The Quirk (21 page)

“Did I know you were coming?” she demanded in harsh peremptory tones. “I’m losing my memory. Nicole called to say she couldn’t.”

“She’s not feeling well. Some sort of bug.”

“No wonder. This weather. I don’t know why I’m not in Cannes. I’ve got a very expensive villa, but I never go near it. Come over by the fire and get warm. Did you have a frightful time getting a taxi? I hope you’ve got a woolen undershirt under there.” Lola was wearing a sable stole that she hitched closer around her. She put a hand on his arm and tottered toward a great fireplace on the opposite wall. Rod admitted that he’d never owned a woolen undershirt.

“You’re a fool.” She uttered her harsh bray of laughter. “All these people are bores. Maybe it’ll get better later on. The bores always come early. They have nowhere else to go.” Rod laughed, and she added impatiently, “I don’t mean you, of course. You’re part of the family.”

Rod glanced about him as they moved across the room, finding it odd to feel so at home in this gathering. A few famous faces had already arrived. Lots of money was the price of admission. They knew who he was. Probably quite a few of them would buy his pictures. All he had to do was kiss a few asses.

There was a literary group–an editor and a newspaper publisher centered around the slight, misshapen figure of Frédéric de Bellecourt, the famous critic and essayist. He recognized a strikingly handsome French film star who was holding a small white dog on his lap. The women were all beautifully dressed and looked as if it would take all night to dismantle them.

As he entered the orbit of heat thrown off by the fire, he saw Germaine disengage herself from a nearby couple and come toward him without looking at him, obeying a law she had apparently laid down for herself of never acknowledging an interest in anybody. When she was almost upon him, she turned her head and faced him directly. Among all the stylish ladies she dazzled.

“Hello, cousin,” she said. The husky voice, trained to innuendo, filled the two words with a wealth of possibilities.

Rod smiled down at her, checking her necklace, her earrings, the brooch close to her breast. He wasn’t an expert on pearls and emeralds but guessed that she was wearing no less than $100,000.

“Hello,” he said to the largest emerald.

“This is your night, my dear,” Lola snapped. “Your boyfriend’s left his girl at home. If you don’t get him tonight, you never will. And for heaven’s sake, buy him some woolen underwear. He hasn’t any.”

“Buy him some yourself,” Germaine said rudely.

“I haven’t had as many rich husbands as you. Ha.” Lola displayed her teeth once more to utter her alarming laugh and struggled off, clutched around the knees by the purple dress.

“She’s wonderful,” Germaine said with crisp admiration. She looked him in the eye. “So we’ve disposed of Nicole for tonight?”

“She’s a bit under the weather.”

“I suppose I should pretend to be sorry. You must feel so married to her by now that you’ll soon be looking around for a mistress.”

“Are you applying for the job?” He felt a new hostility in his inclination to flirt with her, hostility that he supposed was directed at the moneyed philistinism that she represented and that threatened to push him under. If she made a pass at him, it would be a pleasure to turn her down. Would it be a worthwhile evening’s occupation to make her suffer in some small way for forced abortions, marriages blocked by poverty, ill-treated artists? There must be some reason for being here.

“You could do worse,” she said with the little vocal trick that loaded everything she said with ambiguity. “You’re old enough not to be shocked by a few wrinkles and creases. I haven’t many, but I can see them as well as anyone. I’m rich. That should interest any young man who’s making his way in the world. If you’re any good, I could do wonders for your career. It makes such sense that I wonder why I haven’t done anything about it. You
are
extraordinarily attractive. I suppose you think you can have any woman you want.”

“Quite the contrary,” he said. “I’ve always wished women would make it less difficult to figure out what they’re after.”

“You Americans! You’re such children about sex. If you’d be honest with yourselves, you might learn something about life.”

“If you want honesty, let’s start with you. Do you want to go to bed with me?”

“That’s not being honest,” she snapped. “That’s just boorish and tiresome. What I mean by honest is doing something about what you want.”

