Naked Cruelty (16 page)

“Do you believe all that?” Amanda asked Hank over Chinese in her apartment that night. “Eight months, and never a word! I phoned Robert up and gave him
such
a chewing out! Oh, they'll never change! Narcissistic, self-centered—the tragedy, Hank, is that they're so clever. I mean really, really clever. Robert plays with words the way a cat does with a ball of twine, and Gordon is a brilliant artist. They're both artistic, they should do something with their talents, but do they? Never! All they do is hang around movie studios grabbing work here and work there, silly projects—Oh, I am
mad!
” Amanda's voice changed, dropped to a growl. “They murdered their parents.”

The noodles fell off Hank's chopsticks; he put them down and stared at her, astonished. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me! They pushed their father down the stairs when they were eight, and put arsenic in their mother's food as soon as they didn't need her anymore.”

“Wow!” Hank fished for more noodles; he was hungry. “I take it they escaped retribution?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “What do I do with my estate?”

His laugh sounded zany. “My mind's spinning in circles, Amanda. You mean your will?”

“Yes. The only blood kin I have are a pair of crazy twins. But if I disinherit them, who is there? The ASPCA? The Humane Society? A farm for broken down donkeys?”

“Or an indigent mall manager,” he said with a grin.

She gasped, clapped her hands together. “Yes, that's it! I've had a funny feeling—are you really indigent, Hank? Trust me! I'd like an honest answer.”

He looked hunted, swallowed convulsively. “For what it's worth, I'd trust you with my life, Amanda. My ex-wife is permanently institutionalized, and I'm permanently broke keeping her there. The fees are astronomical. Funny, your health insurance will pay for anything except a mind, just as if something that can't be seen can't be broken.”

“Oh, Hank! That's terrible! What happened?”

“The divorce was through—acrimonious on her side, not on mine. Her moods—well, they frightened me. Then she came back on some pretext—a forgotten picture, I think it was.”

“You don't remember?”

His hunted look grew worse. “According to the psychiatrists, human beings have a tendency to forget just what they ought to remember. Anyway, it was a pretext. She went for me with a knife, and I defended myself. We were both wounded, and there was nothing in it between our stories. That the cops tended to take my word over hers wasn't popular with her friends—she had some very important ones. In the end it never came to trial because her mental condition deteriorated terribly. But I got the hint. Unless I paid to keep her in a private asylum, there might be a trial—mine. I knew it was the easy way out. I'm pretty sure I would be acquitted at trial, but I can't be a hundred percent sure. There's no statute of limitations on murder, and she's way past seeming dangerous. Any jury looking at her now would see a shriveled up scrap of scarcely human flesh. So I keep on paying.”

“Hank, Hank!” She rocked back and forth. “I knew there was a big trouble there, I knew it! Go to trial, Hank, please. You would have to be acquitted. Besides, there was no murder, just an attempted murder.”

His shoulders hunched. “I can't bear to open that can of worms, Amanda, I just can't!”

He's a lovely man, she was thinking, watching him, but he's timid, and I suppose that side of him will show at a trial. If indeed there is a case to answer—he won't even find that out. Her friends are having a kind of revenge in keeping him poor …

“I wish there was something I could do,” she said, sighing.

“There isn't. One day Lisa will die, and my troubles will be over. She's developing kidney failure.”

“Would you consider a loan?” she asked. “I could afford to help you keep her institutionalized.”

His hand went out, clasped hers, and his gentle brown eyes sparkled with tears. “Oh, Amanda, thanks, but no thanks. I'm not much of a man, but I won't let you do that.”

“I have a good cash income and over two million dollars in assets,” she said warmly. “I'm not in love with you, but you're my very dear friend. Leave it for the moment if you prefer, but let me ask again six months from now. And if she does go into kidney failure, you'll have huge medical bills as well. Please don't hesitate to ask, okay?”

