Butterfly (75 page)

331

332

Kathryn Harvey

“This is going to hurt him at the Republican Convention,” Trudie murmured, her

mind on something else.

“He’s madly denying it all and insisting it’s the work of the Devil. Read what he says

there. ‘Attacking a man of God is an attack on God Himself.’ And can you believe them

finding a whorehouse right in the middle of Beverly Hills? I must have gone into Fanelli

a dozen times, and I never knew about the establishment upstairs! I’ll bet they had some

pretty explosive names on their client list!”

When the news had broken yesterday about the secret operation above Fanelli, Trudie

had decided that the people who ran Butterfly must have known they were going to be

raided. A few days ago she and Jessica had received notices of the closedown and refunds

on their membership money; all the other members must have, too. But what about the

companions? What about her precious Thomas? Where was he now? Would he think of

her, she wondered, in the future?

Trudie laid the newspaper aside and looked at her watch. It was two o’clock. Then she

picked up the contract of the latest job she had taken on. Swimming pool and spa in

Brentwood. A tricky one this time—they wanted the pool to extend into the house. “I’d

better give Bill a call,” she murmured. “See if he can fit this one in.”

Cathy looked at her employer. Trudie
never
made the calls to the subcontractors.

As Trudie dialed the phone the silver bangles on her wrist clinked and glittered in the

hot June sunlight pouring through the plate-glass window. Cathy noticed a new one

among them. A chain with a tiny butterfly charm. Not Trudie’s usual taste, she thought.

“Hi, this is Trudie Stein,” she said into the phone. “Is Bill there? Oh, I see. Out on a

job?” She listened. “Oh? Uh, no. Don’t tell him I called. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Trudie hung up and reached for her cigarettes.

“He’s out on a job?” Cathy said.

“No. Playing hooky. Down at the marina, working on his boat.”

Trudie moved papers around on her desk. She called Jessica’s house and left a message

with the housekeeper. She called her manicurist and made an appointment to have her

nails filled in. She looked at the papers for the new job again—the pool was going to wrap

halfway around the house with the shallow end in the entertainment room. Underwater

barstools, barbecue pit, volcanic rock waterfall….

Trudie looked at her watch again.

She put out her cigarette and lit another.

They wanted flagstone decking and a small arched bridge over the deep end. Spanish

tile, a fountain in the center…

“Listen,” she said suddenly, closing the folder and reaching for her purse. “I’m going

to take the rest of the day off. I don’t think there’s anything that will come up that you

can’t handle.”

Cathy stared at Trudie. “No problem,” she said, trying to recall the last time Trudie

had taken
any
time off. “Where can I reach you if I need to?”

“You won’t be able to. I’m going to do some shopping. I’ll check in with you before

you close.”

BUTTERFLY

333

The way Trudie breezed out through the front door, Cathy would not have guessed

how fast her employer’s heart was beating.

He’s down at the marina working on his boat, Bill’s office had said.

But the marina was a big place with hundreds of boats. So Trudie went about her

search methodically, slowly driving up and down, first A Basin, then B Basin, scanning

the rows of parked cars, looking for him.

She kept telling herself this was ridiculous. They had barely spoken in the past four

weeks since they met at the Greene excavation and made discoveries about each other. Bill

had asked her to go sailing and Trudie had said no. She’d rudely driven off and left him

standing there in a cloud of dust and gravel. In the days that followed, she had made a

point of avoiding him, of communicating with him through his office, of making sure he

was never around when she inspected a site. And now here she was, driving up and down,

looking for his car, as if she were an adolescent, not stopping to think that this wasn’t fair

to him, that he might have someone on the boat with him.

There it was. The brown and gold GMC 4X4.

She pulled into the space next to it, killed her engine, and sat in the marina in silence.

As this was a weekday, few people were working on their boats. Even those who lived

here on boats were away at their jobs or schools or wherever. With the exception of the

rhythmic clank of rigging, the groan of masts, the lapping kiss of water against hulls, a

kind of sea-silence hung over the many gently bobbing craft. Trudie rolled down her win-

dow and took in the salty smell, felt the crisp breeze go through her hair. There wasn’t a

cloud in the sky. The day felt as if it were eternal.

She got out and walked to the security gate that led down to the dock. She scanned

the two rows of boats—sailing vessels on the right, cabin cruisers on the left. Down on

the dock she saw an Igloo ice chest, buckets and mops, a pile of rags. All heaped next to a

blue-and-white Catalina 27. Trudie tried to see if there was anyone else aboard. If he had

a woman with him—

She tested the gate and found it unlocked. Swinging it open, she launched herself

down the steep ramp that rose and fell with the water.

What on earth did she think she was doing? she wondered as she headed straight for

the Catalina, her heart racing.

Trudie knew very well what she was doing.

“Hi!” she called when she reached the boat.

He was down in the cockpit, bent over and coiling a rope line. Startled, he turned

around and looked up, shading his eyes.

Good grief, she thought. Didn’t this guy have a shirt to his name?

“Well, hi,” he said, surprised.

She stood on the dock and looked at him with her hands on her hips. All he did was

gaze at her—warily, she thought.

“Well?” she said. “You did invite me to go sailing, didn’t you?”

He stared at her for an instant longer, then said slowly, “Sure. Come on aboard.”

