VC01 - Privileged Lives (65 page)

“No you’re not. There’s something else you’re going to see.”

He changed videocassettes.

The images shimmered, the only source of light in the darkened room.

Her hand hovered like a hummingbird just above the arm of the chair, and then she sank back, holding on to the arm very hard.

The tapes were a voyage to a very strange part of a country called Hell.

Cordelia watched in utter stillness, a belt of moisture forming across her forehead. Without warning she jumped and grabbed the remote control from him and jammed off the picture.

“Who is he?” Cardozo shouted.

Her breath was coming in little shakes. The channel on the screen began changing erratically.

“Those are human beings!” Cardozo screamed. “Ripped and gone, like pages of last year’s calendar, crumpled and tossed into the incinerator! And you think the man you’re shielding is human? You think he’s even a man? Let me tell you something, he’s not human, he’s not a man, he’s prehistoric slime!”

He twisted the remote control from her hand and flicked the cassette back on. He felt totally out of control, and what was more dangerous, he was enjoying the feeling.

“Some species survive because they taste horrible, because they’re poisonous … because they have no predators.” Cardozo thrust his thumb at the man frozen on the TV screen, gray skin pulled taut over his cheekbones, eyes behind the mask halfway to sockets. “He’s one of them! Tell me that shithead’s name! It’s Monserat, isn’t it! Your downstairs neighbor!”

Cardozo stood there, rage building up to critical mass, and she still didn’t answer, and pumps began thudding in his skull.

“He gave you the insulin to inject your mother—didn’t he! He taught you how to use a syringe—didn’t he! And did you know he’s a sadist and a necrophile, did he invite you to any of his parties where torture was the entertainment or a dead body was the guest of honor?” He stopped the picture. “You’re lucky you’re fucking alive, you know that?”

She spoke in a half whisper. “You’re getting me very confused.”

His eyes hooked hers and the resolve seemed to drain out of her.

“I was only a kid,” she whispered.

“You’re not a kid now.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with—those other things.”

“Then stop shielding him.”

He stared at her until she looked down.

“Why are you doing this to me? It wasn’t my fault! I never had a chance!”

“You have a chance now.”

Cordelia turned away and put a fist to her mouth. He could feel her breaking, and he had a sense of encroaching light as though he were on the very edge of hearing her say the man’s name.

But her flow of emotion broke off, suddenly suspended.

He felt a third presence, a shape at the end of the dark entrance corridor. He followed the direction of Cordelia’s gaze.

His daughter Terri had come into the room.

He felt a fist go into his heart. He didn’t know how long she had stood there, how much she had seen or heard.

It may have been nothing more than the shock of the moment that made Terri look at him like that, a kid—sweet and thin, like a forlorn remnant of a doll—watching him with large sad injured eyes. He had a dizzying sense of levitation.

“Terri,” he said, wanting to explain, wanting to apologize.

Cordelia brushed violently past him. There was a slam, and she was out the door, her heels clattering crazily down the stairs, and then came the deeper, more distant thud of the street door.

“Terri,” he said.

The silence was spreading out too far, too fast.

“It’s all right,” she said.

There was something about her that seemed unsoiled. Cardozo realized that he knew nothing about this girl, this young woman, this daughter. He had no idea where she drew her strength from.

She came into the livingroom and flicked on a light, gazing at him. “Daddy, come here, you need someone to hug you.”

50

“W
E’VE GOT TO TALK
.” Cordelia’s voice came out of her throat clogged, muffled. The hand holding the receiver was so shaky she had to steady it with the other hand, and her bracelets were rattling.

“This is such a volte-face.” The deep voice flowed creamily across the line. “For months you avoid me, and now at the very moment I’m going out to dinner you have to see me.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve just needed time to think.”

“I’m glad you’ve completed your thinking.”

“Look, I’m spooked. A friend of my mother’s showed me some pictures and told me some really sick lies.”

“What were these really sick lies?”

“About me—and you—and other people.”

“Who is this friend of Babe’s?”

“You’ve met him, that policeman she’s seeing.”

There was an instant’s silence. “What was his purpose?”

“He wants me to tell him about you and me. And you.”

