Hustle Sweet Love

by Davis, Maggie;

  “Get out of the damped way,” he said, reaching for her. “I’m going to bash that smirking legal nit if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  “I can’t believe this,” the voice of her fiancé was saying behind her. “Fifteen hundred dollars?”

  “Don’t read that, Alex,” Lacy cried. “I told you I gave everything back!”

  “You conniving son of a bitch,” the black panther rasped, reaching over Lacy’s shoulder, “Ches Ransom put you up to this, didn’t he?”

  “What did I tell you?” Lazy neatly sidestepped Michael Echevarria as he tried to lunge past her. “You see what an unscrupulous rat he is, Daddy? Just try to tell anybody like that you’re in love with him!”

  “Now, kitten,” G. Frederick Kingston said mildly. “Listen to what he’s saying. There’s a corporate battle going, obviously, between Tri-Star and—”

  “Don’t you touch him,” Lacy cried, drawing herself up proudly as Michael’s menacing figure towered over her. “You come one step closer, and I’ll kick you in the shins! Alex van Renssalaer is a wonderful man, and he respects me. We’re engaged to be married!”

  “Also enclosed,” the corporation’s lawyer was saying, holding another large bundle of Xeroxes under his elbow, “is the waiver of the three-day waiting period for blood tests required by New York State law. Or have I,” he murmured, “lost my place?”

  “You’ve lost your place,” Michael said with deadly calm as he lifted Lacy’s defiant form and pushed her into her father’s arms. “He’s not going to marry her. I am.”

  Alex van Renssalaer stuffed his Xeroxed copies into his briefcase and began backing away toward the office door.

  “Actually,” he said as the chairman of the board closed in on him, “I think my effectiveness in any ongoing negotiations here today is fairly well negated by now. I advise plaintiff’s counsel to request a review of everything on record, like, tomorrow.”

  “Marry you?” Lacy whispered, staring at the black panther who was relentlessly tracking the New York lawyer to the door.

  “I’ll send over my associate, Norman Astor, Mr. Kingston,” the New York lawyer said, picking up speed. “He’ll cover your daughter’s case in my absence.”

  “Alex, don’t leave!” Lacy cried. It was some sort of nightmare! Michael Echevarria had just announced he was going to marry her, and no one seemed to be paying attention. The two people who should have come to her defense were doing nothing. Her father was smiling, and her fiancé was backing hastily toward the exit. “Come back,” she yelled at Alex’s retreating figure. “Don’t listen to him! It’s just another corporate maneuver to get me to drop my complaint!”

  She saw the powerful figure of the chairman of the board lunge just as Alex yanked open the door.

  “Restraining order, Echevarria!” the New York lawyer yelled as he shot out into the secretary’s office. “You damned gorilla—I’ll serve you with breach of peace if you touch me!”

  “Now, honey,” her father said consolingly. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying,” Lacy sobbed. She shoved the dainty toque with its nose veil to the back of her head and blew a loose strand of nylon hair out of her face. “He’s always like this, Daddy. Michael Echevarria treats me like I’m just another takeover target!”

  “You look lovely,” the voice of the chairman of the board told her on his way back to his desk.

  Lacy stared at him. It was the sort of vindictive maneuver Michael Echevarria would think of. Oh, he’d offered to marry her—but only because she’d forced him into it!

  “Yes, here it is,” the corporation counsel said, holding up a fresh batch of papers. “Mr. Echevarria offers to marry the plaintiff, contingent on early nuptuals scheduled in Judge Samuel Markowitz’s chambers, room five-oh-one, New York City Supreme Court Building, Sixty Center Street, noon tomorrow. Attached you will find copies of the suggested premarital property agreement and the waiver of the three-day waiting period and blood tests.”

  “Take some time, baby,” her father was saying, “to think it over. Michael has made some counter-offers. You can—”

  “Stop calling him Michael,” Lacy wailed. “I can’t stand it! For goodness’ sake, isn’t anybody on my side?”

