Cockpit (30 page)

Soon, the four of us stood in front of my apartment door. Slowly unlocking one lock after another, I remarked that from the inside the door could be opened only by someone who knew the combinations. This, I added jokingly, should keep them from attempting anything foolish with me. I let the three of them enter first. Shutting the door behind us, I secured the locks. During the brief moment that we were in darkness, I smelled the men’s unwashed clothes and sensed their nervousness. Then I drew the curtains apart and turned on the lights.

The derelicts saw Veronika sitting as I had left her, blinking at us in the sudden glare. They stared at her slyly with downcast eyes, like dogs who’ve been regularly whipped. I came closer, patted her head and looked into her face. When I removed the tape from her mouth, she told me she was thirsty and a little dizzy. I mockingly introduced her to our guests, and they smiled sheepishly, unsure of themselves. After I invited them to help themselves to a drink,
they rushed to the bar. A pungent odor of brandy spread through the room.

I gave Veronika a stiff shot of vodka, making sure that she drank it all. She demanded that I untie her, and I told her that our guests would do that. While I set up the spotlights and loaded the cameras, the men, still gulping liquor, watched me, waiting for instructions. I told them to take off all their clothes, and, when they started for the bathroom door, I suggested they strip in front of the girl.

The derelicts began undressing clumsily, embarrassed that Veronika and I were not joining them. They hesitated before they took off their trousers, but finally stood nude before us, their naked flesh more fetid than it had been when clothed in rancid rags.

I began snapping pictures of them posed around Veronika. Then I suggested they begin. I reminded them that she didn’t mind being roughed up. Veronika grew pale. She watched our every move. They hesitated a moment, then set about untying the cords. The white man approached Veronika first. As she stared at him he grew excited. With a twist of his mouth that resembled a grin, he grabbed her hair, yanked back her head and forced his mouth on hers. He drew her up out of the chair and raised her skirt. In one quick move, he thrust his hand up into her. She arched her back, writhing; her whole body tensed, pinned by the man’s mouth at one end and by his fist at the other.

Now the other two men moved in. They threw her down on the carpet. All three of them swarmed all over her, licking and squeezing. I climbed on the desk and took pictures from above. The spotlights shone on her hair, on the embroidery, of her dress, on the derelicts’ gaunt bodies. The men’s arms moved over her like skeletons’ limbs, peeling off her clothes until she was naked and spread-eagled on her back, her arms flailing at the three scrofulous heads that eagerly bent over her.

Looking at her naked body, the men momentarily
stopped as if shocked. But they quickly regained their courage. Their hands ran tentatively over the length of her body, stroking Veronika’s flanks with their fingers. They played with her as though she were a small girl, passing her gently from one to the other. They rocked her in their arms, caressing, sniffing and kissing her, pressing their mottled chests against her belly and buttocks. As the alcohol built their courage, they began nibbling at her nipples. They sucked and chewed on her flesh, their bloody gums studded with a few broken teeth. Like leeches, they seemed to be drawing nourishment from her. When one of the bums bit her, short spasms shook his emaciated frame.

Two of the men turned Veronika sideways, and, steadying each other with their hands, squeezed into her simultaneously from the front and rear. Her harsh moans rose to a howl of pain. Quickly, the third man twisted her toward him, straddled her narrow chest, and pinned her arms and breasts under his buttocks. Her face framed by his spindly thighs, his scrawny hands on her chin and forehead, he plied her jaws open and filled her with his flesh. The screams subsided into a gagged silence. I moved in for close-ups.

The men were spent. They looked to me for further instructions. I suggested the bathroom treatment. They grinned, grabbed her by her hands and legs and dragged her, like a marionette, into the bathroom.

I heard their snickering mingled with Veronika’s pleas, their wheezing and her retching, then silence, then again shrieks.

