THE LADY KILLER: intense, suspenseful, gripping literary fiction

by LEE OLDS

  “Thanks anyhow but I’ve got another engagement. I can’t make it tonight. Perhaps some other time.”

  “Wha…?” And he hung up on the surprised woman. The phone rang several more times, he knew it was her and declined to answer it. He put it on a permanent busy signal, aware, of course, that Gloria wouldn’t be able to get through but in an hour’s time he was going to phone her and dinner was still hours away. He went back to reading the book he was on, a translation by a new Latin American author.

  A half hour or so later he heard a rattling of his gangplank followed by his dog’s whine and suddenly his door burst open like it’d been struck by a tornado. There stood the socialite, her muscular figure in a seeming violent rage with the blank look of an animal in her grey luminous eyes.

  “You bastard,” were her first words. “What’ve I done to you?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Hartwig, nonchalantly keeping his ever-prevailing distance. “I might’ve known, I thought I told you I was busy. I … I have new plans.”

  “Who with, that child?” Her terminology for Gloria, for during her entire trip her hatred’d turned on that woman as her object of competition. “At least you can hear me out.”

  She went to his refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of wine, popped the cork and without taking a glass put the bottle to her lips taking a long draught like those who indulge in ambrosia might. She offered the bottle to him, he waved it away. With that she plunked herself down on his old couch and told her story, which Hartwig now as captive audience stood anxiously by and listened to.

  “I have another child I never told you about,” she began. “She’s a girl and she lives in Montana on a ranch with her husband. I went there to see her newborn and tell them about you…”

  “About me?” Said Hartwig, loosening up and beaming with curiosity. You are crazy. Here…” She handed him the bottle and he took a sip. The first sip, of course, of his own downfall but who’s to say he didn’t wish it. When things like that happen you just assume the person does and has all the time. Here Sandy’d driven the dangerous windy road over the mountain at breakneck speed. It must’ve been for something.

  Hammond sat back against the transom with a subtle smile on his face. It was after midnight, the heavens dark. The waterway was silent except for the lapping wavelets against the pier and the haze of the dock lights imparted an eerie almost crepuscular atmosphere to the subtle shadows of land, sea and sky that surrounded us.

  Here’s what she said. Came right out and admitted it. She was in love with him. It was right after they’d visited her mother’s that she discovered it. To be exact when she’d been alone at home looking out over the surf to the ocean and observed a group of pelicans diving. The emotion’d so overwhelmed her she felt she’d just had to get away right then to let her feelings settle in, so to speak.

  “I would’ve asked you,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure you’d go and I was very afraid. I just wanted to be alone.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “You know. It doesn’t come every day.” She blushed; her cheeks turned to cherry red. “I didn’t know how you’d take it.” She got up from the couch, put the bottle on the coffee table and sidled up to him. Before he could react, he claimed, she put her arms about his shoulders and held him gently. He could feel her shaking. “But that’s not why I need you now. It’s Benji, he’s in the hospital because of the party he threw while I was away. They all took drugs and he took too much. They had to pump his stomach. The doctors said they were lucky to save him. I haven’t seen him though. I can’t face him alone. That’s why I called you. I need a friend.”

  “I wish I could go,” said Hartwig, “but I have other plans. It’s not the time.” He chided her like one might a child.

  “Then we’ll make it the right time.”

  With that the depraved woman unbelted his pants about his waist and dropped to her knees almost before he could react. By the time he could, of course, it was a different kind of reaction than he’d’ve liked but also a far more pleasurable one for Sandy was good at that sort of thing. She had a way with animals and a way with men. Like any top-flight courtesan she’d turned the act into an art. It reminded me of a male dancer in drag I saw one time. He (or she) was far more feminine than any woman was naturally simply because the aura that wasn’t natural to him had been more intensely studied to be put into action at all. So that was what I meant when I suggested Hartwig was a goner. After that little pleasure trip was over it made it far easier to yield to her tears and cajoling. Then she wasn’t fibbing. While she’d been gone, her son had thrown not only one party but many. It was just at the most recent he’d gotten in trouble. He was indeed in the hospital. Sandy hadn’t seen him. But he wasn’t in all as bad a shape as she’d claimed though at the time she didn’t know that.

