She was an awfully sweet girl, and she didn’t deserve this, that much I knew for certain.
Chapter 14
Andronicus stretched, yawning after an uncomfortable evening waiting for Inny outside of her studio. He’d waited in his sports car, cramped behind the steering wheel, till two in the morning. Fingering the gun in a holster inside his suede jacket, he heard a scraping noise on the sidewalk. He looked up to see a heavy-set man on iron crutches making his way towards him. He almost drew his gun, because the fellow looked menacing, and so did his companion, slighter and taller in build.
Crutches swaggered toward Andronicus, then turned down the brick pathway to Inny’s studio. Andronicus stared after him. He watched him go to her door and knock. When there was no answer, he made his way back, his iron crutches scraping loudly on the bricks. Andronicus blocked his path.
“Hey, whatcha want?” asked Ira.
“What are you doing here at two in the morning?”
“We’re here to see Inny,” said Crutches, a surly grin on his face. Ira grimaced as he stood next to him. Together, they looked menacing.
“How did you know it was Inny’s place?” asked Andronicus. He snarled a bit as he spoke, somewhat like a bulldog growling at the smell of fresh meat.
“I’ve been here before. She’s a friend of mine,” laughed Crutches. “We’ve been in tight places together and we get along just fine.”
“Tight places?” Andronicus’s blood started to surge. He felt his throat tighten.
“Well, sorta. Anyway, we’re friends. Tight friends.”
“Why are you waiting out here for her?”
“Hey, that way I’ll be sure to catch her.”
Andronicus stepped back and studied the two men. The one on crutches had a heavy, thick-browed face, older than his years. The other one looked like a Russian spy he’d seen in a movie, thin and wiry, with a mean look.
“Inny’s parents live in Montecito,” asserted Andronicus, trying to impress them.
“Yeah, she’s one fancy bitch all right.”
Andronicus smiled slowly, his upper lip curling over his gums. “Do you want to fuck her?”
Crutches stood his ground. “That’s my business.”
“Do you need any help?”
“I got all the help I need. I’m capable of fucking women.”
Andronicus looked at the iron crutches. “I don’t doubt it. I just thought I might help you.”
“Yeah? How? She a pretty slippery bitch.”
“Watch who you call a bitch!” Andronicus pulled out his gun. Crutches and Ira stared at it.
“Put that rod away,” said Crutches. “Who are you trying to impress?” Andronicus put it back in the holster inside his jacket.
“That’s more like it,” laughed Ira. “So, where the hell is she? This place is dead as a doornail. Nobody home.”
Andronicus laughed, “I guess our timing’s bad. We could try again next Saturday night.” He mopped the perspiration from his brow. These guys made him nervous.
“She’s got a black boyfriend, I hear,” mumbled Crutches.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Andronicus, suddenly feeling his confidence surge. “Girls who sleep with black guys deserve what they get.”
“Yeah. They’re all bitches,” mumbled Crutches. He turned and started to walk away.
“Why don’t we all do her?” Andronicus called after him.
“Nah. That’s playing dirty,” said Crutches. “Two’s enough.” Crutches turned and looked at Andronicus’ late-model sports car. “Rich kid, eh?”
“Went to Amherst,” snarled Andronicus as he put his gun back in its holster.
“Snot-nosed Ivy League brat. I’ve known guys like you.” Crutches leaned forward on his metal crutches so that his muscular shoulders and arms bulged. Andronicus instinctively stepped backwards. That’s when Crutches hit him with one of his metallic devices, flat across the face. Andronicus recoiled and turned to run, but he wasn’t fast enough. Crutches and Ira jumped him on the sidewalk, Ira pulling him up to punch him in the face, Crutches continuing to slap him with his iron rods. Andronicus started to scream. A young couple coming home from a date spotted them. Crutches and Ira scrambled to make a getaway, Crutches moving fast as lightening on his metallic rods, leaving a scraping noise in his wake.
“Need some help?” asked the young woman. She held out her hand as her date stooped to help Andronicus to his feet.
