“Can’t we sue?”
“On what grounds?”
“Antitrust.”
Leon looked pained. “Aunt Paulina, he bottles mineral water; we make lipstick.”
“I don’t know,” said Paulina. “The lawyers should be able to think of something. Jack, look in my book. I have the name of a firm, specialists in defending corporations against hostile takeovers. The best in the business. They’ll find a way to put an end to this.”
“You could tender your shares,” offered Leon. “Retire a rich woman.”
“Ai,” wailed Paulina. She picked up a magazine from the table and whacked Leon over the head with it. “For this kind of advice, I pay you all that money? Tender my shares.” She snorted. “Leon, I am not interested in retiring. ‘A rich woman,’ he says. I am a rich woman.”
“It was just an idea.”
“Never mind. I should have known better than to ask you. Now get out. I want”—she pronounced it “vant,” like Garbo—“to be alone.” Clutching the black notebook to her breast, she slipped down under the satin sheets, a small lump of pink in the middle of the huge bed.
Led by Jack, the three of them tiptoed out. From the bed came a low whimper, muffled by the pillows.
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Charlotte.
“Thank you,” replied Jack. “But I can take care of her.”
Charlotte said good-bye and left.
It was the next afternoon, Charlotte’s fifth day at the spa. She sat at a table shaded by a High Rock umbrella on the sunny terrace in front of the Hall of Springs. She was sipping a glass of High Rock water. Her table stood next to a balustrade topped by urns of red geraniums. Beyond the balustrade lay the lawn, where a white peacock strutted back and forth looking for handouts from the guests, presumably those on the cuisine gourmande program. Charlotte had nothing to spare; her cuisine minceur lunch had consisted of only an artichoke and a tiny lobster salad. Beyond the lawn, the green surface of the reflecting pool rippled in the cool, pine-scented breeze. A string quartet played “The Blue Danube.” It was all very pleasant. She felt as if she could have been at Baden-Baden or Montecatini. But High Rock was different from a European spa, she had decided; it had a feeling of vigor that was missing from its European counterparts. In Europe, the lack of activity was the chief attraction of a spa stay. The aim of the monotony of the routine was to alter the perception of time, slowing its flow. But the idea of savoring monotony was alien to the American psyche. The American wanted to control time, not surrender to it. Not for the American the endless hours on a sunny terrace wrapped in a tartan lap robe, but a morning coffee break sandwiched between exercise machines at nine and Absolutely Abdominals at ten-thirty.
Despite all the activity, Charlotte was enjoying her stay. Between Adele’s death on her second day and the fete and its aftermath two days later, it had gotten off to an unnerving start. But she had finally settled into the routine, with Art as her guide and companion. She was now recuperating from a morning on the machines, to which she had graduated after a training session with Frannie, who had assured her that by purifying the temple of her spirit, she was hastening her progress on the journey to spiritual enlightenment. She enjoyed the feeling of using her muscles, but the pointlessness of the routine put her off. She couldn’t get over the feeling that something should be accomplished by such an output of energy: a garden weeded, a floor scrubbed, a walk to the store. It was, she supposed, a sign of her age: in spite of her success, she was still a child of the Depression, when physical effort was too valuable a commodity in the struggle to survive to be squandered on exercising for the sake of physical fitness. She suspected the current passion for physical fitness was also a reflection of the times. In a world that was prosperous and secure, people tended to invent their own hardships, create their own challenges. Why else would they mortify their flesh by running themselves ragged on treadmills going nowhere and repeating the same movements over and over again on exercise machines?
