Indiscretions (11 page)

“Well, that’s a relief,” commented India. She understood the ways of paparazzi well enough to know that a brief dip in the swimming pool on a hot day could be snapped and captioned “Haven daughter swims in Hollywood sunshine while inquest decides cause of mother’s death.” It was not a nice world. And the inquest was to take place the day after tomorrow. Thankfully she followed her sisters to the refuge of her room.

3

Raymunda Ortiz lounged in the center of the king-size bed, wearing a virginal white cotton robe, clicking through the television channels with the remote control while keeping one ear open to catch what Fitz was saying on the phone. He was
always
on the phone, always talking business. She could swear that phone grew out of his hand—except, of course, when his hands were better employed making love to her. A glance at her white robe—the finest Swiss cotton, embroidered with girlish flowers and ruffled at the neck and hem—confirmed that it
was
virginal; she didn’t want him to think she was some kind of whore in sleazy satin. No, she wanted Fitz to understand that no matter what went on between them in bed, she was a
lady
, the sort of lady who could decorate his table, make his home into a social meeting place for the
best
people—a lady suitable to be his wife. And it was true, she was a well-brought-up Brazilian girl from a good family, married at eighteen, widowed at twenty-eight, and at thirty-two looking hard for a second husband. Who better than Fitz McBain?

She glanced at him across the room. Fitz, naked but for a towel wrapped around his middle, leaned casually against the table, the phone propped beneath his chin. His dark hair was still wet from the shower, and little rivulets of water trickled down his muscular back. Raymunda thought she’d like to lick each of those drops from his skin … if he’d ever get off the damned phone! Impatiently, she changed the channel to a game show, lowering the sound and listening to Fitz.

“Throw the job open to tender, Morgan,” he was saying. “It’s the only way. And don’t touch those Liberian tankers—they’ve lost two in the past six months.”

He was talking to his son. Morgan was a good-looking young man … maybe if things didn’t go too well with Fitz she should try him instead? No, at thirty-two she was better off with the father; after all, that’s where the power was.

Raymunda glanced again at Fitz’s back. The drops of water had trickled down beneath his towel. She’d been waiting here, in the virginal robe, when he came back from wherever he’d been last—Hamburg, she thought he’d said. He’d gone straight into the shower after a brief hello, and then he’d got on the phone to Morgan. He’d never even noticed the robe. She looked at it doubtfully. Maybe it was
too
virginal? She unfastened the buttons to the waist and allowed it to fall open a little, displaying her ample and very pretty bosom to advantage. Her olive skin looked smooth and she ran a finger around her nipple, enjoying the responses of her own body.

The real trouble was knowing how to play it with Fitz. It was difficult sometimes when he was making love to her to remember to use ladylike words, and yet she wasn’t sure whether a man from his background understood that even ladies liked to fuck? It was a dilemma and playing a dual role was hard work.

“Fitz,” she called impatiently, “I
need
you.”

He turned his head and smiled at her.

The trouble was, he really turned her on—she liked his tall, spare, muscular body, hardened from those years spent wildcatting in the backlands of Texas, and she liked his thick brown-black hair and his face with its oddly jutting cheekbones and deeply set, dark blue eyes. And she was turned on, too, by the power of his money—it was breathtaking, that kind of power. When you were with Fitz McBain, you felt that the world was yours and that rich men made their own rules. Power was so exciting.

Raymunda slid back the white robe tantalizingly, posing against the pillows; she wanted him now.

“Fitz,” she called again, “come here, I want you.” He waved an impatient arm and went on with his conversation.

“Goddamn it!” Raymunda sat up again and clicked channels furiously.

“Wait!” Fitz slammed down the phone and strode across the room to the bed. “Put the news back on, channel two.”

“Channel Two! Damn it, I’ve been waiting here for you to—”

Fitz grabbed the remote control and pushed the button. Channel Two news showed pictures of Jenny Haven and then switched to the scene outside the coroner’s office in Los Angeles. Damn, Raymunda had turned down the sound.

“… the autopsy showed,” said the reporter, “that while there had been a certain amount of alcohol in her blood, Jenny wasn’t drunk, and while there was also some evidence of barbiturates, they would hardly have been sufficient to cause heart failure—though there is always the possibility of an unusual reaction with the alcohol. Perhaps Jenny simply couldn’t sleep and had taken herself out to the ocean for some fresh air? But why the
evening dress? Was she meeting a lover? No one has come forward to claim that privilege. It was stated in court that Jenny was a good and experienced driver and the night was a clear one with no mist blowing in from the ocean. So—was it a tragic accident that took Jenny Haven from us? Or was it the last deliberate act of a woman, saddened at growing older, parted from the three daughters she barely knew, and unable to face life alone?” The reporter turned to gesture at the courthouse behind him. “The coroner this morning found no option but to record an open verdict on Jenny Haven’s death.”

The picture switched back to the newscaster. “Well, a sad end for a woman we all must have loved at some time in our lives.…”

Fitz switched off the television set and sat on the edge of the bed. Now, he supposed, the newspapers would really go to town on the story. Had she? Or hadn’t she? They’d drag up every bit of her past that they could—and heaven knows Jenny had been a very indiscreet woman. Fitz figured that right now there must be quite a few people in Hollywood who were praying that Jenny had never kept a diary, or that her housekeeper for the past twenty years would remain loyal and not be tempted by some enormous bribe from the press to tell all.

And of course those three daughters would be the prime target. He’d caught a glimpse of them on the news, running through the air terminal followed by the press. They were as defenseless and vulnerable as their mother had always seemed to be. Only, beneath that softly beautiful surface Jenny was known to be made of steel, tempered by her years of struggle and ambition. She’d packed a lifetime of rejection and being used into those bruising years between thirteen and nineteen—before she became a star. It was something he and Jenny Haven had in common.

