by Leslie Glass
"I'm sorry to cut you off, Cassie, but I'm going into a meeting right now. I'm going to get back to you later on this, okay?"
"Cassie. Cassie, Cassie," Edith was screaming from the kitchen. "I'm starving, honey. What had you planned to serve for lunch?"
CHAPTER 18
MILD-MANNERED CASSIE, who'd always been so careful to feed the birds in winter, who couldn't even think of killing the moles that tunneled through her garden and ate her bulbs, who'd bought one of those beeper boxes to keep the mice out of her basement so she wouldn't have to catch them on sticky tape or trap them or poison them, was wondering how to stop this unconscionable girlfriend from doing what Cassie couldn't do: get her husband's attention from wherever he'd gone and bring him back to life so he could leave her in ruin. She didn't want her anywhere near Mitch or the hospital, or anything. Who was this woman with the power to destroy her?
Cassie went through Mitch's e-mails, and it wasn't too hard to find the one she was looking for. Her rival signed her messages M. The first one was dated Friday night. It read, "Still in Paris. Call me when you get home. M knocks your socks off."
Huh? Cassie's stitches were itching terribly. Knocks his socks off? M's Saturday morning e-mail said, "No answer at your house or mine. Honey, where are you? I'm worried. M knocks your socks off."
Saturday afternoon, M wrote again. "Precious pumpkin, no answer anywhere. What's going on? Are you all right? M knocks your socks off."
Sunday's crop included one about Teddy. M said, "I called Teddy at home. He wasn't there, either. Where is everybody? PLEASE, you know what a WORRIER I am. Ira hasn't heard from you. Parky hasn't heard from you. Stephen and Bill haven't heard a thing. I'm frantic. The weather in P is just gorgeous. I saw a little apartment I liked in the 16th near the park, but we'll talk about that later. I'm on my way home. Probably ovulating on Tuesday. Hint. Hint. Can't wait to see you. M knocks your socks off."
Apartment in the 16th? Ovulating Tuesday? It was a funny thing about anger. Every time Cassie thought her rage was as hot as it could get, more reality took her deeper into it. She felt her body would ignite with it. And Mitch must have been just as excited in his own way, too. He must have been like that Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. All around him the waters of his other life had been rising around him, ensnaring him, drawing him ever deeper into the currents that would eventually kill him. He'd gotten bolder and bolder in his scam. The only thing that got in his way was that little thing called the IRS.
She, his wife of twenty-six years, was nothing. She was a nonentity he thought he could fool as long as he wanted, then just end at will. He must have relished the idea of keeping that flood of knowledge back from her just by closing a door in the house. But now the door was open, the real story was out. The IRS man, Charlie Schwab, was searching for his millions. She was boiling with rage, and he wasn't getting away with anything.
Parky was their lawyer. Ira Mandel was their accountant. Stephen and Bill were both salesmen in the company. And Teddy. Teddy was her own son. No wonder the boy sometimes had the look of a half-wit, a dolt who didn't know his ass from his elbow. He'd been hiding out. What if even Teddy had been in on the conspiracy? Hurt enlarged her and spun her out of her natural orbit. She was a volcano, a hurricane, a tornado-one of those really big natural disasters about to occur.
As she processed the extent of her husband's betrayal, it became clear to Cassie that she had no choice but to kill him. Tomorrow morning she had to go into his ICU room and pull the plug on that respirator. Put the man out of his misery. It would be an act of love, a mercy killing. No one in the world could fault her, and if not she, then Mark or a nurse would do it for her. They did it all the time; Mark himself had told her this was one of the choices she could make. It was a viable and legal option. No wonder Parky Higgins had acted as he had. She got it. She finally got it. She had the motive and the power to snuff her own husband, and snuff him she would.
CHAPTER 19
AT TWO ON MONDAY AFTERNOON, Mona Whitman was having that sad, hurt, and lonely f eeling she got whenever Mitch gave her a hard time. She was on the phone at her desk, trying to be enthusiastic for a buyer from Montana, but it wasn't easy. Eustace Arcs was a rancher with a large handlebar mustache who was using Sales Importers, Inc., to stock his new lodge in Montana, and Mitch just loved him. Mitch had a special attraction for very rich people.
