Always and Forever Page 34

  “Kathy, he won’t try that again,” Noel said gently. “He’ll look for another angle.”

  “What?” she challenged. She felt sick at the thought of Jesse’s being kidnapped by Phil. “This is what I’ve been afraid of since the day I left him.”

  “I don’t know,” Noel conceded. “But before he tries anything else, he’ll pull back and reevaluate the situation. Don’t let Jesse take the school bus anymore. Have him driven to school and picked up.”

  “Suppose he gets a court order!” Panic began to close in on her.

  “For what?” Lee questioned. “He’ll have to go into court if he’s after custody. And if it comes to a court scene, you can fight him. Locate that woman you told me about. Jesse’s nursemaid who saw Phil strike you. You can fight this, Kathy.”

  “I’m scared,” Kathy whispered. “And so tired of running.”

  “Sit back and let him make the next move,” Noel said.

  “He’s not taking Jesse from you. You’ll fight, and you’ll win in court.”

  “And Jesse will be put through such ugliness.” Kathy closed her eyes in anguish.

  “Jesse can handle this,” Lee said firmly. “If it comes to court.”

  “Meanwhile, the three of us will watch over Jesse,” Noel said. “There’ll be no violent moves to take him away.” His own grief had receded in his anxiety to comfort her. “And if you get served with divorce papers, we’ll help you fight Phil. He won’t get custody of Jesse.”

  But how could she know what a judge would decide?

  Phil was nervous about his initial meeting with his father, back from the Toronto business trip. Two days later he felt a new confidence. Earlier this morning he’d received a phone call from Andrews.

  He left the Peugeot in the garage near the office and strode purposefully toward his regular morning rendezvous with his father. The plate-glass window of the restaurant steamed over from the sudden cold spell.

  Normally he would have been pissed at Andrews calling so early in the morning, he thought as he walked inside. The aromas of bacon sizzling on the grill, coffee perking, bread browning in a toaster clothed him in an aura of well-being.

  “Andrews will be here any minute,” he told his father, and grinned as Julius’s eyebrows shot upward. “He’s got something hot to report.”

  “Like what?” Julius demanded.

  “He didn’t want to discuss it over the phone.”

  For a few moments they kibitzed with the waitress, then focused on their first coffee of the morning.

  “Here’s Andrews,” Phil said, gazing at the entrance.

  “Look, we don’t let him drag this out into a big deal,” Julius warned. “If it’s hot, we go with it. We don’t need him anymore.”

  “Dad, don’t jump.” Phil was testy. “Let’s keep him until we have all we need.”

  “She’s shacked up with some guy,” Andrews reported when he was settled in the booth. “He’s been there three days now—she leaves for work in the morning, but he stays at the house.”

  “Who is he?” Phil bristled.

  “I haven’t latched on to a name yet. That comes next.” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a collection of snapshots. “Do you recognize him?” He handed some of the snapshots to Phil, others to Julius.

  “Never saw him before,” Phil said after a moment. The little slut. Screwing around—with Jesse right there in the house.

  “What good do these do?” Julius challenged. “We need a picture of them in bed.”

  “I’m working on it,” Andrews said, faintly hostile. “I can’t bring them in for a photo session.”

  “We want incriminating shots of them,” Julius emphasized, his voice telling Andrews that he was contemptuous of what the P.I. had brought them. “These will mean shit in court.”

  “I’m on it.” Andrews was defensive now. “One thing at a time.”

  Kathy glanced up from her desk as Marge walked into her office and closed the door behind her.

  “I just heard something I don’t like,” Marge said, dropping into a chair across from Kathy. “Some man has been floating about the office and asking questions of employees—”

  “What kind of questions?” Kathy leaned forward in instant alarm. “About me?”

  “That’s the odd part. He’s not asking about you. He’s showing a photograph of Noel. He wants to know who Noel is.” Marge paused. “He can’t be somebody in our field. Noel’s well-known.”

