Villiers Touch (7 page)

Hastings brought his attention around to Carol McCloud. She had shut the door and walked into the room ahead of him. Her hair was soft rich brown, full and loose to the shoulders. She had dark, dramatic eyes. She wore blouse, skirt, and sandals; there was no indication she had hurried to get dressed. Her splendidly turned legs would provoke fascinated stares on any sidewalk corner; she had a long waist, high classic breasts, good warm skin tones, and a striking face that was curiously strong and delicate at once. No pose, no artifice—beauty, but not beauty's arrogance. She had a good fresh pride in her loveliness that was neither vain nor imperfected by false humility.

She laughed. “Well, sit down.”

“I expected you to have white hair and a cane. I feel like a fool.”

Her laugh was low, husky, smoky; she settled on the divan opposite him, full of supple grace. The appraisal she had given him was not the usual casual sizing-up an attractive woman would give a masculine stranger; it was more direct, aware, intense—and slightly provocative, because it was carried on a glance of slightly sardonic private amusement. With gentle irony she said, “I must say your approach is new. What can I do for you that hasn't already been done?”

She was smiling; but her words took him aback. Before he could answer she was up, briskly moving toward the bar in the corner. “I imagine you'd like a drink.”

“Kind of early in the day,” he said.

She stopped; she seemed puzzled for the first time; she said, “Coffee, then?”

“Just had some, downstairs.”

Her head was tipped quizzically to the side; she touched a finger to the point of her jaw. “Then you'd better tell me what you do have in mind.”

“My secretary must have mentioned on the phone—I'm making a sort of survey of buyers of NCI stock.”

“You mean you're
really
doing that?”

Baffled, he was beginning to get angry. “Of course. What did you think it was? Some subtle kind of pitch? Look, if I've made a mistake—you
are
the McCloud who bought a big chunk of NCI a few weeks ago?”

She had begun to laugh; she returned to her chair, still laughing. He noticed for the first time a faint discoloration under the makeup on her cheek—a small bruise. He had never seen her before and had no comparison, but she looked as if she had a slight swelling on that side of her jaw—it showed when she laughed.

Finally she said, “I'm sorry—really I am. I took you for a—for someone else. Please forgive me. Now, what was it you wanted to know about those stocks?”

“You
did
buy them?”

“I suppose so. I'd have to go look it up.”

He said, “Frankly, you don't look that rich.”

“What?”

“Are you in the habit of misplacing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

She gave him a blank look. “Two hundred and fifty thousand?”

He stood up. “I guess I've made a mistake, after all. I'm sorry.”

“No. Wait.” She pulled open a drawer of the end table by the settee, sifted through a small stack of papers, and put them back. When she turned her face toward him, her forehead was creased; she said, “No, it wasn't a mistake.” She spread her hands with helpless mocking good humor. “You see how it is—sometimes I'm a little scatterbrained.”

Scatterbrained? He shook his head; he said, “But you do remember buying the NCI shares.”

“Yes, I do. I'm very sorry if I confused you.” But her eyes were still mocking.

“Uh-hunh,” he muttered. “Can you remember why you bought them?”

“I don't understand.”

“Why pick that particular company to invest in? Why not spread the money around in several investments?”

“I suppose someone must have recommended it to me.” She smiled.

It was a blinding smile. He looked away; he closed his eyes and said, “Miss McCloud, we're talking about a quarter of a million dollars.”

“Yes, I know that,” she said, as if she couldn't understand what was upsetting him.

“Can't you at least remember
who
might have recommended the stock?”

“A broker, I imagine. I really can't recall.”

He had seen that helpless-female role played enough times on the witness stand in court to know it well enough: the pretty, wide-eyed, innocent misunderstanding of every question. It didn't fit quite right; she was too obviously intelligent to carry it off.

He said, “You're not under oath, you know—there's no reason why you should tell me anything at all.”

“I'm quite aware of that,” she said. “But I'm curious—why are you so interested in my investments?”

“I guess you could just call it a routine check.”

