The Stallion (1996) (23 page)

Loren would be the only speaker at the dinner for the dealers, which was to be given that evening. Loren and Roberta would be at the head table, as would Betsy and the members of the board of directors. The vice presidents and dealers being recognized for setting sales records would be at a lower table. Angelo would be among them. He would be among the dozen or so people Loren would mention as having contributed significantly to the development of the Stallion.

“Next year in Jerusalem,” Betsy said to him as they spent their last few minutes in bed that morning. “Next year
you’ll
be the star, and he won’t even be here.”

Angelo shook his head. “Let Loren have his moments of glory. I don’t make speeches, just cars.”

She turned her head on the pillow and smiled warmly at him. “You may have made something else last night,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“I’m off the pill. I have to be, for a while. You’re the only man who’s been in me since—”

“Betsy!”

She raised her shoulders and turned her head.
“Ours,
my true love. Our car. Our baby. I hope.”

In Greenwich, Cindy and Amanda lay together on the couch in the Perino living room, casually inspiriting each other with caressing fingers and tongues. They did not satisfy each other. In fact, all they had succeeded in doing was making each other itch more.

“You want to do it, or not?” Amanda asked.

Cindy glanced at her watch. “The kids’ll be home soon,” she said.

“We’ve got enough time.”

Cindy nodded and pulled down her panties. She stiffened as Amanda found her clit with her tongue and began to caress it.

She was determined not to give herself to any man other than her husband. Angelo was man enough for any woman. But he was away from home so much! She couldn’t help wanting what a woman wanted. She knew she wanted it more than most women did. So did Amanda. But that wasn’t
their
fault.

Anyway, she knew Angelo very well. Who was he sleeping with on those long and frequent business trips? Betsy, she guessed. And who else?

They had chosen this style of life. Angelo, she told herself, could have remained a consultant and writer, commuted from Greenwich to his New York office, and made reputation and money. But no cars. And if he couldn’t build cars, he’d be miserable. That was his life; it was all he wanted, and he would tolerate anything for it: constant separation from a family and home he loved, living in hotels, bone-weariness, risk, frustration, and the Hardemans.

And she wasn’t part of it.

Amanda looked up for a moment. “Dietz is back,” she
said. “He spent some money in Europe. The things he bought haven’t come yet, but he told me about them.”

“I had to make him another loan,” said Cindy.

“It’s none of my business,” said Amanda, “but you own the gallery now, don’t you? He just works for you.”

“I own it,” said Cindy. “He’s a consultant. On contract.”

Amanda lowered her face into Cindy’s crotch again, but she said, “He’ll be at my place tonight for dinner. Would you like to join us?”

“Seven?”

“Seven.”

By the time Amanda was finished satisfying Cindy it really was too late to go on and risk the children or the au pair coming in and seeing them. “Put it on account,” said Amanda as she reached for her clothes. She left the house before the school bus stopped at the end of the street.

John was nine. He put his books away in his room and said he would come down to the kitchen for milk and cookies. Cindy came out of the bedroom and found him standing in the hall, staring thoughtfully at the painting Amanda had done of her when she’d been pregnant with Anna. She had noticed him staring at it before.

They went down to the kitchen.

“Do you like the painting?” she asked him.

“Which painting?” he asked.

“The one of me—naked and pregnant.”

He flushed. “Oh…,” he said. “Yes. It’s pretty.”

“Does it bother you in some way?”

His flush deepened. His lower lip trembled. “Mother … I can’t take my friends up to my room!”

Cindy frowned. Her lips parted. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said.

“They wouldn’t understand,” said the boy.

“All right. The painting goes in the bedroom.”

He blinked and squeezed out tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She reached over and patted his cheek. “It’s all right, John,” she said. “Some of your friends
wouldn’t
understand. It’s okay as long as
you
do. Miss Finch—Amanda—is a wonderfully talented artist. She sells her paintings to
collectors and galleries all over the world, and she makes more money than some of your friends’ fathers do in their businesses. When I posed for that painting, I was carrying your sister Anna. You saw me. You were too young to remember. Your father thinks it may be the most beautiful work of art he’s ever seen. But we don’t keep it downstairs, and we only show it to people who can understand. Your little friends ought not to see it. Not at their age. I’ll move it.”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s beautiful. It’s just that … the kids would think about what you did to get that way.”

