Kiss Me Twice

by Thomas Gifford

  The butler had brought the Hennessy cognac to the table on a silver tray. He had warmed the snifters over a flame. He had brought the cheese tray. All was well. There wasn’t a bloody German in sight and the Guv’nor was in his cups.

  The girl, who had a cold and a red nose to prove it, brought the coffee. Mona Ransom shook her head, said it would keep her awake. Hayes, Harry Madrid, and Cassidy all accepted and she poured carefully.

  When she got to the head of the table where Benedictus slouched in his chair like a latter-day Richard III on his throne, she hesitated. “Sir?” she said.

  “Of course, you daft girl,” he snapped. She began pouring and something displeased the Guv’nor, who sat up, said, “Don’t take forever, for the love of Christ!” He jabbed at her arm, urging her on, and the coffee overflowed the bone china, sloshing into the saucer.

  Benedictus exploded.

  “Here, you silly cow, give it to me. We’ll make a proper job of it!”

  He grabbed the pot in his right hand, pulled it out of her grip. His hand was clasped around the body of the pot and suddenly his face was contorted with the pain, the heat of the pot burning his palm. He gave a wordless cry and stood up, pushing the huge chair backward, and hurled the pot across the room. It shattered on the floor, boiling coffee splashing the wall.

  The girl stood stock still, trembling, her eyes wide with fear, full of the hopeless realization of generations of serving wenches who have always known they will bear the anger and the blame no matter whose the fault.

  Benedictus turned on her, holding his burned hand before him as if it were Exhibit A. “You hopeless, idiotic bitch,” he said, his voice steely and under control, the drunken slur just below the surface. “You will clean this up and then you will get out of my sight. You’re a sow, a slovenly sow, do you understand?” He watched her shake until she seemed to burst, to split apart at the seams. She began sobbing hysterically, unable to move. “Clean it up!” he screamed. He was turning a rich, plummy crimson. He took one step toward her as if to strike her when Mona Ransom’s deep, hoarse voice froze the scene.

  “Oh, Tash, you are such a drunken sot!”

  She didn’t speak at all loudly but it was as if she’d driven the exclamation point through his heart. “Now you’ve made poor Dora cry. Really, Tash. It’s a good thing you have only one hand.” She’d gone to the sobbing Dora and put her arm around the quaking shoulders. “With two it’s difficult to imagine just how much hell you’d raise.” She led Dora down the room toward the serving entrance.

  “Porter!” Benedictus bawled. “Porter, you wretch!”

  The immense figure materialized in the doorway leading God only knew where. “Yes, Guv’nor?”

  “Well, come here, man! Lead the master, who seems to be a bit under the weather, not entirely himself … to his bed.”

  Benedictus turned back and made a drunken bow to the three men rooted to their spots at the table. “I trust you’ve all enjoyed our bit of cabaret. We do aim to give satisfaction.” He threw back his head and laughed, a high piping sound, like a boy soprano. Porter came in and Benedictus threw his arm over the big man’s shoulder, was led away like a battlefield casualty.

  Porter looked back from the doorway.

  “Give me a moment, gentlemen, and I’ll get the Guv’nor tucked in. Then I’ll show you to your rooms.”

  Cassidy wondered how many fireplaces Last Bastion contained. There was a honey of a fireplace in his bedroom. The ashes were banked, glowing red from within, and the stacked coal hissed softly. He took off his hiking clothes and slipped into a white terrycloth robe that had been waiting for him on the turned-down bed. Away from the fireplace the room was cold. The windows were set into the wall several inches and faced out onto a wide stretch of lawn just barely discernible a couple of stories below. It had grown a stubble of snow and the grainy flakes still filled the sky. It was past midnight. He turned away from the unsatisfying glimpse of the night, wrapped the robe tight, and climbed into bed.

  He was bone weary but wound up by the evening, the performances of Tash Benedictus and his wife. He’d watched enough of the moviemaking process to have the feeling that he’d stepped into some kind of show tonight, something that was both real and simultaneously a fake. Still, Benedictus couldn’t have faked the last bit, the rage at the girl, the exposure of his own pathetic ego. He hadn’t faked the missing arm and the missing eye and the ugly balled-up piece of pulp that had been an ear. Cassidy simply didn’t know what to make of it, of him. But he sure as hell hated the bloody Germans.

