“Two thousand.” Now his smile had a sardonic quirk. “Her design business was struggling when we split up, and she had a good attorney and a sympathetic judge.”
“Six thousand dollars total, then.”
“Right. Naturally I was delighted. But I thought she was doing me a favor, for old times’ sake or out of some latent feeling of guilt. I was planning to call her, as a matter of fact, if she didn’t cash the next one. Now... well, I don’t know what to think.”
Neither did I.
I asked, “Why would she have latent feelings of guilt, Mr. Merchant? Something to do with the divorce?”
Another small pause. His manner seemed to shift subtly, to become less guarded, more confidential. “The reason for the divorce,” he said.
“Which was?”
“Other men.”
“You mean a string of infidelities?”
“Oh yes, a string. The last one in particular.”
“I see.”
“But it wasn’t cheating to her.”
“No? What was it then?”
“Adventure, excitement — plot and counterplot. Nedra would have made a good spy. You know, Mata Hari and all that. It’s part of her nature.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m not a saint,” he said. “What man is? But with Nedra... men aren’t just a hobby with her. They’re an obsession.”
That word again.
“And vice versa,” Merchant said.
“How do you mean that?”
“Most of her conquests become obsessed with her, sooner or later. That’s the kind of woman she is. You’d have to know her to understand exactly what I mean. She gets under the skin of a certain kind of male, and she knows it, and she does everything she can to encourage it.”
“Encourage obsession with her?”
“She’s a control freak,” he said.
“You want to elaborate on that, Mr. Merchant?”
“She gets off on manipulating and dominating men. It gives her a sense of power. Doesn’t matter to her whether the men are young or old, blue-collar or white-collar, intelligent or stupid. Or even particularly attractive, God knows.”
“Weak men?” I asked, to see what he’d say.
He didn’t take offense. He had a thick skin, and probably a healthy dislike for his vulnerability where his ex-wife was concerned; that was part of the reason he was being so candid with me. “To one degree or another,” he said, “at least where women are concerned. I fared better than all the rest, though. I got her to marry me, and stay married to me for five years.”
“She must have loved you, then.”
“As much as Nedra is capable of loving anyone other than herself, yes. Besides, she hadn’t really honed her skills in those days.”
“You mentioned a man she was seeing before your divorce. Mind telling me who he was?”
“Not at all.” Malice in his voice and in his eyes, quick and bright even after five years. “His name is April. Lawrence April.”
“And who would Lawrence April be?”
“An investment counselor. Very successful.”
“Here in the city?”
“Yes.”
“Was Nedra’s affair with him a lengthy one?”
“Several months. He begged her to marry him.”
“But she said no?”
“She’d had enough of marriage. Dear Nedra.”
“How did April take her rejection?”
“He didn’t like it. Not in the least.”
“Did he make trouble for her?”
“Not for her. For me.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He came to see me. All bent out of shape, half crazy. Blamed me for her turning him down. Said I’d manipulated her, warped her thinking, ruined her for a relationship with a man who really loved her. Meaning himself, of course. Christ, he was totally irrational.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to put him out of the house,” Merchant said. His mouth twisted at the memory. “He hit me, knocked me down. In my own living room. Broke my cheekbone.”
“You have him arrested?”
“No. I thought about it but I decided against it.” Another twist of his mouth, this time into a bitterly satisfied smile. “I filed suit against him.”
Right, I thought. What else?
“And?”
“It never went to court. I had him by the short hairs and he knew it. On advice of counsel he settled — a very handsome settlement, I might add. It made the divorce quite a bit easier to take.”
“Have you had any contact with April since the settlement?”
“No, none.”
“I don’t suppose Nedra’s still seeing him?”
“I’d be amazed if she was.”
“The attack on you turn her against him?”
Merchant shook his head. “She never stays with one man too long, particularly the ones who become possessive.”
“Can you tell me the names of any of her other lovers?”
“No. Wait, yes, one. Rigsby, I think — Glen Rigsby. I met him once, at one of those coed health clubs downtown. Muscle-bound type. Well-hung, probably. Nedra always did like a sizable prick.”
“Customer or employee of this club?”
“Worked there, I believe. I don’t remember as what.”
“Do you recall the name of the club?”
“Not offhand.”
“Located where?”
“SoMa. Not far from Nedra’s old office, the one she had before she went upscale.”
“Where was that?”
“On Second, near Market.”
I nodded. “Let’s see... I could use the names of one or two of her close woman friends.”
“Close woman friends? Nedra? As far as I know she doesn’t have any. Didn’t when we were together. She doesn’t like women.”
“No?”
“Competition,” Merchant said. “The only female she cares about is herself.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nedra is the type of woman who sets the feminist movement back fifty years.”
I had no comment on that. I got to my feet. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time, Mr. Merchant. Thanks for being so candid with me.”
“Not at all.” He stood, too, reached for my hand again. While he was pumping it he said, “You’re not really investigating an insurance matter.”
“I’m not?”
“Routine background checks don’t include the kinds of questions you’ve been asking. It has something to do with Nedra and one of her conquests, doesn’t it? Some sort of Sturm und Drang.”
I said carefully, “Clients of private detectives have the same privileges as clients of attorneys.”
“Of course. I don’t care about the details. Call it professional curiosity.”
“I can’t discuss it in any case.”
He shrugged. “I respect that. As I said, I don’t really care. I’m over Nedra now. I’ve been over her for a long time.”
The hell he was.
He wouldn’t be over Nedra Adams Merchant if he lived to be a hundred and ten.
Thoughts while driving downtown! So what had I gotten from Walter Merchant? Was his ex-wife the cold-hearted, man-eating bitch he’d portrayed her to be? Or was the portrait a distorted one, painted in colors of bitterness, frustration, vindictive hurt? I’d have liked to believe that the true image of Nedra Adams Merchant was a mixture of good and evil — like the true images of most of us, with shadings toward one extreme or the other. And yet, the things Kay Runyon had told me yesterday, the memory of Victor Runyon entering the Crestmont house with his arms full of flowers, argued in favor of Walter Merchant’s representation. Well, I’d have to talk to some other people who knew the lady before I could begin to see her for myself as she really was.
I was inclined to rule out Merchant as the anonymous telephone caller. On the one hand, he was carrying a torch and it might have burned his psyche in bizarre ways. On the other hand, five years is a long time to be still warning men away from an ex-wife; and he obviously enjoyed being the shrewd and successful lawyer, took too much pleasure in using the law to get back at his enemies. Threatening phone calls just weren’t his style.