Inheritance (28 page)

"At night."

"You should be dating at night."

"I don't date."

"All college students date."

"I can't. I can't even look at anybody else—^"

*Tor," she said with a note of warning. "I would be very distressed if you changed anything in your life because of me.

"Well— '* As always, he said what he had to say to keep her from looking for someone else. "I do go out, lots, I just (tidn't think you'd like to know. That's no problem, finding girls . . ."

"Then do your homework in the afternoon," she said gently, liking him, enjoying his infatuation more than she would admit to him or to herself. She stood before the full-length mirror. Pearl-gray shantung suit, white silk blouse, pearl silk gloves, a cherry red Adolfo straw hat tilted over one perfect eyebrow. Her mascara and eyeshadow were unsmudged. She freshened her lipstick; the case made a loud snap as she closed it. "I'll call you when I can get away," she said and kissed him briefly. In another minute she was in the brightly lit corridor of the Waldorf Towers, two steps from the elevator that took her to the lobby where she was one of dozens of well-dressed women spending their afternoons shopping, lunching, and perhaps adjourning for a couple of hours with a friend in the exclusive privacy of a high-priced hotel room.

Judith Michael

The late afternoon air was warm and still; even the crowds on the streets seemed to move more slowly in the June afternoon as the sun slid lower in the sky. Leni stopped at Tiffany's, then caught a cab to the airport in time for the five o'clock shuttle to Boston. And by seven she was sitting at dinner with Felix, the French doors open, the blue and silver flowers on the French wallpaper seeming to sway in the ocean breeze. "I found the tie clip you wanted," she told him. "The last one Tiffany's had. It seems people now give gifts for Easter, especially jewebry."

"Good news for the merchants," he said absently, then, as if reminding himself, looked up and thanked her for the tie clip. "Did you have a pleasant day?"

"Very."

"What did you do besides shop?"

"I stopped in at the Waldorf."

His eyes took on a glazed look. "Ladies' lunches. I'm afraid I have no interest in what you did at the Waldorf. No matinee?"

"You mean the theater?"

"What else would I mean? Oh, concerts. There are none on Tuesday, as far as I know."

"Nor at the theater, either."

"Well, whatever you did, I'm sure you were able to amuse yourself. I assume you're amused; you're there most of the time, it seems, and it can't be for those deadly board meetings."

'They're not deadly; they make me feel useful." She took a second helping of vesd and wild rice; she was always ravenous after a trip to New York. "How was your day?"

"Good. Very good. We saw a videotape of progress on the Elani in Honolulu; we should be able to open this fall. And I met with a group of bankers from Chicago about building a new hotel there, on the lake; we shouldn't have trouble financing it. They may even help us sell the old one; they think they know of a possible buyer."

"You can't sell that hotel; it isn't yours.**

"It will be next month, after the trial. You wouldn't expect me to wait until then to make plans; I intend to be ready to move the minute that mess is settled."

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Leni was silent.

*There*s not much demand for small hotels—no real way to make them profitable—but some junior-college people are interested in Chicago, and a nursing home director in Washington. If things go well, all four of those relics will be off our hands within a couple of years.'*

She looked at him. "Owen took pride in those hotels."

"And so you're sentimental about them. He knew as well as anyone they can't compete with modem ones. I'm doing exactly what he would have wanted."

"That is not true," Leni said coldly. "He would have been extremely angry. He would have glared at you and called you a narrow-minded opportunist kickmg aside the past just as you kick aside anyone who gets in your way." Her voice grew wistful. "And his mustache would have quivered like long wings on each side of his mouth, about to take off— '* There were tears in her eyes. "I miss him. He was so alive. Paul said the same thing the other day, how much he misses that wonderful sense of life Owen brought to everything he did ..."

Felix picked up the carafe. "More wine?"

"I suppose so. Yes."

"I didn't know you talked to Paul. Where is he?"

"Rome, I think. He doesn't stay anywhere very long; I've never known him to be so restless. I asked him if he was doing any photography and he said he'd met someone who wants to be a model and he's begun photographing her. I wish he'd find a woman he could love."

