Making Love (6 page)

“I have. And it wasn't not liking it ... it was just that there was nothing more to it. A dead end. You know what they said about Esther Williams—‘Wet she was a star.' Well, in bed so was Alan. Dressed, he was ridiculous, cheap, and a fake, without a single conviction worth even disagreeing with. So, what was there to discuss?”
 

He had wanted one thing from her, compliance. She gave it, willingly, until it became little more than an athlete's post-game shower. He had more energy than passion and treated her as a vessel designed merely to remove the poisons from his system. Sometimes they smoked grass together when it was available, but he preferred instant coffee, fearing that drugs or alcohol would interfere with his usual smooth performance.
 

“One night we were watching TV afterwards, and an ad came on. This guy in a raincoat doing his pitch in a racing car. Andy Granatelli. STP. And I turned to Alan and said, ‘Maybe that's what you need.' I meant for when he was dressed.
 

“I also got tired of endangering his career. He used to remind me about that all the time. I wanted to feel some sense of danger on my side, you see. Some nights I didn't want to go to bed and he'd try to make me feel guilty. We'd drive into town and all I wanted really was to get back and go to sleep, and he'd start whining about how he'd get thrown out and never get a job at a decent school ... even when I was unwell. Oh, he was terrifically generous.”
 

They entered the Saint Laurent shop and were ignored by the quasi-models who filled in their time working as salesgirls, until they were discovered by
Vogue
or some shaving-cream company looking to move suds to weak-minded men. They were all playing with their makeup or on the phone trying to make appointments at Vidal Sassoon. Nobody bothered the customers. Conlon picked up a black-velvet trouser suit.
 

“I don't know what I am in a French size. Forty-four or something.” She was about to ask a girl seated at the register, but she was pretending to read
Do It
. “I'll try it. Mel likes suits on me.”
 

The shop was a blur of color and light to Jane and she felt a bit giddy. Conlon reappeared, a study in
haute couture
, but the pants were a little short.
 

“Shit, my long legs. Do you think they could let down the bottoms? What're you looking so depressed about, Jane?” She shook her friend gently by the shoulders. “We'll go to the Carlyle for a drink; who knows, we might even run into Margaret Truman. Come on, give Conlon a smile.”
 

“I don't know what's wrong with me. I just feel odd. I've got to do something important, and I can't remember what it is.”
 

“Why don't you call your father?”
 

“He's on the pro tour.”
 

“Do you know where?”
 

“Somewhere in California.”
 

Jane wondered if she ought to call her father to talk things over. He never failed to give her advice and cash. He'd gone to California for the Kaiser International Golf Tournament. She might even fly there for a few days.
 

Conlon looked at herself in the mirror with approval. “Missus Fitter, be a nice lady and see if you can lengthen the pants.”
 

“It's a little tight around the hips,” the fitting lady said professionally.
 

“I can live with it. It's just that my freckled ankles are showing and that's not nice.”
 

“I can give you two inches.”
 

“That should see me through the evening. Could you have it ready by five o'clock?” The woman gave her a sulky look. “I'm not asking for the world.”
 

“You rich kids are all the same.”
 

“You're really a nice person. Five o'clock, please.”
 

“I'll see what I can do.”
 

“God bless you.”
 

 

* * * *

 

At Mel's suite in the Tower, hors d'oeuvres were flying fast and furious; a barman was stacking vintage California champagne in an ice tub, and the catering manager was supervising the placement of smoked salmon wrapped around mock caviar in a geometric design on a table with some ferns. Expense meant nothing to Mel, he was boldness itself, even writing threatening letters to Con Edison, who had started first with the threatening letters. New York Telephone had also known Mel's wrath when he informed their representative that he would unload his AT&T if they didn't stop trying to collect his three-hundred-dollar bill until his accountant had completed his investigation; it appeared that a burglar had made long-distance calls during a robbery. That was Mel's story and he was sticking to it. American Express could drop dead and Diner's Club could whistle for their money. He was inflexible. “Bankrupt me and you get nothing. Work with me,” he told a group of hysterical credit managers preparing legal proceedings. “Shit-list me and we'll all wind up collecting relief.” His wife's father, his former source of income, had wished him cancer when he found out that Mel had sold her Dreyfus Fund to cover straddles on Xerox, settle bookmaker's debts (those people threw acid in your face or murdered you in lots in Jackson Heights), and procure an abortion for the Jamaican maid. His explanation for the latter generosity—“All I did was help a human being in trouble”—was viewed with some skepticism, since this occurred during Iris' bout with hepatitis.
 

He had attended the Wharton School of Business on a scholarship and was obviously not a lightweight, as his father-in-law learned. This evening's cocktail party was to celebrate a new takeover in Mel's growing empire of shell companies. As an underwriter—the firm was known as Malcolm Davis, Associates, Underwriters—during four years in the trade, Mel was worth about nineteen million dollars and change in unregistered stock. Practically speaking, despite the nifty double-breasted six-buttoned suit from Barney's International shop, he was a fingernail away from receivership. His bank manager unwillingly kept him afloat, since Mel had a series of Polaroid-color action snapshots of the aging executive when he had drifted away from the gaming tables on the Puerto Rican junket Mel had arranged for services rendered.
 

“In the event of my death or disappearance these photographs will be sent to David Rockefeller, Joe Namath, Police Commissioner Leary, and Gil Hodges so that they receive the maximum exposure,” he had warned the bank manager, who was preparing for a visit from the state auditors.
 

“But you're overdrawn $75,000 and I can't cover you,” he explained to the forceful financier.
 

A model of succinctness, Mel abruptly replied:
 

“Finagle!”
 

“How can I?”
 

