Glamour Puss

  “Stella, I’ve got to ask you something. Something important.” Mac removed the note from his pocket and laid it on the table.

  “Regarding Aubrey?”

  “Yes.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice even though no one was within easy hearing. “Have you ever told anyone what happened?”

  She blinked with surprise, but didn’t seem to be upset by the question. “No, of course not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Stella glanced at the nearest table and, lowering her voice, said, “Certainly. Something like that doesn’t slip out accidentally in conversation.”

  “What about with your therapist or masseuse or hairdresser?”

  “Mac, I’m not an idiot. Don’t you think I appreciate how sensitive that is? I scarcely allow myself to think about it, much less discuss it with anyone. Why?”

  “I haven’t said anything, either,” he said. “Which means I’m hard-pressed to explain this note somebody left at my front door a couple of days ago.” He slid the envelope across the table to her.

  Stella picked it up, glancing at what had been written on the outside.

  “Go ahead, read it.”

  She removed the slip of paper, her fingers trembling slightly. Mac watched her eyes. They rounded as she read, “I know what you did on Friday, October 13, 1978.”

  Also available from MIRA Books and R.J. KAISER

  PAYBACK

  JANE DOE

  FRUITCAKE

  HOODWINKED

  GLAMOUR PUSS

  R.J. KAISER

  To the memory of my mother, Ruth E. Kaiser, 1913 to 1999.

  Contents

  The Past

  Friday, October 13, 1978

  Saturday, October 14, 1978

  The Present

  Wednesday, August 23, 2000

  Thursday, August 24, 2000

  Friday, August 25, 2000

  Saturday, August 26, 2000

  Sunday, August 27, 2000

  Monday, August 28, 2000

  Tuesday, August 29, 2000

  Wednesday, August 30, 2000

  The Past

  Friday, October 13, 1978

  West Los Angeles

  Joseph McGowan was funny about some things. Adultery, for example. He never liked the word. Or what it stood for.

  Of course, later, when Stella told him adultery was no longer a crime in California, he felt better about it. But only a little. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” she’d said. “I’m the one who committed adultery. You were a fornicator.” Stella had a way of putting the most suggestive spin on things sometimes. But, considering he was only twenty-four, Joseph McGowan—known to the world as Mac McGowan—kind of liked that about her. It made her seem dangerous.

  Standing in her backyard as Manny and Todd built the forms, Mac glanced up at the second-floor slider on the balcony outside Stella’s bedroom. Sure enough, she was peeking from behind the drapes, smiling at him. Then she stuck out her bare leg for anybody to see. She could be a tease, that Stella. And she sure knew how to embarrass him.

  Mac looked to see if the guys noticed, but they were busy doing their job. He shook his finger at her, giving her a disapproving look. But that only egged her on, because the next thing he knew, Stella had jumped out from behind the drapes in a little beach cover-up and flashed him. Then she closed the robe and blew him a kiss.

  Mac about died, turning bright red. She must have known she’d embarrassed him because he could see her laugh. “You shouldn’t do that,” he’d told her a few days earlier when she’d done the same thing. “One of the guys might see.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, Mac? You’ve got to loosen up.”

  “Hey, I’m making love to a married woman, practically under her husband’s nose, and you’re questioning my sense of adventure?”

  “You’re not doing that for the excitement,” she’d said. “You’re doing it for love.”

  And the funny thing was, he couldn’t dispute that, even in his own mind.

  “Hey, boss,” Manny said, tossing down his shovel. “Any chance of me…” Having noticed Mac staring up at the house, he looked up, too. “Will you look at that,” he said. “She’s standing there in that little skimpy outfit again. You know, boss, she spends as much time looking at us as we do at her.”

  “I think she’s lonely,” Mac said innocently. “How’d you like to spend your days all by yourself in that big house?”

  “With her, I wouldn’t mind,” Manny said, twisting his lip. “I think the woman’s problem is she needs a good fuck.”