  “But he connected Noel with the business,” Kathy said warily. Pieces hurtled together in her mind; her throat tightened as she considered the implications. “Marge, Phil knows about the business—that I’m Kathy Altman. And he knows Noel is living at the Croton house. Don’t you understand?” Her face was drained of color. “Phil discovered Noel was at the house, but he doesn’t know who Noel is. It’s clear now. Phil has somebody trailing me to come up with something to take into court. Phil thinks I’m having an affair with Noel.”

  “Honey, that’s a bad joke.” But Marge appeared upset.

  “Phil couldn’t grab Jesse, so he’s trying another tactic. He’s after evidence to take into court to fight me for custody of Jesse.”

  “How could he use Noel for that? You know the kind of stuff a husband has to bring into court if he’s asking for child custody. Phil doesn’t have that.”

  “I don’t trust Phil and Julius. They’ll have photographs doctored, make composites. You’ve read what sleazy investigators and lawyers do in divorce cases.”

  “Kathy, you’re jumping to conclusions.” Marge tried to be reassuring. “There must be some simple explanation for all this. For some reason some idiot must be out to blackmail Noel.”

  “Marge, Noel is very open about his life style. They can’t be trying to blackmail him.”

  “I’ll go out to the house with you tonight. The three of us will sit down and try to figure this thing out.”

  “Instinct tells me Phil is behind this. He knows Noel is living at the Croton house. He doesn’t know that Noel is gay, and he’s sure Noel and I are having an affair. There’re his grounds for divorce. It’ll be awful for Jesse if Phil tries to use Noel in a custody battle. But we can’t keep running,” she said in pain. “Jesse will be twelve next June. We can’t keep running until his eighteenth birthday.”

  “We’ll talk about it tonight with Noel. After all,” she said humorously, “Phil can’t accuse you of having an affair with a man who’s quick to tell anyone that he’s gay.”

  “A lawyer would say he’s bisexual. Or worse, nail me for being an immoral mother, exposing her young son to the attentions of an admitted homosexual.” Kathy paused in anguish. “This all goes back to that group photo in Women’s Wear Daily. Phil saw it, spotted me, hired a private investigator, and they’ve been on my trail ever since. And Jesse—my baby—will be the one who’s hurt most of all.”

  Chapter 31

  NOEL LISTENED SOBERLY WHILE Marge told him about the man questioning company employees. Kathy had shipped Jesse off to his room to do homework. Noel and the two women sat in the den before the fireplace, where flames enveloped a cluster of birch logs. Lee had gone to a movie with a local friend.

  “He had a photograph of you, Noel,” Kathy pointed out. “A snapshot.”

  “And somebody, of course, gave him my name,” Noel guessed. “It was the natural thing to do.”

  “I suspect Phil is having me followed,” Kathy was tense and tired. “And now he thinks he has evidence that I’m having an affair with you.”

  “You know what you have to do, Kathy.” The situation had mercifully drawn Noel out of his despondency. “You have to beat Phil at his own game. Hire yourself a sharp private eye.”

  “Right.” Marge nodded with conviction. “Kathy, you know Phil’s always screwing around with some woman. It won’t be hard to track down the current one—he’s always in the gossip columns. You’ll jump the gun on him.”

  “I feel so awful,” Kathy whispered. “Th
is seems so crude and shoddy.”

  “You get there first,” Noel persisted. Compassionate but firm. “Ten to one he’ll backtrack fast. And you’ll live ever after without always staring over your shoulder.”

  “Suppose I don’t get evidence against Phil?” Kathy recoiled from the situation the other two advised.

  Marge chuckled.

  “Phil leaves a trail behind him that any self-respecting bird dog could pick up. It’s a matter now of pinning down the evidence and sending your lawyer to face Phil. A quiet divorce outside New York State—in Mexico or the Virgin Islands—and no custody battle. Everything out of the public eye. Jesse won’t be hurt.”

  “It’s important to move fast,” Noel warned Kathy. “Stop Phil before he gets moving.”

  Phil sat hunched over his desk, fighting frustration while his father scowled at the snapshots Andrews had just presented to them, along with a hefty expense account.

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Julius shouted. “So she’s kissing a guy good-bye at the airport. What can we do with that? All this time and you can’t come up with better?”

