Judith Krantz (55 page)

“Mike probably realized, somewhere down deep, that Mr. White would have made arrangements to have the will transferred to safekeeping. Your Mr. White sounds like a very practical man to me.”

“Oh, that he is. He told me to get a lawyer. Why do I need a lawyer?”

“You’re an heiress, and every heiress needs a lawyer.”

“For what?” Jazz seemed willfully childish to Casey. Admitting that she needed a lawyer was admitting that Mike was dead, he realized. But she had to be sensible.

“I’m very serious, Jazz. I’ll bet that as soon as Valerie and Fernanda got back to the hacienda, the first phone calls they made were to lawyers.”

“What kind?”

“Jazz, look, I know you don’t want to think about
it, but you’ve just inherited one-third of sixty-four thousand acres of the most valuable undeveloped land between Los Angeles and San Diego. And your two sisters together control the other two-thirds. Haven’t you ever heard of something called ‘protecting your interests’? There are lawyers who specialize in inheritance and real-estate law. One way or another, you’re going to need lawyers. For the entire rest of your life.”

“Casey!”

“Christ! I’m sorry—I guess I shouldn’t have been so blunt. But you can’t be
allowed
to be naive. Jazz, remember, I’m a hard-headed businessman when I’m not playing cowboy.”

“Hard-hearted too?”

“If I have to be, but only then.”

“I still can’t understand how you persuaded the hospital to let you put a fax in this room,” Jazz said, changing the subject. She didn’t want to hear another word about lawyers.

“As soon as I could talk, I convinced them I’d never get well without it. I found a temporary secretary who comes in at six every morning and faxes for me. By lunchtime the stock market in New York is closed, and I shut up shop for the day. My doctor wasn’t thrilled, but he says he’ll probably let me out of here in two or three days. I walked around this floor six times this morning … felt pretty good.”

“Casey, there’s no right way to say this, but …”

“Then don’t.” He put up his hand like a traffic cop to stop her, but Jazz paid no attention.

“You almost died trying to save Dad. The doctor told me that you could easily have been shot through the heart, not the lung. Saying thank you isn’t enough. The right words don’t exist, but I can’t
not
thank you, no matter how ridiculously inadequate it is.”

“It was a reflex. I didn’t think, I just acted. I don’t get credit for that, Jazz, and I don’t want thanks. My only feeling is the greatest, the deepest—the most … 
unutterable
regret that I failed.”

“You … loved him.” Her voice, as low as a whisper, answered the unspoken question in her words.

“I hadn’t realized how much. I think we became closer, even in these last few months, than I’ve ever been able to be with any other man. Sometimes we talked most of the night … it was like being back in college with my best friend, if my best friend had had sixty-five years of experience to draw on. I’ll always, always miss him, Jazz, miss him terribly.”

Jazz put her hand on Casey’s shoulder and they sat in grieving silence for a few minutes. Finally she roused herself from the murderous sadness of her memories. If she started to cry now, she would never, never stop.

“Casey, Mr. White told me that the court would appoint someone to run the ranch on a caretaker basis until they find a permanent administrator who will handle the sale. Would you be willing to stop being Cow Boss and take on that job? I know it’s an indoor job, and tedious, but it would mean so much.”

“Of course. I’ll do anything I can to help. How do I get appointed?”

“Apparently I can ask the court to appoint you.”

“Well, go ahead and ask. And, Jazz,
get a lawyer.”

“I will. Just don’t tell me again.”

There was a tap at Casey’s door. As it swung open, Jazz looked up, expecting to see a nurse who would, in the time-honored fashion of nurses, tell her not to tire the patient. Instead, a handsome, middle-aged man in a well-cut New York suit looked at Jazz with instant recognition as he advanced toward Casey’s bed.

“Jazz, this is my father, Gregory Nelson,” Casey said, in introduction. Jazz jumped to her feet and put out her hand.

