Case of Lucy Bending (46 page)

He drove home slowly and carefully. All he needed right now was to be stopped by the police and asked to explain the booze on his breath and the scratches on his face. Then he'd have to do for himself what he had done for Bill Holloway: lie like hell and pass out enough cash to placate the cops and get the charges dropped.

After a while he was able to laugh. A sour laugh. He wondered if he might not be getting too old for this game. He had his hair styled and blow-dried at a unisex barbershop. Occasionally he wore chest medallions on heavy chains. He tried to keep up with all the new rock groups. But still . . .

When he got home, the light was on in the master bedroom upstairs. He went directly into the downstairs lavatory, washed up quietly, and examined the damage. Nothing fatal, but there was no doubt he had been in a fight.

He tiptoed to the living room bar and, in the dim illumination of a night-light, poured himself a big brandy. He swallowed half of it in one gulp, then clutched his stomach when it hit. Jesus! What a way to live.

He took the remainder of his drink out onto the terrace. And there was Grace, sitting quietly in the darkness, staring at the froth-flecked sea.

"Hi there, dear," Ronald Bending croaked.

She didn't look up and said nothing. Which made him wary. He sat in a sling chair a little behind her where she might not see his ravaged face.

"Get you a drink?" he said hopefully.

"No," she said. "I've got to talk to you, Ronnie."

"Sure," he said bravely. "About what?"

"Lucy."

"What about Lucy?" he asked, feeling a surge of relief that this wasn't to be another jeremiad about his delinquencies.

"I think she should stop seeing Doctor Levin now."

"Oh? Why do you think that?"

"Well, she hasn't, uh, misbehaved for more than six months. So maybe just talking to him has done her good. I don't see any point in keeping on with the therapy. It's costing so much money." "Uh-huh," he said, leaning forward awkwardly in his sling chair. "Look, babe, you were the one who talked me into taking Lucy to Levin. We knew how much it would cost, and we agreed to go through with it. The money doesn't matter. The important thing is what's right for Lucy."

"Well, she's better," his wife said sharply.

"She is? You think she's cured?"

"She hasn't, ah, done anything since she started seeing him, so I think we can stop."

He sat back, took a pull at his brandy. "Have you talked to Levin about taking Lucy out?"

"No. I wanted to discuss it with you first."

"Don't you like Levin?"

"What a question! I don't like him or dislike him. He's probably very competent. I just don't think Lucy needs him anymore, that's all."

"Do you think you're as competent as Levin? Or more competent?''

"Oh Ronnie, I know my daughter. She's better; I know she is. I just think we're throwing money away."

"Be right back," he said. He heaved himself out of the deep chair, went back to the living room bar. He poured himself another brandy, but added some mineral water to this one.

When he came back onto the terrace, he stood at the railing, his shoulder to Grace. She couldn't see his face, and he hoped to God she wouldn't notice that he had come from work without a tie.

He stared up into the night sky, swirling his drink slowly. He tried to figure what was going on here.

"I think Levin is^ a good man," he offered.

"I suppose," his wife said faintly.

"He asks embarrassing questions sometimes, but that's his job. At least he asks me embarrassing questions, and I imagine he does you, too."

"Not so much embarrassing," she said, "as
private.
Things that have nothing to do with Lucy. He has no right to ask such things."

"Is that why you want to drop him?" he said quietly.

She didn't answer.

"Look," he said, "I've told him a lot of things I didn't

want to tell, but if it's going to help Lucy—what the hell. Don't you feel that way?"

"It's all so ugly," she burst out.

"Ugly? Well . . . maybe. But I imagine he's heard worse. Everyone's got secrets. Sure, sometimes it's, ah, painful to talk to him, but I always feel better later. Just getting it off my chest. Don't you feel relieved after you've talked to him?"

"No," she said.

He sighed, took a sip of his drink. "He told us it would take at least a year. To get Lucy straightened out. Maybe longer. If we quit now, it's all wasted. Not the money. Screw that. But all the time we've put in. With the danger that Lucy will go right back to acting the way she did. Did Levin tell you he thought she was all straightened out?"

"I didn't ask him."

"Well, he'd ha/e told you if that's what he thought. He strikes me as an honest man. Do you really want to run the risk of Lucy acting up again?"

"You do what you want to do!" she cried. "You always do anyway."

She wrenched herself from the chair. She flung the sliding door back, rushed into the darkened house. Bending watched her go, startled. Then he slowly slid the door closed behind her. He pulled the sling chair forward, slumped into it, put his feet up on the terrace railing.

He tried to figure out the reason for her agitation. Old Levin must have been cutting pretty close to the bone.

In the last few years, he acknowledged, Grace had become increasingly reserved. She spoke to him about religion, his transgressions, the children, their home.- But never, or very rarely, did she now speak to him about herself.

It hadn't always been like that. In the first passionate years of their marriage, they had traded secrets and yearnings, fantasies and wishes. That's what marriage was all about, wasn't it?

He wished—oh, how he wished!—that he had the balls to go upstairs right now, take Grace in his arms, and ask what was troubling her. He would be kind and sweet and understanding, and he would listen and nod, and nothing she might tell him would shock him or make him love her less.

But then, of course, she'd see his beaten face, and he'd have to start lying again. He groaned.

Life was a pisser, he reflected sadly. You could start out with the best intentions in the world, but sooner or later they all turned to shit. Then you ended up with a couple of freaky dames pounding on your skull while you ran for your life, trying to hold up your pants.

He had to laugh at that image. It was all madness. Everything was. Burlesque. And the only way to hang on to some semblance of sanity was to go along with it, roll with it, and not make yourself miserable by trying to be something you could not be.