"He'd do better to find a job. He's been wandering around the world for months; nothing but a wastrel."

"I don't think so; I think he's trying to find something to believe in. It's the same with Allison. I know her trip to Europe was my idea, but I didn't think it would turn out the way it has: the way she's going from country to country, and dragging Patricia with her, it seems more like she's fleeing. Bo3i of them, Paul and Allison, acting as if they're trying to get over a bad love affair. It's astonishing that one young woman could wreak such havoc. . . ."

There was a silence. **I had some of my father's things moved over here today," Felix said.

Leni Crowned. **You took things from Beacon Hill? You're not supposed to touch anything involved in the court case—^

213

♦»

Judith Michael

**I would appreciate it if you would stop telling me what I cannot do. Fve done it, and what anyone says about it is irrelevant. I decided it was time we get some use out of those things; theyWe been sitting in that house for a year, with nobody there— ''

"Rosa is there."

"She shouldn't be; she would have been gone long ago if you hadn't raised such an incredible fuss."

"I want her to live in this house, with us."

"I will not have her here."

*Then she'll stay in Beacon Hill."

"She will not. As soon as that house is mine, I'm going to sell it."

"You won't. Felix, you may succeed in taking those hotels from Laura, but I won't let you—^"

*7 will take back what is mine! My father was terrorized into cutting me out of his will!'*

"Don't be ridiculous. He left you ahnost everything he had."

Felix's fist was clenched around the stem of his wineglass, and it suddenly snapped in his hand. A ruby rivulet ran along the daric mahogany table, staining the snowy place mat before him.

"Did you cut yourself?" Leni asked with faint concern. "I'll ring for Talbot."

"It's nothing." He wadded a napkin in his pahn. "My father would never have done what he did if he'd been in lus right mind. He trusted me, he cared for me more than anyone, he wanted me to keep his name as powerftil after his death as it was in his lifetime. He knew I was the only one who could do that; he depended on me. He would never make a fool of me in the eyes of the world. The hotels were meant for me; his stock in the company was meant for me; his corporation was meant for me. And so was his house."

"If you win the case, that house will be ours,'* Leni said bluntly. "And it will not be sold."

Felix tightened his fingers against the linen napkin, pressing it into his throbbing palm. What the hell had happened to her? She'd been changing ever since Owen died and that witch had been sent packing in disgrace. Sometimes he hardly lec-

Inheritance

ognized her, she'd lost much of that charming passive serenity she'd developed over the years to mask whatever dissatisfactions she felt. Now, when she didn't agree with him, she told him so.

He had always dominated Leni. He used her elegance and style to make him feel powerful—the envy of other men— but his hold seemed to be weakening and it occurred to him that after twenty-two years of marriage he did not know her well enough to have any idea how to get it back.

Once he thought he knew everything necessary to make her his and to keep her. That was when she was nineteen, in hot rebellion against her wealthy, shipbuilding, churchgoing, publicity-shy family. Felix had met her on a street in Greenwich Village; she was with a man who glanced at him briefly, then, again, piercingly, and stopped him with his deep, gravelly voice. "By all die gods of the Salingers, if it isn't Felix the robber baron: Felix Salinger in the healthy and well-dressed flesh."

"Judd," Felix said flatly. He couldn't believe it: he never saw a familiar face in New York; it was an article of faith with him that the city made everyone anonymous. Yet here was Judd Gardner, whom he had long since wiped out of his thoughts, looking slightly seedier but otherwise not much different from years before. He would have walked away, but as he turned he got a good look at the girl whose arm was linked in Judd's. She was tall and spare, with tangled blond hair and sloppy clothes—and a way of holding her head, an elegance of style, that would have been at home in a palace. It was that elegance that caught Felix: he knew, with the same instinct that served him brilliantly in business, that a man who owned that elegance would have the power tfiat came from the envy of other men. And he knew he would not leave. "How are you?" he asked Judd.

"Barely," Judd said with a thin smile. "I barely am. But I see that you very much are."

"Judd, I'm cold," said the girl.