“I’m sure there’s a subtle distinction in there somewhere. OK. If you won’t answer a simple question, let’s get drunk. That’s really what I came for.” He was being an ass. What if she’d said yes to his question? He wished Patrice had come home. It had been dangerously wrong to expose himself to so much that he detested in the world.

She put a hand on his arm and steered him toward great double doors that opened into the smaller salon. He glanced down at her for another quick appraisal. A good figure. Pretty breasts were half exposed by her low-cut dress. Her face had no striking features, but the whole was clever and chic. She looked no particular age, around 30, although he knew she was closer to 40. She was such a gorgeously expensive package that it was natural to want to see what was in it. Nothing would come of it, so there was no harm in playing along for whatever fun he could get. Nicole had given him a holiday. He hoped his poor darling was feeling better.

Germaine lifted her eyes to his. “Are you trying to decide whether you want to go to bed with me?”

“Something of the sort.”

“Men usually decide that they do, thank heavens. I’m very choosy, despite those four husbands.”

“And you haven’t chosen me? I admit I sort of thought you had, even when we’re being rude to each other.”

“I dare say it could happen, sooner or later. At first I thought you were much too young. Perhaps you’ve grown up in the last few months. I’m beginning to think you’re tough enough for me.”

“And what about Nicole?

“Heavens. Adore her. Marry her. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be faithful to her. I’ve never known a man who had the faintest idea what fidelity means.”

“No one can accuse you of being starry-eyed, cousin,” She reduced life to its lowest dog-eat-dog level. He felt her as a challenge to the high hopes and dedication that had helped him through the winter. He wanted to prove to her that he was beyond her reach, but the only way he knew he could score on her was through sex.

An elaborate buffet was set up in the other salon. A hired pianist was banging out American jazz. Several servants were fussing over champagne bottles in ice buckets.

“Are you going to get civilized drunk or American drunk,” she asked.

“Does champagne made it civilized? You’re all such conventional snobs. Drunk is drunk. As it happens, I like champagne.” He abandoned his whiskey, and they both took wine. They nodded at each other over the rims of their glasses and drank.

“Do you want any of this rubbish?” She waved a disdainful hand at the array of hors d’ oeuvres on the long table. “There’ll be some real food in a little while. Oh, I forgot. I suppose you people over on the Left Bank never get anything to eat. Here. The caviar’s not bad. Stuff yourself. You won’t have to buy any food for days.”

Rod sipped champagne and munched toast thickly spread with caviar and wondered how much of the lavish outlay would be thrown away. Jolly party thoughts. The caviar alone represented enough to keep him for several months. A child had been destroyed, two lives may have been permanently scarred, but the rich had to have enough to waste. It was time for another revolution. He would gladly strike the first blow by slapping Germaine silly. He drained off his glass and held it out to the waiter to be refilled. “Tell me about the wonders you can do for my career,” he said after he had taken another swallow of wine.

“Oh, that’s easy.” Her clever face took on a shrewd businessman’s look. “I’d see that you meet the people who really count. You have to know Paris awfully well to know who they are. No outsider, no matter how rich she might be, could manage it. They always end up with the
pédérastes.
”

“You’d have to charm them, of course, and accept their invitations. I’d hang one, two at the most, of your pictures in my salon and give a few dinners for the people who should see them. There would be gossip about Germaine’s new American. Within a month you’d be a celebrity of sorts in a small circle. Then it would be time for an exhibition. That’s where the money comes in. The good galleries are expensive, none of your Left Bank holes-in-the-wall. I’d have to pay the critics and journalists to get the kind of publicity we’d want. You’d be famous overnight. New York would automatically follow.”

“New York doesn’t follow so automatically these days. You make it sound as if it could all be bought and paid for, regardless of the pictures.”

“That’s about what it amounts to. Of course, you’d have to have
some
talent. It wouldn’t work with a complete dud.”