He had another drink, a small one. And then, when he judged his wife would be asleep, he went up to bed.

"Amateurs," Jimmy Stone said disgustedly in his low voice. "They're all fucking amateurs."

"You're right, Jimmy," Rocco Santangelo chimed in. ''Every time we try to deal with amateurs, we get it in the kishkas."

"'The best-laid schemes . . ."' former Senator Randolph Diedrickson quoted sonorously.

Jane Holloway said nothing, but watched the three men closely. She had come to this meeting with some trepidation, impressed by the wealth, power, and experience of the others. Now she concluded she had little to fear; she could handle them.

They were in Diedrickson's study. Renfrew, the black houseman, had conducted the visitors upstairs and served the first round of drinks. Then, leaving a tub of ice cubes, he discreetly withdrew. The men were drinking bourbon. Jane Holloway sipped a glass of Perrier with a lime wedge.

"You better tell us something about these guys," Santangelo said, addressing Jane. "Not your husband. The other two. We know their business and bank records. But what about the personal stuff? Are they lushes, on drugs, or what?"

Speaking in a steady, steely voice, Jane told them what she knew about Luther Empt and Ronald Bending: their families, personal habits, frailties, ambitions. Her report was brief, concise, complete.

The two mob representatives looked at each other.

"Put Sam on them, Rock," Jimmy Stone ordered. "I want to know everything: where they go, who they see, where they hang—everything."

"Right, Jimmy."

Stone turned back to Jane. "This Ernie Goldman, the tech . . . What's his problem?"

"He's a very heavy gambler," she said. "The tracks. Horses and dogs. He uses a local bookie."

"All right," Stone said, "that helps. Rock, have Sam find out who's holding his markers, what he's in for."

There was silence then. Diedrickson, beaming benignly, let it grow. He had briefed Jane carefully before this meeting. One of his suggestions to her had been to answer all questions honestly, but to volunteer nothing.

"Rock," Jimmy Stone said, holding out his glass, "get me another blast, will you? Easy on the ice."

The impeccably clad Santangelo rose immediately, filled Stone's glass and his own. While he was at the sideboard, he spoke over his shoulder to Jane:

"This Bending, he wants to go ahead with the cross?"

"He did," she said, "the last time I spoke to him. He's already sounded out Ernie Goldman. He says Goldman will come with us if we dump Empt."

Santangelo brought Stone his drink, then sat down again, adjusting the sharp creases in his creamy raw silk suit.

"Jimmy," he said, "I think we gotta move on this."

"Yeah," Stone said. "I talked to Uncle Dom. He says take over."

Silence again. The two shtarkers sat morosely, nursing their drinks. The senator, behind his desk in his wheelchair, smiled like a decrepit Buddha. Jane Holloway, cool and crisp in a modest white linen suit, sat immobile, waiting patiently for action.

"Rock and me haven't got the time," Jimmy Stone complained, as if speaking to himself. "This is just one thing. We got a lot of stuff going down. There's this big condo near Sarasota. Maybe jai alai in Jacksonville. There's this guy, he's got the hots for a chain of nursing homes. Not for the old bums, you understand, but for the rich old drunks and loonies. It could be big. So what with one thing and another, we're spread thin."

"Ah yes," the senator said, nodding understanding^. "What you're looking for are individual managers for each of your several enterprises. Am I correct in that assumption? Efficient, trustworthy, and discreet executives to take the day-to-day chores of management from your shoulders?"

"Yeah," Jimmy Stone said, "something like that." He looked directly at Jane. "I like your style," he told her.

"You got class. And you're a bright lady. You got some good ideas—about better films and packaging. You think you could handle this porn setup?"

"Yes," she said.

"Here's what it would mean," he said. "At first, you get the processing of the cassettes organized. Then when that's running smooth, you do the packaging. Eventually, if things work out, you take over the production of the films. It's a full-time job."

"What about distribution and sales?" she asked.

"No," Stone said.

"We got an organization for that," Santangelo explained. "It's complicated—you know?"

She nodded. "How do you propose to gain control of EBH Enterprises?" she asked them.

"Look," Jimmy Stone said earnestly, "we're not thieves. We work legal. We'll buy them out. No one's going to lose a penny."

"I don't think Empt or Bending will go for that," she said.

"As I comprehend the situation," Randolph Diedrickson said smoothly, "there are no written and signed contracts in existence. It was an oral agreement which, I judge, would have little force in a court of law if Empt and Bending were foolish enough to seek recourse."

"I still think they'll, ah, cause trouble," Jane said.

Rocco Santangelo laughed harshly, then cut it off when Jimmy Stone glanced at him.

"We'll go over that bridge when we come to it," Stone said. "I think we can persuade Empt and Bending to sell out. Like I said, they're not going to lose a penny. They get their money back, with maybe a little sweetener to keep them happy, and we get the new factory and machines. Senator?"

"A very equitable arrangement," Diedrickson boomed.

"Sure it is," Jimmy Stone said. "No one gets hurt. Now we come to your husband, Mrs. Holloway. Will he sell out?"

"I talked him into it," she said, "I can talk him out of it."

"Yeah," Stone said, "that's what I figured. But what about you taking over the whole megillah? Like I told you, it's a full-time job. Is he going to go for that? His wife heading a porn operation, with him being a bank president and all?"

The senator had warned Jane about this question, and she had given the matter a great deal of thought.

Her husband was a weakling and her father dithered, so she had no one to consult but herself. But as she pondered what she first thought was a simple business decision, she began to see the necessity of discovering what she really felt as an individual, in contradistinction to what she was supposed to feel as wife, daughter, mother.