Imperfect Strangers

by Stuart Woods

  Imperfect Strangers

  Stuart Woods

  From Publishers Weekly

  Though Woods's (Heat) latest caper provides all the credibility of a soap opera, the novel also offers some of the guilty pleasures attendant to that TV format. When wine merchant Sandy Kinsolving meets art dealer Peter Martindale on a flight from London to NYC (the novel's primary locations), they are inspired by watching Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train to hatch their own version of that classic plot-in which two strangers each agree to commit murder for the other. It seems that both men have "troublesome" wives, so why doesn't Sandy kill Peter's spouse and Peter return the favor? After one lady is duly offed, however, events careen out of control. In fact, so many subsequent episodes occur (many of them preposterous and too tidily handled) that the murder pact gets lost. As often happens in the world of soaps, a glossy veneer lends an air of sophistication-a corner suite at London's Connaught Hotel, a cashier's check for $28 million-and, also, of unreality. (Even the dialogue begins to smack of Noel Coward.) Enjoyable for a time, the tony tinsel is overtaken by a blandness that ultimately undercuts the novel's would-be dramatic and psychological aspects. BOMC, QPB alternates; Harper Audio.

  Stuart Woods

  Imperfect Strangers

  CHAPTER 1

  As the sun rose over Berkeley Square, the May sunshine drifted through the blinds in the Mount Street flat, two blocks west. The rays fell across the face of Sandy Kinsolving, waking him as if they had been the bell of an alarm clock. He lay on his back, naked, and blinked a couple of times. Oriented, he turned to his right and moved toward the woman next to him. He shaped himself to her back and pressed his groin against her soft buttocks, and he felt the stirring come.

  She gave a soft moan and responded, pushing against him. In a moment she was wet, and he entered her, moving slowly, enjoying the early morning moment.

  The phone rang, the loud, insistent jangling that only an older British phone could make. He cursed under his breath and, without stopping the motion, reached across her and lifted the receiver.

  "Hello?" he said hoarsely.

  "It's Joan." She waited for him to respond.

  He still did not stop moving. "Yes," he said, finally, then he became more alert. "What time is it in New York?"

  "Nearly two a.m."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Daddy has had a stroke."

  He stopped moving, wilting like a violet in hot sun. "How bad?"

  "They don't know, yet, but at his age-"

  Jock Bailley was ninety-one. "I'll get myself on a flight as soon as the office opens. Where is he?"

  "Lenox Hill. I'm calling from there."

  "I'll let the New York office know what flight I'm on."

  "Albert will meet you."

  "You all right?"

  "Tired."

  "You'd better go home and sleep. There's nothing you can do there."

  "I suppose you're right. Laddie and Betty are here, anyway."

  "You should all go home and sleep."

  "I will; I can't speak for Laddie." you this afternoon."

  She hung up without saying good-bye.

  Sandy replaced the receiver. A little ball of apprehension had made a tight knot in his belly.

  "Sandy," the woman said accusingly. "You stopped."

  Sandy rolled onto his back. "Sorry, luv. I've just been put out of commission."

  "Bad news?"

  "Yes, bad news. Illness in the family."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Thanks. I'd better get dressed. Do you mind breakfasting at home? I have to go to New York."

  "Certainly, dear," she said, rising and heading for the bathroom. "I'll just get a quick shower."

  "Thanks." Sandy stared at his ceiling and tried to put a good face on all this. Jock wasn't dead, yet; that was something, at least.

  Sandy took the lift down at eight o'clock and let himself into Cornwall amp; Company, the wine shop on the ground floor. He stood for a moment and watched the sunbeams cut little swaths through the dust in the air, which was in the process of gathering on the hundreds of bottles that lined the walls of the large shop.

  He walked to the rear of the shop and climbed the old circular staircase to the offices above. He set his briefcase on the desk in his little office and sat down heavily. As he did, the door from the first-floor landing opened and Maeve O'Brien stepped into the offices.

