Murder at the Spa (12 page)

Entering with a brandy snifter on a tray, Jack gently shook Paulina’s shoulder. “Here, drink this,” he said softly. “It will make you feel better.”

Paulina raised her head. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara, the corners of her mouth smudged with lipstick. Picking up the snifter, she downed its contents in a gulp. Revived by the brandy, she wiped her nose on a corner of the pink satin sheet and pitched into her son with renewed vigor.

“Ingrate. Ingrate,” she shouted. She had risen to her knees. “That such a monster could come from my own loins.” She raised her fist to the ceiling. “I rue the day that I ever gave birth to you. All that I’ve done for you, and you sell me down the river—me, you own mother.”

Elliot’s face reddened. Stepping forward, he gripped the latticework railing at the foot of the bed. “I’ve betrayed you. That’s rich. How many times have you betrayed me? Huh? I’m asking you, Ma. How many times have you threatened to leave everything to Leon? I’ll tell you. One too many.”

At first uncomfortable, Charlotte was now settling in, like the audience after the curtain has gone up. Her head moved back and forth as if she were following the ball at a tennis match.

“That’s right,” Paulina replied. “Too many times I’ve threatened. This time, it’s no threat. This time, it’s for real. You’ll see.” Her eyes narrowed. “You won’t get one red cent out of me.” Reaching over, she pressed the tail of another turtle buzzer on the bedside table.

Jack appeared at the door. “Anne-Marie is here to see you,” he announced.

“Another traitor. I won’t see her. I’d like to fire her, but I can’t spare her. But I’m going to sack her ex. I’m not going to keep him around any longer just as a favor to her. Make sure he gets his walking papers this week.”

Jack pulled a small leather notebook out of his breast pocket and made a notation. It appeared that in addition to being Paulina’s lapdog, he was also her hatchet man. Then he turned to leave.

“Then come back,” said Paulina. “I want you to get out my will.” She looked pointedly at Elliot. “I’m going to disinherit my son.”

Elliot had been standing by silently as if waiting for his mother to recant. “So you’re finally going to carry through,” he said, realizing that she wasn’t going to change her mind.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Elliot didn’t answer. “Well, you’re mistaken if you think I’m upset. I’m sick and tired of your fucking black notebook; I’d like nothing better than to see it dragged out for the last time.”

“That’s right. The last time.” Paulina stared at him.

He turned away, his hands thrust deeply into his pockets. “Go ahead, leave all your money to Leon. But I’m the one who’ll have the last laugh. Leon will never run Paulina Langenberg. I’ve made sure of that.”

“Traitor. After all I’ve done for you.”

“All you’ve done for me?” said Elliot, spinning around. “Ha. That’s very funny.” He threw back his head. “Ha, ha, ha, ha. Do you know what you’ve done for me? Made my life miserable, that’s what. You never cared about me. All you ever cared about is money. Money, money, money.”

Paulina let loose a wail and buried her head in the pillows.

Charlotte was sure Elliot’s accusations were quite true. He must have had a lonely childhood—the only child born late in life to a world-famous businesswoman, his father having died while he was still a boy, shuttled off for safekeeping to posh boarding schools. But Charlotte couldn’t blame Paulina. It was simply too hard to do both—to be a career woman and a mother too. If Charlotte had had children, they probably would be leveling the same accusations. Anyway, Paulina hadn’t done that badly. Elliot struck her as a decent person, which was saying a lot these days.

“Oh,” said Elliot sarcastically, “the inconsolable mother act. Well, let Leon console you this time. He’s being well paid for it.”

Paulina’s wailing stopped. She looked up, surprised that her bid for sympathy hadn’t worked. Score one for Elliot.

“See? It was just an act, like everything you do. You are a despicable old woman, always manipulating people with your money. Well, Ma, I’m not going to be your puppet anymore. I don’t need your fucking money. I have all the money I need. I have a job where I’m respected …”

“Not for long,” Paulina sneered. “You won’t be respected for long. The Seltzer Boy will find out what a no-good bum you are. You’re just like your father: a rotten, lazy, no-good wastrel. I slave to build the company, and you sell it out from under me. You’re a parasite, just like he was.”

Elliot’s face flushed to his bald temples.

