A Moment in Time (8 page)

"I'm sick and tired of the whole mess,"
Arielle went on. "I just want it over with, and I thought he did,
too. It's time we both got on with our lives, you know? Even all
the therapists say so. This isn't doing either one of us any
good."

"I hear what you're saying," Santo said. He
looked over at Wyn again and saw a twisted smile on his lips.
He's really enjoying this
, Santo thought.
Sick
fucker
. He cleared his voice. "I'll do what I can,
Arielle."

"Please do, Santo," she whined. "I mean, I
always thought we were friends, you and me, and I really need your
help." Her voice choked up again.

Was it real?
Wyn wondered with
amusement.
Or had her acting abilities improved?

"Oh, Jesus!" she managed to cry. "If you only
knew! They started to turn off the electricity today. It's that
bad."

"I told you, Arielle," he said, "I'll do what
I can. I promise you that."

"Well. . . thanks, Santo," she whimpered
girlishly. "Talk to you later. Ciao."

They heard her hang up, and Santo reached
over and turned off the speaker. The room was once again silent but
for the collective breathing of the dogs. It was momentary,
however.

"Of all the women I had back in those days,"
Wyn said ruefully, "I had to go and pick Arielle. What a joke." He
began to laugh. It was a laugh that began somewhere deep down
within him, gradually swelling up and out, filling the room with a
roar. It was an evil sound, this laugh, and Santo turned and stared
at his boss as did the wolfhounds.

He looks like a man possessed,
Santo
thought, almost mesmerized by Wyn's gleeful laugh.
Possessed by
a demon straight from hell.
Sometimes lately, he'd begun to
think that Wyn really had gone off the deep end.

Santo stared out through the French doors
toward the swimming pool in the distance. He didn't want to be a
witness to a scene that was, to his mind, sick, even perverse. It
made him feel somehow unclean and stirred something deep down
inside him, something frightening and inexplicable in his own
nature that he'd yet to face.

When Wyn had at last exhausted his well of
laughter, he got to his feet and padded over to a big Sicilian
rococo gilt console. On its marble top were dozens of
bottles—liquor, wine, seltzer, tonic, mixers, soda, and mineral
water—a sterling ice bucket, and crystal glasses of every kind. He
picked up a large crystal glass, plopped a few ice cubes in with
tongs, and poured himself a glass of mineral water. He took a slice
of lime from an ornate silver bowl and squeezed it into the drink,
then tossed it in. Taking a crisp linen cocktail napkin from the
stack that was replenished daily by Gerda, his Austrian housekeeper
and cook, he nestled the glass in it, then turned to look at Santo.
He took a sip of his water, staring at the giant's back across the
room.

"You don't like it, do you, Santo?"

"Like what?" Santo said without turning
around.

"This divorce business," Wyn said. "Making
sure the monthly support checks are late and all that."

"It's none of my business."

"Then make it your business," Wyn said. "Tell
me what you think."

Santo turned around and looked over at his
boss. He could hardly make out Wyn's face at all beneath the cap.
"Well, if I were you," he said, "number one, I'd send her monthly
support check out. I could overnight it, you know. Number two," he
went on, "I think you ought to go ahead and sign the papers and get
this whole thing over with. You're spending a fortune on the
lawyers as it is, and there's no advantage in dragging it out any
longer."

"Oh, yes, there is," Wyn said with
merriment.

"What?"

"It makes the bitch that much more
miserable," Wyn said.

Santo sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well . . .
yes," he agreed. "But—"

"Shut up, Santo," Wyn said. He took a long,
leisurely swallow of the mineral water. "I'll sign the papers when
I get good and ready. She's just in a hurry because she wants the
settlement check."

He walked over to the table beside the wing
chair and picked up the unlit cigarette from the ashtray, then
stuck it in his mouth. "And she's in a hurry for the settlement
check not only because she's a greedy little bitch but because she
wants to tie the knot with that South American dude with the big
equipment."

Santo sat down in the chair behind Wyn's
desk. "Are you just pissed off and trying to punish her because
she's found somebody she wants to marry?" he asked.

Wyn looked at him. "Maybe." He nodded. "That
and a lot of other things."

