Killed on the Rocks Read online

  “Okay, okay. I’ll be serious. Can’t endanger this deal.” She made a face. “How’s this?”

  “I said serious, not hostile.”

  She started to laugh, tried to stop, and ended up blowing a raspberry of escaping laughter as we entered the main hall.

  Norman was a sight to behold. He had traded his flannel shirt for a tux that let bony wrists and ankles show. He was distributing champagne from a silver tray. He swooped down on us. Roxanne took a glass and sipped at it and pronounced it good. I took one, not because I care for champagne, but because if you are carrying a glass around, no one will come along and bother you.

  I scanned the room, putting names to faces. Some, of course, I already knew. The big, bluff guy with the red face and white hair was Haskell Freed of the Network Finance Department, and the balding, Ichabod Crane type was his assistant, Ted “Bats” Blefary, with whom I had attended the occasional Yankee game. I had been able to prevail upon the two of them to bring Spot up because Bats is a friend of mine, and because Haskell Freed wants to be president of the Network (or some network) the way Mother Teresa wants to go to Heaven. He is better disposed toward me than toward the other 166 vice-presidents because he knows I’m no competition.

  I suspected Haskell, like Falzet, thought I had pull with Roxanne Schick, and tried to stay on my good side for that reason. It would be interesting to see if his attitude changed any after the sale.

  We went over to say hello. I thanked them for bringing Spot.

  “It was a pleasure,” Haskell said. Bats nodded. No trouble at all.

  Mrs. Norman came around with hors d’oeuvres: sautéed chicken livers wrapped in bacon and whole-wheat bread-sticks dipped in maple syrup, also wrapped in bacon.

  “Lord,” Haskell said. “I’m trying to lose weight.” It didn’t stop him from taking one of each.

  Didn’t stop me, either. “What the hell,” I said. “This is the frozen North. We’re snowed in. Cholesterol doesn’t count in a situation like this. We need hearty food. I understand dinner is going to be moose-meat pie and spaghetti.”

  Roxanne said, “Guys, I think we ought to break up the Network group here and mingle.”

  We did so. I didn’t have to take many steps to do it, either, since I turned around and found myself inches from a blond confection who had to be Aranda Dost.

  “Excuse me,” I said. I had almost gotten sticky maple stuff on a white satin blouse.

  She inspected the site of potential danger. It was a site well worth inspecting. “No harm done, Mr. ... Cobb.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “No harm done at all. And even if there had been, there wouldn’t be anything to worry about. It happens constantly. Gabriel is addicted to those things; if I try to let a gathering go by without serving them, he gets crazy. The liver, too. So unhealthy for him.”

  I resisted the urge to tell her she meant unhealthful.

  She smiled and went on. “Well, I hope everyone enjoys them. I was going to have Mrs. Norman prepare a platter of crudités, but apparently the delivery van had to turn back halfway up the mountain. I knew we’d have problems with the weather. Already, no one can get in or out.”

  “The forecast wasn’t that bad,” I said.

  “Oh, no, I mean weeks ago, when the meeting was first scheduled. I asked Gabriel not to bring everyone here. You see ...” She lowered her eyes and blushed prettily. “I’m psychic.”

  I looked at her. I always look closely at people who are psychic. Aranda Dost was not as tall as she looked—she was wearing wicked spike heels under trousers that had been cut long to disguise the fact. She wasn’t as young as she looked, either. At first glance, seeing the casual style of the abundant golden hair, the makeup and the clothes, you might take her for twenty-five, tops. A closer look showed the fine lines at the corners of the eyes and the mouth, and suddenly we’re talking about a woman maybe my age, maybe as much as forty.

  I wondered what the idea of the teenager costume was. I remembered Dost’s telling me that Aranda was his third wife, and he’d been married to her for fourteen years, a personal best for him. Maybe she was beginning to feel that her term was about up, or could be if she didn’t keep her husband from noticing the passage of the years.