There had been a subtle alteration: Hank Murray looked more cheerful, stronger. He squeezed her hand. “Okay,” he said, lips turned up in a smile. Then he lifted her hand and kissed it.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15
to
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

1968

P
runella Balducci was in her late twenties, slim, fashionably dressed, and very pretty. Since she arrived at two in the afternoon, Carmine wasn't there to take the edge off Desdemona's awe: how could someone who looked like this earn a successful living managing emotionally crippled families?

A little tongue-tied, she took Prunella to see her quarters, the high square tower with its widow's walk.

“Oh, this is wonderful!” cried Prunella. “Are you sure your daughter doesn't mind not being able to come home until Christmas?”

“She's a freshman pre-med at Paracelsus and doesn't want it known that she's a local,” Desdemona explained.

“And of course she's busy making the adjustment from high school to college. Wise girl. Who's her room-mate?”

“A black girl from Chicago, there on scholarship, poor as a church mouse. Another inhibition for Sophia, whose stepfather has dowered her with an enormous amount of money. Our girl is super-sensitive about appearing privileged, but she's not allowed to give her money away. This is the first year that Paracelsus has taken women, and there are fifty of them—you must know that Chubb is finally admitting women?”

“Oh, sure. Go on, Mrs. Delmonico.”

“Desdemona, please. Half the freshman intake at Paracelsus has been women. I think Sophia's glad she has Martina for a roomie. They like the same music—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis, a whole lot more I don't know or remember. Music seems to be a great bond. They both want to be surgeons, and you must know how impossible a dream that is for women. I suspect we'll get Martina for Christmas—air fares are a problem.”

Desdemona put the suitcase she was carrying in a corner and smiled at her new colleague. “Coffee before I wake my monsters? For once in his life, Julian felt like a nap today, but I warn you! The moment Julian wakes, peace vanishes.”

In Prunella, Desdemona soon saw, Julian had met his match. Smart enough to know the effect of his eyes and his smile, he turned them and the charm on as soon as he woke.

“Oh, great!” he exclaimed. “I don't have to go rowing.”

“Rowing?”

“Yes,” said Desdemona, who had forgotten all about the rowing and now came down with a gasp, a look of desperation. “I must explain to you, Prunella, that Julian hoped to sleep his way out of rowing, and that in turn would have meant Julian awake tonight.” She glared at her elder son, who seemed as innocent as any cherub Raphael ever painted. “Last year,” she went on, “things happened that made me realize I'd lost my physical fitness, but getting it back through a pregnancy and another baby proved impossible until Carmine came home with a two-man kayak. I used to hike, but shepherding Julian is beyond me—I'm too tall for toddlers, they kill my back. Carmine thought rowing would be feasible, and he was right. I sit in the back space, and both kids sit in the front space in special harnesses. Julian swims like a fish anyway, and I make him use a paddle, it's good for developing his arms and shoulders. Alex lies in a weeny cradle. The trouble is that I've not had the energy or the enthusiasm to do it regularly. I did tell Julian this morning that if he wasn't a good boy, we were going for a paddle.”

“Does this mean, Julian, that you haven't been good?” asked Prunella in bored tones.

“I'm never good,” he said solemnly.

“Then you go rowing, Desdemona. I know you don't feel like it, but you need the fresh air and the exercise,” said Prunella.

“Yes, Mommy, go rowing,” Julian said, voice like honey. “I can stay here with Prunella and do things I like.”

“No, you're rowing with Mommy. Alex gets to stay behind.”

The huge feet planted themselves firmly apart on the floor. “I don't want to go, so I won't go!”

“That's not good enough,” said Prunella. She seized Julian by one hand and looked at Desdemona, who was on the verge of tears. “Lead on, Mommy, to the kayak. No one's getting out of this.”

Digging his heels in didn't work, nor did much roaring and yelling; relieved of the authority but hugely comforted by the fact that it had not passed to Julian, Desdemona led the way down the path to the boatshed and unearthed the kayak. At sight of it Julian decided to get physical, and kicked out at Prunella's shins: the next thing he was sitting on the hard ground with a thump, and Prunella was
laughing
at him!

