Murdering Americans (8 page)

‘Is that what you want, Betsy?’

‘No. I want to come out of college like knowing something, not having to ask you what you’re talking about all the time because I’m like totally ignorant. I didn’t have time to learn anything much at high school. But it doesn’t seem to me as if the college cares about anything except like getting my money and shutting me up. No one ever says we should like think. They say we shouldn’t.’

‘Do many students feel like you?’

‘A few.’ Betsy looked at the baroness and grinned. ‘I guess some of them have been talking with the
Sentinel
.’

‘Ah, yes. The VRC. That was their flag on the library, wasn’t it, Betsy? I could see what looked like a sword and the letter V?’

She nodded.

‘So why didn’t you say? Are you one of them, Betsy?’

Betsy looked at her in terror. ‘No, no. Don’t even go there. Do you know what would happen if they thought I was?’

‘Who’s they?’

‘The Provost and her office.’

‘They’d fire you.’

‘That’d be only the start.’

‘Are you really scared?’

‘Everyone’s scared of the Provost and Dr. Gonzales.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You’re not scared of anyone though. But then you’re not us.’

‘I can’t fault that analysis, Betsy. Now back to the VRC. You’re not one of them, but do you know anything about them? What VRC stands for, for instance?’

‘I’ve no idea. None. And if you’ll excuse me, Lady Troutbeck, I’ve got to go now. I’ve got a class.’

***

On her way back to her office, the baroness took a detour along a familiar street, unaware that she was being followed at a distance of about fifty yards by a thin, spotty youth. The young man was there again, smoking, though this time he was leaning against the bonnet of an old, blue car.

As she walked towards him, he took a final drag of his cigarette and flipped the butt into the gutter. She stopped, and her follower dodged into a nearby porch.

‘Still killing time?’ she asked.

‘Let’s say if you ain’t found those specs yet, lady, I’ll take on the case.’

‘We could discuss it. What’s that car, by the way?’

‘A 1953 Chevy.’

The baroness was enchanted. ‘My God, you’ve actually got a beat-up Chevrolet.’

‘You want a ride?’

‘Do I just,’ she said. With one hand, he opened the passenger door and with the other, he swept off his hat in a courtly gesture. ‘Get inside, lady.’

‘Is this an heirloom?’ she asked, as he drove past her hotel.

‘Nope. Bought it a couple of months back from a dealer. It’d been living unused for decades in a local farmer’s barn.’

‘It’s in great condition.’

‘I smartened it up some.’

They toured around the town in contented silence and after ten minutes arrived back outside his office.

‘Why, thank you, sir,’ said the baroness, after he had helped her onto the pavement. ‘You have brightened my day considerably.’

‘And you mine, lady.’

‘Now we need a word about those specs.’

He grinned. ‘Come right in,’ he said, and headed towards the door. The baroness followed him in. The thin boy still lurking in the porch waited for a couple of minutes and then retired to the waste ground and made a phone call.

Inside the office, the baroness watched with interest as the man tossed his hat toward the hat stand: it fell to the ground. His coat, which he had aimed at the back of the armchair, disappeared out of sight. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I keep trying to improve my aim.’

The baroness retrieved his hat, retreated to the door, and took aim. ‘Shit,’ she said, as it missed its target. ‘Dishonours are even.’

The man grinned. ‘Cool,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘The moniker is Mike Robinson, ma’am.’

The baroness shook his hand. ‘The moniker is Jack Troutbeck, Mr. Robinson.’

He swept a pile of papers off the seat of the armchair and beckoned to her to sit. As he walked round his messy and shabby desk to a swivel chair that had seen better days, the baroness looked around the small office. The carpet was threadbare and the furnishings generally redolent of a thrift shop, but it was all surprisingly clean.

‘Does that neat desk in the corner suggest you don’t work alone?’

Robinson lounged back and put his feet on the desk. ‘Yeah. That’s Velda’s. She’s my partner. Now on an assignment chasing a jerk who’s two-timing his broad. Should be back any time. You’d like her. She’s a babe. A babe to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.’

‘That’s a familiar line. Raymond Chandler?’

‘Got it in one.’ He pulled something out of his pocket. ‘Want a Lucky? We’ll be living dangerously if the cops come, but hell, what’s life without the risk of having the cuffs slapped on?’

The baroness was charmed. ‘What a good idea,’ she said and leaned forward and tugged a cigarette out of the packet. ‘I’m a pipe or cigar woman myself, but in the circumstances, a Lucky would be just fine. I’m in revolt against the health police, so on principle I’ll accept most things that are illegal and bad for me even if I don’t much like them.’