  Mac felt the color rising in his face again, but at least he knew Manny wasn’t onto him, which was a good thing. Mac wasn’t one to talk about his conquests, nor did he want to set a bad example. Hitting on the customers, especially customers’ wives, was not the message he wanted to send to his crew.

  “Never mind her,” he said, reeling in his tape measure. “What were you saying?”

  Manny gave a final glance up at Stella’s window, but she’d already stepped away. “Uh…I was wondering if you’d mind if I took off a little early. I got to go by the DMV and straighten out a problem with my vehicle registration. Anyway, today’s Friday the thirteenth. The less work done, the less you risk screwing up.”

  “Assuming you’re superstitious,” Mac said.

  “You aren’t?”

  “No, but I was thinking we ought to knock off soon, anyway.”

  Manny, pleased to hear it, grinned.

  “A short day today,” Mac said, “but we make up for it tomorrow. We got to get this pool poured, which means showing up prepared to work. Todd,” he called across the site, “let’s knock off. We’ve got an early morning.”

  “And Monday we’re off, too, right?”

  “Right.”

  Mac moved to the other side of the huge hole in the ground where he could keep an eye on Stella’s window without being obvious. He was already thinking about getting laid, which was fine, except he had to keep his wits about him enough to get this job done properly. They were at the stage where all the forms were pretty much in place and were ready for the first cement truck to come rolling in.

  After a few minutes Manny and Todd had gathered their tools and were ready to go. “Don’t forget, we’ve got an early start,” he told them.

  “Sure thing, boss,” Todd said.

  After glancing up at Stella’s window, Manny nodded, then said goodbye. He and Todd lumbered off. Once they’d disappeared around the side of the house, Mac put his hands on his hips and gazed up at Stella’s window once more. Sure enough, she appeared, smiling and posing in her little cover-up. She opened it again, but instead of a quick flash, she let it slide off her shoulders and drop to the floor. She was naked as a jaybird, and Mac, knowing what lay ahead, felt himself starting to get hard.

  Stella held up a finger as if to say, “I’ll be down in a minute,” then she left the window. Mac went over to the pool house to wait for her. The place had a shower, but Stella told him she didn’t want him to get cleaned up before they made love. “I want a raw man,” she’d told him. “Just the way you are.”

  Mac knew he was living a fantasy, having sex daily with a beautiful starlet. And it was just as well he was close-mouthed about his personal life, because nobody would believe him.

  There was a hitch, of course. Stella’s husband. Aubrey St. George was not your average chump. He was a first-class, dyed-in-the-wool bastard. Pushy, condescending and downright mean. It was the mean part that got to Mac most.

  He didn’t want to use the fact that Aubrey was a prick to justify the fact that he was a fornicator. In fact, Mac felt terribly guilty. But he was able to live with himself because he was protecting Stella. Her vulnerability made it seem right that
they should be together—almost destined.

  Stella had a way of making a guy feel pretty good about himself, too. She made him feel like a stud. “God,” she’d said after their first time. “Whatever made me think Glamour Puss was good? Compared to you, Mac, he’s a piker.”

  That’s the way everyone referred to Aubrey St. George—Glamour Puss. “When’s Glamour Puss coming home?” he’d ask. “You sure he won’t just show up unexpected?” And she’d say, “Don’t worry about Glamour

  Puss, he’s off getting laid. And don’t ask me who with. I’ve lost track.”

  In film circles, Aubrey St. George was called Glamour Puss because he was both handsome and self-possessed. But Mac and Stella used the term with derision. Mac didn’t feel bad about that—just like he didn’t feel too bad about laying the guy’s wife in the first place—because Aubrey was a certified SOB. He was cruel to Stella, treating her worse than a dog. More than once, Mac had worried about her safety. When he’d told her that, she’d given him a kiss on the corner of the mouth and said, “You’re a sweet man, Mac McGowan.” The little quiver in her voice told him she meant it.

