Stone 588 (49 page)

Wintersgill didn't comment, didn't even blink. Silence, he believed, was his best defense. It was also an admission. Inside he was churning, wondering how she could have gotten her information, dates, and figures so accurate.

"Then," Libby went on, "there's the skimming you've been doing at the Foundation. Like a damn squirrel salting away acorns."

Wintersgill's eyes wavered.

Libby advised herself not to carry this too far. Wintersgill had been of advantageous use and would continue to be. She altered her tone from accusing to condescending. "What I resent most about the skimming is it indicates your estimation of me, as though I'm so lah-dee-dah I wouldn't notice. Hell, Thomas, as long as you don't get overly greedy I don't mind your helping yourself to a bit of the cream."

Her smile was like a suture intended to close his wound.

He'd forgotten that he was still holding his teacup and saucer. He set them down on the table so roughly they rattled.

"Careful with my Meissen!" Libby reproached.

The next thing Wintersgill knew, her chair was vacant and she was outside getting into the limousine. Wintersgill stood, close up to the tall library windows that were right there, level with the street. When the chauffeur, Groat, closed the car door after her and walked around to get behind the steering wheel, his eyes momentarily clicked with Wintersgill's. Then the car was gone and Wintersgill was left in the wake of the unpleasant episode. There were so many angry, humiliated voices in him he didn't know which to heed.

Taking up a silver teaspoon he struck a large chip from one of her Meissen saucers.

He had scheduled appointments with his tailor and to have his hair trimmed by Gio at the Pierre. He didn't even bother to call and cancel, was driven straight home to his apartment on East 68th Street.

It was more of a relief than usual to be there, to take sanctuary in air he felt was his own. He switched on the lights in the wide entrance hallway that served also as a gallery for the portraits of his forebears. They were hung side by side in identical frames, each receiving his share of illumination. They bore such a resemblance to one another that anyone scanning them might think they were the same man in stages of modernization.

One portrait, that of an early eighteenth-century Wintersgill, was awry. The housekeeper, Mrs. Donnell, had again been too hasty with her dusting. Wintersgill had spoken to her about that, but finding that portrait out of place tonight was too trivial a thing to disturb him. He merely corrected it. Left his business case beneath the hall table, bypassed the large formal living room, and entered the study. Rather ritualistically, he made martinis in the Georgian silver pitcher he had long ago designated for that purpose. From a proper glass he drank most of the first martini while standing. He decided he wouldn't, for the time being, think of the problem of Libby. His ability to put things, no matter how bothersome, out of his mind at will was something that had always given him an advantage.

Mrs. Donnell had a roast on, he now realized from the wholesome fragrance that he could have smelled before. He topped his martini just short of the spilling point and, as a test of the steadiness of his hand, carried it into his dressing room.

He undressed.

He would shave. It was not a question of whether he would or not. He normally shaved twice each day, the second time at this hour.

His bathroom was a large area, tastefully designed, done in gray marble, beveled mirror, and polished brass fittings. The gray marble dominated and gave it a gentlemanly feeling. The bathtub was custom made, narrower and longer than standard to better accommodate Wintersgill's height and leanness. The tub was centered in the room, inset so that it was level with the

floor. An abundance of dark gray towels from Porthault were stacked beside it; farther off to the side, Regence chaises, a pair of them, were covered in a soft gray flannel.

To shave, Wintersgill used his grandfather's Sevres mug and badger bristled brush, his great-grandfather's straight razor. He'd heard his father claim thousands of times that no modern safety razor could match the shave this straight razor gave. What total length of Wintersgill whisker had this razor cut away over the generations? Miles of whisker, Wintersgill imagined. Such functional consistency was deserving of high regard, he reminded himself to believe each time he took up this razor. Its handle was yellowed and minutely crackled the way ivory gets with age, its gold inset monogram worn from being so often held, but its blade was untarnished, as gleaming as the day it had been bought in London three generations ago. It took to being honed to a fine cutting edge, as though it presumed eternity.

