The Stallion (1996) (49 page)

She was a rare beauty. She had been when he first met her, when she was sixteen. Now she was forty-two, and she was, if anything, even more beautiful: with those memorable, calmly defiant pale blue eyes that had disordered the wits of many a man, still wearing her blond hair long and smooth, her body still as sleek as ever, with smooth bottom and belly. She swam nude and was tanned all over; the sun had even darkened the big and shiny nipples on her big, firm breasts.

“Angelo Perino,” she whispered hoarsely, “you’re a fuckin’ fugitive from Medicare, but you’re still the best who ever gave it to me.”

He suspected she spoke the truth. “You inspire me,” he said.

“That would be a wonderful compliment,” she said, “except that I can probably count a hundred other women who’ve inspired you.”

Angelo Perino was sixty-four. In some ways he looked it, and in some he didn’t. He was gray only at the temples. Women had always found him handsome, and the lines that had slowly come to his face during the last twenty years had added maturity and had made him handsome in a new way. His flesh remained taut; he had not gone loose the way so many men did. People who had known him when he was a racing driver still recognized him without difficulty.

Two weeks ago he had begun posing for Amanda Finch, nude, as Cindy had asked him to do. It was a stimulating new experience, something he had never thought he could do but was now comfortable with. His and Cindy’s pictures would hang side by side in their bedroom.

“You inspire me one hell of a lot, Viscountess,” he said.

She sighed. “At least you don’t call me Miss Betsy anymore.”

He grinned. “It doesn’t seem appropriate anymore. Not since … Well … Miss. No more appropriate than the way we all called the old man Number One.”

“He was the only one capable of killing you. And when he found out about us, he would have liked to.”

“He did his damnedest,” said Angelo.

“Not really. I don’t think you ever really understood him. I don’t think you ever gauged how completely evil he was, or how vicious—or how much awe and respect he had for you.”

“I think I may be the only one who ever
did
understand him—at long last, after painful experience.”

“Honey-babe,” she murmured, “you got enough left for one more? You have to hurry. You have to get across the George Washington Bridge. A quickie?” She ran her hands over his still-hard-and-muscular body, then seized his half-erect organ. “One more time?”

“To hell with the E. If I haven’t got the time for one more, by God I’ll
take
the time!”

Anyway, he would be
flying
across the Hudson, not crossing the bridge, and he had the time. Forty minutes after he agreed to a final quickie, a small Bell helicopter lifted off from a pad on the riverfront, rose over Manhattan, and crossed the Hudson River at an altitude lower than the tops of the towers of the George Washington Bridge.

No matter how many times he flew in one of these noisy, shaking little choppers, Angelo never ceased to be fascinated and afraid. It was not like flying in a plane, which carried you so high above the landscape that everything below became toylike and unreal. This was how the world must look to the gods: seen from a superior height, yet intimately. He could look into the cars on the GW and see women’s skirts drawn back and showing handsome legs. Still, it was scary. The little ship vibrated and was shaken by gusts of wind, also by updrafts and downdrafts. He could see, too, that flying the thing was like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time: a daunting exercise in counterintuitive concentration.

Constantly talking on the radio to Teterboro tower, the pilot guided the helicopter across metropolitan New Jersey, keeping for the most part no more than two hundred feet above the rooftops, until he settled down gently on Caldwell-Wright Airport. Interstate 80 was in sight during
much of the flight. Angelo had stared at it thoughtfully. It and 1-95 were his return route to Manhattan.

He was never willing to leave a helicopter until the rotors stopped turning, and it made him distinctly uncomfortable to see Anna running forward, hand in hand with Van. They ran with their heads ducked to avoid the decapitating potential of the swinging blades. Valerie waited for the blades to stop, restrained probably by her elder brother John.

Television cameras and surging reporters pressed against police ropes. The long lenses of the cameras were capturing every expression of the principals, as Angelo at last stepped down from the chopper and embraced Van and Anna.

Anna asked Angelo to get inside the Stallion with her and Van so they could talk for a few minutes. They told him what had happened on the mountain.

His face turned red and rigid. But he said, “All right, we’ve got a show to put on. You forget what happened. I’ll take care of it.”