  "Maeve," he called out.

  She came to his office door. "Yes, Mr. Kinsolving?"

  "Would you get me a seat on a flight to New York? The earlier the better."

  "Of course. I thought you were staying until next week, though."

  "Old Mr. Bailley has had a stroke."

  "Oh, I'm sorry to hear it. I'll call the airlines." She hung up her coat and went to her desk.

  A few minutes later, Maeve was back. "You're on the eleven o'clock; it was the earliest. I'll pick up your ticket from American Express."

  Sandy suddenly couldn't tolerate the office anymore. "I'll pick it up myself; I could use a walk."

  "As you wish."

  He let himself out the front door of the shop, locking it behind him, and walked slowly past the Connaught Hotel and toward Berkeley Square. Even if Jock was still alive, at his age he couldn't come out of this whole. What would happen if he couldn't communicate, couldn't make his wishes known? Oh, Jesus.

  Sandy circumnavigated Berkeley Square and started back up the south side of Mount Street, past the poulterer's and the antique shops, past the tobacconist and the chemist, past his tailor's. He remembered he had a fitting that morning. He stopped at the little American Express office as the manager was letting herself in.

  "Good morning, Mr. Kinsolving," she said pleasantly.

  "I'd like to pick up a ticket for New York," he said. "The reservation's already made."

  "Certainly; I won't be a moment."

  He stood outside the agency and watched the morning light fill the elegant street, with its pink granite buildings, lately sandblasted of the decades of London grime, looking new in the moist air. He loved this street. He could get almost anything done within the block-have a suit made; lunch at the Connaught or Scott's; pick up a packet of condoms from the Indian chemist, then forget to use them; be measured for a brace of shotguns at Purdy's on the corner; or select a case of good port at Cornwall amp; Company, his London base. It jarred him that he was leaving this to go back to New York before the appointed time. He didn't know what awaited him there, and he didn't want to guess.

  After a passable airline lunch, he ordered a single malt whisky, uncharacteristic for him at this hour. He wasn't sleepy, but he wanted to be. An announcement came that the movie was about to start. The airplane was equipped with the new individual movie screens; he flipped up his screen and adjusted the headset.

  As he did, someone came forward and took the empty seat next to him. "My seatmate snores," a man's voice said. "Hope you don't mind."

  "Not at all," Sandy replied, smiling politely, not bothering to glance at the man.

  The titles came up on the screen, and Sandy prepared to lose himself in whatever the movie might be. It turned out to be the Alfred Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train.

  CHAPTER 2

  Peter folded away the screen and put away the headset, then accepted his third Scotch from the flight attendant. He turned to the man beside him out of automatic courtesy. "Join me?"

  "Don't mind if I do," the man replied. "What is that you're drinking?"

  "Laphroaig."

  "Oh, yes, the same for me, please."

  Sandy looked at his companion for the first time and found him to be very much like himself. Hardly identical in appearance, but about the same age, mid-forties, the same
good clothes, good haircut, good teeth. His hair was sandy, going gray, as Sandy's was dark, going gray. He noticed the three-button cuff at the end of the man's sleeve and knew that they went to the same shirtmaker. His accent was hard to place; something English in it, but not English; mid-Atlantic, maybe.

  The man offered his hand. "I'm Peter Martindale," he said. "Peter will do."

  "Sandy Kinsolving." They shook hands.

  Sandy's drink arrived. "Your good health, Peter," he said, raising his glass.

  "And yours, Sandy." Both men drank.

  "God, that's good! You can taste the peat. Too many of them wouldn't do your liver any good, though."

  "Certainly wouldn't," Sandy replied. "Not unless you were laboring very hard in the vineyard, sweating it out."

  "And what vineyard do you labor in, Sandy?"

  "Wine. I buy and sell it. You?"

  "Art. I buy and sell it. In San Francisco."

  "I'm in New York and London. I can't place your accent."