Finished shaving, Wintersgill respectfully washed and dried the razor and put it back into its fitted red leather case. He showered and dressed, chose to wear beige summer-weight gabardine slacks, a matching cotton crew-neck pullover, and a pair of leather loafers so supple they could be doubled up by the mere pinch of a finger and thumb.

Dinner was ready. He ate very slowly, not consciously procrastinating. After dinner he settled in a chair in the study for his usual digestif reading. An 18K bookmark helped him cut to the place where he'd left off in the leatherbound Paris edition of The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan. Within moments he was caught up in the personal impressions of this mistress of Louis Quatorze, entertained by the obliquity of her phrases as she described, for example, the four-inch heels, heavy perfumes, and diamond-studded laces worn by the king's brother.

Mrs. Donnell came to let Wintersgill know that she was done for the day. He nodded almost imperceptibly, without even looking at her. However, when she was on her way out the service entrance he listened with his entire attention to her closing of the door, her keys double-locking it — and he nearly believed what he heard.

He sat there in the silence, the book lowered to his lap. The atmosphere seemed changed now that he was alone, the familiarity of it could not be taken for granted. Nonsense, he told himself, he was only sensing the absence of sound. He got up and put on a cassette of Bartok's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, adjusting the volume in case there might occur other sounds in the apartment that it would be prudent for him to hear.

He went back to Madame de Montespan and was in the third sentence of one of her paragraphs when . . .

Libby intruded.

She'd been tampering all the while with the seal of his mental gate that was supposed to keep her shut up until he was ready for her. It had been his decision that he wouldn't allow her out until tomorrow, not until after he'd had a good night's rest, was calmed, cleared, better able to settle upon what shape he should assume to fit what was now known of him. But here Libby was, sneaking out into his night. He wouldn't allow it. He poked her back where she belonged, prodded her with the pretense that the episode at the River Club had never happened. Hell, he hadn't even been at the River Club that afternoon.

There, that should do it. Gate closed.

On with Madame de Montespan.

Wintersgill's eyes ran the printed words, but the words never reached destination. In the milliseconds it normally took for his mind to recognize each word and connect it with its meaning . . .

Libby interposed.

Came right out the gate.

Where the hell was his gatekeeper, anyway, his guardian of sanity, the chemical thing that saw to whatever was allowed to get in or come out of him? What a terrible time for his gatekeeper to be remiss. Probably Libby had tricked the gatekeeper, bought off the gatekeeper.

Wintersgill closed the seventeenth century, the stretched red leather that the animate Madame de Montespan had been reduced to. He placed the book on the side table, straightened it so it symmetrically coincided with the other books there, demonstrating his confidence that he would be reading it again soon.

He walked the apartment. With Libby. From study to bedroom to living room to study.

The Bartok sounded somewhat screechy now.

Who, Wintersgill wondered, had been Libby's source of information on his stolen bond deal with First Industrial of Philadelphia? Only he and Lawrence Vickrey had been involved, and Lawrence wasn't the sort who was easily shaken, surely wouldn't incriminate himself unless, of course, he'd been hopelessly cornered. Had Libby managed that? How? When had she found out about those stolen bonds? Did she know about the others? She'd intimated as much.

The bitch.

She'd been looking down his throat all the while. That was the humiliating thing of it. A veritable voyeur of his misdemeanors, she'd overseen his every move while appearing to be distracted with extravagances and vanities.

The devious bitch.

How much of him had she exposed? Possibly she knew within a thousand the amount he'd skimmed from the Foundation. He could have been much more clever about it, but her behavior had lulled him. Now it was easy to imagine her keeping tabs on him, a running account of Swiss and Bahamian deposits that, at whim, she'd be able to hold against him.

But hadn't he known all along that she'd known? He must have sensed it. Surely. That would explain why he'd been so insistent about marrying her. By consenting she would have been forgiving.

Do you, Elizabeth Hopkins-Hull, forgive this man . . . ?