To custom-design Stace's wine cellar for his clientele and menu around his $200,000 budget, they'd traveled to New Zealand to fly fish with him for three horrible days last year, and Mona herself had actually been up to her thighs in freezing water for at least an hour. Mitch, however, who fancied himself something of a sportsman, had reveled in every miserable minute. The promise of a bigger account on the come, and more rich people to cultivate as new friends with ambitions to develop their own prestigious cellars kept him interested. Mitch was at the $890,000,000 mark in gross sales a year. He wanted to hit the billion-dollar benchmark by 2003. It was not out of his reach. But she herself didn't care a fig about money.
As she listened to "Stace" describe his seven-figure restaurant renovation, she was also rehearsing her present situation with the man she'd thought of as her fiancé for the last two years since she'd hit her thirty-sixth birthday and started freaking out over tiny wrinkles and her aging eggs.
Mona was a very practical girl whose bible was The Art of War, written by Sun Tzu at the dawn of history to codify the successful techniques of warring Chinese chieftains seeking to establish sole rule over a vast realm of bellicose clans. Its credo was, "Warfare is the basis of life and death, the Way to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly analyzed."
Mona used the book as her horoscope, her guide, her confidant, and best friend. She analyzed it daily and applied the strategy of the Seven Military Classics to human relations, romantic liaisons, and company infighting. This was how she analyzed the present situation in the hundred-year war of the worlds between her and her intended. They had been separated for three whole days, ever since he'd left Paris early Friday morning. The night before he'd taken off they'd had a truly wonderful and unexpected sexual adventure. It made Mona so confident of her success on the battlefield of marriage that she hadn't packed up and flown back with him from Paris on a moment's notice as he'd wanted her to.
The evening had started as the usual sort of thing. They had gone to a new restaurant called Nouvelle Etoile, where the tab had been nearly seven hundred dollars. She hadn't eaten the main course or the dessert (calories). The wine was sensational, however, and she'd had a lot of that. After chatting with the new star's owner and chef, they'd returned to their room at the Georges V, where the movie stars and moguls stay, although sometimes they did prefer the Ritz. Just as Mitch was pouring his brandy nightcap, they heard the entrance of a hooker through the connecting door to the next room. This was an occurrence unheard of before at the V, where they'd always thought the walls were a whole lot thicker. Lucky for them the whole thing went on in English.
The "gentleman" next door clearly asked what the girl's name was and if she'd eaten yet. She told him her name was Claire, and no, she hadn't. He ordered her some smoked salmon and champagne. Very considerate.
Mitch drank his brandy as the couple had casual conversation and waited for the food. Mona was particularly excited by the idea of the hooker performing next door and wondered what she looked like and how good her technique was. Mitch was pretty aroused himself, although he wouldn't admit it. Mitch was a large, powerful man who dressed impeccably and had pretty simple tastes in sex. Mona didn't like to brag, but he was in no way a management problem. He liked to look at her in pretty underwear and pretty outfits. He liked to watch her taking some of the items off, but not all of them. He didn't think perfectly naked was fun either for her or for himself. The sight of her lovely body partially clothed or fully clothed, but with no underpants, excited him most of all.
As soon as he got an erection, which was as soon and often as she
wanted him to, he had to get into her right away. He was in such a big hurry, he rarely took the time to take his pants off. He unzipped and jumped her like a cowboy wrestling down a steer, banging her enthusiastically, either from the front or back, depending on how confident he felt. He preferred her pussy tight, which was easy enough to provide since they never did much in the way of foreplay. Mona was totally crazy about him and rarely had to do a thing. Her fantasies during the four minutes it took her lover to come alternated between Leda's rape by the swan, penetration by the huge dick of the bull that sired the Minotaur, and being a favorite sex slave in a steamy, sultry, torrid harem of a sheik of Araby.
On blow job nights, it was another story altogether. Blow jobs were specialty items she doled out carefully because they took forever. Mitch liked thinking she loved him so much that she could joyfully suck and lick him all night and he never had to feel the slightest bit rushed. He did not like feeling rushed. Even the tiniest threat of pressure to get it over with could keep him on the brink for another hour. If the deal was for orgasm, she had to go for completion no matter how tired she got of sucking and yanking. She only sucked him to orgasm and swallowed when a deal was on the table. Thursday night a deal had been on the table. They were getting married so she could be a mother before her eggs got too old.