  Or maybe she was just a bubblehead. “Psychic,” after all, is an easy term to throw around. Only good manners kept me from pointing out that predicting a snowstorm on a mountain in upstate New York in the middle of February did not constitute a bold rebuke to the laws of probability.

  I thought I was controlling my face, but she read the skepticism there, anyway. Maybe she was psychic.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said.

  “I’m willing to be convinced.”

  “Well, the first time I saw Gabriel, I was singing in Chicago. I was a singer, you know.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ve heard some of your records.”

  “Now, Mr. Cobb. Now I’m not sure if I believe you.”

  I told her the names of a couple cute novelty numbers of the Joni Sommars, Sue Thompson type. Not big hits, but big enough for an oldies fanatic like me to have come across.

  “Well, this is a pleasure. Why—ah—where was I?”

  “Singing in Chicago.”

  “That’s right. I was singing in a club not far from where I grew up, my first time back to Chicago in years. I had worked so hard at losing my accent—you know I used to have the most tearbl Shkaago aaxnt—but there I was, trying not to talk to anybody, and ruin things, when I saw Gabriel in the audience. I didn’t know who he was, but I just knew in a flash that this was the man I was going to marry.”

  I was scheduled to spend four days to a week in this house, with this woman as my hostess, and I just knew in a flash that this was a bad time to try to explain to her what constitutes evidence and what doesn’t. Instead, I just said, “Fascinating.”

  She waved a jeweled hand at me. “You still don’t believe me. I’ll try to make a prediction about you, and we’ll see if it comes true.”

  I smiled. “That sounds fair. I promise not to go out of my way to thwart it. What’s the prediction?”

  “I have to wait until it comes to me,” she said.

  Wilberforce and Carol Coretti came downstairs, and the hostess went to greet them. Before she left me, she squeezed my hand and assured me that she had predicted her husband’s purchase of the Network, too.

  “Yeah,” said a voice in my ear. “When he buys it, she can predict all the hit shows, and Gabby’ll never have to worry about ratings.”

  I turned to see a stocky guy in a Western suit, tan, with tasteful white piping. He wore a string tie with a turquoise-and-silver slide and a black Stetson, the whole cowboy number. Except for his boots. Instead of cowboy boots, he was wearing high, lace-up stomp boots. He mentioned that he’d slipped on the stairs and twisted his ankle, and was splinting it with the boots. They looked a lot like the boots that had tormented my feet when I was in the army, but they were brown instead of black.

  His eyes were blue and crinkly, and his face was brown and wrinkled but still handsome. I wondered how long he could spend at Rocky Point before that tan started to fade. Despite the Nashville wardrobe, this wasn’t the kind of fellow I could imagine using a sun lamp.

  He stuck out his hand and told me he was Jack Bromhead. “And you must be Cobb. Gabby’s told me a lot about you.”

  He’d told me something about Jack Bromhead, too. How Jack and he had been partners early on, how when they split up the money Jack had pissed his away, then crawled into a bottle, while Gabby had parlayed his into what the newspapers were pleased to call “the Dost Empire.”

  When the first frontiers of the Empire began to take shape, Gabby had found his old partner, sobered him up, and made him his right hand. According to Dost, Jack could handle any kind of equipment, solve any problem, and get along with any person or group of people. His only shortcoming, as Dost saw it, was that he didn’t have the fire in his belly to become
a top businessman.

  “He’ll still climb an oil rig at the drop of a hat, if you let him, or ride a mankiller if somebody mentions there’s one in the stable. Hell, he’s my age, too. There’s lots safer ways to get thrills.”

  That description, and the cowboy outfit, had led me to believe that Jack Bromhead would turn out to be another guy who’d picked his way of life to provide himself with a dipstick for his testosterone level. I run into altogether too many guys like that.

  It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Jack Bromhead wasn’t one of them. I could tell right from the handshake. Bromhead wasn’t a crusher. There was a good healthy squeeze, enough to show the strength was there to be called on if needed.

  “I don’t think Gabby knows a lot about me to tell.”