  “So,” said Hammond, “did Hartwig follow her?”

  Indeed he did, almost too readily. It was almost as though he’d been waiting for her all the time to show up and come for him. His return to Gloria had merely been a pleasant substitute to tide him over. Quite frankly, he listened to her protestations of love and admitted he’d felt something like that himself. Something like, minds you, but not outright like her. It took a little bit for the entire allure of her wealth to come back to him but it sunk in.

  “I … I really do have a dinner engagement tonight,” he’d informed her as she dragged him out the door. I’ll come now but I have to get back.” Know what she said?

  “You mean like the night I first met you and you were going to take me home?” Hartwig looked at her quizzically. Sometimes her improvisations astounded him.

  “Something like that,” he replied.

  The hospital, of course, wasn’t far from where they were and indeed it would’ve been possible for him to get back in time for his dinner date with Gloria but that never happened either. Once the two of them found the boy in his hospital gown sitting on his bed watching TV the three became reacquainted and consequently reunited and Sandy set out more traps, which she divulged outside the room.

  “Mother’s expecting us for the night,” she said. “We’re to come back and get the boy in the morning.”

  “We are?” Answered a vacillating Hartwig, for she’d just revealed her true feeling to him and an interview with the old lady was a step in the right direction.

  “Really?” Said Hammond. “For what? A step in the right direction for what?”

  “Well,” I replied, “if you’re Hartwig I suppose it’s to totally beguile a rich woman and marry her. That’s what he was really after by then. Our old bet that he’d engaged in with us, I’m sure meant nothing to him anymore.”

  “What about Gloria?”

  “What about her? Sincerity of feeling’s not always rewarded even though one would think it should be. Hartwig phoned from the hospital and I’ll give this to him, he told her exactly what’d happened. Almost all that is.”

  “If I leave her now,” he said, “she’s in a bad way, she’s really crazy, she might do something to herself.” He didn’t say what. “We can celebrate your birthday tomorrow.” Of course, they never did.

  “So,” said Hammond. “What’d she say?”

  “Nothing.” She hung up on him. She was very angry. Quote frankly she didn’t believe him but she went down to his houseboat and didn’t find him. His car was in the parking lot, his dog was there and that to her was a good sign that he somehow hadn’t abandoned her but had been telling the truth and would be around the next night when he said he would. What else could she do but go home and cry herself to sleep? She certainly wasn’t thinking of Johansson. That she did I can assure you. She’d taken the dog with her and at least had that to snuggle up to.

  “Good,” said Hammond. “Let’s hope those tears helped her get over this cad and move on once and for all to find someone worthy of her.”

  That definitely should have been her course but love works in funny ways, especially with someone as devoted as
her. She, you see, (in her love, I suppose) didn’t believe Hartwig capable of going with a woman solely for her money. Most women can’t believe that of a man. And quite frankly she could never see him with an older woman.

  Chapter Ten

  The boy, Benji, of course, hadn’t been sent to the hospital for no reason whatsoever. Several other party celebrants had joined him and also had their stomachs pumped. They’d all taken that relatively new drug, ‘ecstasy’, although a common party and ‘date rape’ drug, also a very toxic alkaloid, which races your heart and your metabolism to the point if you take too much and are not given an antidote you can literally explode. Some hearts just can’t take it. Fortunately that didn’t include any of the recipients. Neutralizers and stomach purges did the job. Marcus, Hartwig’s find, had been among the celebrants. He hadn’t been affected. As soon as the mother and Hartwig’d appeared, of course, the boy jumped up, stood running in place by his bed and exclaimed,

  “See mother, I’m fine. You’ve got to get me out of here. Otherwise I’m leaving on my own. A friend’s coming by and…”

  “No,” said Sandy who’d talked to the doctor. “You’re to stay here until tomorrow; then we’ll come and pick you up. Doctor says so.”