“Do get up, Julian,” she said cheerfully. “You look silly.”

“Mommy, she tripped me up!”

“You deserved it,” said Desdemona, and gulped. Somehow it was easier when she had another adult to back her, and that adult was an acknowledged expert on how to deal with recalcitrant children. Prunella had managed to wound Julian's dignity, his rather inflated idea of himself, and that part of him would continue to smart long after his bottom ceased to pain him.

In record time Desdemona was launching her craft, with a very co-operative Julian doing his share instead of whining; he was not about to be laughed at again by a stranger.

Who, by the time she had supervised his bath and clad him in pajamas, had already given him to know that she'd stomach none of his tricks. Mommy, she informed him, was sick, and he wasn't helping any, so until Christmas he'd have to make do with her, Prunella. The trouble was that he quite liked her; she had such merry eyes, eyes that made him want to get on the right side of her. Mommy's eyes were always dreary and uninterested—why hadn't he seen that she was sick? He wasn't very old, but he could well remember an interested, jolly Mommy.

“It's too early for bed,” he said after a six o'clock dinner.

“Why?”

“I'm not sleepy.”

“Oh, good! Then you can exercise your imagination after you go to bed. I'll be there to listen.”

“Listen to my what?”

“Your imagination, silly! Everybody has one, so that's your first task after you hit your bed—looking for it. When you've found it, I'll help you exercise it.”

“Oh, not more exercise!”

“Exercise for your mind, Julian, not your body.”

His eyes should have been as dark as the rest of him; Julian Delmonico had taken after his father in bulk and coloring, and sported a mop of black curls as well as rather thin black brows and impossibly long black lashes. A remarkably handsome child, he had discovered that his looks could win him favors and treats—not to mention excuses for bad behavior. But it was the eyes that put the finishing touch on a striking appearance: the color of weak, milky tea, they were surrounded by a thin black ring that made them piercing, compelling. Well, thought Prunella Balducci, his mother and I have to inculcate some humility and sensitivity into this unpromising material, otherwise he'll king it at St. Bernard's Boys' School and be ruined.

He's had his first lesson: Mommy's sick, and he didn't see it. Now let's see what imagination can do.

“What does an imagination look like?” he asked, curious.

“Anything you want. You'll know it when you find it. Until you do, lying in bed is awful, isn't it? Like a desert, dry and sandy. Once you find your imagination, you won't mind going to bed, even if you're not tired.”

“I still want to know what it looks like.”

“Imagination makes the desert vanish, become all kinds of places. Maybe it disappears and a depth-diving submarine appears—that's imagination. During the day,” said Prunella, warming to her theme, “you and I will look at books full of pictures your imagination might like to hide in. Looking at books is like piling wood on a fire when the world's all snow—the fire burns brighter and brighter. You're going to love books, Julian.”

I don't believe it, thought the listening Desdemona. She's hooked him already, and she hasn't even unpacked her bags.

When he walked in at six-thirty that evening, Carmine got a loving, intensely grateful kiss; his elder son was pestering Prunella to go to bed. Wasn't it time yet?

For answer, she presented him to his father and mother for a goodnight kiss, then took his hand and led him away. “Phase two—a walk around East Circle to get the sleepy-bugs biting—and no, Julian. The more you badger me, the longer our walk.”

“Wow!” said Carmine, following his wife into the kitchen. “Doc Santini told me she was ruthless. Has Julian eaten yet?”

“Yes. Prunella insists on six o'clock for the children, so Alex gets a breast and Julian gets meat or fish and three veg. At least on his food I didn't fall down. Prunella gave me full marks. I don't over-cook the veg, nor give him bloody meat—blood can turn kids off their best source of protein, she says.”

“What about us?”

“We eat at seven-thirty. By then, Julian will be sound asleep. That, I'll believe when I see it. She made me take him out in the kayak, but he's not tired.”

