The Inheritors (40 page)

The conference call came through almost as soon as he had left. Sam was on the line as soon as the formalities were completed. “I just wanted to thank you.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “Just make it work and you get your stock back.”

“I will. Everything will be all right now. It really will be a happy New Year.”

That was the first time I realized that it was New Year’s Eve.

***

It was too late to make any plans. Besides I wasn’t in much of a mood to hit any of the parties. I was tired and all I wanted was to go back to the hotel, take a hot bath, have some dinner, watch a little television, and go to bed. I made only one mistake. I never should have turned on the television set.

Television on New Year’s Eve is filled with nostalgia. I began to drink. At nine o’clock, I watched the lighted ball drop down the Times Building at midnight in New York while Guy Lombardo played; at ten o’clock I caught Woody Herman at midnight in Chicago. By that time I had killed almost a bottle of Scotch and I stumbled into bed.

I thought I would go right to sleep, but the whiskey was working on me. I was too high to drift off. I lay there half in and half out of the world while the sounds of the approaching midnight grew louder around the hotel.

It was five minutes to twelve when the front doorbell of the bungalow began to ring. I waited a few minutes, hoping whoever it was would realize their mistake and go away. They didn’t. The bell kept ringing.

Finally I got out of bed, slipped on my robe. I threw the door open angrily, ready to blast anyone who stood there.

She was there, looking up at me with wide, timid eyes. “I was—I was afraid I wouldn’t get here in time,” she said in a soft voice. “Happy New Year.”

I opened my arms and she came into them.

CHAPTER TEN

I rolled over in the bed and looked at her. She opened her eyes. “Good morning,” I said.

She smiled. “Happy 1965.”

I kissed her. “Happy 1965.” I picked up the phone and asked for room service. I looked back at her. “What would you like for breakfast?”

She made a face. “Just coffee.”

“I’m starved,” I said and ordered the works.

“You’re not going to be able to eat all that,” she said.

“Watch me,” I said. I rolled on top of her pressing her into the bed with my weight. Her arms went up around my neck and pulled my face down to her. Her mouth was morning sweet.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t come out?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Been lonely.”

She held my cheek close to her face while she whispered, “My cunt feels so good. So warm and loved.” She drew back and looked into my eyes. “I’m still full of you. You poured. Man, how you poured.”

“You keep on talking like that,” I said, “and you might have to go through the whole thing over again.”

“You don’t frighten me,” she smiled. “I love it.”

I started to kiss her again, but the doorbell rang. “Damn,” I said.

She slipped out of bed. “You wanted breakfast.” She started for the bathroom. I called her and she turned in the doorway and looked back.

“You’re beautiful. Do you know that?”

“Go get your breakfast,” she laughed. “I don’t want to be responsible for your starving to death.”

I slipped into my robe and went to the front door. I was drinking the orange juice before the pink cloth-covered table came to a stop.

I had almost finished my ham and eggs by the time she came out of the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, her hair still wet from the shower. I looked at her with my mouth full and gestured to the chair.

She sat down, poured herself some coffee, and didn’t speak until I had finished mopping up my plate with the last piece of English muffin.

“You weren’t kidding,” she said when I put down my knife and fork.

“I told you I was hungry.” I poured myself more coffee. “I feel better now.”

She picked up her coffee cup.

I got up and pulled the venetian blind. The sunlight flooded into the room. “It’s a beautiful day out and we have a long three-day weekend in front of us. Why don’t we take off?”

“And go where?” she asked.

“Palm Springs?”

“Too dull,” she said.

“Las Vegas?”

“Too busy,” she said.

“The ocean? We can go down to La Jolla and charter a boat.”

“I get seasick just looking at the waves,” she said.

“What would you like to do then?” I asked.

“Why do we have to do anything?” she smiled up at me. “Why can’t we just stay in and fuck?”

“Can’t top that,” I said. “Okay, if that’s what you want, go get dressed.”

