Sandra Bauman. The genesis of all his problems. He’d hoped never to see or hear her name again. It was she who had gotten him off on bad footing with his father. Sandra, whom he’d met in college some thirty years ago, had sabotaged the brand-new father-son relationship he'd just begun to enjoy. The old man vented his anger upon Michael when confronted with the situation. "Dummerfick!" The translation didn't require a fluency in German.
A pregnant coed who was paid well to have an abortion and keep a low profile and never show her face in Michael’s life again. That was Sandra Bauman. When she’d phoned him in Virginia two years ago wanting to discuss a matter with him, he’d cut her off. He knew she was only after more money, so after obtaining her contact information, he’d phoned his father, who had funded the first Sandra crisis. At eighty, the old man was just as feisty and foul-mouthed as ever, and he had taken care of Sandra forthwith.
His father had actually come to the States in person to oversee the deed. In less than a week the old man had phoned him, and Michael heard his father utter the words: “Siestirbt.”
“Thank you,” Michael said. Although he had never fully mastered German, he understood she's dead. A bit more extreme than he'd expected, but what the hell, the old man got the job done.
“What? Siestirbt an krebs.”
"Whatever."
“Worse than useless baggage,” muttered his father.
“I agree,” said Michael.
“I’m talking about you, dummerfick.”
The old man had hung up, and Michael had gone out--without his wife--to celebrate with a model who had caught his eye a few weeks back.
Now someone who knew about Sandra and possibly about her death had sent him a text that was surely a prelude to blackmail. Might he then assume that this person could also know about Alyssa, though he’d handled that problem himself? Well, almost.
As often happens, misfortune snowballs, catching up unrelated events in its path. As it turned out, Alyssa had some loyalists who found her more worthy of their allegiance than he. These traitors had bared his double life of chronic infidelity to his wife, just as he was experiencing a modicum of relief over the Sandra problem. Alyssa had announced her intention to divorce him and invoke the morals clause in their prenup to the tune of twenty mil. This was further complicated by shortages in the hedge funds Michael managed for wealthy institutional clients. Thus far he’d covered his own ass by blaming the shortfalls on Madoff investments, but if anyone looked too closely, the paper trail wouldn’t bear this out. Without tapping his father, Michael lacked the funds to pay off Alyssa. His father would have an aneurism. Worse—he would survive it and give Michael hell for the rest of his life—or disinherit him, as he had often threatened.
So Michael had tried to solve the Alyssa problem on his own, with the help of her sleeping pill prescription. The thought of his father’s ire had given him the strength to force nearly the entire contents of the bottle down her throat, followed by a rum chaser that had bubbled out through her nose before he’d had the foresight to pinch that orifice closed, too. Bruises on Alyssa’s neck had given medical examiner pause, as well as had marks on her face. Michael had tearfully explained that he had tried to get her to regurgitate when he discovered what she had done, not knowing that it was already too late.
Of course, Michael quickly became a person of interest and had to call in the old man’s big guns after all. Didn’t his father always say that money could buy anything? The matter had finally been resolved in Michael’s favor. After a year of investigation, Alyssa’s death was ruled a suicide.
Now, what was this about Sandra? Why, almost two years later and at the start of this new, fresh relationship that he hoped would not be like the others?
As he drove, other paternal words of wisdom crept in to sully the freshness of his relationship with Cassie. If something seems too good to be true, you can bet your ass it is.
One way to find out. Michael accelerated as he phoned his security liaison, ordered an analysis of his incoming calls, and arranged for Harry to pick up a new cell phone for him.
Upon arriving home, he found Harry parked in front of the house waiting for him with the replacement phone. "That was quick."
"You could thank me. Next time I won't hurry."
Michael forced a smile that was more than half grimace. He'd about had it with the man's insolence, but for now he needed Harry. "Tell them it's urgent."
"They know."
After Harry left, Michael went straight to the file he’d accumulated on Cassie. There was something about the pictures. Initially, they’d reminded him of someone. Of course they had! She looked like all the other bimbos he’d bedded. The old man’s assessment. Maybe not in so many words, but it would be in the expression on his face, the roll of his eyes. Michael felt his father’s presence, leaning over his shoulder, playing with his mind.
Michael looked at Cassie's Playboy layout, this time focusing upon her face. Something about the tilt of her nose, the way she smiled that he found so beguiling. Was it familiarity? Was he repeating some entrenched brain pattern? Returning to the scene of his folly? And the name: Cassandra. Had she been handpicked and even named for the occasion as leverage for the blackmail he knew was coming? Or was this something else entirely? Could she be Sandra's child by a subsequent lover? That should be relatively easy to determine since Sandra was represented in his souvenir collection.
