Monica had carried her cigarette with her from the bedroom, and now she crushed it in the ashtray on his desk.
"Monica, I'm sorry," he said. The lavender dressing gown that didn't quite conceal, didn't entirely reveal, clung to her hips and reminded him of the firm smoothness of her buns, which he had been fondly caressing only hours ago. "I wish I could take you with me. We'll be together again as soon as possible."
"Sure," she grunted. "You walked out on our first honeymoon. Business called. What else have you missed? Anniversaries. Birthdays. Even Christmas afternoon last year. Business called."
He had withdrawn from the conversation. He grabbed up his briefcase and walked out of the room.
She followed him downstairs, toward the door. His Cadillac convertible sat in the circular driveway before the house. He opened the door and tossed in the briefcase.
Then he came back to kiss her.
"Baby, it won't be long," he promised. "I'll probably be on the phone with you tomorrow."
She accepted his kiss, but accepted was the right word for it; she was not hungry for it, and she was rigid in his arms. He patted her shoulder and her backside.
"Tomorrow. I'll call you tomorrow if I possibly can."
"Sure," she whispered, resigned.
"Monica, I'm sorry. What the hell else can I say?"
"Nothing."
He broke away from her and strode to the car.
2
Monica stood outside for a while, first watching the red taillights of the Cadillac disappear, then looking up at the points of starlight in an unusually clear sky. A tangle of emotions suffused her, and she was not sure if she wanted to cry or curse. Or both.
Damn him. Damn Jonas Cord! He had abandoned her on their honeymoon ... because of a business emergency, he'd said. Then he'd got it in his head that Jo-Ann was not his daughter. When he learned the truth he had begged them to return to him. After fourteen years. And she, like a fool, had gone back to him. Because she loved him. And he said he loved her. He said they'd have another child. Lucky they hadn't.
Because he hadn't changed. He was the same intriguing, fascinating, loving ... egocentric, insensitive, disloyal son of a bitch he had always been. He was obsessed with money and power, especially power. She couldn't compete with money and power. Neither could Jo-Ann. They always lost.
She began to shiver and realized it was not because the night was cold, which it wasn't, but because she was frustrated and disappointed and angry. She went inside the house and went to the bar. She poured herself two fingers of bourbon and jerked the glass back for a quick swallow. She could feel it all the way down, burning, warming. It stopped her shivering.
She jerked off her dressing gown and stood at the bar naked, even though she could be seen by anyone who walked up the driveway. That was somehow defiant, and she felt defiant.
Jonas ... It probably really had been Phil, calling from Washington. For a moment she was tempted to dial him and find out. Of course he'd lie for Jonas. A lot of people would lie for Jonas. He may have told Jonas to duck service of a subpoena, or he may have been calling to say something like "If you get your ass to Frisco before dawn, you can get in bed with Marlene Dietrich."
Of course ... If a United States marshal really showed up on the doorstep in the next six or eight hours, she'd know.
Actually, she wouldn't know, not really. If it was true he was going somewhere to hole up and let an investigation cool down, he'd for sure be taking some girl with him. A "secretary." He'd no more travel without a female to attend to his needs than he'd have forgotten to stuff that bottle of bourbon into his briefcase. She wondered which one it was this time. She'd identified three. He'd stop at a phone booth somewhere. Then he'd pick the girl up.
She tipped the glass and swallowed the rest of her whiskey. So, now she would go back to bed. She'd take a shower first, to wash his sweat off her body. And then she would go to bed. Not in the bed where they had struggled and twisted the dampened sheets into knots. She would sleep in the guest room. Alone. Alone again.
"Fuck you, Jonas Cord," she said aloud in the shower as she washed his come off her legs. "Fuck you," she said again, this time tearfully, as she dried herself and walked out into the bedroom.
To hell with this way of living. To hell with him. She didn't have to live this way, and she wouldn't. Two could play this game. She glanced at the clock and decided it was too early to waken Alex in New York. She would call him later. By God, two could play this game!
"Fuck you, Jonas Cord! I got a big surprise for you. You're gonna be served with some different legal papers. Monica's getting a new divorce!"
2
1
NEVADA SMITH WOKE. Who could sleep with an airplane buzzin' the house? Airplane ... buzzin'... ? Oh, God! It had to be Jonas, he decided. Who else would buzz the house before dawn?
He rolled out of bed. His wife Martha hadn't wakened. A pair of faded blue Levi's lay on the floor, where he had kicked them off last night, and he pulled them up over his long, muscular legs that had never been anything but thick and strong, all his life. He slipped into soft moccasins. With a backward glance at Martha, to be sure she was still asleep, he trotted from the bedroom and through the house to the gray steel box that contained the switch for the runway lights. He pulled the switch.
He hurried out on the porch. The yellowish-brown lights were on, two parallel lines of them, defining the thousand-foot landing strip. The only other lights were a pair of floodlights on the windsock. It was a primitive strip, for sure, but it had proved enough for Jonas, even in bad weather. Nevada had been his passenger many times, day and night, and he had marveled at Jonas's uncanny knack for finding this ranch and this house and the landing strip, seeing landmarks that were invisible to anyone else. The old man had never been proud of his son's instinct for flying — had, in fact, disapproved of it as dangerous foolishness — but that was because he died before he could experience it and learn to appreciate it.
The strip was not paved. Nevada had gone out and walked it only yesterday, carrying a shovel and looking for any holes animals might have made. It was smooth. An ill-tempered rattler had threatened, but Nevada had let it go, had not killed it. If it was lying out there now, it had a big surprise coming from the onrushing wheels of the heavy airplane that was about to land.
He stood on the porch and watched the red and green lights on the plane's wings as Jonas circled for his approach. Nevada had first seen him fly in 1925 when he had flown to the landing strip at the Cord Explosives plant in an ancient wood-and-wire Waco he had won in a crap game. Nevada had called him Junior then, and Junior had demonstrated a natural aptitude for flying, more aptitude for it than for riding, which Nevada had taught him. Maybe not more aptitude than he had for shooting, which Nevada had also taught him.
Nevada had come to the Cord ranch in 1909, looking for work as a cowhand, and the old Jonas had hired him as a nursemaid. Teach the boy to ride. The old man never used many words. Teach him to ride had meant a lot of other things. Make a man of him was what he'd meant. Nevada'd had sixteen years to do it before the old man died — on that very day when Junior flew to the plant in the Waco. Nevada had been unsure just how well he'd done with the boy until he heard Jonas abruptly and coldly announce to the directors of Cord Explosives that no one was to call him Junior, ever again.