The Damnation Game (32 page)

“Right.”

“We’re in the white room.” Another surprise. That bare room, with its ugly altarpiece, seemed an unlikely venue for a dinner party.

Evening was drawing on outside, and before going on up to the room, Marty switched the lawn floods on. They blazed, their illumination echoing through the house. His earlier trepidation had been entirely replaced by a mixture of defiance and fatalism. As long as he didn’t spit in the soup, he told himself, he’d get through.

“Come on in, Marty.”

The atmosphere inside the white room was already chokingly thick with cigar and cigarette smoke. No attempt had been made to prettify the place. The only decoration was the triptych: its crucifixion as vicious as Marty remembered it. Whitehead stood as Marty entered, and extended his hand in welcome, an almost garish smile on his face.

“Close the door, will you? Come on in and sit down.”

There was a single empty place at the table. Marty went to it.

“You know Felix, of course.”

Ottaway, the fan-dancing lawyer, nodded. The bare bulb threw light on his pate, and exposed the line of his toupee.

“And Lawrence.”

Dwoskin—the lean and trollish—was in the middle of a sip of wine.

He murmured a greeting.

“And James.”

“Hello,” said Curtsinger. “How nice to see you again.” The cigar he held was just about the largest Marty had ever set eyes on.

The familiar faces accounted for, Whitehead introduced the three women who sat between the men.

“Our guests for tonight,” he said.

“Hello.”

“This is my sometime bodyguard, Martin Strauss.”

“Martin.” Oriana, a woman in her mid-thirties, gave him a slightly crooked smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

Whitehead used no second name, which left Marty wondering if this was the wife of one of the men, or just a friend. She was a good deal younger than either Ottaway or Curtsinger, between whom she sat. Perhaps she was a mistress. The thought tantalized.

“This is Stephanie.”

Stephanie, the first woman’s senior by a good ten years, graced Marty with a look that seemed to strip him naked from head to foot. It was disconcertingly plain, and he wondered if anyone else around the table had caught it.

“We’ve heard so much about you,” she said, laying a caressing hand on Dwoskin’s. “Haven’t we?”

Dwoskin smirked. Marty’s distaste for the man was as thoroughgoing as ever. It was difficult to imagine how or why any human would want to touch him.

“—And, finally, Emily.”

Marty turned to greet the third new face at the table. As he did so, Emily knocked over a glass of red wine.

“Oh Jesus!” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Curtsinger said, grinning. He was already drunk, Marty now registered; the grin was too lavish for sobriety. “Couldn’t matter less, sweet. Really it couldn’t.”

Emily looked up at Marty. She too had already drunk too much, to judge by her flushed complexion. She was by far the youngest of the three women, and almost winsomely pretty.

“Sit down. Sit down,” Whitehead said. “Never mind the wine, for God’s sake.” Marty took his place beside Curtsinger. The wine Emily had spilled dribbled off the edge of the table, unarrested.

“We were just saying—” Dwoskin chimed in, “what a pity Willy couldn’t have been here.”

Marty shot a glance at the old man to see if the mention of Toy—the sound of weeping came back as he thought of him—had brought any response.

There was none. He too, Marty now saw, was the worse for drink. The bottles that Luther had been opening—the clarets, the burgundies—forested the table; the atmosphere was more that of an ad hoc picnic rather than a dinner party. There was none of the ceremony he’d anticipated: no meticulous ordering of courses, no cutlery in regiments. What food there was—tins of caviar with spoons thrust into them, cheeses, thin biscuits—took a poor second place to the wine. Though Marty knew little about wine his suspicions about the old man emptying his cellar were confirmed by the babble around the table. They had come together tonight to drink the Sanctuary dry of its finest, its most celebrated, vintages.

“Drink!” Curtsinger said. “It’s the best stuff you’ll ever swallow, believe me.” He fumbled for a specific bottle among the throng. “Where’s the Latour? We haven’t finished it, have we? Stephanie, are you hiding it, darling?”

Stephanie looked up from her cups. Marty doubted if she even knew what Curtsinger was talking about. These women weren’t wives, he was certain of it. He doubted if they were even mistresses.

“Here!” Curtsinger sloppily filled a glass for Marty. “See what you make of that.”

Marty had never much liked wine. It was a drink to be sipped and swilled around the mouth, and he had no patience with it. But the bouquet off the glass spoke quality, even to his uneducated nose. It had a richness that made him salivate before he’d downed a mouthful, and the taste didn’t disappoint: it was superb.

