Randall #01 - The Best Revenge (4 page)

“Perth Amboy!” he shouted. “New Jersey!”

His face stretched into a demented grin. Maybe his mind had snapped. She’d been selfish not to ask him about his problems with Edmund.

He sang in a crazed Wagnerian tenor. “Piz-za! Piz-za! Pizza with pep-per-oni!” His hand fell heavily across her shoulders and pulled her body against his. “No-o goat cheese for me. No-o truffles or Brie, just pep-per-oni pizza from Papa Mur-ray—”

He swerved onto an exit ramp.

“Plantagenet!” she screamed. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Pizza,” he said in a normal tone. “We’re getting pizza. Aren’t you ravenous?”

“I guess so.” She was, actually, although she hadn’t thought about it until now. “But Plantagenet, are you all right?”

“No. I’m not all right. I am all wrong,” he said with bizarre cheer. “I have been wrong for some time. Completely wrong. But I am about to change. Change everything. And the first thing, the very first thing I am going to do is—get into the right lane!”

He had been weaving insanely through city traffic and suddenly cut in front of a large van, skidding as he made a turn, nearly plowing into a bank of brown slush.

“There it is! There it is! He’s still here!” He miraculously regained control of the car. “What I am going to do, Camel, my darling, is give you the most mouth-watering, most delectable, most all-time great pizza you have had in your short life. Here we are.”

He pulled in front of a shadowy building next to a Greyhound bus station, where dirty old men huddled, sharing a bottle wrapped in brown paper. Next door was a seedy-looking eatery, with red-checked curtains hanging in the grimy window. Over the door a neon sign declared it “Papa’s”. Underneath, not centered, were the words “Apizza Pie.” Next to the “Papa’s,” on painted wood, barely discernible in the fading light, was a sign that said “Murray Edelman’s Pizza and Deli.”

“Very funny, Plant,” she said. “Now let’s get out of here before we get mugged.”

“They wouldn’t dare mug me, Camel, darling. I’m from the neighborhood. I used to work here—at Papa Murray’s—every day after school. For two whole years.”

“You did not! You went to Exeter, remember?”

“I remember I told you that. But I lied. I lie a lot. But not about pizza. Come on.” Camilla watched in horror as Plantagenet pushed the button that lifted the gullwing doors of the DeLorean and the old tramps stared.

“Plant, I am not getting out of this car.” The joke had gone far enough.

“Please, darling. This is important to me. I have something I want to say to you. I’d like to say it at Papa Murray’s. Please?”

She shivered but didn’t budge. Plant finally lowered the doors.

With a fierceness she’d never seen in him, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. His wild eyes reflected the red glow from the store’s neon sign. She tried to look away, but he held her with his feral red stare.

Then he kissed her, not gently like before, but with a passion that seemed to possess him like a demonic force. She tried to catch her breath as he kissed her eyes, her mouth, her neck, and then her mouth again, probing, invading.

She gasped for breath and tried to pull away. Plantagenet couldn’t be doing this. Not now. Not after Lester Stokes. And Aldo. And nasty Jonathan Kahn.

“Camilla, I love you,” he murmured hoarsely.

She pushed him away. “Well, I don’t love you. Not when you’re stupid like this. I want to get back on the Parkway. Now. Are you coming with me or not?”

He stared at her, his eyes dark and cold now.

“Maybe I should just take a bus back to New York.”

He opened the doors again and pulled the keys from the ignition.

“Maybe you should.” She took the keys.

He gave her one last, pained look and got out of the car.

She watched him run through the snow and disappear behind the red-checked curtains before she moved to the driver’s seat, lowered the doors and drove the DeLorean into the storm and the gathering dark.

Chapter 4—The House Of Nevermore

Five months later, as Camilla fought traffic on Route 95 on her way back to Darien, she still didn’t understand what had been going on with Plantagenet that night in New Jersey, but she hoped he was over it. Summer vacation would be awful without him. There was nobody else she could rely on to take her to New York clubs or parties.

She wasn’t looking forward to this vacation. Her mother’s communications had been cryptic, which probably meant she was busy with a Project. If it was redecorating the Hall again, summer would be pure hell.

Plantagenet had better be back to normal.

She’d had a postcard from him, right after she got to school, saying he’d got back to New York OK. Plus he’d sent a Groundhog’s Day card. It had been Groundhog’s Day, two years ago, when she first met Plantagenet at Kiki Longworth’s sub-deb party.

