Sleeping Beauty (19 page)

“Changes in the air. You have to sniff these things out, you know, and I keep my nose to the news. I'm spending a lot of time these days with fellas in the party, and they're looking around for somebody new. Good politics is always looking ahead, you know; it doesn't get stuck in the mud of the past, it gives the voters new choices, new everything. They want somebody new for the next election.”

“For what?” Vince's voice was flat, almost bored.

“Senator. United—States—senator.”

Vince was silent.

“It's only four years off, not a lot of time with what we'd have to do. But you're known, Vince, you've got nice visibility, and the big money around town likes you. That's a good start, and a start in time saves nine.” He waited. “Well,
think about it. Nothing to lose by thinking. I've got a list of people you'd have to meet right away, local groups you'd drop in on, talks you'd give to Elks, Rotary, the whole bit. And a list of places you'd give money. More than you've been giving; a hell of a lot more. There's no substitute for spreading the wealth, thick and rich, like icing on the cake, and the filling, too. I figure you're worth at least a hundred million—you don't have to comment on that; it's just my private guess—so you can be generous. Politicians perk up, their fingertips wiggle like a belly dancer, when somebody generous walks in the room. Even if they knew you before, they'll know you better when they see you writing six-figure checks.”

Beloit examined his fingernails, then buffed them lightly on his sleeve. “Something else. Your old man's doing a lot of building in Tamarack. He's getting a lot of press—glitzy resort, playground of movie stars and CEOs and royalty . . . Definitely makes the Chatham name sparkle. You got anything to do with Tamarack?”

“Not yet. I keep track of it.”

“Well, same difference: Chatham is Chatham whether it's you or your old man. One of you does a make-over job that brings new business to Denver; the other one turns a little old mining town into a highfalutin resort that brings big spenders to Colorado. And you get the credit; you're the one making speeches and running for the Senate.” He heaved himself from the couch. “Oh, another thing. Maisie Farrell. She's good, she's tough, she's classy. She'd be a great campaigner. She'd be a great senator's wife. She's even . . .” He paused and strolled thoughtfully to the door. “Like I said before, she's even respectable enough to be in the White House. Talk to you later.”

Vince sat at his desk for a long time after Beloit left. A powerful desire, at last unleashed, was building in him. Had he thought about politics? For Christ's sake, of course he had. Anyone who cared about power thought about politics. It had been almost too easy to become a power in Denver, and now he was tired of it. He wanted something new. Something bigger. And as the idea settled within him, he
knew it was the perfect time. He was ready for politics. He was ready for the Senate.

She's even respectable enough to be in the White House.

He was ready for all of it.

*   *   *

He saw Maisie every night for the next four months, wanting her in the same way he wanted the Senate seat. He had to marry her. Not because Beloit had told him he ought to be married; not even because she was a prime political asset. He had to marry her because he could not get her out of his mind; the first time that had happened in fifteen years, since he had owned Anne. And the more she consumed his thoughts, the more he was jealous of whatever she did without him. He was distracted with the fury of not knowing where she was at each hour of the day, what her plans were, what she was thinking when she was not with him.

He had not beaten the mockery out of her; he couldn't get close enough. But Maisie would marry him; he was sure of it. And she could help him get anything he wanted; Beloit was right about that. She was quick-witted and poised and she would have enough sense to control her mockery. She came from wealth; her connections were good and her credentials impeccable. She knew how to dress and how to handle herself with strangers. She was very young—twenty-eight to Vince's forty-seven—but she gave the impression of being older; she had a control few women of any age could match. She was worth a fortune in a political campaign, and she would be the perfect political wife.

Even if she was not all of that, he might still have married her. He wondered about that sometimes, but it was an idle thought. He had no interest in philosophical speculation, and except for her damned independence, Maisie was all he wanted.

