‘For Christ’s sake, Louise, he’s a nothing. He worked in a carnival. My God, you might as well be marrying a stable hand. He’s handsome – granted. And he has a fab bod. But outside of sex, you have absolutely nothing in common, darling.’
‘Louise, Jeff’s for breakfast, not dinner.’
‘You have a social position to uphold.’
‘Frankly, angel, he just won’t fit in, will he?’
But nothing her friends said could dissuade Louise. Jeff was the most fascinating man she had ever met. She had found that men who were outstandingly handsome were either monumentally stupid or unbearably dull. Jeff was intelligent and amusing, and the combination was irresistible.
When Louise mentioned the subject of marriage to Jeff, he was as surprised as her friends had been.
‘Why marriage? You’ve already got my body. I can’t give you anything you don’t have.’
‘It’s very simple, Jeff. I love you. I want to share the rest of my life with you.’
Marriage had been an alien idea, and suddenly it no longer was. Beneath Louise Hollander’s worldly, sophisticated veneer, there was a vulnerable, lost little girl. She needs me, Jeff thought. The idea of a stable homelife and children was suddenly immensely appealing. It seemed to him that ever since he could remember, he had been running. It was time to stop.
They were married in the town hall in Tahiti three days later.
When they returned to New York, Jeff was summoned to the office of Scott Fogarty, Louise Hollander’s attorney, a small, frigid man, tight-lipped and probably, Jeff thought, tight-assed.
‘I have a paper here for you to sign,’ the attorney announced.
‘What kind of paper?’
‘It’s a release. It simply states that in the event of the dissolution of your marriage to Louise Hollander –’
‘Louise Stevens.’
‘– Louise Stevens, that you will not participate financially in any of her –’
Jeff felt the muscles of his jaw tightening. ‘Where do I sign?’
‘Don’t you want me to finish reading?’
‘No. I don’t think you get the point. I didn’t marry her for her fucking money.’
‘Really, Mr Stevens! I just –’
‘Do you want me to sign it or don’t you?’
The lawyer placed the paper in front of Jeff. He scrawled his signature and stormed out of the office. Louise’s limousine and driver were waiting for him downstairs. As Jeff climbed in, he had to laugh to himself. What the hell am I so pissed off about? I’ve been a con artist all my life, and when I go straight for the first time and someone thinks I’m out to take them, I behave like a fucking Sunday school teacher.
Louise took Jeff to the best tailor in Manhattan. ‘You’ll look fantastic in a dinner jacket,’ she coaxed. And he did. Before the second month of the marriage, five of Louise’s best friends had tried to seduce the attractive newcomer in their circle, but Jeff ignored them. He was determined to make this marriage work.
Budge Hollander, Louise’s brother, put Jeff up for membership in the exclusive New York Pilgrim Club, and Jeff was accepted. Budge was a beefy, middle-aged man who had obtained his sobriquet playing right tackle on the Harvard football team, where he got the reputation of being a player his opponents could not budge. He owned a shipping line, a banana plantation, cattle ranches, a meat-packing company, and more corporations than Jeff could count. Budge Hollander was not subtle in concealing his contempt for Jeff Stevens.
‘You’re really out of our class, aren’t you, old boy? But as long as you amuse Louise in bed, that will do nicely. I’m fond of my sister.’
It took every ounce of willpower for Jeff to control himself. I’m not married to this prick. I’m married to Louise.
The other members of the Pilgrim Club were equally obnoxious. They found Jeff terribly amusing. All of them dined at the club every noontime, and pleaded for Jeff to tell them stories about his ‘carnie days’, as they liked to call them. Perversely, Jeff made the stories more and more outrageous.
Jeff and Louise lived in a twenty-room townhouse filled with servants, on the East Side of Manhattan. Louise had estates in Long Island and the Bahamas, a villa in Sardinia, and a large apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris. Aside from the yacht, Louise owned a Maserati, a Rolls Corniche, a Lamborghini and a Daimler.
It’s fantastic, Jeff thought.
It’s great, Jeff thought.
It’s boring, Jeff thought. And degrading.
One morning he got up from his eighteenth-century four-poster bed, put on a Sulka robe, and went looking for Louise. He found her in the breakfast room.
‘I’ve got to get a job,’ he told her.
‘For heaven’s sake, darling, why? We don’t need the money.’
‘It has nothing to do with money. You can’t expect me to sit around on my hands and be spoon-fed. I have to work.’
Louise gave it a moment’s thought. ‘All right, angel. I’ll speak to Budge. He owns a stockbro-kerage firm. Would you like to be a stockbroker, darling?’
‘I just want to get off my ass,’ Jeff muttered.
He went to work for Budge. He had never had a job with regular hours before. I’m going to love it, Jeff thought.
He hated it. He stayed with it because he wanted to bring home a salary cheque to his wife.
‘When are you and I going to have a baby?’ he asked Louise, after a lazy Sunday brunch.
‘Soon, darling. I’m trying.’
‘Come to bed. Let’s try again.’
Jeff was seated at the luncheon table reserved for his brother-in-law and half a dozen other captains of industry at the Pilgrim Club.
Budge announced, ‘We just issued our annual report for the meat-packing company, fellas. Our profits are up forty percent.’
‘Why shouldn’t they be?’ one of the men at the table laughed. ‘You’ve got the fucking inspectors bribed.’ He turned to the others at the table. ‘Old clever Budge, here, buys inferior meat and has it stamped prime and sells it for a bloody fortune.’
Jeff was shocked. ‘People eat meat, for Christ’s sake. They feed it to their children. He’s kidding, isn’t he, Budge?’
Budge grinned and whooped, ‘Look who’s being moral!’
Over the next three months Jeff became very well acquainted with his table companions. Ed Zeller had paid a million in bribes in order to build a factory in Libya. Mike Quincy, the head of a conglomerate, was a raider who bought companies and illegally tipped off his friends when to buy and sell the stock. Alan Thompson, the richest man at the table, boasted of his company’s policy. ‘Before they changed the damn law, we used to fire the old grey hairs one year before their pensions were due. Saved a fortune.’
All the men cheated on taxes, had insurance scams, falsified expense accounts, and put their current mistresses on their payroll as secretaries or assistants.
Christ, Jeff thought. They’re just dressed-up carnies. They all run flat stores.
The wives were no better. They grabbed everything they could get their greedy hands on and cheated on their husbands. They’re playing the key game, Jeff marvelled.
When