Robinson shoved a small manual typewriter aside to make a space, opened a desk drawer and produced a bottle and a couple of plastic cups. ‘Nuts to the health police. What do you say to a finger of rye?’

‘I say yes, Goddammit.’

He grinned. ‘I think we’re going to get on just fine, lady.’

***

Aware that she had to be at Traci’s at six and had things to do, the baroness prudently stuck to one drink, and after half an hour got up to leave. ‘You’re clear about what you’re doing, Mike.’

‘Yeah, sure thing, Jack. You want stuff on that Gonzales asshole and you want it fast.’

‘That seems a fair summary. I’m sorry to have missed Velda.’

‘You should be. She’s one gorgeous dame.’

‘Sadly, I have to postpone this pleasure. Another dame—albeit less gorgeous—awaits me.’

***

‘Hey, I love your darling European accents,’ said Traci.

‘Thank you,’ said Constance.

‘What do you mean “European”?’ asked the baroness, but she said it sotto voce because she didn’t really want to hear the answer.

‘I guessed you must be homesick,’ said Traci, ‘so I thought I’d get right in there and show you a proper American welcome.’ She tossed her hair and gave a dazzling smile, her teeth so gleaming that the baroness thought for a wild moment she could see her reflection in them.

‘How very kind,’ said Constance.

‘It’s nothing. I’m such a feeling person, I just had to show you I’m here for you. I’m Traci Hunter Dickinson and I’m right here for you. Here. Let’s hug.’

She threw herself on the baroness, who flinched, and then on Constance, who patted her on the back in an embarrassed way.

‘What I think is just because you’re high-powered gals don’t mean you don’t need to have fun. When you’re with all those egg-heads all day, a girlie-night can be just the thing. So, hey! Relax and enjoy yourselves.’

Constance smiled wanly. The baroness said nothing. Having endured half an hour of Traci’s aggressive vacuity, she would have walked out had she not been so enjoying watching Constance squirm and had she not had recourse to plenty of champagne, which, judging by her exaggerated vivacity, Traci had been indulging in for some time before their arrival. ‘Kristal, of course,’ said Traci. ‘I wouldn’t drink anything but the best. And, of course,’ she added, with a metallic laugh, ‘I wouldn’t serve it in anything but the best crystal.’

Constance managed a weak smile; the baroness remained stony-faced. She refused to accompany them outside to view Traci’s newest car. ‘But you gotta see it. It was my birthday present. It’s a BMW and I made Henry get it resprayed in fuchsia.’ She waved her nails at them. ‘To match these.’

‘Sorry, Traci. It would be wasted on me. Cars bore me. I think they exist to get us from A to B with the minimum fuss.’

‘You gotta see it. You gotta.’ Traci began to cry. As the sobs grew louder and louder, Constance looked pleadingly at the baroness, who grumbled, ‘Oh, all right, if you insist.’ Traci calmed down, but the examination of the car was perfunctory, since she had little to say about it except to invite them to exclaim at the quality of the upholstery and to tell them it was worth every penny of the $150,000 Henry had spent on it. ‘Now we’ll go back inside, unless you want to see the SUV.’

The baroness said nothing, but walked back through the French windows. ‘Right, ladies,’ said Traci, ‘now it’s time for the house-tour. Just gimme me a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.’

She was back soon, in even better form. ‘OK, off we go. We’ll take our glasses with us. You can’t have too much Kristal when you’re having fun.’ Constance refused more champagne. The baroness did not.

They began with the kitchen, which was big enough and sufficiently elaborately equipped to service a modest but expensive hotel. Two Mexican maids—whom Traci ignored—were working at two of the four sinks. ‘I don’t come here much,’ explained Traci. ‘Why keep a maid and work yourself, is what I always say. Over here now to the elevator and we’ll go to the top.’

They emerged into an enormous room dominated by a pseudo-French, gold-embossed, white four-poster bed, piled high with perhaps twenty pink silk cushions and a huge teddy bear. ‘It’s an Antoinette canopy bed,’ said Traci. ‘I just love the loops at the top and the real stylish carvings. Henry didn’t want it, he said it was fussy, but men have no taste. And he complained it was expensive—like he’s always complaining—but I tell him I’m worth it.’

