Inheritance (29 page)

*'Judd.'* Leni put her hand on his as he reached for the bottle. "You promised me you'd stop. You said when you finished what we had in the house you'd stop. And now we have all this stuff'—she glared at Felix—^'^and you know I hate it when—"

"Danm it, leave me alone! Sorry, I'm sorry, sweet Leni, but I'm talking to Felix and you mustn't interrupt.**

She stood up behind Judd's chair and put her arms around him. **Will you please go?" she said to Felix. "I don't know anything about you, but for some reason Judd's getting awfully excited and it would be better if you left."

"You don't know anything about me? You don't know," Felix repeated, astonished at his good fortune. He looked at Judd's once-golden features in the circle of Leni's arms and thought he saw the first stages of a gaunt, hollow-eyed drunk. "Choose your paradise," he said to Judd, "and I'll buy your ticket."

Judd's eyes narrowed. "You want Leni."

"I want to help you find your paradise," Felix said.

"But not if I take Leni with me."

**No."

**What are you talking about?" Leni demanded. She moved away from Judd and spoke to Felix. "What the hell do you think you're talking about?"

"He's talking about taking you away from me," said Judd.

"Well, he can't do it." Leni stood with her head back, her hands at her sides, looking at Felix with the air of an empress. "I asked you to leave; now I'm telling you. Get out. We don't want you here. Anyway I don't like you," she added, suddenly sounding like a child.

"Let Judd tell me to go," Felix said.

"I might," Judd responded.

"Might!" Leni's voice rose higher. "Might! Judd, what the hell is wrong with youT*

*1 might even talk about my past,** Judd went on. His eyes were somber. **What do you think, Felix? Should I do thatr*

Leni looked from one of them to the other. **When did you know each other?"

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"In college,** Felix replied. **We were roommates," Judd added coldly.

"It was a long time ago," Felix said. "I don't remember it very well. Do you?**

There was a pause. The two men stared at each other. "No,** Judd said. "I could remember, if I didn't get any money, but if I got some and went somewhere, the memory would no doubt stay very fiizzy.'*

Leni was biting her lower lip. "Judd, if you take money from this man Fm leaving you.**

He nodded. "I know. But you would anyway. Don't you understand, my sweet Leni? You'd leave me anyway, one of these days, when the novelty of rebellion and poverty wears off. You'd leave me when you begin to want a young man with success ahead of him instead of a failed drunk who has nothing but bitter memories and a few lines of poetiy to quote when you*re hungry.'* Reaching out, he took her hand in his. "I have nothing to give you, and you deserve a kingdom. You don*t belong here. I wish I'd had the strength to tell you that sooner.**

"You needed a bribe,** she said angrily.

"I needed a push. Someday you'll understand that."

She looked at him with the craftiness of a child trying to trick someone. "I warn you, if you leave me I'll go with Urn! That's what you*ll remember: me and Felix. You*d hate that!*'

"Yes. I would. But that's a choice you'll make for yourself." He looked at Felix. "How much?"

"If you go away by yourself, a thousand a month as long as you live."

Judd's head stumped back. "I'll be damned. I told you we should watch out for him, Leni. He just made our future.**

"Not mine!" she cried. "Judd, I'm strong enou^ for both of us! I won't let you do this!"

He looked at Felix. "I need a six-month advance."

Felix pulled out his checkbook and unscrewed his pen.

"I wanted to take care of you!" Leni said fmiously. *1 wanted to make your life better. I wanted to make you happy!"

Judd stood and put his hands on her unyielding shoulders. You can't remake people, Leni; you can't force them to be

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good or happy. Vm too fiill of hate to love anyone, but even if I could love, Fm not sure it would be you: you're quite exhausting to live with, my sweet."

Leni jerked away from him as Felix tore out the check. Judd took it and folded it into smaller and smaller squares. "But before my past blurred and I began to forget it," he said to Felix, as if continuing a conversation, "I told my son the name of the man who ruined me, what he did and how he did it. He'll remember; he loves me. And someday he'll get my revenge. Don't you think that was smart of me Felix?**

**I would have gotten your revenge," Leni said frantically. It was obvious she heard only some of what was said; her eyes were blank as she tried to understand what was happening. "But you wouldn't tell me anything!"

"I was trying to protect you from my hatred. Find someone strong and powerful, Leni; someone who can use your strength. You'll be happy then." He smiled, so sweetly that Leni began to cry, and both men saw the frustration and love behind her tears. "Now get out," Judd rasped. His smile had disappeared. "Go back to Monrniy and Daddy and give them my apologies for stealing you away. Go on! Get out of here!"