  And then there was Mona Ransom.

  Cassidy thought he was beginning to have a dream when he heard the slight squeak, saw the door slowly come open, the shadowy figure step into his room. When it dawned on him that it wasn’t a dream he leaned up on one elbow, tried shaking the cobwebs loose, said: “Harry? What the hell’s—”

  “It’s not Harry.”

  He recognized the deep throaty voice, still hoarse.

  “It’s me.” She stood beside the bed. “I’m cold.”

  “I’m not surprised, walking around a castle in the middle of the night. It’s cold work, Miss Ransom.”

  “I’m also lonely, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “Me, I’m just cold.”

  “I can make you warm.” Cassidy had never heard a human voice with less humor in it than hers, just then.

  “You sound like you’re trapped in one of your old movies. I’m sure you’ve delivered these lines before.”

  “A thousand times before. Believe me. Will you take a hand in solving my problems?” She was standing next to the bed. He could smell her. The wool robe brushed his face as she untied the belt.

  “Oh, my. Which problems are those?”

  “Cold. Loneliness. Move over. I’ve got something I think I should tell you.” She pulled the blankets back, put one knee on the sheet, hesitated, reached out and put her fingertips to his mouth. “Do I worry you?”

  “I’m not sure I’d call it a worry.”

  She pulled the robe open and carefully stroked his mouth with her right nipple. “Suck it,” she said softly. “Do I have to tell you everything?”

  “It might be fun.”

  She slid down beside him, her laughter low and rich, her breath warm on his face. “I’m just like I was in the movies. You thought about the movies when you first saw me, didn’t you? Well, I don’t blame you. I wasn’t acting, I’m afraid. At least not much. Do you mind if I take advantage of you? I rather like being in charge … setting the pace, would that be all right with you? Does your poor leg bother you?”

  “That’s not my leg, Miss Ransom.”

  She giggled against his face. He kissed her neck while she stroked him until her fingers were slippery. She licked her fingers while he watched.

  “What was it you had in mind?”

  “A very expert fuck, Mr. Cassidy. You can really just stay as you are, phone in your performance. I’m going to do all the work. I just love to do all the work. …” She slid down and began and for a while she couldn’t talk and he twined his fingers in her thick black hair, leaned down to kiss it. Then he heard himself gasp and she coughed quietly, her fingers squeezing him, and he pulled her up and kissed her for a long time while she worked her body against his thigh, leaving his leg wet, then crawling on top of him, then riding him, her head hanging down above him, trembling. It all went on for a long time until they were both dripping wet and hot, the covers thrown back. “You must think me a slut. Well, I expect you’re quite right. But I haven’t always been, you know.”

  “I’m sure. You’re really … ah, indescribable.”

  “It’s my theory that it’s a man’s world—what do you think of that, Mr. Cassidy?” She nestled against him, her long fingers flat against his chest.

  “A widely held theory, I understand.”

  “I look upon it as my job to redress the balance. I take the lead when it suits me—”

  “May I say that it suits you?”
>
  “And I observe the behavior of men. I study men. I do not study Tash anymore. I know all I care to know about my dear husband. He frustrates me in every imaginable way. As you may just have discovered. Tash did not describe to you this evening the full extent of his war injuries. He had no son, Mr. Cassidy. He will never have a son. It is a fantasy, a game he sometimes plays. … No man was ever more suited to the movie business. Tash is all a fantasy, while you,” she cooed darkly against his chest, “are all too real. I’m quite warm now. And not as lonely as before. You have behaved very decently, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “I try to do my part, of course.”

  “And you do it very well.”

  “What was it you said you had to tell me?”

  “Oh, that.” She kissed him. “Maybe I’d better not.”

  “I wonder what you could possibly know to tell a complete stranger.”

  “I think you’d be utterly amazed.” She looked up, sucking her knuckle, then wiping it across his mouth.