“Sure,” she answered, matching his tone for casual evenness. But her smile was too knowing; it was no accident that after sidestepping his questions so adroitly she had deftly trapped him in his own evasiveness. It was a neat trick—so neat it made him shift his focus once again. His thinking jumped the straight track of his mind. He had built several hypotheses about her; none of them really fit. Clearly she wasn't just a spoiled heiress, careless about her millions—she wasn't flighty enough, her surroundings weren't opulent enough, she didn't have any air of class consciousness or liberal phoniness. She met him on equal terms, matching wits and subtleties. She was far too bright, and too relaxed, to be some rich married man's penthouse plaything; and again, the surroundings didn't fit in with that notion. An actress, perhaps? But if she was successful enough to be
that
rich, wouldn't he have heard of her, recognized her face? No—she didn't have the mannerisms for it; she was too straightforward. A wealthy divorcée, investing her lump-sum alimony settlement? Maybe—but something about her didn't quite fit that frame, either. Granted she had brains, even a hard cynical edge that showed now and then; he still couldn't picture her in the role of an adventuress sinking vindictive, greedy teeth into an ex-husband to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars.

He realized suddenly that Carol McCloud was sitting very still—looking at him, unblinking.

She said, “You went away for a minute there.”

“Trying to figure you out.”

It brought her smile again—slightly crooked, slightly turned against herself in some sort of distant irony. She said, “That would be a useless pursuit.”

He got to his feet. “You don't want to talk about those shares of stock, I gather.”

“It's such a dull, dry subject, isn't it?”

“Unless money turns you on.”

She had a nice laugh, low in her throat; her eyelids drooped just a bit, and she said, “Oh, don't make that mistake—I think a lot about money, Mr. Hastings.”

“Russ,” he said suddenly.

“Russ.”

He went halfway to the door, and turned to look at her. She hadn't moved in her seat. She was watching him with that same directness. He said abruptly, “Have dinner with me?”

He had no way of anticipating what she might answer. Her smile changed; she tipped her head toward him, the fall of her hair swaying. She was one of the most exquisite creatures he had ever seen.

After a while she said, “It might not be a good idea.”

“I didn't mean to step on anybody's toes.”

“Not that. But I don't think I want to—” Whatever she had meant to say, she didn't finish it; instead, she tossed her head quickly, her eyes flashed at him with some kind of sudden resolution, and she said in a different voice, “It might be fun.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not?”

He found himself grinning; he said, “I'll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“It will be better if I meet you at the restaurant,” she said.

“Fine. The Bourgogne suit you? Eight o'clock?”

She nodded; the smile was quizzical now, speculative. Still grinning, Hastings went out. Halfway to the elevator he realized he was almost loping. He hadn't felt this good in months.

5. Mason Villiers

Villiers stepped out of the rickety old elevator and walked the length of a narrow hallway. He knocked at a door and looked at his watch—just short of two-thirty. He stood without patience waiting for the door to open. Sometimes it was an irritant to him, his sexual imprisonment: he needed women frequently—sometimes two or three times in a day, when he was tense with the pressures of corporate juggling.

He knocked again and put his ear close to the door. He could hear the rapid clicking of a typewriter. Finally it stopped, and after a moment he heard Naomi's voice, close to the door, husky and cross: “Who is it?”

“Mace.”

“Who?”

“Mace Villiers.”

She opened up, and hands impudently on hips, cocked her head to glare. “I'm in the middle of a chapter. Why didn't you telephone?”

“Ran out of small change. Anyhow, a telephone's always long distance.”

“You Goddamned sex maniac.” She looked him up and down with slow insinuation and stepped back to let him in.

She was a small, tight-packed, spider-waisted girl, fluffy and blond. She had huge china-blue eyes and a soft, heavy mouth. She wore a yellow dress, not quite chic because it had strong-seamed darts around the bustline to clothe her unfashionably big, plump young breasts, which bobbed and jiggled when she moved ahead of him into the large studio apartment.

