Once Is Not Enough (46 page)

“Of course, Mike.”

“Now listen, we’re staying here until Easter. And we expect you and David to come down for that weekend. That’s when Dee gives her last big bash. Then . . . I have a real surprise for you.”

“What?”

“The Cannes film festival.”

“The what?”

“Remember how we talked about it in Switzerland, how you dreamed of going? Well, there’s a backgammon tournament in Monte Carlo just about that time, so I’ve convinced Dee to go. We’ll stay at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes—you’re twenty-one now, so I can take you to the Casino, teach you Chemin de Fer, Baccarat . . . We’ll see all the pictures . . . all my old friends
. . . And I may just have a few other surprises for you, too.”

“Mike, when is all this?”

“It starts in May. But I figure if we hit it around the fifteenth, we’ll get all the action we want. That’ll give Dee a chance to come back to New York from Palm Beach, open the suite at the Pierre—I think it’s probably all covered with sheets and stuff. And I’ll catch up on the shows. Maybe you’ll go with me if David can spare you. But I’ve got to teach you backgammon. I’m on a hot streak with it, and eventually I’ll play big. Right now I’m still playing for five bucks a point. But it’s just a matter of time . . .”

“You’re happy, aren’t you, Mike?”

“I’m gambling, and I’m hot, and that’s what it’s all about—for me anyway.”

“I’m glad.”

“How is it with you and David?”

“He’s really a very nice man.”

“That’s it.”

“I’m afraid it is . . .”

“Anyone else on the scene?”

“Yes . . . Mike . . .” Suddenly she knew she was going to tell him. He would understand. “Mike . . . I met someone . . . I think . . . I mean I know—”

“Who is he?”

“Mike, he’s married.”

“Go on.” His voice was suddenly hard and ugly.

“Don’t tell me that shocks you?”

“It disgusts me. When I played around, I played around with bums. That’s exactly what I thought of them, even if they were stars, because they all started off knowing I was married and had a kid. So when you . . . at twenty-one . . . a girl who has everything . . . who has a guy like David in love with you—”

“Love has to be a two-way deal, Mike.”

“You mean to tell me with all the guys you could meet, you could only hook up with a married one. And, of course, he has kids.”

“He has one.”

“Can he get a divorce?”

“I don’t know. He’s—”

“Don’t tell me. I can see the scene. An advertising guy . . . maybe in his thirties . . . tired of the girl he married on the way up . . . has her stashed in Westchester . . .”

“Mike . . . it’s nothing like that.”

“January, tell me one thing. Have you . . . have you been intimate with this man?”

She stared at the phone. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe the phrase—“have you been intimate”—or the faltering way he asked. He sounded like a preacher . . . not like Mike. She
couldn’t
tell him. He really wouldn’t understand. It was awful—to have to hide this from Mike—but she heard herself saying, “Now, Mike, it’s not that serious. I just said I met someone and—”

“January, have I ever steered you wrong? Now listen to me . . . please. Don’t see him again. He can’t respect you if he thinks you’ll go with him when he’s married . . .”

“Mike, you’re talking like . . . well . . . like three generation gaps . . .”

“I’m talking to my daughter. And I don’t give a damn about how things have changed. Sure there’s more sexual freedom. I wouldn’t be shocked if you told me you went to bed with David . . . say . . . a few months before you married him. Or that you had gone to bed with him already and he left you cold. That’s Today. That’s the new freedom. That’s the big change. But men don’t change as far as their emotions go, and let me tell you, they don’t respect a broad who goes to bed with them when they have a wife. Because no matter what kind of a story they give you . . . how the wife is a wife in name only . . . or that they have separate bedrooms . . . or an arrangement—you better believe that the nights they don’t see you and have to go home, they’re still going to bed with their wives. Even if it’s a mercy hump. I know . . . because I’ve been there. And they still respect their wives because of their guilt. In fact, she almost gets to be a madonna because of it. And the better the lay the girl is, the more guilt they feel toward their wives. And when the guilt gets too heavy and when the girl wants more than a few nights a week . . . or a stolen trip . . . or gets too demanding—they drop her and go back to their wives for a few weeks until they find a new girl. Don’t give me this liberated
jazz. A married man is a married man—in nineteen fifty . . . sixty . . . or seventy. Laws and morals might change, but emotions remain the same.”