  One motive she had was that way Hartwig’d spend the night consoling her, but she’d also heard of delayed reactions in such cases and realized the doctor was right. As a precaution her son should remain there.

  “If I stay,” said the tall lanky dark-haired kid with a twinkle in his eye, “what’ll I get for it?”

  “What’ll you get for it? A good kick in the ass if you don’t.” That was when Hartwig looking directly at the kid as though some sort of collusion prevailed between them went out on a limb and said,

  “If you stay your mother’ll buy you a motorbike. I guarantee it!” He guaranteed it. The very thing the boy’d been pestering her (and Hartwig too) about for some time. He didn’t have a car and he wanted transportation, living way out there near the beach. Like all of us have our dreams that was his.

  Sandy replied,

  “Over my dead body.” Since she was deathly afraid of the things, but then she looked around at Hartwig. She needed a strong male force to handle the kid and had for some time. Hartwig’s blue-eyed surly look was very convincing. Don’t think he wasn’t aware of the role he was stepping into either. When you can give away someone else’s money it’s a double assertion of authority. One step away from spending it actually. After some discussion, however, and not a little stilted affection, as they were leaving Sandy finally responded about the bike.

  “We’ll see.” Evidently it was enough for the boy to take his mother in his arms and tell her he loved her. That he’d stay in the hospital for the next ten weeks if she wanted him to. Just as long as she bought him the bike.

  “Please!”

  It wasn’t only the bike either I believe. In broken families like that sometimes those things are just hard to say. So what if an object someone has his heart set upon makes it easier. Isn’t that part of growing up?

  “Yes,” said Hammond with a wistful look in his own eyes. “Sad to say I believe it is. Mine, of course, was my first car my family bought me. A little Ford coupe. I’ll never forget it.”

  “Nor,” I said with no little nostalgia myself, “will I.” Of my first car.

  When the two arrived at the mother’s this time the society matron was prepared for them. The candles were set on the large Mediterranean table in the dining room and a sumptuous dinner of Maine lobster (flown in that day) with an orange aspic salad brought in by the maid. I don’t know what brand the wine was but it was fancy, expensive and above all imbued with an exquisite taste as those labels are. You don’t always get what you pay for. Sometimes you do. This was certainly one of them.

  The mother, Beth, while not so unlike her daughter in looks, lived in a different world. She had her hair done at a certain time and place every week at a renowned salon in the city. Her days were taken up by visits to her wealthy friends, the ballet, gallery openings and at night, opera and symphony in season. She traveled abroad often. She was godmother to any number of her friends’ children and looked upon as a consultant of others’ grievances. She was president of the Junior League as well as chairwoman of the De Young museum. And though she’d never understood her rebellious daughter she was sincerely interested in her well-being. She’d heard of Hartwig, knew of his mother and though she hadn’t been overly impressed by his credentials she’d finally yielded to her daughter’s wishes to be introduced to him.

  “So,” Hammond remarked. “Sandy’d set the occasion up beforehand, before she even knew Hartwig’d be available?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I believe she felt she had more willpower than he did and could get her way no matter what else he might’ve had planned.”

  “And he went along?” I shook my head.

  “Invariably.” My friend muttered some unkindly taunts under his breath.

  The older woman with powdery white hair, a white complexion, wore a fashion dress, a pearl necklace and gold bracelets. Her earrings were also pearl. Evidently her appearance was as stunning as her compassion and charm. Hartwig was to remark to Sandy afterwards,

  “What happened to you?” A comment she took in complimentary jest. The mother knew her daughter was wayward with money, irresponsible when it came to controlling her own life or her son’s and didn’t have high expectations for her male company. Hartwig was certainly well-educated and attractive, from a good family in the city and quite frankly more qualified than any of the boyfriends she’d seen her daughter with.

