The Insiders

CHAPTER SIX

THE TELEPHONE RANG, sending shock waves through Stella's body. She closed her eyes for an instant before she answered the insistent ringing. This was the present; both Kevin and Mim were tucked safely in the past. She picked up the phone, hoping it wouldn't be Marti.

But it wasn't Marti; it was David Zimmer.

"Stella, I won't be in this morning—looks like we're going to be tied up in court for quite a while yet. Be an angel and get my correspondence all sorted out, would you? Answer whatever you can, leave the rest for me."

"Yes, Mr. Zimmer. Will you be in this afternoon?"

"I expect to be, sure. After lunch, though. Hold the fort, honey."

She hung up and looked quizzically at the phone. David was being very free with expressions of endearment lately. Could that mean—well, why not? He had told her frankly some time ago that she was a beautiful woman, and he liked to be around beautiful women. Maybe he was leading up to asking her out. God, Marti would go crazy with jealous anger. And Eve—oh, Eve would almost die.

Stella wondered if Eve knew that she was the one who'd confided to David that Marti had once made love to Eve. Once, only once, Marti had said. And that had been very long ago, almost in the nature of an experiment—never repeated. She had pretended to David that she was jealous because of Marti, but really —really it had been because she was mad at Eve. Eve had acted like a snotty bitch, and it served Eve right.

The trouble with Eve was that she was dumb and not experienced enough in the fine art of playing games. Eve had allowed herself to fall in love with David, and that made her vulnerable. Loving was one thing; being in love was another. Being in love was being weak, letting someone else get the upper hand. That wouldn't happen with Stella. No one was going to hurt her again, not ever.

Stella rolled a sheet of long paper into her typewriter and started to type. Might as well get this will out of the way and have it ready for David to read through when he came back in.

A few minutes later, she was glad that she had been busy, because her door opened without any preliminary knock and Gloria Reardon walked in, carrying a magazine and some papers.

"Hello, Stella. David must keep you awfully busy. You're always working, and always so quiet!"

Stella smiled up at Gloria, but her mind worked fast. Gloria was up to something, but what? Had she heard anything? Had David said anything? David was the only person who knew about Marti....

"I have some files here that Howard wants David to look over. I'll just leave them on his desk where he can find them, shall I?"

Gloria went through the door that led into David's office without waiting for Stella to reply; and a few seconds later she came sailing out again, a smile on her face. Stella noticed again, with a stab of envy, that Gloria really was quite beautiful. And her clothes! They were the most expensive that Stella had ever seen anyone wear, close up. Not only did Gloria dress beautifully; she had quite a figure as well. It was no wonder that Howard Hansen was said to have more than just a business relationship with Gloria. How, Stella, wondered, did Mr. Hansen take Gloria's obvious fondness for David Zimmer?

Stella would have been surprised if she had known that this was exactly what Gloria intended to discuss with Howard Hansen.

Hansen was a tall, slender, man with piercing gray eyes and sparse blond hair. In his late forties, he was soft-spoken and rather gentle in manner until he stood up in a courtroom, and then he could cut a witness to pieces with the lash of his voice and words. He had once been told that he should have been an actor; diffidently, Howard had replied that the practice of law brought him more money and the knowledge needed to invest it.

Howard Hansen had been a man of few weaknesses until he had met Gloria, the young English widow of an ex-client. Recently widowed himself, Hansen had been on a European trip to dispel his loneliness, when he met her. They had found several things in common.

After he had gotten to know her well, he had discovered that she was not only willing but happy to cater to all his secret sexual desires, thus obviating his regular hiring of highly paid call girls. She had introduced him to the orgy scene in London, Rome, Hamburg—she had even taught him a few things he had never heard of. He had wondered why she had not turned her talents into the channels to which they were best suited and become a courtesan, but she had told him, laughing, that she preferred the cloak of respectability, of anonymity.

Howard had brought Gloria back to California with him—she had said London had begun to bore her. Neither of them felt ready for marriage yet, so Gloria had been given a position in Howard's office, which gave her an excuse to be a part of Howard"s life. They understood each other and had very few secrets from each other. It made for a very satisfactory arrangement, generally.

After she left David Zimmer's office, Gloria came back to Hansen's plush office and, without asking, fixed them each a martini. Very dry. She saw Howard raise an eyebrow at her, but he said nothing, waiting for her to tell him whatever she had on her mind.

After she'd brought the drinks over, Gloria arranged her body on the couch that ran the length of one wall. Every movement she made was deliberately seductive, but Howard knew that at this moment she was not trying to seduce him—she had practiced the rites of seduction for so long that they had become second nature with her.

"I left the latest issue of Stud on David's desk. It had his girl friend's picture in it—centerfold."

With Howard, Gloria was herself, direct and abrupt. And he was glad of it.

"I thought she was an ex-girl friend, thanks to you. Or to us, I should have said."

"Howie, you know damned well he's still carrying a torch! Why else would he have gotten so mad at her, just because he found Archer in her bed? My God, you'd have thought she was his wife, the way he fussed."

"So you didn't expect him to get quite that upset. You just thought he'd be annoyed enough to play 'what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.' Does it matter at this point?"

Gloria sat up, her eyes gleaming.

"Baby, of course it matters! You know how I am till I'm sure I have a new man all tame and on a leash. David isn't, and he won't be as long as he's still jealous of Eve. So we'll see how he reacts to the picture."

"She certainly has a lovely body. A shame she didn't prove more cooperative, or I'd have enjoyed a sample of her charms myself."