  All Lacy could think of was that Michael Echevarria had won again. Back to bashing her human dignity again. Back to exploitative maneuvers! What she really wanted to do, she thought, glaring at him through her tears, was pay Michael Echevarria back for the most humiliating fifteen minutes she’d ever spent in her life. He was inhumanly cruel, offering marriage under these circumstances. She didn’t have a shred of self-respect left at all. She wanted to make the president and chairman of the board of Echevarria Enterprises, Inc., as excruciatingly miserable as she could. For as long as she could. She wanted her revenge.

  “All right,” Lacy said, drawing herself up with all the monarchial dignity she could muster, “deal closed, Daddy. I’ll marry him!”

  “Now, baby, stop crying,” Lacy’s father told her as he drove her up the West Side Highway to her apartment. “Nobody said you had to marry him—that was your own decision. And you signed the premarital property settlement—no one forced you to, remember? All I said was I thought you ought to wait and think things over, not rush into anything as precipitous as, well, a ceremony at noon tomorrow. Although frankly, knowing my sweet little girl, I can understand some of Michael’s thinking about rush arrangements.”

  G. Frederick Kingston smiled down at his daughter in a rather rumpled Halston gown, who was slumped beside him in the front seat, her little hat askew. “It’s not such a bad deal, puss. Considering the property terms Echevarria’s offered. I’d marry him myself.”

  “Oh, Daddy, please don’t try to be funny,” Lacy moaned, “you really weren’t any help to me, you know. When I walked in, I knew you were all up to something. You’ve stabbed your own daughter right in the back!”

  “Now, Lacy, it wasn’t that way at all,” her father assured her. “Actually, Michael talked to me for a few minutes before you arrived because he wanted me to know what he was offering. I’ll have to confess it’s rather flatteringly old-fashioned to be asked for one’s daughter’s hand in marriage. Not many fathers get that courtesy extended to them these days.”

  “He’s a rat,” Lacy groaned. “I’m betrayed—even my own father sides with him!”

  “Now Lacy,” G. Frederick Kingston said. “Michael was considerate enough to have prepared personal references to show me as his, ah, prospective father-in-law. He had letters attesting to his good character from two U.S. senators, four foster parents, St. Vincent de Paul’s Orphanage, the longshoremen’s union of New York and the former director of Belmont race track. He went to a lot of trouble, dear. There are a lot of people out there who like him apparently.”

  “Like him? Oh, Daddy, you just don’t know Michael Echevarria the way I do,” Lacy wept. “He’s a snake, totally ruthless, and he’s only marrying me to get me out of his hair! You heard what he said to his lawyer when we left, didn’t you? About hoping to get a good night’s sleep for a change? Oh, that was low, tasteless, dirty!”

  “Now, Lacy,” her father sighed. “I don’t think he meant it in quite that way. Actually, I thought Michael looked a bit on edge. I don’t think you realize,” he said, sliding his car into a double-park in front of his daughter’s apartment building, “you’ve dealt his company quite a blow. You seem to have put your trust in the wrong person, honey.

  “Yes, I know,” he said quickly, “this was probably van Renssalaer’s idea from the start. But even I could see your, er, ex-fiancé had more than one iron in the fire when he showed up. I don’t blame your, er, new fiancé for flying off the handle. These two young bucks have a lot going on between them. If you’ll pardon my saying so,” G. Frederick Kingston said firmly, “it was obvious to me that your lawyer friend didn’t exactly come into the meeting today with clean hands.”

  Lacy slid down even farther in the seal of her fathe
r’s Mercury Cougar. “I know I’m not going to convince you, Daddy, but did Michael Echevarria ever say anything about marrying me because he loved me? No! Not even once. I told you what he’s been offering all along. It wasn’t marriage!”

  “Now, sweetheart, you signed a very generous prenuptial agreement that says you’ll stay married for six months,” her father reminded her. “It allows you to get a divorce after that if you’re not satisfied, with the property settlement free and clear. Which includes the sports car, the fur coat and the assessed half-million dollars in jewels. That’s very good-hearted of Michael, kitten.”

  “He’s just forcing all that junk on me,” Lacy cried, “because he couldn’t get me to take it otherwise. After all, what’s he going to do with it? Who wants a forty-thousand-dollar Russian sable with my name embroidered on the lining, and a Ferrari with a weird custom-paint job to match my hair?