“I wish you could be a little clearer about these lies.”

“Not over the phone.”

“Wait for me,” he said. “Wait right there. I’ll come as soon as I can get away from Tina’s.”

Cordelia was tired of waiting. The livingroom seemed oppressively soundless and empty and the figure in the mirror very small and alone.

She had to go walking. Just for a minute’s breath.

She put on pink-dyed jeans and a man’s Hawaiian shirt and a Racquet and Tennis Club necktie loosely knotted, and oversized beads and earrings that were all wrong. That was to be the look tonight—all wrong.

She made herself a cup of instant coffee and looked in the refrigerator for the half-and-half. That was when her eye fell on the vials of crack.

No,
she thought.
I’ve got six days in Cokenders. I’m not going to.

She tipped half-and-half into her coffee and as she put it back she looked at the vials again and she knew it was going to happen.

She sipped her coffee and loaded up the crack pipe and smoked.

A sweet buzzing went up to her head and all her fears faded. After another vial of crack she felt centered, high-spirited, and reckless.

She went down into the street and walked through bubbling activity. A roar hung over Hudson Street. Traffic crawled and horns blared and pedestrians jaywalked as though they were exercising a constitutional right.

She walked south on Broadway. Bad images kept coming up in her head. Those people on the videotapes, screaming, begging, bleeding …

The more she thought about it the shakier she felt. She saw a phonebooth on the corner and she went to it and dialed her shrink’s number.

She waited through three rings, hoping she wasn’t going to get the machine.

A man passed the booth. He was in his mid-twenties, tall, dark. He was wearing Banana Republic safari trousers and a Mostly Mozart sweatshirt and he carried himself with a swagger. He turned as if he were surprised to see someone inside the phonebooth.

His mouth had a tough defiant twist, but looking at her his expression turned into a half smile. The half smile turned into a slowing stride, and the slowing stride turned into a full stop.

She shot him a glance from under her eyelids. He was a great-looking guy, just great.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she answered.

Cordelia handed back the pipe.

The young man sucked in a deep drag.

They were sitting on an unmade bed. He took her fingers. He massaged her knuckles with his thumb, then squeezed her palm and raised her fingertips to his mouth.

“Go down on me,” he whispered.

She felt a skip in her heart. “Just a second.” She reached onto the floor for her purse and took out the mask. “Put it on.”

“What?”

“Please, just put it on.”

“Sure—next Halloween.”

He tossed the mask aside and in extremely slow motion he grasped the sides of her head with both hands. He pushed her down toward his cock.

“Come on, baby.”

He was holding a coke inhaler in her nostril. She had a sudden medicinal rush in her nose, as if she had inhaled mouthwash.

She broke away and pulled up to sitting. “I’m sorry. I can’t do it—unless you wear the mask.”

He sat watching her. “You’re bullshit, man.”

She gathered up her clothes.

“What’s with the fuckin’ mask? Something wrong with my face?”

“Look, sometimes it doesn’t work—nothing personal.” She was aware that her voice was too clear, too loud for ordinary speech.

He settled himself in a chair, legs apart, cock dangling, hands clasped across his stomach. “I know who you are,” he said. “I recognized you. You’re bullshit.”

“I was honestly moved by you,” she said, “and then you made me feel embarrassed about the way I chose to respond to you. That wasn’t necessary.”

“That mask is kindergarten games. You’re scared, man. I’ll bet your daddy fucked you when you were a kid and that turned you off sex, right?”

She struck him. He struck her back instantly.

“Get out.” He began pushing her.

She struggled and kicked, fighting him with everything that had built up inside her. He pulled the door open and shoved her into the hall. The door slammed.

“I personally know very few people who would spend two thousand dollars for the dubious privilege of dancing on the same floor as Jacqueline Onassis,” Lucia Vanderwalk said. She was sitting at Gwennie Tiark’s dinner table, and she was talking to Ambassador Post, whose wife was rumored to have just left him. “It shows a blatant disrespect for the value of money, don’t you think?”

“But if it’s for charity—” the ambassador said.

“Rubbish. Charity is visiting the wards, not devouring quail.”

A maid came to the dinner table and whispered to Lucia.