Cindy smiled and patted his cheek again. “Your father and I did exactly the same thing their fathers and mothers did, or you wouldn’t have those friends.”

“I guess…”

“No guess, John. That’s how children come to be born. There’s no other way. Every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth is the result of what your father and I did to have you and to have Anna and Morris and Valerie. And you may have another brother or sister someday.”

“You mean you
still
do it?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course. What did you suppose?”

“Oh…”

Cindy repeated the conversation to Amanda and Dietz over dinner in Amanda’s studio.

“That reminds me of something,” said Amanda. “I’ve been meaning to say to you, we ought to do another picture of you. How old were you when we did that one?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Time for another,” said Amanda.

“I’m not unwilling. It could be a Christmas present for Angelo.”

“As soon as you’re finished eating, strip down and climb on the platform. We’ll set a pose, and I’ll do a sketch this evening.”

When Cindy was set on the platform and Amanda was at work with her huge sketch pad and charcoal, Dietz lounged with a brandy and studied her critically. He knew the days when she would tumble with him were over. He would stay the night with Amanda, but he could not have Cindy.

“You are like good wine,” he said. “You improve with age.”

“You are like the Bible,” Cindy retorted. “You are a treasury of cliches.”

“Beautiful woman,” said Dietz, “I have a business proposition for you. Have you ever heard of a dealer called Marcus Lincicombe?”

“The name is … I guess I’ve heard of him.”

“He thinks he might like to join us. He’s one hell of a dealer, Cindy. He has an eye I can envy. Among other things, he is one of the world’s most eminent collectors of netsuke. You know netsuke?”

“Little Japanese ivory carvings,” said Cindy.

“In the West, Lincicombe is the foremost authority on them. Anyway, he’s looking for an association. Would you like to talk with him?”

Cindy shrugged. “Why not?”

“He’s gone overboard,” said Loren to Peter Beacon. “The XB 2000 is a piece of shit.”

“Worse than that,” said Beacon. “He wants to close the Sundancer plant and open a new automated plant, filled with robotics. Robotic spot welders. All that kind of stuff. And not only that. To work with this epoxy resin material he’s got in mind, we’ll have to develop a whole new technology. Nobody in the industry is planning to use that stuff. The cars are going to cost twenty thousand dollars apiece unless we sink tens of millions into the new equipment it will take to manufacture huge quantities of his epoxy resin.”

“Is
anybody
doing anything with it?” Loren asked.

“Bill Lear. Before his death he was planning a new business airplane called the Lear Fan. Big propeller on the rear, driven by twin turbines. The claim is that it will fly almost as fast as a bizjet, for half the cost. The secret is supposed to be that the fuselage is made of this epoxy resin material, which is as strong as aluminum but so light a man can pick up an automobile fender made of it with no strain at all.”

“And it costs a fortune,” said Loren.

“Unless you build the new technology to mass-produce it,” said Beacon.

“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars,” said Loren.

“Scores of millions,” Beacon corrected.

“I’m under heavy pressure to build this car,” said Loren. “My daughter wants it done. My … Anne wants it. Jesus Christ, I think even my wife wants it!”

Beacon raised his eyebrows. “Well, there’s one possibility we shouldn’t overlook.”

“Which is?”

“If the XB 2000 fails, that’s the end of Angelo Perino.”

“It might be worth what it costs,” Loren mused. “Suppose we invest in the technology to make this epoxy stuff. Can we sell it?”

“Maybe so,” said Beacon. “It could be used to manufacture a lot of things. Aircraft…”

“Or automobiles,” said Loren.

“Or automobiles. Let’s face it. It could revolutionize the industry. But let’s not forget that Perino tends to go off the deep end. He was going to build a turbine-powered car, you remember.”

“The Betsy.”