  “I’m playing on a hunch,” Andrews said softly. “Even with that damn mutt barking his head off, I’ve been close enough three or four times to look right into the house. No signs of any hanky-panky. They sleep in separate rooms. So I started thinking. The guy comes from San Francisco. ‘Gay heaven.’ So I’ve got somebody checking on him out there. I’ll have a report in a few days.”

  “You mean he’s a queer?” Julius glared at Andrews. “That’ll screw up everything.”

  “We don’t know that yet. But if we can prove he is, don’t you get the picture?” Andrews stared smugly from Julius to Phil.

  “The little bitch!” Phil yelled. “She’s keeping my son in a house with a gay guy! If he’s touched Jesse, I’ll break every bone in his body!”

  “You get incontrovertible proof that he’s gay,” Julius ordered Andrews. “We’ll go into court and blast her as an immoral mother. We’ll get custody of Jesse. She’ll be headlines in Confidential and all the tabloids. And don’t drag your feet!”

  When Andrews left, the other two men turned to discussion of business. Phil was elated because at last he could see himself holding the fifty percent of stock in Julius Kohn Furs. The old man couldn’t stall anymore. In another five years, he reasoned, his father could be persuaded to retire. No more of the heated hassles that usually ended the way he wanted, anyway.

  “Drive up to the house with me for the weekend,” Julius said. “I want to go over the sales reports from the concessions with you.”

  “I’ll drive up in the morning,” Phil hedged. “I have a dinner party tonight. It’s too important to cancel out at the last moment.”

  Julius gazed appraisingly at his son.

  “You keep your nose clean from here on in,” he ordered. “We don’t want her going after your hide once she finds out what’s up. Forget about being horny until the divorce and custody suit is settled. You’ll need a sharp attorney, even when Andrews brings us in the evidence. But she’s going to get shafted good,” he said maliciously.

  “I’m still not home free,” Phil said. Not that he believed otherwise, but the old man was so smug all the time, he enjoyed needling him.

  “Just about,” Julius contradicted with a grin. “I’ve got a gut feeling this Noel Bartlett character is a real fruitcake, and that’s all we need. She kept this guy in her house—left him alone with her young, impressionable son.”

  “I doubt that they were alone,” Phil demurred. “Kathy must have a housekeeper. She’s making a mint from the business.” That rankled, both with him and the old man, Phil admitted to himself.

  “Who’s side are you on?” Julius flared. “If she kept a gay guy in the house with your son, you’re supposed to be outraged. You made enough fuss when Andrews first mentioned it.”

  “I’ll carry on in court,” Phil promised. Now he was envisioning himself as the maltreated husband, the heroic father rushing in to save his son from possible molestation.

  Julius pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

  “Come out to the house tomorrow morning,” he said. “And remember, Phil, no fucking around until this is over. Don’t give the little bitch ammunition to use against you.”

  As usual on Fridays, Wally arrived to pick up Julius by 4 P.M. in hopes of missing the rush-hour traffic at the Queens-boro Bridge. Phil dallied at the office until past six. He had a dinner date with the gorgeous redhead—Debbie Matthews—who had worked as a temp in the office last week. Eighteen, fresh out of drama school, and ambitious as hell, he remembered complacently. She worked as an office temp three times a week and made theatrical rounds twice a week. Even these days anybody involved in theater fascinated him. And the temps used a lot of would-be actresses.

  They were having dinner at that quiet French place on West 55th Street. Afterward they’d go to some cheap little hotel in the Times Square area. He wouldn’t take a chance on bringing her to the apartment. This time the old man was right.

  He was whistling as he left the building and hailed a cab. He didn’t notice the man in a beat-up suede jacket and jockey cap who was following his progress with keen interest. In his mind he was already in bed with the gorgeous young redhead.

  Twelve hours later he responded to a wake-up call from the switchboard operator.

  “Thanks,” he said briskly. “I won’t need a follow-up call.”

  While Debbie slept contentedly beneath a clump of blankets, Phil showered and dressed. She knew he’d be away for the weekend, but he’d see her again Monday night. He scrawled a note and propped it up against the phone on the night table. He’d go over to the garage, pick up his car, and head for Greenwich. The old man would be champing at the bit if he wasn’t at the breakfast table by 8:30.

