Sinners (19 page)

‘Anyway, what about you?’ Sunday asked. ‘Have you decided about Marshall yet?’

Carey looked sheepish. ‘Gee, I just don’t know, it’s so
difficult
. He’s sweet and nice when you get to know him, but marriage . . . we’ve got a lot of problems going for us that other people just don’t have.’

‘I hope you work it out. I think the only place one can really be safe is in a good marriage, and one that’s not based entirely on sex.’

*    *    *

Later, Max took Sunday into a comer and studied her hand. ‘It’s all here, you know,’ he said, ‘a very strong man, a powerful influence. I just didn’t see it as marriage. But of course, it is so.’

‘Do you see children?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Perhaps, after a while.’ Sunday’s hand perplexed him; there was this strange break, something . . . ‘Yes, I see children eventually. Two.’

She smiled. ‘You know, Max, since I came to visit you that day I’ve felt like a new person.’

He nodded. He knew he had the power to reassure people, relax them. It pleased him. ‘Tell me, my dear, do you know the senator? I’d very much like to meet him.’

Max felt he
should
meet the senator. He adored to acquire people and watch them fall under his spell – as he told them about themselves. The senator could be an important acquisition. Max was rather upset at the way Branch was treating him. He had attempted to make a rendezvous but Branch had brushed him off edgily. The fact that he had done this only made him more interesting. ‘Such a sexy boy,’ Max muttered under his breath, ‘what muscles!’

It was a shame, he reflected, that he couldn’t predict his own future.

*    *    *

Branch was steering well clear of Max Thorpe. It seemed every way he turned there was a fag lying in wait. Even the director of the film he was doing was one, with a wife and three children tucked away somewhere.

It disgusted Branch. He only did it for his career and to get on. When he was a star, they had better not come sniffing around.

He watched Sunday with lovesick eyes.

Why hadn’t she waited for him?

*    *    *

Dindi followed Steve carefully, stationing herself in nearby groups and keeping her eye on him. When he went upstairs she was a discreet distance behind. He went into a room and shut the door.

After a few minutes she followed. The room was a study which led into a black marble bathroom.

He was in the bathroom taking a leak.

‘Oops, excuse me,’ said Dindi, ‘I was looking for the powder room.’

He finished what he was doing, and then casually zipped himself out of sight. ‘Yeah?’

‘Well, really,’ she giggled, ‘I was following you.’

Ignoring her, he peered at himself in the mirror, combing his hair and deciding whether to take a quick eye-bath as his eyes were bloodshot from all the booze he had put away.

‘I was following you because I like you, and I thought, well, you’re not going to be a bachelor much longer, and well, y’know, you have the
wildest
reputation, and I thought maybe it would be fun – for you as well as me – if we had a little sort of goodbye-Steve Magnum fuck!’

He started to laugh. ‘You’re a hell of a friend.’

‘I’m not
really
Sunday’s friend. In fact, I don’t even know her. I came here with a guy. She’d never find out.’

‘Forget it, baby.’ He turned back to the mirror.

Dindi walked out of the bathroom and locked the door in the study. She took off her clothes, leaving only the long chains she was wearing around her neck. Then she went back into the bathroom and said, ‘I hear you
adore
being whipped. Maybe one last time . . . ?’

It took Herbert Lincoln Jefferson time to adjust. The fact that his wife Marge was involved in some kind of sexual black magic was bad enough, but before he had made up his mind to do anything about it, he was stunned by the news that a young girl had been murdered on Miller Drive. Her description fitted the girl he had picked up the previous evening.

He was shocked. He couldn’t have killed her: it was impossible. He had only knocked her around a little, given her the sort of treatment she deserved. She wasn’t the first woman he had hit, and with the others it had always been all right. Someone else had probably come across her after he had driven off.

There was a picture in the paper of two policemen standing at the spot where she was found. The report said she was about eighteen or nineteen, a heroin addict, victim of a brutal beating, naked but with no signs of sexual assault. She was unidentified. The police claimed to be working on several leads.