Gregory Nelson took Jazz’s hand and held it tightly between both of his. “I’m terribly, terribly sorry, Jazz,” he said, and then pulled her into a warm hug. So this was what a lion cub would look like when
he grew up, Jazz thought confusedly, taken off guard by his informality. Gregory Nelson, whose wife had been dead for three years, was a little shorter than Casey, and his features were different, but he had the same look of honest concern, and to Jazz, whose emotions had been sharpened by her grief, he radiated fundamental goodness so strongly that he made her feel as if she had been taken into the circle of protection of a powerful ally. She had to blink back tears at the unexpected comfort the greeting of this stranger had given her.

“When did you get here?” she asked, taking refuge in banality in order to regain her equilibrium.

“As soon as we got the news,” Casey’s father said. “I’ve been making sure that Casey obeys orders. He’s almost as good as new, assuming that he was ever any good in the first place.”

“That’s my dad,” Casey said proudly. “The old man never misses a chance to remind me that I used to be a little shit.”

“Why should I treat you better than you treat me?” his father asked.

“You give me a fresh perspective,” Jazz said. “I wish I’d met you sooner.”

She took her leave, wanting to stay longer and talk with Gregory Nelson, but knowing that she had to settle matters with Valerie and Fernanda.

Jazz drove from the hospital to the ranch, turning into the avenue of venerable fig trees and parking in front of the Hacienda Valencia. Before she went inside, she stood for a moment, uncertainly, and looked around reflexively, squinting here and there at the scene through her thumb and forefinger as if she were planning how best to photograph the exterior of the hacienda. She tried telling herself that this belonged to her now, but the thought had no resonance, no faint echo of significance. The view was drained of three-dimensional reality, as if she were looking at façades of make-believe buildings and surveying cardboard trees and flowers. As she searched the familiar yet
suddenly meaningless surroundings, she vowed to guard them always as they were today, as they had been during her father’s lifetime, and his ancestors’ before him.

When Jazz finally stepped inside the house and heard the unexpected crackle of a fire burning in the living room, her heart contracted violently and she almost cried out loud. Although the scent of Mike Kilkullen’s pipe tobacco lingered in the air, the sound of a fire he could not have lit told her, finally, that he would not rise from his chair by the fire to kiss her when he heard the sound of her step. She walked resolutely toward the living room, trying to push from her mind, until her mission was completed, the adored image of that tall, white-haired chieftain with his slow, dear, loving smile.

Fernanda was lying comfortably in Mike Kilkullen’s favorite chair, her high-heeled purple lizard boots up on his ottoman, a glass in her hand. Valerie was sitting in the brown leather chair that Jazz considered her own, her long, lean legs crossed under her, yoga-fashion, her flat shoes on the floor beside the chair, another glass balanced on the wide arm of the chair.

“I hope you don’t object, Jazz,” Valerie said coldly. “I didn’t think you’d begrudge us a few sticks of wood for the fire, and a drop of your scotch.”

“Be my guest,” Jazz said equably, choosing another chair and pouring herself a drink. She was determined not to let Valerie provoke her.

“You know, Jazz, no matter how much money Father left for the upkeep of this manse, it isn’t going to go very far. You’ll be lucky if you can redecorate in any sort of style, even Southwestern. If I were you, I’d check the roof for leaks before I touched anything. Just a hint.”

“I’m not planning to redecorate, Valerie.”

“You have to. This place hasn’t been touched in years, not since your mother died. Just look at this chair—the leather’s all cracked.”

“I like it that way.”

“Well, far be it from me …” Valerie shrugged.

“What are you going to do with this big old place?” Fernanda asked. “Live in it?”

“I haven’t decided anything. I didn’t know it was going to be left to me until you did.”

“Father expected you to keep this white elephant going, that’s clear,” Valerie said. “As he said, it’s your home.”

“Yes, Valerie, so it is. Listen, I came here so we could discuss this caretaker appointment.”

“I thought the court would take care of that,” Fernanda said.

“It will,” Jazz replied. “But I have a better idea. Luckily for us, Casey Nelson is willing to take over the administration of the ranch. I’ve just seen him, and he’ll be out of the hospital in a few days. He knows far more about running the ranch than anyone the bank could possibly find. Can we agree on his being given the job?”

“You must really think we’re a pair of fools, Jazz,” Valerie said scornfully. “Casey Nelson, indeed!”

