Mistress of the Game

by Sidney Sheldon

  Lexi gazed up at him adoringly.

  “It’s because you’re waiting for me to grow up so you can marry me. Right?”

  The relief was so overwhelming, Robbie burst out laughing. Scooping his sister up into his arms, he twirled her around till she squealed with delight.

  “That’s right, sweetheart. That’s exactly right.”

  “I’m your princess.”

  “Yes, Lexi. You’re my princess.”

  Suddenly a voice yelled, “Open your eyes, moron!”

  Robbie glanced up. He’d been so engrossed in his own thoughts he wasn’t looking where he was going. He’d bumped into a businessman on his way to lunch, knocking him clean off his feet.

  The man bellowed, “What are you, retarded or something? Freak.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  Robbie kept walking, head down. Inside his head, the tape kept playing, over and over:

  He’s right. I am a freak.

  He had no idea where he was going. He knew he’d have to go home eventually, but he couldn’t face it right now. Walking into Grand Central station, he bought a ticket for the first train to anywhere and jumped on board.

  FOUR

  THE GIRL WAS A REDHEAD. SHE HAD HUGE BREASTS THAT seemed to wriggle like puppies beneath her tight angora sweater. Her black leather miniskirt was so short that Robbie could see the daisy pattern on her white cotton panties.

  Her name was Maureen Swanson. She was captain of the cheerleading squad, the most popular girl in school. Every guy at St. Bede’s wanted to fuck her brains out.

  Almost every guy.

  Maureen Swanson stared at Robbie. “Don’t I know you?”

  Robbie looked at his shoes.

  “Hey. Rain Man. I’m talking to you. Hellooooo?”

  It was just his luck. Of all the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of trains leaving Grand Central that afternoon, he had to pick the one with Maureen the Mammary Monster on board.

  “You’re the Blackwell kid, aren’t you?”

  Robbie looked around for a means of escape but there was none. The car was packed with commuters. He was hemmed in like a sardine in a tin.

  “Bobby, right? Tenth grade?”

  “Robbie.”

  “I knew it!” Maureen couldn’t have looked more triumphant if she’d just solved the riddle of the Sphinx or discovered the meaning of life. “Robbie Blackwell.”

  Hearing the name Blackwell, other passengers turned to look at Robbie. Some of them stared quite openly. Was he really one of them?

  “Actually, my name is Templeton. And you don’t know me. We never met.”

  Maureen rose to her feet, eliciting admiring glances from the more circumspect businessmen and wolf whistles from the braver ones. The women in the car glared at her.

  “Well, Robbie Templeton.” Maureen smiled lasciviously, easing herself down onto Robbie’s lap. “We can soon fix that.”

  Robbie felt his insides liquefy. Not with desire. With fear. Why the hell hadn’t he thrown himself onto the tracks when he’d had the chance? Anything would have been better than the death by smothering he was about to endure in the rift-valley of Maureen Swanson’s cleavage.

  “Where are you headed?”

  It was a good question. Where was he headed? He still had no idea. The train had started to slow down. A disembodied voice informed the passengers that they were approaching Yonkers.

  “Yonkers. This is my stop.”

  Extricating himself from Maureen’s viselike embrace, he began to elbow his way through the human wall of commuters, only just making it out before the car door closed. He stood on the platform as the train pulled away.

  Thank God. She’s gone.

  Maureen Swanson’s voice rang out behind him: “What a coincidence. This is my stop, too.”

  Robbie’s heart sank.

  How had she made it off the train without him noticing? Who was she, Harriet Houdini?

  Maureen Swanson was two years older than Robbie Templeton. Maureen Swanson was also a goddess. The type of girl who could have any guy she wanted. Of course, the guys Maureen Swanson wanted were college linebackers built like O. J. Simpson. Robbie was built more like Wallis Simpson. Handsome undoubtedly, but at fifteen still small and slight and looking every inch the tenth grader that he was.

