Now it was over except for the actual act. She had found a way to get rid of Jennifer that was simple, safe and foolproof. She sat at the desk for a moment, her hands clenched into tight, avenging fists, her mouth compressed into a thin determined line. In her head, Jennifer's terrible words still echoed, the horrible things she had told Ted on their last night in Peyton Place.
She had been listening to them through the air vent, lying in her own sweat on the cot in the storage room. She had heard them make love, had heard Jennifer torture Ted and tease him into doing all sorts of perverse and evil things. She had writhed in anguish for poor Ted.
Then she had heard Jennifer's salacious whisper.
Ted said, “You're insatiable, darling.”
“More,” Jennifer said. “I want more. Oh, goddamn men, anyway!”
Ted laughed. “We're badly designed,” he said. “You'll have to wait for next year's models.”
Roberta heard the bed creak as Jennifer sat up and rested her back against the headboard.
“I think I'll get myself a seventeen-year-old boy,” Jennifer said.
Ted laughed. To him, talk like this was part of Jennifer's smartness and sophistication. In Ted's eyes, being born to money and high social position gave her the right to say things like this.
But Roberta was so shocked that her body went numb. She could not bear the thought that her Ted would be a cuckolded husband, laughed at and pitied by his friends. She thought of Doc Quimby. For a moment, she believed in divine retribution and that her sins were being visited upon Ted.
Jennifer's cool voice went on. “Or maybe I'll get myself two or three young boys. Yes, that would be even better.”
“Where do you buy young boys these days?” Ted asked.
“Oh, you can pick them up cheap anywhere,” Jennifer told him, a ring of authority in her voice. “There's that sweet curly-haired boy who delivers the groceries. I can tell by the way he looks at me that he wouldn't have to be bought. It's dull being alone in the apartment all day, Ted. Wouldn't it be nice if I whiled away an hour or two with him in the morning?”
Ted did not answer.
“It would be, Ted. It would be very nice. The idea of corrupting an innocent boy is the most exciting thing in the world. And then, in the afternoon, I could have a daily arrangement with that handsome young Italian who runs the elevator. He goes off duty at two o'clock. How would you like to have a man in uniform come every afternoon to service me?”
Ted laughed, but it was a forced, uncomfortable laugh.
“Teen-age boys are so full of energy,” she said. “They have to be taught how to use that energy, of course. I read in Kinsey, Ted, that they can do it four or five times in an hour. And some of them can do it more than that. Isn't that marvelous, Ted?”
She did not wait for him to answer. “I don't think I'll wait for the new models, Ted. I think I'll just buy a couple of those untried, young boys. You wouldn't mind, would you, Ted?”
“Oh, go to sleep, Jennifer,” Ted said.
“No, Ted, you wouldn't mind at all. Oh, maybe you'd mind because it would hurt your male pride, whatever that is. But you wouldn't do anything about it, would you, Ted? Not you. As long as you can get your name on the door, as long as you can have success, you'll put up with anything. And I mean anything, Ted.”
“Go to sleep, Jennifer. You're talking like a child,” Ted said.
They were silent then. After a while, they fell asleep. Everyone in Peyton Place was asleep except Roberta Carter. She lay on the cot with her hands pressed tight against her mouth, her eyes staring at the dark ceiling.
I must kill her, she thought. I must kill her. She wasn't just talking. She's going to do these things. Maybe she's already started doing them. I must kill her.
4
THE MEN OF CHESTNUT STREET gathered at the home of Seth Bus-well for their usual Friday night poker game. Seth put a bottle of liquor on the sideboard and filled four glasses with ice while Leslie Harrington began to shuffle the cards for the first hand.
“Another winter is here,” said Matthew Swain as he sat down.
“Yep,” said Seth. “Ephraim Tuttle's got his stove set up and his bolts of material put away.”
“Where did the year go?” said Charles Partridge. “Seems as though it was only a few weeks ago that we were sitting here talking about Allison MacKenzie's book, and that was last April.”
