Authors: Gerald A Browne
Springer decided she must have been devastating in her younger years, for now she was certainly an old beauty — sitting there like an empress with her hands concealed in the ample sleeves of her Chinese kimona. Springer didn't like her. Nevertheless he appreciated her.
"Where do you golf?" she asked him.
"I don't," he said.
Again that executioner's smile from her. "You're not much of a sport, are you?"
Springer thought how much he'd enjoy spiking a volleyball right at her. He maintained his composure, what he hoped came off as a pleasant facial expression. He reminded himself that she was the Libby Hopkins-Hull who, not long ago, had purchased and razed a nearly landmark New York hotel merely because it had failed to hold a suite reservation she had taken the time to personally make for one of her friends. The Libby Hopkins-Hull who for the female spunk of it (and a gain of nine hundred million) had tangled what would have otherwise been an expedient merger between two major oil companies. The Libby Hopkins-Hull who, during an afternoon sail on Hobe Sound, had told President Carter that the way to stir the nation's sluggish economy was to simply change the color of the money. Print it with blue ink rather than green and then declare all green money worthless unless officially exchanged within three months. Who would dare declare their unreported cash? Out of the safety deposit boxes, shoe boxes, and coffee cans it would come for one bitch of a spending spree. If Carter had taken her suggestion he would have won a second term, claimed Libby Hopkins-Hull.
"What is it you do?" she asked Springer.
"I told you," Audrey interjected.
"Oh, yes. Now I remember. Diamonds. I suppose you're with Harry Oppenheimer and that bunch."
A smirky scoff from Townsend.
Libby leaned to the table next to her, sipped some of her Potted Parrot up through crystal straws.
At that moment, without even a warning yelp, a pair of Cavalier King Charles spaniels bounded onto the terrace. A chestnut-and-white and a black-and-white. In their eagerness they misbehaved, leaped up onto Libby, trying to get to her with kisses. A wag of tail overturned her Potted Parrot. Her hands came from the sleeves of the kimona to fend off the onslaught of devotion. "Who let these damn dogs out?" she shouted.
A servant rushed to the rescue, carried the spaniels away.
However, by then Springer had seen Libby's hands.
She looked hard at him, daring comment.
Her hands were gnarled with degenerative arthritis, the fingers crooked, their joints enlarged, knotted hard, unable to flex properly. Her hands were a deformity that contradicted her, betrayed her. Ugly old-woman's hands that the cosmetic and orthopedic surgeons could do little about. She'd had them operated on twice and both times the arthritis returned, determined, it seemed, to be even more monstrous. She loathed the sight of her hands, could easily imagine what others thought. That, of course, was why she'd kept them hidden in the sleeves of her kimona. Well, no need for that now. To hell with it. She threw off the kimona. She had on a white tennis skirt and blouse, tennis shoes, and brief socks with a single fuzzy blue tassel at each heel.
Merely costume. Springer thought, doubting that with the condition of her hands she'd be able to grasp a racquet.
Libby, with some difficulty, took up a cigarette from the table. Townsend jumped to light it for her with his solid gold DuPont. She took a couple of drags, inhaled, and let them out like perturbed sighs. Her fingers couldn't manage. The cigarette fell on her. She slapped at it, causing sparks to fly. She got up, brushed disdainfully at the black smudge that it had made on her skirt, and without another word or look headed for the house.
Audrey told Springer, "Whatever you want just ask for it. I'll be a while." She snatched up her carryall and hurried off to catch up with Libby.
After some awkward silence Townsend asked Springer, "How's business?"
"Things could always be better."
Townsend agreed passively.
Springer caught the attention of a servant who was standing on duty behind the lace of a drooping willow branch. He requested any old Scotch and soda, light on the soda. It was brought. The practically straight Scotch caused him to make a face.
Townsend moved his chair closer to Wintersgill, turned his back on Springer. They spoke in low tones but Springer, without trying, overheard a word now and then. It seemed to him they were discussing a certain stock, that Townsend was imparting some insider information he didn't want Springer to know, but then Springer realized their topic was a person, someone named Ernie or something like that.
