The Seduction - Art Bourgeau (14 page)

She'd immediately called him and made a date for the
opera that evening . . .

Now together with him for the first time since
leaving her mother, she was quiet inside, though part of it was
thanks to ten milligrams of Valium, a vodka on the rocks and a new
outfit from Nan Duskin purchased only hours before picking Felix up
at his apartment.

She was feeling so good and cozy, in fact, that it
was a moment or two before she even got the drift of Felix's words as
they waited for the traffic in front of them to clear. He was, she
gathered, talking about some article in the Globe by that awful Laura
Ramsey about "an eyewitness to the rape-murder of some South
Philly teenager." Missy, still very much in her own cocoon,
preferred to think about her new outfit and its expected affect on
Felix . . . a Calvin Klein off-the-shoulder top in ivory and a full,
belted, black silk skirt with a crinoline and a hemline that ended
just above the knee. It had immediately caught her eye, highlighting
as it did her lean and leggy figure. The thousand dollar price tag
had not caused a moment's hesitation. She had charged it to her
mother's account. Served her right for all those things she had said
Monday night. Thinking about it, she'd decided not to believe that
stuff about her father wanting to put her up for adoption . . . It
was just her mother's way of somehow trying to justify cuckolding him
with Edgar. When their limo pulled up in front of the Academy of
Music, Albert, the chauffeur, hurried around to open the door for
them and they joined the throngs going up the steps and past the
posters announcing the opening night performance of Puccini's Madame
Butterfly by the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Glancing around the
crowd, Missy took inventory of the number of Evan-Picone and Liz
Claiborne outfits. So much money, so little imagination, she thought.

As they moved to the bar it pleased her to think how
good she and Felix must look together. No question, he cut quite a
figure in his tuxedo. All he needed was a touch more gray in his hair
and beard and he'd be just right. That would come in time, she
reminded herself. Time they would be spending together. Before going
to their seats they met several dowager types who seemed to know
Felix, even though he was a relatively new arrival in town. They made
flattering comments on his good works, converting dilapidated
warehouses into decent housing, and reserved their most perfunctory
smiles for Missy Wakefield. Moving on, Missy was fuming at the snubs,
but took comfort in the fact that Felix, the new boy in town, was
clearly well liked and respected. All of which reinforced her growing
conviction that he was the man for her.

At the bar, as they sipped their drinks—hers
vodka-rocks, his Jack Daniels neat—she noted the abrupt tightness
in his face and turned to see what was causing it. Coming toward them
was a prim-looking brunette in her early thirties, shoulder-length
hair parted down the middle and pulled back. Missy identified her
flowered dress as a Ralph Lauren, but with its scoop neckline that
accentuated her slender neck and collar-bones rather than her breasts
it might as well have been a mail-order from Talbots.

"Hello, Cyn, how are you?" Felix was
saying.

"Fine, Felix," she said, "just fine."

"Missy, I don't know if you two know each
other—everyone else in Philadelphia seems to know each other. This
is my my"—he hesitated for a second—"former wife,
Cynthia . . ."

And suddenly Missy was back at Lagniappe on the night
she had first met Felix; a series of still images clicked in her
brain, images of personal humiliation as she apparently had lost Carl
to that bitch reporter Laura Ramsey, the one writing the articles
about the South Philly girl, and over it all she could hear Lois
Fortier's voice saying that rumor had it Felix Ducroit was in town to
get back together with his ex-wife . . . Well, it wasn't going to
happen. She had the inside track, and this prim little person could
eat her dust.

Ignoring Missy, Cynthia fixed her attention on Felix.
"I'd heard you were in town . . ." letting it hang there,
as if to say, and I've been waiting for your call.

The unspoken was picked up by Felix. "Yes, I've
been meaning to get in touch, been pretty busy."

At which point Missy smiled sweetly, to make clear
just how Felix had been keeping busy.

Cynthia pretended not to notice. "You're the
talk of the town, you know, what with the real estate project you're
doing and all. In fact, I got a call from a reporter at the Globe to
interview me for an article about you."