  Bromhead laughed. It wasn’t quite “haw haw haw,” but it was close. “He thinks he does. Besides, lack of information has never stopped Gabby from telling people a lot about anything. Gabby just tells a lot, period.”

  “I’d noticed that. I like your outfit,” I said,

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “It makes me feel a little underdressed, though.”

  “No, you’re fine.” He dropped his voice a little. “Actually, I just wore it to annoy Aranda. She hates to be reminded that Gabby and me are Western boys. We’ve got some money, thanks to Gabby, but we’re still Western boys.”

  Bromhead lifted his hat and smoothed back a bunch of black-and-white curls. “It’s not that I don’t like her. I’ve liked all of Gabby’s wives. Even the first one, Louise, Barry’s mother. I thought I was a mean drunk, but she was the champ. She was a charming gal before she started drinking, though. Mary Ann was fine, but a little flighty. I liked her, though.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. She doesn’t like anybody around with good memories of Gabby’s previous wives.”

  “Nah, it’s not that. Louise drank herself to death about five years ago, and Mary Ann lives in Hawaii, and the only contact Gabby ever has with her is when the canceled alimony check comes back.

  “It’s just something women do, that’s all. I guess it’s a test to see how much they’re loved or something. They’ve just got to try to force a guy into the position of choosing her or his best friends. Only Gabby and I never let that happen.”

  “She should have predicted it.”

  Bromhead lowered his face, then looked up at me under the brim of his hat. “Yeah. Hey. Your glass is empty. Norman! This man needs some more champagne!”

  None of that was true. My glass was still a quarter full, and I had been planning on nursing it along until dinner started. Now I had to gulp what I had and take another, or feel like an asshole by sending Norman away. I took the second glass.

  Bromhead was grinning at me. “I’m different from most alcoholics. I really liked good liquor. Liked the way it tasted. Now, I stay sober and watch folks who can handle it enjoy it.”

  “Must take a lot of willpower.”

  “Not-drinking gets to be a habit, the way drinking was. Like they tell us at AA, one day at a time. What I do is, I keep remembering the bar I was sitting in in Kansas City when Gabby caught up with me, back when. I remember the heat and the smell of sweat and the flies walking on my face that I was too drunk to shoo away. Then I think of what I’ve got now, the people who call me sir, and want to hold doors for me, and I don’t have too much trouble staying away.”

  I told him I admired him, which was true, and how I doubted that I could do as well in his place, which was also true. He gave it an aw-shucks laugh. This looked like a good opportunity to break away and mingle with the one person I hadn’t spoken to yet—Barry Dost, Gabby’s only child, currently working for his father as Communications Director, PR man to those of us who are not blood relatives of the boss.

  Before I could, though, Gabby Dost made his appearance. “Hell, what’s everybody still standing around for? Dinner’s ready five minutes ago. If I can’t get those donkeys in Phoenix off the phone any sooner, I don’t deserve a hot meal. Come on, now, in the dining room. I’ll bet Agnes’s done herself proud.”

  She had indeed. This was a spread, this was a meal. Looking at the table, and at Agnes Norman’s round face beaming above it, I almost wished I’d spent the day skiing, so I’d have appetite to do it justice. It was the kind of meal you should burn off five or six thousand calories before attempting.

  There was a baked ham the approximate size and shape of Roxanne’s Volkswagen, and a huge platter of fried chicken. Mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, corn. Corn-bread. Crocks of butter and honey.

  Aranda Dost was directing us to chairs. Gabby was at the head of the table, Aranda at the foot. There weren’t enough women to go around, so Roxanne and Carol Coretti were placed at the centers of the two sides. I wound up between Haskell Freed and Barry Dost. How convenient, I thought. I figured I already knew as much as I needed to about Haskell Freed, so I concentrated on my prospective boss’s son.

  Barry Dost had his father’s features, but there was a softness to him, a blurriness around the edges, that was as unlike the hard-edged Gabby Dost as anything you could imagine. He ate nervously, with little quick bites, as though he were a squirrel afraid some big old tomcat would come and chase him away from his meal.

