The Last Don - Mario Puzo [58]
Claudia realized two things. Cross had deliberately shown his power. And that Cross had been careful to recompense Nevans to some degree but only after he had knuckled under, not before. Tolly Nevans would have his special night, would bask in power for that one night.
Claudia realized further that Cross had allowed her to see that power to show his love for her and that that love had a material force. And she saw in his beautifully planed face, in that beauty she had envied from childhood, of the sensual lips, the perfect nose, the oval eyes, all slightly hardening as if turning into the marble of ancient statues.
Claudia turned off the Pacific Coast Highway and drove to the gate of the Malibu Colony. She loved the Colony, the houses right on the beach, the ocean sparkling in front of them, and far off on the water, she saw again the reflections of the mountains behind them. She parked the car in front of Athena’s house.
Boz Skannet was lying on the public beach south of the Malibu Colony fence. That fence of plain wire mesh ran down the beach for about ten steps into the water. But this fence was only a formal barrier. If you went out far enough, you could swim around it.
Boz was scouting for his next attack on Athena. Today would be a probing foray and so he had driven out to the public beach, bathing suit covered with a T-shirt and tennis slacks. His beach bag, really a tennis bag, held the vial of acid wrapped in towels.
From his spot on the beach he could look through the mesh fence at Athena’s house. He could see the two private security guards on the beach. They were armed. If the back was covered, certainly the front of the house was covered. He didn’t mind hurting the guards but he didn’t want to make it seem like a madman slaughtering a whole bunch of people. That would detract from his justified destruction of Athena.
Boz Skannet took off his slacks and T-shirt and stretched out on his blanket, staring over the sand and the blue sheet of the Pacific Ocean beyond. The warmth of the sun made him drowsy. He thought of Athena.
In college he had heard a professor lecturing on Emerson’s essays and quoting, “Beauty is its own excuse.” Was it Emerson, was it Beauty? But he had thought of Athena.
It is so rare to find a human being so beautiful in physical form and so virtuous in other parts of her nature. And so he thought of Thena. Everybody had called her Thena in those days of her girlhood.
He had loved her so much in his youth that he lived in a dream of happiness that she loved him. He could not believe that life could be so sweet. And little by little everything had been tarnished with decay.
How did she dare to be so perfect? How did she dare to be so demanding of love? How did she dare to make so many people love her? Didn’t she know how dangerous that would be?
And Boz wondered at himself. Why had his own love turned to hate? It was simple really. Because he knew he could not possess her to the end of their lives; that one day he must lose her. That one day she would lie down with other men, that one day she would disappear from his Heaven. And never think of him again.
He felt the sun’s warmth move off his face and opened his eyes. Looming above him was a very large, well-dressed man who was carrying a folding chair. Boz recognized him. It was Jim Losey, the detective who had interrogated him after he threw the water in Thena’s face.
Boz squinted up at him. “What a coincidence, both of us swimming on the same beach. What the fuck do you want?”
Losey unfolded the chair and sat on it. “My ex-wife gave me this chair. I was interrogating and arresting so many surfers she said I might as well be comfortable.” He looked down at Boz Skannet almost kindly. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions. One, what are you doing so close to Miss Aquitane’s house? You’re violating the judge’s restraining order.”