THE LADY KILLER: intense, suspenseful, gripping literary fiction

by LEE OLDS

  So, when Sandy drove by the houseboat that afternoon while Gloria was still at work, he certainly thought nothing of leaving with her. After Gloria’d gotten off, she visited the houseboat, discovered it to be empty, came downtown to look for him and she found us. As you saw, we didn’t know where Hartwig was. Then what happens. We see Sandy and Hartwig walking their pooches across the street. Gloria sees it and we see it. We see it together. That’s when she became so upset, sought Johansson to find in him a friend to talk to like he’d been at work where she commiserated with him all the time about Hartwig; not, oddly enough, to find someone else to go to bed with and make Hartwig jealous. Johansson, naturally, had other plans. Most men do when they find they can be alone with an attractive female.

  After the café he took her to Timmy’s bar, a rowdy neighborhood hangout where they host pool and shuffleboard, to buy her more drinks thinking if he got her tipsy enough she’d let him take her home and he could stay there. He certainly couldn’t take her to his home. With his parents there that’d never do. And though Gloria did let him walk her home, she stopped him just outside the door under the entrance light.

  “I’m very tired tonight. I can’t have you in,” she told him, “but thanks for a great evening.”

  He hemmed and hawed. He liked her. He loved her. He had for all that time. Hadn’t she noticed it? She listened, very distraught. She told him she liked him. She let the handsome young blond kiss her not once but twice. But true to her resolve, after necking a bit, just a bit, she sent him on his way.

  “See you soon and right here,” she left him cheerily with one of her fabulous smiles for remember, she lived at the factory where they both worked. She then went inside, changed into her sweat gear, turned out her lights, waited a bit and left by her side door.

  If Hartwig were to be at the houseboat as she’d made clear that morning, that’d mean he’d left the suspect heiress who she’d seen Hartwig with that afternoon and returned to his boat to wait for her. She certainly wanted to check on that before doing anything with Johansson. That was partially why she’d been holding him off. She was half expecting Hartwig’d be there, half that he wouldn’t. If not, she knew where he’d be and she couldn’t understand it a bit. That realization didn’t seem to help. She lost control of her emotions and began trembling as she approached the area. She’d been overtaken by a definite fear of rejection, a state that to some people can be as grave as their own death.

  Ignoring any of the loitering locals, she walked right by them. The renegades and drug dealers and the like. Hartwig’s car, the old red Beetle was in the lot, but his boat was locked and no dog. With that she collapsed on the outdoor couch and as the fog rolled in overhead, the horns themselves bleating out under the bridge with their eerie sounds, she shivered and cried herself to sleep. In the middle of the night she was wakened by someone who put a blanket over her.

  “Take this, dearie. It won’t be so cold.” It was one of the local mothers, a good Samaritan notwithstanding, wanting to help. Gloria, however, threw the blanket back at the woman who wore a heavy coat and a scarf. With a few choice words she then walked home.

  She, believe me, wasn’t very happy at work the next day though she’d made it in time for her shift. Seeing Johansson there so bubbly and confident, and the fact that Hartwig hadn’t showed up, put her in a foul mood. She wanted to efface the night before though the sheer detail of it overwhelmed her. Johansson kept her in clay while she turned and molded the pieces she was working on.

  “Something wrong?” He’d asked her.

  “No, nothing you’d understand.” She shut him off and when Larsen, another Swede though of several generations here, an older married man, who was her boss and who she got along with, went to lunch she asked if she could join him.

  “Sure, dream girl,” he said or something like that. “You know where we eat.”

  And she did. This was at Ted’s, the little greasy spoon on Bridgeway where everything was fried on a large open griddle with plenty of oil. You just hoped it was the healthy kind. Locals, yachtsmen, sea goers, and boat repairmen frequented the spot. Johansson, of course, had expected to go with them but not having been asked he ventured to the sandwich shop at the marina by himself. All afternoon he kept staring at her. Next to the kiln, in the outer office where behind a fancy desk she acted as sales lady when someone came in. She knew what was on his mind. It was on hers too. She wanted no part of it. He’d already asked her out that night and she’d refused.