  He sat up, took her broad shoulders in his hands, held her firmly. “Then tell me, Miss Ransom. Pay the piper.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “Believe me, this isn’t hurting. Now speak up.”

  “You’re not being nice at all—”

  “It’s a man’s world, remember?”

  “He knew all about you, that’s all—”

  “Who knew what? This is no time for obscurity.”

  “Tash,” she whispered. “He knew you were coming. That’s why he was on the lookout for you.”

  “Impossible—”

  “Nothing is impossible with Tash. He knew you were coming. He’s been waiting. …”

  Cassidy heard a soft but insistent tapping at the door.

  He got out of bed and slipped into the robe.

  “Oh, damn,” she sighed.

  “Is this going to be Tash with an elephant gun?”

  “No.”

  Cassidy opened the door a few inches. “Yes?”

  It was Porter, still fully domed.

  “Excuse me, sir. I’ve come to see Miss Ransom back to her room. If she’s ready, of course.”

  Tash Benedictus was remarkably sober. He sat in his study, listening to the snow rattling on the glass. In his own way he was a rather romantic soul. To prove it he was listening to a recording of Swan Lake on his Victrola. His hearing aid did the best it could, prodded his memory of the music. Most of his listening had a lot to do with memory.

  The rap came at his door and Porter entered.

  “I’ve put her back to bed, Guv’nor. House is all quiet now.”

  “Well done. Now toddle.” He watched Porter retire, closing the door behind him.

  Benedictus looked at the ormolu clock ticking on the mantelpiece. He’d let his fire die down.

  He picked up the old black telephone, an upright model, and slid it to the middle of his desk. He lifted the earpiece out of the prongs, leaned toward the mouthpiece, and placed his call. He waited until it was patched across the miles and the storm. Finally he heard someone lifting the receiver at the other end.

  After a few seconds a voice said: “Yes?”

  “I’m calling from Tuggle,” Benedictus said. The line broke up with static as if the wind and snow were chewing at the telephone lines. He waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally the voice spoke again. “Vulkan here.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE HOUSEHOLD, THE CASTLE, LAST Bastion, was quiet when Cassidy awoke. He’d slept late. It was nearly ten o’clock. He wandered down the hallway, hoping to God he didn’t run into his bedmate of the night before or, for that matter, her husband or her incurious keeper, the remarkable Porter. He found the bathroom before anyone discovered him and had a shower that parboiled him. It was wonderful. He rubbed himself dry, slipped back into the robe, and padded quickly down the freezing passage to his room. He dressed in yesterday’s hiking clothes. He went down the stairs and heard a radio voice talking about the storm from a station in Bangor. He followed the voice until he heard a low murmur of conversation, passed through a wide double doorway into the dining room.

  Porter, Harry Madrid, and Tom Hayes were having breakfast and discussing the weather. Harry Madrid looked up. He had grown a white stubble and his steely hair was slicked straight back with water. “Morning, Lew. Sleep well?”

  “You should have been there.” He looked at Porter who nodded a good morning. “You should have gotten me up, Harry.”

  “No need, is there? What we’re looking for ain’t going anywhere. Plate for you over on the sideboard there.”

  Porter said: “Coffee’s on the table, sir.”

  Cassidy went to the sideboard, took one look, and realized how hungry he was. There were kidneys in a thick brown sauce, sausages, scalloped potatoes, scrambled eggs, broiled tomatoes, bacon, all in chafing dishes. He loaded up, came back to the table, and Porter poured him a large mug of coffee, pushed a long silver toast rack toward him, followed by silver pots of jam and marmalade. “You guys go right on talking,” Cassidy said. “Pay me no mind.” He dug in like a starving man.

  “Worked up an appetite, did you?” Tom Hayes said. “Well, this is a sight better breakfast than you’d of gotten from me out there.” He motioned with a jerk of his head toward the long windows where the drapes were tied back and it was still snowing, thicker than last night.