Her surprise showed in her voice. “What for?”

“If that’s all we’re going to do this weekend,” I said, “I’ve got a much more romantic place to do it.”

***

I turned the car into the driveway and went on into the carport. I got out of the car. “Come on.”

She followed me to the front door and I took out a key and opened it. “You walk down,” I explained.

We stopped at the bedroom on the first level and I put away the valise into which we had tumbled enough things for the weekend. I hit the button and the ceiling rolled back.

She threw herself on the bed and looked up. The overhead sun bathed her in gold. “I don’t believe it,” she cried.

“That’s only the beginning,” I said. I hit the other button and the bed began to move and the television sets came up and down around the room. I turned the switch off and everything stopped.

“Enough for now,” I said. “Let me show you the rest of the place.”

We went on down the steps into the living room. I pressed a wall switch and the drapes moved back. All Los Angeles lay there at our feet. I moved back the sliding glass door and we stepped outside. The small oval pool sparkled in the sunlight.

“It’s beautiful,” she yelled, kicking off her shoes and pulling her dress over her head. She dove into the pool and came up sputtering water. She squinted her eyes and turned her face toward me. “Whose place is this?”

“Mine,” I answered.

She swam back toward me, her naked body gleaming even more whitely in the blue water. She rested her arms on the edge of the pool. “How long have you had it?”

“Five years about.”

“Who lives here?”

“Nobody,” I said.

She was silent for a moment. “I don’t get it. With a place like this, why keep living in the hotel?”

“I’m not ready for it, I guess. Besides I get service in the hotel.” I began to take off my shirt. “I tried it for one night.”

“And?”

“It was too empty.” I stepped out of my shoes and slacks and pulled off my shorts. I ran naked to the diving board and held my hands over my head.

“Yum, yum, yum,” she laughed, looking up at me.

I dove into the water. Between the pool heater and the sun, the water was warm. I came up looking for her. I didn’t see her.

She was a white streak under the water as she caught me around the waist, her mouth nibbling at my loins. We sank into the pool and came up blowing water.

“Hey,” I asked laughing, “do you know you can drown trying to do something like that?”

“Do you know a better way to die?” she asked.

***

When the sun went down we had steaks and baked potatoes that I had picked up at the market on Sunset on our way over. Afterward we turned on the stereo and stretched out in front of the fireplace.

“How do you feel?” I asked as I turned to her with the brandy warmed by the hearth.

“Fantastic,” she said. She sipped her brandy. “Am I anything like your wife?”

I was startled. “What makes you ask?”

“Once, last night, when you were inside me, you called out her name. Barbara, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Barbara.”

“Do I remind you of her?”

I looked into my brandy glass. It was dark and golden. I swished the liquor around. “In a kind of way.”

“How?”

“Attitudes mostly. Nothing I could put my finger on. The way you both looked at life and approached it. Barbara was a very physical person. She, too, wanted to feel everything, taste everything.”

“Did she?”

“No,” I said. “But then, no one ever does.”

She was silent. Then she took another sip of the brandy. “I will,” she said.

***

Later that night when I was lying on her and in her and our skins were like extensions of each other, she looked into my eyes. “I want to see the sky,” she said.

“It will be cold, the nights are cold,” I said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “You’ll keep me warm.”

I reached across then hit the switch. The cool night air came rushing down over us. The moon painted her face a pale white.

She pulled my head down to her breast. “Don’t move,” she said. Then she pulled the sheet over us up to our shoulders. “Now turn your head and look up.”

It was beautiful. The moon and the stars filled the midnight-blue velvet of the sky.

“It’s like flying, isn’t it?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

I could feel her tighten around me. “I love you.”

I thrust myself deeply into her until she groaned trying to absorb all of me. “More, I want more,” she said huskily. “Put all of you inside me. Your balls, your whole body. All of you.”

It was like that the whole weekend. We never left the house except to go to the market for food, the liquor store for wine and whiskey, and the Strip for grass.

