Murdering Americans

by Ruth Edwards

  ‘You gotta see it. You gotta.’ Traci began to cry. As the sobs grew louder and louder, Constance looked pleadingly at the baroness, who grumbled, ‘Oh, all right, if you insist.’ Traci calmed down, but the examination of the car was perfunctory, since she had little to say about it except to invite them to exclaim at the quality of the upholstery and to tell them it was worth every penny of the $150,000 Henry had spent on it. ‘Now we’ll go back inside, unless you want to see the SUV.’

  The baroness said nothing, but walked back through the French windows. ‘Right, ladies,’ said Traci, ‘now it’s time for the house-tour. Just gimme me a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.’

  She was back soon, in even better form. ‘OK, off we go. We’ll take our glasses with us. You can’t have too much Kristal when you’re having fun.’ Constance refused more champagne. The baroness did not.

  They began with the kitchen, which was big enough and sufficiently elaborately equipped to service a modest but expensive hotel. Two Mexican maids—whom Traci ignored—were working at two of the four sinks. ‘I don’t come here much,’ explained Traci. ‘Why keep a maid and work yourself, is what I always say. Over here now to the elevator and we’ll go to the top.’

  They emerged into an enormous room dominated by a pseudo-French, gold-embossed, white four-poster bed, piled high with perhaps twenty pink silk cushions and a huge teddy bear. ‘It’s an Antoinette canopy bed,’ said Traci. ‘I just love the loops at the top and the real stylish carvings. Henry didn’t want it, he said it was fussy, but men have no taste. And he complained it was expensive—like he’s always complaining—but I tell him I’m worth it.’

  The baroness averted her eyes as Traci pointed out other pieces of furniture not appreciated by her husband, and followed sullenly as they were led into an enormous room with about sixty feet of fitted wardrobes. ‘Henry has his stuff in the bedroom,’ explained Traci. ‘All this here is mine. Look, here are my shoes.’

  ‘Your collection is of positively Imelda Marcos proportions,’ said the baroness.

  ‘I don’t know who she is,’ said Traci, truculently, ‘but I bet she don’t have anything like as many Manolos as I’ve got. Or Jimmy Choos.’ She closed the doors and flung open some more. ‘Look, these are my Donna Karans and here are the gowns from Oscar de la Renta, and….’ After about two minutes of this, the baroness walked off and went downstairs to the living room, averting her eyes from the elaborately draped gold satin curtains. She poured herself more champagne, pushed aside a mound of gold satin scatter cushions, made herself comfortable on the larger of the shiny purple leather sofas and—for lack of anything else to read—settled down with a coffee-table book on Indiana artifacts. Bored with the Paleoindian period, she had skipped forward to a contemplation of banners of the civil war when her phone rang. ‘It’s Mike.’

  ‘Have you news?’

  ‘Enough to think this asshole’s really some asshole. Can you talk?’

  The door crashed open. ‘Not now. Later.’

  ‘So this is where you got to,’ said a truculent Traci. ‘You haven’t even seen the bathrooms.’

  ‘I’m not interested in bathrooms,’ grunted the baroness. ‘They’re for washing in.’

  ‘Not just for that,’ said Constance to her in a low voice, as Traci tossed her hair around and shouted for a maid to open another bottle of champagne. ‘I spotted some suspicious-looking white powder.’

  The champagne was forthcoming, but it was another half-hour—during which Traci paid another visit to a bathroom—before dinner was announced, by which time Traci had told them where she’d bought everything from her overstuffed chairs to the gold bath taps and the baroness had finished her book. Holding out her glass for a refill, the baroness noticed with interest that Constance was glassy-eyed—though probably with boredom rather than drink—and that Traci’s voice was becoming more and more high-pitched. ‘I buy what I like,’ she shrilled, as she led them to the dining room, ‘and I don’t say sorry to no one. I’m my own person. I have a beautiful soul in a beautiful body, and if people don’t like me, they can fuck off.’ She looked at them threateningly. ‘Gimme a hug.’

