Inheritance (82 page)

"I hear people talk about you a lot in Los Angeles," she said. "You have a real name out there, and so do I, and so does my friend who writes scripts. The three of us couldn't miss, Paul. And it's something I need."

There was a pause. Then Paul nodded. *That's the real reason, isn't it? You're not getting as much work as you were last year."

"Well, there are always fads," she said, brushing it aside. "Right now they want tall, rangy girls, sort of all-American.

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But it will pass; Tm not really worried, not at all. It's just that I'm ready for something new; I'm sure you agree with that. You were the one always looking for something new, remember? All I'm asking is that you be what you say you are."

"I'm a documentary filmmaker." His eyes were somber as he gazed at her. "But you want me to be something else, something I have no interest in being."

"How do you know? You've never tried it!"

"You need a director with a name. More important, you need one you can get to. And you think you've got one, across the table from you, and in your bed."

"What does that mean?"

Their appetizers arrived but they ignored them. "You wanted to be a model and you asked me to photograph you, and you used my portfolio to impress Marken. And now you want me to use my name to help you get a miniseries because your modeling career seems to be fading."

Her head was high. "What's wrong with a wife asking a husband to help her?"

"I wasn't your husband when you asked me to photograph you." He smiled wryly. "Do you know, Emily, a little more than seven years ago, I believed a woman I loved was a fortune hunter. It was one of the reasons I turned my back on her. But I ended up marrying one anyway, didn't I?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You had plenty of your own money, so it never occurred to me that you might be one, but you wanted other things: to be married, to be a model, and now you want to be an actress on television. And I'm the means for getting what you want."

"That's what a husband does. I can't believe you're saying these things to me. I'm a good wife; I read books about filmmaking so you have someone to talk to, I read newspapers so we can talk about politics if you want, I'm home more than most women in my profession—^I work very hard to be home as often as possible. I do things properly, Paul, and I've done everything I know to be a good wife."

"You have been. But that's not enough to make me drop something I care deeply about just because you have a fantasy— "

"I know it's not enough. I know you want children. We

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could think about a family now, if it's really important to you; we've been married long enough. . . ."

"Emily," Paul said, and his voice was so gentle she became terrified. She wanted him to shout, so she'd know he cared about what they were saying.

"And all those dinner parties," she rushed on. "I gave them for you as much as me, so you'd meet people who could help you. I've done so much to help you! In fact, if you want to talk about your photographs of me, they helped you as much as me, they made you in New York, they got you all those conmiissions! I knew they would, but you make it sound as if I wasn't thinking about you at all. You're the one who wasn't thinking about me; you only think about yourself and your damned films. It isn't important what I want, what I need— all that's important to you is doing exactly what you want, when you want it. You are a selfish man, Paul Janssen; I had no idea how selfish and self-centered and stubborn you are—"

"Emily, stop it." Surrounded by hearty voices and loud laughter, Paul heard the strain of hysteria in Emily's cultivated voice, and he pushed back his chair and walked around the table to her side. "We're going home." He beckoned to the maitre d'. "I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with your staff; everything was perfect, as always. Put the dinner on my account."

The maitre d' bowed. "I hope the illness passes quickly."

He knew it was not an illness, Paul thought; he laiew it was a quarrel. He probably saw more than his share of them. "Thank you," he said, and in a moment he and Emily were walking the few blocks to Sutton Place. "I didn't mean to get so excited," Emily said. "We can talk sensibly, can't we? But you shouldn't call me a fortune hunter when I just want help. Everybody does, you know, especially women; we don't go grabbing and pushing and doing the way men do. That's probably why we live longer; we let others smooth the road for us. All women do that, Paul, and you know it."

"Not all women," he said quietly. He nodded to the doorman who held the door for them and they rode the elevator in silence, and were silent until they stood in the darkened living room. Manhattan glittered below them like a fairyland of jeweled spires, and Paul felt a sense of longing and then, unex-

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pectedly, a leap of joy. I'll call you — when I have something to say. She might not, and she might not want to see him again if he called her, but it was more than he'd had for years; it was enough to make him feel that moment of joy. "Emily, I want us to separate; I want a divorce."