Felix clearly didn't welcome the news, tried to toss
it off with "I hope you'll be able to say nice things . . ."

"You know I will," she said, and for a
moment the primness was gone. "Well, it's almost curtain time.
I'd better get to my seat." As she turned to go she looked back
at him, a smile in place. "If you want to know how the interview
went, give me a call."

Felix did not reply, but Missy stood there feeling a
tingling at the back of her neck. Ex's, all ex's, wives, lovers or
whatevers always meant trouble . . . "Your ex-wife is very
charming," she said in a tone one might use in referring to a
middle-aged woman, a small house or a gay man who could dance well.

"Yes, I suppose she is," he said.

"Were you two close . . . I meant when you were
married?"

"In the beginning," he said, taking a sip
of his drink.

"I don't mean to be nosy, but what happened?"

"l guess it's more what didn't happen. Children
. . ."

"She wanted them and you didn't?"

"No, the other way around."

"Oh. Well, that's sort of unusual."

"I suppose . . ." He seemed to want to
explain. "When we met in New Orleans a couple of deals had gone
sour and I was flat broke. She didn't seem to care, and even when we
moved in together she was the one paying the bills. She had some
family money and she had a job managing one of those little hotels in
the French Quarter. And she was damn good at it. I really admire her
business skills . . . Anyway, I finally put a couple of deals
together and they got us out of the woods completely, so it seemed a
good time for her to stop working and have a family . . ."

"And she wouldn't hear of it?"

"That's right. I just didn't understand how much
her career meant to her, or maybe how uneasy she was about mine.
Whatever, I handled it all wrong, pushing so hard for children, and
that was that."

Missy, saying nothing, took his arm, squeezed it
gently and led him in to their seats. What he had just said told her
something about him that pleased her. For all his obvious
strengths—financial success, good looks, social presence—Felix
was also a man who, thanks to his sensitivity, could be manipulated.
And thinking this, she remembered what someone had scribbled on the
ladies room wall at Lagniappe: "Sensitivity is when a man does
what you want." Amen.

As the curtain went up and the audience applauded the
set depicting the small town of Nagasaki, Missy paid little
attention. Her thoughts were on the man next to her. She'd never had
a man affect her quite the way he did. Most seemed fairly shallow
creatures, useful to service her and be discarded at whim. Felix was
different, more, as she'd felt from the beginning, in her father's
mold. The good side of her father . . .

He was the right man for her, no doubt about it. He
was handsome and intelligent, rich and well connected. Sophisticated
and yet down to earth. And somewhat remote, with a little mystery to
him. She liked the challenge of that, though she had little doubt she
would more than meet that challenge.

She stole a glance at him. In profile he had an
edge—a hard edge? She sensed that when he was ready he would be a
demanding lover and shivered slightly in anticipation. His ex-wife,
or the story of her breakup with him, had shown the way to what he
wanted most—children.

Could she do it? She looked without seeing at the
unfolding romantic conflicts of Butterfly and Pinkerton . . . Even
the thought of getting pregnant again made her feel sick . . . Much
as she resisted it, that one time came back now. It had happened that
summer when she was sixteen, the summer when her father had watched
Roy Curtis have her in the boathouse. Afterward at home she'd gone on
a sexual rampage. She had slept with anyone who asked her, done
anything anyone wanted. She hadn't done it out of some need for
penance or self-punishment . . . she hadn't cared a damn about that .
. . but she'd cared about her father, had been obsessed with getting
him, somehow, no matter how, at least to pay attention to her, with
breaking through the wall that had grown between them ever since Roy
Curtis. It hadn't worked. She'd gotten pregnant. On stage Butterfly
was singing the aria "Un Bel Di, vedremo" as she waited for
Pinkerton to return from a long absence, and the music kept Missy's
thoughts where she didn't want them . . . She didn't know who the
father was, didn't care. Her mother had been in Europe that summer.
Edgar had been on "vacation," probably with her. So she had
been alone in the house with her father when she had told him she was
pregnant. In the darkness she felt the scar on her abdomen begin to
cause pain and to burn. As always. The scar was twelve years old, but
every time she thought about her pregnancy it happened. Don't think
about it, she ordered herself. Not now. It'll ruin the evening,
eventually ruin your chances with Felix. The pain, the burning, only
came when she tried to remember what had happened that night she'd
told her father she was pregnant. She could remember standing at the
door of her father's study, waiting to tell him, feeling terrified.
He'd been behind his desk, his hawklike face lined by the light and
shadows of a desk lamp. With his tufted brows he'd appeared
Mephistophilean. He'd looked up from his papers—and then memory
clicked off.