  United in wishing to avoid more tears, the baroness and Constance reluctantly obliged and after a minute, they were allowed to sit down. The baroness found solace in the Mexican appetizers. ‘The soufflé’s good,’ she said. ‘A bit heavy on the cheese, but there’s a satisfactory amount of chilies.’ Traci paid no attention, being focussed on describing her exercise and beauty routine, which apart from regular visits to her colonic irrigator and sports masseur, appeared to involve a minimum of three hours a day in a gym and beauty parlour and on her sun bed. The care of her decorated nails alone, she explained, spreading them out for inspection, required a visit twice a week to a specialist salon in Indianapolis.

  It was while they were eating the lobster salad that they got on to plastic surgery. ‘So how old do you think my husband is?’ asked Traci.

  ‘Sixty-five,’ said the baroness.

  ‘Fifty,’ said Constance.

  ‘Sixty-eight,’ said Traci triumphantly. ‘That face-lift and the hair graft have made all the difference.’

  ‘I thought his face barely moved,’ grunted the baroness, but the remark was lost on her hostess.

  Traci giggled. ‘And that’s not all he got done, but I’m not going to tell you. ’Cept it proved that size matters.’

  The baroness and Constance caught each other’s eye and cringed.

  Traci was now in high good humour. ‘And how old do you think I am?’

  ‘Thirty,’ said Constance cautiously.

  ‘What a politician you are, Constance,’ said the baroness. ‘Tell the truth. Traci must be closer to forty.’

  Traci was enraged. She threw down a lobster claw with such force that it bounced off her plate onto the floor. The maid glided over and picked it up. Traci began to cry. ‘How can you say that? You must be blind. I’m only thirty-five and everyone thinks I look ten years younger.’

  Constance gave her an awkward hug which dried up the torrent. The baroness shrugged.

  ‘Have you any idea what work and money and pain I’ve put into looking as good as I do?’

  ‘I think we’re getting the idea,’ said the baroness. ‘And your lips and expressionless face tell their own story.’

  Constance looked at her in horror, but Traci was so caught up in an earlier grievance that she hadn’t been listening. Rage had now triumphed over distress. ‘Who do you two snobs think you are telling me I look old?’ Ignoring Constance’s protestations, Traci’s voice rose higher. ‘If anyone needs cosmetic surgery it’s you. Ana, more champagne.’

  She turned on Constance. ‘Look at you. You’ve got lines on your forehead, your eyelids droop, your lips are thin, your neck’s wrinkled, your teeth need bleaching, your ass is saggy and you’ve boobs the size of walnuts.’ Snorting triumphantly, she thrust her décolletage forward. ‘These are great boobs. They cost a fortune, but that doesn’t matter now money’s no object. Twenty thousand bucks. What do you think of that? And worth every cent,’ she added with emphasis. She gazed down complacently. ‘Not that they weren’t good to begin with, but they’re awesome now.’

  ‘They look rather like half-melons to me,’ observed the baroness, casting a side-glance at Ana and winking. She received a tiny twitch in recognition. Constance looked at her plate and Traci, her face as contorted with anger as her surgery would allow, rounded on the baroness. ‘As for you, you need an extreme makeover.’

  ‘Really?’ said the baroness, invigorated by the prospect that the conversation would now be about her. ‘How interesting. What would you suggest?’

  ‘I’d start with those teeth. You won’t come out under $40,000. They’re a disgrace. I don’t know how you can appear in public with uneven teeth. One of them’s even crooked. You’ll have to have recontouring and implants and veneers….’

  ‘I quite like crooked teeth,’ said the baroness. ‘I find American
teeth very boring. They all look the same so everyone looks the same. When did individuality go out of fashion? You’ll be cloning yourselves next.’

  ‘You’re sick, you are,’ said Traci. ‘Only trailer-trash have crooked teeth.’

  ‘You speak of what you know, I expect,’ said the baroness. Traci looked at her uncertainly, wondering vaguely if she’d been insulted, and then returned to her main theme. ‘You need liposuction to get rid of that stomach. If you get any fatter, the only people who’ll fancy you will be blacks….’

  ‘Sidney Poitier? Condoleezza Rice? Yum yum!’ said the baroness.

  ‘…and of course rhinoplasty on that nose, a full face-lift, and then….’

  ‘And then I wouldn’t look like me.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that? Why would anyone want to look like you?’