“I might marry you, Vince,” she said one night in January. They were sitting at a candlelit corner table at Chez Amis, and the flame flickered just enough to make Maisie's face seem to shift with sudden mood changes, and her green eyes to change from intimacy to coolness. She looked at
Vince with an amused smile. “You look like a racer, waiting for the starting gun. Relax, my dear; why are you always so impatient?”

“Why shouldn't I be? I told you once, I hate uncertainty.”

“You don't mind it in business; you expect it. What really annoys you is not being sure whether you'll get your own way or not. Tell me about Dora.”

He was startled. “Why?”

“Because whenever you talk about her, which isn't often, you're angry. What happened with her that you didn't get your own way?”

He signaled to the waiter to bring another bottle of wine. “I love Dora very much, and she loves me. She's a remarkable young woman.”

“I'd like to meet her.”

“You will.”

“But why haven't I? After four months and all this talk of marriage, shouldn't I have met your daughter?”

“She'll visit one of these days, on one of her school breaks, and you'll meet her then.”

“But she wasn't here at Christmas. And you said she didn't come when she was younger.”

“Her mother didn't want her to. And this Christmas she wanted her in Chicago.”

“She didn't want her to visit you. Why not?”

He shrugged. “She has warped ideas about fathers and daughters.”

“Any father, or just you?”

“Damn it, what difference does it make? She got a new husband a couple of years after we were divorced, and she said she wanted Dora to have a real family, not hang out in a bachelor pad.” He smiled wistfully. “How could I argue with that? I couldn't give her a family. And I saw her in Chicago twice a month. But from now on she'll be here whenever she wants; she's in college in California and she'll stop off in Denver all the time.”

“That will be nice for you.” Maisie was thoughtful. “So you don't need to marry me in order to be respectable enough for Dora.”

“Dora has nothing to do with it. You do. I want you.”

“But you've got me,” she said seriously. “We go to dinner, we talk, we go to movies, we go to bed. What more would we have if we were married?”

He smiled broadly. “Not a thing, I guess. Let's forget it. Tell me what's happening at the museum.”

Maisie laughed. “I do like to be with you, Vince. As for the museum, you know perfectly well what's happening. I found out today you funded the Sandor Tizio exhibit at the Berno Gallery and you bought two Tizios and gave them to the museum. You never told me any of that.”

“I don't publicize it.”

“Nonsense; you publicize most of your good works. Philanthropy is great for business. But when did you become the patron saint of young artists?”

“A few years ago. When I started collecting. What's so amusing?”

Maisie was laughing. “Saint Vincent. You really are so amusing, Vince. I like the easy way you accept sainthood; not even a feeble protest that you're only human, like the rest of us.”

“What else do you like?” he asked tightly.

“Oh, lots of things. I like your ambition and the way you aren't afraid of work. I like the projects you and Ray are building; some of them are brilliant, and I imagine you'll go on to even bigger and more important ones, and I like to be close to people who leave their mark on the world. I like being in bed with you when you stop giving instructions and just enjoy it. I like the way you're helping young artists; God knows they need it. I like the way you've kept in touch with Dora; a lot of fathers give up. And you don't bore me.” She paused. “That seems like a lot of things to like.”

“And love?” Vince asked, and cursed himself because it sounded childish and pleading.

“Well, no,” Maisie said. “But that goes two ways, doesn't it.”

“Not true,” he responded quickly. “I do love you.”

“Oh, Vince, let's not lie; it's so dull and grubby. If we get married, you'll have to promise not to lie.”

“Are we going to get married?” he asked.

She looked at him thoughtfully, and in the flickering light her smile seemed to grow and fade as if she changed toward him as the seconds went by. “I think we are,” she said at last. “I think it will be interesting.”

Quietly, Vince let out a long breath. Wait long enough, he thought, and everything you want comes your way.