That was it. What he'd really been after was neither her social standing nor access to the power of her wealth but, rather, immunity.

The cunt.

The way she'd manipulated his conscience, finessed him into doing things he would never have otherwise done. Those many times over the years he'd catered to the libidinal warp of her, been intimidated into playing the part of her erotic stuntman. All those hard-ons had been hers, not his. And the same went for the comings. She was a glutton for comings. Her own, her rare own, were not enough. He'd been only an implement while led to feel the conspirator. Hadn't had a single quality sensation that he could now remember.

The violin performing the Bartok had become a wounded, beaked thing swooping around. With the flick of a switch, Wintersgill put it out of its misery and out of his own. The silence was such relief that for a full minute he didn't relate it to his being alone.

He went into the kitchen.

It wasn't out of singular distrust of Mrs. Donnell that he checked to make sure she'd locked the service door. That door was, after all, where the apartment was most vulnerable, he believed, and he wasn't about to stake his well-being on anyone's competence. Certainly no one cared as much for his safety as he did.

The door was locked. He saw that. But it didn't matter. He unlocked it and relocked it himself, watching the vertical bolt of the Segal unit snap into place. He inserted the security chain and thought he would unlock and lock the Segal again, but he didn't want to get stuck on it. Not tonight. He wouldn't get stuck on anything tonight.

From the refrigerator he got a tall glass of buttermilk for his bedside because his hiatal hernia might act up. He checked the lock of the front door twice, and, leaving on certain adequate lights, he went into the master bedroom.

His bed was turned down as he expected it would be. His extra pillows arranged just so. The bed linens were immaculate, ready to receive him if he undressed completely, not merely took off his shoes as he so often did. He padded into the bathroom. Brushed his teeth with Elgydium, the French toothpaste whose strong fennel flavor he disliked but felt was better for his gums. As he brushed he avoided looking into the mirror because something in him had suggested his reflection would not be there. When he was through brushing he risked it, raised his eyes, and . . there he was!

To that extent reassured, he returned to the bedroom. There, awaiting him again, were the three doors, the every night doors and their arbitrary dead bolts. Originally there had been only the one door leading from the main hallway, and that one was still most critical. The only access to the master bath and dressing room was through the bedroom they served, so under normal circumstances there would be no need for doors to them. But in Wintersgill's mind those were places where whoever might want to could hide and wait until he was helplessly asleep. So, for the sake of his nights, he'd had the doors put in and the dead bolts installed.

He looked to see there was water at bedside before closing up. Nothing could more easily set him off than needing something from outside the bedroom once he'd closed up. Beneath the skirt of his bed was an antique English chamber pot hand-painted with roses. Only he knew its purpose was more than decorative. He emptied it first thing each morning.

In the order that his mind required he closed the doors, listening carefully for the confirming clicks of the tongues of their locksets. His whole night depended on his believing his fingers and the dead bolts. He focused intently on them. He didn't feel the small, brass, half-moon-shaped knobs of the bolts. It was enough to ask his mind to accept what his eyes said they saw. As an aid he'd made a red line on the brass faceplate of the knob which the knob was supposed to correspond to when in a locked position. The red line device had worked for a while, until he couldn't depend on believing it.

Tonight he wouldn't need red lines or anything, he told himself. He felt all right about the dead bolts. The bedroom was definitely locked. No one could get to him.

On the surface of his bedside table, next to his glass of water and his glass of buttermilk, he lined up a two-milligram white, a five-milligram yellow, and a ten-milligram blue. At this point he never knew what strength Valium a night might be. This one had the temperate climate of a yellow night, he thought, but in any case he was prepared.

Into bed.

On his back.

The top sheet gently molded against him. His head indented the down-filled pillow with its shape. He would dry-read himself to sleep with the original French version of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste.

The book was in his hand and he was readying his eyes for it when his mind told him he should wonder about Libby. Where was she? He'd damn well put her in her place. Hadn't he so precisely pegged her for the self-centered manipulator she was that she'd retreated and closed the gate behind her?