On Monday I brought the rest of my things from the hotel and we moved in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I’ll have to find an apartment,” she said.

“Why?”

“You know why. How would it look if Mother or Daddy called me and the service answered, ‘Gaunt residence’?”

“That’s simple,” I said. “We’ll have a separate line put in. Only you will answer it.”

“And the address?”

“Nobody knows this place. That wouldn’t make any difference.”

She shook her head. “It wouldn’t work. The first thing they’ll want to do if they come out here is see my apartment. Just to make sure that I have a comfortable place to live.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Don’t look so hurt,” she laughed. “I’m not moving out. It’s just a cover.”

“Try to find a place nearby.”

“I’ll need a car too.”

“I’ve arranged for that already. A Mustang convertible will be delivered here for you tomorrow.”

“White with red leather?” she asked.

I nodded.

She flung her arms around me like an excited little girl.

That was on Monday. When I came from the studio Tuesday evening, she was pacing up and down the living room. “They didn’t deliver the car yet.”

“I’ll check them tomorrow,” I said casually. “I’ll get into a pair of slacks and we’ll go out for a bite to eat.”

“I’m not hungry!” she said petulantly and went up the steps to the bedroom. I could hear the door slam.

I went over to the bar and poured myself a drink. I wondered if there was anything I had done to upset her. I looked down at the ashtray behind the bar.

It was filled with cigarette butts, half of them roaches. It all began to make sense. She had been bored with nothing to do all day and now she was coming down from her high.

I swallowed some of my drink and sat there. I heard her footsteps on the stairs and turned around. She had put on a pair of pants.

She came toward me and took a cigarette from the bar. I held the light for her. She looked slightly pale, blue shadows under her eyes, and there seemed to be faint beads of perspiration on her forehead.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked.

“No,” she answered shortly. She dragged on the cigarette.

“What is it?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said antagonistically.

“I think I might. Is it a female thing?”

For a moment I thought I detected a kind of relief in her eyes. “Something like that,” she admitted.

I didn’t speak.

“Ever since I began to take the pill,” she said. “There are times when I go out of whack.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Is there anything I can do?”

She shook her head. “No.” She dragged on the cigarette, then looked at me. “Can I borrow the car for a few minutes?” she asked. “I’ll run down to the drugstore. Maybe I can find something there that’ll help me.”

“I’ll drive you down if you like.”

“No. You don’t have to bother,” she said. “You take your shower and change. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay. The keys are in the car.”

She kissed my cheek. “Thanks.” She ran up the steps. I heard the motor start and the car move out of the driveway. Then I took my drink from the bar and went up to shower.

It was over an hour and I was on my third drink by the time she got back. I heard her footsteps on the stairs crossing over to the bedroom, then I heard the bathroom door close. I made myself another drink and waited. It was another fifteen minutes before she came down.

“How do you feel?”

“Better,” she said.

“You look better.” It was true. Her color was more normal and the blue shadows seemed to be disappearing from beneath her eyes. “What did the druggist give you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But he made me take it there and wait to see if it worked. That’s what took so long.”

“I’m glad it worked,” I said. “Would you like a drink?”

“No,” she smiled, taking my arm. “You must be starved. Let’s go out to eat.”

“Okay,” I said, putting down my drink. “But you might have to drive. I think I’m a little smashed.”

“My poor baby,” she smiled. She pulled my face down to her and kissed me. “I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time.”

***

She found a small apartment on the hill just below the house. She put a telephone into the apartment and an extension line to the house. That way whenever the telephone rang in the apartment, it would also ring at the house. It worked very well.

She was generally awake and on the phone to her agent by the time I left in the morning. She spent a good part of the day running around town on interviews. Once I asked her how she was doing.

“It’s a drag,” she said. “All most of them want is to get laid.”

Another time when I came home, she was sitting in the fading light in the living room, dragging on a reefer.