“He’s not just a Cow Boss, Valerie,” Jazz said patiently. “The guy is much more than a plain rancher, he’s a serious, successful businessman. He’s involved in major investing in many different businesses. He’d only be doing it as a favor.”

“A favor? To whom?”

“To all of us, Valerie. Casey would maintain the ranch in peak operating condition until the permanent administrator took over.”

“I see three women in this room, Jazz,” Valerie drawled, “and only one of them has been fucking Casey Nelson.”

“What!”

“In my book, that gives you an unfair advantage. Doesn’t it, Fernie? Haven’t you had enough unfair advantages for one day, Jazz? First you manage to cheat us of our share in our family home and the family
savings. If you think that after that charming little caper we’d agree to let you put your boyfriend in as special administrator—think twice.”

“What do you think he’d do?” Jazz said hotly. “Pad the feed bills? Rustle the cattle? Steal the silverware?”

“All of that, and a hundred other things you haven’t mentioned. Between the two of you, the place would be stripped clean.”

“We saw you make your big play for Casey Nelson at the Fiesta,” Fernanda said with a delicately prudish sniff of her little nose. “You must think we’re pretty stupid.”

“Actually, no. I think Valerie’s
incredibly
stupid and you’re incredibly jealous. And shouldn’t you both be packing?”

Jazz paced back and forth in Red’s living room as she recounted the story of her day.

“And then,” she said, still sputtering indignantly, “that chinless freak, Valerie, accused me of fucking Casey!”

“She came right out and said that?”

“I didn’t think Valerie even knew that word. Can you imagine anything so outrageous?”

“It’s just shocking. I wonder how she knew?”

“You too! Jesus!” “You mean …”

“Never! Not that
they
would have believed me.”

“Gee, Jazz, what’s stopping you?”

Lydia Henry Stack Kilkullen was not even faintly surprised when Jimmy Rosemont invited her to have lunch alone with him. One day had passed since the reading of Mike Kilkullen’s will, and she knew that with his declared interest in buying the ranch, he would be anxious to extract as much news from her as possible.

She would enjoy watching him fish ever so delicately for crumbs of information, she thought, as she dressed for lunch. It was always a treat to see someone
as rich as Jimmy Rosemont working his heart out to get richer.

If all the people who could live brilliantly on the most infinitesimal percentage of what they already owned were to stop struggling for more, the world would be deprived of a spectacle that never failed to entertain, Liddy mused, as she surveyed her New York wardrobe with the calculating and matter-of-fact eye of a hangman looking at the neck of the next victim. There was nothing in it that she would bother to keep once she started getting the large sum she expected from the girls, she decided. Not that her clothes weren’t still good, but she would not care to be reminded for an instant of the days when everything she wore had been bought on sale.

Liddy pushed a number of hangers aside before she found the right Bill Blass suit. It had a navy skirt and blouse with a red jacket, tailored with a sure-handed hardness that few designers still knew how to bring off successfully—a suit that spoke of rich women doing their spring shopping on Fifth Avenue, so classic that only she would know that the spring of which it spoke was two years past and not the spring of 1991.

Rosemont had asked her to meet him at the Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Liddy approved of the choice. The restaurant of the exceptionally well run hotel was expensive and elegant, yet its location, opposite the Metropolitan Museum, was much too far uptown to attract the fashionable, gossiping crowds that lunched together in packs some twenty blocks farther south. It was the most discreet place to lunch in this indiscreet city.

She arrived at the restaurant a calculated fifteen minutes late, knowing that he would be precisely on time. It wasn’t often that one could afford these little pleasures of ego, but today Liddy knew that nothing was beyond her grasp. The phone call yesterday from Valerie and Fernanda had wiped away every failure, every shortfall, every regret of her life. She knew that the victory she felt made her look twenty years
younger, and she breezed through Jimmy Rosemont’s greeting without a hint of apology, no longer a petitioner.

After he had admired her, after he had ordered, Liddy waited smilingly, composing herself for the small talk that must be indulged in before he began a cautious line of questioning. In her experience, people rarely came to the point until the main course had been removed from the table.

“Georgina and I were so sorry to read that your daughters had lost their father,” he said.

“That’s very kind of you,” Liddy replied. She couldn’t have put it better herself, she thought. Not a word too much, not a word too little.