  On the other hand, Robbie was also the heir to the Kruger-Brent fortune. For $10 billion, it appeared, Maureen Swanson was prepared to make an exception to her usual dating criteria. Robbie Templeton might not be built like a football player, but he was worth more money than most pros.

  Maureen smiled. “I know a guy who lives around here. There’s always a party going on at his place. You wanna check it out?”

  Robbie weighed his options. He did not want to check it out. He did not want to go to a party, especially not with Maureen Swanson. He wanted to be left alone so that he could go and kill himself somewhere, quietly, without his last memory being a pair of Dolly Parton breasts or daisy-patterned panties from JCPenney. Was that so much to ask?

  And yet…A party meant other people. Noise. Drugs. Distractions for Maureen.

  Drugs.

  Robbie shrugged. What the hell.

  “Sure, why not? I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  When Peter Templeton got home that evening, he expected to find his son waiting for him.

  “Robert!”

  He let the front door slam shut behind him.

  “ROBERT!”

  Peter Templeton no longer felt guilty about slapping Robert that afternoon. He was against physical violence generally, especially as a form of parental control. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Robert had stood in his office, laughing at him. Actually laughing. After all the trouble he’d caused the family: the expulsions, the run-ins with the police, the shoplifting. After all the money and time that Peter had personally spent trying to help him, all the therapists and vacations and hundred-dollar-an-hour piano lessons, Robert still thought of the situation as one big joke.

  Well, the joke was on him this time. Peter Templeton had had enough.

  Bounding up the stairs two at a time in the direction of Robbie’s bedroom, Peter ran into the housekeeper, Mrs. Carter. She was standing on the landing. She looked apologetic.

  “I’m afraid Master Robert’s not here, sir. We haven’t seen him since he left for school this morning. Is something wrong?”

  Peter scowled. “Damn right something’s wrong. He’s gone and gotten himself kicked out of St. Bede’s. I doubt there’s a school left in the state of New York that would take him now. Frankly, I can’t say I blame them.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Mrs. Carter wrung her hands despairingly. She adored Robbie, but he did seem to be getting himself into an awful lot of scrapes lately.

  “Robbie? Is that you?”

  Lexi had heard the front door slam and came running out of the nursery in her nightgown, eager to see her brother. As always, Peter’s heart lifted at the sight of her.

  She looked more like her mother every day. She had Alex’s eyes and lips and hair. Alex’s smile, half coy, half knowing, top lip slightly curled. She even walked like her mother. But in temperament she was quite different. Where Alex had been gentle and soft, Lexi was fiery and energetic. Mrs. Carter affectionately referred to her as “our little piranha.” Even Peter, with his chronically rose-tinted paternal vision, could see that Lexi was not perhaps the model of a decorous young lady. Spirited was the word he used. Less partial observers tended toward spoiled. Willful was another favorite. Totally out of control was not unheard of.

  “There’s my princess.” Peter kissed the top of Lexi’s head. She smelled of warm cookies and talcum powder. He felt his anger melting away. “What are you doing out of bed so late?”

  Lexi frowned, then pouted, her deep gray eyes welling with tears.

  “Robbie!” she wailed. “I want Robbie! Where’s Robbie? Where is he?”

  Peter felt the bitterness choking him
. First Alex, now Lexi. Robert had sucked away their love like a vampire, leaving Peter with nothing. Only with immense effort did he keep the emotion out of his voice.

  “Robbie’s not here right now, sweetie. Would you like Daddy to tuck you in? I could read that story you like. The one about Squirrel Nutkin?”

  “NO!” It was a yell. “NOT Daddy! Rooooobbiiiieee!”

  Mrs. Carter ushered Lexi back into her bedroom. Poor Mr. Templeton. He looked like he’d just had acid thrown in his face. He had to learn not to take things so much to heart. Mrs. Carter had four kids of her own. Like every mother, she knew that children could be spiteful and thoughtless, especially at Lexi’s age. You couldn’t take it personally.

  Once Lexi was settled back in bed, Mrs. Carter came downstairs. She found her boss in the study.

  “Is she asleep?”

