I watched her pour. The more I saw of this woman, the more I liked her. I tried to guess her age: maybe thirty, maybe thirty-five. I looked for a wedding ring: no wedding ring.
She put the cup before me.
‘Is there anything else, Mr. Ferguson?’
I smiled at her. I would have liked to have invited her to sit down and tell me about herself, but with Mazzo fidgeting, this wasn’t the time.
‘Thank you, no.’
She left.
When I had finished the coffee, Durant appeared.
‘I want you to make a telephone call,’ he said. ‘Here is what you say and nothing else. Do you understand? You will, of course, use Mr. Ferguson’s voice.’
‘Sure, Joe.’
He picked up the telephone receiver and said, ‘Connect me with Mr. Walter Bern.’ He waited, then nodded to me, passing the receiver to me and he picked up another receiver.
Reading from the script he had given me, I said, ‘This is Ferguson. How are you, Wally?’
‘Jesus, John! I’ve been trying to get you for the past days.’ A fat, deep breathless voice, ‘John! My group is getting worked up about our loan. They keep on at me. They say I shouldn’t have advanced so much. Jeez! Thirty million dollars! Look, John, I’m sorry, but they aren’t happy.’
Reading from the script, I said, ‘Talk to Joe. He deals with loans, and Wally, you have nothing to worry about. If your group want to lose fifteen percent on thirty million, I’ll go elsewhere,’ and following the script, I hung up.
Durant nodded.
‘That was good,’ he said. ‘Now, you can return to the residence.’
So with Mazzo at my side and five bodyguards shoving the camera men aside, I got into the Rolls and was driven back to Ferguson’s home.
It had been an interesting morning. I had met Sonia Malcolm. As the Jap chauffeur drove along the boulevard, I thought of this woman. For the first time in my life, I felt an odd kinship. This was a woman I needed to know: not like the many other women I had met.
There was something about her that drew me to her.
Then I had learned that Ferguson’s Corporation had borrowed thirty million dollars and the lenders were uneasy. Sitting at the big desk, looking around the luxurious office, I had smelt power. I had shown Durant I wasn’t to be pushed around.
Yes, an interesting morning.
I thought of the man, shut up with a nurse, rapidly turning into a vegetable.
Yes, I said to myself as the Rolls drew up outside the entrance to the residence, play this right and you could be John Merrill Ferguson.
chapter five
We lay side by side on the big bed. The time by the bedside clock was 03.15. The pilot light above the bed made faint shadows. I could see her nakedness: a body that couldn’t have been more perfectly sculptured.
She had come silently into the room some thirty minutes ago. Our love making had been fierce, but this wasn’t love: this was blatant lust. She was irresistible, but there was this thought at the back of my mind, warning me not to trust her.
We lay there. The clock ticked on. We lay silently until our breathing returned to normal. I reached for a cigarette.
‘Smoke?’
‘Yes.’
I lit two cigarettes and gave her one. I wondered when she would go. I was sleepy after this violent coupling.
‘You are a marvelous lover, Jerry.’
‘So are you.’
Was there to be much more of this banal talk?
A long pause, then she said, ‘Durant is very pleased with you. He said you handled a telephone conversation marvelously.’
‘That’s what I’m being paid for,’ I said, closing my eyes. Why didn’t she go?
She went on, ‘John is much, much worse. I saw him today. He didn’t recognize me.’
‘A dreadful thing.’
‘Yes.’ Another pause, then ‘You should know about his mother.’ Her cigarette end glowed red.
I became alert.
‘His mother?’
‘You have met her. She arranged your kidnapping. You know she’s a ruthless, dangerous old woman.’
Did I? Well, maybe. I remembered her smooth talk about my talent, how she had drugged me, and how completely I had been fooled.
‘She is quite a character,’ I said.
‘All she thinks about is money. She has no interest in her son except his wealth. She lives in Frisco. She never comes here to see him. Every day, she telephones to inquire about him. She doesn’t want to know if he is improving. She wants to know when he is going to die. When he is dead, she will become the President of the Corporation and she will inherit his private fortune. Money is her god, so she is impatiently waiting for him to die.’
I was now very alert.
‘You are his wife,’ I said. ‘His mother can only get what he leaves her in his will. He can’t leave everything to her. As his wife, you are protected.’
She rolled away from me to stub out her cigarette.
She had a long, beautiful back. It was a sensual maneuver that wasn’t lost on me, and I became even more alert.
As she rolled onto her back, she said, ‘There are two major problems. John has never made a will.’
I thought for a long moment about this. It was hard to believe a man like John Merrill Ferguson shouldn’t have made a will, but there are some arrogant men who won’t believe they will eventually die.
‘As his wife, you are protected,’ I said. ‘It will cause legal trouble, but your lawyers will sort it out. Anyway, is it too late? Can’t you persuade him to make a will?’
‘Hopeless. He doesn’t even recognize me. He just sits and stares into space.’
‘What’s the second problem?’
She put her hands on her breasts and closed her eyes.
‘Can I trust you, Jerry? We are lovers. Lovers should trust each other.’
Where had I heard that corn before? In some disaster I had acted in?
‘If you mean whatever you want to tell me will be confidential, it will be confidential,’ I said carefully.
‘Thank you, Jerry. You are the only one I can tell and the only one I can trust.’
‘So what’s the second problem?’
‘I am not his wife.’
That really gave me a jolt.
‘What are you saying?’ I slid off the bed and put on my shortie dressing gown. I turned on one of the shaded lamps. I stared at her, lying on the bed like a Playboy centerfold. ‘Not his wife?’
‘I am not his wife. Come and sit here, Jerry, and let me tell you.’
This was something I had to know so I sat on the bed by her side and let her take my hand.
‘Are you telling me he isn’t married?’
‘He’s not married.’ She slid her fingers up my arm. Why did I think of spider’s legs? ‘We met two years ago. He was in Las Vegas, doing a deal. He wanted a woman. Mazzo came to me. I was in show business. He hired
