements.”