Then a surprising thing happened in the sex next door. It turned out not to be a meat-and-potatoes job. The john liked to spank noisily, and pretty soon the smacks and accompanying moans traveled through the walls like shots across the water. (He must have done some practicing.) In any case, this idea of punishment as an accompaniment to sex had never occurred to Mitch before, and he was captivated by it.
He told Mona to strip to her bra, garter belt, and stockings, which of course she did. He sat on the chair by the desk, by the door to the room next door. He emptied the brandy glass and pressed it against the door, the better to hear what was going on. Mona loved her costume-gold stockings, gold bra, and a gold garter belt. Gold was one of her best colors. Her bottom was bare. Still in her fuck-me shoes, she knelt on the carpet without even wondering when last it had been shampooed. In a second she was between his knees, unzipping his Sulka Cavalry twills. Mitch was not a badly hung man. Maybe seven inches. Maybe as much as eight. His endowment was certainly nothing to scoff at, and she was totally crazy about him. She always got excited just thinking about his cock. Tonight the thing was absolutely huge with the added thrill of hearing Claire cry, "Oui, oui, oui!" each time a slap resounded on her French fanny and thighs.
Thinking about living happily ever after with him, Mona settled into her job with a fervor unknown to her before. Her tongue traveled round and round the head of Mitch's cock, darting in and out of the hole the way he liked it, while her hands moved energetically up and down the shaft. She got it really wet but didn't slurp. Her energy and skill got the thing throbbing almost immediately. Mitch was huffing and puffing and gasping and moaning like a man in absolute paradise. He made a few experimental squeezes and claplike pats at her bottom and came like a rocket in no time flat. This time she knew she'd be a bride before September for sure.
But then the next morning he went home to Long Island without any warning at all. First of all, any separation between them was extremely unusual. But even more unusual was the fact that he hadn't spoken to her once since.
One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements. One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes be victorious, sometimes meet with defeat. One who knows neither the enemy nor himself will invariably be defeated in every engagement.
Know your enemy. Mitch was a very dependent man parading as an independent one, so it wasn't like him to sulk for long about anything.
Know yourself. Mona would be the first to admit that Thursday night she might have pushed him just a little too hard about telling Cassie she was history, but the end of the evening had turned out so well, she was certain the two of them were chapel bound. She certainly had not anticipated that he would overreact on the way home. They'd been planning to stay abroad for three weeks. In France they would do the heart of Burgundy, the Côte d'Or, the golden slope, where some of the most pricey wines in the world were made. Then they'd hop down to Italy, where they'd been wooing two important producers for several years. The two stuck together, even though they were in different regions and were just on the verge of changing distributors and signing with them. If Mitch pulled it off, the well-known Tuscan Chiantis and Piedmont Barolos would give them a 3 percent increase in sales.
As for the audit, Mitch always left the audits to Ira and never had any trouble. They had sales figures for a company of $600,000,000. Every year there was a little audit. Every year they paid a little extra, and it was no problem. But this year, for some reason, Mitch was worried and had changed his mind about going to Italy. He was a big baby. All she'd wanted was for him to set a tentative September date for their wedding. Tentative was not absolute. And she hoped to be pregnant by then anyway. He had to get used to the idea. She'd waited for twelve years. She wasn't waiting anymore.
It did not take a brilliant strategist to know that this was the time for action. He hated his wife, was rarely in the same room with her. They had no interests in common. They hadn't been together sexually for years. She ticked the items off on her fingers. It made no sense for him to drag his feet anymore. Every single day of Mona's life he insulted her and her ovaries and their child-to-be with this delay. Was there something she was missing?
He had insulted her further by calling her selfish (after their wonderful night) when she didn't go right home with him. Anybody would agree it was much more selfish of him to go home early than it was for her to stay two measly days more in Paris. They were supposed to be having fun! Now he wouldn't even let her back down and tell him she was very sensitive to his dilemma. Very sensitive.
