THE LADY KILLER: intense, suspenseful, gripping literary fiction

by LEE OLDS

  She wasn’t that old and had a boyfriend, a comptroller in the county clerk’s office who Hartwig rarely saw. How could he? He was seldom there. When he did come to the city he mostly visited his grandmother.

  Hartwig’d just gotten a blaze going in the large ceramic tile fireplace … it was a clear air day … and the two, he and Gloria were warming themselves and enjoying a toddy for you remember how cold summer days can be in San Francisco, when they heard the key turn in the front door lock and the mother walk in. She, of course, had seen the old clunker parked in the driveway.

  “Louis, is that you?” She cried out from the hallway.

  “Who else mother. You saw the car in the driveway. And I’ve got Gloria with me. She’s been having problems and might need a place to stay.”

  “Really,” the tight-lipped woman with a trim figure and the same murky blond hair as the son approached the redhead beauty who stood up and the two embraced.

  “I could certainly use a houseguest like this.” She stepped back and somewhat perplexed, said, “you look wonderful. If my son knows what’s good for him he’ll…”

  “Mother!” Hartwig interjected. His modus operandi, of course, was to stifle his mother’s overtures as if they’d vanish on their own. It was as if to deny the rain long enough it’d cease to fall. Of course it wouldn’t. Where people and emotions are involved, conflicts don’t straighten themselves out on their own. You have to step up, commit yourself, take responsibility for at least something. I don’t believe Hartwig fully realized this. He was a dreamer, not a pragmatist. While certainly a more appealing sort of existence it left others that came into contact with him dangling in midair. Some it decimated. He and Gloria had planned their marriage some time ago and apprised the mother of it. Hartwig, the sly one, had kept postponing it. Now if he was to take it up again as he appeared to be, of course, it would mean finding a job or preparing himself for a profession. And indeed in that week things seemed to head in that direction.

  Chapter Nine

  Over a dinner of roast duck and stewed apricots which Gloria cooked on the old Wedgewood range that was another original fixture of the house but still worked perfectly, for in those days they did make things to last forever, a trend that’s been lost to us, they discussed Gloria’s plight which nonetheless had seemed to abate since she’d been staying at Hartwig’s.

  “I … I hardly dare to return to retrieve my things,” she’d told the mother, “for fear he’ll be waiting there. He knows every move I make and just how to intercept me.”

  “I … I’ve heard of many cases like that,” said the older attorney biting sumptuously into her fare and talking with her mouth full. “None of them seem to end well, no matter how the law reads. If you throw the character in jail he’ll feed on his fixation there. When he gets out you’ll even be less safe than you were before, for then he’ll really come after you with a passion. If you move from the area you hope the individual not only can’t find you but that with your disappearance his passion’ll wane. Then eventually you’ll be safe.” Gloria bowed her head as before a hopeless fate.

  “Mother,” said Hartwig. “I know the guy. I’ve played tennis with him. As long as she’s with me. It’s just that lately…” He couldn’t go on for he definitely didn’t want to be the one to reveal his new flame. His mother’d disapprove. Nor did he want to say her disappearance had created the opportunity for he and Gloria to get back together. The situation had become very mixed up like they often do where the emotions are involved. For they are tempestuous just like the weather with all its currents and interchangeable reactions, which even now are impossible to completely predict. Our brains simply aren’t complex enough and they never will be.

  Sylvia, of course, lonely as her existence was, going to and from her house and back to court, was overjoyed at the company of her son and his worthy girlfriend. She bent over backwards to make them feel at home and even went so far as to tell Gloria,

  “If you’d come and live with me I’d take you to work. You could watch the ways of the court and perhaps even help out in my office. It’d be an asset to have a smart girl like yourself in the firm.”

