Punish Me with Kisses (13 page)

There were photos of her father inspecting the company's facilities overseas, one at a pulp mill in Brazil, another at a textile plant in Taiwan. There were pictures of him with an open-shirted Richard Nixon on a golf course somewhere in California, and another toasting the President of Korea at a dinner in Seoul several years before. The cover portrait that had appeared on
Business Week
was framed, and his honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota praising him for "humanizing the assembly line, working for a reconciliation between the needs of capitalism and the highest aspirations of the human heart." There he was with his boyish grin receiving an award from the Association of American Manufacturers, and, again, standing with Barbara Walters, the two of them beaming, after an appearance on "
Today
."

But it was the family pictures that interested her the most, one of her parents' wedding, her grandfather looking worried, hovering behind; another of the four of them, her mother, her father, Suzie and herself, poised on a mountain top near Zurich where they'd vacationed one winter when she was nine or ten. They appeared the perfect image of a happy family, the parents' arms wrapped about each other, the two daughters, hair in braids, beaming at the lens.
We looked so similar then
, she thought.
The two of us were almost like twins
. When had the separation begun, she wondered; when had she and Suzie chosen their separate ways?

There was another picture, and in it everything was changed. Their father had taken it on his sailboat, she remembered, one afternoon in Maine. Suzie was a graceful seventeen at the time, looking ravishing, happy, beautiful, one hand raised characteristically to brush away a lock of hair. Penny, an awkward fifteen, was staring at Suzie, studying her, a mixture of envy and admiration and perplexity in her eyes.

She didn't hear him come back into the office and was startled when she heard him whisper just behind her ear.

"Jesus, I miss her." He was standing very close. "Some nights when I pass her room, I go in and sit on her bed and think about her, the kind of special gal she was. So vibrant, full of energy—so gay. Don't you miss her, kiddo? Well—of course you do."

She turned to face him. She was so used to other images of him, grim, square-jawed, putting on his public face, too proud to show his feelings, wanting always to be recognized as strong and hard. But there were other sides to him, too, she knew, vulnerable sides, and other aspects she'd never understood. She'd never forgotten the sight of him once in Maine when she'd seen him burning trash, staring into the flames, the fire dancing crazily in his eyes, their sockets cavernous, his features twisted, his jaw stuck out like a caricature of a warrior preparing for attack.

They took the short walk through the corridors to the executive dining room and were seated by the maitre
d'hotel
in a private section partitioned from the rest. The silverware was modern; everything was understated, sleek. The place had a hushed and cool quality, as did everything at Chapman, even the view. The window glass shut out every sound, allowing them to gaze upon a silent city, to watch New York perform in pantomime.

"That was a good match, kiddo. Does me good to work out. And don't feel bad about losing, either. I regularly chop up men half my age." He was looking at her, she thought, without seeing her at all. "Your grandfather Chapman had a saying: 'A gentleman never sweats, except when he exercises and makes love to his wife.' " He smiled. "Grand guy. I think he'd be proud to see what we've done with what he left us, the way we've built up Chapman Plow—" She could hear other executives talking in other sections of the dining room, could hear deep male laughter, businessmen's laughter, could smell the smoke of their cigars. "Of course you never knew him. He could be a hard man sometimes, stubborn as hell. Your mother takes after him lots of ways."

A waiter brought their cantaloupe. He scooped out a spoonful, chewed it discreetly, then went on. "He didn't believe in borrowing. I spent years quarreling with him over that. You've got to borrow big if you're going to expand, I told him, but he just shook his head, said it made him nervous to be in debt. He left your mother all the stock, so then I had to fight the battle again. Happily she saw reason, finally let me handle things. Now she's a very rich woman, I'm not too badly off myself, and neither are you, kiddo, though no one would know it considering that dumpy place you live." He grinned at her.

"Do you want me to move into a doorman building, too?" she asked.

"No. I don't especially care about that, unless that's what you want to do. It's not that that bothers me, kiddo. It's your new roommate, and he bothers me quite a bit."

He spoke very softly, as he always did when he was mad, in hushed mellifluous tones. In
Business Week
she'd read how they scared his subordinates and could make the business world shake, how he always lapsed into a soft whispering manner of speech at those moments when he'd decided to impose his will.

"You heard?"

"Of course I heard. It's no secret. It's all over the papers. They put the clippings on my desk." He took another bite of cantaloupe, then pushed away his plate. "Our PR people have gotten inquiries. Will we confirm or deny, that sort of stuff."

"I'm sorry, daddy—"

"We've had him under surveillance. Our security staff's been keeping tabs on him ever since the trial."

She put down her spoon. "I thought you were going to look for the other guy, the guy who ran away."

"Sure. And I did, kiddo. Spent a lot of time and money on that. But no tracks, no leads. Had to give it up."

"I don't—"

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Penny?" This time he was looking right into her eyes. "
I mean of all the goddamn punks
."

He was glaring at her, that same crazed glare she'd seen that time when he was burning trash. She could feel his fury; she could see it in the hard iron-gray steeliness of his eyes.

"He's not a punk, daddy," she said, trying to keep her voice level, not wanting to assert herself too much, trying to match his cold anger.

His expression seemed to relax a little. "Well, kiddo, in a sense I suppose he isn't. Maybe I used the wrong word. I could think of a few others I'd like to call him, but they wouldn't be polite, and then you might get offended, and I wouldn't want that at all. But right now he's back in our lives. He gets off a bus from Texas and a couple weeks later he's jogging alongside you. Now there's stuff in the papers, rumors going around. I'm just waiting for the market to react. A little 'adjustment,' you know—that's what they call it. A couple of points down when the insiders pick this up."