#
That night, he showed up on Cassie’s doorstep with a bouquet of long-stemmed roses in hand. She was enchanting in blue jeans and a V-necked sweater, clearly not expecting him. After placing the flowers in a vase, she made him dinner. Sautéed scallops and wild rice. He ate quickly, without tasting the food, ignoring the delicious scent of her cooking that still hung in the air.
When she brushed against him while filling his wine glass, he feigned distraction, said he had a headache.
“Can you take Excedrin?” she asked.
He nodded, and as she got up, he put a hand on her slender wrist. "No, I'll get it. I know where the bathroom is."
She sat back down without protest, and he left the room, exactly as he had planned, and climbed the stairs. Now he could get what he came after: her DNA. He remembered the white wicker laundry hamper he'd seen in the bathroom. As he crossed the threshold, he had a moment of panic. What if she'd just done the laundry and the hamper was empty?
Her voice drifted up to him. "Michael? Are you okay?"
"Be right down." He chose blue lace panties from the hamper and shoved them into the plastic bag he'd brought for the purpose. A pink thong in the hamper caught his eye--something for the souvenir collection. No, he thought, don't press your luck. There weren't that many items in the hamper. She might notice. Then he got the Excedrin bottle from the medicine cabinet and dumped a couple of tablets into his palm. Why take pills he didn't need? He returned the tablets to the bottle and ran water, as if to wash down the pills. For good measure, he filled the bathroom glass and drank some of it before rejoining Cassie in the dining room.
After the Excedrin had sufficient time to work, she asked, “How’s your head?”
“About the same. Sorry I’m such a bore.” He offered what he hoped was a disarming smile. But he was feeling lightheaded, like his heart was beating in half-time.
“I’ll bet I know something that would make you feel better.” She stood behind him and began to massage his shoulders.
He felt his muscles tighten in revulsion at the thought of intimacy with his blackmailer. And then, another tightening as his desire for her sent the revulsion skittering to the darkest corner of his mind. The blue panties in his inside jacket pocket seemed to exude a heat that penetrated his body. Was it possible that he could also smell them? Could she? Could she know what he'd just done? Her kneading of his shoulders continued, the rhythm uninterrupted by his fantasy. He squirmed at the thought of his souvenir collection, the dozens of women's panties he'd lifted from his conquests since college, and co
uldn't part with--a facet of self that he had never shared with his therapist. He wanted to get up and leave, but was powerless until her voice broke the spell.
“You don’t seem yourself tonight, Michael.” She resumed her seat at the table and took his hand. He didn’t dare pull away. He’d have to see her again at least once.
“I guess I’m not,” he replied. “The doctor’s changing my blood pressure meds. Nothing to worry about.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek, as one might a daughter. Her expression was puzzled as she walked him to the door.
#
When he returned home, after making some calls, he put the bag containing Cassie’s panties, along with the souvenir he'd kept these thirty years from Sandra--a black lace bikini-- in a Fedex overnight package and sent Harry to the airport with it. Michael addressed the package to a lab in Zurich where he knew he could count on discretion. Later, when he retired for the night, he turned on the TV to drown out the thumping of his heart.
At midnight, the vibration of his cell phone roused him from half-sleep. Another text message glowed on the screen: What about Alyssa? He hurled the cell across the room.
So the blackmailer knew about that, too. And had his new cell number as well. There had obviously been a leak in security. Not Harry, who was second generation in Michael’s father’s employ. The old man would skewer Harry if he turned on the family. Somehow, Cassie was key to it, and he should soon have some additional information in that regard. Going through the old man might have been quicker, but that would be his last resort. Tomorrow he’d speak personally to the head of security.
#
Michael awoke to a new dusting of snow. He remembered hearing the weather report. Aspen was due to get really dumped on later in the day. From his upstairs window, he observed that Harry had failed to shovel the prior day’s accumulation from the walk. The man was becoming impossible. Second generation employee or not, there were limits and Harry had exceeded them.
As he drank coffee and thought about scrambling some eggs, he became aware of a queasy feeling in his stomach. He hoped Dr. Stremel would soon get back to him with the medication adjustment. To hurry along the process, he phoned the doctor’s office and left a message on his voicemail.
When his cell chirped seconds later, he judged it was too soon for the doctor to be returning his call. With apprehension, Michael opened the phone and looked at the screen.
A text message in German: Siestarb an krebs. Something about death. And crabs. No one dies of crabs. Sick son-of-a bitch.
He felt light-headed. He’d taken his last Propranolol at bedtime, the night before. Maybe he should have waited for his own lab report.
The queasy feeling passed, but he still didn’t feel like eating. Only one course of action appeared to him. He must confront Cassie and, if need be, wring the truth from her. He felt a rush of excitement at the thought of his fingers tightening around her throat.