  "California Brit, I guess," Peter said. "Born in Liverpool, been out on the coast for twenty years."

  "How's the art business?"

  "Good. And wine?"

  "Good and getting better. I'm glad to see the recession behind us; I've got a lot of good claret in the cellars that I'd like to have sold two or three years ago."

  "But you can get more for it with the extra age, can't you?"

  "Yes, but it's less nerve-wracking to sell it young, keep it moving."

  "Your clothes are English, but your accent isn't."

  "Grew up in Connecticut; lived in or around New York all my life."

  "School?"

  "Amherst."

  "I was at Oxford, probably about the same time."

  "I envy you the experience. I tried for a Rhodes scholarship, but didn't make it."

  "You're the right age for Vietnam."

  "Missed it; had a wife and child by the time I left Amherst."

  "What did you do right out of university?" Peter asked. "

  "Went into advertising, like my father."

  "When did the wine trade come along?"

  "Not for some time; it was liquor, at first. My wife's father has had a large distributorship since Prohibition ended."

  "Sounds like he might have been in the business before it ended," Peter said, smiling.

  "Right. His family were distillers in Scotland. He was the second son, so they shipped him to Canada to see if he could move some of their goods to a thirsty America."

  "And did he?"

  "Oh, yes, and the goods of a lot of other distillers, too. By the time he was twenty-one, he was driving fast motorboats down the Bay of Fundy to the coast between Boston and Portsmouth. He knew Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, the lot of them. They convinced him he should stick to importing, rather than distributing. They had that well in hand."

  "So, when Prohibition ended, he went legal?"

  "That's right. His father died about that time, and his older brother inherited. But he had the distribution rights to the family brands, and he was well connected with other distillers, as a result of his recent activities. He poured his illicit profits into the business, and pretty soon he was leading the pack."

  "And how long did he run the business?"

  "Right up until yesterday. He had a stroke last night."

  "That's a long run; how old was he?"

  "Ninety-one."

  "So you'll take over, now?"

  "That remains to be seen," Sandy sighed. "Old Jock had a son and a daughter late in life. The son's in the business; I'm married to the daughter." He sighed again.

  "You don't make it sound like the happiest of circumstances."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to whine."

  "Oh, nothing like that, Sandy, but I can see how that sort of family could be difficult to live in."

  Sandy pulled at the whisky again and began to relax. He found he needed to talk, and he had the ear of a sympathetic stranger, someone he'd never see again after this flight.

  "It was difficult at first," he said. "I married Joan the summer after my junior year at Amherst; she was at Mount Holyoke, and she was pregnant, if the truth be known, and I wanted to do the right thing."

  "Were you in love with her?"

  "Yes, and I was, oddly, very happy when she told me she was pregnant. Old Jock, her father, thought I was after his money, of course, so I made a point of not taking a penny from him. I worked two jobs my senior year, and we lived in a garage apartment. I don't think I've ever been happier."

  "Why advertising? You said your father was in the business?"

  "Yes, he was an old-timer at Young and Rubicam, and I joined the trainee program there. Did well, too. Jock had assumed I'd want a job with him, so I managed again not to meet his worst expectations. He liked that. Before long, he was insulted that I hadn't come to work for him, and he began to press me hard. When I thought I had played hard-to-get for long enough, I gave in. Since I was by that time a successful account executive at Y and R, I thought he'd want me to take over his marketing." Sandy laughed ruefully at the memory "Let me tell you something, don't ever go to work for a Scotsman without a contract."

  "I take it you did."

  "I did. He put me to selling booze, and do you know what my territory was?"

  "Not good?"

  "The Bowery! One day I had a nice office and a secretary on Madison Avenue; the next, I was in and out of every gin joint from Eighth Street to Houston, in the regular company of what used to be called bums-that was before they became the homeless."

  "I don't guess you sold much single malt whisky."