  Contrary to all her feelings, just before quitting time she called him aside and said,

  “I just don’t feel like going out but you’re welcome to come to dinner at my place if you feel like it. I’ll cook.”

  “You will?” The youngster beamed. “That’d be splendid.

  In fact she planned not to be there if things worked out differently and Hartwig returned. But after work as she walked down the dock and approached the boat, she saw everything was the same as the night before. The blanket she’d thrown back at the woman lay on the deck right where it landed. With a pulsating anger still jolting through her at the thought of that socialite bitch, she walked to the market and bought chops and potatoes along with several cans of creamed spinach and rushed home to cook in her all-metal shed she’d stocked with the antiques she’d purchased at the flea market. All bargains, nothing but bargains and it was true. Some of the items, some new, went for very little. She, of course, wanted nothing to do with the new. Like she dressed, she furnished her apartment in the old fashion.

  The tin shed contained an oak dining table, an armoire, a dressing table and a four-poster bed with a carved headboard to say nothing of a love seat and ottoman along with a Persian rug. She refused to own a TV but had collected a wide selection of CDs and had two matching bookshelves that were filled with classics. It was said her IQ rating was as high as her looks profile.

  “That, of course,” said Hammond, “was part of her problem, wasn’t it? If you’re that good looking you’re supposed to be dumb or act it, though I forget, she wasn’t blond.”

  “No, not quite. For one from her background she was just very high strung. Very! She’d go out on one limb so far before it’d start to crack, backtrack; then embark on another. Always towards the same goal, unfortunately. And that turned out to be Hartwig. She, it seemed, had to have him, and if she couldn’t, no one else could, though why I’ll never know.”

  “Me neither on that one, though love if that’s what it was does strange things to people. It can certainly make them do the worst to themselves just as the best, but maybe that’s part of it, otherwise it wouldn’t be love.”

  “And we wouldn’t be here,” I added though this time I heartily agreed with the analysis of my brilliant friend although I couldn’t comprehend where it might lead. Requited love was one matter, unrequited, another.

  The young man showed up freshly squired in a sports coat and tie as if they had some big plans to go out when they didn’t. He looked altogether different than in his clay smeared work suit and painted face. As she opened the door he thrust a large bouquet of purple and yellow roses at her, which she took and stuck her nose into peeping over the top at him with her sexy dark eyes.

  “These smell so good,” she said as he closed the door and the two moved inside, “and so do you.” For he hadn’t gone lightly on the cologne.

  “You like it? It’s Yardley’s.” Hardly a famous brand but certainly an enhancement to a malodorous boyfriend you might be going to bed with. She’d had several of those before. Never again. Her long, straight light red hair contrasted with the purple smock, which she’d hemmed with Swedish ribbons. Johansson, the Swede, remarked on them immediately.

  “My grandmother uses those,” he informed her. “When we were over visiting she showed us. She had an entire collection.”

  “Really,” she looked at him. “Swedish ribbons. I wish I had such a collection. Where is she?”

  “Gottingen. I can get you some,” the ea
ger beaver volunteered.

  “No,” she said. “I couldn’t accept them.”

  “Really? Why not?” His blue eyes were perplexed.

  “Just because.”

  Her response was coquettish. Something to play with all right. She brought out the candles, lit several incense sticks in her Buddha statue holder and the two sat down to a dinner of wine, baked potatoes and lamb chops with an opera contributing to the background sound. While it wasn’t the kid’s favorite music it was definitely tolerable. Puccini was to most people. His parents played that sort of stuff. Matter of fact he’d grown up on it. Then to be in the private company of the prettiest girl in town or very near it he wondered how with that privilege he could object to anything she liked. Strangely enough the conversation didn’t turn to Hartwig. For that he was thankful. He wasn’t about to bring him up though he hadn’t seen him around lately. His absence wasn’t a bad thing for him; or for her either, he reasoned, because of the weird spell that man seemed to hold over the very nice girl before him. He could see she wasn’t too happy.