“Fitz”—Raymunda ran her fingernails along his spine—“what
shall we do first tonight, Fitz?” He hardly seemed to have heard her. She tried again, sliding her hands around his waist, pressing her naked breasts against his back. “I know what I’d like to do.” Bending her head she ran her pointed little tongue along the smooth flesh of his shoulder.

Fitz pushed away her hands and stood up abruptly. “Go get dressed, Raymunda.”

“Dressed? But why? I’m here—waiting for you. Don’t you like me in this robe?” She knew the virginal act had been a mistake, he liked his sex rougher than that. Raymunda ripped off the embroidered Swiss cotton and sprawled across the bed, stretching her long, muscular legs. He’d always liked her legs, he liked the way she gripped him with those strong muscles when he was on top of her.

“Get dressed. We’ll go out later.”

Raymunda flounced off the bed, dragging the robe around her shoulders and striding furiously toward the door. He hadn’t even noticed her, he’d drawn back the curtains and was just staring out into the night.

Through the window the turrets and towers of Manhattan sparkled with a million lights, a scene that brought Fitz unfailing pleasure—though he was never sure whether it was the magnificence of the city itself, or the reminder that he, a kid from the Texas backlands, had made it all the way to being a prince of this toughest of cities, and his palace was this rooftop eyrie from where he could view his kingdom. Tonight he didn’t notice the view.

A faint smile lit his severe, attractive face as he remembered that afternoon when he had fallen in love with Jenny Haven. He was thirteen and he had spent his single hard-earned dollar on a seat at the movies and a bag of popcorn that had soon been discarded, forgotten in the surge of emotion he had felt when Jenny’s disarming blue
eyes had gazed directly into his, smiling at him from the screen of that little Texan flea-pit movie-house. It was the first time he had ever truly known what it was to want a woman, feeling that thrusting urge in his groin not just for some youthful fantasy about the girl with big tits and sticky red lipstick behind the counter of the soda fountain but for this wonderful blond creature of scented flesh and satin lips—for that’s how he knew she would be.

He had grown up because of Jenny Haven. Because of her he had known suddenly that there was more to sex than the hurried mutual gropings for experience and curiosity that were his infrequent lot right then. You “made love” to a woman like Jenny Haven.

He had sat through the movie twice and left the cinema only when it closed, begging one of the studio stills that decorated the glassed display panel in the foyer from the amused cashier. That picture of Jenny in sweater and shorts, perched on a stool, a finger held under her coquettishly tilted chin, had adorned the flimsy walls of his many cheap rooms as he wandered through Texas. He had sent for others, and even after he had met and married Ellen, he had still kept them. He believed it was because of what he learned vicariously from Jenny Haven that he had known how to treat women. “You make me feel sexy and beautiful,” Ellen had told him, even when they were desperately poor and living in that shabby trailer in the middle of nowhere.

He had met Jenny once, years later, at a party in Beverly Hills. He had been nervous knowing that she was to be there. What if meeting her destroyed the image that he had built up in his mind? She had changed his life once, for the better; reality could destroy the myth. But it had been just like the first time he had seen her on the screen. True, the surroundings were more luxurious, this time it was the private screening room of a Hollywood producer, and this time Jenny had been seated next to him, and,
despite his experience, his sophistication, his power, position, and wealth, the memory of that first boyish sexual urge and her proximity had given him an erection that he prayed he could control. When she had leaned over to whisper conspiratorially in his ear how boring the movie was, the touch of her soft breath on his cheek, the slight pressure of her arm against his, and the faint drift of her perfume had almost destroyed him.

He could have tried to win Jenny Haven. He had more than enough to offer. Women found him attractive, they enjoyed his lovemaking and his hard body, they liked his reputation as the rough backlands guy who had made good, and of course they enjoyed the power of his money. But then Jenny had been in the middle of an affair with the Hollywood producer, the timing hadn’t been right, and anyway he had still been afraid of destroying the illusion.

Sadly, he pressed the button that closed the curtains, shutting out New York’s glittering starry night.

Tomorrow or the next day they would bury Jenny, and he, Fitz McBain, who had always been in love with her, would see that it was done properly. He turned back to his desk and picked up the phone again.

“At least that’s over,” said India, curled up on the big black sofa in the summerhouse.

“And at least they didn’t say it was suicide.” Venetia’s voice sounded relieved.

“And now there’s the funeral.” Paris couldn’t bear the silence that followed her words, and she walked across to the hi-fi, putting on an album at random. It was Ciccolini playing Erik Satie, and the cool, isolated notes of the piano floated across the room. She lay back against the cushions, staring at the silvery motes of dust caught in a beam of sunlight from the window. October was warm in
Hollywood, thank God—Jenny would have hated to be buried in the cold and the rain.

“None of us has suitable clothes,” said India at last. “We can’t possibly go to a funeral like this—and how can we go shopping? Imagine what the press would say about that.”

Despite the private guards, cameramen still cruised the road outside the house, poking their long lenses through the gates, snapping anyone or anything that left. So far none had penetrated the grounds and their privacy, deterred no doubt by the two German shepherd dogs patrolling the wall. But what kept the press out, kept them in, trapped by Jenny’s fame and the public’s curiosity.

Paris picked up the phone. “I’ll ask Ronson what to do. He seems to know everything.”

He answered at once. “Oh, Mr. Ronson. It will be necessary for my sisters and I to have some suitable clothes for the … funeral. Obviously, we cannot go out, and I wonder if it would be possible to have a store send round some things on approval? Oh. Oh, I see. But what about the sizes? Really? Yes. Yes, that’s very kind. Thank you, Mr. Ronson.”