Love You Dead

6 Tuesday 17 February

After a week of hanging around, dealing with French officialdom, before Walt Klein’s body was finally released after the post-mortem, Jodie accompanied her fiancé back to New York. She travelled up at the pointed end, sipping vintage bubbly in First Class, appearing to the cabin crew every inch a grieving lover consoling herself with alcohol. Walt travelled in less style, in the rear cargo hold of the plane. Although to be fair, she reasoned at one point, drifting off into a pleasant doze, he had more legroom in his coffin than those poor bastards back in economy.

And also, to be fair, she had not scrimped on the coffin. It was a top-of-the-range hand-carved rosewood affair, with a satin taffeta border and genuine brass handles. There was no finer coffin to be had anywhere in the Alps, the undertaker in Moûtiers had assured her. And certainly, when she saw the price, none that could possibly have been more expensive.

That would have been fine by her late fiancé, had he been in a position to help with the decision. Walt was dismissive of bargains. ‘You buy cheap, you buy twice,’ he had told her on more than one occasion. He’d have been proud of just how expensive this beauty had been, she thought. His final little treat to himself! She would present the bill to his lawyer, who would reimburse her.

The champagne she had been quaffing throughout the journey, from her constantly topped-up glass, was still in her system, maintaining her pleasantly woozy haze through the lengthy immigration queue. Although she hoped she did not reek too much of alcohol when, questioned by the immigration officer at passport control as to the reason for her visit, she had replied, trying to look and sound suitably grief-stricken, ‘To bury my fiancé.’

She collected her bags and entered the arrivals hall, then instantly felt in need of another top-up of alcohol when she saw the frosty faces of Walt’s two children — Don, his tall, serious, forty-year-old son, and Carla, his softer, warmer, thirty-five-year-old daughter, who had come to the airport more out of respect for their deceased father than any love for their gold-digger of a potential stepmother.

‘Carla,’ Jodie said, throwing her arms round her. ‘Oh my God, this is so terrible. So terrible.’ She burst into tears.

‘Dad was an expert skier,’ Don said, drily. ‘He’s skied off-piste for years. He wouldn’t make a mistake.’

‘It was a white-out, in a blizzard,’ Jodie sobbed. ‘We couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces.’

‘Dad wouldn’t have made a mistake,’ he repeated.

‘We’re staying at Dad’s apartment until the funeral,’ Carla said. ‘Hope that’s OK with you?’

‘But as we figured you might want to be alone, to grieve for our father, and avoid all the hassle from the press, we took the precaution of booking you into a hotel,’ Don said. ‘Your choice.’

Suddenly she heard a male voice call out, ‘Jodie!’

She turned, saw the strobe of a flashgun and heard the whirr of a camera motor. Another voice called her name and, as she glanced to the right, another flashgun went. Then another.

There were a dozen paparazzi lined up, all now shouting her name.

‘Jodie, did you know about Walt?’

‘How much did you know about Walt’s finances?’

Jodie had met Walt in Las Vegas just over six months earlier. He’d been sitting at a table on his own, in a smoking bar at the Bellagio, drinking a Martini and lighting a cigar. She’d sat a few tables away, smoking a cigarette and drinking a margarita, eyeing potentials. This was one of the city’s most expensive hotels; people who stayed here or even just came in for a drink were likely to be reasonably well off at worst, seriously loaded at best.

She’d travelled from Brighton, arriving the day before, to have a break, play some blackjack at the high-stakes tables, and try to find a new man. Her kind of man. A nice, lonely, elderly man. Someone who would be grateful for her attentions. But, most importantly of all, someone rich. Very rich.

This trip was an investment, just like her profiles on the high-end dating agencies were.

She chose blackjack because it was sociable, you got a chance to talk to your fellow gamblers and there was a steady turnover of players. She’d made a study of it, read books and knew all the tricks of the game. There was no strategy that could guarantee winning, but there was one that enabled her to stay at a high-rollers table for hours on end, losing very little money. A small cost for the opportunities it gave her to size up the men who perched beside her at the table.

And you could get married in this city, with no fuss at all, any time from 8 a.m. to midnight, on any day.

It looked like she was getting lucky sooner on this trip than she had expected. The jackpot on day one?

A little overweight and flabby, in his mid-seventies, she guessed, with a thick head of wavy silver hair. He was dressed in a yellow Gucci cardigan over a shirt with gold buttons, and blue suede Tod’s loafers.

He looked lonely.

And sad.

And had no wedding ring on his finger.

Hunched up over the table, he was peering at his phone, reading something. Wall Street prices? After a while he put it down, ate the olive from his Martini, then drained the drink and signalled to a waiter for another. Then he puffed on his cigar — a Cohiba, she could tell from the yellow and black band.

She stared at him, holding her cigarette between her fingers, the smoke rising. It took some moments before he finally looked up and caught her eye. She smiled. He gave her a brief, slightly embarrassed nod of acknowledgement, blinked his heavy-lidded eyes, then made a play of looking back down at his phone and tapping the keys, as if to show he wasn’t any kind of Billy-No-Mates, but a busy man.

Instantly she made her move, crushing out her cigarette, scooping up her glass and her bag. Then she strode across to his table, in her silky Ted Baker dress and red Jimmy Choos, and sat down opposite him. Putting on her poshest, cut-glass English accent, she said, ‘You look as lonely as I feel.’