  Maybe he was sweet, he didn’t know. His mother used to tell him stuff like that when he was growing up and, yes, he was the type who’d dance with the wallflowers in high school, even if he was something of a stud. Not that he was a pretty boy like Aubrey St. George. Maybe not even truly handsome. Mac was “good-looking.” At twenty-four, he was six-three, masculine, athletic, well built, fair. Stella called him a “big lug,” but one who “sure knows his way around the bedroom.” Mostly, though, she liked him because he made her feel safe. Mac liked that a lot because making her feel safe was exactly what he wanted to do. And with that as a starting point, love couldn’t be far behind.

  Mac was not one to hate people, but Aubrey St. George was someone he just couldn’t abide. Actually, he’d formed a low opinion of the man the first time he laid eyes on him—the day Mac had first come to their house to bid on the new pool. He’d seen Stella for the first time that day, too, but they didn’t speak. He had glimpses of her in the kitchen in this little yellow bikini, and later, when she’d come out on the deck. The image of her—blond and vulnerable—stuck in his brain and haunted him during the couple of weeks between that day and when they broke ground. It probably even induced him to trim some of the profit out of his bid to make sure he got the job.

  St. George, much smaller than the man Mac had seen numerous times on the big silver screen, had greeted him at the door bare-chested, wearing shorts and with his Persian cat, G.P., in his arms. In naming his cat after himself, Glamour Puss not only showed how self-centered he was, but also that, after a fashion, he had a sense of humor. The actor, perfectly tanned, his blue eyes stunning against the backdrop of carefully coiffed dark hair and lashes, had said, “Mac McGowan? I didn’t expect anybody so young.”

  “I’ve got plenty of experience, Mr. St. George. It’s all on the info sheets I sent.”

  Aubrey looked at him critically as he stroked G.P. “Were you the one who did Jack Palance’s pool?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, come have a look at the site.”

  Mac had followed him through the house. Stella was at the kitchen table in her bikini, reading a magazine.

  “Can you get off your butt long enough to get me a beer?” Aubrey snarled at her as they headed for the deck. “You want one, McGowan?”

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “Just one!” he shouted back at Stella.

  The two men had stood on the deck looking down the slope on which the house had been built, Aubrey stroking his cat, Mac evaluating the configuration of the land.

  “The engineers were aware you were putting a pool in,” Mac said.

  “Yes. The big retaining wall down there was engineered precisely for that purpose.”

  Mac nodded, admiring the view for the first time. Brentwood lay in the smoggy haze around them. Most of the homes on the surrounding hillsides were newer, like the modern glass-and-wood marvel Aubrey St. George had built for himself and his twenty-eight-year-old wife. The star himself was pushing forty—Mac didn’t know his exact age. He’d go to a movie now and then, but the gossip end of the Hollywood scene didn’t interest him.

  Not that he didn’t hear things. The stewardess he’d dated off and on the past few months, Linda Maas, was really into the star gossip. When he’d told her he was bidding on a job for Aubrey St. George, she’d flipped. “Oh, how neat! You’re so lucky, Mac. Boy, I’d sure love to meet him.”

  Besides Jack Palance, Mac had done a pool in Beverly Hills for a producer who Linda had never heard of, but that was pretty much the extent of his Hollywood jobs. His main interest was in the customer’s ability to pay. “I’m a businessman,” he told Linda, who found his nonchalance annoying. But, of course, Stella made this job more than just a business proposition.

  When she’d come out onto the deck with Aubrey’s beer, Stella had given Mac this embarrassed little smile, but there was pain in it, too. He was as aware of her torment as he was of her full breasts, her nipped-in waist and the sweet curve of her hips. Had he been Aubrey St. George, he’d have been stroking Stella, not the damn cat.

  “So, how long you been in business?” Aubrey asked him.

  “On my own, just over a year,” Mac told him, “but I ran jobs for Stinski Pools for a year before that.”

