Blue Heaven (28 page)

MR SelWyn and mR CAvanauGH,

YOU
have had SOmE Time nOw To ADmire yOUR porTraITs. HOW would
you
L.i.ke yOUr MAFIA fri
E
NDs to SEE theM? A
gn
ES FABrizio?
MoTHEr and
toN.Y. Cellini? FrED
dy
the
POOCH?

MAil $1500 in 100 bILLS to p.O. BOx 723, Times sQ, station. IF
money
NOt reCeived by MonDAY feb
9
P
icTures GO
Out!!

THE AVENG
ING
ANGEL
.

Gilbert called me at noon and by one we'd all convened at God's Country, except for Winnie. It was felt that with dinner at Freddy's scheduled for that evening there was little to be gained from rendering him comatose with fear.

"It doesn't make sense!" said Moira. "Gunther doesn't even
know
these people-Freddy or any of them. He's never met them."

"But his friend Geoff did," said Claire. "It's entirely possible that' Geoff recognized them. I mean,
I
recognized them at the Christmas party. Freddy fawned all over you, saying you were like a daughter to him. If he told Gunther about that, Gunther could easily have seen ' that there's a very important and
violent
mobster who'd be less than thrilled to find Gilbert was cheating on you-with another man."

"Who cares how he worked it out!" said Moira. "It's blackmail and we're not going to pay it!"

"Right," said Gilbert, uncertainly.

Moira took Gilbert's arm in hers.

"If Gunther sends the pictures to Freddy,
I'll
stand up for you. Freddy would never hurt you if I begged him not to."

But, argued Claire, it wasn't that simple. Gilbert had broken a promise not merely to Moira but to Freddy, too, and there was no guaranteeing Moira's pleas could persuade him to overlook this personal affront. And even if she could intercede on Gilbert's behalf where did that leave
me?

"But what are we supposed to do?
Pay
him? That's . . . that's
unfair!"
said Moira, overcome suddenly by the realization that there is injustice in this world.

"Unfair or not, we may have to!" I said.

"Not
me
!" fumed Moira, heading for the phone.

She opened her purse, checked her book and began dialing furiously.

"Moira, do
not
call Gunther!"

"I'm not calling Gun- Hello? Ugo? Hi! S'Moy! . . . Great! How's Betty? . . . Fab! Listen, there's this creepface goon who is really busting my chops and I was wondering how I might go about giving him a present-like six months of traction ..."

"Hi Ugo!"
said Gilbert after he'd barreled over and grabbed the phone. Moira lunged for it but I seized her in a hammerlock and escorted her back to the table.

"No, no! No one's on our case! It was a
jokel
Moy meant me! We
were just having a few words about clothing expenditures! . . . Hoo! You, too, huh! . . . Right! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!"

He explained Moira had called to invite him and Betty to lunch and a Knick's game next Saturday. Ugo enthusiastically accepted and Gilbert, trembling slightly, hung up.

"Are you fucking
crazy?
Breaking his legs! That's
really
going to make him play nice!"

"God, you're all such sissies! Don't you see? We've got to let him know he can't fuck with us!"

"You,
he can't fuck with," I shouted, "
Us
, he can fuck with! We're the ones who'll be puppy chow if Freddy sees the pictures. We don't want to make him madder, we want to shut him up!"

"Well if you want to shut him up-"

"Moira, we are not going to
kill
anyone!" snapped Claire. "Can we please calm down and examine our options rationally before we act!"

Examine them we did, only to discover that we didn't have any. The risks of further antagonizing Gunther were simply unacceptable. He would have to be paid. Moira was adamantly against this, and argued almost tearfully that we hadn't worked so hard in order to surrender our profits to a "vindictive Kraut." Claire replied that we hadn't worked so hard to get ourselves killed either, though this was perhaps hard for Moira to see as she was in the least danger. Moira then remembered she'd turned over a new leaf and apologized, explaining that her reluctance to pay was based not on any callous disregard for our safety but on the principle of noncapitulation to terrorism.

We decided that one of us should at least attempt to secure the negative in exchange for the payment and I volunteered for the mission. It wouldn't have been right to involve Claire more than she was already, and Gilbert and Moira were out of the question, their der-matological jibes at Gunther's expense having greatly reduced their chances of achieving much in the way of entente cordiale.

"Something just occurred to me," said Claire. "This little crush Freddy seems to have on the duchess."