The thought had been sweet, even though the card didn’t make much sense. It showed a cartoon of a large rodent in Shakespearean dress, looking at its shadow. The caption read, “Who is wishing thee a happy Groundhog Day?” Inside, the printed message read “
iamb, iamb, iamb
!” Underneath Plant had written only one line— “Have decided I must learn to cast my own shadow, Camel, dear, if I am to end the winter of my discontent.” He’d signed it, “all my love, Plantagenet.”

~

The iron gates to Randall Hall stood open as she drove up the narrow, winding road to the gray stone building she had always called home. She thought about how Plantagenet usually started making jokes when they reached this point, calling the Hall “the castle keep” or “the House of Nevermore”. Now, for the first time, she could see it through his eyes. The crenellated stone towers did look forbidding, as if ravens should be perched on the battlements quoting enigmatic finalities from Edgar Allen Poe.

At least the gates were already open, which meant Mother must be expecting her after all. She had tried to call home several times in the past couple of weeks and never got an answer. But her mother had a copy of the college catalogue, so the date of the semester’s end was sure to have made its way into the leather-bound appointment book.

However, an annoying number of vehicles were parked in the circular drive in front of the house. One was a large truck identified with the name Sotheby Park-Bernet.

So the redecorating had begun.

But even worse—much, much worse—behind the Sotheby’s truck was a white Cadillac with vanity plates from the state of Arkansas that read, “CHIK 1.”

Camilla slammed the brakes. She could not face this. Dealing with her mother in one of her decorating frenzies would be bad enough, but being confronted with Lester Stokes would be unbearable. How could Mother have invited that horrible man into their house again?

Camilla drove back to the fork that led to the stables. She would visit Lord Peter and have a comfortable chat with her old friend Hank, the stableman, who always called her “Princess” and never acted as if she was in the way the way her dad always did.

“Hank! I’m home!” She jumped from the car and ran toward the gray, weathered stables. “Lord Peter! I’ve come home!”

But the door to the main barn hung open, swinging in the wind on one rusty hinge. It gave an ominous creak. She could hear no other sound.

“Hank?” she called again. Everything inside was dark and silent. All ten stalls were empty. The air smelled damp and foul.

She ran to the cottage where Hank had lived since before she was born. But the small stone house was empty and silent as the stable. Peeking in the window, she could see that even the furniture was gone.

Feeling desolate, she walked back to the car. There could only be one explanation: Hank was dead. It must have been something horrible, because he wasn’t old—not much older than her mother. It was unforgivable that Mother hadn’t written about it.

Now, anger gave Camilla enough courage to go back to the house, Lester Stokes or no Lester Stokes. As she marched in the open doorway, her mother was directing a number of workmen carrying the Steinway grand out of the music room into the foyer. Behind her was a large, unmistakable figure, dressed in snakeskin boots, a cowboy hat, and an awful pale blue suit.

“Mother, why didn’t you tell me?” Camilla said, her voice still choked from grief.

“Dear, whatever are you doing in Connecticut?”

Her mother stared at her as if she were something that had just returned from the grave.

“Summer vacation, Mother. It happens every year.” She steadied her voice. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Her mother burst into tears.

Camilla had never seen her mother cry. Ever. Not even when Dad died. She felt as if she might throw up.

“Get out of the way there, young lady. Those men have a heavy load,” Lester Stokes said, his too-white teeth flashing.

Camilla stepped backward through the doorway and watched as the men carried the piano into the waiting van. She looked back and saw her mother, still sobbing, clinging to Mr. Stokes’ shoulder.

“Now look how you’ve upset your mama,” Stokes said. “Is that what you came here for, girl—to upset your mama?”

“I’m here because this is where I live.” She started up the staircase to her room.

“Not anymore, you don’t,” Stokes said.

“What are you talking about?  Mother, what the hell is that man talking about?”

Her mother said nothing as the workmen reappeared and walked slowly back to the music room.  

“Don’t ever let me hear you talk that way in front of your mama,” Lester Stokes said. “Don’t you think she’s having a hard enough time as it is—watching every stick of furniture she owns going out that door—without you coming around talking like a truck driver and making trouble?”

“Why is she getting rid of the furniture? What is going on here?” Camilla had to hang onto the banister for balance. Nothing made sense.

“That’s what being broke is all about, little lady. You got to sell things.”

“Who’s broke?”

“You are, pretty thing. You and your mama. When that high-society daddy of yours put a bullet through his head he was about a half a billion dollars in debt.”

Camilla felt the carving on the banister cut into her fingers as she hung on. Her mother stood next to Mr. Stokes, weeping, as his arm circled her small, square shoulders. His dreadful silver belt buckle gleamed on his belly.