She was reminded of the Role Model, who had looked on with haughty disdain as Charlotte and Art had piled their plates with low-calorie delectables at the buffet last night, ignoring the sample plates that showed how much food was within the limits of the prescribed calorie regimens. Taking only an apple and a glass of orange juice, the Role Model explained that he was on the fruit fast. He even turned down a dish of low-fat yogurt, dismissing it as “mucus forming.” The question Charlotte asked was, to what end were he and others like him pursuing their goal of physical perfection? To what end were they piling up those credits in the giant ledger in the sky? She doubted that it was to become a better person, or to better serve humanity. She even doubted that health had much to do with it. She suspected, with her generation’s disapproval of the culture of narcissism, that it was out of selfish motives: to feel powerful, to be admired, to get ahead. God knows, the hardships experienced by her generation hadn’t all been imposed by the Depression and the war. Charlotte for one was quite adept at inventing her own hardships. But she liked to think that the hardships invented by her generation tested the mettle on a loftier plane than that of the mere physical.
For all her cynicism as to the motives of her fellow spa-goers, however, she had to admit that she felt better: fit, relaxed—even thin, or thinner. She had no illusions, though, that her transformation would last. A visit to the spa was like taking Fido for a bath and clip: whatever Anne-Marie might say about our-bad-habits-giving-us-up to the contrary, she knew that it would take only a few weeks back in her natural habitat before she would revert to her former physical condition, which stood somewhere on the map of physical fitness between unregenerate slothdom and a base camp in the Himalayas.
The concert ended with a rousing number from My Fair Lady. The silence that ensued was punctuated by a booming voice: “Hello Humanoids,” it said. It was the fleet-footed Mineral Man from the television news. He had popped up like a jack-in-the-box at the center of the terrace. A tall, gangly, young man, he was wearing a court jester’s costume consisting of a black and gold diamond-paned tunic, a gold cape, and rust-colored tights. His face was covered by gold makeup, and his head by a floppy gold cap trimmed with bells. On his feet he wore boots with upturned toes, also trimmed with bells. As he moved, he jingled.
After launching his act with a less-than-perfect cartwheel, he performed a few magic tricks. As magician’s assistant, he had drafted Nicky, who, like most obese people, appeared embarrassed at having to stand up in front of an audience. After a few minutes, however, he got into the spirit of the act, supplying the Mineral Man with props from his red knapsack, and acquiescing with good humor to having gold coins produced from behind his ear and lengths of rope pulled out of his pockets. After these feats of prestidigitation, accomplished only with the aid of a few abracadabras and hocus-pocuses, the Mineral Man launched into his spiel:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, taking off his cap and bowing to the audience. “I am the Mineral Man. I conjure water from the center of the earth to make Humanoids feel wonderful!” With that, he pulled a bottle of High Rock water out of his cap. The crowd applauded politely. “The water I conjure from the center of the earth is effervescent, full of bubbles.” Setting the bottle aside, he took some white balls out of the knapsack and proceeded to juggle them, tossing them into the air in imitation of a geyser.
As an acrobat, he wasn’t much, but as a juggler, he was very good. From juggling the balls in the usual manner, he went on to bouncing them off of his head and his feet, and throwing them under first one leg and then the other. His act was a well-honed combination of acrobatics, mime, juggling, and sleight-of-hand, interspersed with jokes and overlaid with a line of patter about the virtues of the mineral waters. Charlotte was impressed by his professionalism, but baffled as to his motives.
As she watched, a shadow fell over her table. Turning, she found herself looking up at Jerry, who had just ascended the steps at the rear of her table. He was wearing a sleeveless T-s
hirt, which revealed what she had come to learn was called “deltoid definition.”
“May I join you?” he asked.
“By all means.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down. Catching the waitress’s eye, he asked her to bring another glass of High Rock water.
“This is the first time I’ve seen this guy. He’s pretty good.”
“Yes,” agreed Charlotte. “Do you know why he’s doing this?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
The Mineral Man was now back to juggling. From cups and saucers, which he had solicited from the guests, he had gone on to knives and forks, and then to napkins, which he miraculously made to appear in knotted lengths from the pockets of members of the audience. But his most remarkable feat was achieved using unopened bottles of High Rock water, which he juggled as if they were juggling pins while the audience sat spellbound, expecting one to smash on the flagstone pavement at any moment.
