The Seduction - Art Bourgeau

by Art Bourgeau

  Her mother was sitting at one end of a green velvet sofa. Missy kissed her on an offered cheek, then flopped down in one of the armchairs and threw her feet onto the coffee table covered with a stack of art and travel books.

  "When did you get back?"

  "Last night."

  Helen looked directly at her. Meaning she knew better. Both mother and daughter were tall and lean with erect posture. Their faces were similar, except Helen's was heavily lined from age, too much sun and too many cigarettes and martinis. The essential resemblance always made Missy uncomfortable, looking at her mother was seeing herself old, gray and on the downside.

  Edgar, unbidden, arrived with drinks, a martini straight up for Helen, gin and tonic for Missy.

  Missy took hers without looking at him. For some fifteen years she had known that her mother was having an affair with Edgar. She'd sensed it for a long while, and then she knew it. Of the two, she blamed Edgar more. At least at the time. He was her father's friend and he had betrayed him. There was no forgiveness for that. As for her mother, in a sense, and secretly, it pleased her because, she felt, it strengthened her own bond with her father. Little girls believe what they choose to believe . . .

  Her mother took a sip of her martini and got down to business. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

  "I think you know. Why did you sell out to Nathan? Without even consulting me?"

  "Why would I want to consult you?"

  "Because you know damn well Dad and I built that practice. We slaved to make it what it is today, and then as soon as he's gone and my back's turned you sell out—"

  "It wasn't quite like that."

  "What was it like?"

  "As you doubtless know . . . you were, after all, closer to your father than I . . . Nathan and your father had a buy-out agreement, with an insurance policy on each of their lives. It was your fathers idea. Nathan simply executed it. He got my stock; I got the proceeds of the policy."

  "So I understand. And where does that leave me?"

  "You mean, why aren't you running the practice."

  "That would make sense, considering that Dad and I—"

  "Don't be naive. No one is going to work for you. You aren't even a doctor. Don't you remember, your father wanted you to be a doctor but you refused. You wanted to be a nurse and serve by his side, I think that's how you put it. Like a lady in one of those frightfully romantic Hemingway novels. Well, you served, and you have your reward, nurse."

  Missy couldn't handle that part of her feelings just now, especially with her mother. She returned to the matter of the practice and her consignment to the lab and Beverly having been given her job. "They cut my salary by over fifty percent."

  "You have your house and your car. I have the title to both of them and I'm not going to charge you rent. And if it's not enough, I suggest you find yourself another job."

  That almost stopped her. "You . . . don't understand. I can't find another job, not like this one . . ."

  "You're saying that a comparable job wouldn't pay what you're accustomed to? Or that for some reason you can't get another job?"

  "I can but they don't pay. You know how cheap doctors are."

  "Then from what you're saying, Nathan only brought your salary in line with what the job is really worth on the market."

  "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

  "No, I'm just trying to point out the realities all around—"

  "Screw all that. You and your toady are—"

  "Don't use that kind of language to me. Your father may have thought it was cute that you have a mouth like a sailor. I don't."

  Missy backed off slightly; tactics indicated it.

  "I'm sorry . . ."

  Helen ignored it. "Your father had an odd sense of humor, if humor is the word for it, where you were concerned. I remember how pleased he was when he learned about you chewing tobacco at camp."

  It was true, Missy and her father had laughed together many times over the incident. That was before the fishing trip . . . Helen took another sip of her martini. "Enough of happy family reminiscences. I want you to understand that I am not going to support you. You are twenty-eight years old, smart and quite beautiful. You can take care of yourself."

  "You don't understand, my salary's not enough to live on—"

  "Then you'll simply have to make other arrangements, won't you?"

  "That's not what Dad wanted—"

  "It's exactly what he wanted. He understood that you were too unstable to trust with money. You have no discipline. You drink too much. I suspect you take drugs. Also, you have the worst taste in men. To give you an income would be inviting folly."

  "That's crazy—"

  "I don't think you really understood your father very well."

  "You know we were close." Defensively.

  "Oh, I don't blame you for it," she said, ignoring Missy's response. "I was the same when I married him. He was a young, handsome doctor, swept me off my feet, as they say. That, of course, was before I knew the kind of man he really was. He hated women . . ."

  Missy started to rush to his defense, even though she knew her mother was right. Hadn't he meant her to be a boy, turned on her, away from her, after that one time he saw her acting out as a female. . .

  Still, Missy was damned if she'd give her mother the satisfaction of openly agreeing with her. Besides, his elusiveness, even rejection, was a challenge to overcome. Even though she'd never managed it. But ever since, the men she'd chosen to be really close to, like this new one, Felix Ducroit, were like him . . . attractive, enticing and yet distant and rejecting. Damn them. God-damn them . . .

