Ringer (3 page)

“So what is this nonsense, Purity?”

Grant’s dark silhouette shimmered at the edges, his steely hair glinting.

“Hi, Bobbie. You’re blocking my sun.”

“I thought we had a deal.”

“You mean about the…”

“Yes, about staying out of the papers, about staying out of jail, about staying out of lawsuits. I thought it was a pretty fair deal. You get an allowance and I get peace. You get to buy almost anything and do nothing. That sounds pretty fair to me. Did that not sound fair to you? It must have, because you agreed to it.”

“That
allowance
comes from my mother’s estate, not yours. This whole house was my mother’s. So I’m really not sure what you should have to say about it.”

“This house is now mine, and that
allowance
you throw away comes from a trust fund. I’m the executor. You may not like it here with your very own seaside mansion and open bar tab at El Rolo, but if you want out, I have the keys, and I’m not letting you out until you put these outrages behind you. There’s still that Central Park matter to clear up.”

“You know, I think in that sick, twisted soul of yours you get your jollies keeping me locked up here. It must have something to do with guilt over my mother’s death somehow, I don’t quite get it. Maybe you fantasize that I’m your sex slave.”

Grant flashed crimson. “Making me this angry is the wrong thing to do. I have a heart attack and that won’t help you—not a bit of it. I die and you don’t get one red cent.”

“Bobbie, can I borrow the Bell 430? I’m out of Dunhills.”

Ah, you think perhaps Purity was joking about the Bell 430, a helicopter? She was not.

I have found that while we typically like to see people as this way or that way, they are more often both ways.

True, Purity was a layabout and a rich brat. She never finished all the schools she went to, even though she got all A’s while she was there. She never had a career—other than as a tabloid queen. She went through cars almost as fast as she went through men.

Who would think that such a person would have a passion for helicopters?

Perhaps this is where we go into a flashback, the lens becomes fuzzy … I will leave that up to you.

Her mother married Robert Tyson Grant when Purity was sixteen, and it follows an almost inevitable course that she was not a fan of her stepfather then or since. Soon after her parents’ union, her mother became fatally ill. Purity had been kicked out of another prep school about the same time, and so was grounded indefinitely at the East Hampton mansion. Her mother’s illness made a change in Purity. It made her both sad and angry. The anger was the result of being left alone with “Bobbie” and without the love of her mother. That sounds crazy, I know, but it is a fact that we can be angry at the ones we love for dying. There is resentment, they tell me.

Already expelled from school and a castaway on the sandy shores at the East Hampton mansion without a car to destroy, she acted out in the only way she knew how. She bought something expensive.

Why a helicopter? Perhaps the size of the purchase matched the size of her emotional isolation and resentment. In any case, Purity knew that buying a helicopter would enrage Bobbie, which was becoming her life’s work.

When the tractor-trailer delivered the helicopter to East Hampton, Purity soon realized that she’d ordered a helicopter kit as opposed to an assembled helicopter. The house staff rang her stepfather to tell him of the latest outrage, and he arrived by his own helicopter and confronted Purity in almost the same way he had eight years later about leading the cops on a wild chase.

She got the reaction she was looking for, of course. It was the first time her stepfather told her what he really thought of her. His tirade was brutally unflattering, to include but not limited to the irony of her first name. After he flew back to Manhattan, to his Grab-A-Lot empire and his dying wife at the clinic, Purity realized that the helicopter would be a hard fiasco to beat. Especially because Bobbie also blocked all lines of credit available to her.

A fiasco hard to beat unless, of course, she actually
built
the helicopter. Then learned how to fly it. At least that might provide an escape pod from East Hampton.

She had to enlist the help of a number of aviators from the local airport, but I think it is best once again to leave it up to the imagination of the theater audience as to how that was accomplished. She was, after all, only seventeen. Yet her charms were undeniable.

