The Stallion (1996) (40 page)

“He’s stealing everything we have!”

“Subtlety, lover, subtlety. Carpenter—”

“You and your goddamned subtleties!
Direct—”

“Listen to me!
You’re so fuckin’ drunk you’re about to fall down. I’d like a tongue in my crotch, but I don’t think you can handle it. I don’t want you throwing up on me.
Listen to me!
Turn around here and face me! Look at me! You’re lookin’ at the only chance you’ve got.”

“I
love you,
Roberta!” he blubbered.

“I want the names and phone numbers of your fumbling shamuses. And don’t you ever again try to keep something secret from me!”

Roberta met with Len Bragg and Trish Warner in the lounge of a Pontiac motel.

“It’s very simple,” she said. “My husband gave you ten thousand dollars as expense money, then two hundred and fifty thousand dollars against five hundred thousand dollars to do the job. You fucked up. Not only did you not do the hit, you got yourself noticed by the Greenwich police. I want a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And I want you to disappear. No contact with my husband again. None with me. And, sure as Christ, none with Perino.”

“Oh, that’s the deal?” Trish asked with a wide smile.

“That’s the deal. In cash, this week.”

Trish grinned. “Fuck you.”

“I can make it stick, sis,” said Roberta grimly.

“Really?”

“Really. You took a swat in the face with a blackjack three years ago. That’s some other money my stupid husband put up: the cost of putting your nose and cheek back together, sort of. Who do you think did that job on you, Miss Warner?” Now she turned to Len. “Who do you think let you have one on the back of the head? You give me any problems, I’ll pass the word that you took out a contract on Angelo Perino and tried twice to carry it out. He can check with the Greenwich police, where there’s an officer who may very well remember that last year he saw a strange car outside the Perino house at dawn.” She shrugged. “I don’t even need that confirmation. The guys involved will take my word.”

“They’d ask you why we took out a contract on Perino,” said Len.

“Not necessarily. But even if they found out, Perino would tell his guys to do you, not my husband. There’s a certain … family relationship.”

Len sighed and shook his head. “We’ve had a lot of expenses. How about an even hundred thousand dollars back, instead of a hundred and fifty thousand?”

“No one ever accused me of being unreasonable,” said Roberta. “That’s a deal. But if I ever see or hear from either one of you again, or my husband does, the deal is off.”

“Where’s Angelo?” Amanda asked. She and Cindy were in her studio in Greenwich. Amanda was working on a portrait of a Wall Street banker. He had been there sitting for it when Cindy arrived, but now he was gone. Amanda continued to work, and Cindy sat on a couch and sipped brandy.

“He’s in Houston, meeting with a gorgeous redhead.”

“Uh-oh.”

“No uh-oh. She’s gay.”

Amanda laughed. “So are we, dear.”

“Not really. We’re bi. After all, I’m the mother of five children. And you’ve been seeing Dietz for eighteen years.”

“Carpenter…?”

“No,” said Cindy. She smiled a little wistfully. “He’s gorgeous, but … well, you’ll see.”

“I appreciate the intra,” said Amanda. “I could use a little loot.”

Amanda still sold her work regularly, but she was no longer the exciting novelty she had been in the late seventies. More and more she was doing portraits on commission, flattering her subjects enough to make them happy.
The banker on her easel was a little more clear eyed and square jawed than he was in reality. She hated this kind of work. She still did the youthful nudes, and they still sold, but they weren’t in demand the way they had been when VKP Galleries first introduced them to the art-buying public.

Robert Carpenter had admired her paintings in the gallery and had suggested he would like to meet her. He was due at seven, and after he had met Amanda and seen some of her recent work, he would take her and Cindy to dinner.

He arrived on time, actually a little early. He wore a flawlessly tailored dark blue suit, white shirt, and regimental-stripe tie. He had been too long in the sun somewhere, and the vivid contrast between his beard and his skin made almost a chiaroscuro in red-and-white.

“As soon as I saw your work, I decided to become a collector in a small way,” he said to Amanda as he accepted a brandy from her. He frowned at the portrait on the easel.

“That’s a piece from my Norman Rockwell period,” said Amanda.