  When he arrived at the Greenwich house, he found his father at the breakfast room table, engrossed in the New York Times.

  “Where were you last night?” Julius demanded. “I tried to reach you half a dozen times.”

  “I told you,” he reminded nonchalantly. “I had a dinner party. A jet-set crowd.” A new name had just been coined for what used to be called café society. The rich and the restless, who took one of the new jets for a weekend in London, for three days in Rio during Carnival season, to Paris or St. Moritz or wherever partying was at its height.

  “I had a call from Andrews. He wasn’t wasting time.” Julius put aside the newspaper. “He’s talked with his San Francisco contact. That Bartlett character, one of her partners in the business,” he emphasized, “is a well-known gay. He’s almost obnoxiously frank about it. Monday morning you contact that lawyer who handled Max Edelman’s divorce—”

  “Good morning, Mother—” Phil pushed back his chair as his mother walked into the breakfast room and greeted her with the expected filial kiss.

  “Tell Amanda to get breakfast on the table,” Julius told Bella. “And tell her not to be stingy with the lox.”

  “In a moment. Who’s in need of a divorce lawyer?” Bella asked warily, sitting at the table.

  “Phil, that’s who,” Julius said with an air of triumph.

  “You’ve been in touch with Kathy?” Her face lighted.

  “Yeah,” Phil conceded. “We know where she is, but she doesn’t know we know.”

  Bella gazed from Phil to Julius, eyes dark with suspicion.

  “What are you two cooking up?”

  “Phil’s divorcing Kathy and gaining custody of Jesse,” Julius told her. Exuding smugness.

  “You can’t take Jesse away from his mother!” Bella lashed out at him.

  “What do you mean, we can’t?” Julius challenged. “She walked out on her husband. She’s living with some gay guy from San Francisco, with my grandson in the same house!”

  “The guy’s gone back to San Francisco now,” Phil admitted, “but he stayed at the house for almost two weeks. We’ve got enough ammunition to guarantee me cus
tody of Jesse.”

  “Jesse belongs with his mother,” Bella said ominously. “Don’t try one of your weird tricks.” Her eyes swung from Phil to Julius. “You can’t do this.”

  “We can, and we will.”

  “I doubt that.” Bella was quiet for a moment. “Not considering why Kathy walked out.”

  “What do you know about that?” Julius challenged.

  “I’ve talked to Alice. She works for the Hales now, down the road. She saw Phil physically mistreat Kathy. She’s almost sure Kathy’s nose was broken. And she’d be happy to testify on Kathy’s behalf if ever the need arises.” Bella spoke in even tones, but Phil sensed her inner rage.

  “You damned schmuck!” Julius yelled at Phil. “You never told me you pushed her around! In front of the nursemaid, yet!”

  “She goaded me into it,” Phil defended himself. “You’d have lost your temper, too. And I’ll bet Alice is bluffing. She didn’t come in until I was leaving the room.”

  “Bluffing or not, she’s willing to testify,” Julius reminded. “We don’t want that.” He was shaken by this unexpected turn.

  “Perhaps you can work out an amicable divorce,” Bella suggested. “You do want a divorce?”

  “You’re damn right I want a divorce.” Phil’s face was flushed.

  “But she doesn’t get a cent,” Julius warned. “That’s one of the conditions.”

  “I know Kathy,” Bella said quietly. “She wouldn’t want a scandal for Jesse’s sake. Tell me where she is, and I’ll go talk to her.”

  “Phil won’t give up custody of his son,” Julius bellowed defiantly. “Maybe six months with his mother and six months with us—”

  “I don’t want Kathy going into court and saying I beat her up.” How the hell could he have known Alice was there all the time? “How would that look to people?”

  “Tell me where she is, and I’ll go talk to her,” Bella repeated.

  “We don’t have a home phone number,” Phil hedged. Everything was falling apart. “We know where she lives, and that she’s the CEO of 4-S Shops Inc. She’s using the name Kathy Altman.” Even his mother—addicted to big-name designers—recognized that, he realized in irritation.