Felix took Leni's arm and pulled her toward the door. She was crying stormily and Felix never knew whether she heard Judd whisper, "Good-bye, my lovely Leni," just before he kicked the door shut behind them.

Felix held her up as they walked down the four dimly lit flights. "I'm going to take you home." He tightened his hold as she tried to break free. "You have to go somewhere and I'm not taking you to a hotel."

"Why not?" she demanded. *That's what you want, isn't it? You want to fiick me; that's all you care about, shitty, filthy, rotten—'*

He clamped his hand over her mouth. "Do you always talk like a stupid teenager? You'll have to change that before we're married."

Tuck you— " she spat against the hand over her mouth.

*We will.** He grinned: one of the few times Felix Salinger ever indulged in a fiill and gleeful grin. "As much as we want. Of course I want it; I've wanted you since the minute I saw you. And you won't try to make me better, the way you did

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that fool back there; you're going to be my wife and 1*11 be the one to make you better. And that's what you want, too, you little idiot: you haven't been satisfied by that pathetic dnmk; you want to be dominated." She shook her head fiercely. "You're not a rebel," he said contemptuously. "You're a romantic. Rebels take up with other rebels and try to change the world; romantics take up with losers like Judd Gardner and wait for someone to rescue them."

She pulled away from him. "Bastard—!"

He kissed her. But it was a battle and he hated it. He hated violence; he hated foul language in women; he hated opposition. He was behaving contrarily to every rule of his life, and that astonished him, but he watched it happen and roUed with it. There was in Leni everything he wanted: the elegance of the mother he only vaguely remembered; a strength and a streak of coarseness that would help him defeat his father; the New York background that made her a stranger to Boston, so she would be dependent on him for friends and a social life. And as a bonus, she had belonged to Judd Gardner—a man Felix had never been able to stop envying.

He ended the struggle; it was disgraceful to try to kiss a woman who was uncooperative. "Where do your parents live?"

"I don't want to go home; I can't face them. We can go to a hotel. We can fiick all you want. You don't care about me or my parents, all you care about is my cunt— **

He slapped her, admiring himself for doing something he had never done. "You will not talk like that. Is that clear? Where do your parents live?"

"None of your goddam business."

He opened the lobby door and propelled her the three blocks to his car. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had paiked it there to meet some business associates for dinner. Shoving her into the driver's seat so she would not be able to run away, he pushed her over as he got in himself. "Listen to me. This is what I'm going to tell your parents: that you and I ran away, that we were foolish and we know it now, but we were in love and we were afraid they'd object because you're only nineteen." Leni had become very still, her eyes wide as she watched him. "I imagine you don't want to go home because

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when you ran off you told them some nonsense about not liking their stuffy middle-class attitudes and not wanting to be like them. Am I right?" She was silent. "Am I right?" She nodded. "A lot of my classmates did that. Stupid asses. You can always defeat your parents if you stay close to them; what can you do from a distance?"

"I don't want to defeat them." Her words were almost inaudible.

"You want to go home," Felix said. He was feeling strong and satisfied.

She nodded and began to cry.

"Give me the address."

"820 Park."

He started the car. "Fm thirty-three years old; I've never been married or involved in a long relationship; and the Salinger hotels will be mine when my father dies. Your parents will be very pleased. Have I your permission to court you?"

She broke into wild laughter. And with that laughter, and the ride home beside Felix's powerful silence and satisfaction, Leni Van Oris took the first and irrevocable step to becoming Leni Salinger.

It was a memorable lesson in the uses of power. Felix never told Leni's parents about Judd but neither did he ever let Leni forget that he had made perfectly smooth her return to the family she loved and had longed for even at her most rebellious. And not long after performing that miracle, he had joined with Leni in a marriage that gave her social status, wealth, and a great deal of freedom.

"You don't love me," she said the night before their wedding.

"I need you," he replied. It was, for Felix, an astonishing admission, and Leni knew he would not have made it if he realized how much it told her about him. Because she knew now that no matter how powerful Felix Salinger was in the world of international business, he remained a little boy trying to find the mother he had lost, and to win his father's love, and since he never would succeed, the closest he could come i to feeling like a man was to conquer and possess what other men would envy.

But though he conquered and possessed, he was not a man

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who could be close to anyone. And so Leni had more freedom than she had expected. As long as she was available to satisfy his sexual hunger for her, as long as she stood at his side at social functions, and as long as she was discreet, she could do what she wanted.

