Well Bred and Dead

by Catherine O'Connell

  “Don’t you think we can take that tape off, Todd?” The manner in which he said Mr. Matthews’s forename sounded so unnatural I knew immediately that it was an alias. I also recognized that sometime between his last call to me and the present, Terrance had lost his brogue, not to mention his red hair was now dishwater brown. My eyes darted between the two men as my brain tried to make the connection between them, the first a man I had thought I was in love with, the other a lonely traveler I once shared a drink with in a faraway bar.

  “I don’t know. She got wild before,” said Mr. Matthews, brandishing the bandaged finger.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” he chuckled. “I knew she was feisty. But you’ll be good now, won’t you, Pauline? No shouting?”

  I nodded obediently. At this point I wanted more than anything in the world to be able to communicate. Terrance, or the man who called himself Terrance, leaned over and pulled the tape from my mouth with a quick ripping motion. It stung, but not much more than a lip wax. What really stung was his presence. I didn’t know whether to give him a piece of my mind or venture one of the dozens of questions burning a hole in my brain.

  It was then I happened to look at the third man for the first time, and the scene soared to Felliniesque proportions. Up to this point, Terrance Sullivan’s presence had me so rattled that I hadn’t even glanced in this other person’s direction. Now my attention was riveted to him. He had died his hair blond and sported a rather poor excuse for a mustache, but there was no mistaking who he was.

  “I hope you’ll accept my apology for standing you up last March,” said his lyrical voice.

  “Ethan!” I gasped. “How can you be here? You’re dead.”

  “Do I look dead to you?”

  “Then whose ashes are in my entry closet?”

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders.

  I was beyond astonished, beyond bewildered, beyond confused. My senses were so overloaded I felt like I was sailing in high seas, the deck dropping out from beneath me as the boat breached the waves. Had I not been tied to my chair, I most likely would have fallen from it.

  “Why are you here?” I managed to eke out.

  “I’ve come for my money,” he said.

  32

  Restitution

  I thought I knew fear when Mr. Todd Matthews grabbed me outside my apartment. I thought I knew fear when he struggled with me in the elevator and then used his ether or whatever it was to knock me out. I thought I knew fear when I awakened to find myself bound hand and foot in my own dining room. But it came nowhere near the panic that seized me as the meaning of Ethan’s words sank in. He had come for his money. For a minute, I forgot how to breathe. My circulation staggered to a halt and the pooled blood hummed in my ears. Pinpricks of light flashed before my eyes and within seconds consciousness and I separated yet again.

  This time when I came to my situation was far more comfortable. I lay on one of my sofas with my head tenderly propped upon a pillow. My hands and feet remained bound, but my hands were now tied in front of my body instead of behind my back. Ethan sat beside me, fanning me with the September issue of Town and Country. When he saw my eyes were open, he took a glass of water off the cocktail table and held it to my lips.

  “Here, dear,” he said sympathetically. “Drink something. It will help.”

  I crooked my head up and took a sip, gagging as the water went down my windpipe. He waited until I stopped coughing and then put the glass to my mouth again, this time holding my head in his free hand. The water went down much more easily. I drank nearly the entire glass before resting my head back on the pillow.

  Coming from the kitchen, I could hear the raised voices of Terrance and Mr. Matthews. Terrance’s very American accent was spiked with anger. “I told you to not to overdo it. What’d you want to do, kill her?”

  “I swear I only used what you told me to. I don’t know why she passed out again.”

  “If anything’s happened to her, it’s over, you know that?”

  “You really think I’m an idiot don’t you? Don’t forget, if not for me, we wouldn’t even be here. Who was it that found his brother in the first place?”

  “Pauline is back with us, gentlemen,” Ethan called out loudly. The argument stopped abruptly and the two gentlemen presented themselves in the doorway, staring at me as if I were a kitten just rescued from a bucket of water. It might have made a touching scene, Ethan at my side like a loyal lap dog while two dear friends looked on with concern, had not my restraints added another dimension to the picture.

