Stolen Away

When I returned to the couch, she was sitting with her legs tucked up under her, illuminated by the blaze I’d rekindled. I sat next to her and she moved closer.

“I haven’t been with a man since my husband and I separated,” she said.

I didn’t believe that, but I said, “A lovely girl like you?”

She was amused. “You think calling me a ‘girl’ is going to win me over?”

“You look like a girl to me.”

The amusement dropped like a mask; something was smoldering in her expression, and the fire had nothing to do with it. “Nate. Nate. Why don’t you just kiss me?”

“We just met. You don’t know anything about me, Evalyn.”

“You have a dry wit. You have a gun in your suitcase. You have nice eyes, a little cruel, but nice. Your hair looks red in the firelight. I know all that, and more.”

“More? What else do you know?”

“I know you have a gun in your pocket, too.”

“That isn’t a gun.”

“I know.”

I kissed her. Her mouth was wet and warm and tasted like sherry. Her tongue flicked my tongue.

“More,” she said.

I kissed her some more; it was nice and got nicer. Hot and got hotter. I slid my hand up the slope of her bosom—I felt the chill cut stone of the Hope diamond and pulled my hand away like I’d been burned. I drew the rest of me away, too, head reeling from rum and where I was.

“Let me get this off,” she said hastily. She removed the diamond necklace, and the pearls, too, and tossed them on an overstuffed chair nearby, as casually as if she’d slipped off her shoes. The diamond was catching the fire and flashing.

“Help me with this,” she said, reaching behind her, and I did, and soon the gown was around her tiny waist and her breasts, perfect, high, full, enormous, were basking in the golden glow of the fire. I put my hands on them. I put my mouth on them. Sucked the tips till they were hard.

“What about your servants?” I asked, gasping, my face half-buried in her treasure chest.

“They’ll only come when I ask them,” she said.

“Me too,” I said.

18

We arrived at Far View after dark the next night. Behind the wheel of Evalyn McLean’s powder-blue Lincoln Continental, I was every bit the perfect chauffeur, wearing a spiffy gray woolen uniform with shiny black buttons and matching cap, bequeathed by a driver who’d recently retired from the Walsh family’s employ after thirty faithful years. He’d been heavier than me, but Mrs. McLean had someone on her staff take it in. Evalyn and Inga—her fortyish, blonde maid, a dourly attractive woman who’d been with her “mistress” over twenty years, and who was aware of my true identity—sat in the backseat and directed me; I didn’t mind having two backseat drivers: my only flaw as a chauffeur, after all, was my complete lack of familiarity with Washington, D.C., and its environs.

From Massachusetts Avenue, we had headed in the direction of Baltimore, then doubled back; we were soon off the main highway and exploring the wilds of Maryland via narrow, rutted back roads, occasionally gravel, usually dirt. The private drive to Far View was gravel, but neglected, weeds overtaking it; the same was true of the grounds, where weeds poked up between the patches of snow. Nonetheless, the house itself—which I had foolishly pictured as the modest “country place” Evalyn had casually mentioned—was impressive in the moonlight, a sprawling Southern mansion of the plantation variety, pillars and all, ghostly white amidst tall skeletal trees.

“My mother spent a lot of time here,” Evalyn said, leaning up from the backseat. “I haven’t been out here, since she died.”

“When did she die?” I asked.

“Last month.”

It was the first she’d mentioned it, but I found that telling. She’d jumped on the Lindbergh bandwagon within weeks of her mother dying. Evalyn—a woman in mourning, her emotions frazzled, looking to do something meaningful with her rich, empty life—made easy prey for a shark like Gaston Means.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I said.

“Another victim of the Hope diamond curse?” she wondered aloud wryly. “She was a Christian Scientist, actually…wouldn’t stand for medical help. Thank God I’m a heathen.”

“You never liked this house anyway,” Inga said.

“True,” Evalyn said. “I don’t like its history.”

“What history?” I asked.

Evalyn leaned back. “A man and wife lived here, a long time ago. They fought continually—he beat her for her supposed faithlessness, and on nights when the wind was blowing a certain way, her screams could be heard for miles, it’s said. Finally he knocked her over the head and put her down a well, here.”

“I wonder if it’s safe,” I said.

“The house?” Inga asked.

“To drink the water.”

Nobody in the backseat laughed, but I caught Evalyn’s tiny smile in the rearview mirror. That dry wit of mine again.

As we drew nearer to the house, I could see that its windows were boarded up.

“Looks deserted,” I said, pulling up near the garage and stables in back. This surprised me, because she’d said the phones would be working.

“It is deserted, virtually,” she said. “There’s an elderly caretaker I’ve kept on.”