Pleasure Thieves

'inside jobs' that were so popular then, I lifted some jewels belonging to a friendly neighbor as well. It was so simple. And I rather enjoyed it, looking at other people's treasures and then getting a very good price for them. My neighbors would have been proud of how highly I valued their property."

"Of course," Phillip continued, "Claire was terribly upset at first, but when the insurance money came through, we took a trip around the world and she calmed down a bit." He paused and lit a cigarette.

"Anyway, she thought it was as exciting to be married to a thief as to a poor man."

He looked about the study. "I've been collecting pictures for almost thirty years." Then wistful, catching himself up, Phillip smiled.

"Besides, I had responsibility. What would have become of Sam and Wilbur?"

Harry listened with interest, even sympathy. Then he said, "I guess now you are about ready to retire. Is that it?"

"I was hoping you would be too, Harry. Sincerely hoping."

Harry looked at him oddly for a moment, as though caught off-guard. Then his mouth twisted into its cynical smile and he said coldly,

"To be your chess companion or stable boy? No, I guess I'm not ready for that yet. Even though the princess goes with the deal, and I understand the other night now, Phillip. I understand that the golden haired princess is thrown in with the kingdom."

The two men stared at each other in silence. It was broken by a knock at the door. Carol walked in, beautiful in a floor trailing gown.

She studied the two men, and Harry realized that she had known of this talk.

"You look very well tonight, Carol," Phillip said without really transferring his attention from Harry. "Really lovely I might say. I like that pendant with that dress. Sets it off nicely." Carol wore a delicate chain around her neck, heavily burdened between her breasts with a large lovely diamond. She touched the gem and turned finally to Harry.

"Do you like it? I know you have a … feeling for such things."

Harry's eyes were cruel on her face, his voice gross. "The Johns at home," he said. "The Mid-West, the backbone of America."

Carol stood motionless and stared intently at Phillip. She couldn't speak for a few seconds, and they could see her pulse beating fast and frightened in her throat.

"Mystery over?" she asked Phillip.

"Only half of it," he said cruelly.

CHAPTER XI

Carol sat stiff at the table, like a child who's been told to behave.

Her head was held high, and she brought her food delicately and tastefully to her mouth. Harry watched her openly, but made no attempt to eat his own dinner. Phillip bent his head over his plate as he often bent over the painting he fastidiously studied. Harry sat across from Carol thinking disjointedly "…she is my sister … Phillip is somehow above both of us…"

But he felt a curious hate, as if she had made the entire deception, the whole masquerade of Phillip as a squire. That somehow she had offered Phillip a disguise and protection that Harry never could have.

That Phillip and Carol were meshed together.

And where the hell did that leave Harry? Somewhere at the end of the table being a brusque fool who stared and refused to eat. He was an outsider, mainly because they were too much for him. They were a black lacework of intricacy, and he was a rough green thread that looped through the pattern. But he always remained vulgar and somehow outside of it.

Yes, there was even something immaculate about their incest. It left Carol the eternal virgin. She would never really give herself to a man, only to Phillip. And that was some mysterious kind of breast-feeding.

Something Harry couldn't figure out, would never figure out. He just sat there, feeling the anger in his body, watching Phillip wipe the plate clean with a piece of French bread after each course, as Carol sat there like his rebuked child.

"You've really gotten a kick out of life, haven't you Phillip?" he finally said.

"I intend to continue having a 'kick,'" Phillip said, holding the word up like a dirty sock. "That's what I'm trying to impress on you Harry.

Life can be lived very effortlessly, very pleasantly."

"I believe in making an effort," Harry said. His knuckles were white on the edge of the white table cloth. "I don't want to make it in your swamp, Phillip. That's not for me." He turned to Carol. "It disgusts me."

"Harry," Carol spoke in a cool voice, "doesn't like swamps, Phillip.

He prefers jungles. Harry is a kind of Superman, a Tarzan. He likes to swing from tree to tree and pound his chest."

"I see you've inherited your father's wit," Harry said, bitter and dry.

"Phillip's given you everything he has. You're a very lucky girl, Carol."

"Yes," she agreed, "Phillip has given me many things. I've had the most generous daddy a girl can have."

"Let's not throw the paternal dignity around too much," Phillip said, seemingly disinterested at the cruel banter, as if he had told Harry the story and was disappointed in the unnecessary reverberations.