“That's because we're getting old,” said Matthew. “Time goes by quick as a wink for us nowadays. But I can remember how it used to drag by when I was a youngster.”
“You ain't got that good a memory to remember that far back, Matt,” said Leslie Harrington.
“Neither have you, Grandpa,” said Matt. “Although I must say, you've looked better this past year than I've ever seen you look.”
“I've got to keep healthy to keep up with that grandson of mine,” said Leslie. “He's a holy terror.”
“How's Betty?” asked Seth.
“Fine,” said Leslie. “I think she's finally made up her mind to stay right here in Peyton Place.”
“Good,” said Matthew and Seth almost simultaneously.
Charles Partridge did not say anything. Except for Leslie himself, Charles was the only man in town who knew what torture Leslie had suffered at the hands of Betty Anderson.
“Five pretty little black spades,” said Seth Buswell gleefully and raked up the coins from the center of the table.
Spades, thought Charles Partridge. That's what Betty Anderson paid Leslie back in. In spades.
Rodney Harrington, Junior, had been no problem, Charles remembered. The boy had taken to his grandfather as if he had known him all his life, and Leslie, of course, was overwhelmed with love. Little Roddy was the image of his father, and the lines of age and worry erased themselves from Leslie's face every time he looked at his grandson. His friends were not the only ones in Peyton Place to notice how much better Leslie looked. Betty Anderson noticed it, too, and she smiled a tight little smile at the man who had never been her father-in-law. She had been in Peyton Place for two weeks, just long enough for Leslie to begin to hope that she would stay forever, when she started packing to leave.
“I have a job to get back to,” she told Leslie when he protested.
“You don't have to work,” said Leslie. “There's more than enough money right here.”
Betty turned on him. “Listen, Leslie, I got along fine without your money when I was pregnant, when Roddy was born and ever since. We don't need you.”
Leslie humbled himself. “I know,” he said. “I need you.”
“That's just too bad,” said Betty. “You should have needed us when you threw me out of your office with a lousy two hundred and fifty bucks and a load in my belly.”
“Betty,” pleaded Leslie. “I'll make it up to you. I swear I will.”
“We don't need you,” said Betty and went on with her packing.
In the end, she promised that she would stay another week and Leslie breathed again. But at the end of the week, she started packing again.
“For Christ's sake, Charlie,” said Leslie in desperation. “Do something.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Charles Partridge. “You have no legal claim on that child.”
“Goddamn it, he's my grandson!”
“Betty and Rodney were never married,” said Charles. “And you can't prove that Betty's been an unfit mother. There's nothing you can do except hope that she'll change her mind and stay on voluntarily.”
“Well, talk to her, then,” demanded Leslie. “Make her see that it's best for the child if he stays here. I don't give a damn what she does as long as she leaves Roddy with me.”
“She'll never leave him,” said Charles. “If you want the child, you'd better make up your mind to want the mother, too. But I'll talk to her.”
“What's in it for me?” asked Betty Anderson when Charles went to see her.
“You could be very comfortable here,” said Charles. “
You could live in this house and you wouldn't have to work and you and Roddy could be well taken care of.”
“I can take care of myself,” said Betty. “I always have. And of Roddy, too. I don't mind working for a living. And as far as this house goes, it gives me the creeps. It's like a goddamn museum.”
“I'm sure that Leslie would be willing to let you do the house over,” said Charles, worried lest he bite off more than he could chew. “I can't see what objection he'd have to that.”
“I don't want to do Leslie's house over,” said Betty. “I want a house of my own.”
Charles's jaw sagged. “But Leslie wants you to live in the house with him. You and little Roddy.”
Betty shrugged. “In the words of little Roddy's father, that's tough titty,” she said.
“Will you stay until Christmas?” asked Charles.
“Nope.”
“Until the end of the month?”
“Nope.”
Charles went to Leslie and told him what Betty wanted if she were to remain in Peyton Place.
“A house!” roared Leslie. “What the hell's the matter with my house? It's big enough for an army!”