  Her mother had paused and was looking at her as if she expected Missy to interrupt. When she didn't Helen went on, letting loose feeling she'd bottled up for years. "When I found out I was pregnant I was incredibly happy. I was giving Cyrus what he wanted most in life, a child—or rather what I thought he wanted most. We were so close during my pregnancy . . . He would hold me and pet me . . . It was when we started talking about names for you that I had my first clue that everything might not be okay, just peachy, although I didn't pick up on it at the time. He would only talk about boy's names, wouldn't even consider the prospect of a girl. Well, I rationalized, most fathers wanted a male child, but if he got a girl he'd be happy too. My first real sign of trouble came about the seventh month because I'd ignored all the earlier ones. That was when I decided on what your name would be if you were a girl. I waited for what I thought was the right moment and one night I told him. He'd been under a lot of strain at the hospital, and he accused me, incredibly, of trying to turn you into a girl before you were even born. This from a doctor. Then he hit me in the face. I fell against the corner of a table and started to hemorrhage . . ."

  Missy couldn't believe what she was hearing, except she could . . . The look in his eyes watching her with that boy was definitely a look that could kill . . .

  "He rushed me to the hospital," her mother was saying, "and it was touch and go for a while. They thought they were going to have to do a Caesarian, but in those days, care being what it was, with me barely in my seventh month, you probably wouldn't have lived. I said no, wait, and finally it worked out. "Your father was shaken, was actually contrite. But when I finally went into labor again and he was driving me to the hospital he kept saying things like 'Think positive, think boy, everything will be fine.' Even between pains I thought how absurd that was. Your father the doctor, the trained medical man who knew perfectly well that your sex had been determined months before, was carrying on like someone doing a voodoo rite. In a way it was touching, but it also scared me. As they wheeled me into the delivery room I actually said a prayer that you would be a healthy baby and that Cyrus would not be disappointed, whichever sex you were . . . But when he heard the news he just walked out of the hospital. At one time he even made noises about putting you up for adoption—"

  "Whut?"

  "It's the truth. And who do you think stopped hi
m? Me. Your terrible mother. He never stopped punishing me—or you. Even from the grave."

  Missy didn't want to believe it. Hated to, hated her mother for telling it, even as she realized it seemed to be true. Oh yes, damn him, goddamn him.

  Her mother paused, forced herself to go on. "The one time I had some hope for you was when your father caught you sleeping with that boy up at the cabin. I was actually proud of you, for once you were acting like a girl your age should, not like some tomboy to please your father. You were experimenting with womanhood instead of trying to figure out a better way to tie a trout fly. Maybe if he hadn't caught you, or maybe if you'd come to me for help afterward, you and I might have grown closer. But you didn't. You just tried even harder to win him over and pushed me further away . . . I said he was punishing you from the grave. He was, by leaving you nothing. You never stopped being a girl . . ." She didn't add that she was sure Cyrus desired his daughter almost as much as he resented her. That much she would spare Missy , . .

  "What happens now?" said Missy, thoroughly shaken.

  "Winter is coming, and tomorrow Edgar and I are closing the house and leaving for Rio."

  "Why Rio?"

  "Neither of us has ever seen it. I fancy a little sun, and Edgar, bless him, has become quite enchanted with this bathing suit they call the String. He wants to see me wear it where it originated. I think that's sweet of him, considering my less than stunning figure and skin these days."

  "How long will you be gone?"

  "Hard to tell. We've rented a house there and intend to stay at least six months."

  "What if I hadn't called? I wouldn't have even known you were going—"

  "Oh, we would have sent you a postcard . . . By the way, if you'll take a motherly piece of advice, even though I know you place little stock in my opinions, I would suggest that if you can't make it on your own, then you should find yourself a husband and marry well. It may not be what it's cracked up to be, but it does have its moments." She said it with a straight face.

  CHAPTER 8

  SLOAN GOT up from his desk, put the folders on the missing girls and the dead one in his file cabinet. Well, at least they had a body now, a description of Peter, true or false, and lab tests that at least eliminated twenty percent of the male population. Nothing conclusive but a beginning. Fire to let the pot heat up. Time to get out of here.

  He pulled on his coat and started for his car. With each step he seemed to feel worse. This flu bug was killing him. He decided to stop by Doc Watson's on Eleventh Street for a Scotch and head home to bed.

  The cold plastic upholstery of his car felt like ice against his back, and he began to shiver. He turned the heater on high, the first blast of cold air making him shiver even more. As he drove through the rain he tried not to think about the case, but it was no use. Detectives Kane and Spivak might still turn up something at Lagniappe, something more, he trusted, than an owner who was accused of rape by a discharged employee. Standard stuff. Still, nothing was too obvious or farfetched to be discounted.

  A couple of times during the drive he noticed the same car in his rearview mirror and wondered if he was being followed. Who the hell follows a cop? He parked on Eleventh Street near Jefferson Hospital and walked in the rain to Doc Watson's. The car that had been behind him was nowhere in sight. Getting jumpy in your old age, he told himself.

  Inside Doc's he got a booth near the front window and waved to Barry Sandrow, the owner. He read over the dinner specials while he waited for his regular drink. When the waitress set it in front of him, he heard a voice say, "I'll have the same." He looked up to see a young woman standing beside his booth. She was dressed in a denim jacket, leather skirt and boots, had streaked red hair cut punk-style and was wearing sunglasses. He indicated the empty seat across from him. She didn't introduce herself, didn't need to. Sloan knew her. When the waitress returned with her drink she raised her glass. "Here's looking at you." Sloan nodded and raised his glass to her.