“He’ll pay you well,” said Carpenter dryly.

“Yes. Unfortunately, I have to sign it.”

“Your nudes are masterful,” he said.

“I have only two here.”

“They sell quickly,” said Cindy.

“Do you have any of your adolescents? The two at the gallery are fascinating.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have one right now,” she said. “But let me show you—he’s a college football player. He modeled for me last summer.”

The painting was of a burly young athlete, thick from his neck to his calves. He stood with his legs apart, his hands on his hips, offering his muscular body for approval and saying with the tilt of his head and his lazy smile that he dared anybody not to approve it.

“Striking,” said Carpenter.

“And, this one—she’s a waitress. The word’s around that I pay well. She’d missed a payment on her car.”

A measure of Amanda’s talent was that her best paintings were biographies of her subjects. Anyone looking at the painting of the waitress could imagine that the young
woman had posed nude with painful reluctance, driven by necessity. Her straight mousy hair, unplucked eyebrows, and exaggerated red lipstick suggested that she was without sophistication. She faced the artist and the viewer with shame but also with conspicuous determination.

“My God!” Carpenter muttered.

“One of Amanda’s best, in my judgment,” said Cindy.

“Over dinner we’ll talk about a price for the two of them,” said Carpenter.

“Trash!” yelled Loren.

Carpenter glanced at Roberta and then settled a heavy-lidded insouciant gaze on Loren. “Do you think so? All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. My retainer has been used up. You owe me three months’ fees, and in three months more you’ll owe me six. I’ll take the Amanda Finch paintings in lieu of six months’ fees. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Loren. “I don’t want the damned things in my house.”

“You’ve just made a mistake,” said Roberta blandly to Loren.

“I don’t give a damn. What am I getting for these … paintings?”

“Some interesting things,” said Carpenter. “When I was with Mrs. Perino in Greenwich, I learned that Perino is working with a computer designer in Houston named Alexandria McCullough. You’ll find a flight to Houston on my expense statement. The redoubtable Alex McCullough is a notorious lesbian. But she and Perino have become very close friends.”

“Not worth the cost,” said Loren. “What else?”

“You’ll also find a flight to London. Mrs. Perino was open enough to mention that her husband was going to London. He visited the Viscountess Neville three times while he was there.”

“He visited her child, his son,” said Loren.

“Perhaps. But the viscountess also visited him in his hotel. She spent a morning with him at Dukes Hotel. And that evening he did not return to his hotel. He spent the
night at the Savoy, in a suite with the Princess Anne Alekhine.”

“That son of a bitch!”

Roberta sighed and shook her head. “This is gossip, Mr. Carpenter,” she said. “It’s interesting, but hardly worth the price of a DeCombe and two Finches, plus expenses.”

“All right. Have you seen Mr. Perino lately?”

“Day before yesterday,” said Loren.

“Was he wearing a bandage on his left hand? If so, did he say why?”

Loren nodded. “He said he was frying eggs and grease splattered on the back of his hand.”

Carpenter shook his head. “He told the Viscountess Neville, within the hearing of her nanny, that he was burned when a pellet of lithium caught fire. Lithium hydroxide is used to increase the capacity of dry batteries. The metal itself is corrosive and bursts into flame when exposed to air. It is a dangerous substance.”

Carpenter had been asleep for two hours when he was wakened by a knock on his motel-room door. He struggled out of bed, wrapped a towel around his waist, and stumbled to the door.

“Who is it?”

“Mrs. Hardeman. Open the door.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“I’m standing in a motel hallway. Open the goddamned door!”

He pulled the chain out of its slot, turned the dead bolt, and opened the door. Roberta shoved past him into the room. She was wearing a wet raincoat over blue jeans.

“I must’ve looked like a hooker out there,” she grunted. “You have any Scotch?”

“Sorry.”

“Always have Scotch,” she said. “When you’re working with us, always have Scotch.”

It was apparent she had already had Scotch. She unbuttoned the raincoat and tossed it on the bed. She was wearing a Michigan University sweatshirt.

“I’ll get dressed,” he said, moving toward the bathroom.

“Don’t bother. I’m not going to be here very long,” she said. “Sit down.”

He sat down.

