Hot Shot (23 page)

Angela's face softened. "Young and a rebel. What a time I've had with him."

The pain of her confrontation with Joel had overridden her curiosity about Angela's strange revelation. Now she remembered it. "His father… ?"

"Frank Gamble was a decent man, I guess. But he didn't have any imagination."

Susannah's hand stilled on the lettuce. She hadn't expected to hear about Frank Gamble.

What about Elvis?

Angela began unwrapping the deli packages. "I had to marry him because I was a good Italian girl who had gotten herself in trouble, if you understand what I mean. But we didn't have too much in common. And when Sammy was a teenager, Frank was always screaming at him about being a hippie and a bum, and Sammy kept running away. It was terrible. I loved Sammy a lot more than I ever loved Frank. When Frank left me for another woman a few years ago, I was actually relieved, although whenever I went to Altar Society meetings, I pretended I was broken up about it since I'm Catholic."

"I see." Susannah quartered a cucumber as she tried to put it all together.

"Of course, it was hard having Frank run off with somebody in her twenties, especially when my boobs were starting to sag and my face didn't look as good as it used to. I was so pretty when I was in my twenties," she said dreamily. And then she gave a self-conscious laugh. "Listen to me. You'd think I was ready for the grave instead of just hitting my prime. You want to know about Elvis, don't you?"

"Not if you don't want to tell me."

"I don't mind. It's just—Sammy hates it when I talk about him. I know I should have kept my mouth shut out there in the garage, but your father was—pardon my French—acting like a real bastard."

"He's not like that all the time. I'm afraid I've hurt him pretty badly."

"Sammy hurts me all the time, but I don't ever go after him like that."

Tears welled in Susannah's eyes. She blinked them away and briskly rinsed off a tomato.

"When did you meet Mister—uhm, Elvis?"

"Every once in a while during the fifties, I used to drive down to L.A. and work as an extra. I got a job on
Love Me Tender
. It was Elvis's first starring role, and every female extra in the world wanted to work on that film. Luckily, I had this friend in the business who had a friend. Anyway, it all worked out." She nibbled absentmindedly on a sliver of Swiss cheese. "All I have to do is shut my eyes and I can see him right now singing the title song." She began humming "Love Me Tender."

Something didn't seem right to Susannah. Sam was twenty-four. He had been born in 1952. Surely Elvis wasn't starring in movies that early. "When was that film made?"

"I'm not too good with dates. I met him for the first time much earlier than that anyway.

In—I guess—'fifty-one. I went to Nashville with a girlfriend. Elvis was called the Hillbilly Cat then, and he was getting ready to sign his first record contract. You should have seen him. Young and sexy, with those eyelids drooping down and his hair all greased back. Don't get me wrong, Susannah. I was a good girl. I always went to mass. I even thought about being a nun for a while. But with Elvis, it was sort of holy anyway.

Do you want hard-boiled egg in your salad?"

"Fine—anything," Susannah said distractedly.

"You really love him, don't you?"

For a second Susannah thought Angela was talking about Elvis, and then she realized the subject had shifted back to Sam.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"You're not too much alike."

"I know."

"Suzie, be careful with Sammy. He's different. He doesn't see the world the same way as everybody else. You're really a nice girl, and I don't want him to hurt you."

Angela's warning made Susannah uneasy, but when she went out to the garage a few hours later and found Sam hard at work, she was so glad to see him that she pushed it to the back of her mind. They worked side by side for a while. Finally, she asked him about Angela's claim that he was Elvis Presley's son.

"It's a lie," he said brusquely. "Something she invented around the time she got divorced.

Whenever she talks about it, her story changes. The dates never match up. Just forget about it, will you? I don't want to talk about it anymore."

She didn't press him, and sometime around midnight, he pulled her into the deserted interior of the Pretty Please Beauty Salon, where they made love in the shampoo chair.

Afterwards, Susannah realized that neither of them had thought to lock the door, but since Angela had gone to bed hours before, she supposed it didn't really matter much. Yank was still in the garage, of course, but Yank didn't count. He wouldn't have noticed if they had made love right on top of his workbench.