Purity outdid herself. That sweltering summer, she successfully charmed the right people to help her assemble and learn to fly the helicopter, though she did not manage to obtain a license to fly solo. She also successfully reenraged her stepfather. The only thing parents hate more than an unruly child is one that proves them wrong. She proved to him that she could apply herself, if only to spite him.

Purity came to think of it as her Golden Summer.

Bobbie’s counteroffensive to the helicopter was to deny Purity the chance to say good-bye to her mother that September.

Robert and Purity Grant had been at war for eight years.

OK, time to get back to the girl in the bikini, and see if she takes it off.

“So, like, Bobbie, what do you want me to say? That I’ll suddenly become a different person? That I’ll go to work for your ho Dixie who runs the Grant Foundation, rubbing the crotch of fat old dudes at receptions so they’ll sign fat checks to cure cancer? You know this is not going to happen, OK?”

“While I might wish that you would find something useful to do, I have never asked that of you, have I? I just do not see why you insist on making a spectacle of yourself. Though I suspect it’s entirely to torment me, and that the twisted soul here is yours. Which is a shame because your mother was a fine woman.”

To parry Grant’s thrust, all Purity had to do was smile. She knew it was a smile that reminded him of her mother, his gorgeous loving wife, before the cancer, back when she was young and healthy like Purity. She had taken a beautiful vestige of her mother’s and turned it into something malicious. It was the smile of spite.

Crimson again, Grant wondered once more what he had done to deserve this legacy. Dixie was right, there was only one way out of this hell.

“Bobbie, not everything is about you.” Of course, for Purity, everything was about him. Something was different, though; she could feel that she was truly getting to him in a way she never had before. There was something about the way that vein stood out on his forehead, and the dull look that entered his eyes. She was getting deeper, killing a part of his soul the way he had hers. “If you want to fuck me and pretend it’s my mother, just say so.”

Grant went from crimson to ashen gray: He could take no more.

“The lawyers will be here this afternoon, with a limo.”

“Spiffy.”

“Be dressed and sober, for God’s sake. You have a court hearing in town tomorrow morning, so will be staying overnight in Manhattan, at the Mandarin, and no, you don’t have a tab at the bar.” Grant stalked back toward the tennis courts, toward his helicopter.

Purity sat up and removed her bikini top, exposing healthy young breasts that were like God’s own fruit. “Bub-bye, Bobbie!”

He shot a glance back at her and marched away even faster.

I’m actually winning,
Purity thought. Yet what was the endgame? How did the war end? How would she finally break him and have him gone? Suicide? No matter that when he was gone, she would have no money at all and no place to live. Up until then, money in the form of her allowance had only been a weapon against her stepfather. If he were gone, she would have no need of that allowance. Fascinating, I think. Nobody would have guessed that she didn’t care about her father’s money or her trust fund. In fact, she hated that money as much as she did him.

Purity removed her bikini bottom.

Take a look at the “little cunt,” Bobbie.

She lay back out on the lounger and waited for the helicopter to fly over her back to New York.

Bobbie will never kill himself no matter what I do, and waiting for a fatal heart attack is taking forever. He has to go.

But how?

See, she did take the bikini off, though perhaps the removal of the bottom may have to be done tastefully and without too much detail. We have to do what we can to ensure our R rating.

CHAPTER

FOUR

THAT NIGHT, EVEN AS I
was packing to come to New York, Robert Tyson Grant was in a swarm of penguins in a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt. He was attending a gala cocktail reception for a charity of some kind; he had forgotten which, and probably most of those in attendance would not accurately recall the next day. The checks were already written, so there was no need to remember. Men wore tuxedos, women gowns.

Yes, I say penguins because the men wore tuxedos, but also because they were huddled close together murmuring to each other the way penguins do on the documentaries. It was as if they enjoyed the collective, self-reassuring sound they made as much as what they might have been saying of import to each other.

I’m being figurative about these penguins, of course, but in the movie, perhaps we could cut in shots of penguins? I think an audience would understand.