“Okay, Mike. Please. Cool it. I’m fine . . .”

“All right. Now get back to David or some guy like him. Make your old man happy. I’ll talk to you later in the week. I’ve got to run off for golf. I’m playing that game for big money—because like I said, when your luck is good, you’ve got to push it.” He clicked the phone.

She hung up and walked to the window and stared aimlessly at the barren courtyard. She had been insane to think Mike would understand. Even if he hadn’t sounded off on it, she could never have told him the entire story. And unless he knew about Tom’s problem, there would be no way she could convince Mike that Tom really loved her, that their love was different from the affairs he had had. She thought of Tom . . . and the love and tenderness she felt constricted her chest. This great strong wonder of a man . . . and she had been able to make him happy.

The phone jangled. She almost turned her ankle rushing to it. “Hello—” She stopped. She had been about to say, “Hello, Tom.” But it was Mike.

“Listen, I can’t go off to play golf leaving it like this between us. Look, if this joker you say you like is really a good Joe and wants to get a divorce and you really love him and—”

“Oh, Mike, it’s not anything like that . . . really.”

“I have a hell of a nerve sounding off like that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Mike.”

“I love you, babe. And remember—there’s nothing you can’t tell your old man. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mike.”

“Love me?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. Call you in a few days.”

She sat by the phone the rest of the day. Tom’s call finally came at five o’clock. “I’ve sent the car for you. Will you come to the Plaza?”

“Of course, Tom. Are you all right?”

“I will be . . . as soon as I see you.”

The traffic was heavy and she felt jittery as the car inched its way toward the Plaza. When she reached the hotel she actually ran down the hall to his suite.

He looked drawn and weary, but his smile was bright as he took her in his arms. He sat on the couch and sipped bourbon as he told her how everything stood. The man was in a coma, but no charges would be filed. The man had a long record of arrests. The police were still checking on his accomplice.

“I don’t know how you did it,” she said. “You were drinking a good bit.”

His smile was sad. “I fight for blood when I fight.”

“Have you ever lost?”

“A few teeth at times. But there’s a killer instinct in me that always makes me win. It worries me at times, because I could kill. That was a karate chop I gave the big guy. I tried to miss his windpipe. Thank God I did. Otherwise he’d have been dead. I once promised myself I’d never do it unless my life was threatened.”

“But it was.”

“No, I could have beat him with my fists. The karate thing”—he showed her the motion with the side of his hand—“you hit a man in the right place with that . . . it’s over.”

She spent the night with him and once again she managed to arouse him into actual intercourse. His gratitude was overwhelming, and when he held her and told her he loved her, she knew he meant it.

The next day he was deluged with reporters. The story at Westhampton broke in all the papers. It was the kind of story the press associated with Tom Colt. At noon, the police got a “make” on the little man. He was wanted in Chicago for raping and killing three women. Now the story took on national importance. The Chicago police had arrived. The phones were going. The suite was cluttered with police and reporters.

Rita Lewis was ecstatic as she directed the traffic of the news media. January had slipped out at eight-thirty in the morning just before his first scheduled interview . . . before the news had broken. That afternoon he called her at the office and said, “The place is a madhouse. Now the FBI is in on it. I may have to go to Washington tomorrow—something about testimony on
the little guy—and added to everything, his accomplice, the big guy, his name is Henry Morse. Well, Henry has a common-law wife and two kids and she’s got herself a lawyer who’s slapped me with a million-dollar assault charge.”

“She can’t do anything to you, can she?” January asked.

“No. Just take up my time. In the end, she’ll settle for a few hundred bucks.”

“But why should you have to pay her anything? That man was out to kill us all.”

“It’s easier than going through pre-trial examinations. Her lawyer knows that. Unfortunately, that’s the way it works. The people who have plenty of time and nothing to lose figure their nuisance value will make you pay off . . . and you do.”

“Oh, Tom . . . how awful.”