Chapter 12

"The old man's playing with his toys again."

The two FBT grounds keepers, one plump and soft, the other thin and wiry, leaned on their shovels and gazed over at the seven obelisk-shaped fountains in the reflecting pond at the Castle. One by one, they stopped sending their silvery streamers of water into the air. But before the ripples in the pond had stilled, the columns of water began flowing again, rising systematically from the first fountain to the last.

"Man, I'd like to have his job," the heavier of the two men commented as he watched the water catch the light, recede, and then catch the light again. "Sit around in an air-conditioned office all day, play with a bunch of fountains, and pull in a couple million a year."

They began digging again, only to stop and look curiously back at the reflecting pond.

Instead of the systematic ebb and flow they were accustomed to, the fountains had begun going on and off in a quirky, random fashion neither had witnessed before. The effect was eerie and vaguely disquieting, turning the smooth pond water choppy and gray. "The old man must be having a bad day." "What's he got to feel bad about? Shit, man. If I had his money, I'd be dancin' in the streets."

The center four fountains abruptly stopped, as if someone had slammed a fist in the middle of the panel of control switches. The grounds keepers watched for a moment and then went back to their shovels.

Joel swiveled his desk chair so that he was no longer looking through the window at the reflecting pond. He had once been so proud of the FBT fountains. When he had controlled the switches, he had felt as if he were somehow controlling the continent each fountain represented: Europe brought to life with a flick of his hand, South America firmly under his rule, North America beating at the heart of his mighty kingdom. Even Asia had seemed to fall under his power. He had felt like a king in command of the world.

Now he merely felt tired.

The nagging pain in his chest was back. He could barely comprehend what had happened in that squalid little garage. She should have been repentant. She should have begged him to take her back. Instead she had asked him to
understand
. As if he could understand something so sordid.

The buzz of the intercom interrupted his thoughts, and his secretary announced Cal. Joel straightened in his chair at the same time that he pretended to turn his attention to the papers on his desk. It wouldn't do for Cal to see that anything was wrong. Not that Joel didn't trust Cal. He did. Cal was like the son he'd never had—smart, ambitious, and just as ruthless as he had been himself at that age. But the basic rule of maintaining power was not to let anyone, no matter how close he might be, see your weakness.

"I need to go to Rio next week," Cal said after they had exchanged greetings. He took a cup of coffee from Joel's secretary and, settling into a comfortable leather wing chair across from the desk, began to fill Joel in on their negotiations with the Brazilians.

As Joel listened, he was acutely conscious of Cal's appearance. The younger man was professionally attired in the FBT uniform: a dark blue suit, custom-made white shirt, and silk rep tie. His wing tips were polished to a sheen, his hair neatly trimmed. Joel had always found the white streak that ran through the center of Cal's hair too flamboyant, but he couldn't really blame Cal for that. All in all, he couldn't help comparing him to the long-haired thug who had carried off his daughter on the back of a motorcycle, a man who was purported to be the illegitimate offspring of Elvis Presley. He raged against the humiliation of Susannah keeping company with a person like that.

The discussion came to an end. Joel toyed with the edge of one of the binders on his desk.

"I had our security people make some inquiries about Susannah," he said carefully, "and then I went to see her yesterday." He couldn't bring himself to mention that she had been shampooing hair.

Cal's jaw tightened, but other than that he showed no reaction. His self-control made Joel uneasy, perhaps because he no longer felt as much in command of himself as he used to.

But his uneasiness might have been caused by something else, some wayward sense of protectiveness toward his ungrateful daughter, which Cal's barely repressed hostility was triggering. The thought infuriated him, and his voice hardened.

"She and that hoodlum she's living with have actually found someone naive enough to order that ridiculous machine they're working on—an electronics dealer in the Valley. It's a small business with shaky credit."

"I see." The room grew quiet. Cal's cup clinked delicately against his saucer. "From what you've told me, they don't sound much more professional than kids running a Kool-Aid stand." The leather seat cushion of the chair wheezed softly as he shifted his weight.