Then it was over. The men, exhausted and giddy, dressed quickly, as though anxious to leave before I changed my mind and punished them. Each one seemed relieved when I gave him his wages. I turned off the spotlights, picked up Veronika’s clothes and handbag and went into the bathroom. She was lying in the tub, shivering and moaning, her eyes open but unfocused, her face, belly and
thighs smeared with dirt. When I leaned over her, she uttered a short cry, then struggled to get up on her unsteady legs. She stretched and turned on the shower. I left her alone, locking the door after me.

I escorted the men down the service elevator and put them into a cab, which would deposit them where I had found them. After I returned to the apartment, I was surprised to see how quickly Veronika had pulled herself together. She had stopped shaking and her make-up was artfully applied. I told her I had arranged the session to give her a hint of what diversions I planned for her if she decided to cut me off. I suggested that she have herself checked for disease, making certain that her doctor was discreet. Now she was free to leave, I said, but she would hear from me soon. As I opened the door for her, she looked at me and said she would never forget her blind dates.

I called her house the following week. She was out. I called several times. She was never there. It was obvious she wanted nothing further to do with me.

I began trailing her. Although she took great precautions against being followed, such as changing taxis two or three times and walking several blocks out of her way, I traced her repeatedly to the apartment of a sculptor, a young man who had recently arrived from Europe. In the trade, he was considered an untalented fraud. He would present his smaller sculptures to various society and show-business people who were known collectors, then use their letters of acknowledgment to claim that his trash had become part of their permanent collections. As he could hardly be earning a living from the few sales he made, I assumed Veronika was supporting him.

I decided to visit the sculptor while Veronika and her husband were abroad. I noticed a maintenance crew working on various floors of the building the sculptor lived in, and one day, just after they all left for lunch, I put on a pair
of overalls, picked up a spatula and a bucket of cement, and arrived in his studio claiming to be sent by the management to fix the cracks in the floor of the terrace. The sculptor led me out through a large studio full of partly chiseled blocks of stone. On a table near the window stood a framed photograph of Veronika. When I finished patching up the terrace, he offered me a beer, and, as I drank it, I wandered over toward the photograph, commenting on how pretty the lady in it was.

I began talking about women. I said that the day before, when I had been doing some work in the apartment of a beautiful woman, a model, I had overheard her tell someone on the phone that the man she had been seeing had left her. I couldn’t understand, I said, why some men desert gorgeous women so easily. I told him I wished I were dashing enough to console the model, who certainly seemed to want and need a man. The sculptor casually asked where she lived. I gave him an address, finished my beer and left.

I quickly called the girl with whom I had made an arrangement. I described the sculptor and asked her to encourage his advances. She reported the following day that he had come by on a flimsy pretext. I told her to get him away from his apartment for a whole night. When I phoned the next afternoon, I got her answering service: she had left a message for me that she would be gone overnight, which meant she had been successful and the sculptor would not be spending the night in his apartment.

I entered his apartment around one in the morning and went through his file cabinets, his desk, his closets. In one drawer, I found his personal diary. Reading it, I discovered that Veronika had met the man when she was a student in Europe. He had been her first lover, and their affair had continued over the years. It was through her husband’s political contacts that Veronika had arranged for the artist’s emigration. In a separate folder were Veronika’s letters and postcards, all written in Flemish, which I
read with only slight difficulty. They were recent and had been sent from abroad. I flipped through them until I came across a letter dated a few months earlier. In it she described how easy it was to convince the world that her husband had given her the power to run his estate, and unlimited access to his family’s wealth. No one suspected, she wrote, that in reality neither she nor he had control of the estate yet.