*   *   *

By the time oil prices plunged and Denver began its long slide from the heights of its heady spree, the Chatham name was everywhere. Maisie no longer mocked it, for it gave Vince instant identification when he campaigned in the small towns of Colorado where the issue that roused the greatest passion was land use. He and Beloit had put together a campaign team that focused his speeches and brochures and position papers on the land. The message was always the same. Build. Use the land; that's what it's there for. It isn't there for a few backpackers or a lot of elk; it's there for the people of Colorado. It belongs to them. It's theirs to do with as they please.

The voters were loudly for or against the massive construction projects that radiated the name Chatham. Chatham Towers, Chatham Plaza shopping malls, Chatham Block office towers, the vast Chatham Place at Cherry Creek, Chatham industrial parks, Chatham hotels in Aspen, Vail, and Alta, and dozens of other buildings dominated the skylines and neighborhoods of eight Western states. Often daring in architecture and admired for their workmanship, Chatham projects were equally well known for the rough methods used to acquire land and get the designs approved over community opposition. No neighborhood was the same after Vince and Beloit were there, and the communities of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain states talked about them with a mixture of dread and eager anticipation.

“You love it,” Maisie said as they rode in the limousine to Colorado Springs for a political dinner. She wore an emerald silk dress and a long sable coat, and her red hair was pinned back with emerald clips. “All this attention. People loving you or hating you; people never sure of what you'll do
next, what you'll say, whom you'll attack, how soon you'll destroy their neighborhood.”

Vince smiled sweetly. “Once you called those buildings brilliant.”

“I said some of them were brilliant.”

The limousine sped smoothly down the highway in the early darkness of November, taking them to a banquet hall where hundreds of people waited, having paid five hundred dollars apiece to eat and drink in Vince Chatham's vicinity one week before the election, and listen to him blast another target on his thunderous road to the Senate.

“I watched you mesmerize Ludlow last night,” Vince said. “Is he going to give?”

“Twenty-five thousand. You didn't tell me you'd screwed him out of some land once.”

“He doesn't know that; he's guessing. Twenty-five thousand? What the hell did you promise him?”

“He's not a fool, Vince; he knows you'll be the best thing that ever happened to contractors in this state; they're going to have a field day. But I did offer him a small private dinner at our home in Washington, with some very powerful people.”

Vince grinned. “How many people have you invited to that small private dinner?”

“A few hundred. It doesn't matter; you'll have six glorious years to come through for your loyal contributors.”

He gave her a long look. “You said ‘our home in Washington.' ”

“Of course. I couldn't very well say I wouldn't be there, could I? But I haven't changed my mind, Vince. I'm staying through the election; not a day after.”

“You could. I'd forget the past year. We'd start—”

“You'd
forget? Oh, my poor little Vince, you're the seediest kind of politician; you lie to yourself as much as to the rest of us. You've spent the last four years trying to make me into someone else, a sweet little appendage with no more will than a child. You don't want a grown woman, Vince; you'd be happiest with a thirteen-year-old girl who'd follow orders. And when you couldn't change me, you found
someone else. Some
ones.
Plural. There've been three that I know of. Why would I tolerate that? I'm thirty-two; I'm attractive, smart, rich, and I know my way around. I like men, I think I like being married, but I want a partnership, not a stacked deck. Why would I stay married to a power-hungry son of a bitch who thinks he owns me and spends his spare time screwing fair maidens who're dumb enough to jump when he snaps his fingers? You don't even like them. You do it to degrade me.”

Vince's face was rigid. “If I have other women, it's because my wife spends her time fucking men she picks up at the museum—”

“Oh, for God's sake, is that the best you can do? One little fling, Vince. Three months out of the past four years. I confess. I confessed at the time. I don't believe in being unfaithful, but he had a sense of humor and you have none and I couldn't resist. That was a year ago, Vince, and I've been such a good girl since then, but you're still talking about it. Could it be that a tiny molecule of guilt has crept into that vacuum where your ethical system ought to be, and you feel just uncomfortable enough that you have to blame me?” Her eyes met his cold ones. “No, not even a molecule.” She shook her head. “It's such a shame. There was a time when I thought you had real possibilities.”