With that, she consented, and while they drove Leo was able to communicate more of his awe and respect and to make a closer evaluation of the property, which was even larger than he had hoped. Not until they returned and were preparing to enter the garage did he manage to flood the motor and stall the car.
“It must be the carburetor,” he said. “I’ll have a look.”
Adjusting the carburetor gave him additional time and an opportunity to get his hands dirty. They were in that condition when a man’s voice called out from the patio near the garage.
“Monica? What’s wrong? Who is that man?”
Gavin Revere was a commanding figure, even in a wheel chair. A handsome man with a mane of pure white hair, clear eyes, and strong features. The woman in white responded to his call like an obedient child.
When the occasion demanded, Leo could wear humility with the grace of his imported sports shirt. He approached Revere in an attitude of deep respect. Mr. Revere’s car had to be in perfect condition. Would he care to have his chair rolled closer so that he could hear the motor? Would he like to take a test drive? Had he really put more than 90,000 miles on that machine himself?
Revere’s eyes brightened, and hostility and suspicion drained away. For a time, then, he went reminiscing through the past, talking fluently while Leo studied the reserved Monica Revere at an ever decreasing distance. When talk wore thin, there was only the excuse of his soiled hands. The servants were on vacation, he was told, and the water in their quarters had been shut off. The gardener, then, had been a day man.
Leo was shown to a guest bath inside the house — ornate, dated, and noisy. A few minutes inside the building was all he needed to reassure himself that his initial reaction to the front hall had been correct: the place was a gigantic white elephant built before income taxes and the high cost of living. An aging house, an aging car — props for an old man’s memories.
Down the hall from the bathroom he found even more interesting props. One huge room was a kind of gallery. The walls were hung with stills from old Revere-Parrish films — love scenes, action scenes, close-ups of Monica Parrish. Beauty was still there — not quite lost behind too much make-up; but the whole display reeked of an out-dated past culminating in a shrine-like exhibition of an agonized death scene — exaggerated to the point of the ridiculous — beneath which, standing on a marble pedestal, stood a gleaming Oscar.
Absorbed, Leo became only gradually aware of a presence behind him. He turned. The afternoon light was beginning to fade and against it, half shadow and half substance, stood Monica Revere.
“I thought I might find you here,” she said. She looked toward the death scene with something like reverence in her eyes. “This was his greatest one,” she said. “He comes here often to remember.”
“He” was pronounced as if in reference to a deity.
“He created her,” Leo said.
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“And now both of them are destroying you.”
It was the only way to approach her. In a matter of moments she would have shown him graciously to the door. It was better to be thrown out trying, he thought. She was suddenly at the edge of anger.
“Burying you,” Leo added quickly. “Your youth, your beauty—”
“No, please,” she protested.
Leo took her by the shoulders. “Yes, please,” he said firmly. “Why do you think I came back? Wagner could have sent someone else. But today I saw a woman come into that garage such as I’d never seen before. A lovely, lonely woman—”
She tried to pull away, but Leo’s arms were strong. He pulled her closer and found her mouth. She struggled free and glanced back over her shoulder toward the hall.
“What are you afraid of?” he asked. “Hasn’t he ever allowed you to be kissed?”
She seemed bewildered.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
“Don’t I? How long do you think it takes for me to see the truth? A twenty-five-year-old car, a thirty-year-old house, servants on ‘vacation.’ No, don’t deny it. I’ve got to tell you the truth about yourself. You’re living in a mausoleum. Look at this room! Look at that stupid shrine!”
“Stupid!” she gasped.
“Stupid,” Leo repeated. “A silly piece of metal and an old photograph of an overdone act by a defunct ham. Monica, listen. Don’t you hear my heart beating?” He pulled her close again. “That’s the sound of life, Monica — all the life that’s waiting for you outside these walls. Monica—”
There was a moment when she could have either screamed or melted in his arms. The moment hovered — and then she melted. It was some time before she spoke again.
“What is your name?” she murmured.
“Later,” Leo said. “Details come later.”
The swiftness of his conquest didn’t surprise Leo. Monica Revere had been sheltered enough to make her ripe for a man who could recognize and grasp opportunity.
The courtship proved easier than he dared hope. At first they met, somewhat furtively, at small, out-of-the-way places where Monica liked to sit in a half-dark booth or at candlelit tables. She shunned popular clubs and bright lights, and this modesty Leo found both refreshing and economical.
Then, at his suggestion, further trouble developed with the Duesenberg, necessitating trips to Mon-Vere where he toiled over the motor while Gavin Revere, from his wheel chair watched, directed, and reminisced. In due time Leo learned that Revere was firmly entrenched at Mon-Vere. “I will leave,” he said, “in a hearse and not before” — which, when Leo pondered on it, seemed a splendid suggestion.
A man in a wheel chair. The situation posed interesting possibilities, particularly when the grounds on which he used the chair were situated so high above the city — so remote, so rugged, and so neglected. The gardener had been only for the frontage. Further inspection of the property revealed a sad state of disrepair in the rear, including the patio where Revere was so fond of sunning himself and which overlooked a sheer drop of at least 200 feet to a superhighway someone had thoughtfully constructed below. Testing the area with an old croquet ball found in the garage, Leo discovered a definite slope toward the drop and only a very low and shaky stucco wall as an obstacle.
Turning from a minute study of this shaky wall, Leo found Monica, mere yards away, watching him from under the shadow of a wide-brimmed straw hat. He rose to the occasion instantly.
“I hoped you would follow me,” he said. “I had to see you alone. This can’t go on, Monica. I can’t go on seeing you, hearing you, touching you — but never possessing you. I want to marry you, Monica — I want to marry you now.”
Leo had a special way of illustrating “now” that always left a woman somewhat dazed. Monica Revere was no exception. She clung to him submissively and promised to speak with Gavin Revere as soon as she could.
Two days later, Leo was summoned to a command performance in the gallery of Mon-Vere. The hallowed stills surrounded him; the gleaming Oscar and the grotesque death scene formed a background for Gavin Revere’s wheel chair. Monica stood discreetly in the shadows. She had pleaded the case well. Marriage was agreeable to Gavin Revere — with one condition.
“You see around us the mementos of a faded glory,” Revere said. “I know it seems foolish to you, but, aside from the sentimental value, these relics indicate that Monica has lived well. I had hoped to see to it that she always would; but since my accident I am no longer considered a good insurance risk. I must be certain that Monica is protected when I leave this world, and a sick man can’t do that. If you are healthy enough to pass the physical examination and obtain a life insurance policy for $50,000, taken out with Monica Revere named as beneficiary. I will give my consent to the marriage. Not otherwise.