She mentioned with pride that she had commissioned a well-known city reporter, who had already published articles about her, to write an illustrated book about her and her husband’s life, their houses and their guests. In addition, she bragged, several publishers would gladly bid huge sums for the rights to her still unwritten novel. It was obvious to them, she claimed, that the book would succeed because of her power and fame. She hinted that she expected her novel to create a scandal, since one of its characters would be clearly modeled on a potential presidential candidate with whom she was intimately involved, and the book would have many passages that dealt with his unusual sexual appetites. She went on to describe the fringe benefits of fame: hairdressers who dropped other appointments to accommodate her whims and charged her only nominal fees in exchange for the privilege of listing her among their clients, couturiers who gave her absurd discounts because they considered her a walking advertisement. But, she wrote her lover, she was lonely. She did not bother to hide her contempt for her husband. The entire middle section of the letter was devoted to a recurring dream in which her husband died in a ski accident, leaving her free and rich.

When, almost as an afterthought, she mentioned that her husband had drawn up a new will naming her the chief beneficiary, I realized that what she was describing in minute detail was no dream, but a murder plot, or at least an incitement to murder. It occurred to me that if her husband was murdered there would be an investigation of her
earlier life, in which I had played a part. I folded the letter, put it in my jacket pocket and left the apartment.

A few weeks later, I read of plans for a political dinner to raise money for the incumbent vice president’s presidential campaign. The tickets were several hundred dollars apiece, and Veronika’s husband was listed on the organizing committee.

At the candidate’s headquarters, I introduced myself to the chairwoman as a man of independent means who was an enthusiastic supporter of the vice president. I was planning to make a substantial contribution and was looking forward to the dinner. I added that in recent years I was often abroad, and was somewhat out of touch. As an afterthought, I mentioned to her the name of Veronika’s husband and asked if, since I planned to attend the dinner alone, she would be kind enough to seat me at his table. I was anxious to meet him, I continued, since he was a pillar of the community and, like myself, a known admirer of the candidate. The woman immediately telephoned the office of Veronika’s husband and asked if there was room at his table for a personal friend of hers who was also a generous supporter of the candidate. She was told he would be delighted to have me at his table and would arrange for an extra place.

The night of the dinner, affluent guests in tuxedos and evening gowns flocked to the hotel to honor the vice president. Security men were everywhere, and my name and ticket number were matched against the guest list twice before I was permitted to enter the ballroom. Once inside, I was led to my table by an usher.

Veronika and her husband had not yet arrived. I introduced myself to the people already at the table and sat in one of the three unoccupied chairs. Spotlights followed governmental dignitaries as they pushed through the crowd to their tables. Then I saw Veronika, her hair cascading onto her bare shoulders. I hardly noticed the husband walking at her side.

Just as they reached our table, the vice president entered. The guests stood up and applauded wildly. Veronika and her husband remained standing with their backs to the table, applauding with the rest. I tapped Veronika’s husband on the shoulder and introduced myself as the man who had been mentioned to him by the chairwoman, and whom he had so graciously invited to his table. After greeting me very cordially, he called to Veronika. She turned toward me, smiling, her hand outstretched, but when she saw who I was, she blanched. I thanked her for including me at their table and she forced a smile.

During the speeches, I leaned over and whispered that I wanted her to visit me the next day. She sipped her wine and did not respond. I mentioned that I had recently come into possession of a letter in which she outlined the plans for her husband’s murder. If he died mysteriously, I would supply the police with the letter, as well as with additional information about her past. She would certainly be convicted of murder.

Playing with her wine glass, she whispered that she could afford the best lawyers. Circumstantial evidence might prove her guilt, but she would never be convicted. Moreover, she would exploit the trial, monopolizing the media and exciting the world’s imagination. The case would be priceless publicity for her budding literary career. She had worked hard on her image, she continued, and a trial would only magnify her status. Vindicated and triumphant, she would be free to do anything she pleased. As the waiters served dessert and coffee, there was a short break in the speeches. Everyone at the table began talking.

When attention was again focused on the podium, Veronika informed me that her intention was not to kill but to divorce her husband, as he was about to come into the balance of his trust. She reminded me that she did not intend to repeat the precedents of her previous divorces. This time she would have top legal counsel. She had no doubt that her settlement would run into millions. She remarked
that she was already romantically linked by the columnists to a powerful senator with an excellent chance for the presidential nomination of the opposite party.