“Good, eh?”

“Tasty.”

“Tasty,” Curtsinger bellowed to the table in mock outrage. “The boy pronounces it tasty.”

“Better pass it back over before he downs the lot,” Ottaway remarked.

“It’s all got to go,” Whitehead said, “tonight.”

“All of it?” said Emily, glancing over at the two dozen other bottles that stood against the wall: liqueurs and cognacs among the wines.

“Yes, everything. One blowout, to finish the best of the stuff.”

What was this about? They were like a retreating army razing a place rather than leaving anything for those who followed to occupy.

“What are you going to drink next week?” Oriana asked, a heaped spoonful of caviar hovering above her cleavage.

“Next week?” Whitehead said. “No parties next week. I’m joining a monastery.” He looked across at Marty. “Marty knows what a troubled man I am.”

“Troubled?” said Dwoskin.

“Concerned for my immortal soul,” said Whitehead, not taking his eyes off Marty. This earned a spluttered guffaw from Ottaway, who was rapidly losing control of himself.

Dwoskin leaned across and refilled Marty’s glass. “Drink up,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to get through.”

There was no slow savoring of the wine going on around the table: the glasses were being filled, guzzled and refilled as though the tipple were water. There seemed something desperate in their appetite. But he should have known Whitehead did nothing by halves. Not to be outdone, Marty downed his second glass in two gulps, and filled it to brimming again immediately.

“Like it?” Dwoskin asked.

“Willy would not approve,” said Ottaway.

“What; of Mr. Strauss?” Oriana said. The caviar had still not found her mouth.

“Not of Martin. Of this indiscriminate consumption—”

He was barely able to get his tongue around the last two words.

There was some pleasure in seeing the lawyer tongue-twisted, no more the Fan Dancer.

“Toy can go fuck himself,” Dwoskin said. Marty wanted to say something in Bill’s defense, but the drink had slowed his responses and before he could speak Whitehead had lifted his glass. “A toast,” he announced.

Dwoskin stumbled to his feet, knocking over an empty bottle which in turn felled another three. Wine gurgled out of one of the spilled bottles, weaving across the table and splashing on to the floor.

“To Willy!” Whitehead said, “wherever he is.”

Glasses raised and tapped together, even Dwoskin’s. A chorus of voices offered up “To Willy!”

—and the glasses were noisily drained. Marty’s glass was filled up by Ottaway.

“Drink, man, drink!”

The drink, on Marty’s empty stomach, was causing ructions. He felt dislocated from events in the room: from the women, the Fan-Dancer, the crucifixion on the wall. His initial shock seeing the men like this, wine on their bibs and chins, mouthing obscenities, had long since faded. Their behavior didn’t matter. Getting more of these vintages down his throat did.

He exchanged a baleful look with Christ. “Fuck you,” he said under his breath.

Curtsinger caught the comment. “My very words,” he whispered back.

“Where is Willy?” Emily was asking. “I thought he’d be here.”

She offered the question to the table, but nobody seemed willing to take it up.

“He’s gone,” Whitehead replied eventually.

“He’s such a nice man,” the girl said. She dug Dwoskin in the ribs. “Didn’t you think he was a nice man?”

Dwoskin was irritated by the interruptions. He had taken to fumbling at the zipper on the back of Stephanie’s dress. She made no objection to this public advance. The glass he held in the other hand was spilling wine into his lap. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Whitehead caught Marty’s eye.

“Entertaining you, are we?” he said.

Marty wiped the nascent smile off his face.

“Don’t you approve?” Ottaway asked Marty.

“Not up to me.”

“I always got the impression the criminal classes were quite puritanical at heart. Is that right?”

Marty looked down from the Fan-Dancer’s drink-puffed features and shook his head. The jibe was beneath contempt, as was the jiber.

“If I were you, Marty,” Whitehead said from the other end of the table, “I’d break his neck.”

Marty shrugged. “Why bother?” he said.

“Seems to me, you’re not so dangerous after all,” Ottaway went on.

“Who said I was dangerous?”

The smirk the lawyer wore deepened. “I mean. We were expecting an animal act, you know?” Ottaway moved a bottle to get a better look at Marty. “We were promised—” The conversation around the table had ground to a halt, but Ottaway didn’t seem to notice. “Still, nothing’s quite as advertised, is it?” he said. “I mean, you ask any one of these godforsaken gentlemen.” The table was a still-life; Ottaway’s arm swept around to include everyone in his tirade. “We know, don’t we? We know how disappointing life can be.”