  ‘I don’t suppose they would,’ said the baroness mildly. ‘But I do. And I daresay Constance is happy enough to look like her. We’re British.’

  ‘Soon we’ll be in the minority in Britain too,’ said Constance gloomily. ‘Everyone’s thinking of doing it. Half the women I know are using Botox.’

  ‘And what holds you back?’ enquired the baroness.

  Constance managed the closest approximation to a grin that the baroness had ever seen her produce. ‘I’m at the end of my career and I just don’t care enough any more to get on that treadmill. Once you start you can’t ever stop without people thinking you’ve got a terminal disease.’

  ‘You’ll be like freaks soon if you don’t do something,’ said Traci. She stared at the baroness. ‘You’ve even got some grey hairs.’ With a complacent smile, she pulled at her own ample locks. ‘Hair extensions. Cost a fortune. I’ll only have European. I always go for quality.’ She twisted round in search of the maid. ‘Ana, more champagne. And then get the dessert.’

  She turned back to the baroness. ‘As for your voice, it’s too deep to be feminine. You need surgery on your vocal cords. I’ll tell you about that when I’ve had a comfort break.’

  ***

  ‘It’s Jack, Mike. So what’s the news?’

  ‘I talked to a snitch I know on campus and what he told me says you’re dead on about this Gonzales being a dangerous asshole. I need to dig up stuff on his background. Is it OK if I go to Ohio tomorrow to follow up a lead I’ve got?’

  ‘What’s the lead?’

  ‘It’s a hunch, Jack. I’d rather not say. But I’m not bullshitting.’

  The baroness shrugged. ‘OK. Go for it. But don’t spend more than your retainer without coming back to me.’

  Robinson laughed. ‘Don’t worry about that. Your retainer’s all I have.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Is that typical of an evening with Traci Dickinson, Marjorie? She’s not exactly my kind of gal, though I like the fact that she doesn’t worry about causing offence. Unlike Constance, who was shocked to the bottom of her priggish soul, I found it overall quite entertaining.’

  It was the following evening and they were in the baroness’s sitting room having a drink preparatory to the arrival of a dinner she had carefully planned with Stefano Ricciano. Cole Porter was playing softly in the background. Occasionally the baroness sang along for a bar or two.

  ‘However, she does seem completely bonkers. There was all this extraordinary hugging and crying.’

  ‘The kids are like that. They’re always gettin’ choked up and then huggin’ each other.’

  ‘Sometimes I really do feel like a dinosaur.’

  Marjorie began to laugh. ‘When I first typed Troutbeck, my spell check didn’t like it and suggested “throwback” instead.’

  ‘Whatever a spell check is, it is clearly prescient. Anyhow, back to Traci. When she wasn’t crying and snorting, she never ever shut up.’

  ‘An empty bucket makes the most racket, as my granny always said. I’ve never seen Traci at home. I’m not faculty or society and she wouldn’t entertain anyone she thought was her inferior. All I do know is she spends so much money it makes me think President Dickinson must be as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.’

  ‘How long have they been married?’

  ‘Only a few years. She’s his second wife.’

  ‘Where did he find her?’

  ‘She says she was a receptionist.’

  ‘I’d have said tart.’

  ‘My money’s on pole-dancing. But whatever she did, she sure isn’t cut out for what she’s doing now. I guess she’s bored. This place must be hell after New York. She’s already had nearly five years of it, he’s away a lot and the faculty despise her. It was no surprise once she got money she took to throwin’ it about. Some folks are all right till they get two pairs of britches.’

  The baroness fished the bottle out of the ice-bucket. ‘Have some more wine. This Mondavi fumé blanc is really pretty agreeable, don’t you think?’

  ‘I sure do.’ Marjorie looked around the room. ‘You’ve certainly made yourself comfortable here, Jack. I doubt if any of the other DVPs have private dining facilities like you have.’

  The baroness smirked. ‘I like being comfortable. And Stefano has been extremely helpful in providing necessities.’

  ‘Step down,’ roared Horace, who was swinging on the door of his cage. ‘Step down.’

  The baroness sighed but got up and carried him back to sit on her lap, singing, ‘But now, God knows, anything goes’ along with the music as she sat down. ‘Oh, sorry, Marjorie, but it’s Cole Porter taking the name of God in vain, not me.’