"Yes," I said to Gilbert and Moira, "you'd better do everything you can to nip that in the bud tonight."

"No, Philip," sighed Moira condescendingly, "Claire means we should
encourage
it. Right?"

"Exactly. Not too
much,
of course. Just enough to lead him on. That way, if push comes to shove, Mummy's intercession will be more valuable."

At that point Winslow arrived feeling just the slightest bit tense about dinner with Freddy. Claire and I decided to leave the preper-formance ministrations to Gilbert and Moira. We wished Winnie the best of luck and scrammed for the foyer.

It was a chilly day but we both felt more like walking than taking a cab. The lightest of snows was falling and Central Park looked beautiful and quiet and serene, everything that life wasn't at the moment. We strolled wordlessly uptown for a few blocks before I broke the silence.

"You think I'm irredeemably stupid, don't you?"

"What, for not checking the closet before you went to bed?"

"No, for going to bed in the first place."

"Philip, what my own love affairs have lacked in frequency they've made up for in misery, so I don't consider myself in any position to give advice to the lovelorn."

"Okay."

"If,
however, you had troubled to consult me about these sudden feelings you'd developed toward Gilbert, I'd have advised you to defer acting on them till the danger in doing so was past. Then you might have been better able to decide how real they were."

"What, you think we're only having an affair because we
shouldn't?"

"What I think doesn't matter. What do you think? Oh, excuse me, I've forgotten-you don't think. You feel!"

I said nothing but made every effort to look wrongly accused.

"I'm sorry. They only reason I'm being a bitch is because I'm so damned mad at myself for having gotten into this mess to begin with."

"Don't be mad at yourself. You were only trying to help me."

"That's a crock, dear, and you know it. It was nothing more than ego masquerading as altruism. You got sucked in by greed and I followed out of vanity. I couldn't bear the thought of Moira playing me for a fool as if I were just
anyone."

"When did she play you for a fool?"

"At the
Eureka, Baby!
party. When I was so sympathetic toward her because she'd fought with Gilbert. Then afterward she crowed victoriously to you two about what a chump I'd been."

"Oh. Actually, I made that part up."

"God love you."

That night I called The Avenging Angel.

"Um, hi, Gunther?"

"Mr. Cavanaugh, I do not appreciate these simpering phone calls. You have done me enough harm. If and when I wish to speak to you I will call."

"Right. I just wanted to say we got your demands."

"Demands?" he said innocently.

"Yes. We think they're a little steep but we're prepared to meet them provided you give us the nude photos
and
the negatives."

There was a long pause.

"Do not play games with me, Mr. Cavanaugh. I know nothing about nude photos, I know nothing about money and nothing about negatives! This is harassment, Mr. Cavanaugh-and whoever is listening in- and I demand you desist immediately."

"Can't we negotiate?"

"There is nothing to negotiate about! Do not call me again! Goodbye!"

I called Claire.

"Oh, hi-can you call me in the morning!"

"I'm sorry. Someone there?"

"Yes."

"A
date?"
I asked, then, realizing I'd let myself sound a bit too surprised, said, "I mean ..."

"Yes, I know what you mean. 'Leap year so soon?'
Good-bye,
Philip!"

"Hold on! I'm sorry, okay! I just wanted you to know I called Gunther and he played dumb."

"What do you mean?"

"I told him we'd pay his price but we wanted the negatives and he played dumb. He knows nothing about the pictures or anything. And he thought someone was listening in, too."

"Oh, dear. Well, we should have expected that. You don't take the trouble to cut out letters for your blackmail note then cheerfully confess to the dark deed on the telephone when anyone can record it. He's a crafty one and . . . What, love? . . . Oh, don't be silly!

Of course not! We're writing a mystery . . . Look, Philip,
tomorrow,
okay?"

Gilbert stayed at my place that night. He rolled in about one-thirty looking grim and bedraggled.

"How did it go?"

"It was ghastly, Philip! Ghastly!"

I made him hot tea with a splash of Remy, and he spun his tale.

"We did what Claire said and told him to lead Freddy on a bit. We didn't say
why.
I mean, we lied. We said it would make him more generous at the wedding. But we told him to be careful. 'Tease him,' Philly. Those were my exact words. 'Tease him'!"

"He went overboard?"

"He's
divorcing
the duke!"

"A divorce! But he can't do that!"