Elliot’s father had been a handsome womanizer who had gambled away thousands of Paulina’s dollars before she finally divorced him. Her second husband, who had died some years ago, had been an impoverished European aristocrat a dozen years her junior whom she married for the glamour of his title. Not that she was impressed by it, but she thought others would be. Much to everyone’s surprise, the second marriage had worked out very well. His relaxed personality was an effective counterpoint to Paulina’s volatile one. But it was her first husband who had been the love of her life.

“But you respected him, didn’t you?” Elliot replied. “Because he took money from you. You only respect people who are clever; people who can match wits with you. Well, maybe you’ll respect me now.”

Paulina gave him a scathing look. “Where’s my will?” she bellowed, pressing the buzzer again in irritation.

Jack reappeared at the door.

Reaching into her bosom, Paulina withdrew a key and handed it to him. From a glass vitrine in the corner he extracted the black notebook that Paulina had shown Charlotte on her earlier visit and set it on the bedside table, a Louis XV bombé commode topped by a cupid lamp.

“My glasses too,” ordered Paulina.

Kicking off her shoes, she got under the covers, pulled the sheets up around her waist, and arranged the pillows behind her back. With exaggerated care, she carefully reknotted her chignon and reapplied her makeup. Then she leaned back, balanced her glasses on the tip of her nose, and lifted the notebook onto her lap. “A pen, please,” she said. “
Not
a pencil,” she added, making the point that she had no intention of erasing anything.

Once Jack had brought the pen, she slowly opened the cover of the notebook. From where she was sitting, Charlotte could see that it was alphabetically arranged. Paulina turned to E for Elliot. Solemnly leafing through the pages, she made a great ceremony of crossing out this and writing in that. It was, Charlotte conceded, a hypnotic performance.

Elliot looked on mutely.

“Everything to Leon,” she said finally, closing the notebook with an air of finality. Then she addressed Jack: “Jack, call the estate lawyer. The One with the Blond Wife. Tell him to get up here on the double.”

Elliot, who had taken a seat on one of the bedside chairs, looked miserable. He was actually wringing his hands. “Ma …” he implored.

Paulina ignored him.

Rebuffed, he sat immobile, as if turned to stone. Finally he rose and headed toward the door. Pausing at the door, he turned. “You spit on me,” he said, his teeth clenched in anger. He pointed at the spot of dried spittle on the lapel of his blazer. “You spit on your own son.”

“So what,” said Paulina implacably. “You deserved it.”

“I’m going back to the city.”

“Good. By the way, you’re fired. Anne-Marie can run things until we find someone else. Jack, clear out his room. Then have Leon’s stuff moved up here. And give him that,” she said, pointing to his photograph. “The one in the living room too. I don’t want to look at his traitorous face.”

Jack picked up the photograph and gently handed it to Elliot, who opened the door and quietly left.

Paulina watched him leave, stone-faced. During this interval, Charlotte tried to leave herself, but Paulina wouldn’t let her. Once Elliot had gone, Paulina ordered Jack to summon Leon, who had been waiting in the living room until the scene with Elliot was over.

“Sit,” said Paulina as Leon entered. She patted the edge of the bed. The notebook lay open on her lap. “Leon is my good boy,” she said, taking his hand. She gazed at him benevolently through eyes moist with tears of self-pity. “The son of my beloved sister. Leon would never betray me.”

“No, Aunt Paulina.”

Her tone changed: “He just doesn’t tell me when my company is being sold out from under me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Leon, looking contrite. “I was going to tell you. I didn’t know he would announce it at the fete.”

Paulina’s expression turned benign again. “The estate lawyer will be here tomorrow. You’ll be my sole heir. Sonny has fixed it that you can’t be head of Paulina Langenberg. But don’t worry.” She waved her arm. “I’ll make you a rich man. Everything will go to you.” Turning around, she pointed to the painting above the bed. “Including the art.”

Leon looked up at the painting disinterestedly. It was clear he could care less about art. Charlotte detected a sour expression cross Paulina’s face as she registered his lack of interest.

“I’m honored, Aunt Paulina,” said Leon. He looked like the cat who’s just swallowed the canary.

“Now, Leon,” said Paulina. “What can we do?”

“About what?”

“The Seltzer Boy, dummy!”

Leon shrugged. “He’s got us. We might have been able to do something if he’d just been going after the outsider stock, but with Elliot’s block, he’s already got twenty-five percent. All he needs to gain negative control is another nine percent, and he’ll probably have that locked up by tomorrow.”

“Can’t we sue?”

“On what grounds?”

“Antitrust.”