These charity events are not what many would imagine, because most people are not rich and do not understand high finance or write off large sums of money to charities. While there are of course worthwhile charities, many that the rich put their money in are as much a tax dodge and financial scheme as anything else. Have you ever wondered how the rich always seem to have their own foundations? It is because they all give to each other’s pet foundations, tax free, and then only five percent of the charities’ money actually goes to help the victims of some horrible mishap or unfortunate circumstance. Yes, but where does the rest go? Well, as it so happens, the foundation is administered by the extended family or friends of the beneficent sponsor rich guy, and then money is siphoned off for administrative operations and gala events. So while they are making donations they are all really paying the others to employ their family, friends, and mistresses, tax free, and to drink and dine tax free at such events.

You have to envy the rich for their unrelenting craftiness if not for their lack of scruples.

Anyway, Robert Tyson Grant was a popular penguin at this gathering. He finally managed to peel away from a particularly loud group of squawkers and take the arm of a beautiful woman who looked perfectly and deliciously naked in a black halter sheath gown with red sparkles. The way the rich scoop up the most delectable women is sometimes as infuriating as it is predictable. As you would expect, this one was younger than Grant, pushing forty, though she would probably have pegged her age at a little closer to thirty. To her credit, she had the body of a much younger woman, and her age only showed on her face.

Who was this lovely, raven-haired creature? An actress? A model? Dixie Faltreau had once been a beauty queen in Georgia, and so went into media. That means TV. She had been an anchor in Atlanta but had realized the benefit of working for rich people’s foundations, of working her way up. While she did actually administer charities shrewdly, she coveted the fat salaries and glamorous life. Of course, for the older patrons she would be the southern belle arm candy, but sometimes she was more. Such as with Robert. She was the director of his foundation, the Grant Charitable Trust.

You see? These charities are a delightful way for the rich to spend their money. Even the sex is sometimes tax free. It works both ways, too. You will notice that many older rich women have their nonprofits run by younger men with fine physiques.

Dixie and Robert peeled away from the crowd for a private conversation by a curtained pillar.

“So I flew out to East Hampton and the little tramp had no contrition, none. She flashed her pussy at me as we flew back overhead to New York. I can’t understand what’s taking our Mexican so long to arrive. Sooner he takes care of Purity the better.”

“When was he to contact you, sugar?” She found her lip gloss tucked into her cleavage.

“Yesterday.”

“You expect a Mexican to be punctual?”

“Yes. I expect anybody I hire to—”

“This isn’t just anybody you hired.” Dixie rolled her lips to even the gloss and gently tucked the lip gloss back in her bosom. Grant took the opportunity to stare at her tits a moment before scanning the crowd nearby for eavesdroppers.

“Robbie, stop looking so guilty.” She pouted her lips and adjusted his tie. “Just think about how hard we’re going to fuck later.”

He had a real vixen on his hands, didn’t he? Some men have all the luck, and usually all the money, too.

Robert shifted uncomfortably. He loved it when she talked dirty in public, but it meant he had to make sure his manhood wasn’t on display. Their eyes met, and she gave his cheek a stroke.

“Relax, the Mexican will get here and we’ll get it all taken care of.”

“We? You mean
me.
”

“I’m here for you, darling. In fact, I’ve been thinking, perhaps you should let me handle this. Best you not be seen with the Mexican. More discreet if I handle him, since the money is coming from the foundation anyway.”

Grant winced. “I hate this.”

Dixie put a hand on his chest. “Honey lamb, you’re pooped. You’ve been trying for eight years. Enough is enough. Who would blame you? For all the cruisers they’ve wrecked chasing her around and all the grief, the Suffolk County police would probably be happy to take care of it for you for the right donation to their Toys for Tots campaign.”

“Well, how long do I wait for him to show up, Dix? We made a ten grand down payment.”

“Give it another week. If he doesn’t show, we’ll worry about it then.”

“So I have to go to the coffee shop every day for lunch to see if he shows up?”

“Aw.”
She drifted closer and gave a stroke to the front of his pants. “Only one more week of coffee shop, and I promise to be very bad. Remember the belt?”