Herbert went cold with fear when he read about it. If the police got him he couldn’t stand it. It would mean prison and filth. He had heard about what went on in the prisons, with men raping other men.

Was there anything to connect him with the girl? Had anyone seen her get in his car? Had they noted the number?

He had left the car in the Supreme Chauffeur garage. Her fingerprints must be inside it. What if the police went there and found them? He must clean them off at once.

Shaking with fear, he hurried upstairs and dressed. Marge was still asleep, snoring and seeming to smile.

He shook her awake. ‘If anyone comes here asking where I was last night, I was here with you from nine o’clock until twelve when I took the car back. Understand?’

‘Wassamatter?’ Her sleepy eyes opened.

‘I was with you,’ he shouted, ‘all night.’

‘But you was working last night,’ she whined.

Controlling an impulse to drag her out of bed and shake her, he said, ‘I was here with you. That’s what you tell them. No matter what. OK?’

‘Are you in trouble?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Maybe,’ he muttered. ‘But you’d better say what I told you to say, otherwise you’ll be good and sorry.’

‘All right. Where are you going?’

‘I have to go to the garage. They have an early job for me.’

‘But you’re on night shift.’

‘Now remember, I came home nine o’clock because I finished early. Then I took the car back at twelve and came straight home again.’

‘OK.’ She shifted her bulky body out of bed and reached for a bar of chocolate on the dressing table.

*    *    *

When he was gone she got up. Herbert
was
in trouble, she knew that. But how could she be his alibi when she had been next door all evening? She would have to talk it over with Louella Crisp. What a wonderful neighbour she was, so kind and understanding. Thank goodness she had come to live next door and rescued Marge from a life that consisted merely of eating, watching TV, and Herbie.

She shuffled downstairs to make her usual breakfast of eggs, toasted muffins and low-calorie chocolate malt. She was trying to cut down, she had promised Louella she would. It was so wonderful of Louella to let her join her ‘circle of friends’, as she called them. The previous evening had been her initiation, and it had involved sex with each of the five men present. But Marge didn’t mind. Louella had explained to her that she had to submit to become part of the group; every new member did the same thing.

‘It’s a great honour,’ Louella had told her. ‘We select very few people. The men who will be with you are very respected members of the community.’

Thrilled, Marge had looked covertly at their faces, hoping to recognize a movie star at least. She was a little disappointed for they hadn’t
looked very
important, mostly ageing and non descript. But all the same it had been so long since Herbert had touched her that it didn’t really matter what they looked like.

She picked the paper off the kitchen floor where Herbie had left it, and glanced at an advertisement for a fake mink hat. Then she read about the murder of a hippie girl, sinking her teeth into a fat fuzzy peach as she did so.

*    *    *

Herbert arrived at the Supreme Chauffeur Company in record time.

‘What are you doing here, Jefferson?’ the man at the desk asked him. ‘You’re not on nights
and
days, are you?’

Herbert shook his head, his eyes shifting uneasily. ‘No. Lost me cigarette lighter. It’s valuable. Thought I’d better look for it right away. Is the Caddy I had last night still in the garage?’

The man consulted a book. ‘Nope. Went in for a service this morning. Be back at six.’

Herbert felt sweat form on his body. ‘Where’s it gone?’

‘Usual place on La Cienega.’

Herbert turned and walked out. If it was being serviced it would finish up with a thorough clean inside and out. But he didn’t dare take a chance. He would have to go to the garage, and examine it. Maybe the girl had dropped something in the car.

He quickened his step to the bus stop and cursed the fact that he still had no car. You were dead without one in Los Angeles, the public transport system stank.

It was a hot smoggy morning and he felt in desperate need of a shower. How he hated to feel dirty. When his mother was alive she used to beat him if he tried to skip his nightly bath. ‘You dirty little bastard,’ she would scream, ‘you’re filthy, like your father.’

How pleased she would be if she could see him now, showering two or three times a day.

*    *    *

On the bus he took care to sit alone, scowling out of the window at the passing people.

He thought about the letter he had posted to Sunday Simmons. It made him feel good.