  Peter’s voice sounded odd. Deadened and dull. Mrs. Carter noticed the tumbler of whiskey in his hand and the open bottle on the desk. The hairs on her arms began to tingle with foreboding.

  “Yes, sir. Sound asleep.”

  Peter took a big slug of his drink. When he looked up, his eyes were glassy.

  “Good. Thank you. You can go.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Carter didn’t feel right about leaving Lexi alone in the house with her father. What if Mr. Templeton passed out cold, and something happened to the girl? She’d never forgive herself.

  “It’s all right, sir. I can stay for a while. At least until Master Robert gets home safely.”

  Mr. Carter-Mike-would be at home expecting his dinner. He was bound to make a fuss, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “I can fix you some supper if you like. There’s leftover beef in the pantry. I could whip you up some Stroganoff.”

  “No. Thank you.”

  Peter drained his glass and immediately poured himself another.

  “Go home, Mrs. Carter. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The words were polite, but the tone was liquid steel. The housekeeper hesitated.

  She thought about Lexi and poor Master Robert. Should she leave them here, alone, with their drunken father? Probably not. But if she forced the issue and demanded to stay, she might lose her position. Where would that leave her own kids? With Mike out of work, her salary was all they had.

  She reached a decision.

  “Very good, sir. As long as you’re sure.”

  The children would be all right. ’Course they would. She was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Mike would get his precious dinner on time, and all would be right with the world.

  Far be it for that lazy bastard to learn how to turn on a microwave.

  Robbie sat up in bed, trying to focus.

  “I know you want it. You’ve been staring at me all evening. What are you waiting for?”

  Maureen Swanson, naked from the waist up, crawled across the bedspread toward him. Her repellent, swollen udders swung beneath her like bloated bagpipes. When she peeled off her panties to reveal a neatly trimmed rust-red bush, a pungent whiff of rotting fish assaulted Robbie’s nostrils. He felt the bile rise in his throat.

  What am I waiting for? I’m waiting for Scotty to fix the teleporter and beam me back to the Enterprise, that’s what I’m waiting for.

  Unbidden, an image of William Shatner in a tight green shirt and spray-on pants popped into Robbie’s head. He smiled. Then Maureen came closer and the smile died on his lips.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered huskily. “Everyone gets nervous their first time. You just relax and let Mama take care of you. Everything’s gonna be sweet.”

  Oh God, no!

  Even in his coke-fueled haze, Robbie could see the filth under Maureen’s fingernails as she slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his Calvin Klein briefs.

  “What the hell?”

  Maureen glowered at him accusingly. In the palm of her hand she cradled his limp penis, like a useless lump of Silly Putty.

  “Are you queer or something? You’re not even hard.”

  “Of course I’m not queer.” Robbie found his voice at last. “I…I just…I think I took a bad pill, you know? I don’t feel so good.”

  Talk about an understatement. The whole evening had been a nightmare, a fitting end to one of the worst days of his life. Maureen’s so-called friend turned out to be a small-time drug dealer and wannabe mafioso called Gianni Sperotto, a rat-faced Italian kid with an acne-scarred face, a nose that streamed like a faucet, and breath so putrid you could practically see it. Gianni’s “apartment” was the top floor of a condemned warehouse. In a year or two, no doubt, some hotshot real-estate whiz would have developed the place into a chrome-walled bachelor pad and sold it for Park Avenue prices. Not even a shit hole like Yonkers had been immune from the development fever that had swept America in the past decade. Overnight, it seemed, an entire generation had become millionaires by the simple expedient of knocking out a few walls and rechristening crumbling industrial relics as “loft-style penthouses.”

  But not Gianni Sperotto. Gianni Sperotto was too busy shoveling coke up his nose to see the fortune right under it. His “party” consisted of a bunch of half-dead hookers and junkies shooting up on one of the scores of fetid mattresses littering the floor. The bed where Maureen had dragged Robbie was Gianni’s own sleeping area, cordoned off from the rest of the room by a cardboard screen, over which their host had thrown a pair of psychedelic velour curtains, a lone shot of color in the otherwise bleak and desperate squat.