"One who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot fight, will be victorious."
The last thing Mona wanted to do was hurt Cassie. She loved Cassie. She was totally sincere when she said, "Mitch, Cassie is the greatest, honey. You underestimate her. Believe me she's strong enough to face reality."
She studied her nail polish as Stace's voice drifted back into her consciousness. He was talking about chopping down entire redwood forests for his stupid lodge and illegally shooting the wolves that had been reproducing like crazy, killing dozens of cows and chickens and dogs. Stace had told her it was a felony to shoot a wolf, but what was a rancher to do when the government was run by a bunch of tree huggers who couldn't see a natural disaster when it hit them in the face? Mona saw Cassie the same way and totally agreed with him.
Mona's last manicure had been three days ago in Paris, but it wasn't a very good job. Specks of burgundy polish flecked her cuticles. She hated that. She tuned out, then in to the conversation again when Stace started agitating for her and Mitch to come see his magnificent building in Brilling or wherever it was, as if they didn't see a bazillion million-dollar restaurants right here in the tristate area every day. Stace was such a small-town boy.
Mona sighed. She wished Mitch would just grow up and stop going psycho on her every few months. Every time he did his psycho thing, she felt so alone and unprotected that he had to pay big-time to make her feel safe and secure again. And then, of course, she never really did. "Which ruler has the Tao?" She or Mitch?
"By next week the snow should all be melted, and we can get you up on a horse," Stace was saying.
Horses. Snow in June? Nothing could be less appealing. Mona didn't care if Robert Redford or anybody else lived there, she wasn't going to Montana.
"Know your Terrain." Mona had strict rules about traveling in America. She would go to New Orleans, yes. Chicago, yes. Anywhere in California, yes. Tucson, yes. Kansas City, yes. Miami and Boca, definitely. But Montana, hill country, and mountains, no! She fluffed her burgundy curls, thinking for a moment about silver Indian jewelry and leather skirts with fring
es as shown in Vogue and Elle recently in stories about "the new West." Still a definite no!
"We're planning to come out to the ranch in August," she lied, gazing out the internal picture window of the office she'd been sharing with Mitch for all of eight months. His moving her into his office was supposed to signal his readiness to leave Cassie and marry her. Had it happened? No, it had not. Did she have a right to be annoyed? Yes, she most certainly did. Age was terrifying her. Thirty-eight and unmarried was Not Acceptable.
"Know victory and defeat." But still the office was something. Her old office had been airless, tiny, and lacking a view of the cavernous insides of the temperature-controlled warehouse that was the second love of her life. Seeing all that primo vino gave her the same surge of pride she felt whenever she neared Manhattan and saw the skyline of her and Mitch's playground rise right out of boring old Queens.
The vino was housed in a building in Syosset that was as large as an airline hangar. When Mona had first encountered the aisles of wine racks in the much smaller warehouse that Mitch had owned back then, she'd been a young bookkeeper, not beautiful, but so determined to be somebody that she'd already left her car dealership first husband with goals of knowing people of greater taste than those who shopped for Saturns. When she'd seen all that wine, she was reminded of the stacks in her childhood library where books were lined up like hundreds of soldiers waiting for their chance to march off into readers' little hearts. Just like a certain book had marched permanently into hers, so had Mitch.
Now, twelve years later, she no longer did the books or read very many of them. Sales Importers, Inc., was a big company with a big inventory in several great big warehouses. She and Mitch dispensed taste and memories by the hundreds of thousands of cases, in small liquor stores and large ones, to Internet suppliers and restaurants. Some of it was cash business, strictly secret. The money was rolling in. They traveled extensively, studying vineyards and soils and production all over the world, tasting wine after wine. They chose their stock carefully, and didn't bother with wines that sold under ten dollars. Mitch liked to focus on clients who were used to good wine and drank several bottles of it every single night. Thousands of cases from Italy, Germany, France, Chile, Australia, South Africa, and dozens of wineries in the United States rested on metal racks that towered fifteen feet, twenty feet, thirty-five feet into the steel beams that held up the roof. Security guards watched their stock at night, and two forklifts were kept busy chugging around all day long on the cement floor, moving orders in and out. And this was only here.