“Mother? Is it true? Dad shot himself on purpose? Our money is gone?” 

“I’m sorry, dear. I was going to write you.”

Camilla walked up the stairs to her bedroom, feeling as if she’d been hit by a bullet herself.

Her stomach burned. Her eyes blurred.

The room had been completely emptied. All the furniture—all her clothes and treasures—gone. Nothing remained but a gold hairpin that glinted in a pool of sunshine on the polished oak floor and a torn bit of newspaper in a corner. She picked up the scrap of paper—part of her photograph from last winter’s
Guardian
—the article by that mean reporter, Jonathan Kahn.

But it looked as if Mr. Kahn had been right. Her father had taken an easy way out and left them—his banks and his family, to cope with his mess.

She’d been right that it wasn’t an accident.

There was a knock on the door. She heard her mother mumbling something.

Camilla opened the door with a fierce jerk.

“Where are my things, Mother?”

“Gone. Everything is gone. I had to sell the Hall. All we could keep was my brownstone in the city.”

“The horses? They’re gone?”

“Not far. We sold them to the Wentworths.”

“Is Hank dead?’

“Oh, I can’t bear it if you’re going to be melodramatic.” Mother gave an injured sniff. “Hank is in splendid health, as always. The Wentworths are paying him twice what we did. And Phelps bought a limousine service in New Haven. He and Despina were married last month. Everyone’s going to be perfectly fine.”

“Except us.”

“We are going to be fine, too. That’s why I didn’t tell you until it was all settled. I didn’t know you were going to be home so soon. You weren’t in my book.”

“Settled?” Camilla looked into her mother’s eyes, but could read nothing in them. “How are you going to ‘settle’ the fact that we are completely destitute?”

“I’m going to do the only sensible thing. I’m going to marry again.”

“Marry? How? I mean, who—?”

Her mother’s terrible words interrupted her, mid-sentence.

“Lester, of course.”

Camilla’s throat constricted.

“No! Mother, you can’t. He’s vile. He’s vulgar. And he—he almost raped me. Last winter. That’s why I left early for school. He…”

“I know all about it,” her mother said in a new, cold voice. “He told me how you tried to seduce him. I have absolutely no interest in hearing the sordid details. As far as I’m concerned, it never happened. Is that quite clear?”

“Everything is extremely clear.” Camilla tried to meet her mother’s commanding stare, but her eyes blurred with tears. She ran down the stairs and found Mr. Stokes in the empty music room.

Her stomach clenched, but she forced herself to speak.

“You seem to be able to buy my mother, but you will never ever be able to buy me.” She was surprised at the harshness of her own voice. It sounded as if it were coming from somebody else.

Stokes’ face under the cowboy hat grew redder, but he said nothing. Slowly, his lips spread into a smile, his teeth horribly white. He laughed.

“You slug!” Camilla screamed, watching her own pink-lacquered fingernails reaching out like claws, trying to stop the terrible, mocking laughter. But before she could reach flesh, his huge hand grabbed her wrists.

“Little girl, you want to stop that now,” he said in a low, threatening voice. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

The darkness she saw in his eyes made her whole body go cold. A killer’s eyes. She knew in that moment that if he wanted her dead, he’d snuff her out in an instant.

The way he must have done to her father. It was no suicide. She knew that now.

Her mother called from the staircase.

“Camilla Randall, you are not making a scene. I am in no mood for a scene.” She stood in the doorway, doing nothing to save her from this terrible man.

“Honey,” Mr. Stokes said to her mother. “I told you I’m worried about this little girl’s mental health. She needs to be put in a good hospital. Don’t worry about the expense. I’ll take care of everything.” He finally let go of Camilla’s hands.

“There is no mental illness in my family.”

“Maybe not in yours, honey, but this little girl’s daddy blew his own brains out.”

Camilla looked from Mr. Stokes’ grotesquely grinning face to her mother’s—which showed no expression, but had paled to the same oatmeal color as her raw silk Galanos suit. Her eyes had gone dead and glassy. They did not meet Camilla’s.

Jabbing her hand in her jacket pocket, Camilla felt for her car keys. Her legs were already running—running away from her mother’s zombie face, away from Lester Stokes’ grin, and away from Randall Hall forever.

~

It wasn’t until she was back on Route 95, heading west again, that she let herself ask where she was running to. But of course, there was only one answer—only one person who cared about her, who had ever wanted her—only one person in the world she could trust.

She had to go to Plantagenet.