Charles spread his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I can't help that, Leslie. That's what she wants.”
“She can go right straight to hell,” yelled Leslie.
But the next day, Betty began to pack again, and Leslie ran to Charles.
“Get her a house,” he said wearily. “Any one she wants.”
So Betty Anderson became the owner of a cottage at the end of Laurel Street.
“It'll be a nice place to spend my vacations,” she told Charles.
“What do you mean, vacations?” asked Charles. “Don't you plan to live here?”
“On what?” asked Betty. “Does Leslie think I'm as rich as he is and can afford to sit on my backside all day long without working?”
“Leslie is perfectly willing to provide for the boy,” Charles objected. “You could find work here to take care of your own needs.”
“Where?” jeered Betty. “In the Mills? Like my old man? No thanks.”
“But we thought—” began Charles.
“I don't give a damn what you thought,” said Betty angrily. “I'm not going to take a two-bit job in the Mills working for Leslie Harrington. If I have to work to support myself, I can do that a lot better in New York. And that's where I'm going just as soon as I can get packed.”
In the end, Leslie Harrington settled a sum of twenty-five thousand dollars on Betty Anderson and deposited another ten thousand in an account for his grandson. In addition, he agreed to give Betty a household allowance of one hundred dollars a week and buy her a new car every year.
“In writing,” said Betty Anderson.
So Charles Partridge drew up the papers and Leslie Harrington signed them.
“One more thing,” said Betty before she signed. “There's a friend of mine in New York who used to look after Roddy for me. I want her to come up here to live with me and help with the house and with Roddy. Leslie'd have to pay her fifty a week.”
So Agnes Carlisle came to live in Peyton Place with Betty Anderson, and Leslie Harrington agreed to pay her wages. In return for what he gave, Leslie was to be allowed unlimited visiting privileges and the right to keep his grandson with him for a full day, one day a week. In the event of Betty's marriage, she was to keep all monies settled on her and Roddy, but her weekly allowance was to stop and Leslie was to be allowed the same privileges.
Betty Anderson leaned back comfortably in her new living room and Agnes brought her a drink. The two women took their shoes off and sipped their martinis.
“Now I've got it made,” said Betty. “Who wants to get married?”
“Didn't I tell you?” asked Agnes smugly. “I told you to get in touch with him, didn't I?”
“Yes, you did,” agreed Betty. “And you never made a wiser suggestion in your life.”
“For Christ's sake, Charlie,” said Leslie Harrington crossly, “are you playing cards or not? We've been waiting for you to tell us whether you can open or not.”
Charles Partridge looked at his cards. “I pass,” he said.
“One card,” said Leslie to Seth, who was dealing.
Old Leslie, trying to fill an inside straight, thought Charles. He'll probably hit, too. He usually gets what he wants. Even if there's a price on it.
At eleven o'clock, Leslie Harrington and Charles Partridge said good night to Matthew Swain and Seth Buswell.
“Let's walk a little,” said Leslie when the two men were outside.
“Where to?” asked Charles. “It's late and I'm tired.”
“I just want to walk past Betty's house,” said Leslie. “I like to make sure everything's all right before I go to sleep at night.”
“Do you go down there every night?” asked Charles.
Leslie nodded. “You never can tell,” he said. “I might catch that little bitch in a compromising situation someday.”
“Leslie!” cried Charles in horror.
“Oh, cut it out,” said Leslie. “You've known me too many years to be shocked at anything I say. Come on.”
The two men walked slowly down Chestnut Street and turned into Laurel.
Betty Anderson's house was dark and still. Leslie stopped and looked at it, stared at it as if his eyes could see right through the walls—and right into the bitter, unforgiving heart of Betty Anderson, his grandson's mother. It was not only little Roddy's love that made Leslie appear younger these days; it was also the smell of battle. He was locked with Betty in a clash of wills. Nothing made him feel younger than a good fight.
He looked at the house and thought, You've won the first battle, Betty, but the war isn't over yet. Before I die, little Roddy will be living in the big house with me.