  "What are you doing here?" he said.

  "I followed you from the Roundhouse. A man in your line of work really should be more observant."

  "It's probably the flu," he said. "I picked up your tail, decided it was my imagination."

  Her name was Delores Inverso, beloved daughter of Nicholas Inverso, near the top of the Philadelphia mob. Which could change at any time. Both her brothers had already died in the eight-year-old intra-family quarrel that had already taken a toll of some forty prominent mob figures. Many of her father's interests, as he liked to point out, were legitimate, and among other members of the family his was regarded as a voice of reason.

  "You're wearing your hair different," Sloan said. "What does your father think of it?"

  "I'm in art school now. He digs artists have to be free to express themselves?

  "I'd heard you were in some school. How's it going?"

  "Good, except Dad wants me to get to where I can paint church ceilings. You know, a lot of fat nudes."

  "You don't like to do nudes?"

  "Boring. Fabric design is my thing."

  "A good field. If memory serves your family has some interests in the garment industry."

  She stiffened at his remark. "That's history, Sloan. You should know that."

  He smiled, blew his nose. The mob didn't much like to use women, but since her brothers were killed he'd heard Delores had been filling in. A capable lady.

  "Look," she said, getting to business, "we know about you finding this Terri DiFranco's body. We want to know what you're going to do about it. People from the neighborhood have been around to see Dad. He's very interested in clearing up this missing girls business, plus nailing the DiFranco killer."

  Typical, Sloan thought. Like most of his brethen, he still lived in South Philly, in the blue-collar neighborhood he was raised in. They liked a low profile.

  "TeIl your father we're on the job. As he knows, until we had a body there was nothing we could do."

  "He's glad you're on the case," she said.

  "Tell him thanks."

  "He wants to know what you're going to do about this Lagniappe connection."

  Sloan was surprised, quickly realized he shouldn't be. The mob had more informants than he did. For the record he said he didn't know what she was talking about.

  She took a sip of her drink. "Dad said you'd say that. He also told me to tell you he did some checking. He said there's a man . . . he'd rather not mention the name . . . who approached a man Dad knows about getting him some young girls. Twelve-thirteen-year-olds. You know the deal."

  "And this man hangs out at Lagniappe?"

  "I can't say any more. We don't want to be connected to this on any of your records——"

  "Wait a minute. Cut the damn tease. You dangle some unnamed creep who buys teenagers and then you clam up. Tell your daddy for me that thanks for nothing and you can pay for your own drink."

  "Simmer down, we do what we can and I know what you're trying to do and it won't work. I won't be baited. You get all I can give you. We want this cleaned up, and we want it fast. People like to blame people like my dad for all kinds of lousy things and it hurts business. So good luck, Sloan, and we'll be watching to see how you do. If you don't make the play your way we'll make it ours and you can read about it in the papers. And for God's sake, take care of that cold. We need our police . . ."

  She even pecked him on the cheek as she tossed a tenner on the table and ambled out.

  CHAPTER 9

  ' T WAS just after eight when Laura Ramsey finished the story on Terri DiFranco. What had seemed so easy earlier in the day had turned out more difficult than expected. Eventually the writing came down to a series of judgment calls—what to tell to sell papers, what to hold back to allow the family some privacy and dignity.

  The rain was still coming down as she walked to the parking lot for her car, and once she'd begun the drive down Spring Garden Street toward Delaware Avenue she told herself that she should go home, open a can of soup, t
ake a hot bath and go to bed. But what she really craved was some junk food. She might pay for it later, but right now it was definitely the ticket: something wonderfully unhealthy washed down with a cold beer. If she'd been home in Texas, Mexican food would be perfect, but not here in Philly.

  Passing the Pier 30 tennis courts on the Delaware River, she considered driving down to Oregon Avenue for a hot sausage sandwich and a bag of chips from the Doggie Diner but decided against it because it was too early. She liked to save the Doggie Diner for those uncontrollable cravings that come in the small hours of the morning. Instead she turned off at Washington Avenue, taking Front Street to Costello's Cheese Steaks, found a parking place three or four car lengths away and walked slowly to the entrance, head down, too beat even to hurry out of the rain.

  Costello's: sheet paneling, drop ceiling, fake Tiffany lamps, two video games, jukebox, cigarette machine the size of Kansas. The place was quiet except for a covey of teenage girls gathered around the jukebox, which was playing Madonna's "Live to Tell."

  Laura went directly to the counter to give her order to a brunette with Annette Funicello hair—a double pepper, mushroom-and-cheese steak with pizza sauce, fried onions and hot peppers. She hoped she would have the control to eat only half and save the rest.

  Waiting for her order, she heard one of the girls at the jukebox call out, "Hey, ain't you the reporter who was there when they found Terri this morning?"

  "Yes."

  Turning to her friends, the girl said, "See, I told you it was her."