  Porter had finished eating, leaned back with a toothpick. “I was out having a look-see at first light. Only a couple of inches, real dry, but that’s changing now. Flakes are getting big and spongy, heavy as cement.” He stood up and went to the windows and stared out, getting a handle on the day. “Temperature’s up, about forty. Take a look at those big pines, see how they droop, how white they are, like frosting on a cake. Heart-attack weather.” He laughed harshly. From where Cassidy sat the world looked like last year’s Christmas cards.

  The other three men kept thinking of things to say about the weather and Cassidy ate and tried to remember that the visit from Mona Ransom had actually happened, hadn’t been some weird, out-of-left-field dream. He felt vaguely foolish, as if he’d somehow been used, an easy lay. He regretted the whole thing. In anything approaching a normal human being her behavior would have been absurd, laughable, but that was the point: she was Mona Ransom. And Cassidy wasn’t laughing.

  He didn’t want to see her again. He was afraid of the effect she might have on him, embarrassed by what he might do if given the opportunity. He was just too old and too hurt for that kind of stuff. Although at thirty-three he was five years younger than Mona Ransom. It occurred to him that what the World Series was to him visiting strangers’ bedrooms was to Mona Ransom. If she’d been telling the truth about the extent of Benedictus’s war injuries, she was terribly ill-suited to the marriage. But she was as involved in her performance as her husband had been. Nothing seemed quite real in the castle. Anyway, if he was no good to her sexually, what had he offered? Money, sure, but she’d probably had a good deal of her own. And her career had ended with the marriage. Security, maybe? The knowledge that the money would always be there … and someone to take care of her, too? But then what was he getting out of it if sex wasn’t part of it? Maybe he was one of those wounded and embittered men who enjoyed crippling someone else in a subtler, more malevolent manner. From what he’d seen of it, their marriage had a good bit in common with a carnival House of Horrors.

  When he went back to the sideboard for a refill he saw that the coffee stains had been cleaned away from the wall where the old Winchester man had pitched the coffeepot. But there, behind a leg of the sideboard, he saw a triangular chip of china. He bent down and picked it up, seeing a small corner of the design, blue paint. He brought it back to the table where Porter was pouring himself another cup of coffee. He put the chip down beside Porter’s mug.

  “Just in case you’re trying to reconstruct the pot.” Porter looked up solemnly. “Thank you, sir, but I doubt very much if that’s quite on.”

&
nbsp; “No, probably not. Won’t our host be joining us for breakfast?”

  “I think not. They have not yet arisen.” He gave Cassidy a wintry smile. There wasn’t a hint of his middle-of-the night errand, returning Miss Ransom to her rightful owner, as it were.

  They were all standing around in the wide driveway, their waterproofs rapidly being covered with the clinging wet snow. The world had been enveloped in a pristine, pure, and innocent whiteness. Porter was putting the chains on the truck. Tom Hayes hunkered down beside him, lining them up as Porter backed up on them. It seemed to be understood that their search for the remnants of Manfred Moller’s plane would continue, the snow notwithstanding.

  They piled back into the truck and Porter put it in gear. It shimmied slightly, settling its weight down into the virgin snow, then crunched forward, spoiling the day’s perfection. The road sat on a ridge that the wind naturally tended to sweep. It lay like a white satin ribbon, die-straight, like a narrow fairway surrounded by one hell of a deep rough.

  When Porter braked to a halt he pointed out the window on the driver’s side. “Keyhole Lake’s right down there, past the pines about fifty yards in, then down the hill. Now, unless you gentlemen are professional mountaineers and trackers, let me warn you not to get in there and overdo it. You can get all heated up, sit down to take a rest, and just die. Mark my words. Synchronize your watches. In five minutes it will be noon. It’s going to keep snowing and the temperature will be going down with the sun. The snow will sneak up on you, it’ll be deep before you quite know it, and you’ll have the undergrowth and the snow to contend with. Keep all this in mind. Pace yourselves.” He sounded like a scoutmaster or a very gentle top kick. “You can see the road’s straight as a string. Take your time when you start back and you’ll get there. Now, if you’re not back by five or six I’ll drive down and wait for you. Are we all clear on that, gentlemen?”