Andronicus shook his bloodied head and said, “Nah, I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay.”
Andronicus wiped blood off his face. “Shit like this goes down all the time. It’s just a quarrel between guys … over a bitch!”
The couple looked at him, horror written on their innocent young faces, as he walked over to his Ferrari, got into it wiping blood from his brow and swearing under his breath. Crutches and Ira stopped running to laugh as Andronicus started his car and pulled away, wiping blood that flowed freely from his nose. “It’s the bitch’s fault. Everybody wants to fuck her,” Andronicus mumbled. “Even that psycho cripple!”
Maria Dolores stared after him from the front window of the Victorian house that was in front of the studio apartments Inny and Albert lived in.
Andronicus glanced at the house. She closed the curtain and drew down the shade, running to the bathroom to fix her hair a bit before going downstairs to see what had happened.
Andronicus drove resolutely towards Santa Barbara, towards Montecito, where he figured he’d borrow some more money from his stepfather’s vault. He thought of Mrs. Johnson, her willing body giving way to his thrust at the Biltmore cottage. That was getting too expensive. He remembered her husband’s dumbfounded look when he caught them together. That guy’s unbelievable. How could he not grasp that I was doing his wife? He had never met anyone as naïve as Mr. Craig Johnson, who believed his wife to be as chaste as a vestal virgin.
The image of their fifteen-year-old daughter flickered through his foggy mind. His lip curled up in a half-smile. The younger the better, they say.
Chapter 15
Andronicus pulled into his stepfather’s carriage-style driveway and parked the Ferrari in one of the three garage slots. He took out an old shirt and mopped his face with it, trying to look presentable. It was almost seven in the morning, and the family would be getting up. He slid out from behind the steering wheel to encounter his older half-brother, the true heir to Senator Dorland’s fortune.
“Hey, Andronicus!” Kevin walked up to him, tall, slim, and clean-cut as a new penny. Andronicus knew only too well that he was his father’s favorite. He never could figure out why the senator had adopted him.
Andronicus slid out from behind the steering wheel fast, trying to avoid his half-brother’s inquiring look. Too late. Kevin stood in front of him.
“Where were you last night? You had your mother worried sick.” Kevin mustered a sympathetic look for the black sheep of the family. Andronicus had been in and out of trouble for years, ever since his dad married his stepmother. Nothing too serious and the judges usually dismissed the charges. Kevin didn’t question why.
“Oh, yeah, Kevin!” Andronicus looked up at him and laughed. “Just having a good time. Must’ve drunk a little too much.”
Kevin looked at his watch. He would be late for work if he got into it with Andronicus, and he knew Andronicus wouldn’t tell him the truth. “I’ve got to get to the office,” he said as gently as possible. He tried to be gentle with Andronicus, knowing he was troubled and that he could fly off the handle if cornered.
“Yeah, big brother, go to work like a good boy.” Andronicus averted his face to try to hide his wounds, which include a gash in his forehead where Crutches had hit him with his iron crutch.
Kevin saw them anyway. “Man, that must’ve been some party! Why don’t you see a doctor?”
“Nah. Just a minor scrape. Nothing to get excited about.”
Andronicus turned his back to his brother and headed
towards the garage. Kevin stared after him. He shook his head, perplexed. Then he slid in behind the wheel of his Mercedes Benz. He was the biological son of Senator Dorland. He had a good deal and didn’t want to rock the boat.
Andronicus slunk into his spacious bedroom, furnished in the latest French rustic style. His mother always took care of the house furnishings and parties. She knew her role and played it well. He knew she wasn’t happy that he’d flunked out of Amherst. And she and the senator expected him to enroll in another school. Instead, Andronicus had learned the family vault keyhole numbers and could open it in seconds. No one ever offered him money, so he took it. After all, as the adopted son, I’m entitled, he reasoned.
He took a long shower and put Neosporin on his head gash, plus a large Band-Aid that hid it well enough. As he combed his hair and looked in the bathroom mirror, he figured he could tell anyone who asked that the scrape on his chin came from shaving while under the influence. They knew he drank.
