‘Do you think she’ll go out on the road to promote it?’
‘I don’t know.’
Anna smiled a secret smile.
‘You
could persuade her,’ she said. ‘She likes you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My famous instincts again. She asked me if you were married. I told her you’re living with a woman.’ She laughed softly. ‘I didn’t tell her it was me.’
‘That’s ridiculous. What makes you think she likes me?’
Anna raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Have I stumbled on a mutual attraction?’
He was flustered. ‘You can be such a stupid woman. She must be in her late sixties.’
‘And so are you,’ Anna pointed out.
‘Such nonsense,’ he grumbled.
‘I’m glad you think so.’ Anna finished her cocoa and went into the bathroom to prepare for bed.
Fred E. Lester gazed blankly at the television and failed to see the comic antics of Mr Carson and a playful monkey. His thoughts were drifting back in time to many many years ago.
* * *
Freddy was a fresh-faced college boy with a smart mouth and a drunken disposition. He was on vacation and his friend, Mel Webster, fixed him up with a blind date. The girl, named Carrie, was beautiful, and black. He was shocked at being fixed up with a black girl. His family was originally from the South. ‘Jesus!’ he muttered to Mel. ‘She’s a fucking dinge!’
‘So,’ Mel replied. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of black pudding?’
Why not?
Freddy thought.
Why not?
He didn’t remember much else. A series of nightclubs and booze. The anticipation of laying a coloured girl. The champagne flowing and everyone getting high.
Next memory . . . He and Mel and Mel’s date driving back to an apartment. It was a big roomy loft with a bed on each side. Mel and his girl started at it on one of the beds, and he had stumbled over to the other one and fallen asleep. It seemed only minutes later that Carrie was shaking him awake. She looked so pretty, and he felt so randy. Why weren’t they doing the same as Mel and his girl?
She put up a fierce fight, but he was stronger and overpowered her until she lay helpless beneath him. He knew he was raping her but he didn’t stop. Who cared? She was getting what she really wanted, what all women wanted.
After it was over she demanded money. He was angry, he threw what he had at her, took the keys to sleeping Mel’s car, and staggered out of the place.
The streets were deserted, and he put his foot down, anxious to get home and shower the smell of the black bitch off him. He drove recklessly, with no thought for anyone else, and as he swerved the car around a corner, it ended up on the wrong side of the street, and smashed headlong into an oncoming truck.
The next thing he remembered was waking up from a coma in a hospital, months later, with a face that resembled a complicated road map. His scars were horrifying, but his parents could afford the finest plastic surgeons. He spent many months in and out of hospital – and all through that desolate period he kept on seeing Carrie’s face. He had raped her. That’s why he had been punished.
It changed his life.
Years passed. He married a good woman who bore him two fine children. He started his own small publishing firm, and over the years built it into one of the most successful houses in New York. One night, in 1960, he was at a charity ball and he saw her. Carrie. Even though she was gowned and groomed, her hair swept up and diamonds at her ears and throat, he recognized her immediately. She brought back every guilty memory. He prayed that she wouldn’t remember him. She didn’t.
Relief was immense. She had no idea he was the same callow youth who had treated her so badly all those years before. When he thought about it later he realized there was no way she
could
have recognized him. Plastic surgery had changed his appearance considerably, and twenty years had passed. He remembered
her,
because her face was
burned
into his memory.
He found out who she was, and couldn’t help himself from following her life in
Vogue
and
Harpers
and
Women’s Wear Daily.
Carrie was a personality. He was glad for her.
His wife succumbed to cancer in 1973. His children, both grown, chose suitable partners and went off to pursue their own lives. He was alone and lonely until Anna Robb came into the office for an interview one day. They had lived together for two years. It was no passionate love affair – not that he expected passion at his age. But they were compatible.
When Carrie re-entered his life he was shocked. He had never thought he would ever see her again. Over the years her name had faded from the columns, and the last mention he could remember was news of her divorce. Then nothing.
* * *
He thought back forty-two years.
‘She’s a fucking dinge
. . .’ he had once said, that stupid, prejudiced, bigotted young man. How things had changed.
Anna had said, ‘She likes you.’ Was it true? Did she?
If she ever knew who he really was she would damn him to hell.
Gino was the first to leave. He bid his farewells the morning after Lucky’s birthday party, pleading urgent business commitments.
Susan elected to stay. ‘You don’t mind?’ she asked in a concerned wifely voice.
‘Go ahead – enjoy yourself,’ he replied, looking forward to his freedom. They arranged to meet in Los Angeles in ten days’ time.
He took a plane to Paris, and the Concorde to New York, where he had booked his usual suite at The Pierre. The first thing he did was call Paige in LA.
‘Get on the next flight here,’ he commanded.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’ve got a present for you.’
‘What?’
‘Something you’re gonna eat up!’
‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re nothing but a dirty old man?’
He chuckled. ‘Be on the next flight.’
‘Gino—’
‘Don’t give me a hard time.’
‘Only if you promise to give me one!’
‘You have my word.’
She called him back an hour later. ‘I’ll be there on Wednesday.’
‘Not soon enough.’
‘Don’t complain. I have a business to run, not to mention a husband and family.’
He contacted Costa in Miami. ‘Let’s have a reunion,’ he suggested.
‘What’s going on?’ Costa inquired.
‘I’m in New York. I feel good. I thought we’d look up some of the old faces.’
‘Where’s Susan?’
‘I left her on the Stanislopoulos yacht. She’s happy.’
‘And Lucky?’