“What a bother.” Lucia glanced at her diamond pave and gold-faced dinner watch on its black satin band. “A phone call for me.”

“Have them call later,” Gwennie Tiark said.

“Apparently it’s an emergency. Excuse me.”

Lucia pushed herself up to her feet and followed the maid past the circular marble staircase, down a mirrored, plush hallway. Gwennie Tiark’s Fifth Avenue duplex apartment had once belonged to the Rockefellers, and Billy Baldwin had completely redecorated it. The rooms had good detail—parquetry and carved lintels and mullioned windows—but Lucia thought the Titian was a little showy and large for the library wall and totally the wrong color.

The maid handed her the telephone.

“Yes?” Lucia said.

“Mrs. Vanderwalk?”

“To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Dr. Flora Vogelsang.”

Oh dear,
Lucia thought. “Yes, Doctor?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I’ve had a sad and very distressing call from Cordelia. Although I don’t approve of capitulating to her manipulations, in this case I feel she needs help.”

Cordelia stumbled through the doorway at the rear of the restaurant.

A black-tie gala was in full swing.

Cordelia kept one hand extended in front of her, as though searching for a wall. Her disheveled hair cascaded over her eyes and she was walking a very slow, very deliberate zigzag.

When Babe turned and saw her daughter, her hand—holding a champagne glass—froze.

Cordelia’s hip struck a table. The little candelabra with delicate rose-printed lampshades almost toppled, and Cordelia fell face-forward.

“Excuse me,” Babe apologized to Henry Kissinger.

Cordelia broke loose from the waiter who had helped her up. She dashed through the bar and stumbled down three marble steps.

Babe had to elbow her way. “Excuse me—excuse me.”

Cordelia came to a dead end, a wall of plum Lalique glass. She dropped onto a sofa and sat trembling, arms locked around her knees.

Babe came into the little room. “Cordelia,” she said.

Cordelia looked up. Her face twisted.

“What is it?” Babe sat beside her. She saw tears in her daughter’s eyes. She hugged Cordelia to her. “Tell me.”

Cordelia dropped her head into her hand. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive you what, darling? There’s nothing to forgive.”

“There is. There is.”

Lucia came into the restaurant.

A man in a butler’s cutaway asked for her invitation. She waved him aside, saying it was quite all right, she wouldn’t be needing one.

She took three steps toward the crowd. Festivities appeared to have accelerated to a full tilt. Peering, she saw her daughter and granddaughter.

She came into the room without a sound and settled into a seat. “So here we all are. The three sisters.” She asked Cordelia, “Are you all right, my dear? I was worried.”

Cordelia rose shakily from the sofa. “Yes, Grandmère, I’m fine. I’m going to go home.”

“Yes, do go home. Rest. Take a taxi.” Lucia opened her purse and handed her granddaughter two fifty-dollar bills.

“Thanks, Grandmère. G’night.”

Cordelia kissed Lucia and threw a glance back at her mother.

Babe started after her.

“Don’t go yet,” Lucia said. “We have to talk.”

“Mama, I—”

Lucia stared without comment at Babe’s strapless pink satin Lanvin. “Sit!”

Babe froze in her tracks. Obedience consumed her. “Mama, please. I can’t let Cordelia run off like that.”

“Cordelia is precisely the reason I am here.” Lucia regarded Babe steadily for a moment. “I’ve just spoken to her psychiatrist and she’s very near clinical depression.”

Babe sank onto the sofa. “I didn’t know Cordelia had a psychiatrist.”

“I’m sure there are many things about your daughter you’ve never bothered to know.”

Babe struggled to control herself. “Never bothered to know? You never told me!”

“And why should I have played go-between? It was your job to be close to your daughter, to share her trust and confidence. Under normal circumstances the relationship is built up over time. It’s called love.”

“What are you saying?” Babe stared at the judgment blazing in her mother’s eyes. She felt a rush of injustice. “Because I was sick, because I wasn’t there, I didn’t love my daughter? I refuse to be made guilty for something that was in no way my fault!”

“Who’s discussing fault? Who’s discussing guilt?”

“You are! You’re heaping it on me! You’re sitting there in your first tier box, reveling in this drama!”