Feeling renewed, he looked out his window at the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, whose contours stood out like sentinels in their stark beauty today. I’ll bet Iris would like to see those. He smiled as he thought of his married conquest. He turned and walked towards the living room phone to give her a call. As he passed his mother’s bedroom, he glanced in and saw her jewelry flung carelessly on her vanity. A smile crossed his face. He listened for sounds of a human presence. Hearing none, he slipped into his mother’s room and took what looked to be pearl necklace from her vanity. She has so much jewelry… She’ll never miss this.
He admired the double-stranded pearl necklace and then fumbled for a box to put it in. Footsteps resounded on the staircase. He slid the necklace into his pants’ pocket and walked into the hallway, cool as a cucumber.
Sure enough, it was his mother.
“Were you looking for me, Andy?” she asked. She always called him by her pet name, which annoyed him, but he was used to it by now, having heard it all his life.
“Um, yes, Mom.” He grinned his most affable grin at her and she smiled back. “I was thinking about colleges.”
“Just what I wanted to hear,” she beamed her approval. Then, she saw the Band-Aid on his forehead. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Nah. I just hit the side of the pool when I was swimming last night.”
“Oh. I thought you went out last night. I couldn’t find you anywhere.” Her high forehead furrowed into a familiar frown. She had been helping Andronicus cover his tracks for years. Now, she began to doubt her results.
She took off her horn-rimmed glasses and scrutinized her son. She knew he was in trouble.
“Oh, Mom, you know how the guys are here. Drink a few beers, go for a swim at someone’s house… If you hit your head on the side of the pool it’s all in good fun.”
She stepped closer to him and adjusted his shirt collar, noting the scrape on his chin. She doubted that he was telling the whole story. “Look, Andronicus, don’t you think it’s time to enroll in a nice university like USC? It’s easy to get into…”
“You mean like Jim did after he flunked out of Berkeley? Pay for your diploma?” He pulled away from her and started to scowl, the precursor to one of his tantrums.
“Now, Andy, it’s strictly up to you,” she quickly backed down, trying to avoid his notorious bad temper. She wondered what she’d done to deserve such an offspring.
“Okay.” Andronicus replied. “Then leave it up to me.” He turned heel and left her feeling sad and rejected. She knew she’d have to talk to her husband about it, and she knew he was unhappy with Andronicus as well. Seeking solace, she went into her bedroom and changed clothes, putting on one of her most expensive dresses for effect. She went to her vanity to look for some jewelry to set it off. She saw her pearl earrings, a diamond bracelet worth several thousand dollars like the one Swann had given his mistress in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. But try as she might, she couldn’t find her favorite pearl necklace, the one with double strands. She was sure she’d left it there last night.
Andronicus picked up the phone in his bedroom to call Mrs. Johnson.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you called. I was just about to go grocery shopping… but it can wait. I’ve missed you.”
Her younger daughter ran into the kitchen where the phone was, ready for school.
“Oh, I’m going to take Kendra to school now. Can you call back?”
“Just meet me at the Biltmore for lunch.” Andronicus felt a sharp pain in his forehead. That damn shit hit me hard.
“I’ve got something special for you.”
“I can hardly wait!” She hung up and grabbed the keys to their second, older car to take her youngest to school, thinking that she’d have to change clothes if she were to dine at the Biltmore. I really need nicer clothes. Maybe Andronicus can…
Kendra got out of the car, clutching her algebra and history books, her nubile fifteen-year-old body not yet filled out. Inny got her mother’s good looks, but Kendra was considered the brainy daughter, the one they’d count on in their old age.
Mrs. Johnson watched her youngest daughter trip up the stairs to Santa Barbara High School. A friend joined her, and they walked into the lovely Spanish-tiled school. The thought that she’d soon be in college, reeled through Mrs. Johnson’s head. She knew they couldn’t afford it. Their trust fund for Inny’s college was almost depleted, and they hadn’t felt rich enough to get one when Kendra was born. Why couldn’t they just get married like me and my sister did?