Townsend was doing most of the talking. Wintersgill was interested. Wintersgill was in his mid-forties. He had a high-level public relations appearance, a confident show backed up by an abundance of inner fuel, the sort who could, quietly, come on ten different ways in pursuit of his ambition. He was two or three inches over six feet, had a lean, undoubtedly active body. A squash player, Springer thought.
Wintersgill turned, pretended to be looking up to the house while he checked Springer's proximity with his wide-set but narrow eyes, squinty, as though distantly focused. He had a rectangular face exaggerated by pronounced jawbones. A straight strong nose, brown hair side-parted so definitely the part looked like the scar of a knife slash. The suit he was wearing was dark gray, a business suit, but it seemed casual on him. His black-grounded, small-figured tie could not possibly offend. Wintersgill turned away from Springer again, resumed with Townsend.
Springer had no idea who Wintersgill was. He'd heard Audrey mention the name during telephone conversations a few times. Impossible not to remember that name. From what Springer gathered, Wintersgill was in some business way affiliated with Libby.
Springer pulled one of the tabourets over with his foot, put his legs up on it. Couldn't relax. He got up and, with drink in hand, left the terrace. He gazed up the slope at the imposing house, tried to imagine Audrey as a child here, how it had been for her. The picture of her environment that he'd mentally drawn paled by comparison to the real thing. Not because he was naive or lacking sophistication. He had purposely diminished its scope, actually its threat. Perhaps, it occurred to him now, he didn't know Audrey as well as he'd thought. Why, for instance, had she been so quiet, or was it subdued, in Libby's presence? She'd hardly said a word. How much, Springer wondered, would this day cost him?
He meandered down and around the grassy slope. Discovered a reflecting pool, its oblong shape set with patches of water lilies, pale pink ones on their way to closing. The sides and bottom of the pool were black polished granite, so the water, absolutely clear, had a quicksilver quality. About fifty feet away at the opposite end of the pool was a young woman. Seated on the edge with her skirt hiked up and her bare feet in the water.
Springer decided it was better to be curious than pensive. He went to her.
She didn't react to his approach, and even when he was standing beside and above her she didn't move. She seemed entranced.
Springer told her who he was.
"I am here with Mr. Townsend," she said as though her credentials had been requested. Her accent was thick, German. She turned her face up to Springer. She was quite beautiful. Her blond hair was various lengths, purposely styled to appear unkempt. She had green-blue eyes and an expressive, swollen-lipped mouth. The dimensions and attitude of a fashion model. "I am Ernestine," she said, sounding weary about it.
Libby allowed her tennis skirt to drop. She stepped out of the circle of it and kicked it anywhere. She'd already sent her blouse and shoes flying. "Fucking dogs," she muttered.
Audrey didn't try to pacify her, knew from past experience that whatever she might say would only sustain the ill temper. Like all such gusts this too would soon blow by.
They were alone in Libby's personal rooms in the south wing of the second floor, a spacious arrangement that consisted of a sitting room, study, bedroom, dressing room, and bath. It was hers within all the rest that was hers, and, in keeping with her wishes, it was accessible only by way of a single door off the upper hallway. When that door was bolted from inside Libby could be sure of her privacy. No one, not even any of the servants, was admitted unless summoned or in Libby's company.
She sat in her dressing room at the Regence ormulu-mounted bureau plat, a fifty-thousand-dollar Criard piece that she used as a vanity. A giltwood winged mirror was mounted just above it. She glanced into the minor as though that somehow determined she was really there. She undid her brassiere in front and shrugged herself entirely free of it. Sitting more erect, her eyes returned to the mirror, observed her breasts. She had, she believed, the breasts of a twenty-year-old. Not large; they had never been and she had never wanted them large. Hers were a proud size and firm enough to not need the bra. Her nipples were also convincing. They were like the very tips of baby fingers, encircled by fine-textured, perfectly diametered aureoles. Many women in her opinion had horrid nipples, like spoiled mushrooms, and aureoles like dried peaches. Libby only wished hers were pinker. (She colored them with a semi-indelible dye on special occasions.) As often as she admired her breasts, she never gave credit to the surgeons who had accomplished them. She had succeeded in shoving that back into the mental murk among other things best forgotten.