  “No, you don’t understand,” she said, dabbing at her tears with the edge of the little nose veil. “If Alex van Renssalaer hadn’t done a quick fade, I would at least have had one offer of marriage to fall back on. It’s pretty humiliating, Daddy, to have a rat like Michael Echevarria say he’ll marry you when a really eligible bachelor like Alex van Renssalaer just slinks out the door.

  “But I’ve learned my lesson,” Lacy vowed. “No matter what Michael Echevarria says, what he really wanted was to have me be his tacky mistress in a fancy East Side apartment! Daddy, you really don’t know how much he hates to do this. It’s just that his lawyers have told him it’s the only way out!”

  G. Frederick Kingston sighed. “All right, cherub, I’ll take your word for it. I have a feeling, though, things are going to turn out better than you think. Perhaps,” he suggested, “all this can be thrashed out on your honeymoon. Good lord,” he said, quickly looking at his watch, “I’ve got to get home if we’re going to be on time tomorrow in Judge Markowitz’s office. How about if your mother and I come to town around ten o’clock to pick you up and help you get ready?”

  It was Lacy’s turn to sigh. “No, Daddy, really, I don’t need any help. I’ve got a lot of things to do.” Her emerald eyes were thoughtful as she reached for the door handle on her side of the car. “I’ll just meet you there in the judge’s chambers. I have a few things I want to do between now and then, so I’ll just take a cab down in the morning.” As Lacy got out of the car she did not raise her eyes. “I didn’t mean what I said about your stabbing me in the back, I know you wouldn’t do that. But, Daddy—”

  “Yes, darling?” her father said fondly.

  “About the honeymoon,” his daughter said, slamming the door. “Just don’t lay any bets on it, will you?”

  An hour later, Lacy took the taupe-brown and gold dress down the hall to Candy O’Neill’s apartment and a Proctor-Silex blender as a thank-you gift for the loan of the Halston.

  “You can have a couple of microwave ovens, too,” Lacy told her friend indifferently. “I’m getting married. I might as well give all this stuff away.”

  “I really want to meet Alexander van Renssalaer,” Candy crowed. “He sounds fabulous! I’m so glad the Halston with the front cover of the Ladies’ Home Journal image worked out. Listen, do you think we could do the same thing for me, like say something from the cover of McCall’s?”

  With a frown Lacy said quickly, “Look, Candy—do you mind if I invite, well, Pottsy to the wedding? You’ve gotten over that bad stuff that happened at the Zebra Lounge, haven’t you? I mean, with Walter Moretti around, taking you out, things have certainly changed.”

  “Pottsy?” the redheaded model said. “Gee, I don’t know, Lacy. I don’t think Walter would like it.”

  “Leave Walter home,” Lacy said shortly. “Look, come down in the morning around eight, will you? I’ve got a lot to explain. I’m getting married. Nothing big—in a judge’s chambers at noon, that’s all.”

  “Tomorrow?” her friend cried in astonishment. “Lacy, what happened? Is Alex van Renssalaer in some sort of trouble?”

  “No,” Lacy said over her shoulder as she walked away, “but actually he’s about the only one I can think of who isn’t. I’m marrying Michael Echevarria.”

  It was after seven-thirty before Lacy finally settled herself on her living-room couch with a bottle of Calvin Klein Crushed Berry and a box of Q-Tips to do her fingernails and watch the rest of Entertainment Tonight on TV. The Manhattan telephone directory still lay on the floor by the kitchen extension, where she’d dropped it after making the last of the telephone calls Harrison Salstonstall Potts had told her to.

  That was it, Lacy told herself with deep resignation. After tomorrow’s wedding ceremony she had the rest of her life before her. The dream—and that was all it had been—that had started in Tulsa was over. Finito. Kaput.

  After tomorrow she was going to borrow her sister Felice’s old Datsun and travel westward, perhaps to some spot in the desert in Arizona or New Mexico where she could stay for a long, long time and retreat from a world that had demonstrated it wasn’t ready for an emerald-eyed smoky-blonde with a totally unacceptable sense of humor. At least that was the general complaint.

  She knew she had a lot of rethinking to do now that her goal of being a fashion-magazine writer had gone the way of everything else. Sometime, somehow, she was going to forget Michael Echevarria and get rid, forever, of the nasty, unpleasant ache in her chest that was actually the result of too many weeks of suppressed rage and frustration. And not, she was sure, love.