He thought about her supposed engagement to Steve Magnum. Of course it wasn’t true – just publicity because they were acting in a film together. Herbert imagined himself wise in the ways of Hollywood.

He thought about Marge and the strange scene he had witnessed next door. He hated the whole idea of it. God, when this business of the murder was off his mind he was going to do something about it. He wasn’t having his wife mixing with a bunch of perverts. Meanwhile he would leave Marge in ignorance, let her think he knew nothing.

*    *    *

The car was up on a block, a workman poking about underneath.

‘I have to get in there,’ Herbert said abruptly.

‘Yeah?’ The man looked him over.

‘I’m from the Supreme Chauffeur Company. A customer lost something inside the car, and I have to look for it.’

The workman’s eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t take anything.’

Herbert nodded impatiently. ‘I know you didn’t, I just have to look. It might not be there, but I have to look – now.’

Complaining, the man lowered the car and Herbert got inside. He sat behind the wheel, gripping it tightly, and forced his eyes to look slowly around. Having done that, he got out and tipped the seats forward, bending down to study the thick pile rugs, first the driver’s side, then the other.

He searched carefully, his mean brown eyes covering every inch. Satisfied, he was about to stand up when his eye caught the glint of something stuck down the side of the carpet. He picked it up. It was a fine gold chain with a small disc attached. On the disc were three tiny diamonds with the word ‘DAD’ engraved.

He pocketed it quickly and strolled away from the car.

The workman was busy talking to another mechanic as he left.

*    *    *

Louella Crisp, a sharp bird-like woman, stared piercingly at Marge Lincoln Jefferson. ‘You’ve got to find out what he’s done,’ she said for the third time.

‘I don’t know how I can,’ Marge whined in reply. ‘He never tells me nothin’ unless he feels like it.’

‘I’m telling you that you
must
find out. Don’t you understand that he
has
to tell you if he wants
you
to tell people he was with you.’

‘I’ll try,’ Marge said reluctantly.

‘See that you do.’ Louella clapped her hands together. ‘There’s to be another gathering next Saturday. There will be other men that will initiate you. Soon you will be one of us absolutely. I’m afraid that I must ask you again for the five hundred dollars membership token. Do you have it?’

Marge fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘Gee I’ll give it to you soon. I have it, but Herbert’s got my bank book. I’ll get it from him by Saturday.’

‘I hope so, otherwise it will be impossible for you to continue to come to our little parties.’ Louella put a thin hand on her shoulder. ‘I like you very much, Marge dear, but if the other members find you haven’t paid, well – whatever I say, I’m afraid they won’t want you.’

‘I’ll get it, I swear I’ll get it,’ Marge said quickly. Now that she had found Louella and her circle of friends, she was terrified of losing them. There was fifteen hundred dollars in her bank book, money she had saved before she even met Herbie. He had tried many times to get her to take the money out, but she had refused. It was all she had. Furious on one occasion, he had grabbed the book and said that if he couldn’t have it, neither could she. He had hidden it, but she knew that she must find it and get the money for Louella.

Roundabout
was finished.

Serafina and the children had returned to London.

In the big house there were only Charlie, Dindi, George and the servants.

In the garage there was a new white Lamborghini Miura.

In the study the latest camera equipment piled high, some boxes containing Leicas and Rolleiflexes unopened.

Charlie was depressed. The completing of a film always left him strangely melancholy and alone. It took him days, sometimes weeks to adjust, get rid of the character he had been playing and become himself. Fortunately the character in
Roundabout
had not been too complex. Mr Everyman. Ordinary Schmuck caught in extraordinary situations. Charlie had captured him to a T. The man-in-the-street was one of his most masterly comic exercises. Everyone at the studio agreed it was probably one of his best performances. The film was destined to be a huge moneymaker.

Angela Carter was adequate, but it was Dindi on whom everyone commented. She came over as pretty and appealing, the Baby Girl she had played for Charlie on their first date. She was lucky to have Marshall as her agent.

‘I’m amazed,’ Marshall confided to Carey. ‘She really comes across as cute on the screen. Even the women like her. Cy wants her for another picture at once.’