  “You say you play classical guitar?” She turned to him, both faces irradiated by candlelight. “Have you played professionally?”

  “No,” Hartwig answered honestly. “It’s more a hobby, but I was trained.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Sandy put in. “He’s good.” The mother and Hartwig looked at one another and smiled. He didn’t mention his writing, which was nothing to mention anyhow, but Sandy nonetheless in her literary quandary, who did think it worthy, hadn’t brought it up either. Beth, who’d just lost her chauffeur, was interested in her grandson with whom, despite their disparate interests, she got along with surprisingly well. She didn’t get along with her own daughter but…

  “I wonder if he?” She’d asked her daughter.

  “Who, the surf bum? I don’t know, ask him.” She glanced at Hartwig. “Tomorrow we’re buying him a motorcycle. He,” she pointed, “said he could have it.”

  “How interesting,” was the woman’s only comment and she too must’ve felt the influence Hartwig wielded over her daughter but in a good way. She, this sympathetic patron seemed to trust him. Everyone trusted Hartwig when they first met him until they discovered his underlying motives, which had been entrenched in him by his grandmother. Oddly enough Sandy’s mother reminded him of his own grandmother. They’d both been beautiful women in their day and were now handsome oldsters. Both wealthy and well-educated. Yet one was as rigid and materialistic as the other was altruistic and outgoing.

  After a dessert of mousse, the three retired to the living room where the low curved Italian furniture stood misplaced. Here they watched a movie on the large quartz screen next to the fireplace. Hartwig said he’d never spent a more joyful evening. Sandy’s presence made her mother stand out like a temple guardian. The two discussed Bach, the father of counterpoint while Sandy sat oblivious, listening.

  “She didn’t add a word?” Said Hammond.

  “She couldn’t,” I said, “not a word, poor thing. She pretended to be engrossed in the movie. Or maybe it was a Hollywood thriller.”

  The two then spent the night in the miniature replica at the end of the pool. Around midnight the two of them swam in the heated body of water as clouds of steam rose from it into the cold night air. The stars were out in their entire splendor and a mere sliver of a moon shone over the villa with the North Star directly above it. At her mother’s, of
course, Sandy was a different person, pliable and affectionate rather than disagreeable and nervous. She no longer felt inadequate to Hartwig intellectually since he and her mother got along so well on that level. If anything she might’ve been a little jealous. But it was her mother and in a sense what was she but this older woman. What are any of us in essence except branches of our own peculiar genealogical trees?

  Hartwig felt the difference; he appreciated it and must’ve believed if he did happen to go on and become seriously involved with her he could at least communicate with her some of the time. And here he’d just run out on a woman who was always pleasant and perceptive.

  “That makes sense,” said Hammond. “Maybe with Gloria his relation was too copasetic. Those things can happen you know. Like the two poles of a magnet that are constantly warring the same sort of tension keeps some couples together. Believe me I’ve seen it. They go off like time controlled robots, clash, make up and call that love. Maybe in truth that’s all it is.”

  “Well,” I stood up, “if that was so, you’d certainly hate to think it.”

  After making love until the early hours of the morning the two were awakened by the maid whose name was Erma. She brought in one tray; then another, both steaming with entrees and set them over the two reclining figures in bed. Hartwig reached for the coffee pot and with a sly glance at the dark retreating woman in her white maid’s outfit, said,

  “Breakfast in bed. You know I could get used to this.” Whether in jest or not who knew? He perhaps? And with that he kissed the bride, or you know what I mean. She, of course, replied,

  “So could I.”

  But you know how those things go, expressions of wish fulfillment at the time. Hartwig still had to get back to his houseboat and his dog. He still had Gloria to confront and to make up his mind about. Remember he’d just left her for the night and had promised to return to her on the successive one. Then Sandy had to get back to her own house and her boy who’d soon be the proud yet reckless owner of a motorcycle, which ended up costing the price of a nice car.