  "Not much. Sixty percent of my sales were in cheap gin and rye. We weren't in the wine business in those days, so I didn't have to sell muscatel."

  "Was it tough work?"

  "I worked my ass off and never made a squawk, either; Jock was waiting for that. Meantime, his son, John Junior, or Laddie, as he's always been called, was working the Upper East Side, lunching at 21 every day and getting his suits made at Dunhill's. If I'd showed up on the Bowery in a Dunhill suit, I wouldn't have lived through the first week. I worked in coveralls, out of a panel truck."

  "I take it this didn't last forever."

  "No, after two and a half years, Jock brought me uptown and put me in marketing-as assistant marketing manager, working for an old rummy who didn't know a third of what I did about marketing and advertising."

  "And how long did you take that particular form of abuse?"

  "Not long. After about two weeks, I walked into Jock's office and, more or less, told him to go to hell. I told him I wouldn't work for him another day, that he didn't have sense enough to use talent where it would do some good."

  "And what was his reaction?"

  "I don't think anybody had ever talked to him that way before, but he took it surprisingly well. Cunningly, he asked if I had another offer somewhere. I told him the truth-I didn't, but I'd go out and make a job for myself. Advertising was in something of a depression at the time, and Jock knew it, but he knew I wasn't bluffing, either, so he surprised me."

  "He gave you the marketing job?"

  "No, he asked me what I'd like to do in the business."

  "And what did you tell him?"

  "I hadn't expected the question, so I didn't have a ready answer. Rather impulsively, I blurted out that I wanted to start a wine division. Jock didn't know anything about wine; I mean, he drank single malt scotch with his meals. Not that I knew a hell of a lot about it, either, but I had the advantage of knowing more than

  Jock did, and to my surprise, he took me up on it. 'Okay,' he said, "I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars of capital and a thousand square feet of warehouse space. Go start a wine division of Bailley and Son, and let me know how you do.'"

  "That was quite an opportunity."

  "I was flabbergasted, really. I walked out of his office in a daze. I don't think I slept for a week; I read every book about wine I could get my hands on, I visi
ted every wine shop on the East Side, and I found an empty storefront on Madison Avenue and rented it. I invested most of my capital in California wines, and I took full page ads in the Times and sold at steep discounts. It was my only way into the market, and it worked; I turned a twenty thousand dollar profit my first year, and I established some invaluable contacts with growers. The business grew rapidly.

  "Then, three years ago, I heard from a friend that Cornwall and Company, an old established London shipper and retailer, was about to go on the block. The last Cornwall was on his deathbed, and he had not done a good job with the business when he was healthy. They had a golden reputation and a severe cash-flow problem, and I persuaded Jock to go for it. I bought it from the widow a week after Cornwall died, and it's been the most fun I ever had."

  "That's great," Peter said. "What happens now?" Sandy finished his drink and signaled for another. "I don't know. If Jock had stayed healthy for another month, I'd have been a major stockholder in Bailley and Son."

  "You mean you're not?"

  "I own about three percent of the stock, but Jock was finally ready to do the right thing. The success of Cornwall finally convinced him that I was indispensable, I think, and he made me some extravagant promises."

  "Which now, he may not be able to keep." Sandy started on the new drink. "Right. I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

  "Can I make a guess about something? The marriage to Joan isn't what it once was."

  "Hasn't been for, I don't know, twelve, fifteen years."

  "And Jock has a grandson?"

  "Our boy, Angus."

  "Is he in the business?"

  "No, he opted for medicine; he's a resident in cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital."

  "Is Joan in the business?"

  "Not up to now," Sandy replied.

  "Suppose Jock dies tomorrow? What will Joan do?"

  "She and her brother, Laddie, will inherit Bailley and Son. Except for my three percent, of course," he said ruefully. "And then I think it's likely that Joan will divorce me."

  "Ahhhhh," Peter moaned softly. "She's got you between a stone and a very firm surface, hasn't she?"