“And it won’t happen unless you’re my mistress?”

“It could, but why shouldn’t it? It would take time and money. Naturally, I wouldn’t be bothered unless I was enjoying myself.”

“I see. I’d really be more a whore than a painter.” He held out his glass, and it was filled again.

“It always takes a bit of whoring to get ahead. I wouldn’t be rich if I hadn’t put up with a few inconveniences along the way.”

“I’ll think about it,” Rod said, deciding that he’d rather get an honest job digging ditches than play her game. His Left Bank friends talked naively about conning the rich. The rich were way ahead of them. If he weren’t getting a bit light-headed and silly on champagne, he might burst into tears of frustration at having to turn his back on such an easy solution to all his problems. All he had to do was go to bed with an attractive woman.

“Don’t think about it too much. You might be disappointed,” she warned. “I haven’t said I wanted to be your mistress, only that it would make great sense.”

The room was filling up around them while they talked. The hum of voices became a roar. They leaned their heads closer to hear each other. Rod kept holding out his glass to be refilled. People surrounded them to greet Germaine, dissolved in bursts of laughter, were replaced by new faces. More food appeared–ham and chicken and lobster–was picked at and left amid crushed cigarette butts. The pianist continued to bang out ill-tempered American tunes.

“Are we drunk yet?” Germaine demanded. Her eyes were bright, and she looked younger than usual, her manner softer, no longer the shrewd businessman.

“I think I must be. Let’s dance and find out.” They took a few turns around the middle of the room. He was steady on his feet but had reached the point where drink was acting as an aphrodisiac. Holding her, brushing against her, aroused him. He made no attempt to conceal it. She didn’t withdraw from the contact but encouraged him by moving in against him.

“Dreaming of Nicole? she asked in her forthright way.

“What a bitch.”

“Are you planning to do anything about it?”

“It feels as if I’ll have to. I’ve seen some lovely ladies tonight. I’m thinking of ditching you and finding somebody who appreciates me.”

“Who gave you a lovely hard-on?”

“It’s not a hard-on. It’s simply a preliminary display of manly prowess.” He giggled, delighted with being so rude.

She laughed lightly. “We
are
getting to know each other better.”

“I’ll say. How much more friendly can a guy get than showing a girl his cock?”

Time flowed and began to exist only in isolated moments. He was still with her when a vision of beauty swam into his sight. For a few seconds he didn’t think of it as male or female, only beauty incarnate. Then he saw a tall young man with golden hair and a lovely rosy complexion bend over Germaine’s hand and straighten with limpid blue eyes then melting into his.

“Beauty,” Germaine exclaimed. “Are you here? I didn’t see you.”

“You’ve been much too busy with this devastating man.” Rod felt bathed in blue, and then the eyes flowed back to Germaine. “Yes, I’m here. Haven’t you seen a film star with a sweet little doggie on his lap? I thought everybody knew that I sometimes take the doggie’s place.”

“Cousin, darling, this is the Prince de Lussigny-Forbain. Rod MacIntyre, an American. Beauty is called Beauty for obvious reasons. You’ve got to excuse me for a moment. I see one of my husbands. Don’t tell me I’ve never done you a favor, Beauty. I don’t think you’re Rod’s type, but I’m sure you’ll find out for yoursell.”

Rod didn’t see her go. He was staring at the prince. A short straight nose, exquisitely curving lips, a lean line of jaw terminating in a subtly dimpled chin, all too perfect to believe, radiant with youth but firmly chiseled so that there was no weakness. Rod’s sight was slightly blurred around the edges, enclosing the vision in an appropriately golden aura. He shook his head slightly and saw that the prince was regarding him with a still, effortless smile.

“You’ve got to forgive me for staring.” Rod blurted. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re the most beautiful human being in the world.”

“I’d gladly have you stare at me all night, preferably with nothing on, but my hands are full for this evening. Can we make a date for tomorrow?”