The act had attracted a crowd from among the guests who’d been lunching in the Pump Room or strolling under the colonnades or sunning themselves by the pool. They stood around the perimeter of the terrace in sweat suits or bathing suits, many with glasses of mineral water in hand. Turning around to survey the crowd, Charlotte noticed Anne-Marie standing behind her. Pulling out the extra chair, she invited her to join them.
Anne-Marie nodded hello to Jerry and sat down.
After a few more tricks, the Mineral Man wrapped up his act with a flip that just barely succeeded. He then withdrew a handful of mimeographed leaflets from his knapsack, which he passed out with Nicky’s assistance. The leaflet, which was entitled, “Analysis of the Waters of High Rock Spa,” gave a spring-by-spring analysis of the waters. The amounts of radium were highlighted, the point presumably being that the maximum allowable limit was exceeded at only a few springs, and at those only by a slight margin.
After distributing the leaflets, he picked up his knapsack and headed back into the Pump Room to the hearty applause of the audience.
“The kid’s pretty good,” said Jerry, clapping enthusiastically.
“I guess the point he’s making is that the radium scare is a fraud,” said Anne-Marie, looking over the handout.
“That’s what Paulina thinks,” said Charlotte. “She thinks it’s an attempt to sabotage her business.”
“You mean, she thinks that someone set out to deliberately plant this rumor?” asked Anne-Marie.
Charlotte nodded.
“But who?”
Charlotte shrugged. But the thought had occurred to her that it could have been Gary. The mayor had called the person who planted the rumor “an enemy of our city.” Charlotte was reminded of Ibsen’s play, An Enemy of the People. It was a play she knew well, having appeared on Broadway as the doctor’s wife in a revival in the years before her Hollywood comeback. Or rather, the most recent of her comebacks. For as a critic had once noted, her career had been recycled more times than a reusable soda bottle. It was also a play that had been haunting her brain, a play whose plot bore some resemblance to the situation at High Rock. In it, a spa town’s livelihood is threatened by a rumor that the waters are contaminated by sewerage. The doctor is accused by the townspeople of planting the rumor in order to depress the price of stock in the baths. According to the townspeople’s scenario, the doctor is planning to buy up the stock at the depressed price and then announce that the danger is less critical than he had originally imagined. With the public’s fears allayed, the price of the stock would climb and the doctor would make a hefty profit.
Charlotte wondered if the same could be true at High Rock. Perhaps Gary had planted the article in order to buy up Langenberg stock at a depressed price. Hadn’t the stock dropped seven points as a result of the article? In any case, it seemed an unlikely coincidence that the article had appeared just before the announcement of High Rock Waters’s tender offer.
Anne-Marie, perhaps sensing the tack of Charlotte’s thoughts, or perhaps having similar thoughts herself, looked uncomfortable. “How is Paulina?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Unhappy,” replied Charlotte. “She thinks Elliot betrayed her.”
“She probably thinks I did too,” said Anne-Marie, as if reading Charlotte’s mind. “She won’t let me see her. If you see her, could you please tell her that I didn’t know anything about the takeover?”
“Of course,” said Charlotte.
“Your boyfriend sure has a flair for the dramatic,” said Jerry. “To say nothing of a lot of guts. Why’d he do it? Why take a chance when he’s sitting pretty on the mineral water business?”
Anne-Marie shrugged. “You said it—he likes drama, he likes risk. Now that High Rock Waters is a success, it’s time to move on. New peaks to conquer, so to speak.” She smiled.
Charlotte sensed that she was proud of Gary for making such a bold move. She also sensed that she was very much in love with him.
“Elliot just happened to come along at the right moment,” she went on. “Gary says it happens all the time in family businesses. There’s a falling out, and the injured party goes looking for a buyer.”
The waitress brought Jerry his drink.
“It was also a matter of eat or be eaten,” continued Anne-Marie. “High Rock Waters has big cash reserves. As you can imagine,” she explained with a little grin, “there’s not much expense involved in bottling water.”