"Amateurs run into so many catastrophes when they do business with each other."

It was exactly the tack Joel had expected Cal to take, but he still couldn't suppress a growing feeling of uneasiness.

Cal went on. "If their operation is that tenuous, the smallest setback will finish them. This fellow who ordered their little toy, for example. If he backed out, they would find it impossible to recover."

"
If he
backed out."

"It's difficult to imagine what someone like that might not be prepared to give up for a chance to do business with FBT."

Cal had finally made his point—one that Joel had already considered. He was surprised at the vehemence of his response. "No. I don't want any interference. None, do you understand?"

A muscle ticked just beneath Cal's cheekbone. "I'm a bit surprised."

"That's because you're not quite as perceptive as I thought you were. You didn't understand how unhappy Susannah was, for example."

Cal's expression grew wooden. Joel's attack had obviously surprised him, but not nearly as much as it surprised Joel. Was he actually making excuses for Susannah? He immediately backstepped. "Not that I'm blaming you, of course. Still, I don't want any interference."

For the first time, Cal let his bitterness show. "You're obviously more forgiving than I. I suppose that isn't surprising. You're her father, after all."

Joel thought of the way Susannah had let Gamble put his hand on her breast, and a rush of righteous outrage hit him anew. "Forgiveness has nothing to do with it. By God, Susannah is going to suffer the consequences of what she's done! Judging by what I saw yesterday, it's only a matter of time before they fail. But when it happens, I want her to know she did it to herself. Do you understand me? We do this my way, Cal. I won't give her a convenient scapegoat. I don't want her to be able to believe for one minute that she could have succeeded if we hadn't interfered."

Some of Joel's tension eased. Susannah just needed more time, that was all. It had only been a few weeks. By going to see her yesterday, he had rushed things. Once the reality of her sordid new life set in, her desire to rebel would fade and she would come running back to him.

He saw that Cal still looked wary. Did Cal sense his ambivalence where Susannah was concerned? He returned Cal's gaze steadily and steered the conversation into safer waters.

"Paige said you invited her to dinner at the yacht club on Saturday."

"Yes," Cal replied smoothly. "I'm enjoying her company very much."

#

I can't… get no… sa tis… fac tion…

Paige kept her eyes shut, waiting for it to be over. It was creepy being in bed with Cal.

She didn't even know why she had let it get this far, except Conti had called her today to tell her he was going back East, and he had cried on the phone.

Cal stiffened, then relaxed. For a moment, she wondered what was wrong, then she realized that small spasm had marked his orgasm. He had made no sound—he had barely inconvenienced her. Apparently Cal was always well-behaved, even when he came.

As she eased herself out of bed and went into his bronze and gold bathroom, she was grateful that he had gotten it over with quickly. Maybe Cal didn't enjoy sex any more than she did. It was a tantalizing idea, and later, when they were dressed and he was driving her home, she decided to test it.

"I don't think it's a good idea for us to sleep together again, Cal. It's a little too weird."

The headlights from an approaching car caused an angular pattern to pass over his face.

"You're quite sensitive, Paige. I never realized that until tonight." Incredibly, he reached over and patted her knee. The gesture was comforting rather than sexual. "I don't want to speak out of turn, but I know it can't be entirely easy for you at Falcon Hill. I respect Joel more than any man in the world, but he's not the easiest man to please."

His sympathy and understanding touched her. "No, he's not." Then she said bitterly,

"Especially since I'm not his precious Susannah."

His expression stiffened as it always did when she mentioned her sister's name.

Sometimes she did it deliberately, just so she could watch the way his lips tightened.

"Susannah manipulated him," he said. "But then, she manipulated all of us, didn't she?

When I think how she used to talk about you… the lies and distortions she spouted behind your back. The worst of it is, I believed her." He glanced over at her. "I'm sorry for that, Paige. I feel as if I owe you something. If we're not going to be lovers, at least I'd like for us to be friends. Do you think that's possible?"