The baroness averted her eyes as Traci pointed out other pieces of furniture not appreciated by her husband, and followed sullenly as they were led into an enormous room with about sixty feet of fitted wardrobes. ‘Henry has his stuff in the bedroom,’ explained Traci. ‘All this here is mine. Look, here are my shoes.’

‘Your collection is of positively Imelda Marcos proportions,’ said the baroness.

‘I don’t know who she is,’ said Traci, truculently, ‘but I bet she don’t have anything like as many Manolos as I’ve got. Or Jimmy Choos.’ She closed the doors and flung open some more. ‘Look, these are my Donna Karans and here are the gowns from Oscar de la Renta, and….’ After about two minutes of this, the baroness walked off and went downstairs to the living room, averting her eyes from the elaborately draped gold satin curtains. She poured herself more champagne, pushed aside a mound of gold satin scatter cushions, made herself comfortable on the larger of the shiny purple leather sofas and—for lack of anything else to read—settled down with a coffee-table book on Indiana artifacts. Bored with the Paleoindian period, she had skipped forward to a contemplation of banners of the civil war when her phone rang. ‘It’s Mike.’

‘Have you news?’

‘Enough to think this asshole’s really some asshole. Can you talk?’

The door crashed open. ‘Not now. Later.’

‘So this is where you got to,’ said a truculent Traci. ‘You haven’t even seen the bathrooms.’

‘I’m not interested in bathrooms,’ grunted the baroness. ‘They’re for washing in.’

‘Not just for that,’ said Constance to her in a low voice, as Traci tossed her hair around and shouted for a maid to open another bottle of champagne. ‘I spotted some suspicious-looking white powder.’

The champagne was forthcoming, but it was another half-hour—during which Traci paid another visit to a bathroom—before dinner was announced, by which time Traci had told them where she’d bought everything from her overstuffed chairs to the gold bath taps and the baroness had finished her book. Holding out her glass for a refill, the baroness noticed with interest that Constance was glassy-eyed—though probably with boredom rather than drink—and that Traci’s voice was becoming more and more high-pitched. ‘I buy what I like,’ she shrilled, as she led them to the dining room, ‘and I don’t say sorry to no one. I’m my own person. I have a beautiful soul in a beautiful body, and if people don’t like me, they can fuck off.’ She looked at them threateningly. ‘Gimme a hug.’

United in wishing to avoid more tears, the baroness and Constance reluctantly obliged and after a minute, they were allowed to sit down. The baroness found solace in the Mexican appetizers. ‘The soufflé’s good,’ she said. ‘A bit heavy on the cheese, but there’s a satisfactory amount of chilies.’ Traci paid no attention, being focussed on describing her exercise and beauty routine, which apart from regular visits to her colonic irrigator and sports masseur, appeared to involve a minimum of three hours a day in a gym and beauty parlour and on her sun bed. The care of her decorated nails alone, she explained, spreading them out for inspection, required a visit twice a week to a specialist salon in Indianapolis.

It was while they were eating the lobster salad that they got on to plastic surgery. ‘So how old do you think my husband is?’ asked Traci.

‘Sixty-five,’ said the baroness.

‘Fifty,’ said Constance.

‘Sixty-eight,’ said Traci triumphantly. ‘That face-lift and the hair graft have made all the difference.’

‘I thought his face barely moved,’ grunted the baroness, but the remark was lost on her hostess.

Traci giggled. ‘And that’s not all he got done, but I’m not going to tell you. ’Cept it proved that size matters.’

The baroness and Constance caught each other’s eye and cringed.

Traci was now in high good humour. ‘And how old do you think I am?’

‘Thirty,’ said Constance cautiously.

‘What a politician you are, Constance,’ said the baroness. ‘Tell the truth. Traci must be closer to forty.’

Traci was enraged. She threw down a lobster claw with such force that it bounced off her plate onto the floor. The maid glided over and picked it up. Traci began to cry. ‘How can you say that? You must be blind. I’m only thirty-five and everyone thinks I look ten years younger.’

Constance gave her an awkward hug which dried up the torrent. The baroness shrugged.

‘Have you any idea what work and money and pain I’ve put into looking as good as I do?’

‘I think we’re getting the idea,’ said the baroness. ‘And your lips and expressionless face tell their own story.’

Constance looked at her in horror, but Traci was so caught up in an earlier grievance that she hadn’t been listening. Rage had now triumphed over distress. ‘Who do you two snobs think you are telling me I look old?’ Ignoring Constance’s protestations, Traci’s voice rose higher. ‘If anyone needs cosmetic surgery it’s you. Ana, more champagne.’