“He makes mistakes. Maybe you should put his name out front on this one. If he makes the damned thing work, we’ve got a profit center. If he fails—”

“Pete—He’s dickin’ my daughter. I want his ass! I don’t know which I want more: a billion-dollar success in this 2000 or Perino’s ass. I’ll take either one.”

Betsy insisted on being with Angelo when he met with Marco Varallo, the Italian coach designer who had made the drawing she had displayed in April to the dealers in Detroit.

He had to fly to London so she could join him on a flight to Turin. They took two rooms in their Turin hotel, to give the appearance that they did not sleep together. Now that
Loren knew they did, they had to be a little more careful. A Xerox of a room registration card—
Sig./Sig.ra Angelo Perino
—could be mailed “anonymously” to Cindy. Neither of them wanted that to happen.

Varallo received them in his studio, a large sunny room dominated by a huge drafting table and by clay models of cars, one full-size.

“It’s going to sit on a Volkswagen platform,” said Varallo, pointing at the full-size model.

He was a short, square, florid man with white hair. He was filled with enthusiasm for everything he did, and he spoke in a thin, high voice and gestured wildly with both arms. His English was idiosyncratic. Angelo could have conversed with him in Italian, but then Betsy would not have understood.

Varallo flipped through engineering drawings on a table, pulled one out of the stack, and carried it to his drafting table. “This is the XB Stallion platform, no?”

“Yes,” said Angelo. “That’s the Stallion, absent its body. That’s what we’re going to use, with very few modifications.”

“I have worked on that assumption. You liked—yes?—the drawing I sent?”

“We did. Very much.”

“I do wonder, though,” said Betsy, “if you have any alternative ideas.”

Varallo smiled. “The ladies like to shop,” he said. “Is it not so? They never wish to buy the first item they see. As a matter of fact, I do have some other sketches.”

Looking them over, Angelo and Betsy could see he favored low-slung cars with wedge-shaped fronts. Their air scoops were beneath their front bumpers.

That troubled Angelo. “I’ve driven race cars with radiators down near the pavement,” he said. “The air scoops pick up water and mud. And dust. Why not open a narrow scoop in the slope of the hood?”

“And spoil the line?” asked Varallo.

“It won’t spoil
your
line, Signor. I’m confident you can design it so it will look as though you put it there to make the car more beautiful.”

“Anyway,” said Betsy, “there’ll be high pressure on the slope of the hood.”

Varallo seized a pencil and sketched in a narrow slit from fender to fender. “The width depends on the tests,” he said. “Then the air for the passenger compartment comes in through—?”

“Side scoops,” said Angelo. “Just behind the doors.”

“I’d like disappearing headlights,” said Betsy.

“Too expensive,” said Angelo.

“Then put them inside Plexiglas nacelles that follow the curve of the fenders,” she said. “As they are, they break the lines.”

“This is a good idea,” said Varallo.

“I like this sketch,” she said, pointing to a drawing of a car even lower than the one she had shown in Detroit.

“Give me three days, I make you a little clay model.”

“Take two weeks, Signor,” said Angelo. “I have to fly to Japan.”

In Angelo’s room Betsy took off her clothes and stretched out on the bed.

Angelo poured two Scotches. He handed her one, but she shook her head.

“What’s the problem? Want something else?”

“Can’t drink for a while, lover,” she said quietly.

“Why not?”

Betsy smiled. “I’m pregnant,” she said. “Our baby. Which do you want, a girl or a boy?”

It would have been pointless to ask her if she was sure it was his. He sat down on the bed beside her and took her hand. “I’m glad, Betsy,” he whispered. It would have been cruel to say anything else.

Loren lay naked on his belly on his and Roberta’s bed. His wrists and ankles were securely tied to the posts at the head and the foot. He had recently bought a carriage
whip for Roberta to use on him, and he had six angry red welts across his bottom

She sat comfortably in an overstuffed chair, smoking a cigarette and sipping Scotch. She wore a sheer black bra, nothing more.

“The little slut is pregnant again,” he said. “She called from London this morning.”

“So? That’s Betsy. Who planted this one in her?”