had used heretofore, “My position in Heggins is worth more than three hundred thousand at the market.”
“Nuts. By the time you pay your creditors, you’ve got less than two hundred thousand equity. Quit sparring, I won’t bargain with you. My offer’s firm.”
“You’ll pay the creditors, is that what you’re saying?”
“Of course.” Yawning, Villiers patted his lips; he knew he had won-he was already beginning to lose interest. Butler searched his face intensely, quarreling with himself in silence, but Villiers’ opaque eyes blocked all inquiry, turned the appraisal back, as effectively as if they had been the eyes of a dead man. He had long ago learned not to give anything away with his face.
Butler said finally, aimless and without strength, “How do I know you’ll treat my people fairly?”
“You don’t. They’ll take their chances-we all do.”
“You drive a sonofabitching hard bargain.”
“I’m not running a charity institution. Your conscience is your own affair-I’m only offering money. If you’re worried about your friends, maybe you ought to try to use your influence to get them commissions in the Air Force.”
Butler stood up. “I could fight you, you know.”
“You could,” Villiers agreed.
“I could make it tough for you to get your hands on Heggins.”
“No. I’m not that desperate to own it. You put up a fight, and I’ll drop out. Then where are you? The company still dies.”
“It would give me one hell of a pleasure to spit in your face. I wish I could afford to.” Butler turned toward the door. “Let me know when the papers are ready for my signature.”
Villiers didn’t stir when the colonel walked out. He sat still for several minutes before he got up to replace the chairs on their original sites. He was reaching up under the shade to switch off the lamp when the door opened.
Ginger Hackman said, “Being exclusive, Mace?” She came inside and shut the door behind her. Villiers straightened, unsmiling. She stood just inside the door, slightly slumped, eyelids drooping; her eyes, beautiful and slanted with wary, rancorousirony, were bright and clever, and often wounded-the wisdom of frank cynicism that had come from rebuffed idealism. She said in a voice that seemed more resigned than eager, “I was wondering if you were feeling athletic. You used to, in the middle of a business deal.”
“Trouble in paradise so soon, Ginger?”
She smoothed down her skirt with lingering, suggestive hands. “All he wants at home is a mother and housekeeper. He saves all his fun and games for his other girls-his toys.”
“There are seventy-five people out there.”
Ginger turned the lock. “I’m not worried if you’re not.”
Villiers smiled a little. Ginger gave him a watchful look that turned playful. “Maybe you’d rather take it up with our Hollywood friend, out there shaking her big bloated boobs all over everybody. Maybe you’d rather climb into her big juicy saddle and score with her?”
“What’s the matter?” he said, his voice low and husky.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m sore at myself. Wouldn’t you be? No, hell no; you wouldn’t.” She moved forward until he felt the warmth of her legs moving close against him. She uttered a short nervous little gasp when he touched her. Her eyes were open wide; she kissed him with moist warmth and suction, whiskey on her breath. He felt coiling spasms in his groin, his genitals engorging, trying to swell free; her hand slid down his fly to the distended cloth, unzipped him, and reached inside to clutch him. As strength flowed into his hard penis, it came out, rising with eager stiffness into her hand. She stepped away from him abruptly, presenting her back, and he opened the dress and watched her step out of it. The strapless bra bit into the velvet of her back; he unsnapped it and watched it fall free of her round, brown-tipped breasts as she turned, smiled, slid tawny panties down her long legs, and lay back on the bed. She watched him with heavy-lidded eyes; she was caressing her soft pubic bush. She leaned back, thrusting it toward him. Her knees separated and arched, her thighs twisted, and she presented to him her emerging vaginal slit, the pink lips swelling. “Well?” she said. “Come on!”
9. Steve Wyatt
By the time Steve Wyatt tooled the open-topped XKE Jaguar into George Hackman’s street and squeezed it into a space across the road, the party had sprawled out into the front and back lawns. Wyatt walked around the car to open Anne Goralski’s door. She smiled up at him, twisted her rump to stretch her pert legs to the grass, and let him take her arm. “What a lovely ride.”
He gave her his warmest smile and steered her toward the house, threading knots of people on the lawn. As they approached, he saw Mason Villiers emerge from the front door, saying something to a gorgeous young woman who had a tousled, slightly rumpled look; the woman had a sad smile. Villiers nodded at something she said and came down the two steps, his glance traveling over the crowd. Wyatt knew Villiers had seen him, but he left it to Villiers to make the first sign of recognition, and Villiers went right by without a glance. All right, if that’s the way you want to play it, Wyatt thought, a little surprised to have seen Villiers here at all-the man hadn’t struck him as the partying type. A diminutive chauffeur popped out of a Cadillac limousine and trotted around to open the door for Villiers, who got in without a word to anybody; the limousine slid away, crunching bits of gravel on the asphalt. The sad-faced young woman at the door kept her eyes on it until it disappeared; she turned then and said, “You must be Steve Wyatt. George told me to expect you-I’m Ginger Hackman.”
Wyatt introduced Anne Goralski and let Mrs. Hackman direct him, in an absent, distracted way, toward the bar. He took Anne that way, making small talk in her ear while his alert eyes prowled the place to gauge the party’s pulse. This one was obviously uptight, everybody self-consciously trying to prove what a good time was being had. Grim jocularity, forced festivity, all of it overlaid with sexuality and determined anxiety. Husbands and wives roved the shadows, on the make. A wooden salad bowl on the fireplace mantel brimmed with machine-rolled marijuana sticks, and as Wyatt approached the bar he could hear George Hackman in his hearty bellow complaining about the middle-class difficulty of scoring grass: “Christ, we can’t just walk into an East Village discotheque, they take one look at you and figure you’re fuzz. It’s tough to make a connection. I finally got an in with one of the faggot kids in our building, but the bastard made me come across with forty bucks an ounce for the stuff. Hey, there, Steve, gladdaseeya, boy!” Hackman bounded forward enthusiastically to pump his hand and beam at Anne. “Who’s this?”
Wyatt introduced the girl, privately amused by the way Hackman stripped her naked with his eyes; but when he saw discomfort in her face he steered her to the other end of the bar arid said, “I told you he throws wild parties.”
“Then let’s have fun,” she said, twinkling. She reached for a potato chip and scooped it into a bowl of onion dip.
Soon after, he found she had been separated from him in the shuffle-and George Hackman plowed forward. “Drink, Steve-o?”
“Martini,” Wyatt said, following Anne with his eyes until she disappeared from view. Hackman poured a glass of gin, anointed it with a few drops of vermouth, and passed it across the bar to him; Hackman leaned close and said confidentially, “Women are okay as long as you keep them on generalities. That’s the secret. Never talk to a woman about specifics. See? That’s the secret of successful marriage, kid-you marry them for their charm, not their brains, and you only get yourself in trouble if you let yourself get to arguing with them about tomorrow night’s supper menu or how much she paid for some Goddamn dress. No woman can make any sense about specifics. If you get trapped in that kind of argument, you just can’t win it. So, see, the trick’s to keep it all generalities-if you got to argue with her, argue about the future of the welfare state and the black-power movement and the kids trying to burn down the universities, but never fight about the price of a Goddamn pair of high-fashion shoes.”
Wyatt nodded his head an inch, gave a brief cool, polite smile, and edged away; he heard Hackman say to the man at his elbow, “Now, that’s what I call a dry martini. That kid sure plays it close to the chest, don’t he?”
Steve Wyatt cruised through the house, passing knots of people. On the couch a blonde was sprawled back with her shoes off and her head in the lap of a man, not her husband; the man had his hand casually cupped over
