Sylvie's Cowboy (7 page)

Leslye gulped pills from a bottle in her desk
drawer and washed them down with liquor from a monogramed silver
flask. She jabbed the intercom button. “Diane! Call the pharmacy
and get my Valium refilled. Then get me Stern. Then have the locks
changed on my office. Today!”

...

The locksmith put the finishing touches on
Leslye’s new office locks just as twilight began to tint the sky
beyond the magnificent windows of the posh office. Leslye hovered
over him until he handed her the keys. “These are the only ones?”
she asked him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the locksmith. He tore the
customer copy of the work order from his clipboard and extended it
toward Leslye.

“Leave it on Diane’s desk on your way out,”
she said. She was quick to close the door behind him as he
left.

Leslye didn’t see the locksmith board his
brightly painted van and pull out of the Pace-Larrimore-Stern
parking garage. She didn’t see the van turn at the end of the first
block, ease to the curb, and stop.

Where the van stopped, the Windbreaker Man
sat on a bus stop bench. The locksmith dangled a set of keys.
Windbreaker rose from the bench, approached the van, and exchanged
a money-size envelope for the dangled keys.

A happy locksmith drove away. Windbreaker
flipped the new keys in his palm and strolled away, whistling “Your
Cheatin’ Heart.”

...

Twilight had come to Clarice’s Beauty World
as well. Sylvie folded towels from the washer/dryer in the back
room while Clarice locked all the doors at the front of the shop.
No one else remained in the building.

Anyone looking in the shop’s picture window
would have seen two vastly different women. Clarice wore a
shirtwaist dress, shop logo smock, and nurse’s shoes. Sylvie wore a
Madison Avenue suit and high platform heels. And she didn’t appear
to know much about folding laundry.

“Leave that for tomorrow, girl!” called
Clarice. “Get on home and get off your feet.”

“Whoo, thanks. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”
Sylvie wobbled on sore toes.

As they walked to the front door together,
Clarice looked at Sylvie’s shoes. “What size you take?”

“Pardon?”

“Shoes. What size?”

“Oh, ah, in American sizes, ah, a seven, I
think.”

Clarice laughed. “Ain’t that a coincidence?
American is exactly the kind I got. I’ll bring you my extra pair of
these tomorrow.”

They collected their purses from the bottom
drawer of the reception desk. Clarice let Sylvie out first then
locked the door behind them. Walt’s pickup truck waited across the
street, with Walt dozing at the wheel.

Sylvie rolled her shoulders. “Sheesh, I hurt
all over.”

“It’s called working for a living,” said
Clarice. “You did good, too, for a first day. You’ll do fine.”

“Mm-hmm. I could really go for a massage. Is
there a good masseur in town?”

Clarice gestured across the street. “Honey,
you’re living with him.”

...

In downtown Miami, it was no secret that more
business deals were made across the linen tablecloths of the
University Club than across boardroom conference tables. The
membership was expensive, the city views were expansive, and the
pricey meals were deducted from expense accounts and income taxes.
To be seen regularly at the University Club was to be seen as
prosperous, solvent, bankable.

Dan Stern often ate lunch or dinner at the
University Club. The Club was his fishpond when he was trolling for
millionaire patsies. Wealthy investors schooled at the Club like
minnows. This particular evening, Dan was having second and third
thoughts about sharing his table with Leslye Larrimore, who was
looking a touch too frazzled.

Leslye ordered a drink—not her first—from a
passing waiter. “I got all the bank statements. Cash disappearing
left and right. We’re not an offshore corporation any more, Danny,
we’re the Bermuda Triangle!”

“Get a grip, Les.” Dan tried to project
enough calm and confidence for both of them, in case other diners
were watching. “How many million-dollar wire transfers go to the
wrong place because a minimum-wage clerk spills his coffee into the
machine or can’t read somebody’s handwriting? It happens all the
time. We’ve just gotten into a nest of ‘em recently. You’ll call
the bank; they’ll find the mistakes; you’ll iron it out.”

The waiter delivered Leslye’s drink. He
gestured an offer of service to Dan, but Dan declined. The waiter
left.

When they were alone again, Leslye leaned
across the table. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“You should have. You’re pickling your liver.
Back off on that stuff, will you? We’ve still got a few deals left
to make, and you need a clear head.”