  “Guess Cynthia won’t be seeing Ted anymore. She’s found a contractor.”

  “Really?” Said Gloria. “Too bad. He’s such an arrogant bastard. She’s lucky. Finally lucky.” She shook her head.

  Ted was the older German man, owner of the greasy spoon. Cynthia, a Jewish folksinger had been his girlfriend. The two talked about events familiar and local. The conversation definitely lightened the evening for the host. Now that he was alone with her in intimate surroundings Johansson was very nervous as to how he should approach someone as nice as this. Or if he should at all. Maybe just a kiss or two was satisfactory rather than take a chance of going the whole way if she didn’t want to and maybe not being able to ever see her again. She was excellent company and so pretty to look at.

  “So, God damn it, get to the point,” said Hammond. “They’re not about to sit around all night and indulge in small talk or play tiddlywinks are they? Young people like that don’t. Did the guy get her or not?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “Or the other way around you might say. That is she got him.”

  “She got…?”

  “Well, yes.”

  Gloria must’ve taken the attitude ‘do it and get it over with; then it won’t be such a big issue’. She thought maybe the act’d bring her to her senses and whatever else she was she wasn’t a tease. You either did it or you didn’t, but you didn’t play around. Who knows what was on her mind as after the meal was over and Johansson’d helped her wash the dishes, there was no late night movie to watch for she felt TV was beneath her, wouldn’t have it in the house and he said,

  “It’s getting late. Maybe I’d better go home. It’s been a great dinner though,” actually blushing.

  All of a sudden he’d gotten cold feet. Imagine his surprise when she turned to him, lifted the straps of her dress, slid them off her shoulders and showed her cleavage. They weren’t enormous, of course, maybe a cup size thirty-four or so. But they were upright and they were firm, the nipples bright red. Moreover when she was fifty they’d still be pretty much the same. They weren’t like those of women who, when they’re young have big knockers and when they become older they hang down to their knees… I looked at Hammond challengingly but he gazed off into the distance and I continued. His wife’s were like that. I didn’t elaborate. Human bodies vary as much as knives and forks. That’s how we’re able to tell them apart.

  “I was hoping you’d spend the night.”

  “You were?” Said the youngster in stupefaction.

  Whereupon she grabbed and kissed him. He, of course, needed no further prompting. They both removed their clothes and hopped into her four-poster bed. Almost from the very first penetration, naturally, she realized she’d made a mistake. The foreign body on top of her might just as well have been a robot’s. Nowadays, of course, even those’ll do in some circumstances if they’re programmed right.

  She persevered, however. The young man climaxed, she was able to get him off her and turn away from him to her side of the bed. You know how youth is, however, and with something like that in tow, dynamic, not to be stopped. His strong arms naturally turned her over and when she resisted the young Swede said,

  “What’s wrong? I thought you said it was OK?”

  “I can’t. I just can’t. “Both their faces were touching.

  “Why, because of Hartwig?” The kid’d finally brought his rival up. They hadn’t talked about him all night.

  “I don’t know,” she said quite honestly and I believe she didn’t.

  She was so mixed up she didn’t know anything. Suddenly she ran for the toilet, knelt down in front of it and proceeded to vomit. She was sick. Her entire system was down and as absurd as this seems I believed it was from guilt that she’d somehow let Hartwig down when there was truthfully no pact to that effect between them and never really had been. She was in love with a cut out in other words and it was all in her imagination. Love, as you know, can appear to certain persons in that fashion. Basically what is it anyhow except an extension of ourselves we superimpose upon another. If the other’s not there, you make em, get it.

  “I … I hear what you say,” said Hammond. “I’m not so sure I follow you. I’m beginning to wonder whether maybe this story’s begun to affect you and make you a little daffy.”