  “Glad to see you’re all right, Pauline, you scared the hell out of us,” said Terrance, his white teeth flashing in his strong face. The best I could do was a withering glare. He turned to Ethan. “Have you explained things to her yet?”

  “No, she just woke up this very instant.”

  “Well, no time like the present, wouldn’t you say?”

  “All right,” said Ethan, turning his head back toward me on the couch. “But I think it would be better if you left us alone.”

  Terrance deigned me yet another calculated smile, and I mentally flagellated myself for having been so taken in by him. I knew his teeth were far too good for an Irishman. I cursed myself for not paying heed to Lord and Lady Grace’s warning about him, wondering why I chose to flutter so close to the fire. Had I slammed down the phone yesterday the very moment I heard his voice, he wouldn’t have known about my trip to Paris. Maybe this rogue’s gallery wouldn’t have made their appearance until later in the week, and by then I would have been eating madeleines at Fouguet’s.

  Terrance and Mr. Matthews went into my library and turned on my only television set. The roar of a crowd told me they were watching some sporting event. Ethan cleared his throat in a serious manner, and I turned my gaze toward him. Everything about him, his pockmarked face, his nostrils flaring over the pitiable trace of hair lining his upper lip, his black beady eyes staring down at me, was so tragically pathetic that even though I was the one in the compromised position, I felt infinitely superior.

  “If we are to speak, I should like to sit up,” I demanded, some of my bravado coming back to me.

  “Of course,” he replied, the obsequious Ethan I had known in another life. “Here. Let me help you.” Placing his small hands upon my shoulders, he pivoted me from my supine position to an upright one.

  “What do I call you? Ethan or Daniel?” I asked before he had a chance to say anything else.

  His response was static as he calmly looked down at his hands. They were folded neatly in his lap, as they often were when he was thinking. His narrow shoulders were rounded making his chest concave, and he held his arms close to his sides as if he was only allowed to occupy so much space. I noticed the trace of a smile lift the wispy mustache as he said with complete indifference, “Call me what you like.”

  “Well, since I’ve always known you as Ethan, I’d prefer to continue addressing you that way.” There was an awkward silence. At a stretch, could one call this old friends getting reacquainted? Then why not put forth a question or two? Where have you been and what have you been doing? Do you have plans for New Year’s? Or maybe something a little more profound, such as, “So tell me, Ethan, did you kill the original Ethan Campbell for his name or his job or both?”

  His hands flew from his lap and stirred the air like hummingbirds in search of a feeder. “I did not kill him,” he said unequivocally. “His death was an accident. A terrible, tragic accident.”

  “Then why did you hide it? Why didn’t you contact the authorities?”

  “A homosexual in the deep South in the sixties? Are you serious, Pauline? They would have hanged me first and asked questions later.” His eyes drifted toward the ceiling and stayed there, focused vaguely on the eggs and darts of my crown molding. It didn’t appear he was going to volunteer more.

  “Did you know his mother is still alive and wondering what happened to her son?”

  “I feel badly about that. He carried all her l
etters with him. They were so loving. But no matter how you look at it, Pauline, he’s dead. What difference would knowing that make to her?”

  “The difference that she could die in peace.”

  Clearly he did not want to be challenged. A physical change came over him as if he suddenly remembered he was the one in charge. Our question and answer period had drawn to a close. It wasn’t until later that night, when I lay handcuffed to my headboard, that I would have the opportunity to fill in the blanks. He squared his shoulders and turned his gaze from the ceiling back to me. Leaning in so close I could smell the sour milk scent of his breath, he said, “Pauline, I knew you would find out who I was. I knew you couldn’t rest until you did. That’s why I left you the money. But it’s mine and I want it back.”