  There was no music, no dancing, no other even vaguely attractive male to distract Maureen from her prey. Robbie figured his only hope was to get her so looped that she forgot about him. It was a great plan, apart from one tiny snag. In order to get Maureen high, he’d had to get high himself. Robbie got hazy after one strong joint. Maureen Swanson, by contrast, appeared to have the constitution of an ox. No, make that a team of oxen. The girl popped X like they were M &M’s and vacuumed up the coke like a pig rooting for truffles. The drugs had done nothing at all to dampen her ardor.

  “A bad pill, huh? We’ll see about that. Lay back and close your eyes.”

  Too disorientated to resist, Robbie did as she asked. The next thing he felt was Maureen’s warm, wet tongue between his legs. Apparently, she saw his flaccid state as some sort of challenge.

  If only I could rise to it!

  When the curtain was yanked aside and the men burst in, Robbie’s first emotion was pure relief.

  His second was panic.

  “Police!” Robbie felt a rough, male hand on his arm. “Party’s over, kids. Get up, stand against that wall, and put your hands on your heads. Now!”

  Robbie’s mind was racing. Years of Sunday nights religiously spent watching T.J. Hooker on TV told him that this must be a drug bust. His pants were in a heap at the foot of the bed, with three ecstasy pills tucked into the back pocket-Gianni Sperotto’s version of a party favor.

  Bright side: I’m a minor. The worst they can give me is juvenile detention.

  Not-so-bright side: They can give me juvenile detention!

  For all his bravado in his dad’s office, Robbie Templeton was terrified of the thought of prison. To him it seemed far worse than suicide. Death meant peace. It meant being with his mother. But prison, even juvie, for a pretty boy like him? They’d eat him alive. And that was before they found out he was a Blackwell and one of the richest kids in the country.

  Spread-eagled half naked against the wall, he tried to concentrate. It wasn’t easy with Maureen Swanson screaming and cursing next to him like a banshee.

  “You assholes lay one finger on me, and I swear to God my dad will personally slice off your balls!”

  The police officer laughed. “I’d advise you not to threaten us, sweetheart.”

  “Great ass,” added his partner. “How about you spread those legs a little wider?”

  Robbie racked his brains. Did he have any ID in his jeans? Anything they could use to prove who he was? Man, it was hard to think when you were
high.

  Without warning, Maureen Swanson spun around and smashed her fist into the police officer’s face. The cheap cocktail ring she was wearing sliced into his eyeball like a knife through butter.

  “Jesus Christ, you little bitch! You blinded me!”

  In the pandemonium that followed, Robbie seized his chance. Making a run for the open window, he dived through it headfirst.

  A blast of cold night air hit his lower body. That’s when he remembered that he was naked from the waist down. When he opened his eyes, he remembered something else:

  Gianni Sperotto’s bedroom was on the sixth floor.

  The fall seemed to take forever. Time stretched out in serene slow motion. Robbie knew he was going to die. The thought made him smile. He’d imagined this moment countless times, wondered if he would feel fear when the time came. But now that it was actually happening, he felt suffused with a deep, rich contentment. Almost joy.

  The ground rose slowly to greet him, green and gray in the moonlight.

  Then everything went black.

  “Dude?”

  “Hey, dude? Can you hear me?”

  Robbie was by a river, lying in the long grass. He was in South Africa, in the wilderness near Burgersdorp, the little Transvaal town where his mom used to take him as a small child. Once known as Klipdrift, this was the place where Jamie McGregor had made his fortune. The birthplace of Kruger-Brent, the spot where it all began. The wind was blowing softly through the acacia trees. Above him, Robbie could see his mother’s face, the loveliest sight in the world. Her lips were moving. She was trying to talk to him. But her voice sounded strange. Unfamiliar.

  “You are one lucky son of a bitch, man. You coulda killed yo’self.”

  His mother’s face was fading.