“I’ll say,” said Jerry, hoisting his glass. “Take free water, put it in a bottle, and charge more for it than for beer. What a racket.”
“What you mean is,” said Charlotte, “that its cash reserves made High Rock Waters an attractive takeover target for some other company.”
“Exactly,” replied Anne-Marie. “If High Rock Waters hadn’t spent its assets on Langenberg stock, it might have been taken over by someone else.”
“Of course, he stands to lose a pile too,” said Jerry. “I mean, if it doesn’t work out. I imagine the boss lady’s going to put up quite a fight.”
“It should be interesting,” said Anne-Marie.
Actually, thought Charlotte, Gary had little to lose. If the takeover scheme worked, he would have a valuable stake in a company that was much larger than his own; if it didn’t, he could sell his Langenberg stock—probably at a profit—and move on to something else.
“I have to give Elliot credit for standing up to her,” said Jerry. “It took a lot of courage. She’s a great lady, but she sure can be a pain in the ass. It must be hell being her son.” He added: “But I wouldn’t be surprised if she respected him all the more because of it.”
“That’s just what he said,” said Charlotte. “He told her, ‘You only respect people who take money from you,’ or something to that effect. It got pretty heated: she’s threatening to disinherit him. She says she’s going to leave everything to Leon.”
“She’s said that before,” said Anne-Marie. “Every time they have an argument. She calls the lawyers; they make a few minor changes: she’ll leave this Picasso to Leon instead of Elliot, or that piece of real estate to her niece instead of Elliot. But that’s the extent of it.”
“This time she sounds as if she’s really going to carry through,” said Charlotte. “She’s fired him too.” She wondered briefly if she should be talking about Paulina’s affairs and then dismissed her qualms: there was little if anything that Paulina chose to keep private.
“I wonder who she’s going to get to replace him,” said Anne-Marie.
“You, for the time being.”
Anne-Marie made a face. “As if I don’t have enough to do already. Which reminds me, I have to get going,” she said, rising from her seat.
After she had gone, Charlotte and Jerry sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Anne-Marie as she strode down across the lawn with the grace and confidence of a professional athlete.
“What do you think about this merger, Jerry?” asked Charlotte after a while. “Do you think it will work?”
“I don’t know. Brant admire
s her. And she feels the same about him, or used to anyway. She liked to think of him as her protégé. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did work—after the dust settles, that is. She doesn’t have any respect for Elliot’s business ability, and Leon …”
“What about Leon?”
“He’s good on the money end of it, but he’s”—he cast her a look out of the corner of his eye—“he’s what the British used to euphemistically refer to as ‘a confirmed bachelor.’”
“A homosexual?”
“That’s probably putting it too strongly. I think he has those tendencies, but I don’t think he has the strength of character to act on them. Not that his sexual orientation would interfere with his business ability—but I do think it affects Paulina’s opinion of him.”
“She knows?”
“There’s not much she doesn’t know.”
Charlotte gazed out over the lawn. She suspected that many self-made men and women found themselves in Paulina’s predicament. “Après moi, le déluge,” she had said. After spending a lifetime building a company, they end up with no one to leave it to. The relatives are either disinterested or—in the eyes of the company’s founder anyway—unacceptable. Others in Paulina’s position might have sought out a merger candidate; instead, Gary had sought out Paulina. He might just be the answer to her problems.
A white-uniformed man had emerged from the Bath Pavilion and was heading across the lawn. Charlotte recognized him as Frannie’s husband, Dana. He was walking rapidly, as if he had pressing business. A few minutes later, he had reached the terrace. He bolted up the stairs and headed directly for their table. In an urgent tone, he asked to speak privately with Jerry.
Rising from his seat, Jerry stepped a few feet away, where he conferred with Dana for a moment. Then he returned to the table, grim-faced. “Come on,” he said, waving his arm, “we’ve got another one.”
Murder at the Spa Page 10