Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

“I was married twice,” Curtis told him. And sounding more grim than before: “The second one was the mistake.” Then he lightened again, and turned to rest his hand on Cindy Peters’s, saying, “You don’t mind if I talk about my wives, do you?”

“Just so you don’t bring them around,” she said.

“No fear,” he told her, and turned back to Manville to say, “My first wife died at thirty-nine of leukemia.”

Cindy Peters looked shocked and embarrassed, as Curtis had no doubt intended, and Manville said, “I’m very sorry.”

“So was I, George, so was I. Isabel was my life to me. She got me started in business, what a team we were going to be.” His jaw set and his eyes looked angry, and he said, “Isabel would have known how to deal with the goddam mainlanders. She was Hong Kong born and bred, she’d have tied them in knots, not run around wasting time and money like me.”

Manville said, “She was Chinese?”

“No, a Brit,” Curtis said. “Her background was. Her grandfather came out, started a construction company on the island, over a hundred years ago. Called it Hoklo Construction, which was a joke, because the Hoklo were 17th-century pirates from China that settled in Hong Kong and then assimilated and disappeared, so anybody could be Hoklo. Anybody could be a pirate, you see?”

Manville said, “It’s an interesting point.”

“One Isabel’s grandfather always kept in mind,” Curtis said, “as should have his successors. Anyway, the grandfather built the business, and went back to England to marry, and had children, and his first two sons took over the business, and Isabel was a daughter of the second son. I was just a roustabout from Oklahoma, my father was in construction but in a small way, little tract houses in developments in the dirt around Tulsa, not like Hoklo. They were big, always, from the beginning, building the big godowns the Chinese used for waterfront warehouses, putting up office buildings, apartment houses. I was always interested in travel, seeing something other than the tan dirt of Tulsa, and when I got to Hong Kong I took a job for a while with Hoklo, and met Isabel, and that’s where it all started.”

Manville said, “You went into the firm.”

“I became the firm,” Curtis said, and his voice was harsh again, but then it softened as he said, “The difference between the first generation and the third, you see, the first generation has to work for it, and the second generation at least gets to see their parents work for it, but the third generation gets it handed to them on a plate, with no idea there’s any work involved. Isabel’s brother and two of her cousins were supposed to take over the company, and it would have been like having the company taken over by the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

“You took it away from them.”

Curtis smiled. If tigers smiled, it would look like that. “I showed them what it was like to be in a fight,” he said.

“And lose,” Manville suggested.

“I was always the one to bet on,” Curtis said. “And then, no sooner was it mine, mine and Isabel’s, than it hit her.”

Cindy Peters put a sympathetic hand on his forearm. “That must have been horrible.”

He nodded at her, “It killed me, Cindy. I was dead before she was, and she was dead in five months.”

“Oh, Dick. I don’t know what to say.”

“Thank you, Cindy.”

Manville noticed, but thought that Cindy did not, that his smile to her was patronizing, that it said, thank you for your sympathy, but you’re too shallow to know what I really went through. He holds himself aloof from the human race, Manville thought, and that’s why he can be so dangerous.

Curtis turned back to Manville to say, “It was because I missed Isabel so much that I married again, which was probably the biggest mistake of my life, and I know you know I’ve made a number of mistakes.”

“We all do,” Manville said.

“But I don’t get mad at other people’s mistakes,” Curtis said. “Not the way I get mad at my own. The thing is, George, it’s too goddam easy for a man to be an idiot. I married Rita because she looked like Isabel. Looked like. They couldn’t have been more different, they— I’ll let it go at that. When I realized— Well. I’ll let it go at that.”

Manville said, “Is Rita still alive?”

Curtis laughed. He seemed genuinely amused. He said, “I’m not Henry the Eighth, George. Rita and I divorced, seven months into the marriage. She got a damn good settlement. She doesn’t think so, of course, but she did.”

Curtis turned away, the veneer of friendliness gone, his attention back on the food on his plate, and Manville picked up his knife and fork as well; it was time to quit, while he was ahead.

At the end of the meal, as though a sudden gong had gone off, though in fact there had been no signal at all that Manville could see, both Farrellys thanked their employer, told Manville and Cindy how lovely it had been to meet them both, patted their mouths with their napkins, rose, said good night, and left the room, through a wide doorway down at the living room end.

Manville, starting to rise, said, “I should go, too. Thank you—”

“Wait, George,” Curtis said. “Cindy, George and I have a little boring business to talk over, and then I’ll be up.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be reading.” And she too on her way out assured Manville it had been a pleasure to meet him.

Once they were alone, Curtis gestured toward the living room. “Let’s get comfortable over there, let them clear this away.”

“All right.”

As they walked across the long room, Curtis said, “Brandy? A cordial? After-dinner drink?”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

Curtis patted Manville’s shoulder. “Come on, George, you don’t have to be wary with me.”

Manville looked at him, astonished. “Of course I do.”

Curtis shrugged and shook his head, as though abashed. “Well, I suppose you do,” he said. “Or you have reason to think you do, which is the same thing. Take that chair, it’s comfortable and it isn’t impossible to get out of.”

They sat at right angles, and Curtis seemed to be thinking for a minute how to phrase himself. Then he said, “I owe you an apology, George. And I offer it.”

“Thank you,” Manville said, wondering what on earth was coming next.

“ With an explanation,” Curtis said, and grinned at him. “Mea culpa, but with an explanation. Okay?”

“Fine,” Manville said.

“You know the situation I’m in, I told you some of it.”

“You told me some,” Manville agreed. “I guess you thought you told me too much.”

“I was running on panic, George,” Curtis said, “what should have been a perfect day was completely destroyed. Your technique on Kanowit Island was perfect, it showed me I can do it again when I need to. My investors were happy, very impressed. But all of a sudden there was Jerry Diedrich, that son of a bitch, spoiling my day yet again. And I realized, the man would find some way to trip me up when I was ready to make the move, the real move. Don’t worry, George, I’m not going to tell you any more about that move. I maybe didn’t tell you too much, out there on the Mallory , but I almost did. It’ll be better for both of us if you don’t know any more than you know now.”

“Fine by me.”

“The thing is, I panicked,” Curtis said. “And then one damn thing led to another. First, Diedrich is going to destroy me. But no, he killed a diver and I can destroy him . No, the goddam girl’s alive, I’m back to square one. But she should be dead, She’s beat up enough, maybe she’ll die. Maybe there’s no reason for her to live. And you know, if you hadn’t intervened, between us, Captain Zhang and me, we would have finished her off.”