“Shut up,” Curtsinger snapped. He stared woozily at Ottaway. “We don’t want to hear.”

“We may not get another chance, my dear James,” Ottaway replied, his courtesy contemptuous. “Don’t you think we should all admit the truth? We are in extremis! Oh yes, my friends. We should all get down on our knees and confess!”

“Yes, yes,” said Stephanie. She was trying to stand but her legs were of another mind. Her dress, the back unzipped, threatened to slip.

“Let’s all confess,” she said.

Dwoskin pulled her back into her chair.

“We’ll be here all night,” he said. Emily giggled. Ottaway, undeterred, was still talking.

“Seems to me,” he said, “he’s probably the only innocent one amongst us.” Ottaway pointed at Marty. “I mean, look at him. He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.”

The remarks were beginning to irritate Marty. But there’d be precious little satisfaction in threatening the lawyer. In his present state Ottaway would crumble under one blow. His bleary eyes didn’t look far from unconsciousness. “You disappoint me,” Ottaway murmured, with genuine regret in his voice, “I thought we’d end better than this …”

Dwoskin stood up. “I’ve got a toast,” he announced. “I want to toast the women.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Curtsinger said. “But we’ll need a fire.”

Oriana thought this the funniest remark she’d heard all night.

“The women!” Dwoskin declared, raising his glass. But nobody was listening. Emily, who had been lamblike so far, had suddenly taken it into her head to strip off. She’d pushed her chair back and was now unbuttoning her blouse. She wore nothing beneath; her nipples looked rouged, as if in preparation for this unveiling. Curtsinger applauded; Ottaway and Whitehead joined in with a chorus of encouraging remarks.

“What do you think?” Curtsinger asked Marty. “Your type, is she? And they’re all her own, aren’t they, sweetheart?”

“You want to feel?” Emily offered. She’d discarded her blouse; she was now naked from the waist up. “Come on,” she said, taking hold of Marty’s hand and pressing it against her breast, working it around and around.

“Oh, yes,” said Curtsinger, leering at Marty. “He likes that. I can tell he likes that.”

“Of course he does,” Marty heard Whitehead say. His gaze, not too focused, slid in the old man’s direction. Whitehead met it head-on: the hooded eyes were devoid of humor or arousal. “Go on,” he said. “She’s all yours. That’s what she’s here for.” Marty heard the words but couldn’t make proper sense of them. He pulled his hand off the girl’s flesh as if scalded.

“Go to Hell,” he said.

Curtsinger had stood up. “Now don’t be a spoilsport,” he rebuked Marty, “we only want to see what you’re made of.”

Down the table, Oriana had started to laugh again, Marty wasn’t sure at what. Dwoskin was banging his hand, palm down, on the table. The bottles jumped in rhythm.

“Go on,” Whitehead told Marty. They were all looking at him. He turned to face Emily. She was standing a yard away from him, attempting the catch of her skirt. There was something undeniably erotic about her exhibitionism. Marty’s trousers felt tight: his head too. Curtsinger had his hands on Marty’s shoulders and was trying to slip off his jacket. The tattoo Dwoskin was beating on the table, which Ottaway had now taken up, made Marty’s head dance.

Emily had succeeded with the catch, and her skirt was at her feet. Now, without prompting, she pulled off her panties and stood in front of the assembled company wearing only pearls and high-heeled shoes. Naked, she looked young enough to be jailbait: fourteen, fifteen, at most. Her skin was creamy. Somebody’s hand—Oriana’s, he thought, was massaging Marty’s erection. He half-turned: it wasn’t her at all, but Curtsinger. He pushed the hand away. Emily had stepped toward him and was unbuttoning his shirt from the bottom up. He tried to stand to say something to Whitehead. The words weren’t there yet, but he badly wanted to find them: wanted to tell the old man what a cheat he was. More than a cheat: he was scum; dirty-minded scum. This was why he’d been invited up here, plied with wine and dirty talk. The old man had wanted to see him naked and rutting.

Marty pushed Curtsinger’s hand away a second time: the touch was horribly expert. He looked along the table to Whitehead, who was pouring himself another glass of wine. Dwoskin’s gaze was fixed on Emily’s nakedness; Ottaway’s on Marty. Both had given up slapping the table. The lawyer’s stare said everything: he was sickly pale, sweaty anticipation on his face.