A few minutes later a motorcade pulled away from the airport, led by two New Jersey State Police cars.

The Stallion followed, driven by Van, with Anna sitting beside him.

A sleek family van followed the Stallion. It kept alive the name Sundancer, though officially it was Model 000 V. It, too, was an electric-powered vehicle, driven by Angelo Perino. Cindy sat beside him. In the rear seats were Morris Perino, Mary Perino, and John Hardeman.

A truck loaded with television cameras followed the two electrics, followed by half a dozen cars filled with reporters. Two helicopters hovered over the motorcade, affording television cameras an overhead view. Two more police cars finished the motorcade.

“A triumph,” Cindy said to Angelo.

Angelo nodded. “Provided we make the convention center without a breakdown.”

She leaned closer to him and said under her breath, “Loren would love that.”

“That’s why the two vehicles have been guarded by enough security men to fight a small war—with enough guns to fight a big one.”

“He wouldn’t dare.”

“Wait’ll I tell you what he’s already dared. I’m gonna kill him. I swear I’m gonna kill him.”

“It couldn’t be that bad.”

“No? I’ll tell you later.”

Angelo turned and looked at this woman who was his wife. She was the mother of his five children. But she was a hell of a lot more than that. The gamine in torn blue jeans who had hung around the racetrack pits had turned out to be a well-educated, sophisticated woman. She loved Angelo. He’d never doubted that. But she had never been dependent on him. Cindy was Cindy: lovely, caring, erotic, yes, but also smart and astute, objective and realistic.

She had aged well. Seventeen years younger than Angelo, she could no longer have wandered the pits as a racetrack groupie, but she could have haunted the docks as whatever a yacht groupie might be called. Race drivers, most of them, would lack the perspicacity to appreciate her. Yatchsmen, more sophisticated in their tastes to begin with, and more mature, would find her delicious. Everything she once had, she still had—including a supremely adventuresome spirit.

Apart from that, she still had a great figure, and the marks of maturity that had come with the years only made her more interesting. He retained his special image of her: tight butt in ragged jeans that might have been painted on, tits hanging loose inside a white T-shirt, the race-driver groupie he had never seen in a dress until he’d known her a year—that image supplemented by the paintings Amanda had done of her.

No marriage was perfect. She remained adventuresome and had her adventures, maybe was having one even now. Okay. He had his. But she was the love of his life. He wouldn’t have wanted her any other way.

At the toll plaza for the upper deck of the GW, the New Jersey police cars pulled away, and their stations were taken up by blue-and-white cars of the NYPD. Crossing the bridge, they picked up two more news helicopters.

Still speaking quietly to Angelo, Cindy said, “Anyway,
it’s a goddamned
triumph
—and it’s a Perino triumph, not a Hardeman triumph.”

“Shared,” said Angelo. “That’s why Van is driving.”

“He’s Betsy’s son,” said Cindy, “not Loren the Third’s grandson. I wonder if he’s a Hardeman at all.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Angelo. “He may be a van Ludwige, but he’s a Hardeman, too. And so’s Betsy.”

Cindy shrugged and stared southward toward the World Trade Center and all the rest of Manhattan visible from the upper deck of the GW on a clear day like this.

Turning off the GW, the motorcade made its way down the variously called segments of the West Side Highway to Fifty-seventh Street, then across town to Broadway and down to the crosstown street that led to the Javits Convention Center.

The idea of the circuitous route was to give a few more New Yorkers a look at the E Stallion and the Sundancer van. Few of them looked. To jaded New Yorkers, the motorcade was just another excuse to foul up midtown traffic.

The media people were more easily programmed. They went bug-eyed on cue. As the Stallion and the new Sundancer swept into the Center and to their places on the floor, where they would be on display for a week, strobes flashed and reporters and cameramen surrounded the two vehicles.

What the four young people had to say had been heard a score of times during the trip. Television and newspapers had already reported that the car ran smoothly, that it was comfortable, that it had plenty of acceleration, that it had never come near running short of electrical energy. Now the reporters wanted to hear from Angelo Perino.

“When will the car be on the market, Mr. Perino?”