  Marjorie laughed. ‘It’s OK, Jack. I appreciate you takin’ my feelings into account.’

  ‘You’re not the only one. I asked Betsy if she’d mind trying to stop saying “like” every third word and she said she’d try if I like stopped saying God. She’s a Christian too.’

  ‘She’s tougher than she looks, then.’

  ‘I’m working on toughening her up more.’ She placed Horace on her shoulder. ‘Are there a lot of Christians on campus?’

  ‘Not many admit to it. The Provost doesn’t approve of Christianity. Can’t use the word “Christian” without sneering and adding “redneck fundamentalist.” Of course by redneck she means anyone who believes in God, who votes Republican, and salutes the flag. That woman’s meaner than a junkyard dog.

  ‘People like Betsy and me may be fundamentalist in that we believe in God and the Bible. But we’re not fanatics. We don’t expect non-Christians to convert. On this campus it’s the secularists who are fanatical fundamentalists. They hate God. Though of course they’d never say anything rude about the minority religions. If Dubya turned Muslim it’d be different.’

  ‘Step down, step down,’ said Horace, and the baroness moved him to her lap.

  ‘You must have a great time with Horace,’ said Marjorie.

  ‘Yes and no. I bought him on an impulse, probably foolishly. Now I don’t have the St. Martha’s support system to provide a great deal of bird care, I find him very demanding.’

  ‘Don’t you enjoy having him to look after?’

  To his evident pleasure, the baroness stroked Horace’s head. ‘I’m extremely selfish and I don’t want to look after anyone or anything. Even a parrot. However, I have a sense of duty. He has bonded with me so I must lump it.’

  ‘Isn’t he company for you in the evenings?’

  ‘He’s diverting. But I don’t really need company.’ She waved at the pile of books on the desk. ‘I’ve plenty to occupy me if the occasion arises. So far, solitude is not exactly one of my problems.’

  ‘Are you reading up on America?’

  ‘Yes. But not yet contemporary America. At the moment I’m in 1830s America with Alexis de Tocqueville to remind me why I have a romantic attachment to American ruggedness and individuality and many other qualities I prize which seem to be in short supply here. I defend America at home, but exposure to people like Helen and Traci make me wonder why I do. Next I’m going to read Aristotle and Cardinal Newman to remind me what education is supposed to be
about so I can tell Helen. Which reminds me, is it really true she’s having the books removed from the undergraduates’ library?’

  ‘Sure is. Mind you, that’s happening on a lot of campuses. Kids can’t understand books any more. There was a survey the other day saying only 31 percent of college graduates could read and understand a grown-up book.’

  ‘It certainly takes vision to decide that the solution to that is to banish books completely.’

  There was a knock. ‘That’ll be dinner.’ The baroness got up, put Horace back on her shoulder and opened the door to two men and a serving trolley. ‘Stefano. Emilio. Welcome. Come on, Horace. Back to your perch.’

  Ricciano and Marjorie both knew the baroness well enough by now to effect introductions themselves rather than wait vainly for her to think of doing so. Emilio began laying the table.

  ‘Our dinner,’ explained the baroness, ‘is being cooked downstairs by Stefano’s wife….’

  ‘…Paola,’ said Ricciano.

  ‘Paola. Stefano took me home for dinner the other night and the food was.…’ She smacked her lips. ‘…Bella, bella. Paola even has her own kitchen garden. So we came to an arrangement for her to fulfil….’

  ‘…Some of your special dietary requirements.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘All is ready, ladies,’ said Ricciano, and with great ceremony he escorted them to the table and laid their napkins on their laps. He removed the lid from the serving dish and displayed the contents.

  ‘It’s casarecce with sardines and wild fennel, Marjorie. I hope that’s all right.’

  ‘What’s casarecce?’

  ‘Pasta.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You can serve it, Stefano. I hope Paola’s put in plenty of anchovies.’

  ‘She certainly has, Jack. You did remind her several times.’

  ***

  ‘Most satisfactory, don’t you think?’ said the baroness, as she cleared her plate.

  Marjorie downed her last forkful. ‘It’s not the sort of food I’m used to, but it’s very good.’