"No!" She spun around to look at him. "I don't think you mean that, Paul. I know you don't. We've had some problems, and things aren't perfect, but it just doesn't make sense for us to get divorced. We don't have to live together if you'd rather not—you can live here and I'll live in the house in Bel Air—but we still can be friends and do things for each other. You're not in love with anyone else, and neither am I, so there's no reason why that wouldn't work perfectly well."

"And if one of us does fall in love with someone else?"

"Then we can talk about a divorce if it seems really important. But there's no rush."

Paul gazed through the huge windows at the shining city below. It stretched to the horizon, and if it had dangers, they were not visible from where he stood. "I think we'd better talk about it now/' he said.

There was no answer at Clay's apartment, and after an hour of calling, and trying to do some of her work between calls, Laura left for home. But outside the hotel, she changed her mind and took a taxi to his building. She'd wait for him there. The telephone wasn't any good, anyway: she wanted to see his face when she asked him—whatever she decided to ask him; she hadn't figured it out yet. Of course Paul was wrong, but still, she wanted to talk to Clay as soon as possible. Just to make sure.

'They're out, Miss Fairchild," the doorman said in the lobby of the large building that had been converted from an old printing factory to high-priced lofts.

"I know," Laura said. "I'll wait for them upstairs." The doorman touched his hat as she went past him to the elevator. He knew she had her own key; Clay had given her one when she was helping him furnish the loft soon after he moved in.

All the lamps were on, and in the bright light Laura was struck by the neatness of the apartment. Myma's influence, she thought. She wandered restlessly through the huge room

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divided into areas by clusters of furniture and tall plants. She sat down and looked at the magazines on the coffee table, leafing through them, listening to the sounds of traffic on Greene Street and occasional footsteps from the apartment above. Then she began to wander again; she couldn't sit still.

At the end of the room, a wall of bookshelves screened the bedroom. One closet along the far wall stood open and she saw Myma's clothes and shoes, neatly arranged. The other closet was open only a crack, as if it had been given a hasty shove and had not quite closed. Laura glimpsed one of Clay's elegant suits, and his shoes piled on the floor. That's odd, she thought; Clay is so particular about his shoes. Idly, she opened the closet door. The shoes were cranmied into a small space left beside a metal file cabinet. Laura shook her head. What a crazy place for a file cabinet; he has a whole loft to use, and he squeezes it into his closet instead. Maybe that's where he keeps his love letters, and he doesn't want My ma to see them.

She closed the closet door and skirted the bed to look at the books on the other wall. She took some down, leafed through them, then put them back. Finally she kept one and carried it into the living room where she sat in an armchair, trying again to read. At midnight, she gave up. She was tired and worried, and felt foolish for being worried. I'm getting myself worked up over absolutely nothing, she thought. I'll see Clay at the office tomorrow—

But tomorrow was the Salinger board meeting. She was catching an eight o'clock plane to Boston. Well, then, she'd come here first, for breakfast, and talk to Clay privately then.

But as she left, something nagged at her, and she turned back. Why was that filing cabinet in his closet? It didn't make sense. He was so finicky about his shoes, polishing them and keeping them stuffed with paper so they wouldn't lose their shape; why would he jam a file cabinet next to them when he had other closets all over the apartment?

Because the bedroom closet was the only one with a lock.

She'd noticed that when she furnished the apartment. There was only one closet with a lock. And now that he wasn't living alone anymore, he'd put the file cabinet in that closet. That's a lot of trouble to go through just to keep old love letters hidden.

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Standing in the middle of the room, she wavered. It was Clay's closet; she had no right to look inside it. She should go home. But Paul's words echoed in her memory, and the silence of the apartment made them seem even louder. Just to make sure. That's why I'm here.