“Anyway, you better play a low profile as far as I’m concerned for the next few days. The little guy—his name is Buck Brown—he’s already mumbling about a girl with long brown hair being there. No one believes him. But it’s just as well that no one see me with you until this blows over.”

“Well, how long will it be?”

“Just for a few days. My publisher is jubilant. He acts as if I planned this whole setup just to help the book. We had over eight thousand reorders in the last twenty-four hours. They’re going into another big printing. Everyone seems to think I’m a cinch for number one.”

“Oh, Tom, how wonderful!”

“I was getting there on my own.” His voice was grim. “Number three this week. I’d hate to think a fist fight could put me to the top.”

“If the book wasn’t there, all the fights in the world couldn’t make it sell. You know that.”

“January, tell me something—how did I ever live without you?”

“I’m just wondering how I’m going to get through today without you.”

“I’ll keep in touch by phone. And the first chance I get, we’ll be together.”

He left for Washington that afternoon and called her at midnight. “I’ll be here for a few days. I’m also doing some book
stuff, so it works out fine. That little Buck Brown—the one that was holding the knife at your throat—he would have killed you. That’s his pattern. Rape, then kill. He just hooked up with the big guy a few weeks ago on a dope score. They’re both involved with drugs. They’re pushers and users. But the little guy is paranoid. Now it seems he’s killed six women, and the list seems to be growing—once he rapes, he must kill, he’s admitted that.” His voice went low. “Know something, baby? I may just give up drinking. Suppose I had been more sloshed . . . and had slept through it all . . . You’d be—” He stopped. “Look, I’ll be back at the end of the week. You get some rest. Then we’ll spend the weekend together.”

“Not at Westhampton,” she said.

“No. At the Plaza. All safe and sound in Fun City. And, January, for God’s sake, never let on to Linda that you were there when all this happened. After all . . . I am under oath.”

It hadn’t been easy. When the story broke, Linda had turned into a Torquemada.

“Where were you when all this happened? I thought you were spending the weekend at West Hampton with him?”

“No, I just went for the day. He sent me back so he could work.”

“And nothing happened?”

“Well, it looks like plenty happened after I left.”

“I mean . . . with the bed department.”

“Linda, everything is fine.”

“January, are you leveling with me?”

“Yes.”

“But when did you do it?”

“Linda, for heaven’s sakel I didn’t leave there until around ten.”

“Was he great?”

“Yes . . .”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“I’m just tired . . . I haven’t slept very much.”

“You look awful. You’re getting too thin, January.”

“I know. I’m going to eat a big dinner and go to bed early.”

But she hadn’t eaten. And after she had talked to Tom, she hadn’t been able to sleep either. A whole week without him
. . . suddenly all of her sense of well-being vanished. The following morning she woke up stiff and her neck was sore. She went to the office, and at three o’clock she was positive she was coming down with a virus. Linda told her to go home. “Honestly, January. Most girls who are in love bloom . . . you wilt!”

She got into bed. But she had chills and began to shake. She didn’t know any doctor and she didn’t want to bother Linda. Then she thought of Dr. Alpert. Of course. He certainly was a good doctor. Look at all the tests she had gone through before he gave her the shot. She phoned him, but his receptionist told her he didn’t make any house calls and advised her to come over immediately.

The office was crowded, but the receptionist slipped her into a small examining room. “I’ll get him to you,” she promised.

Five minutes later Dr. Alpert shuffled in. He looked at her, nodded, shuffled out and returned with the syringe.

“Shouldn’t you take my temperature?” she asked. “I mean . . . I know vitamins help everyone. But I feel sick. Like I’m coming down with something.”

He felt her brow. “No sleep . . . no food . . . too much energy. When did you eat last?”

“Why I . . .” She tried to think. Tom had berated her for leaving her steak the night before, and she had barely gotten a piece of toast down this morning. “Not since . . . well . . . maybe Friday. I’ve been nibbling. But I’m not hungry.”

He nodded. “This will set you right, I promise.”

She was sitting in dungarees and a shirt. She rolled up the sleeve and extended her arm, but he shook his head. “Take off the pants . . . this is an intramuscular shot.”