Chapter27
SUSAN AND I were in her booth in Rialto, where she always sat, because it was quiet and you could watch people come and go. We had just taken our first sip of our first drink when Hawk showed up with Gary Eisenhower.
“That’s the best you could do for a date?” I said to Hawk.
“I just the babysitter,” Hawk said. “You tole me to bring him.”
Gary put out a hand to Susan and said, “Hi, I’m Gary.”
Susan shook his hand.
“I’m Susan,” she said.
Gary slid into the banquette next to Susan. Hawk took a chair on the outside next to me.
“So,” Gary said. “This is the main squeeze?”
“Only,” I said.
“Well,” Gary said. “You going to limit yourself to one, this is a good one.”
The waiter took their drink orders and went to get them. “You are not yourself monogamous, Gary?” Susan said.
“You know I’m not,” Gary said.
“I’d heard that,” Susan said.
“Gets me in trouble sometimes,” Gary said.
“I’d heard that, too,” Susan said.
She looked at Hawk and at me.
She said, “I think you’re pretty safe tonight, however.”
“Yeah, are these guys the best? I mean the best.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “They are.”
The waiter came to announce the specials. We listened and looked at the menu and ordered. We had a second round of drinks, except Susan. After that flurry of activity, Susan turned and smiled at Gary.
“I know it’s none of my business,” she said. “But I’ll try not to let that inhibit me. Why are you so, ah, unmonogamous?”
“Unmonogamous,” Gary said. “You got a way with words, huh?”
Susan waited.
“Unmonogamous.” He laughed. “Well, I guess I’d answer why would I be unmonogamous. I mean, if you got a whole orchard full of peaches, why would you eat just one?”
Susan smiled and nodded.
“So,” Gary said, “lemme turn it around? Why would I be monogamous?”
“I’m not necessarily arguing for monogamy,” Susan said. “Just why in your case that nonmonogamy is so all-consuming.”
“No, no,” Gary said. “You didn’t answer my question, you did one of those shrink tricks, turn it back to me. First you need to answer my question.”
“Very astute of you,” Susan said. “Did you know I was a shrink?”
“No.”
“But you’ve had experience with shrinks.”
“Enough to know bullshit when I hear it,” he said. “No offense.”
“None,” Susan said.
“So. Why are you monogamous?” Gary said.
“Because unlike peaches, whose consumption is all there is—they taste good and that’s the end of it—persons have a variety of meanings and dimensions, and surprises, and feelings. I like those things, too.”
“And not sex?” Gary said. “You don’t look like somebody would not like sex.”
Susan smiled.
“Notice the too,” she said.
“Oh, yeah,” Gary said. “That’s good, I was thinking, What a waste.”
“Nothing is wasted,” Susan said.
“Love to find out someday,” Gary said.
Hawk glanced at me. I shook my head.
“Why?” Susan said.
“Why?” Gary said. “For crissake, look at you.”
“Thanks, but that’s it, I look good?”
“Of course.”
“No other reason?” Susan said.
Gary looked at me and winked.
“Be fun to see the look on his face,” he said, and tipped his head toward me.
“Not for me,” Susan said.
“You love him,” Gary said.
“I do,” she said.
“À chacun son goût,” he said.
Chapter28
HAWK TOOK GARY home after dinner. Susan and I lingered in our booth while Susan had a cup of coffee and I didn’t. A cup of coffee at night would keep me awake until after the summer solstice.
“I know you brought me to meet Gary and see what I thought,” she said.
“And what do you think?” I said.
“Wow,” Susan said.
“Wow what?” I said.
“A clinical wow,” she said. “He’s absolutely fascinating.”
“In a clinical way,” I said.
“Absolutely,” she said. “He flirted with me the entire evening.”
“I know.”
“And he was very aware of you all the time,” Susan said.
“I noticed that,” I said.
“Sometimes you’ve been known to intervene,” Susan said.
“Not this time,” I said. “I’m kind of clinical myself.”
“Well,” Susan said. “He’s no simple matter.”
“You mean he’s not just a womanizer?” I said. “Who’s turned a hobby into a business?”
“Maybe he is,” Susan said. “People aren’t usually just one thing, though.”
“So a new theory wouldn’t necessarily replace the old one,” I said.
Susan nodded and gave me a big smile.
“So you’ve been paying attention all these years,” she said.
“I’m more than one thing, myself,” I said.
“You certainly are,” Susan said. “But think about Gary Eisenhower for a minute. What is his pattern?”
“Good-looking women with rich husbands,” I said.
“And where did Clarice Richardson fit into that pattern?”
“She’s good-looking,” I said.
“And she had a husband,” Susan said. “But not a rich one.”
“Maybe he was still perfecting his craft,” I said.
“Probably,” Susan said. “But we’ve been looking at rich, when perhaps we should be looking at husband.”