“You try to keep a clear head watching little
slanty-eyed strangers handle your private papers. They didn’t
believe me, you know. Maybe they hate dealing with women?”

Dan reached over and patted her hand.
“Leslye, sweetheart, you’re losing it. We’ve seen investors back
out on deals before. They were polite, weren’t they? Nobody called
you names, nobody slashed your tires, nobody left a horse’s head in
your bed. So they killed the deal. Chill out. Nobody got
arrested.”

A well-dressed couple strolled past,
following a waiter to an empty table. Dan gave them his best grin
and wave. Les struggled to appear less anxious. She nodded a
subdued greeting.

Dan continued to smile even after the couple
was out of hearing range. “Les, don’t you drift into the Twilight
Zone on me. Those guys can’t prove anything except that they
allowed themselves to be duped, and duped by a woman. No hotshot
wheeler-dealer wants to be seen that way. Loss of face, right? Next
time will be different.”

Dan ate in silence for a few minutes. Leslye
took more liquid nourishment.

Then Dan broached a new topic. “Maybe it’s
time we invited Sylvie’s new partner to join in some more
sophisticated ventures—the kind Harry never included him in
before.”

“McGurk?” Leslye couldn’t have been more
surprised. “No. No cowboys. No jailbirds. I don’t like it.”

“I’ll grant you he’s not exactly Prince
Charles,” said Dan, “but from a few discreet inquiries I’ve made,
it looks like McGurk definitely can put the cash together. Letters
of credit coming out the wahzoo. Incredible but true. Our boy is
not the poor yokel he wants us to think he is.”

Leslye shook her head. “No. Too full of
surprises lately. I don’t like it.”

“You’ll take the meeting, Les. I’ll set it
up.” Dan continued, with sarcasm, “Sober up and treat him right,
Les. He’s the fine upstanding gentleman who screwed me on that polo
match the other day. I owe him one.”

...

After her first day on the job at Clarice’s
Beauty World, Sylvie had luxuriated in a hot bath before covering
her sheer nightie with a mammoth, thick, terry robe borrowed from
Walt. Looking deliciously frowsy from her bath, with damp tendrils
of her hair curling innocently about her face, she had power over
Walt McGurk that she would never have imagined. When she reclined
on the living room sofa and joked about her aching feet and a good
massage, Walt simply sat down at the opposite end of the sofa and
took her dainty feet onto his lap.

Sylvie pretended this was something any
friend would do. She pretended Walt McGurk was exactly the kind of
sensitive guy one would expect to rub one’s tired feet. She
pretended her heartbeat remained steady and her body temperature
did not rise.

Walt pretended that if he wanted Sylvie to
have a job, he was obligated to do his part to keep her fit for the
work. He pretended he didn’t detect a lilac scent rising from her
legs and feet as a result of her recent bath. He pretended he had
not thought of her naked under a blanket of bubbles in the tub just
down the hall from where he had been pretending to read. He
pretended that massaging her feet was for her benefit, because she
had as good as asked for it. He pretended his hands were not
enjoying the sensations of massaging her delicate arches, small
toes, smooth ankles, shapely calves.

To prove that Walt’s therapeutic attentions
had no emotional effect on her, Sylvie elected to transact some
business by telephone. Time is money. Waste not, want not. Make
every minute count. When she had mentally recited every appropriate
aphorism she could remember, she reached for the phone lying on the
nearest end table. She scrolled through her contacts and selected a
number. She placed the call and set her phone on speaker, so Walt
would hear.

Daniel Stern answered on the second ring.
“Don’t wait for the beep, I’m a real person. What’s up?”

Walt grimaced at the recognition of the
voice.

Sylvie giggled coquettishly. “Danny, you’re
too cute. How are you?”

Flirting was Dan’s first language. “Not half
as fine as you are, Sylvie, my sweet. What can I do to you this
evening?”

“I can’t stop thinking about what you said at
the match the other day about shooting that sweet polo pony. You
didn’t really shoot him, did you?” Her tone said she was certain
Dan was too good-hearted to harm any furry friend.