In the bedroom, she opened the closet again and tugged at the top drawer of the filing cabinet. It opened easily, and she burst out with a little laugh. All this agonizing over nothing . . . She looked at the upright folders and recognized her own writing: the letters she had written to Clay when he lived in Philadelphia and, later, when he stayed in Chicago before coming to New York. He saved them all, she thought; I never knew that. There were photographs of her, too, and of Kelly and John Damton, and all the girls he had gone with since high school. It's all so innocent, Laura thought with relief. I should have known. I did know; I told Paul he was wrong.

She reached down casually and pulled at the bottom drawer. And found it locked.

She knelt before the cabinet. / wish I was home. She sat on her heels and looked at the locked drawer. The metal shone in the lamplight. Just to make sure; just to make sure; just to make sure. And then, using a credit card and a nail file, she picked the lock.

Damn it, I shouldn't be this good at it; I should have forgotten how.

She pulled open the drawer. It was empty except for a thick envelope, turned over so she couldn't see the name and address on it, and a box of polished mahogany. She lifted the box; the wood was silky in her hands. She raised the lid. The box was lined in blue velvet, and, lying upon it, dazzling in its ruby and diamond brilliance, was Leni Salinger's necklace.

Chapter 30

CLAY parked in the garage a block from his loft, and all the way home he and Myraa continued the argument they'd started at the party. They had a lot of these lately: quarrels that started from nowhere and blew up like a balloon and then exploded with shouting and a broken cup or two, and then the two of them would fall into bed, and My ma would get on top, or suck him for a long time, until they were friendly again.

"I don't want to, that's why," Clay said as they passed the doorman. "I'm not giving you— "

"Mr. Fairchild," the doorman said. "Miss Fairchild was here earlier to see you. She left about an hour ago.'*

"She came here? Did she say what it was about?"

"No, sir. She waited upstairs for a while and then left."

"She probably left a note," Clay muttered. "Something to do in the morning." In the elevator, he picked up where he had left off. "I don't want to go to any more of these damned benefits because I hate putting on a fucking tuxedo, I hate the food they serve, and I hate being looked up and down by the people who go to them."

"They're looking you up and down because they like what they see. Clay, those are the people you read about in the paper! One of these days we'll have our picture in the paper, too."

"I don't want my picture in the paper. And I don't read

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about them—you do. I don't give a damn about them. Stuffed shirts who have too much money and think they run the world ..."

He unlocked the door. "I mean it, Myma, you can yell your head off but you're not going to haul me to any more of them. Christ, all I need is a nagging, pushy, social-climbing wife."

"You don't deserve any wife at all," she shot back. "I'm trying to make you better, get you in the right circles—^"

"Fuck it, lady, don't make me better; just leave me the hell alone!"

"Maybe I should! Maybe we ought to call the whole thing off!"

"Sounds like a damn good idea to me!"

She strode away and disappeared around a wall of cabinets into the kitchen. Clay paced the room, looking for a note from Laura. Nothing. Maybe I should call her, he thought; it might be important; why else would she come over here? But it was two-thirty in the morning; he couldn't call now; he'd see her at work. Pulling off his cunmierbund and black tie, he went into the bedroom and flung them on the bed. "Like a jail suit," he muttered, unbuttoning his shirt. "Worse, all that starch—" He stopped, his hands stilled on one of his buttons. Hadn't he closed his closet door? It was open a crack; he was sure he'd closed it.

He shut his eyes and thought back. Maybe not. He'd been in a hurry; Myma was calling him from the front door, saying they'd be late. He'd given it a shove; it may not have closed all the way. And even if he'd left it open, nobody was around.

Laura was. And if something had made her curious . . .

He opened the door and looked inside. Everything was where it should be, even a pair of cufflinks he'd left on top of the file cabinet. Leaning down, he pulled on the bottom drawer. Locked. Nothing to worry about.

Still ...