  Gloria’s past life seemed to be flying by her like a moving cloud. Her regular routines, at her favorite French restaurant, her forays to the flea market at which she collected the antiques that filled her tiny studio, the Bohemianism of growing up in the artistic community of Sausalito, all now seemed like remote occurrences that had lost their charm. This, of course, was because the possibility of their future continuity had been broken. Broken by a jaded lover. Even if she moved in with Hartwig she felt she wouldn’t be safe. As long as she was in Sausalito and he was there. Believe me she was one frightened cookie.

  “And she should’ve been. It’s a shame,” said Hammond. “The truly feminine makeup’s just not equipped to handle that sort of thing. It’s here we have to step in.”

  “And we do,” I said. “May never the day come as long as we’re on earth that we don’t. It’s a code we must eternally accept just to be us though it does seem to be a bit chauvinistic.”

  For the week they remained in the city, however, a lot of forgetting was achieved so that a new future seemed to loom before them. Then another change had transpired in Sausalito, which had to do with Johansson.

  “Really, what?” Said Hammond.

  “Will you let me finish here first?”

  Realizing the two were to spend a week with her, Sylvia redesigned her schedule to accommodate their presences optimally. The very next day after their arrival she took them to the old courthouse on Kearny Street where she was involved in prosecuting a fraud case for the plaintiff’s daughter. Several older men had swindled an even older woman out of a considerable amount of money on the basis of familiarity with the father of one of them, who was in his nineties but had been a famous artist in his day, who the old woman, who was blind, remembered. They claimed they needed the money for the elder man’s health. It’s amazing the checks she wrote to them.

  “But,” said Hammond, “fraud’s only as amazing as the gullible people who fall for it. Still, she was old. Her heart was in the right place. That makes it even worse.”

  “It does and I believe the attorney did all right. She nailed those two who, I imagine, wouldn’t see daylight again in their lives, to the cross. Hartwig and Gloria sat through three days of that trial before the jury adjourned. And though it was obvious she was going to receive a just verdict for the plaintiff Gloria seemed to be far more involved in the proceedings than Hartwig. She stood up in the courtroom when the proceeding was over and nearly clapped. Hartwig, who’d become bored, had actually left the room to pace up and down the marble floored hallway outside. You remember how beautiful that old building was with its all oak paneling and doors. He’d just wanted to get out of there and go somewhere.”

  “Yes,” said Hammond, “I can see it. He didn’t want to be around the hard work of preparing for something like that. Moreover, in his own way wasn’t he just like the defendant. I mean what was the difference between their scam and marrying a lady just because she’s rich, though technically you’ve committed no crime.”

  “Of course,” I said, “no difference if that was what he was going to do.”

  But then it appeared differently. Each day when the trial session was over the mother took the two to lunch at our town’s best restaurants. One time it’d be Tadich’s, another Jack’s and, of course, Trader Vic’s where you see the celebrities and munch on the coast’s finest food. With the handsome son and the mother along with the young beauty how could this trio help but stand out? I don’t really know why but that sort of appreciation draws people together. They must feel they’re better than everyone else because they’re so attractive. Then, with Gloria’s and Sylvia’s minds going back and forth between one another like two rapiers, Hartwig must’ve been all but silenced, although remember, he’d been one of the best students in our entire school. I … I imagine he was proud to be i
n the company of two women like that even though one was a relation. Sandy and he … well. Let’s just say they had a far different sort of dependency between them, but a dependency no less.

  Leaving Hartwig at one of the watering holes on Maiden Lane, Gloria accompanied Sylvia to her office where she was introduced to the routine. Everything nowadays, naturally, cases, briefs, research, etc., is on computers although the court documents themselves are optionally printed out. I believe Gloria herself showed Sylvia a few tricks on the system while she demonstrated no little interest in studying law. All I can say is during that visit Hartwig’s mother and his girlfriend developed an almost insuperable bond between one another to the point neither one was exactly aware of Hartwig’s indifference to it all. But as long as I’d known him he’d been that way with almost everything another found exciting. As a consequence it was very difficult to say what motivated him, if anything.