  “No,” I said. “Love is still love whether unrequited or not. It would certainly seem more pleasant if it is, but even if it isn’t the person gets something out of it. Maybe that’ll only be to end in extreme loneliness but it’s something and that something is better than nothing, which also, of course, despite thoughts to the contrary, has its own positive essence. That’s just not emotionally fulfilling.”

  When Johansson saw how she was he became concerned and asked whether she needed a doctor. He’d take her to emergency. She’d entered a state of hysterical crying.

  “No,” she bleated pathetically, “just leave me alone.”

  Of course a man can’t know the guilt he’s going through in a situation like that. And here was a beautiful young body with flowing hair doubled up like an old crone. The insinuation was, however, that the entire episode had been his fault when it’d clearly been a misjudgment on her part. But we live and learn and how do we learn if we don’t try? Johansson, who’d been running around the room naked, put on his clothes, lifted her onto her bed, covered the somewhat calmed hysterical woman, walked to the door and in a timid very insecure voice now, said with a frown,

  “You’ll be OK if I leave then? See you tomorrow?”

  The dim light that caught the vase of roses on her oak table gave them a surreal cast. And he left. Gloria got through the night, though you wonder how. Saturday, her day off, she took the bus down to Santa Cruz to visit her mother. It’d been a bad night for her, one she regretted and one she assumed she could get over but evidently her troubles had just begun. For, you see, it wasn’t just her anymore who made that one mistake and backed off. The young Swede hadn’t taken it so lightly. He’d gone and fallen head over heels in love with her. Evidently one ejaculation with some women’s enough for some men to want to repeat the state, and then he’d been coveting her for over a year.

  Once Gloria realized the very solution she thought would break the spell held over her by Hartwig was in fact not only no help but instead a permanent road to self-disintegration, the first thing that became immediately clear to her was although she could still have Johansson as a friend she could never have sex with him again. That was as lucid to her as night and day.

  But try to explain that to a young, hot-blooded young man who thinks he’s just made the conquest of his life. He, of course, can’t see any of her thinking. The only fog he can lift from his own eyes shows how he must be deficient in some way for her not to want him anymore. This means he must’ve failed in bed, the greatest insult possible. He who’s had such a great attitude of himself up to that moment wherein women were concerned. And while his assessment
lacks accuracy it does possess some sort of truth, which simply was that she was in love with Hartwig. Hartwig in that regard indeed must’ve had something he didn’t to’ve made the act come about, whether it was timing, brains, talent, etc.

  As nice as he appeared, however, Johansson had a mean, belligerent streak in him, which surfaced when things didn’t exactly go the way he wanted. He’d been in trouble before the quiescent effect of his job’d taken place, with his drinking and resisting arrest. Being around the object of his quest on an everyday basis didn’t help either. Perhaps if he could’ve just gone off somewhere, put a distance between himself and the situation, which, in fact, he later did. In the meantime, watch out, here comes big blockbuster Swede to run you down or anyone who gets in the way… You know the type.

  “It … it’s almost understandable,” said Hammond. “At least I can put myself in the youth’s position. A rake standing between me and…”

  “Well,” I said. “Maybe you think you can but maybe you can’t. You’d better listen.”

  One good thing that surfaced out of Johansson’s new war was that after Hartwig returned as hero of the beach Gloria was so distraught all she could say to him was,

  “Where were you? Don’t ever speak to me again.” Which, naturally, left Hartwig mystified for he hadn’t known what the hell’d transpired and she wouldn’t tell him. Know why…?”

  “No, why?”

  Besides just plain ego, she was afraid if she did Hartwig’d go after the kid and something grave would’ve happened and it just might well have. No, she figured she’d have to suffer this one out alone although she’d’ve been far better off if she’d simply stuck to her declaration of never seeing Hartwig again. She’d been the one who’d gotten herself into the predicament and would have to be the one who got herself out. When truly her thinking’s what fouled her up. Hartwig’d never let a woman possess him, that was her wish and she couldn’t understand her own failure. Some women are like that you know. Others don’t want to possess nor do they want to belong to one man only, forever, and the man naturally to her.