5
THE TRAIN PLUNGED HEADLONG into the long space that separated Lewis Jackman from Allison MacKenzie, and Lewis sat in the club car, impatient with his drink and with the way the hands on his watch moved as slowly as if they had been trapped in molasses. The wheels of the train, too, seemed to move forward in slow motion, and Lewis watched water condense on the outside of his glass and looked again at his watch.
Sitting next to him in the observation car was Stephanie. Allison had introduced them during the week she spent in New York after returning from Hollywood. They left Grand Central together and had been traveling together for eight hours. And that's about as many words as we've exchanged, Stephanie thought, eight. If I didn't know better, I'd have to conclude that Lewis Jackman was a man on his way to a heavy date.
“Hello, there!” said a feminine voice behind him, and, even before he turned, Lewis was resentful at anyone who would break into his thoughts.
“Hi,” Stephanie said, disinterestedly.
“I remember you,” the girl said. “You're Stephanie. Allison's friend.”
“Yes.”
The girl would not be put off with coolness. “I'm Jennifer Carter,” she said. “My husband will be here in a minute. May we sit with you?”
Stephanie wanted very badly to say No, but instead, she said, “Of course.” She introduced Jennifer to Lewis.
“Here's Ted now!” said Jennifer, and turned to her husband. “Darling, you remember Stephanie, don't you? Allison introduced her to us last Christmas.”
“Sure,” said Ted and extended his hand. “How are you?”
“Are you going up to Peyton Place to visit Allison, too, Mr. Jack-man?” asked Jennifer.
“Yes, I am,” replied Lewis.
The girl's eyes were bright with a shrewdness that reminded Lewis of a snake, and although she was very beautiful there was something about her that was too finely drawn. Her cheekbones were too prominent and her chin had an aggressive tilt to it and her eyes darted everywhere so that they not only seemed to miss nothing but to probe beneath the surface of everything they saw.
“Allison must be a very important writer to drag a busy publisher like you
so far away from civilization,” said Jennifer, and her eyes fastened on his with a demand for an answer.
“She is,” said Lewis. And the simple unemphatic way in which he said it gave his words a great deal of authority.
Jennifer laughed. “It's so hard to think of little Allison MacKenzie of Peyton Place as an important writer, as someone to be taken seriously.”
“Jennifer!” said Ted. “Don't say things like that.”
“Don't be ridiculous, darling,” said Jennifer. “I can't help it if that's what I thought, can I?”
Ted looked away uncomfortably. “Let's order,” he said.
“Good idea,” replied Jennifer. “I want a Scotch and water, please.” She turned again to Lewis. “How long have you had this high opinion of Allison?” she asked, with the same persistence that had characterized her previous questions.
Lewis wanted to stand up and tell her that it was none of her business, but he didn't.
“A long time,” he said, and his voice did not encourage further interrogation.
“Since before she got famous and began to make pots of money?” asked Jennifer.
“Yes,” said Lewis. “Even before that.” He looked at Stephanie and stood up. “I think we ought to be getting back to our seats, Stephanie.” He nodded to Jennifer and Ted and said, “If you'll excuse us.”
Jennifer laughed as he turned to walk away. “That's what people always say when they don't want to talk to you any more.”
“Jennifer!” said Ted.
“Oh, stop saying ‘Jennifer’ like that,” she said crossly. “You sound like a broken record.” She sipped at her drink. “Allison isn't getting much of a prize in him,” she said. “He's as close-mouthed as you are.”
“Perhaps he resented your prying,” said Ted with more spirit than he usually showed in front of Jennifer.
“I don't pry,” she said. “I'm just interested in people.”
“Anyway,” Ted said, “he's her publisher, not her lover.”
“That's what you think,” Jennifer said.
“What makes you think otherwise?” Ted asked.
“Stop cross-examining me, Mr. District Attorney. I just know it in my bones, that's all. Big New York publishers don't come all the way to Peyton Place just to look at a manuscript.”
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