  He took Gloria to the museum which was right next door to the opera house. They photographed one another before Van Goghs and Degases and even went to several art films in the old neighborhood. Gloria liked the condensed approach to life of foreign films and so did Hartwig. Both claimed,

  “Hollywood says nothing but is merely a big letdown.” And, of course, they were probably right if you were searching for didactic reasons for living your life instead of perverted or escapist entertainment. Unfortunately, after working all day. Americans prefer to be titillated, amused, and that is your right. Then in a society that’s so intensely competitive what role does philosophy play anyhow? You’re in life either to win or lose. Usually critical examination is the last thing you want. You don’t want to ‘see’ yourself and even less to laugh at what you see. It makes a stolid existence but that’s what you prepare for.

  After a week as guests at his mother’s Victorian mansion, as the two were starting up the old clunker to drive back across the bay, the mother who’d progressively warmed to Gloria (a difficult thing for her to do with anyone) and, I believe, this time her son, who she was convinced was determined to do right by the girl and carry out his former designs of marriage, which she remembered all too well, held out two tickets and said to Gloria,

  “Here, you take these. They’re for you. When you come over remember you’re to stay here.” Then she whispered to her. “You can come live with me any time if life becomes too hectic in Sausalito.” She smiled, an act she seldom performed, which was a pity for she had such a lovely smile even if it was very like her son’s. Generally she was a very hard-nosed individual for a woman who didn’t warm to many people. Much like a man, though I wouldn’t tell that to Hartwig.

  The two of them drove off with the tickets to a performance at the opera house, which Gloria immediately handed over to Hartwig.

  “Here, dear,” said a beaming young lady, “you hold these for we’re going, aren’t we? And I might lose them.” She was exemplifying her newfound trust in her boyfriend for the visit had convinced her once and for all that the tide had turned.

  Needless to say whatever confidence she’d lost in her relation with Hartwig before that week she appeared to’ve fully regained and more. She hadn’t mentioned the Hightower woman, who she’d never really considered competition in the first place. And Hartwig hadn’t brought her up either. He didn’t know where Sandy’d gone and for all he knew she’d disappeared from his life for good. He was willing to accept that or at least appeared to be and it showed in his renewed attentiveness to her. Happy ending of story, right? They now resembled two lovers, heads together and holding hands as they walked down the street. You could hear wedding bells ringing in the distance. I don’t know what went through their minds the nights they slept together. There must’ve been words of endearment between them, words of love, what else? What else’d make Gloria so happy when she returned to Sausalito?

  We, for instance, had never seen her so light-hearted. It was a pleasant aura to behold in such a zestful, pretty woman. She even phoned her mother, a thing she rarely did though she visited her from time to time. Hartwig too looked like a burden had been removed from his shoulders. He no longer felt the world on his back but talked straight and directly to you instead of always trying to change the subject. There was one thing he neglected to do when they’d been over there, however, and I believe he did this intentionally.

  “What … what was that?” Said Hammond.

  “He’d neglected to take Gloria by his grandmother’s. He’d never brought her there, oddly enough, although she lived no more than four blocks away from her own daughter.”

  “The one,” said Hammond, “who insisted he only marry for money, eh? That love follows. Like in old Russia. It figures …” He leaned forward to place his chin in his hand.

  “Yes,” I said, “but only if he wasn’t serious. I believe this time he was. That he wouldn’t remain much longer in Sausalito. He and Gloria’d move on. Lots of people did in that town you know. It was almost like a subway station with riders coming and going.

  As to Johansson, though Hartwig and Gloria’d only been gone for a week he presented no more problems, at least to her anyway. Once he realized she’d gone back to Hartwig, but that she’d also left him with a bruised libido that needed satisfying, he went in the other direction to take it out on any woman he could. And, of course, a strong, young, good-looking kid like that’s not going to have to wait long. Why he could go online, throw his picture on a site and find that. It’s a new (relatively) way of dating. A thing, fortunately, you and I never had to undergo.