"How about these for sixty?" She asked Audrey in the mirror.
Sixty-five, Audrey silently corrected and told her, "Incredible." That was not the superlative she'd used for reply last time under these same circumstances. As she recalled she'd used "astonishing," and the time before "remarkable."
Libby leaned to the mirror, turned her face slowly to the left and to the right, studying it critically. The glass of the mirror was true, although the lighting of it was deliberately kind.
"Think I should have another peel?" Libby asked.
"No." The proper answer.
"Your Mr. Springer is extremely attractive."
"You treated him horribly."
"I was merely testing."
"Like hell, you were embarrassingly rude. You owe an apology."
Libby hmmphed at the absurdity. She'd never owed anything or ever apologized to anyone. "He doesn't fit," she said.
"He fits," Audrey contended pointedly.
"Exceptional in bed, I suppose."
"Exceptional."
"Well, as long as that's all there is to it. ..."
"That's not all."
"Oh?"
"I love him."
"Even that's all right if you don't carry it too far. You haven't been thinking of marriage?"
"Thinking," Audrey admitted.
"Spare me."
"I already did a Tyler for you."
"At least Tyler didn't have a money nose like this nothing fellow. I'll bet he's wearing out his knees begging you to marry him."
"He hasn't asked."
"If he does?"
"Then you'll both get an answer."
Libby yanked out a drawer of the bureau plat, slammed it shut, yanked out another. "Where the hell are my sleeping gloves?" she grouched.
Audrey found them deeper in one of the drawers Libby had searched: new white cotton gloves, several pairs. While she was at it, Audrey helped by unscrewing the lid from a frosted glass jar that Libby dipped her fingers into and scooped out a glob of a substance that resembled axle grease and smelled like lilacs. A doctor in Montecatini, Italy, had talked Libby into it at five hundred dollars a jar. No doubt the exorbitant price influenced her faith in it.
"My dear," she told Audrey, "there's a lot to be said for class." She slathered the thick, viscous stuff on her hands, worked it in vigorously as she spoke. "Horses, dumb as they are, have more respect for it than people. For instance, a horse with questionable breeding might run an extremely fast mile and win with his own kind. However, put him in a race with horses of a better class and, even if they run slower than he's capable of, he'll hang back, reluctant to win. He knows his place. I've seen it happen any number of times. Horses have a sense about it. People ought to. And that goes for your small-time diamond dealer."
No comment from Audrey. She knew no matter what she said, Libby would have the last word.
Libby inserted her slick-coated, misshapen hands into a pair of the white cotton sleeping gloves. She was psychologically addicted to both the emollient and the gloves, had used up dozens of jars and hundreds of pairs.
She got up, went into the bedroom, and climbed into bed. "A short nap for a long evening," she recited, her customary litany. She situated her extra-plump down-filled pillows exactly as she wanted them, covered her eyes with a silk satin mask, and pulled the hand-embroidered edge of the linen top sheet up around her.
Audrey went across the room and dropped into a puffy fauteuil. She dug into her carryall and brought out the black, white, and pink of a carton of Good & Plentys. Opened one end of the carton and slid several of the capsule-shaped candies into the palm of her hand. For ten minutes she sat there, sometimes melting the candies down patiently in her mouth to their softer licorice centers, at other times crunching right into them. By then Libby appeared to be settled. She was, Audrey knew, capable of dropping off quickly. For a test Audrey shook the half-consumed box of Good & Plentys. The candies rattled loudly. Libby wasn't disturbed.
Audrey went over to the bedside. Libby was sleeping on her side with an arm extended, one of her white-gloved hands lying above the sheet. Again Audrey went into her carryall. She brought out the clear plastic envelope that contained Springer's stone, removed the stone.
Carefully, Audrey stretched open the hem of the glove and tucked the stone down in snug against Libby's palm.
Libby stirred. Thickly, she asked, "What the hell you doing?"
"Trying to improve your disposition for one thing."
Libby, half asleep, flapped her hand. "What is it?"
"Is it uncomfortable?"
"No."
"Don't worry, just nap."