“He will be. What's for our dinner?”

“Swedish meatballs and mushroom risotto. And a salad.”

“Prunella's going to want to stay forever. Did I tell you today that I love you?”

Her beautiful smile lit up those cool eyes. “Every day, as soon as you smell the dinner. I love you too. And thank you, thank you for Prunella.”

She was making up her “pickle solution” as she called it; he pressed his lips against her flushed cheek and stole away to visit the nursery.

His younger son was slumbering peacefully in his crib; when Carmine leaned down to kiss him, inhale the inimitable smell of properly cared for babies, two chubby arms came up to touch his face, and the eyes opened, too clouded with sleep to arouse fully. Daddy smiled into them, and they closed; the arms fell. Both his sons had strange eyes, Alexander James Delmonico's even more peculiar than Julian's: silvery-grey, with that black ring around the irises made them piercing, unsettling. Alex's eyes reminded Carmine of Kemal Ataturk's, exactly the same in an even darker face. Not an unpleasant similarity; Ataturk was regarded as the founder of modern Turkey, and had beaten a British army nearly half a million strong at Gallipoli during the First World War. Well, Alex wouldn't have that tortured man's life, but it was interesting. Blame Desdemona, really. Her extreme fairness had to show somewhere in her sons.

And back to the little sitting room adjacent to the kitchen, where they sat to have a drink before dinner and unwind. I am blessed, thought Carmine, taking the glass Desdemona held out.

He couldn't wait any longer.
Didus ineptus
let himself into Melantha Green's second floor apartment with his lock picks, then gazed around familiarly: he had been in here before. Melantha was another neat and tidy girl—he loathed mess!—who lived on her own and considered that her black belt in judo gave her all the protection she needed. So while other girls were fitting more locks, Melantha had decided that one dead-bolt was fine. As indeed it was, provided that the predator was an amateur with locks. Whereas this predator was an expert.

Today's methodology was different. The piece of duct tape for a gag remained, but in place of twine there were manacles and chains. Appropriate, really. His first black woman, and his first venture with chains—chains probably not unlike those that had encumbered her slave ancestors. A fresh thought, not the one that had prompted him to switch to chains.

When the bedroom yielded no surface he could use, the Dodo located a folded up card table in the living room and carried it to the bedroom, there to employ it as a place to put his tools, neatly arranged. The silenced .22 went under a bed pillow, the duct tape, manacles and chains accompanied him back to the living room. There he began his careful transformation from just another guy into
Didus ineptus
: folding his clothes in a stack on top of his tennis shoes, removing a few items from his body, and then, admiring himself in the full-length mirror on the bedroom door, touching himself up with the greasepaint, a perfect color match to his skin. On went the surgeon's gloves, after which he cleaned his prints from everything he had thus far touched.

Finally, about a quarter of six, he was ready, black silk hood over his head, poised behind the front door. He knew this one was a self-defense expert, so it was important not to give her any chance to use his body weight against him. She came in at five of six. The tape was over her mouth and the manacles snapped on her wrists within seconds; then he struck her on the jaw with a clenched fist. Her knees buckled. He propelled her, semi-conscious, to the toilet, pulled her panties down and sat her in place, a part of him astonished to see that those panties were sexy red lace. She groaned.

“Piss, Melantha,” he said. “You don't move until you do.”

Sagging forward on the seat, she urinated. Didn't the news programs say he never spoke? Why was he speaking to her?

The idea of the chains had come to him when he first set eyes on her bed, an old-fashioned brass one with stout posts and bars. While she was still groggy he tethered the manacle chains to the top of the bed.

“Manicure time,” he said.

Her feet went into socks, her fingernails were clipped down to the quick and collected. After which he left her bedroom and went to look at her bookshelves: hundreds of books! Melantha was a final year medical student at Chubb. There! That one was great, just right for his collection. He brought it back to the bedroom, drew up a chair, and sat down.