  Now, I must agree that Ethan was right when he said he knew I would find out who he was. He had known me well enough to know I would do it in order to satisfy both my curiosity and my pride. He had assumed I would fly to England in my quest and also assumed that I would stay with Charmian and David Grace, friends I had talked about for years. And he knew from my descriptions of Henry that my head would be easily turned by a red-haired Terrance Sullivan. Yes, he had hit the mark on all those things.

  But he didn’t know me nearly as well as he thought if he believed for one psychotic instant that I was simply going to get out my checkbook and write him a check for twenty-two million dollars.

  “Over my dead body, Ethan. And, might I add, there’s no mention of you in my will.”

  The eyes I had once found shining and lively took on an evil dimension, shrinking back in their sockets like a vampire avoiding a crucifix. “Pauline, I feared you might be difficult. And I know you worked hard trying to find out who I was, so I’m going to give you something for your troubles. In appreciation of all the effort you’ve put in, I’m going to permit you to keep a million dollars for yourself.”

  This caused me to laugh aloud. “Hah! Clearly you’ve lost your mind. I’m not going to give you a sou, you fraud. Now get out of my house before I expose you and see you in jail.”

  This time it was Ethan’s turn to laugh. “Would you really expose me, Pauline? Think about it. If I’m exposed as alive, then the inheritance you are now enjoying belongs to me and not you. It makes no difference if I’m incarcerated or not, by rights it belongs to Daniel Kehoe.”

  He had a good point. The thought had not occurred to me that his very existence was a threat to my windfall, that Ethan’s being alive meant the money legally belonged to him. Having always been pragmatic, I began to consider his offer. I came to the conclusion that other than murdering him, highly unlikely in light of my situation, my only recourse was negotiation.

  “Ethan, I liked you so much better dead,” I said. “Make it ten million and you have a deal.”

  “Two million. I have partners to be paid.”

  “Five million.”

  “Two is my best offer.”

  “Interest on two million might bring me one hundred twenty thousand dollars a year. I can’t survive on that.”

  “I’ve survived on a lot less. Maybe you should learn to budget.” His callousness was such an affront that I wanted to reach up and slap his sallow, wormy face with my bound hands. But I managed to keep my demeanor, calling to mind my broker Thomas Slattery’s argument that in this growth economy I was losing vast sums of money by not being in the equity market. If I could get Ethan to pony up just a bit more, I could put the money into stock and parlay it into something substantial. Certainly with stock there could be no repeat of my previous derivatives debacle.

  “I won’t go lower than three million.”

  He considered. “Done.” He clasped my tied hands and shook them to seal our agreement. “This is what you are going to do. First thing tomorrow morning you will transfer nineteen million dollars to my offshore bank account, and then we will take our leave. In the meantime, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Matthews and I will stay and keep you company until the transaction has been completed.”

  33

  A Quiet Evening at Home

  And so, Mr. Matthews, Terrance, Ethan, and I spent an intimate evening together. I remained in the living room trying to read Jane Austen with tied hands while they rotated between watching me and some abomination on the television set. The only time they untied me was when I needed to make a trip to the rest room whereupon Terrance or Mr. Matthews would follow me and station himself at the door, threatening to break it down if I took any longer than a few minutes to attend to my personal needs. It was humiliating and degrading, but I’m sure it was in their minds that if I was somehow able to get free, I would disappear and they might never find me again. And they were right. The thought never left my mind that if I could somehow escape my apartment, I would run to Whitney’s and hide until my flight tomorrow. Were it not for my apartment being on the twentieth floor, I would have climbed out the window.

  At seven-thirty, we supped on tuna and crackers, washed down with a couple of bottles of chilled Puligny from my cellar. Mr. Matthews complained about the food selection as if I were a poor hostess for not having laid out better provisions for my uninvited guests. Need I say his moaning failed to arouse any sympathy in me.

  Some time after eleven it was deigned time for all to sleep. Ethan and Mr. Matthews disappeared into my guest rooms while Terrance marched me to the master bedroom and ordered me onto the bed where he handcuffed my right hand to the post on the headboard. For a dubious moment, I wondered if he planned to take advantage of me. But instead of ravaging me, he settled into the chaise lounge across from the bed. With a sense of revulsion it dawned on me that he intended to sleep there. This was not exactly how I had envisioned our first night together back when he was someone else.