“Listen, I'm a busy man. Talk to me of Charles Bludhorn, Ling Tempco, Irving Trust, Howard Hughes, but don't waste my time about a shitass personal loan which isn't even in six figures, when you're holding twelve million dollars' worth of securities as collateral. If you're not careful, Mr. Dunhill, I'll absorb your organization an you'll find yourself out on your keista, pensionless.”
 

A master of the threat, Mel had at one time or another offered to take over the Copacabana, Snyder's catsup, Hebrew National, Pepsi-Cola, and Getty Oil. Meanwhile he was involved in gym franchises, hoping to kick off with one atop the Seagram building, which he considered a good location, and was setting up meetings with the owners.
 

The girls arrived in the suite after five, and Mel, speaking on three phones, waved them to the sofa.
 

“Dynamic, isn't he?” Conlon said, planting a kiss on his forehead.
 

Premature baldness had begun an insidious attack the previous year, and he was undergoing hair transplants. His sideburns now flourished like Amazon foliage. He was too young for dignity. He slammed down a phone, barked into another, and pointed to an announcement in the
New York Post
: “Health Corporation of America, 250,000 shares Common Stock (without par value). Price per share $3.00. Malcolm Davis, Associates, Underwriters.” Affectionately known as headstones on Wall Street, these announcements nevertheless impressed those who succumbed to his charms.
 

He kissed her loudly.
 

“Conlon, am I glad to see you.”
 

“This is Jane Siddley.”
 

Mel kissed her, too, ever gallant to women.
 

“So this is Jane.”
 

“And you're Mel.” He released her from his embrace and examined her like a serious buyer. For months he had nagged Conlon for an introduction. With dizzying regularity he kept track of her millions, hoping by some lucky chemistry to get his hands in the till, or her signature to guarantee a bank loan. Friends did favors for friends.
 

“Beautiful and rich. How's it feel to have so much money?”
 

“I don't get it till I'm thirty.”
 

“Well, I'll be damned. Twenty million dollars.”
 

“It's being held in trust.”
 

“What's the matter, didn't they trust your parents?”
 

“My grandfather had foresight.”
 

“You know, I used to read about you on the society pages.”
 

“We got our share of coverage.”
 

“You've got a middle name, too. Teller, am I right?”
 

“My mother was a Teller,” Jane said.
 

“I can't go to sleep without reading Suzy. Can you get your hands on any of the stock now?”
 

“Why?”
 

“I just thought ... now what did I think? Let me ask you something, Jane, if it's not personal that is. How long is your position in Invictor?”
 

“Long.”
 

“That's right, long. How long, if I'm not getting personal?”
 

“I think something in the neighborhood of a half a million shares.”
 

Mel picked up a phone that was still dangling.
 

“Give me a close on Invictor.” He waited. “Fifty-two. Up a half. Jane, do you get dividends?”
 

“I'm a major stockholder.”
 

“And you're on an allowance now?”
 

“It's not really very much.”
 

He was about to ask how she felt about cosigning at the bank, but since he was a sensitive reader of character and a diplomat, he did not press the subject.
 

“Remember me?” Conlon asked.
 

“Sure, you're my mistress. How's your Irish father? I keep having dreams that I'm going to be murdered by two guys dressed as priests.”
 

“I love you,” Conlon said.
 

“Listen to the way she talks to a married man. You kids, it's your tomorrow, I'm thirty-seven, part of the in-between generation. The last of the achievers. Jane, are you ready for a party?”
 

“Not exactly. I'm kind of stuck here for the weekend.”
 

“Can't go home?”
 

“Right.”
 

“Conlon, what a day I've had,” he said, sounding oppressed.
 

“Was it bad?”
 

“Suicideville. I was going to throw myself out of the window but we're only on the second floor, and from that you get skiing injuries, not a House-of-Pancake special.”
 

“Maybe I better not stay,” Jane said.
 

“Don't be silly, this is the way he always talks.”
 

Mel took her suitcase and led her into a twin-bedded room.
 

“Seriously, Jane, I insist. Here, you've got everything—privacy, your own John, black-and-white TV, Muzak when the going gets rough.”
 

“What about you and Conlon?”
 

“We're next door in the music room,” he said, winking crudely.
 

She now realized that Conlon's advice was less than reliable. It seemed inconceivable that she could get involved with this small-time shyster stock promoter. The trivial glamor of a married man? Was that it? It dawned on her that she chronically overestimated Conlon, people. Nothing, it now appeared, could kill the vague though concealed optimism that surfaced from her character. She wanted to believe in her parents, not to mention the men she'd slept with; knew that she shouldn't, but invariably did. Maybe someday it would disappear and she'd emerge a new, stronger woman with no illusions; incapable of hope; dead, of course, but free from the possibility of disappointment
 

She smiled at him; his brash exterior receded and there seemed to be something positively soft about him.
 

When she was a girl, the likes of Mel or a Charles Luckmunn wouldn't have got as far as the front door. Jane's mother would have said with perfect candor: “They aren't our kind of people,” and no one would have disagreed. Argument closed. But perhaps it was the very exclusion of new blood that had turned Nancy into an irrational drinker who spent part of each year drying out. Inbreeding, although sound for horses and dogs, didn't work quite so well with human beings, and it was precisely this desire to escape from her family's social confines which, with the advent of Jane's seventeenth birthday, had forced her to search democratically, among bellhops, country-club waiters, beachboys, and Alan Sawyer, whom she did not want to marry. She had discovered that she enjoyed making love, particularly with strangers, after a string of prep-school boys and young college boys had amply demonstrated how little they knew. She was loose, selective, but unambitious, requiring neither extended liaisons nor marriage; but by the same token she was not a mark or freak. In fact, she had no intention of getting married.