‘That so?’

He lifted his eyes from his phone, and gave her a melancholic stare. She raised her glass. ‘Cheers!’

Obligingly, at that moment, the waiter produced a fresh Martini for him. He raised it and they clinked glasses. ‘Cheers,’ he said back to her, a little hesitant, as if unsure whether he’d just been hit on by a hooker.

‘Jodie Bentley,’ she said. ‘I’m from Brighton, England.’

‘Walt Klein.’ He set his glass down and folded his arms.

Mirroring him, deliberately, she set her glass down and folded her arms, too. ‘So what brings you to Vegas?’ she asked.

‘You want the trailer or the full three hours with intermission?’

She laughed. ‘I don’t have a train to catch. So as long as there’s ice cream, popcorn and alcohol involved, the intermission version is fine by me!’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, well, right, I’m here to try to forget for a while.’ He opened his arms and placed his hands either side of his thighs. Instantly, but subtly, she did the same.

‘Forget?’

‘I went through a pretty bad divorce. Married forty-four years.’ He shrugged and his heavy eyelids lowered, like theatre curtains, then raised again.

Once more she mirrored him. ‘Forty-four years — you don’t look old enough! Married in your teens, did you?’

‘Very flattering of you! I’m probably a bit older than you think. What do you reckon?’

‘Fifty-five?’

‘You’re being too kind. I like your accent. Love the British accent!’

‘Well, thenk yew,’ she said, exaggerating it even more. ‘OK, fifty-seven?’

‘Try seventy-seven.’

‘No way!’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘You look twenty years younger! You must take good care of yourself.’

He held up the cigar then nodded at his Martini. ‘These things take good care of me. Only kidding! Yep, I work out daily. Play tennis regularly, and I like to ski in winter.’

‘I like to keep fit, too,’ she said. ‘I belong to a health club back home. And I ski whenever I can. Where do you like to go?’

‘Mostly Aspen, Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Park City in Utah.’

‘No kidding? Those are resorts I’ve always wanted to go to, particularly Aspen.’ She opened her handbag and pulled out her cigarettes, took one out and held it up, mirroring him again.

‘You know the place I’d really like to go is Courchevel in France!’

‘It’s the best skiing in the world,’ she said.

‘You know it, do you?’

‘Really well.’

‘So maybe I should take you there?’

‘Tonight?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘If you want.’ He looked at his watch. ‘OK, so it’s eight thirty. France is — if I’m working it out right — nine hours ahead of us, so five thirty in the morning. If I chartered a jet now we could be there in time for dinner tomorrow night.’

‘There’s just one problem,’ she said.

‘Which is?’

‘There’s no snow there right now. It’s August!’

‘Good point.’

‘How about a nice dinner here instead?’ she suggested.

‘That would mean cancelling my dinner plans,’ he said.

‘Which were?’

‘There was a famous gourmet in your country, back in the 1950s, way before you were born, a multi-millionaire Armenian called Nubar Gulbenkian. He once said, “The best number for dinner is two — myself and a good waiter.”’

‘I’m not sure I would totally agree.’ She gave him a mischievous look. ‘So you were going to have dinner with yourself?’

‘Yep.’

‘I waited tables once,’ she said. ‘When I was a student.’

‘You did?’

‘Didn’t last very long. I poured someone’s very expensive wine into a water glass by mistake, and it still had water in it!’

He laughed. ‘Hope they didn’t take it from your wages.’

‘Luckily not, but they fired me.’ She smiled. ‘So,’ she asked. ‘Your divorce — what happened?’

Walt Klein looked sheepish. ‘Well, after my divorce I married my second wife, Karin, who was much younger than me. I thought we had a good relationship and that we’d be together forever. My kids and my five grandkids adored her. Then one day, I guess about two years back, she suddenly said to me, in a restaurant, “You make me feel old.”’ He shrugged. ‘That was kind of it. She told me she wanted a divorce. I asked her if there was anyone else and she denied it.’

‘And was there?’

‘She was into art and had been bored for some while. I’d bought her an art gallery down in the West Village. I heard through a friend she was screwing a sculptor whose work she was exhibiting.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jodie said.

‘Shit happens.’

‘It does.’

‘So what’s your story?’

‘Do you want the trailer or the full three hours, with intermission?’

He laughed. ‘Give me the trailer now — then the full three hours over dinner.’

‘OK.’ She gave him a wan smile. ‘I was married to a wife beater.’

‘That’s terrible. Poor you.’

‘It was, it’s been a nightmare. A total nightmare. I’m not sure I could ever trust a man again.’

‘You want to start from the beginning?’

Jodie nodded. ‘Sure. If you don’t mind listening?’

‘I have all evening,’ he said. ‘Another drink?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, seeing the way he was looking at her. Knowing she already had him in the palm of her hand.

She made an excuse that she had to visit the Ladies. Locked in a cubicle there, she googled ‘Walt Klein’.

He was a stockbroker, investment adviser and financier, with a Wall Street securities company, bearing his name, and an estimated eight billion dollars under management.

Smiling happily, she slipped her phone back into her handbag and went back out. Walt Klein would do very nicely.

Very nicely indeed.