  “There’s no need for you to stay in here. I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him, tugging at my handcuffed arm as proof. “And it’s not as if I would benefit by calling any authorities. You know as well as I if Ethan is discovered alive I lose everything. I am cooperating so I can retain my paltry three millions dollars.”

  “Ethan was pretty damn generous to give you that much—far more generous than I would have been,” he said.

  “Ah, and another nail in the coffin of the philanthropic, sensitive man I met in England. I can get how you deceived me, but for the life of me, I’ll never understand how you slipped through Lord Grace’s radar.”

  “I didn’t need to slip through Lord Grace’s radar. It was jammed by greed. Would you like to hear the deal I proposed to him? A low-income housing development in Dublin to be underwritten by public funds and then turned into private investment for big profit in the end. I invented some loophole in the law that would permit us to do it. I never expected him to go for it, it was only an excuse to meet him so I could meet you.”

  “But I can’t believe he took you seriously without even knowing you.”

  “He took me seriously because I introduced myself to him backed up by a list of gold-plated names Ethan gave me, names of people who couldn’t be located, like your college friend Melton Bedford who was fishing off the coast of California. And your buddy, the Lord, he couldn’t put up money fast enough at the thought of fleecing someone else. He started calling in his friends.”

  “Well, you’re quite an actor. Is this what you’ve been doing your entire life? Deceiving people in order to take their money?”

  This time he answered me in a backwater accent that made my skin crawl. “Me, well I’m just a good ole’ boy from down south, trying to get by, same as you. Fact is, that reminds me, I b’lieve you still owe me one hundred American dollars.”

  His words were yet another shot across the bow, and I found myself wondering when in my life I had become so thick-witted. No wonder the check I mailed out to Mr. James Rufus Burton had been returned by the U.S. Postal service marked “No such address.” At the time I had given it little thought, figuring that Mr. Burton would find me if he wanted his money. But there had never been a Mr. James Ru
fus Burton, just as there most certainly had never been an ad in The Charlestonian.

  “That was you with the cockamamie story about Campbell’s Soup?”

  “None other than.”

  “You are despicable,” I hissed.

  “And you’re so much better?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Take it any way you want. For instance, let’s talk about that old woman in England you cared so much about. Have you contacted her to tell her what you’ve learned about her son or sent her a penny since you got the money? Have you shared any of the inheritance with anyone who might be more deserving of it than you, like maybe Daniel’s sister or aunt? No, it’s a safe bet you never contacted any of them. Danny said it was a slam dunk you’d keep it all for yourself and we didn’t have to worry about you giving any of it away.” He leaned forward in the chaise, his eyes nearly purple reflecting the shirt he was wearing. “You were attracted to me because you thought I was rolling in dough. How good do I look to you now?”

  I glared back at him, a man I had once craved so carnally that I would have done almost anything to get into his bed. The emotional roller coaster ride he had taken me on in the past months was unlike any I had experienced for years prior. My mind drifted back to the heated scene in the hallway of the Angel Hotel, and the desire I had for him in that field outside Charleston. My face flamed with heat the same way it had on those two occasions, only this time the heat was vitriolic anger. “I am so glad I never slept with you.”

  “As if you had a choice in the matter,” he taunted. “Though I really did want to fuck you, Pauline. But I never sleep where I shit.”

  This time he had gone too far. With my free hand, I plucked a Lalique cat figurine from the nightstand and hurled it at him with all my might. He ducked in time to avoid the missile and it smashed into the wall behind him, shattering into thousands of crystal shards. The noise brought Ethan running, his face puffy with sleep, his over-combed strands of hair hanging down about his ear. As he blinked himself to wakefulness, his eyes flicked from Terrance to me to the blanket of crystal on the floor.