Free 1980 - You Can Say That Again by James Hadley Chase

snapped.
    I caught sight of myself in a wall mirror. I saw John Merrill Ferguson standing there. John Merrill Ferguson, one of the most powerful and richest men in the world! No one would dare tell John Merrill Ferguson what to do!
    I pointed to the door.
    ‘Get the hell out of here, Joe!’ I barked. ‘And you, Mazzo! I want to talk to my wife!’
     

chapter four
     
    I stood by the desk, looking at Loretta Merrill Ferguson.
    We were alone.
    After my outburst, Durant, purple in the face, had begun to bluster, but Loretta Merrill Ferguson had silenced him with a wave of her hand.
    ‘Go away!’ she had said in a voice like the crack of a whip.
    Both Durant and Mazzo had left the room, closing the door as if it were made of egg shells.
    So we were alone.
    She studied me for a long moment, then walked to one of the settees and sat down.
    ‘Take off that mask. I want to see what you look like.’
    I went into the bathroom and carefully removed the eyebrows and the moustache, then slipped off the mask. I rinsed my sweating face, then returned to the living room.
    I stood by the desk while she regarded me the way a butcher regards a side of beef, but I was used to agents, film directors, camera men regarding me so she didn’t faze me. I waited, and while I waited, I stared directly at her, and my steady stare seemed to disconcert her, for after trying to stare me down, her eyes shifted: a tiny victory for me.
    ‘Sit down!’ Again the whip crack in her voice.
    Deliberately, I walked to the big window and looked down at the vast, immaculate lawn, my back slightly turned to her.
    ‘I said sit down!’ she snapped.
    ‘What a beautiful place you have here, Mrs. Ferguson, but less beautiful than you are,’ I said, then took out my pack of Chesterfields, shook out a cigarette and lit it. I didn’t turn, but continued to survey the garden, the big swimming pool and the three Chinese gardeners attending to the flower beds.
    ‘When I tell you to do something, you will do it! Sit down!’
    I turned and smiled at her. Mazzo had warned me about this woman. I was determined she was not going to dominate me.
    ‘I am being paid one thousand dollars a day to impersonate your husband, Mrs. Ferguson. For that money I have agreed to cooperate, but I will not be ordered around by anyone, even the most beautiful woman I have yet seen, who hasn’t the good manners to say please.’
    She sat for a long moment, staring at me, then she suddenly relaxed and became all-woman. The change was startling. Her hard, arrogant face softened, the violet colored eyes lit up, her mouth moved into a smile.
    ‘A man at last!’ she said, half to herself, then she patted the settee. ‘Please, come and sit here.’
    Although I was only a bit-part, unemployed actor, I wasn’t fooled by this sudden change. I had knocked around too long with bitches who played hell one moment, and were as sweet as honey the next. I had stood on a set, waiting for some glamour star who was no better than a whore, throw her weight around, holding up the shooting, while the director tried to placate her, and while I longed to kick her backside. Women who were too rich, too beautiful and who behaved with gutter manners were my idea of the genuine pain in the ass.
    I walked to a chair, facing her and sat down, making a point not to sit by her side.
    ‘I am at your disposal, Mrs. Ferguson,’ I said.
    ‘You could be, Mr. Stevens, you could be,’ she said, still smiling. ‘I could call that monkey man and tell him to spoil your handsome face.’
    I smiled at her: the smile I reserve for spoilt children.
    ‘Go ahead and call him. He and I have already sorted out who is the man and who is the boy. He landed up on the floor.’
    She leaned back and laughed, thrusting her breasts at me. It was a splendid, silvery laugh so infectious I had to laugh too. We laughed together, then she said, ‘You’re marvelous! What a find!’
    Another shift of mood? There were times when I wished