"I still think you ought to let it go," Santo
said. "It'd be the best thing for both of you. Get the whole thing
over with. Besides, you know she's going to marry him no matter
what."

"Maybe," Wyn agreed. "But I want to watch
them squirm a little while longer." He smiled widely, a smile that
even Santo could see from across the room. "It'll be interesting to
see if her stud decides to stick around or vamoose for richer
territory."

"Maybe they're really in love," Santo
suggested.

"Aw, Jesus, Santo," Wyn said with
exasperation. "They're both like sharks on the prowl, seeing what
they can finagle out of each other. Sometimes I think you're as
stupid as you are ugly. Love!" He barked a laugh. "Sex and money
make the world go around," he said, pointing a finger at Santo.
"Love's got nothing to do with it, my friend. And don't you forget
it."

Santo stared at him, then cleared his throat.
"I'm not ugly."

"Yeah, well, I didn't mean that," Wyn said.
"What I meant was . . . menacing. You look menacing."

Santo smiled. "Menacing," he said, as if
tasting the word on his tongue. "I like that. Yeah, I can deal with
that. Menacing."

"I would hope so," Wyn said. "It's one of the
reasons you work for me." He got to his feet and stretched. "What
time is it?"

Santo looked at the gold Rolex on his wrist,
a gift from Wyn. "About ten."

"It's time," Wyn said.

Santo nodded. "I'll be right back." He rose
to his feet and strode in a ripple of muscles out of the
library.

Wyn walked over to one of the French doors
and stood gazing out at the pool, thoughts of Arielle swirling in
his head. Paddy, one of the wolfhounds, bounded off the couch and
edged up to his side, nuzzling him. Wyn idly stroked the massive
dog's head.

"She may be a beauty, Paddy," he said
thoughtfully, "but she's also a bitch. And she's got it coming to
her . . . anything I dish out. She's got it coming to her."

Santo returned to the library. In one hand he
gripped a black leather bag that he placed on the desk. He opened
it and extracted a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a paper packet
containing a cotton swab. Setting them aside, he delved back into
the bag and withdrew a glass, rubber-topped medicine bottle and a
still- packaged disposable syringe and needle.

From the French doors, Wyn turned and watched
as Santo tore the wrapper off the syringe, then inserted the needle
in the rubber-topped glass container. The syringe filled with a
colorless fluid. When Santo was finished, he looked over at
Wyn.

Wyn walked to the desk, loosened his
sweatpants, and pulled down his jockstrap. He put both hands on the
desk and bent over, exposing his bare buttocks to the air. He
jerked involuntarily as the cold alcohol hit his ass, then
gradually relaxed. He didn't tense up when he felt a prick of pain
as the needle plunged in. He waited a moment, the breath caught in
his throat, and there it was. That almost instantaneous—he was
always amazed that it only took mere seconds—feeling that washed
over him as the drug's powerful effect began to work on his
body.

As he straightened up, he could feel himself
already begin to drift. He bent down and pulled up his jockstrap
and sweatpants. Then he turned around, his eyes blinking slowly as
they swept the magnificence of the mahogany-paneled library. Santo
came to his side, and a faint smile touched Wyn's lips.

He began walking, slowly and deliberately,
toward the spiral stairs that led up to the balcony, which ran
around three walls of the library. When he reached the balcony, he
went through a hidden jib door built into the balcony bookcases,
and on down a hallway to his bedroom. Santo was right behind him,
shadowing his every step, following him to the bedroom, to make
certain he got there.

Even before they reached the darkness of his
inner sanctum, Wyn felt himself begin to float, detaching from this
place as if he were a balloon let loose to drift in the sky.
Floating above it all up to a better place, a place with no pain, a
place with no harsh realities. Floating, floating.

Chapter Five

Teddy de Mornay was comfortably sprawled in
the office desk chair at Apple Hill Farm, his feet propped up on
the desk. There was a glint of mischief in his eyes as he hung up
the telephone, and he smiled widely when Lydia Parsons, his
part-time secretary, click-clacked into the office on zebra-print
stiletto heels.

"Hey, Lydia," he said. "How are you this
morning?"

Lydia Parsons, her hair dyed a flaming red
and set in huge swirls that looked as if they'd been fixed in place
with cement, returned his smile, revealing big, yellowing teeth.
"I'm fine, Teddy," she said. Her eyes narrowed as she looked down
at his feet on the desk. "I see you've been out riding this
morning."