“You mean it matters to him that they’re married?’
“And maybe it matters to him that he can cuckold the husbands.”
“Which would explain why he flirted with you in front of me,” I said.
“You’re not exactly a husband, but you’d fill the role.”
“And if that’s what he’s doing,” I said, “how much more fun if he can extract money.”
“Exactly,” Susan said. “Particularly in these circumstances, when the money comes out of the husband’s pocket. Whether the husband knows it or not.”
“I’m not clear quite where Clarice fits in to this,” I said.
“No,” Susan said, “I’m not, either. There are, of course, many men whose sexual fantasies are directed at successful women, or women in authority.”
“Schoolteachers, doctors, lawyers.” I grinned at her. “Shrinks.”
“Yes.”
“Take them down a peg,” I said.
“Men like Gary often use sex to humiliate.”
“Into which need the blackmail would also pay,” I said.
“Yes. Plus, of course, the money is good as money.”
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?”
“Or sometimes it’s a cigar as well as several other things,” Susan said.
“You think the women are humiliated?” I said.
“Not necessarily,” Susan said. “It may only be in his fantasy.”
“You think all this is true of Gary?”
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “It’s a theory of the case.”
“Or several,” I said. “But they’re worth testing, I think.”
“There’s no reason to avoid the scientific method,” Susan said.
I pretended to take notes on the palm of my hand.
“Whoops,” Susan said. “I’m slipping into a lecture.”
“But gracefully,” I said.
Susan smiled.
“Anyway, it might pay off to go back over Gary’s, ah, career, and see what patterns you can find, and see if they support our theory,” she said
.
“Your theory,” I said.
“Okay. What is your theory?”
“That you may be right,” I said.
“I will also make a small bet with you,” Susan said.
“Which is?”
“He’ll call me for a date,” Susan said.
“No bet on that,” I said. “But I’ll bet you don’t accept.”
“I only date you, snookums,” Susan said. “But if I were to go out with someone else, it wouldn’t be Gary Eisenhower.”
“Because?”
“I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be about me,” Susan said.
“Is that an informed guess?” I said.
“It’s a woman’s-intuition guess,” she said.
“Good as any,” I said
She finished her coffee. I paid the check. Susan got her coat. And we left. On the stairs I put an arm around her shoulder. She looked up at me and smiled.
“ ‘Snookums’?” I said.
“I’m the only one who knows,” she said.
Chapter29
I MET BETH JACKSON for lunch in a restaurant in the Chestnut Hill Mall. She had a salad. In the spirit of the season I had a turkey sandwich.
“You’re still seeing Gary Eisenhower,” I said.
Beth was wearing a fur hat like a Russian Cossack, and she looked cuter than a body has a right to. She speared a cherry tomato from her salad and popped it into her mouth and chewed and swallowed.
“So?” she said.
“Didn’t you hire me to get him out of your life?”
“That was then,” she said. “This is now.”
“What caused the change?” I said.
She ate a piece of lettuce and pushed her plate away. She blotted her lips with her napkin. Then she folded the napkin and put it down on the table. She took some lip gloss out of her purse and touched up her lips using a small makeup mirror. Then she put that away, put her purse on the floor beside her chair, and smiled at me.
“A girl’s got a right to change her mind,” she said.
“So now you don’t want me to get him out of your life?” I said.
Her smile widened without becoming warmer. She put her hands together and touched the center of her upper lip with her steepled forefingers.
“I wanted you to get him out of everyone else’s life,” she said.
“So he could be all yours?” I said.
“Exactly,” she said.
“He’s blackmailing you,” I said.
She shrugged.
“We need the money,” she said.
“You and Gary?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “So we can be together. Chet can spare it.”
“But why join the effort to get rid of him?” I said. “Why not just stay out of it, stay with him, and collect the money that the others are paying him.”
“You think I’m the only one slipping back to him?”
“I’ve stopped trying to think,” I said. “I’m just chasing information.”
“I didn’t want anyone to suspect that I was still with him,” she said. “So I agreed to the deal with the lawyer and you. I figured I could help him, even, by being on the inside, you know?”
She was as perky as a chickadee but dumber.
“You keep seeing him,” I said, “and you may get him killed.”
“Killed? Who’s going to kill him?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure why, but I wasn’t ready to quite give Chet up yet.
She smiled.
“You think Chet would kill him? For me?”
I didn’t answer that, either.
“That’s kind of exciting,” Beth said. “Isn’t that kind of fun? Like an old-fashioned movie. You know? Men killing each other over me?”
“It’s probably less fun than it looks,” I said.
“Oh, poo,” she said. “I can handle Chet.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But maybe Gary can’t.”
“So it is Chet?”
“Might be,” I said.
Christmas carols were playing. Many people were carrying packages with Christmas wrapping. It was like being in a commercial. I looked at Beth. I could see the tip of her tongue as she ran it back and forth over her lower lip.