She was wrong about Dan, of course, but he
refrained from remarking that if he had not murdered that useless
animal, it was only for lack of convenient opportunity. Instead, he
steered the conversation onto a tangent. “Oh, that’s right! You
wanted to sell me a horse, if I recall correctly.” He delivered the
line in a manner calculated to make Sylvie think he had waited all
his life for the chance to pay her large sums of money for whatever
she chose to offer.

Sylvie winked at Walt and cranked up her
salesmanship performance for his benefit. “Well, Danny, I do think
you could always use another one, especially a good one—and we
breed some beauties out here at our ranch.”

Walt mimed,
We?

Sylvie waved him off. “When can I show you
our fabulous thoroughbreds, Danny? You’ll be happy with any horse
you get from us; we guarantee it.”

Walt mimed,
No WE don’t!

Dan decided if the way to Sylvie’s heart was
through her ponies, he might as well take a shot. “Why don’t you
bring your best pony out to the Polo Club next time you come. Let
me look him over. Maybe we can make a deal.”

“Super!” she said, aiming a look of triumph
in Walt’s direction. “I’ll do it. You won’t be sorry. See you next
weekend.”

“I look forward to it,” Dan said in what he
thought was his seductive voice. “ ‘Bye.”

“ ‘Bye.” Sylvie hung up the phone and leaned
back, reveling in the foot massage.

Walt’s hands slid across her ankle began to
knead the muscles of her lower leg. “Why do you keep on with this
horse trading nonsense? Let me handle ranch business. You have a
job now.”

“Do you realize that if I really apply myself
to that job, even become a partner with Clarice someday, I’ll be
able to afford a penthouse apartment, and a car like I used to
have,2 in only three thousand years?”

“Is that what’s important?”

“You got something against selling horses,
McGurk? I thought that’s what you did here.”

“I
live
here,” he said. “Or I
had
a life here up to now. I had friends. I had clean air
and sunshine, food and shelter, things I enjoyed doing. People I
could help and people who’d help me if I needed it. God blessed me
with things I never coulda paid for. Can you understand that?”

He stopped kneading, took his hands off her
legs, and drew back to look at her. “Y’know, when Helen died, Harry
finally realized that making money ain’t the most important thing
in the world. He learned it the hard way. Then he tried to teach it
to you, but I guess after all those years of boarding schools and
living like strangers, it was too late for him to tell you
anything.”

“And it’s definitely too late for him to
teach anybody anything now, isn’t it,” Sylvie said coldly. “Tell me
this: If he was so smart about making money, what happened to it?
If it was so important to him to make it that he deprived me of a
father when he was living, wouldn’t it be fair for me to at least
get the money after he was dead? But no, I lose both times.”

Walt stood up, leaving her alone on the sofa.
“You ain’t heard a word I been sayin’. You’re here now. Start
fresh. For your own good, I’m telling you: Forget that old life.
Forget Harry’s money.”

“No. I’m going back someday. Harry made it.
I’ll make it, too.”

“Have it your own way. You always did.” Walt
left her in the living room, retreated to his bedroom, and shut the
door.

The following weekend found Sylvie at the
Polo Club in her diaphanous best dress, standing near Walt’s pickup
truck and a one-horse trailer. Maude sat beside her in a
rhinestone-encrusted collar, tethered to Sylvie’s arm by a hot pink
leash.

At the rear of the trailer, Dan Stern
examined a mahogany-colored, glossy polo pony.

Sylvie was making her sales pitch. “He’s
Florida born and bred—and you know that means strong bones and
healthy muscle from all the minerals in the soil and grass. He’s
smart, too.” She searched for something more to say. “And such a
pretty color! You don’t have one that color, do you, Danny?”

Dan was saved from having to respond to that
when Maude suddenly barked and zipped away, taking the leash with
her.

“Maude!” Sylvie cried. “Maude, come back
here!” To Dan she said, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

Maude raced through the crowd of grooms,
wranglers, and players milling about on the sidelines of the polo
grounds. Barking happily, Maude leaped upon the tight-fitting polo
pants and sleek riding boots of Walt McGurk.

Walt knelt down to greet her, and Maude
licked his face. “Well, hello to you, too!” He picked up the
trailing pink leash. “Shouldn’t there be somebody on the end of
this?”