When he arrived at her house and rang the bell, she didn’t answer the door. Michael tried it and found it unlocked. Inside, he called her name, but got no response. He stepped into her parlor and became enveloped in the scent of potpourri. She must be at the bed and breakfast, he decided as he sat down on an Eastlake settee with a view of the front porch.
From his position, he watched through the window as she returned on foot, climbed the steps and stomped the snow from her fur-topped boots. He watched her eyes examine his car in the drive without a hint of surprise reflected there.
When he rose to meet her at the door, she smiled, but before she could say a word, he angrily confronted her. “Who are you, really?” She blinked and her lips parted slightly and held that way as he demanded, “Tell me.”
“I’m Cassie, of course. Michael, what’s wrong?”
She looked so close to tears that he began to have second thoughts until he saw something so discordant that he feared he’d lost his reason. Harry entered the room from another part of the house.
“I’ll take it from here.” Harry addressed the words to Cassie. Michael backed away from them, toward the front door, watching Cassie nod in acquiescence.
Michael’s mouth opened and closed like that of a beached fish. A fist of anger surged through his veins and clutched his heart. He’d found his traitor. And the oaf had the nerve to shove his bulk between Michael and the front door.
As he struggled wordlessly with Harry, Michael heard a movement beside him, felt the prick of a needle at the base of his skull and a heat surge in his veins. Then the floor rose up to meet him, and he heard faint voices that seemed to recede in the distance. He lay supine, legs standing over him—a man’s and a woman’s.
And then the woman--Cassie, or whoever she was--knelt down beside him and looked into his face. His lips formed the words, Help me.
Her eyes were blue ice as she asked, “Why would I do that?”
Now, his eyes were all he could move. He tried to make them beseeching, to convey his plea for life.
Cassie bent closer, her lips grazing his ear as she whispered words meant for him alone. “Sandra died of cancer. Your father didn't kill her."
He couldn't care less how Sandra died. He'd pay the blackmail, for God's sake. "Wh…wh…" The word wouldn't come out.
"Why, Michael? Because I can."
Made no sense. Now he couldn’t move even his eyes as each breath became more shallow than the one that preceded it.
He felt her movement as she drew back from his ear and took his face between her hands. For an instant, he thought she’d finally taken pity on him, but her words disabused him of that vain notion. “Dummerfick."
She continued to hold his face, her eyes boring into his until apparently satisfied that she read comprehension there. Then she stood, letting his head drop unceremoniously to the floor. He felt no pain of impact as he strained for breath that eluded him, searched for a white light just before the darkness sucked him down.
#
A week had passed since Michael died of a massive heart attack. Since he had so recently been seen by his doctor and for symptoms that foreshadowed such an event, there was no autopsy. His death received little press coverage; for once the media respected his father's wish for privacy.
Cassie’s packed bags sat beside the door of the rented Victorian house. She felt remarkably light, not weighed down by the act of taking a life. Last year, when the old man had grumbled that Alyssa's murder was the last straw, that Michael wasn't fit to live, she had responded with a level gaze. "Well?"
For a moment, she saw resolve set his jaw. "Killing doesn't bother him. He's cold, like his mother. The only heat is in his pants." Then, unexpectedly, the old man's eyes had brimmed with tears. "I can't. He's my flesh and blood."
"Ichkann," she replied to show him that she cared enough to learn his native tongue. In response, he'd squeezed her arm, nodded and turned away. She watched his sagging shoulders and shuffling gait, feeling pity. But aside from pity, she owed him for more than she could reduce to coherent thought, let alone words.
The small group of people at Sandra's funeral showed up out of deference to her conservative parents. Now and then Cassie caught a glance cast in her direction. She, the bastard child who had bared her body for money, could expect no hugs of comfort from this group, let alone from her maternal grandparents. After the service, she stood alone, determined that no one should see her tears, until a fierce-looking old curmudgeon with a German accent had stepped forward and claimed her.
The sound of the doorbell brought her quickly to composure. She could see Harry through the window and quickly let him in without a word.
As Harry paused beside the small array of luggage, he asked, “Any regrets?”
She picked up one of the smaller totes, the one that contained Michael's ashes. “None. He was an embarrassment to his family. How could it end otherwise?”
They were silent during the drive to the Pitkin County Airport. The old man’s jet waited on the tarmac. After carrying her bags to the plane, Har
ry said, “Have a good flight.”
She dipped into her handbag. As he reached forward to shake her hand, she pressed a gift into his.
The denomination of the Swiss bank notes made him blink, once. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
As she mounted the steps to board the plane, he called after her, “Give my best to your grandfather.”
She turned and smiled, her eyes a flash of blue. “I will.”
END
Dying To Know You Page 2