“Well, I’m not backing off,” she said.
“Of course not,” I said. “What’s the most interesting thing about him?”
“Interesting?”
“Unusual, maybe,” I said. “What’s different about him?”
“That’s easy. He is into it all the way.”
“Is he more intense than other men?” I said.
“He is all over you. He gets hold of you, and you better like it, because if you don’t, you’re going to have to do it anyway, you know?”
“Forceful,” I said.
She nodded.
“And you like forceful?” I said.
“Yeahhhh,” she said.
She was breathing fast, now, as if she had just run up stairs. And the tip of her tongue was running fast back and forth across her lower lip. When she spoke her voice sounded a little hoarse.
“You get off on this?” Beth said. “Talking about it?”
“Which do you like best?” I said. “Being with Gary or thinking that someone might try to kill him because of it?”
She put her steepled fingers to her mouth again and pressed and turned her head a little so that she was looking at me from the corners of her eyes.
“Both are nice,” she said.
Chapter30
MY FURTHER RESEARCH into Susan’s theories of the case began the next morning. I called Abigail Larson and asked her if she could stop by my office. She seemed happy to be asked.
She arrived about four in the afternoon dressed to the nines and smelling of martini. She arranged herself in one of my client chairs and crossed her legs. Her skirt was short.
“I thought you were off the case,” she said.
“Mostly because I have no case,” I said. “But I’m a nosy guy, and in my free time I still poke around at it.”
“Well,” she said.
“Can we talk about you and Gary a little?”
“Sure,” she said. “But first, can a girl get a martini around here?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’m a full-service gumshoe.”
“Up,” she said. “With olives.”
I went to the little alcove where I had a refrigerator and a small cabinet, and made her a martini. I served it to her in a lowball glass.
“Sorry about the glass,” I said. “I haven’t gotten around yet to specialty glassware.”
“Just so it contains alcohol,” Abigail said.
I went back around my desk and sat. She drank some martini.
“God, that’s good,” she said. “I like a man that can make a good martini.”
“Me, too,” I said.
She didn’t need a drink. She was drunk when she arrived. On the other hand, drunks are often talkative. The martini I gave her was big.
“Could I ask you some stuff about your sex life with Gary?”
“Well, aren’t you quite the voyeur,” she said.
She pronounced “quite” like “quit.”
“It’s an incidental benefit,” I said. “Is there anything about Gary’s behavior during sex that stands out in your memory.”
“Hoo,” she said. “You go right to it, don’t you?”
“I do,” I said.
“Turn you on to talk about it?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s talk about it and see.”
“Men are weird,” she said.
“You bet,” I said. “What was there about him during sex that made him different, unusual, whatever?”
“Like was he big or not?” she said.
“Anything that seemed different from other men,” I said.
“I had a lot other men, ya know,” she said.
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “How was Gary different.”
&
nbsp; She uncrossed her legs and slumped a little in the chair while she thought, or tried to. Her legs were straight out in front of her. The short skirt crept up her thighs a little higher.
“John . . . husband . . . just lays there, makes me do all the work, you know?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Gary, he grabs hold of you . . .”
“And does the work?”
“Yes . . . no . . . holds me down, like . . .”
She stopped and looked at me blankly for a moment, then closed her eyes and began to slide slowly out of the chair. I got out around the desk in time to keep her off the floor, although her skirt was up around her waist. I got my arms around her under the arms, and got her up and sort of waltzed her slowly across my office toward the couch. She tried to kiss me as we went, and got the side of my mouth. I got her there and down onto the couch and straightened her legs, and pulled down her skirt.
Then I went back to my desk and got out a yellow pad and made a couple of notes. So far I had learned several things. Abigail Larson was a boozer. Her husband was not a sexual athlete. She bought lingerie at La Perla. None of which seemed very useful. But it was all I was going to get today. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but sit with her until she woke up. Which eventually she did. But she didn’t feel chatty. And I sent her home in a cab.
Chapter31
IN THE NEXT couple of days I talked with the rest of the gang of four and learned more than I ever wanted to know about having sex with Gary Eisenhower.
“It was like a rape fantasy sometimes,” Nancy said.
“And you didn’t mind?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I’ve told you what I’m like.”
“So you enjoyed the fantasy,” I said.
She was silent a moment. Then, in a small voice, she said, “Yes.”
Later I talked with Susan about it.
“None of that seems very enlightening,” she said.
“Not to me. I was hoping it would to you.”
Susan shook her head.
“About the rape fantasy thing?” I said.
“That was Nancy Sinclair?”
“Yeah.”
“I suspect that tells us more about Nancy than it does about Gary,” Susan said.
“Maybe he is just what he seems to be,” I said.
“A happy-go-lucky cockhound?” Susan said.
The Professional Page 8