The April wind was bitter; it whipped around the comer with a raw chill. Felix was conscious of the girl's bare legs and his own fiir-lined coat, leather gloves, cashmere scarf. "Do you live nearby?" he asked.

Judith Michael

"Around the corner."

*Then we'll go there."

Judd*s eyes had been sliding from Fehx to the girl and back again as he saw Felix's fixed gaze. "Sorry, how rude I am. Leni Van Gris, Felix Salinger. Felix is known for taking what he desires, Leni, so be on your guard. Or perhaps I should be on mine. What do you think?"

"I think we should say good night and go home."

"But Felix wants a reunion," he said. "We can drink to old times. Except that we haven't got anything to drink. We'll have to stop on the way and get some su{^lies."

"We don't need any," she protested.

"We always need any," Judd said, and Felix realized he was in that perpetual state ojf drunkenness in which alcoholics can function for long stretches at a time before one more drink tips them into incoherence or stupor. "And Felix will pay."

"Judd, let's go home. Alone."

"No, no, Felix will join us. Felix is Bacchus, god of wine. And here we are."

The store was small and Judd was known there. Felix paid for wine and whiskey, and soda for Leni, and they carried it to a neaiby fourth-floor walk-up in a brick building with a dry cleaner and pawnshop on the street level. The apartment had three rooms along a narrow hallway, like a train car, and Judd sat down in the front room in one of three chairs around a folding table set with assorted china and a wine bottle with candle wax dripping down the sides. One window was filled with a piece of plywood where an air conditioner had once been installed; beneath it was a stain the shape of Africa. And everywhere, on the walls, the furniture, the floor, were bright posters.

**The idea is to go somewhere," said Judd. He poured two straight scotches and a soda, and handed a glass to Felix and one to Leni. "I'd like to take this lovely child away from here. But in case I can't manage it, we stare at exotic sights to swell our spirits with the wonders of a world where beauty is all that matters."

"Judd, shut up," Leni said nervously. She sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor beside Judd, the overhead light casting a shadow across her face that emphasized her cheekbones

Inheritance

and the angular lines of her head and figure. Felix stood, staring down at her, knowing overwhelmingly that he wanted her and would do whatever he had to do to get her. It wouldn't be the first time, he thought dispassionately, that he had taken something he wanted from Judd Gardner.

Without being asked, he sat in one of the chairs at the table, across from Judd, and took a long look at him. Tall, blond, his hair falling to his shoulders, he was still good-looking, though not as extraordinarily handsome as Felix remembered him from the days when he had envied those golden classic features, and wished he himself were less dark. Judd's voice was still rough, but his eyes and mouth, when he talked to Leni, were tender. "Where do you want to go?" Felix asked him.

"Paradise. Where I can pick the golden apples of the sun and the silver apples of the moon and give them all to Leni, because, poor child, she thinks I'm romantic, since I'm poor and we met in an art gallery one rainy afternoon, and now she thinks she loves me."

"I do love you," the girl declared. "And you love me."

"Ah, if I could love you, my sweet Leni ... if only I could."

"You will," she said. "I'll make you love me. You'll marry me and stop drinking and I'll find a way to get my parents to help you start another company all your own and we'll be happy."

"I had a wife. You'll find this interesting, Felix." Carefully he refilled his glass. "I had a wife and son but my wife kicked me out because I was drinking. Oh, and stealing, too— mustn't forget that. You see, once upon a time I owned a company. Owned it with a friend, but half was enough for me; I was so goddam proud of it. But it wasn't enough for my partner, so he stole my half." Once again he drained his glass and refilled it, this time pausing to hold it up to the light to admire its amber glow. "My friend stole it. Or, to be accurate, my un-friend. He wanted it so he stole it. So I stole too. That was after I found that I couldn't get it back legally, or even steal it back; all I could do was steal like an ordinary thief: breaking in and lifting a few things I could sell or pawn to keep going for a while and give money to my wife and son. He's eight now, my son, and I take him bowling and to Coney

Judith Michael

Island . . . fatheriy things. Vm not much of a man anymore, but I can pretend, even if I have to steal to do it—so I do."