The moment it appeared Thorne might put a comforting arm around her yesterday, Roger had stood physically between them, bristling with threats, actually pushing Thorne towards the door. Vera understood why. Thorne had stolen Paul's affection and pride from Roger. Roger wasn't going to let him steal his mother, too, not without a fight.
Vera sighed heavily, weary of a lifetime of contest because of Roger. First with Paul, and soon with Thorne. She could feel it coming down deep in her bones.
"There it is," Roger said abruptly. He slowed and pulled to the side of the road. Vera looked across the highway towards the ocean. They'd just crossed a bridge. There was the faint trace of tire tracks skidding across the limestone rubble towards the edge of the small island. Water licked the zip-rap with gentle innocence. She suddenly imagined the powder-blue Olds leaping into space, and she let out a small sound and turned her head.
"Don't stop here, Roger." He looked at her. There was a strange expression on his face, a look of power. "Honey, let's go back. I don't want to see the motel. I don't want any part of it."
"You have a part of it, Mom. Of all of them. Remember what Jack Cutter said about the stocks? Sixty percent, he left us. We own the whole mess, Mom, and we're going to run the hell out of it, you wait and see."
She looked ahead quickly and bit her lower lip to keep back a cry of outrage. Equally! Paul had left them shares equally!
She couldn't comprehend it. Jack Cutter couldn't understand it, either. He should have left it to her, not to her and Roger equally. The only thing she could figure was that he hadn't hated Roger after all. That, or he had genuinely regarded her as his daughter instead of his wife.
She tried to calm the bitter feeling inside her. She remembered the other odd thing Cutter had told them. Paul had signed his stock over four days before he'd died. Cutter didn't know why. But it meant that their ownership of it wasn't fouled up in the estate settlement.
She went over the discussion in Cutter's dim office again and remembered another point. There was a man-Max Sawyer. He was contesting their ownership of the stock. It was something about a prior agreement. Something to do with this damn Loon Key motel.
She shook her head harshly, unable to untangle all the fine points, tired of the way too many things ran through her mind in a confused jumble.
"Roger, turn around, I want to go home. I don't want to run the motels. I don't know anything about it, and neither do you. We should let Thorne run everything."
"Fuck Bundt!" he shouted, his face blazing redly. "I'd rather sell out to this guy Sawyer than appoint Bundt chief crapper cleaner! Dad didn't think I could take over, and Bundt still thinks it, Well, by God, I'm going to show them! You, too, Mom, if I have to!"
"Don't speak to me in that tone of voice, you little brat!"
Roger grinned at her, his face showing that he was high on an inner drug. "Hey, Mom, you're sounding like a mother again. Better watch that, or I'll pull off in the weeds and give you a little flicking again." He laughed. "How about it, Mom? Should we? I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about your slick pussy and all the little wiggles you make your ass do when you come."
Vera sucked in her breath and looked at him a long moment, watching him drive. She wasn't sure what to think. He was different today. He made their closeness something dirty. He was going to have to stop doing that. Was it the motel again? Would it do the same thing to Roger it had done to Paul?
"It's a bad place, Roger. I don't want to go there. Turn around."
"A building can't be bad, for Christ's sake."
"It changed him. He didn't like it. He died coming back from it. It mined our marriage, and it made him do-strange things with his share of the stock. Now it's changing you."
"The only thing changing me is having him off my back, Mom. As for the stock-I don't know. The only thing I figured he'd ever give me was a pain in the ass. Maybe he knew something about his heart and wanted to sign it over before he croaked. Maybe he gave me half just to keep you in line."
"What do you mean by that?" she asked sharply.
Roger shrugged. "Maybe he thought whiz-kid Bundt would try to move in on you and take over everything. He knew I hate Bundt and won't do a damn thing the bastard recommends. Maybe he saw through Bundt at the last and saw what a climbing back-stabber he is."
"Roger, that's enough!"
"Maybe Max Sawyer had something to do with it, huh? Hey, there you go. He signed it over to get it out of his name because he was pulling a sneaky on Sawyer, and then he was going to tell us how to vote the 60 percent next week. Control without vulnerability. Hell, it happens all the time."
"Your father did not pull anything sneaky on anybody ever," Vera said distinctly, her tone reprimanding.
"He wasn't my father, Mom-remember?" Roger grinned.
He braked the car and swerved off the highway onto a new blacktop driveway that passed under an ornate portico. On the curving glass front of the new building was a stylized trio of birds in flight against a backdrop of cloud-drifted moon and graceful palm tree, with a blue water ripple for the horizon.
Small gold letters, all lower case, said Loon Key Motel. The Hanson shield was missing. She didn't understand that at all.
"Not bad," Roger said, giving a whistle. He eased the car towards the parking area on the south. There was a bait-and-tackle place just beyond it, an old frame marina with small boats at dock. A cut led into the Atlantic for the boats. There was a car parked in the new lot of the motel, close to the edge, near the marina.
"Somebody's here, Roger. I don't feel right about this."
He turned in the seat and looked at her. "Mom, we own the goddamn place now." He dangled keys in front of her. "See? That's probably some guy at the marina who didn't want to get his car dusty in their gavel lot, that's all. Come on." He got out and opened her door and half yanked her out He gazed at the new structure. "Damn, it's a lot fancier than the other ones. Hey, come on, partner," he grinned, pulling her towards the entrance.
There was a theme of pools and coral rock and lush vegetation and metal-sculptured loons. It was carried into the lobby from outside. Roger sauntered through the rooms with a wide grin and smelled the odors of newness everywhere.
"Man, the old fart outdid himself on this one, didn't he? It's really different."
It was. It didn't look like one of Paul's motel at all. There was a chromous glint about it that made the plushness gaudy instead of rich. They stood in the dining room and looked through an expanse of glass at the Atlantic and fishing boats bobbing whitely on the blue.
There was a terrace and lanai section surrounding a large swimming pool. A wing of the building wrapped around it, and the beach was beyond. The pool was full of water, blue and peaceful under the sun.
"Damn, that's what I want! Come on, Mom!"
He grabbed her hand and thrust open a sliding door and hauled her to the edge of the pool. He kicked his shoes off and stripped to his shorts. She couldn't help looking at the compact bulge of his prick.
"Come on, Mom-let's swim. Hell, the owners have to be the first."
She started to protest. With a juvenile cackle, he put his hand in the middle of her back and pushed. She sprawled into the water with a founting splash, sank to the bottom, came up sputtering, her hair plastered to her head.
"Roger, you little brat!" she cried.
She saw him laughing like a carefree child. He spun off the edge of the pool and splashed water and surfaced with a yowl of animal joy. He started coming after her.
Something sparked inside Vera. The Worries and tensions of the past days lifted from her and left her feeling light and free, as if she were a teenage girl again, being chased.
She turned in the water and squeaked and swam away from him, and the chase was an. She was a good swimmer, fast and sleek, but the clothing hampered her badly. She felt his hand clasp around her ankle. He pulled her backwards, and her head went under. She came up sputtering right in front of him.