“Well, for starters, she told me that she’s the one who ratted out Jim Bolan to the state police-so you could snatch up his farm from the bank.”
Bruce grew pale. “She told you that?”
“She thinks it was Jim who tried to kill her this morning. She’s more than a little bit upset, as you can imagine.”
Bruce jumped up out of his seat and began to pace restlessly back and forth, much the way Quirt did when he wanted to be let out to pee. “Look, I’d really rather not discuss Takai any more, Mitch,” he said, running his hands through his short, bristly hair. “Let’s just drop her, okay?” He continued to pace, his jaw muscles clenching. He seemed profoundly agitated. “Unless… That is to say, if you’d be willing to turn off your tape recorder.” He lunged for his own and shut it off. “I’d talk to you about her then, strictly man-to-man. Christ, I’ve got to talk to someone or I-I swear I’ll go postal!”
Mitch immediately shut off his microcassette recorder and sat back in his chair, arms folded across his ample tummy.
“Great…” Leanse heaved the hugest of sighs. “Thanks, guy. I mean that.” He sat back down, taking several slow, deep breaths to calm himself. “The truth is, Takai’s a bit of a problem in my life right now. See, the two of us had a-a romantic relationship. I quickly realized it was a major, major mistake, and I tried to break it off. But she won’t let go of me. I can’t get rid of her. I just can’t!” He fell into miserable silence for a moment before he added, “And now I don’t know what the hell to do.”
Mostly, Mitch found himself wondering why Bruce Leanse was confiding in him this way. Had he no one else to spill his guts to? Someone like, say, a friend? Maybe not.
“How did you know about us, Mitch? You did know, right?”
“That’s her shearling jacket in your stateroom, isn’t it?”
“Dead on,” Bruce affirmed. “She was here with me last evening. Left in a bit of a huff. We… we quarreled. I haven’t always been a good boy, Mitch, and that’s the sad truth. But I wasn’t looking for this. All I wanted when we moved out here was a nice quiet family life. No more tabloid photographers. No more hassles. And, above all, no more sneaking around on Babette. I was really, really trying to turn over a new leaf, okay?”
Mitch nodded, thoroughly aware that he was talking to someone who’d busted a move on Des less than twenty-four hours ago, and was therefore a total snake. But he was not there aboard The Brat to point this out. He was there to listen.
“But then I met Takai. And, Mitch, I’ve never wanted a woman as badly as I want her. I’m talking about ever.” Bruce shot a hungry glance up at the spiral staircase. “I hear the rustle of her nylons on those stairs and I can barely get my pants down fast enough. Half the time we don’t even make it into the stateroom. I’ve torn her dress right off her back, just like some crazed animal. Five minutes later, I want her all over again. And then, in the night, when I’m lying in bed next to my dear wife, I start wanting her all over again. My heart pounds, the sweat pours off me. I-I’ve had to start sleeping in the guest room.” He glanced at Mitch uncomfortably. “You’re probably asking yourself why I don’t just roll over and give Babette a jab
…”
“Well, maybe something like that.”
“It’s not the same,” he insisted. “Babette is a genuinely classy person, a distinguished architect, my soul mate. She went to Harvard, for God’s sake. Do you honestly think I can do to her some of the things I do to Takai?”
“I really wouldn’t know, Bruce.” Nor did he want to.
“Believe me, Mitch, it’s a bad thing to be so out of control. Especially because I can’t even stand the woman. Takai Frye is an astonishingly not nice person. She’s mean, calculating, greedy. I need to break it off. I need my sanity back. Only, she won’t go quietly. I’m her ticket to the big dance, or so she believes. She wants a cushy, high-profile job in my company-or else.”
“She’s threatened you?”
Bruce nodded reluctantly. “Either I give her what she wants or she’ll tell Babette about us. Not only Babette but everyone in town. She’ll trash me with the old guard, Mitch. Turn the zoning and planning people against me. Tie up The Aerie for years and years. And she’d do it, too. She’s that vindictive. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.”
“Would Babette be surprised?”
“Not in the least,” he answered bitterly. “That’s precisely my problem. The last time this happened, in Boulder two years ago, she told me flat-out she’d leave me if I ever slept around again. And take Ben with her. I cherish what Babette and I have together. I love my son. I don’t want him to spend his whole life thinking his father’s some horny louse. I want him to respect me. I don’t want…” Bruce’s voice cracked with strain. “I don’t want to lose my family, Mitch.”
Nor that comforting illusion that he was a decent human being, Mitch reflected. Bruce needed this illusion about himself. True or not, it kept him going.
“I’m not the one who tried to kill her,” he said to Mitch quietly from across the table. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not,” said Mitch, which wasn’t entirely true. He was thinking that Bruce Leanse was a desperate man whose dream family and dream project were both about to go up in smoke, thanks to Takai Frye. That gave him more than enough reason for wanting her dead. Or maybe Babette had taken matters into her own hands-tried to save her marriage by eliminating the competition. This, too, was possible. Assuming she knew how to fire the humongous Barrett that Des had told him about.
And Mitch was thinking something else. That Takai wasn’t wrong.
She still had every reason in the world to be afraid.
C HAPTER 8
“If you don’t come here with passion, then don’t come at all!” Paul Weiss barked as he paced along behind them, glancing over their shoulders at their drawing pads. They were at the easels, warming up with one-minute gesture drawings of that evening’s model. “Stroke like you mean business!”
There were ten students in Figure Drawing. Half of them were college-aged kids enrolled full-time at the Dorset Academy, supremely gifted and dedicated young artists who dressed in torn, paint-smeared clothes and sported numerous body piercings. On breaks, they clustered together over cigarettes to murmur to each other in their own language. It being an evening class, the others were part-timers. Retired blue bloods who were there for fun, middle-aged divorcees who had too much free time and money.
And then there was Des. No one else in the studio was quite like her. But she was used to this particular fact of life. She wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and kept a fresh uniform in her cruiser in case she got beeped. So far this semester, she hadn’t been.
“Leave it on the page!”
The model stood nude atop a wooden platform, bathed in the glow of a spotlight as she worked her way through a succession of quick poses. Her breasts were heavy and pendulous, her hips wide, thighs and buttocks exceedingly abundant. Rubenesque was the way to describe her. The notion that artists’ models resembled swimsuit babes was strictly a male fantasy. In fact, the Dorset Academy preferred their models on the plump side- generous curves were vastly more expressive. Furthermore, many of these overweight nude models were in fact men.
“Don’t tighten up yet! Stay loose!”
Paul always tried to loosen them up at the start with gesture drawings. Sometimes he had them draw with their wrong hand. Or even with their eyes closed. For the first hour he wanted them to open up, stroke boldly, feel the strength and movement of the pose. Only after they had moved on to longer poses would he start to get demanding about skeletal proportions, musculature and shadows-subjects about which he knew virtually everything there was to know. This stooped, slightly built man in his sixties was one of the foremost animal illustrators in America. He was exacting and tough but passionate. Des liked him quite a bit. And found herself soaking up his wisdom like a sponge.
