The War of the Roses (22 page)

Benny still wasn't there. But still it wasn't time to panic. Often Benny would straggle home late at night or early in the morning. Sometimes Oliver would leave the back door ajar and Benny would push his way in and scratch at the door to Oliver's room. Still asleep, he would get up, open the door, and let the dog in.

Lying there in the large, canopied bed, alone, Oliver listened to the sounds of the house, a rhythm he knew as well as his own heartbeat. The absence of the children and Ann was tangible and he could sense the emptiness around him. Somehow their presence in the house gave him some sense of belonging, of cohesiveness. And the house itself, its very familiarity, offered some comfort. His womb, he thought, wondering if Barbara, too, felt this same sensation. He sensed her lurking in what was once their bed across the hall. 'Lurking' was the word that had come to mind. And he saw her curled in the embryo position, listening, as he was now, to the sounds of the house.

Unable to sleep, he got out of bed and searched the room for a vodka bottle. Finding one, he poured some into a tumbler, then opened the window and brought in a small carton of orange juice from the ledge. There wasn't much left and he emptied it into the glass and drank it hurriedly.

Then he went back to bed and quickly began to slip into drowsiness. Before he could get to sleep, he heard a scratching on the door.

Benny.

Without opening his eyes, he got up, opened the door, and heard Benny pad to his accustomed spot on the Art Deco rug. Oliver got back into bed, feeling better, relieved.

It began as an abstraction. First came the loss of time. Then a burst of colors exploded in his brain and he opened his eyes. The room had become a toy kaleidoscope, with the patterns constantly changing.

He sat up, startled, rubbed his eyes, but the patterns merely changed. T
hey did not go away. The Hepple
white secretaire grew bloated as he looked at it and the file cabinets seemed to be floating in midair. Reaching out, he tried to touch one. It seemed to evaporate.

But when he looked up at the canopy and saw it descending on him, as in the famous horror story, he heard a scream. It did not sound like his voice at all -a whiny cackle, like that of a rooster being strangled at sunrise. Jumping off the bed, he felt his knees buckle and he lay on the floor, panting, searching for some shred of reason.

My mind, a faint trickle of logic told him. My
mind.
He touched his head, which seemed larger, but soft, like a sponge. He sensed something moving near him, something luminous and large, glowing, like a large ball of white fire. It was alive and its breath stank. Something warm
and moist covered his face. Sitti
ng up, he watched the apparition. It was monstrous, hideous, moving. He hit it with his fist and heard a strange sound, amplified, bursting in his ears.

His eyes would not focus and he moved back, sliding a
long the floor, overturning bottl
es. Some of them crunched under his weight and he felt a stab of pain in his buttocks. He watched the apparition move, then he turned away in horror. He had never felt more terror, as if he had suddenly descended into a special kind of hell.

'Forgive me,' he cried, but he could not hear his voice. Crawling on his hands and knees, he groped his way over objects. Looking back, he saw the apparition following. Colors continued to explode in his mind. Every object in the room seemed distorted, out of sync. His body bumped against something cool and hard and some brief trace of logic returned. He was in the bathroom, climbing into the tub. Still the apparition pursued him.

Clutching a fiery, golden metallic object, he felt it give and he was suddenly in a cold rainstorm. He lay back, letting the water run over him. Colored drops invaded the space above him, crawling over him like insects. The rain reminded him of something, something long ago. He heard pounding on the windowpanes and the muffled drone of a croaking voice. 'Going once. Twice.'

'Sold,' the voice screamed. His body lurched, grew still. He was certain that it was his tears coming down as rain.

Logic returned in fits, like blips on a computer screen, first as random patterns, then as connections. The colors faded, disappeared. He could see a spear of sunlight through the water rushing above him and finally he was observing himself lying in the bathtub being sprinkled by a gush of water from the shower head.

Testing his reflexes before he made an effort to rise, he felt pain in his buttocks, and as he rose slowly his head spun and ached. Stepping cautiously out of the tub, he held on to the sink and turned off the water. There was blood on the bathroom tile and on his fingers where he had touched the cuts. His eyes focused clearly now, and in the mirror he saw his rump, a network of oozing red tributaries.

Patting himself dry, he sprayed disinfectant on the cuts, then walked into his room. It was a mess. The bedclothes lay in disarray on the floor, w
hich was strewn with broken bottl
es. He picked his way carefully across the broken glass and got into his shoes. Standing in the center of the room, he tried to reconstruct what had happened. Oddly, he remembered the images he had seen. Nightmarish shapes and sounds. Then he heard Benny's pained whimper and saw him cowering in the corner, his big brown eyes laden with hurt. He looked mangy, off color. Moving closer, he appeared to be covered with a whitish sticky substance.

Grabbing him by the neck chain, Oliver moved him into the bathroom and drew the blind, throwing the room into semidarkness.
Luminous paint.
The revelation came at him with a rush. He remembered the orange juice.

'God damn it,' he shouted, feeling the rage overflow and tighten into a ball in his chest.

He dressed hurriedly, picked up the orange-juice carton, and, leashing Benny, took him downstairs. He did not even look at Barbara's closed door, deliberately trying to contain his rage. Soon, he told himself, promising that she would pay dearly. He drove Benny to the vet in Eve's Honda.

'What asshole did that?' the vet asked, looking at Benny.

'Somebody who didn't like him, I guess,' Oliver responded.

'It'll take all day to clean him up,' the vet said. 'I also want to check his skin.'

Oliver nodded, then thrust the orange-juice carton in front of him.

'I also need a favor. There's something in this I want analyzed. I think he drank some.'