For twenty-two years, Leni had thought she understood Felix, even as she was in awe of his ability to master the uses of power. Especially after Owen died and Laura Fairchild was unmasked, Leni saw the extent of his reach, and was stunned at how little she had known. By then she had created as much power of her own as she thought she ever would have. She was no longer a nineteen-year-old clinging to a romantic dream, but a realistic woman. I was interesting once, she thought; I was fiery and alive. And then I became a very wealthy, veiy dull wife. She had no faith in herself anymore; all she could do was gather what little power she could within the boundaries of Felix's world, and that was what she did. Over the years, she grew close to Owen. When her sister Barbara was engaged to Thomas Janssen, Leni introduced them to Owen, who set Thomas on the path to becoming Midwest manager for Salinger Hotels, and brought him and Barbara and their son Paul into the summer compound at Osterville. And, finally, Leni found young men who adored her and made sweet love to her and gave her a kind of peace.

Imperceptibly, Felix and Leni achieved something of a balance. He would always be more powerful but he could not control her. He knew it without understanding it, but he never spoke of it or aUowed himself to think too much about it. Because he could never let her go.

"Which of Owen's things did you take from Beacon Hill?*' Leni asked, finishing her wine.

Felix looked up from his memories. She was as close as the other end of the table, but she seemed far beyond his reach. '*Some furniture, some paintings; pieces I've liked for a long time."

"What fiimiturcr

"His desk. An armchair. A few tables. Why do you want to keep that house?"

"It's part of Owen. He wouldn't want it sold. I'm sure he wouldn't have left it to Laura if he'd known what she was, but

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he would have wanted it kept in the family. Besides, theie^s no reason to sell it. We don't need the money, and I like it. Why do you want Owen's desk?"

Felix pushed back his chair. "You bought it for him; I thought it should stay with the head of the company. It might become a tradition."

"You think I should have bought it for you.*'

"It would have been a nice gesture: a wife buying her husband a fine piece clearly meant for a powerful person." He walked tow^ the door. "Instead the wife buys it for her father-in-law. Most people would find that odd. Make sure you order another wineglass; I don't want to have a partial set; I don't like anything that is incomplete."

Leni watched him leave the dining room. Our marriage is incomplete, she reflected, and she thought of the many ways people disappoint each other: Judd's wife had sent him away; some shadowy figure had stolen Judd's company; Owen had never loved Felix as much as Felix wanted to be loved; and Felix had never been the son Owen wanted. And I disappoint, too, she thought: I disappoint Felix because I am not grateful enough for what he gave me, and because I have friends, and a daughter who loves me—and he does not.

And because I bought a Chippendale desk for my dearest Owen mstead of for my husband. And in all these years, he has never forgotten it.

She rang for Talbot to clear the table, and then she went upstairs to see what Felix had done with Owen's desk.

Chapter 13

THE trial lasted two weeks. Each day spun by in scenes that briefly stood out, as if caught by a revolving spotlight, then vanished as the light moved on. The faces of the Salingers stood out first: it had been almost a year since Laura last saw them, and when they sat together in the courtroom they looked to her like cameos in a cluster of family photographs. They were exactly as she remembered them, but she had changed, and she saw Allison*s suqmse as their eyes met. She knew the change was more than her short hair, it was also the frozen look of her face, the careful calm she had practiced for a year and especially during the weeks before coming to Boston. And that was how she looked for the ten days of the trial, as, one by one, the Salingers came to the witness stand and their eyes and gesturing hands and moving lips all blurred in Laura's mind like a painting that had been left out in the rain.

Leni testified that Laura and Owen had woriced together in his library; they had spent hours together walking on the beach; and, after his heart attack during a burglaiy in their house, she came with him to Boston and stayed with him day and night until he was well.

'^Before his heart attack, and after he recovered from it," said Rollins, *'he was strong and healthy?*'

"Yes."

**No one questioned his mental faculties?"

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*There was no reason to."

"Or his devotion to Miss Fairchild?"

"No."

Cheyne came back and faced Leni. "What did you think of Laura Fairchiid when you first interviewed her for a sununer job?"

"She was very pleasant and clearly anxious for woik."

"And did she provide you with reference letters?"

"Yes."

"And did you form an opinion of them?"

"I thought they were faked," she said sadly.

Ansel Rollins remained silent in his chair. There was no sense in objecting; Laura had told him the letters had been faked.

When Felix testified, his words were measured. "We all were suspicious, especially after the robbery, but my father would hear none of it. He seemed positively mesmerized."

"Objection!" Rollins exclaimed, and the judge ordered it stricken from the record, but everyone had heard it.

Rosa sat upright in the witness chair and gave Laura a small, uncertain smile. "Those two loved each oSier," she said firmly in response to Cheyne's questions. "Whatever else you may say about Laura, I do believe Mr. Owen loved her, and she loved him."

*Tell the jury about her work in the kitchen," Cheyne said conversationally. "Did she plunge right in from the first day and take some of the load off you?"