“You’ve got to change the way you’re handling this business,” said Roberta.

“Oh?”

“We don’t care who Perino sleeps with. Understand? Get off that kick. If you can get in his wife’s pants, fine. But that’s only so you can find out more about what he’s doing.”

“I thought the fact that he was sleeping with—”

“We already know,” she said. She pulled out a pack of Chesterfields and lit one.

Carpenter lifted his chin. “Is it impossible I might find him with somebody you
don’t
know about? Is it possible I might see him with somebody you don’t want
me
to know about?”

“You’re asking a question you shouldn’t ask,” she said coldly. “Also, let me warn you about something. A private dick who tailed Angelo Perino and the Viscountess Neville wound up with a skull fracture. His partner, a woman, got her nose and cheekbone broken. Get us information, not scandal.”

Carpenter nodded thoughtfully. “Actually,” he said, “the only hard information I got came from establishing a relationship with Viscountess Neville’s nanny. If you’re telling me to stay away from his women, you destroy my effectiveness. I’m not an industrial spy. The art connection is what you hired me for.”

“So you can get into the pants of Cindy Perino,” said Roberta. “That’s the whole idea. Information. She can tell you things we want to know. Besides, my husband wants to
destroy
Angelo Perino. When he finds out his loyal and dutiful wife, the mother of his children—”

“He’ll kill me,” said Carpenter.

“He might, if you’re not careful.”

“She’s not an easy lay.”

Roberta shook her head. “I don’t imagine she is. But can she resist a knowledgeable art collector with money to spend—who’s a handsome stud besides?”

He grinned. “You flatter me.”

“What the hell is this? You’ve got a hard-on!” She grabbed his towel and pulled it away. What she’d said was true; his oversized member stood rigid. “Jesus Christ! Have you got a hard-on for me?”

“Mrs.—”

“I haven’t got much time,” she said. “Do you want something or not?”

“It’s a stupid dog that—”

“—shits in his own bed. Don’t talk in clichés. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Well for Christ sake,” she said. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head. “How old are you, Bob?”

“Thirty-six.”

“I’m fifty-nine. I’ve had it all. So has Cindy Perino. Let’s see if you’re good enough for her. C’mon. Climb into the saddle. We’ll start that way.”

She stretched out on her back on the bed and spread her legs. He climbed on her and entered her immediately, without so much as a kiss before. He slammed his hips hard against hers and drove himself deep inside her.

The rain had stopped, and the sky was gray with the coming dawn when she left the motel. Carpenter was exhausted, but Roberta was exhilarated.

Angelo sat on a rose-colored plush couch in Alexandria McCullough’s apartment in Houston. He had taken off his jacket, shirt, and tie and sat in his T-shirt and pants, a martini on the table before him. Alex was in the kitchen, visible beyond a counter, chopping vegetables for a salad. She had taken off most of her clothes, too, and worked in a white bra and white bikini panties. Also dressed only in bra and panties, her friend Lucy sat opposite Angelo, smoking a joint as she lazily stared at and appraised Angelo Perino.

“I hope you don’t take offense,” she said to him. “I just can’t bring myself to say okay. If Alex wants to give herself to a man, I can’t stop her; but I’m not going to issue her a license.”

He glanced at Alex. “If I wanted to make a point of the matter, I think she might come to bed with me, if only as an
experiment,” he said so quietly that Alex may or may not have heard. “But it would threaten a beautiful friendship. Why should I do that?”

Lucy was thirty-eight years old, a little younger than Alex. Though she had a generous mop of dark brown curly hair, her face might have been called mannish: square, with a strong jaw. Her figure was anything but mannish. She was an aerobics instructor at a local health club and a lifeguard at its swimming pool. If any woman he had ever seen had a perfect, sleek body, Lucy did.

The two women had as complete a friendship as any married couple had. This was not Alex’s apartment but
their
apartment. It seemed to Angelo that Alex played the female role in the relationship and Lucy the male; but that was a simplistic description of their relationship. It was more accurate to say they were an affectionate—no, a passionate—couple, genuinely in love with each other.

“We’ve both experimented,” said Lucy. “There’s nothing you could do for either of us that we can’t do for ourselves.”