  Not that he was small. I’m six-two, and I didn’t have to tilt my head to look him in the eye. When he would look me in the eye. Most of the time, he looked at his plate, trying to rivet it to the table with his gaze so the tomcat wouldn’t snatch it away from him.

  The only time he looked up was when his father spoke. “Attention, please.” Gabby Dost was holding a drumstick aloft. “Now you know why I called for a casual meal. When things are casual, house etti-quette overrules formal etti-quette. And etti-quette in this house says there’s only one way to eat fried chicken.”

  He brought the drumstick to his mouth and crunched it loudly. Bats Blefary, Roxanne Schick, Carol Coretti, Jack Bromhead, and I applauded. Wilberforce wore his usual deadpan. I noticed Wilberforce had a lot of green beans on his plate. He’s not a vegetarian, but he might as well be, since the only meat he eats is poached breast of turkey.

  Aranda Dost wore a pained smile. The man refused to live up to his income; he insisted on living down to his breeding instead. But what could she do, she loved him, the big lug. I like a facial expression that can speak a whole paragraph, and I almost leaned across the table to tell her so.

  And Barry Dost was glaring at me.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” That’s what I wanted to say. That was what I like to call my New York Response. I have to stifle those a lot. Instead, I tried to be friendly.

  “Your father seems to be getting a much better press lately,” I told him. “That must be your doing.”

  He looked at me again, not glaring. This time, his big brown eyes were bright. “I’ve thought so, too,” he said. “That he’s getting a better press, I mean. I don’t know if it’s my doing, or if it was just time for a change.”

  Barry Dost was two years older than I was, but that softness around the edges made him seem younger. He had a mustache that sort of floated on his lip, and didn’t help, since it looked as if it had been stuck on him to enable him to portray Kim’s father in a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie.

  Right now he wanted reassurance, so I gave it to him. I told him these things are never spontaneous, that as PR man, excuse me, Communications Director, he must have been doing something right.

  “All I did was tell the truth, how much the ordinary people who own stocks in the companies he’s bought have prospered. How the companies my father controls are one hundred percent more profitable ... I mean they’ve all increased their profits, not that they’ve all doubled them.”

  “That’s what I thought you meant.”

  “Charitable donations are way up, too. That was my idea.”

  He was so enthusiastic about his work, I had to smile. I like to see people enjoy their work the way Jack Bromhead liked to see pe
ople enjoy good booze.

  Barry saw that smile and cut me off. Cold. Couldn’t get a word out of him the rest of the meal. This, I thought, is a person with self-esteem problems.

  Dinner broke up, and we went back to the hall for more mill-around. They were standing around in small groups, discussing what they were going to start discussing tomorrow. I heard words like “debenture” and “amortization,” and went and stared out the window at the other end of the room, looking at the snow dancing in the ground lights. The snow seemed to have let up some. I wondered how early I could decently go to bed.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Barry Dost. He was glaring at me again.

  “I’m not everything my father ever wanted in a son.”

  I was beginning to get an inkling of what the note was talking about when it mentioned “madness.” Not that I was ready to petition a court to get Barry Dost committed. I had just decided I would steer clear of him, if possible. It probably wouldn’t be too hard. There must have been fifty rooms in this place.

  But in the meantime, here he was, and I had to say something. “Every son feels that way at one time or another, I guess.” That ought to mollify him, I thought.

  Wrong.

  “I don’t just feel it, I know it. It has been made clear to me ever since I was born. I’m not Gabby Dost’s idea of a son.”

  “Well ...” I began lamely.

  Barry poked a finger in my chest. “Neither are you!” he said.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  He kept poking. “I’ve finally got one little thing he respects me for, the image work I’ve done for him, and it’s something I can build on, and I’m not going to lose him now. Especially not to some corporate opportunist like you!”

  The hall was big enough so that no one was paying attention to us. Still, I suppose it is a bit much to deck your host’s son. That would get us noticed. Instead, I just grabbed his finger. I was careful not to twist.

  “You want to act like a normal person for five minutes and tell me what the trouble is?” I asked.