Villiers pushed the door shut, indifferent to the surroundings, looking at the girl with desire.

The typewriter was on a small desk by the window. On the sill were dozens of teen-age girls' novels, pointedly displayed, all by the same author: Naomi Kemp.

Villiers said, trying to put some show of interest in his voice, “What are you working on?”

“A simpering book about a prissy nurse. As if you gave a shit. Really, Mace, you could have picked a better time of day to come charging in.”

“I'm on my way downtown.”

“And that explains the whole thing? You just dropped in on your way to Wall Street for a quick bang?”

“That's right,” he said, without humor.

“You're a one-of-a-kind original, Mace. Don't you know there's a speed limit in this town?”

“If the idea doesn't appeal to you,” he said, and turned to the door.

“You're pitching low and inside,” she complained, and then blurted, “Come back here. You know you turn me into cream pudding. Can't I be sore for a minute first? I haven't seen you in months. Not even a postcard.”

“I've never sent a postcard in my life.” But then he smiled at her. “What would you want with a postcard from a man who was too far away to stick it in you?”

“You've got a foul mouth,” she said. “No shit.”

He peeled back his cuff to look at his wrist. “I haven't got a lot of time.”

“You motherfucking bastard,” Naomi said, and stripped off her dress. He could see dark fluff in the translucent crotch of her nylon panties. She wore no stockings. She unfastened her brassiere, leering at him, doing a stripper's bumps and grinds; she rubbed her back where the bra straps had welted her. He watched unblinking, savoring the milky full richness of her breasts. They were warm, red-brown-tipped; her body was the kind boys conjured up in adolescent masturbatory fantasies. Her breasts were so engorged, so thrustingly assertive, that it was never possible to look at her or think of her without focusing on them. Naked, she kept her arms wide of those proud organs, as if they were swollen to the point of tender soreness.

The bed, made up for the day with divan throw pillows, waited against the wall. He came to her beside it. She surged her warm breast up full into his palm, meeting his eyes with a sensual smile and quickened breath; she unzipped his fly and put her hand in. He clutched her breast and slid his left hand up her naked back to her neck, and pulled her forward for a kiss. Her lips were moist and parted; she sucked his tongue in her mouth. Her hand caressed his huge muscle-rippled shaft, thick and hard with pumping blood.

She drew back from his kiss and whispered, “You bastard, haven't you even got time to take your clothes off? Never mind the window—let the voyeurs watch if that's how they get their jollies. At least take your Goddamn pants off.”

She undid his belt buckle and the fly fastener of his trousers, and laughed at him when they fell down around his ankles. He kicked them away, shrugged out of his suit jacket, and pushed her down on the bed. He came down upon her, his fierce mouth on hers. Her arms came around him; her tongue probed him, her hands glided over his buttocks. He bent his head to suckle her soft white breasts. His rigid hot phallus brushed her thighs and found her ready moistness and thrust into her, lunging. She clung to him furiously, sweat-slick and arching herself ecstatically. He plunged and twisted, a hungry strong animal, mauling her around the narrow bed. As her flesh beneath him began its anguished tumultuous throes of completion, he was thinking of tomorrow night, his dinner date with Diane Hastings. Then his own excitement quickened, and he spurted himself into her. A shuddering sigh, and she clutched him tight, her eyes closed, her fingernails sharp against his back, scratching through the silk of his shirt.

Tension went out of his fibers. He lay across her, limp, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing under him. After a moment he got up.

She opened her eyes and frowned. He went into the bathroom, spent two minutes, and came out again to put on his pants. Naomi got off the bed, not speaking, not even looking at him; she pulled her panties up and stooped, making herself round-shouldered, to fit her spectacular breasts into the twin hammocks of her bra, hitched it into adjustment, and straightened, elbows spread-eagled, to snap it behind her.

He got into his jacket and straightened his tie, went to the mirror to comb his hair, and heard her say to his back, “Are you still rich?”

“Sure.” He turned around to regard her. “You always go with the winner, don't you?”