'Orange juice?' The vet shook his head. He seemed perplexed. Taking the carton, he sniffed at it, then shrugged. 'I'll call you.' He looked at Benny. 'You poor bastard,' he said, leading him away.

Oliver went to the office, but he couldn't concentrate. Occasionally last night's colors burst in his mind again and he broke into a cold sweat. For most of the day he lay on the couch and tried to hold himself together.

'You all right?' Miss Harlow asked, coming into office.

'I had a rough night.'

'Tomcats, the lot of you,' she mumbled.

Finally the vet called. Hiss Harlow put him through.

'LSD,' he said. 'Your dog took an acid trip. Maybe he sprayed that stuff on himself.'

'Very funny.' He had suspected as much. The information didn't come as a big surprise.

'He looks fine now. We got it all off. He's a tough old
guy-
‘

'So am I,' Oliver muttered as he hung up. His head felt clearer than it had all day.

He resisted calling Goldstein. Her behavior wasn't actionable because he couldn't prove anything. Remembering what he had done to her Valium, he smiled ruefully. 'Ingenious bitch,' he whispered. He even felt a touch of grudging admiration.

So she's getting to be a murderous little viper, he told himself. He'd show her what that really meant.

When he went upstairs to his room that night, he found a note Scotch-taped to his door. He saw Barbara's left-handed scrawl: 'I'm having a dinner party Friday night. I would appreciate your not interfering in any way.'

The note was unsigned, as if any identification on her part would have implied a modicum of intimacy. He crumpled the note and kicked at her door. A dinner party? Where was the money coming from? 'You monster,' he cried. There was no response.

He decided he needed a drink and went downstairs to the library, opening the armoire and pouring himself a tumbler of scotch. Neat. He swore off mixers, especially orange juice. And vodka. So he was now paying for her dinner parties. How much of his own victimization was he expected to tolerate? It was beyond endurance. She was flaunting him, humiliating him. Sitting down on the couch, his hurt buttocks smarted and he stood up quickly. Besides, something was nagging at him, beyond mere indignation, as if something in the room itself was awry. His eyes did a cursory inventory, like a moving TV camera, and his mind ticked off their possessions as if a page of the list had been inserted into a slot in his brain.

There was some intuitive deductive system at work, triggered by something missing. His eyes roamed, lingered, inspected.
'Little Red Riding Hood,''
his voice boomed out. Little Red Riding Hood was missing. This was different. He rushed to the phone and dialed Goldstein's number.

'Littl
e Red Riding Hood is missing,' he shouted into the phone.

'I know, the wolf ate her.'

'Don't you understand, Goldstein? She stole it to pay for the dinner party. It's a Staffordshire figure.'

There was a long pause.

'You should take a long vacation, Rose.'

'She stole it. Don't you understand? She'll get at least two grand.'

'I'm taking a long vacation. You should, too. As fast as possible. We'll worry about it when I get back.'

'How can you go on vacation?'

'I go when Thurmont goes. Don't worry. It's only for six weeks.'

'Six weeks?'

'We're entitl
ed, Rose. We work hard.' 'You don't understand.'

'You call me late at night to tell me about Litde Red Riding Hood missing. What don't I understand?'

It seemed futile to explain. The words hung in his throat.

'That's where the money is coming from, Goldstein.' There was no response on the other end.

'The money
...'
Oliver began again.

'I'm going on vacation, Rose,' Goldstein said finally. 'Which reminds me. You're behind on my retainer.'

Oliver hung up, staring at the phone in its cradle. So it's every man for himself, is it? he thought, feeling a charge of adrenaline stiffen his resolve. He'd show them what resolve really meant.

22

She had to polish all the silver herself. It was difficult work, particularly the rococo centerpiece, a copy of a de Lamerie. She was absolutely determined that nothing, nothing would go wrong.

She hoped, too, that he had gotten the message. She had heard the weird noises. It was not, the pusher had said, much of a dose. Just a short trip. Painting Benny was an afterthought. By now Oliver must realize that he couldn't attack her with impunity. She was just as clever, just as resourceful. All he had to do was move out. Then it would be over.

And she was entitled to take the Little Red Riding Hood. She had never really admired the piece. And, if the truth were known, she wasn't that fond of collecting Staffordshire. They were crude figures, had no intrinsic beauty, and the expressions on their faces were insipid. All because of Cribb and Molineaux. She was sick to death of the memory. Getting two thousand for the Litde Red Riding Hood was ridiculous. And the Cribb and Molineaux were now worth five thousand. She hoped he wouldn't discover the missing figure for a while. At least until Thurmont had returned from vacation. But Oliver, too, was at a disadvantage with Goldstein away as well.

She was proud of her pluck and ingenuity. The name of the game was survival and she was determined to survive. She had debated with herself whether or not to pay the utility bills with the proceeds of the figure sale, but nothing could make her forgo the opportunity to show her wares to both her regular and potential customers. Also, they would get an opportunity to see her house. And she'd show them what style was all about. Then, perhaps, they wouldn't dare be slow to pay their bills. A
little
enterprise, Barbara, she told herself as she went about the elaborate preparations for a dinner for fourteen. Thirteen, actually, since she had chosen not to have an escort, as if to assert her singleness.

She picked the menu and her guests carefully, determined to prove to them she could enhance the traditional, a challenge in itself. It was the beginning of summer and the ambassadors she wanted had not yet left for their summer vacations.

She even invited the Greek ambassador, accompanying the invitation with a
little
note urging both him and his wife to reassess her culinary skills. Their acceptance overjoyed her. The Thai ambassador, whom she regularly supplied with
pate
and who was considered something of a gourmet, also accepted, as well as the Fortu-natos, who were fast becoming two of Washington's most prodigious hosts.