  “So,” said Hammond. “What’d Johansson do?”

  Well there was this girl who worked at Ted’s restaurant I was telling you about, the greasy spoon where they fried everything in lard on a wide-open griddle. Her name was Emily, she was proficient as a waitress and though she was a little older and had a kid, who she’d sent North someplace to boarding school, she was quite attractive. She wasn’t flirtatious a bit and turned many men down who came in there and approached her but she had a weakness for blond, blue-eyed men, especially one who was young and virile.

  Though I never knew her descent, it had to be Slavic or German. She directly resembled one of those cooking women you see in Holbein’s paintings with their heads trussed in scarves that resemble turbans though she did have thick pretty blondish hair. She had a large jaw, a nice smile and a long straight nose with small hazel eyes. Her looks, of course, didn’t tell everything. You’d’ve had to’ve seen her to know what I mean. Although a big woman she wasn’t at all sprawling but was very compact and her legs were on the thin side. With her doe-eyed approach to your table you just felt like she wanted it. I don’t know exactly why. Does anyone know those things? Maybe just because she did. She had sex appeal a more ‘beautiful sort’ could never match. Johansson, like us, went into Ted’s a lot. He’d seen her before but’d never thought… Now she appeared to him like the Venus Di Milo. Someone to take out his superabundant passion on if he could. So he started talking it up. The two went out on a date. Emee lived in a basement room of a house she rented on the hill so she took Johansson there since he couldn’t go home but was still sleeping out in the park and not speaking to his parents. Emee, quite frankly, had trouble getting to work the following morning … they opened Ted’s at six a.m. punctually every day … but evidently she’d found something in the young Swede that was veritably irresistible and she began letting him sneak into her place at night.

  “At least the young kid had found a place to stay,” said Hammond. “Many out there don’t have one. Park’s no place for a kid like that. Hang around with seasoned vagrants and you pick up their bad habits. You become one. It’s like a sensitive man being thrown into a jail cell.”

  True and though both parties were stout persons and bull-headed they appeared to get along OK. Once Emee was out of her headgear and apron and in a dress she didn’t look half that bad. Matter of fact the two became a regular pair in the café. When Hartwig and Gloria’d enter, if Johansson and his date were sitting
there, Johansson with his already ruddy complexion would blush even further and he’d look down at the table. But that was as much a reaction as you’d get out of him that alerted one to his past flame. I don’t know what Emee thought of it. As long as she had her lover, what’d she care. She was certainly not attracted to Hartwig and the way the young Swede got her off was perfect.

  So things in Sausalito seemed to’ve quieted down a bit… Gloria’s birthday was coming up in a few days and as a treat (on her) … could it be anything else with Hartwig’s lack of funds … she was taking him to Chez Panisse for dinner. It was on the afternoon of that coming event while Hartwig was lounging on his houseboat and Gloria was still at work that Hartwig received a call and innocently reached over to pick up the phone. He thought it was Gloria reminding him to pick her up on time but it wasn’t.

  “Of course not,” said Hammond, “by this time (in the story) it couldn’t be anyone else but Sinful Sandy … didn’t Hartwig sometimes call her that in jest … otherwise what’d make it fly. See, I know the story before I’ve heard it.”

  Hardly, I commented, don’t be so egotistical, and though it was her and Hartwig wasn’t expecting the call he cut her short as he should have under current conditions though he did say, ‘hello Sandy’, and ‘what’s new?’ for as most others who’d heard of her mysterious disappearance he was curious as to what it entailed and what caused it.

  “So, you’re home. I’ve found you at last.” She sounded very excited. “You don’t know how much I have to tell you and I want you over for dinner. Something happened to my son. I need your help.” Hartwig sincerely didn’t know how to reply, but he defined things as they were and said perfunctorily,