Leon looked pained. “Aunt Paulina, he bottles mineral water; we make lipstick.”

“I don’t know,” said Paulina. “The lawyers should be able to think of something. Jack, look in my book. I have the name of a firm, specialists in defending corporations against hostile takeovers. The best in the business. They’ll find a way to put an end to this.”

“You could tender your shares,” offered Leon. “Retire a rich woman.”

“Ai,” wailed Paulina. She picked up a magazine from the table and whacked Leon over the head with it. “For this kind of advice, I pay you all that money? Tender my shares.” She snorted. “Leon, I am not interested in retiring. ‘A rich woman,’ he says. I
am
a rich woman.”

“It was just an idea.”

“Never mind. I should have known better than to ask you. Now get out. I want”—she pronounced it “vant,” like Garbo—“to be alone.” Clutching the black notebook to her breast, she slipped down under the satin sheets, a small lump of pink in the middle of the huge bed.

Led by Jack, the three of them tiptoed out. From the bed came a low whimper, muffled by the pillows.

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Charlotte.

“Thank you,” replied Jack. “But I can take care of her.”

Charlotte said good-bye and left.

It was the next afternoon, Charlotte’s fifth day at the spa. She sat at a table shaded by a High Rock umbrella on the sunny terrace in front of the Hall of Springs. She was sipping a glass of High Rock water. Her table stood next to a balustrade topped by urns of red geraniums. Beyond the balustrade lay the lawn, where a white peacock strutted back and forth looking for handouts from the guests, presumably those on the cuisine gourmande program. Charlotte had nothing to spare; her cuisine minceur lunch had consisted of only an artichoke and a tiny lobster salad. Beyond the lawn, the green surface of the reflecting pool rippled in the cool, pine-scented breeze. A string quartet played “The Blue Danube.” It was all very pleasant. She felt as if she could have been at Baden-Baden or Montecatini. But High Rock was different from a European spa, she had decided; it had a feeling of vigor that was missing from its European counterparts. In Europe, the lack of activity was the chief attraction of a spa stay. The aim of the monotony of the routine was to alter the perception of time, slowing its flow. But the idea of savoring monotony was alien to the American psyche. The American wanted to control time, not surrender to it. Not for the American the endless hours on a sunny terrace wrapped in a tartan lap robe, but a morning coffee break sandwiched between exercise machines at nine and Absolutely Abdominals at ten-thirty.

Despite all the activity, Charlotte was enjoying her stay. Between Adele’s death on her second day and the fete and its aftermath two days later, it had gotten off to an unnerving start. But she had finally settled into the routine, with Art as her guide and companion. She was now recuperating from a morning on the machines, to which she had graduated after a training session with Frannie, who had assured her that by purifying the temple of her spirit, she was hastening her progress on the journey to spiritual enlightenment. She enjoyed the feeling of using her muscles, but the pointlessness of the routine put her off. She couldn’t get over the feeling that something should be accomplished by such an output of energy: a garden weeded, a floor scrubbed, a walk to the store. It was, she supposed, a sign of her age: in spite of her success, she was still a child of the Depression, when physical effort was too valuable a commodity in the struggle to survive to be squandered on exercising for the sake of physical fitness. She suspected the current passion for physical fitness was also a reflection of the times. In a world that was prosperous and secure, people tended to invent their own hardships, create their own challenges. Why else would they mortify their flesh by running themselves ragged on treadmills going nowhere and repeating the same movements over and over again on exercise machines?

She was reminded of the Role Model, who had looked on with haughty disdain as Charlotte and Art had piled their plates with low-calorie delectables at the buffet last night, ignoring the sample plates that showed how much food was within the limits of the prescribed calorie regimens. Taking only an apple and a glass of orange juice, the Role Model explained that he was on the fruit fast. He even turned down a dish of low-fat yogurt, dismissing it as “mucus forming.” The question Charlotte asked was, to what end were he and others like him pursuing their goal of physical perfection? To what end were they piling up those credits in the giant ledger in the sky? She doubted that it was to become a better person, or to better serve humanity. She even doubted that health had much to do with it. She suspected, with her generation’s disapproval of the culture of narcissism, that it was out of selfish motives: to feel powerful, to be admired, to get ahead. God knows, the hardships experienced by her generation hadn’t all been imposed by the Depression and the war. Charlotte for one was quite adept at inventing her own hardships. But she liked to think that the hardships invented by her generation tested the mettle on a loftier plane than that of the mere physical.