That was the way it always happened. She could
remember everything up to that point. How she'd fretted, how she'd
worn baggy clothes to hide her swelling stomach, how she'd prayed her
period would start. But after that point, nothing. For twelve years
her standing in the doorway waiting to tell him was as far as she
could remember. And with each succeeding memory of that night, the
pain built in intensity until at a point it became white-hot, so
awful it blocked out all further memory, perversely providing its own
relief.

The music of the opera swelled around her as she
surreptitiously put her hands on her stomach and tried to press the
pain away. But it came over her in a wave so intense that it took
away her sight and hearing . . . her world turned into a collage of
colors, her heart began to race, panic took over. She pushed up from
her seat, stumbled past Felix and the others in the row and nearly
ran up the aisle to the lobby, where she proceeded immediately to the
bar and ordered a double vodka.

While she waited for her drink she swallowed another
ten-milligram Valium. Her hands were shaking. Years ago she had been
sure she wanted to know what happened but couldn't recall. Now all
she wanted was to forget, but she couldn't do that either.

By now Felix had caught up with her. "Are you
all right?"

She looked at him, and for a moment she hated him.
This was his fault. Everything would have been just fine if he hadn't
started with this pregnancy business. That's what had touched off the
pain and truncated memory.

"I'm fine," she said lightly, picking up
her drink.

"You don't look so fine to me. What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," said through clenched teeth.

"You clearly aren't and you're going home. What
you need is a good night's sleep."

She said nothing, just stood there while he took the
drink from her hands and set it on the bar, laid a five dollar bill
beside it, put his arm around her and started for the door.

Outside, Albert had the limousine parked up the
street in front of the Bellview-Stratford. While they waited for him,
Missy, fighting for control, told Felix she'd really prefer going
home alone, that she was sorry she'd ruined the evening, and asked
him to call her tomorrow. And before he could respond she was in the
limo and telling Albert to drive off and be quick. As the limousine
wheeled into traffic, Albert could have sworn he heard her muttering
something like, "Damn you, daddy, damn you . . . I did my best
but it wasn't enough, never enough . . ."
 
 

CHAPTER 11

DETECTIVE RAFFERTY earned himself no Brownie points,
especially with Lieutenant Sloan, being late to the meeting of Seven
Squad. Nor did his excuse cut much ice.

"Sorry to be late, lieutenant, just couldn't
stand any more of the coffee around here so I stopped at Rindelaub's
on Eighteenth, for all our own sakes. The traffic coming cross town
was a bitch, you know how it is this time of day . . ."

Sloan nodded and ignored him. In fact, he was
grateful to have Rafferty on the squad. Its oldest member, he hadn't
lost a step with age, was still as much a handful as ten years ago.
Maybe more, with the added smarts. The only reason he had been
available when the squad was formed was the fall-out from a West
Philly shoot-out that made him a temporary leper in the department.
Not that he'd been wrong—no one thought that—but, as they said,
publicity-wise it was a bummer. An ice cream parlor near the
university, a hold-up in progress when he stopped in, a quick
exchange of gunfire and the hold-up man was stone dead on the floor.
All very fine, except that the "critter" had been the son
of a West Philly ward leader. The department's loss had been Sloan's
and Seven Squad's gain.