  “They’re bidding this job.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll be under them by ten percent, plus you’ll be getting the personal attention of the best foreman they ever had and haven’t yet replaced.”

  Aubrey had grinned at the remark. “Pretty cocky for a kid, aren’t you, McGowan?”

  “In the business world, you’ve got to be sure of yourself, sir.”

  “Where you from? My guess is not L.A.”

  “No, sir. Toledo. When I got back from Nam, I decided to give California a shot. My mother died of cancer when I was still in-country and my father passed away when I was in high school. I didn’t have a lot of reason to go back home.”

  “You picked the right business, kid. Everybody in California wants a pool.”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  They’d walked the site. Mac took a good long look at the wall that had been reinforced with steel beams. With the heavy equipment he had to bring in, he didn’t want the hillside giving way.

  Aubrey showed him the pool house he’d had the contractor put in—the same pool house where Mac and Stella later made love on a daily basis, though, of course, at the time he couldn’t have remotely conceived of that possibility. Mac was a straight shooter—not the type who ran around screwing other men’s wives. At least, not until Stella St. George.

  The week between the day he went to work for Glamour Puss and the day Stella first undressed him in the pool house seemed like a six-month courtship. It was amazing how quickly they’d gotten to know each other. But when she’d greeted him at the door his first day on the job, she’d struck him as shy, even self-conscious, which was odd, considering she was the wife of a big Hollywood star.

  “If you need anything, a drink, a snack, just let me know,” she’d said.

  “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. St. George, but my men and I bring our own provisions.”

  “Well, the offer’s open.”

  She’d had on a little white summer dress and high-heel sandals, the strappy kind that make a woman’s feet look naked. But it was the sadness in her eyes that had gotten to him. The second morning on the job, he and Todd and Manny had been working about an hour when they heard a terrible din inside the house. There’d been yelling and glass breaking, cussing and the sound of Stella weeping. They could tell Aubrey was doing a number on her. A short time later they’d heard his Porsche go racing down the street. Then, at the end of the workday, after Todd and Manny had gone home, Mac was putting away his tools when Stella came out onto the deck.

  “Mr. McGowan,” she called to him. “How about a beer?�
�

  She had two mugs in her hand and clearly wanted him to say, “Yeah, sure, why not?” Hell, the beer had already been poured. Mac was stripped to the waist, wearing jeans, boots and sunglasses, which made him feel self-conscious. But, recalling the row she’d had that morning with her husband and having worried about her all day, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to be sociable. The sight of those long legs of hers didn’t hurt, either.

  By the time Mac had climbed up the steps to the big, sweeping deck, he could see the damage Aubrey had done. Her left eye was all puffed up, and she’d put a little Band-Aid in the corner where it had been cut. Somehow she managed not to look embarrassed.

  “Did Mr. St. George do that to you, ma’am?”

  She put the mug in his hand. “Aubrey has a temper.” She motioned toward the big comfortable cushioned chairs and led the way across the redwood deck.

  “It’s wrong to do that to a pretty face like yours,” he said, following her. “For that matter, it’s wrong period. Nobody should have to go through that, least of all a woman.”

  “Aubrey says pretty faces are a dime a dozen. Thank you for saying that, though, Mr. McGowan.” She sat down, crossing her shapely legs.

  He dropped into the chair next to her, conscious of his filthy pants and sweaty body. “Call me Mac, ma’am.”

  “I will if you stop calling me ma’am,” she said with a smile. “My name’s Stella.”

  “Okay.” He reached over and tapped his mug against hers.

  They each drank.

  “I don’t get a lot of sympathy,” she said. “Plenty of women would change places with me in a minute, whether it meant getting boxed around a little or not.”

  “That is a real shame. No man has that right, I don’t care who he is.”

  She studied him, her mug poised near her lips. “You’re very protective, aren’t you?”

  Mac had colored, thinking perhaps he’d gone too far. “Maybe I should keep my two cents’ to myself.”