  When Lacy heard the buzzer for the apartment building’s front door downstairs, she put down her bottle of nail polish reluctantly, not wanting to answer it. She’d taken her telephone off the hook. One frantic call from Alexander van Renssalaer wanting to explain everything and saying that he really loved her had been enough. When she pressed the intercom button in the kitchen, the line was full of static. All she heard was a crackle of a voice downstairs and perhaps the word Edward.

  Edward? The only Edward she knew was Michael Echevarria’s chauffeur. She certainly wasn’t going to buzz to release the door lock downstairs and let him up!

  “Please, Miss Kingston,” the voice that was definitely Edward, the chauffeur’s, pleaded through another burst of crackles. “I have some boxes to deliver to you. Boss’s orders.”

  “No!” Lacy yelled and took her finger off the button, breaking the connection.

  She had no idea why Edward had been sent over to deliver something at that hour, but she didn’t want to have to think about Michael, his chauffeur or her life’s biggest disaster until tomorrow.

  She’d just put a second coat of Crushed Berry on her left hand when the buzzer in the kitchen began its annoying whirring again. Lacy waited, trying to ignore it, but when it wouldn’t stop, she put down the nail polish and charged into the kitchen.

  “Go away, Edward,” Lacy said into the intercom grille. “Go home to your employer and tell him whatever he’s trying to deliver, he can stick it. I don’t want it!”

  “Miss Kingston,” the chauffeur’s anguished voice came back, “if I don’t deliver these boxes, it’s going to cost me my job. Please press the button and let me up.”

  Lacy slumped against the kitchen wall and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t let him get fired; she wasn’t that sort of person. And now that she wasn’t in love with Michael anymore, what did it matter? Instantly the once-dormant devil inside Lacy whispered mischievously that there was really no reason why she should sit around her apartment that evening being miserable when there was someone downstairs who had once invited her out to championship wrestling and Chinese food. Lacy’s stomach gave a tentative growl at the thought. She hadn’t had dinner, and she was remembering the chauffeur’s tall, slim physique, blond hair and admiring hazel eyes.

  Gotcha! the little devil said, impulsively.

  “Edward?” Lacy held down the speak button on the intercom. “How would you feel about going out for sweet and sour pork?”

  Actually, the devilish voice was saying rea
sonably, Lacy needed to get out of her apartment, if only for an hour or two. She lowered her voice. “Edward?” the devil went on, “say just over to Broadway?”

  There was a silence downstairs. Lacy bit her lips. Maybe Edward was too afraid of his employer to want to take her out.

  “Edward?” Lacy repeated. There was nothing wrong with going out with the chauffeur, the inner voice assured her. There was nothing complicated about having Chinese food with a tall, handsome blond man like Edward; it was certainly better than eating alone.

  “Yes,” the chauffeur’s suddenly choked voice came back through the intercom speaker. He coughed. “Yes, I’ll take you out to a Chinese restaurant, Miss Kingston, just let me up.”

  Lacy had changed into a red cashmere pullover belted with a wide silver chain, faded Levi Strauss jeans and cowboy boots. She barely had time to run a comb through her hair by the time she heard the ancient elevator clank open in the apartment hallway outside.

  “Hi!” she said, smiling gaily as she threw open the front door.

  It was probably, Lacy realized a split second later, the most horrendous mistake she’d made in her whole life. Because it was not Edward standing there.

  A terrifying apparition filled her doorway.

  The most gigantic criminal she’d ever seen in real life or in the movies stood there. It was a horrible hulk in a black motorcycle jacket studded with steel buttons, with a hideously muscled T-shirted torso, narrow, threatening hips and powerful legs encased in black jeans and boots. Where his face should have been, there was only a black plastic cylinder that made him look like a clone of Darth Vader.

  “Mugger!” Lacy croaked in instant recognition. Her brain was reeling in shock; she could hardly utter the words. “A mugger!”

  “Jesus,” the mugger growled with an inappropriate note of surprise.

  “Help! Police!” Lacy squealed, trying to slam the door on one big black-booted foot. “Sicky-Poo!” she cried, trying that Futile hope. “Candy! Mugger! Mugger!”