"Yep," he replied, knocking his cowboy boots
together.

"What's the big occasion?" she asked, knowing
he despised horses.

"Oh, you know Val," he replied. "She claims
old Kaiser doesn't get enough exercise and says I ought to ride him
more."

"Aha," Lydia exclaimed. "So you're trying to
impress your honey, doing all these things you hate to do."

"Huh," Teddy grunted noncommitally, although
trying to please Valerie was exactly what he'd been doing. He'd
gotten up early this morning, put on worn cowboy boots and old
Levi's, and taken a short ride up into the hills. It had been
beautiful, and he'd hated every single minute of it.

"Bet you two had fun this weekend," Lydia
said with a lewd wink.

"That, too."

"Good," she said. "Because you've got a busy
week ahead of you."

"What's up?" he asked.

She walked over to her desk and picked up a
clipboard. "Let's see," she began. "Today we've got the pool
cleaners. No big deal. The nursery guys are coming to do some
general garden maintenance and see about that big maple that was
struck by lightning. Then the painter's supposed to be here to do
an estimate on painting the guest house, but that's Sammy Burke—"
she looked over at him meaningfully—"so you never know if the son
of a bitch will show up. He might be on a bender."

Teddy laughed.

She looked down at the clipboard again. "Then
there's a stack of paperwork to sign, a bunch of checks to get out,
some money transfers to take care of . . ."

"Never mind," Teddy said testily. He reached
over and unceremoniously jerked the clipboard out of her hands,
failing to notice the bright purple nail polish with little gold
stars she'd had applied at the mall beauty parlor over the
weekend.

Lydia stared at him, one hand on a hip, as he
perused the clipboard briefly, then tossed it on the desk.

"Damn," he said. "There's a lot to do. And
I've got to have dinner with Mrs. de la Rochelle to boot."

"Well. . . ," Lydia said, brushing imaginary
lint off of her leopard-print blouse, "there's nothing here that I
can't handle by myself, Teddy. Except for signing some of the
paperwork. You could do that later or tomorrow. You don't have to
stick around."

Teddy looked off into the distance, then back
up at Lydia, really seeing her for the first time this morning.
She looks like a circus clown
, he thought uncharitably.
All that makeup: blue eyeshadow, red, red rouge, purplish
lipstick. Big red hair. And those clothes! Leopard blouse with
tiger skirt. Lots of cheap costume jewelry. Zebra-print stiletto
heels with little leopard bows. She's sixty going on
sixteen.

He kept his thoughts to himself, however,
because Lydia Parsons was an ace secretary, a great organizer, knew
everybody in the area, and was fearless. She could get almost
anything she wanted out of anybody. Plus, she was utterly devoted
to him, and, he was certain, would hop into the old sack with him
at a moment's notice. Not that he wanted her. God, no.

"Do you think you could hold down the fort
for the next couple of hours?" he asked at last. "Just till after
lunch, say?"

Lydia laughed good-naturedly, bending over
his desk, exposing a couple of inches of cleavage. "Sure," she
said. "It's done." She eyed him fondly—and conspiratorially. "You
never could keep that thing in your pants, could you, Teddy?"

He shrugged. "Why should I?"

"Never was a truer word spoken," she
countered with a cackle.

He got to his feet, leaned down, and planted
a noisy kiss on Lydia's cheek. "You're an angel from heaven," he
said, tapping her on her ample butt.

"And you're the devil from hell," she
retorted. "But I love you anyway."

"See you in a bit," he said, already heading
out to his car.

"Yeah," she said. "See you." She watched
through the window as he hopped into his silver Jaguar convertible
and fired it up. The top was down, and as he drove off, his blond
hair was tossed about in the wind.

Jeez
, she thought,
he is a vision.
I wouldn't mind a little of that myself
. But she knew better
than to pursue it because she and Teddy had a good thing going as
it was. Strictly business. And sometimes, Lydia had decided wisely,
that was the best way to keep things.
Besides
, she thought,
a smile of wicked pleasure on her purple lips,
I've got Randy,
and he's more than enough for one woman to handle. Twenty-three
years old and just full of energy!