Angelo stepped up to a group of microphones that had been arranged for answering questions. “Next year,” he said. “The first E Stallions will be sold in the Los Angeles area. We’ve entered into contracts with two major gasoline companies to add recharging equipment to their stations.”

“What will it cost to recharge the batteries?”

“A little more than a tank of gasoline. Roughly two dollars more. Driving the electric Stallion will cost about one cent per mile more than a gas-powered car. On the
other hand, you never have to change oil or transmission fluid, you have no filters to change, you never have to add antifreeze, you have no spark plugs to burn up, and so on. I think the car will run about as economically as a conventional car—and maybe later, when the oil companies reduce the cost of a charge, it may run cheaper.”

“What’s it gonna cost to replace the batteries? Isn’t that the big question?”

Angelo nodded. “Our test cars have averaged eighty thousand miles on a set of batteries. Then they cost about two thousand dollars to replace. How many conventional automobiles run eighty thousand miles with no more than two thousand dollars in maintenance costs? By eighty thousand miles you’re replacing piston rings, valves, carburetor parts, points, coils, water pumps, and so on—not to mention how many sets of plugs you’ve gone through.”

Two security guards opened a path through the reporters, to make a way for Elizabeth, Viscountess Neville: Betsy. With her was Roberta.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here is the Viscountess Neville, great-granddaughter of the founder of XB Motors, and Roberta Hardeman, wife of the founder’s grandson.”

Betsy rushed to her son Van and embraced him warmly.

As soon as he could, Angelo pulled Betsy and Roberta off to one side. “All right, where is he?”

“Where’s who?”

“Loren.
Where is he?”

Betsy glanced at Roberta. “You didn’t tell
me,
either.”

Roberta flushed and shook her head. “He went to Florida last night. Palm Beach. He still owns Number One’s house, you know. Why?”

“I’m gonna kill him!”

Angelo did not appear at the Hardeman house in Palm Beach for a week. Then he arrived, dropped off by a taxi. Loren had revived Number One’s old habit of keeping two vicious guard dogs on the premises. As Angelo walked toward the house, they lunged toward him, snarling. He had come prepared for that. He drew a cannister of Mace from
his jacket pocket and dropped both dogs in their tracks. As they writhed and howled, he gave each of them an extra shot, to be sure they would not bother him again.

The doorbell was answered by Roberta. She pointed toward the lanai. Betsy was there. Loren sat on a chaise longue, a .38 revolver in his right hand. He was wearing a beach coat. His hairy legs were exposed, and his feet were bare.

“Did you expect me sooner?” Angelo asked Loren.

“I did. Where’ve you been?”

“I took the trouble to make sure I was right. I didn’t want to come here and accuse you until I was sure.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Pennsylvania State Police were having difficulty figuring out how that truck driver got dead and why there were no license plates on his rig and why its various numbers were covered with brown paper and tape and why another rig was in the same condition. That is, they were having difficulty until I gave them the sworn statements of four witnesses.”

“Really, Angelo,” said Betsy. “What
are
you talking about?”

Angelo spoke to Betsy. “He tried to kill Van and Anna and John and Valerie—three of my kids and one of yours. He hired two truckers to run the Stallion off the road on a steep mountainside. The attempt failed, but one of the truckers was killed.”

Loren pointed his revolver at Angelo. “Be careful of how you bandy words about, my wop friend. You know … you know, if I shot you, several witnesses would testify that you threatened to kill me. Self-defense.”

“What witnesses?” Betsy asked.

“You yourself told me he said he was gonna—”

“Don’t count on
my
testifying that he threatened to kill you,” said Betsy coldly.

“Can you
prove
this accusation?” Roberta asked, her face flushed and her voice breaking.

“I don’t have to prove it. The district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania, is going to prove it.”

“What lies did you tell
him
?” Loren demanded loudly.

“I haven’t even talked to him. The Pennsylvania State
Police are conducting the investigation. The four kids will testify that two big rigs tried to force the Stallion off the highway at high speed. Anna was driving, and thank God she was a skillful enough driver to escape the trap—though she caused the trucks to crash in the process, killing one of the truckers.”