"Aren't you exaggerating? I don't see what this—"

"No, I'm not exaggerating, and of course you don't understand. If you understood you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. I give you credit, at least, for that. " He shook his head. "We're not Chapman Plow anymore where we can say to hell with everybody else, do what we please, go our own way. We're a public corporation. Among us we hold damn near half a million shares, but there're other people who have even more, and that's what I'm worried about, you see. There're a couple groups watching us. There's been a lot of takeover talk. A little reaction on the market and people start asking questions. There's gossip, a loss of confidence in management, and it doesn't help that your mother's more or less incompetent, and the word's getting out on that. Our debt position's not too terrific at the moment. I've taken some chances, and now we're facing a confiscation in Brazil. They could really put me through the wringer on that, force down our stock, then make their move. I'd fight, of course. I've always fought when I've been squeezed. But then their natural reaction would be to play hardball, drag in the family, get the story out on your mother, dig up Christ knows what. It could get very messy. Very messy indeed."

She couldn't make much sense of what he'd said. "I don't understand all this."

"No," he said, "I don't suppose you do. I'm talking about articles, magazines, more of this gossip column garbage. How would you like it if someone wrote you were spitting on your sister's grave? Someone's sniffing around already mumbling about a book. How would you like to see Suzie smeared all over the headlines again, pictures of you and your boyfriend running around the reservoir, maybe even
snuzzling
a little in the Ramble, a big goddamn love-struck smile stuck smack in the middle of your face?"

He was so angry and yet so controlled she felt as if she were in the middle of a nightmare. She looked down, saw her hands shaking in her lap.

"—that's all we need right now."

There was a long silence then. She watched him bone his fish, his movements surgical, precise.

"You still think he killed her, don't you?" she asked suddenly, regretting the question the moment the words escaped her lips.

"I confess that possibility does occasionally cross my mind."

"You never had anyone looking for the intruder. You never believed me at all."

"Oh, I
believed
you." She wanted to scream at the way he said it. "I still do. I believe you really thought you saw somebody else. Not in a million years did I ever think you were insincere. But until the police find this so-and-so and get him convicted, I'm betting on your current boyfriend, and that's the problem, you see."

Yes
, she thought,
I see
.

"It's all about money, then, isn't it?"

"Sure, kiddo. Money, justice—you name it—you tell me where's the bottom line. But in case you're thinking I'm a monster, and I guess that's what you're saying in a way, let me tell you it comes down to a lot more than that for me. It's
you
.
Your
life. I've lost one daughter, it hurt a lot, and I'm not all that anxious to lose another." He looked her in the eyes again. "Got me, kiddo? Getting the picture now?"

They spent the remainder of the lunch discussing her mother. He urged her to come out to Greenwich for a weekend visit. He said he thought it might lift her mother's spirits if she did.

"I'm not really capable of doing much for her in that regard anymore," he said. "I just wish we could find somebody who could keep her off the sauce."

It was all very civilized, she thought, as she stood in the executive elevator alone, hurtling to the street. But out on Park Avenue, when she looked back at Chapman International, the building's severity, its sharp angles and polished lines, she was appalled. It was brutal. And she thought: it wasn't civilized at all, the squash game, the lunch—they were hard and nasty and cruel.

Suddenly, for one bewildering moment, she found herself wishing she'd been killed instead of Suzie.
Then maybe he'd miss me
, she thought.

J
amie's got this thing for wet. "The wet look." He wants to shoot models with their T-shirts wet so the fabric sticks to their stomachs and their boobs glow through the cloth. He likes their hair wet, too, and sweat on their faces, and wet spots under their arms. He tells them to run in place. 'Work up a sweat, kids,' he yells, 'get yourselves wet while I move around the lights.'

WET! Everything has to be WET. Wants the skin to glisten, cream on their bare arms, cream on their calves so they're shiny and catch the light. WET! WET! Every other fucking word is WET! Finally I figure it out WET like a woman. WET like a pussy, lubricated, full of need. I ask him if I'm right. 'You're learning,' he says. 'WET and creamy and shiny and eager, just like you,
Suze
, just like you.' I give him the finger and he laughs. 'Just wait till after work.'

Wow! Can't wait! All afternoon I think about it. So just when everybody's gone home, and I'm all ready for it, already WET practically dripping in my pants, this guy turns up at the door. 'Oh, Jamie,' he squeals, 'I've been twitching my ass all the way down Madison just thinking about what we're going to do.'

'Yeah,' he says, 'well, we'll all get it on together, OK?' 'With HER?' squeals the guy. 'Sure. Why not?' says Jamie, 'she's a person, too. She's got her needs.' NEEDS! I can't stand it. NEEDS! What the fuck does he know about my NEEDS? By this time the queer and I are glaring at each other. Then it hits me: Jamie had all this planned.

I decide to play along. 'Look,' I say, 'I want to be reasonable about this. If what's-his-name here—' 'Dave.' 'Yeah—well if Dave has been twitching his ass for God knows how many blocks down Madison, then far be it from me to deprive him of his fantasy.'

Dave looks kind of squeamish, but I'm acting very relaxed so I figure he's thinking maybe it won't be THAT HORRIBLE after all. 'Good girl,' says Jamie, 'I've got some darkroom work. Why don't you two go upstairs and get acquainted. I'll join you in twenty minutes or so.
'