334

Kathryn Harvey

When he held out a hand, she took it; he hoisted her up onto the deck and over the

safety rail. As she jumped down into the cockpit he said, “Do you know anything about

sailing?”

“Of course! I’m an expert.”

“If I told you to cast off the bow line, do you think you could?”

“Easy,” she said, looking over the boat. “The bow. Is that the pointy end or the flat

end?”

They looked at each other for a moment, then Bill laughed and said, “Come on, I’ll

show you around.”

He touched her elbow as he followed her down into the cabin below, and when she

reached the bottom step, Trudie was pleasantly surprised.

This little Catalina was clearly a second home to Bill the pool plumber. The rectangu-

lar windows were covered with curtains made of chintz; the bit of wall space was hung

with pictures of square-riggers; nautical-motif pillows were strewn over the padded

bench-type seating; the tiny galley shone and sparkled and had a maplewood rack of

spices over the sink. Bookshelves were built into the walls and were crammed with paper-

backs, best-sellers, and magazines. There was even a small portable TV bolted up in the

corner where the wall met the low ceiling. The cabin looked lived in and smelled clean,

and Trudie found herself wondering if the fridge and cupboards were stocked for a long

trip.

“So, to what do I owe this honor?” he said, standing close to her in the dim, cramped

space.

She avoided looking at him. “Well, you did invite me,” she said, scanning the spines

of the books.
“African Genesis,”
she said as she reached up for a battered paperback. “I read

this in high school. It’s very good. Have you read
The Hunting Hypothesis?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of it?”

“I don’t agree with him.”

“You know,” Trudie said as she reached up and replaced the book, her arm accidentally

brushing his. “There’s a woman up at Berkeley, Rebecca Cann, who believes that by

studying mitochondrial DNA we can trace the ancestry of humankind all the way back to

a single woman—”

“The Children of Eve,” Bill said. “I saw the show on
Nova.
A farfetched theory if I

ever heard one. But I suppose you agree with her.”

Trudie finally turned to face him. He was standing so close that she could see flecks of

gold in his brown irises, the sun-creases at the corners of his eyes. “I guess we disagree on

just about everything,” she said quietly. “Don’t we?”

He looked down at her. Those blue-green eyes got to him every time. “Why you?” he

said softly. “Why is it that you get to me when no one else does? Why do I have to think

about you all the time, even though it only makes me mad?”

“Well, you bug the hell out of me. All you male chauvinists are alike—”

And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back and they were suddenly say-

ing things with their bodies that no words could have expressed.

BUTTERFLY

335

While a man from Marina Security was placing a parking ticket on her windshield

because her bumper didn’t have the required parking-permit sticker, and while Bill’s office

beeper beeped ignored in the pocket of his pants that lay crumpled in a heap on the floor,

Trudie received a big shock.

Bill was an expert lover.

He took his time, slowly and lovingly, knew where to touch, where to touch again;

where to kiss and how; he read her subtle signals; he didn’t try to push or force or hurry,

but he moved in harmony with her until she was breathless with passion and wanted to

tell him she loved him. When he produced a condom and slipped it on quickly and dis-

creetly, the way the guys at Butterfly did, Trudie was surprised. And then she wasn’t sur-

prised, because it was so in keeping with his being such a considerate lover.

They wound up on the small couch, panting and sweaty, entwined in each other’s

arms saying all the things they both suddenly realized they had wanted to say for a long

time. Bill wanted to know everything about Trudie from the moment she was born, and

she wanted to tell him. They talked about the construction business and how maybe they

could combine their two companies and expand their radius, and about sailing to

Catalina next weekend just as soon as that Pacific Palisades job was done, and about the

exhibit of pre-Columbian art that was opening at the L.A. County Museum next week,

which they agreed to attend together, and then he started making love to her again, while

the boat gently rose and fell on the tide.

Trudie closed her eyes and held on to him tightly and thought: This is it. I’ve found

the real thing. I don’t need Butterfly anymore….

49

As the senator came through the arrival gate at LAX he was immediately surrounded

by reporters and TV cameras. “What are Danny Mackay’s chances now, Senator?” they all

asked.

The old man smiled beneath his cowboy hat and said, “Ah have every confidence in

mah son-in-law. You boys know that Danny Mackay is a man of the Lord. We’ll get this

straightened out in no time so we can get on with the business of puttin’ him in the Oval

Office!” He climbed into the limousine and rode off, smiling and waving.

As soon as he was alone in the hotel room with Danny, the old man shouted, “Just

what in
hell
is going on here!”

Danny didn’t look his usual handsome, confident self. It was three days now since the

initial breaking news, and instead of dying down and blowing over, things were only get-

ting hotter. He hadn’t slept the past two nights and it showed.

“Damned if I know, sir. I’d swear the Democrats were behind all this.”

“Don’t blame the goddamned Democrats, boy! I want to know how you happen to

come up owning bawdy houses and X-rated theaters! And now
slums,
for God’s sake!”

Newspapers were strewn all over the hotel suite. The front page of every one of them

carried the latest dirt dug up about Danny Mackay: through Royal Farms, his privately

owned company, he owned a large block of slums in downtown Los Angeles. Wire photos

of dangerous, dilapidated tenements accompanied a story about pimps, whores, and