‘She’s due in tomorrow. Just a minute.’ He put the phone down to let in room service who brought him a thick juicy steak, french fries, chocolate cake, and ice cream – food forbidden by Susan who was always carrying on about cholesterol and diet. He picked up the phone again and continued his conversation with Costa. ‘Come on, old friend. We’ll have a good time.’
Costa had a litany of complaints. ‘I’ve got arthritis – my joints are killing me, my gums need work—’
‘Fall to pieces on your own time. How often am I in New York?’
‘Maybe a few days
would
be a change’, Costa mused, and then decisively, ‘Yes, I’ll come. Why not?’
Gino ate the steak, every one of the french fries, the ice cream and the cake. Then he belched with contentment and fell asleep on the couch.
* * *
Another day of long meaningful looks between Lennie and herself, and Lucky knew she had to move on. Perhaps when she wasn’t facing him every day, the strong attraction would cease. God! Was this what happened when you didn’t get laid for a while?
She knew, although she wasn’t prepared to admit it, that it wasn’t just sex. With plenty of opportunity to observe, she found him to be funny and warm and great with both Roberto and Brigette. She remembered from his original stint at the Magiriano that he was also an extremely talented and clever comedian.
How did he and Olympia ever get together? He was too smart to put up with her shit. But even smart people get caught on occasion, and he was savvy enough to get out fast.
Lucky knew she must do the same.
‘I have some family business matters to attend to with my father,’ she told Dimitri. ‘Papers to sign, things like that,’ she added vaguely. ‘I must go to New York at once.’
He nodded. His mind was elsewhere. Francesca was jealous of the diamond necklace and earrings he had gifted Lucky with, and he had to arrange for a present of equal – if not more – value to be discreetly delivered to the temperamental actress.
‘Do what you have to do,’ he said.
‘Roberto will stay here with CeeCee,’ Lucky decided. ‘Perhaps I’ll fly back in a few days.’
She had no intention of doing so. Cruising the Mediterranean on board a floating palace was not her idea of a good time. Especially with people like Saud Omar and Jenkins Wilder aboard. She hated that kind of man. Rich, powerful, sexist chauvinists. She could smell ’em a mile away.
So how come you married one?
Dimitri had seemed different. Unfortunately he was not.
She didn’t bother with goodbyes. She doubted she would be missed by anyone other than Roberto and CeeCee. And Lennie, only he was a relationship she did not care to pursue. Dangerous territory. Olympia hated her as it was. She didn’t want to make things worse.
* * *
‘Where’s Lucky?’ Lennie asked at dinner.
‘What do you care?’ Olympia snapped. She had been bad-tempered and impossible since her outburst at the party.
He shrugged. ‘Who
cares?
I just wondered.’
‘She had business in New York,’ Dimitri explained.
‘What kind of business?’ Olympia sneered sarcastically. ‘Shopping for a new dress?’
Dimitri silenced her with a look.
After dinner there was the usual discussion of who wanted to do what. ‘Let’s go dancing,’ Olympia suggested restlessly, gulping brandy and wishing she had some coke to take the edge off her nerves.
‘I’d like to gamble,’ the Contessa announced.
So they split into two camps. Saud, the Contessa, Jenkins Wilder, Dimitri, Francesca and Susan elected to go to the casino. And Lennie found himself saddled with Olympia and Fluff, who wished to discotheque. Alice and Horace were invited with neither group. ‘You’re tired,’ Francesca told her timid husband. ‘Get some rest.’
‘We’ll have a nightcap, Horace,’ Alice said with a lewd wink.
‘You look after my little tootsie roll,’ Jenkins said to Lennie, pressing several thousand franc bills into his young wife’s eager hands. ‘In case you need to powder your nose, doll.’
‘Thank you big daddy’, she squeaked.
A fleet of Cadillacs waited to take them wherever they wished to go.
‘Regines,’ said Olympia.
So Regines it was. An elegant, private club, perched next to the sea.
‘Miss Stanislopoulos,’ the maitre d’ purred. ‘Welcome back. So nice to see you again.’
They were given what Lennie presumed to be the best table.
‘Let’s dance,’ said Olympia, bouncing toward the dance floor.
‘Go ahead,’ encouraged Fluff – a teenage vision in skin tight satin pants and a boob tube – more boob than tube.
They hit the floor to the strains of Stevie Wonder. Lennie made all the right moves while his mind wandered and he thought of Lucky and how much he wanted her. He had to tell Olympia that their marriage was a mistake. She must know. They had about as much in common as a Harley-Davidson and a Rolls-Royce. Maybe the best way to handle it was to say nothing, simply fly to L.A. for
The Tonight Show
, and not come back.
Stevie Wonder was followed by a rasping Rod Stewart, after which they sat down.
Fluff was being hit upon by two leering Italians. She didn’t seem to mind at all, in fact she was encouraging them with moist-lipped smiles and high-pitched giggles. One of them invited her to dance, and she took off for the dance floor like a bird let loose from its cage.
‘At least
somebody’s
having a good time,’ Olympia said pointedly, and went off to share a snort with one of her friends, an angular-looking beauty in a fish-net dress. ‘Where can I buy some coke?’ she asked the girl, an English socialite.
‘Search me, darling. I got
my
little bit of snuff from a rather peculiar type outside the casino yesterday. Ask McGuiness, he’s always up on that sort of thing.’
McGuiness was an upper crust English creep with an unfortunate stutter. He led her to his source, a young English dress manufacturer with wiry hair, pin-point eyes and a thick Cockney accent. They did business in a quiet corner, and that’s where she was when Flash made his entrance.