Mrs. Johnson looked in the rearview mirror, put on some fresh lipstick, and turned toward the Biltmore, only a quarter of a mile from the school. Santa Barbara was small and convenient, especially for those grasping for the rung in the social ladder ahead of them. She felt a bit disgusted with herself for associating with Andronicus, but she did have to punish Inny for consorting with that black man… Not to mention her husband was about to lose his engineering job, a thought that made her shudder.
She marveled at the beauty of Butterfly Beach as she pulled her car into a convenient parking spot near the balustrade which overlooked the beach and a view of the bluffs next to them. Then, she took a pair of high-heeled shoes from underneath the driver’s seat and took off her normal-housewife, flat shoes. No sweeping floors for her today.
Mrs. Johnson got out of the car, adjusted her high heels, and walked into the Biltmore Hotel looking as regal as a queen. After all, she was the daughter of Audus T. Davis, the former president of the Washington, D.C., Post Office, a position that had enabled her mother to attend numerous White House dinners. My mother even talked to President Harding’s wife, she thought, airily. That her mother had to take a streetcar to get to Washington because her husband refused to use his political clout or escort her to such events… That was another story. Mrs. Johnson’s biggest chagrin was not having married better, that is to say, richer. Known as a conceited beauty who had a mind of her own, Craig Johnson was the only one smitten enough to marry her.
Andronicus sat with his back to the entrance of the dining room, staring out the window at the huge eucalyptus tree in the green area in front of the hotel. Mrs. Johnson walked up behind him. Feeling girlish, she put her hands over his eyes and said, “Guess who!” When he turned around to face her, she quickly withdrew her hand and surveyed his puffy face and the scrape on his chin.
“What happened, Andronicus?”
He laughed a guttural, manly guffaw. “It’s nothing. Just tripped on the landing and landed on my face.”
“Is that all?” she commented drily. Mrs. Johnson could see through a lie with laser-like vision.
“Isn’t it enough?” he asked.
She turned her head so he could admire her perfect profile. “I don’t really know what enough means, Andronicus.”
“Well,” he stammered a bit, sensing she’d detected his white lie. He took the pearls out of his pocket. “These are for y
ou.”
The double-strand pearl necklace gleamed as bright as the silverware on the table. Mrs. Johnson took the necklace and gasped, “Where did you get these?” She knew that necklaces in pockets had often been pocketed.
“At the local jeweler.” Andronicus kept a straight face.
Mrs. Johnson put them on, fumbling with the clasp behind her neck. She noticed that people were beginning to stare at her, so she put her hands in her lap. “Andronicus. People are staring.”
“Don’t let them bother you. You’re the most beautiful woman in the room. That’s why they’re staring.”
Mrs. Johnson smiled a cryptic smile. “How did it go this weekend?”
“I stayed home. I didn’t call because I knew your husband would be there.”
The waiter approached them. “Cocktails?” he asked.
“I’ll have a whisky soda,” said Andronicus without hesitation.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee, please,” said Mrs. Johnson, her Southern good manners firmly drilled into her by her own mother. Please and thank you were the first words she’d learned, and she’d taught them to her daughters. To be ungrateful was the worst sin in her book.
“Send the waiter over. We’re ready to order,” said Andronicus.
Mrs. Johnson scanned the menu looking for something that cost under twenty dollars. She couldn’t bring herself to be careless with money. She glanced at the pearl necklace on the table. It looked obvious that he was trying to please her, so she scooped it up and put it in her purse. “I’ll put it on when you can help me with the clasp,” she murmured to Andronicus, who smiled his approval. Under her breath she said, “I thought you were going to get that nigger Inny’s sleeping with.”
“All in due time, Iris,” said Andronicus, growing a bit apprehensive. He took a swig of whisky soda, making a loud slurping noise, which annoyed Mrs. Johnson.
Mrs. Johnson turned and addressed him in her most imperious tone of voice. “You can’t marry a black man where I come from. Nor can you sleep with one. They’ll put you in jail.”
Rich White Americans Page 18