"Can't? Philip, he
has
to!"

Twenty-five

T
his is how the five-year marriage between the Duke and Duchess of Dorsetshire came to its rancorous, if unanticipated, conclusion.

Winslow, coked to the tits and under advisement to tease Freddy's hopes, leapt to the task with all the abandon and misplaced self-confidence the drug is known to inspire. He cooed endearments, fluttered his eyelashes, and heaved his false boobies in a manner he thought guaranteed to incite passion in even the most geriatric of bosoms. Then, after the meal, as they sat sipping Sambucca, he delivered his masterstroke. Turning the subject to literature, he proclaimed Barbara Cartland to be the finest prose stylist of our century. Freddy, while he begged to differ, feeling the distinction belonged more rightly to Messalina Joyeuse, said nonetheless that the duchess's preferences labeled her a woman of great sensitivity and refinement, increasingly rare commodities in these vulgar times.

Moira, beginning to feel that Mummy was within inches of commandeering her still lucrative job as Freddy's reader, slapped her hand and cautioned her not to be such a flirt. What would the duke think?

"The duke," said Mummy frostily, "is hardly in a position to decry my harmless flirtation with a kindred spirit!"

She proceeded to paint the duke as the basest of philanderers and herself as the long-suffering wife, striving always to stave off self-pity by channeling her spurned affections into good works.

Mummy later asserted she'd chosen this tactic so Freddy would assume he had a better chance of successfully wooing her. Freddy would hope her contempt for the adulterous duke might lead her to repay the duke in kind. There was no possible harm in this since the
duchess would, of course, remain loyal to her straying husband in the face of all provocation.

What Mummy hadn't counted on was Freddy's murderous side. Even at his advanced age he possessed a robust hatred for dishonorable behavior and a firm belief that bullets speak louder than words. He listened to the duchess's lament in silence and when she'd finished, his guests were startled to see a flintiness had come into his eyes. He began discoursing on the sanctity of the marriage bond. Only depravity of the most unforgivable sort could lead a man to defile this bond, especially if the woman were half so fine and noble as the duchess. While he did not come right out and say so, he seemed unmistakably to imply that death was not too extreme a penalty and that he was just the man to arrange the irksome details.

Winslow was stunned by Freddy's sudden vehemence and could only stammer that men were weak and had to be forgiven their excesses. Freddy replied gently that he hadn't meant his words to upset her and that perhaps fate or God's mysterious ways would soon alleviate her suffering.

Moira and Gilbert were quick to see just what stickiness might arise if Freddy sent his henchmen to England to bump off a nonexistent duke. But it seemed the only way to avoid the duke's murder was to render it unnecessary. They began beseeching Mummy to divorce the cad. They'd had no
idea
his infidelities were so flagrant! Self-respect demanded she end her sad charade of contentment and begin a new life!

Their insistence eventually made Mummy realize they meant her to agree to this sudden and drastic departure from the shooting script. Yes, she said, they were right! The time had come for a parting of the ways! She had only been timid because she felt there was little hope for a woman her age to start afresh. Freddy took her hand and assured her this was not the case.

"The worst of it," moaned Gilbert, "is it puts us in such a bad position with Gunther!"

"With Gunther?" I asked, unable at first to see any connection.

"Think about it! If he ever gets those pictures to Freddy now we're really dead! You should have heard him ranting about infidelity and cheating on 'good women.' What'll he do now if he finds out about
us
?"

"Sure," I said, desperately searching for a bright side, "but now that we know he's so gaga about the duchess she can plead for us!"

"I
know
that, Philly. And what if she
does?
What will
he
say?"

I mulled it over a moment then shuddered with dread.

"Exactly!"
said Gilbert. " 'Marry me and I'll forgive them!' "

This was only speculation, but the scenario looked frighteningly plausible. And when we talked it over the next morning with Claire and Moira they too agreed that Freddy's passion might induce him to do virtually anything. Mummy could divorce the duke and still successfully fend off Freddy's advances. But the fending off would be much harder if Freddy had Gilbert's and my fates to use as bargaining chips.

It was all a terrible muddle, but one thing was clear: Freddy must never see the photos. Gunther's demands, present and future, would have to be met.

Further weight was lent this decision the next Monday when I returned from a trip to the supermarket to find another note from Gunther. This one was not mailed but simply folded and jammed into my mailbox. It read: