Excerpt from The Madonna Complex by Norman Bogner

Teddy suspected that someone had found out about him. His face was flushed, and he was sweating as he apprehensively unlocked the door of the apartment. He was startled when he discovered something blocking his entry. He pushed hard and found two large telephone books behind the door and a herd of catalogues and videos imploring him to buy everything from Dean & DeLuca foods to Victoria's Secret lingerie. He could improve his mind with the new Encarta; surf the Net free courtesy of friendly AOL, even follow Scientology to wherever L. Ron Hubbard was leading mankind over the millennium.

If that weren't enough to lighten his mood, he would be in a position to surprise his friends with his knowledge of international social affairs by subscribing to Vanity Fair for a lifetime. He'd have to tell the porter not to go into the apartment again, and get rid of this junk mail. He was a fastidious man and clutter irritated him.

He stood in the doorway surveying the empty rooms that confronted him like the hands of strangers waiting to be shaken. He then opened the hall closet and removed his telescope and high-powered binoculars. He rooted around the closet and had a vague recollection of a gun. He had purchased one years ago when he had been threatened by some woman's husband, but he couldn't remember who the man was or what the woman was like, but he must have had one of his fast, reckless affairs with her to incite this reaction. Had he brought the gun with him? Perhaps it was lost or stolen.

He set up the tripod by the east window, fixed the telescope, adjusted the sights so that he commanded a clear view of the entrance of the United Nations. He looked at his new Patek Philippe watch that featured a perpetual calendar, a Christmas gift from a man whose software company he had saved from bankruptcy by investing a hundred million dollars.

Barbara was late and he waited anxiously for her to come out. He wondered if she was also looking at her watch and thinking of him. He had bought the same $43,000 watch for her -- she had no idea of the price -- and given it to her the previous week. When he placed it on her wrist, he had said, "Just remember that every hour that passes is an hour more that I love you." She had kissed him on both cheeks like a distant relative, and when he pulled her close to him in the back of the car, feeling the mold of her breasts under her thin dress, she had pushed him away and replied, "Don't rush me, Teddy. I may not look fragile, but I am. I'll crack and all the Krazy Glue -- or you -- won't help. I don't bind well."

He wanted to remind her that a ten-month courtship wouldn't be anybody's idea of a rush job.

Teddy's heart began to palpitate when the hands of the watch read twelve-thirty. He peered through the telescope, then decided to use the binoculars.

He was so intent on adjusting the focus of the glasses that he didn't notice Barbara walking out of the main entrance of the General Assembly and heading down the promenade of the garden. Drops of sweat fell into his eyes as he swung the glasses from side to side, searching for her. She had already reached the Augustinic statue when he caught sight of her. She dropped her handbag and sat down on the grass at the base of the statue, under the olive branch held by the woman rider mounted on a stallion.

Barbara must be waiting for someone, meeting someone. Very clever of her to do it in broad daylight amid hundreds of visitors. No one would notice. She hadn't. however, considered the possibility that he'd be watching her. He had given her a Compaq computer for Christmas, which was tied into his mainframe at the office. VINTAGE was her password and he had already hacked into her e-mail twice that morning. She had the usual monthly message from her former employer in Bordeaux, pleading with her to return. The wine buyers missed her, the orders weak, the staff slumbering. Jealousy had made him despicable; he had relinquished his sanity to desire.

A sudden gust of wind came from the river and blew her boyish, cropped hair into a rooster's comb. He could have wept about her hair. She had had it cut the week before without telling him. It would take at least two years before it would grow back to its former length, down to her waist. Any idea of arranging it beautifully -- geometrically, like a Japanese flower display -- on his pillow, would have to be suspended until it grew back. It would have just covered the top of her buttocks, and he had a secret vision of lifting it up and kissing her on the small of the back.

Life cheats people in a variety of ways, but none was more disturbing or insidious for a man like Teddy Franklin than the weeding out of a fantasy. At his global level of society, which had nothing to do with family connections or education background and everything to do with his achievements and the size of his fortune, the women he encountered were either rapacious divorcées or embittered widows. All of them on Prozac or one of its companions. He had gone through a period of hiring different, sylphlike call girls who needed a new wardrobe or coke cash. He employed the women as dinner companion; very, very rarely for intimacy. The new trash on the block would appear at his reserved table at Daniel's or Le Cirque and no one would comment. Too many of the clients owed their dinners, their very solvency, to him.

He had been lonely, adrift for many years, until he met Barbara. In some respects his had been a manageable, predictable existence. Routine had never been his enemy. Unpredictable behavior, especially his own, had become his nemesis. Love and its dangers.

Downstairs, he spied Barbara flicking her short black hair with the back of her hand and smiling. Teddy shifted his glasses and saw a tall man with a thick mustache and Porsche sunglasses, which gave him the cryptic manner of one of those senseless idiots he was always seeing in the foreign films Barbara dragged him to and which worked like sleeping pills.

It was good old Noel, dressed in a designer knockoff suit, who was third secretary to a diplomat in the French delegation. He felt secure with Noel, who had no money and gabbled about his family's property interests, proposed to Barbara and was rejected, and invariably fell back on the secretary pool. Teddy had run a credit check on Noel through the manager of his Paris office: the only property was an apartment on the Avenue Foch owned by Noel's father, a career civil servant in the ministry of economic affairs.

Noel had given Teddy one bad day several months ago when he and Barbara had paused at the reception desk of the Plaza, but they had done nothing more daring than have a drink in the palm court. Barbara, Teddy was glad to see, had ordered tomato juice, which put an end to any plan the Frenchman might have made for getting her loaded then wheeling her into a room.

They took an outside table at the nearby bistro, which had a prix-fixe lunch and was not at all conducive to seductions. Noel was pulling in his belt, having come to the conclusion that he wanted more than Barbara's conversation for his money. Teddy had a rare moment of indecision: should he stop for a drink? How could he explain his presence if Barbara saw him? "I was just passing by." She'd know in a minute that he was spying on her, and she'd resent it, possibly punish him by refusing to see him. He didn't dare risk it.

Best to stick to his plan of furnishing the co-op and presenting it to her when the flighty English decorator finished. Barbara would be touched by his thoughtful gesture. Or would she? He'd shift some of the paintings from his townhouse. Who could say no to Vuillard, Matisse, Bonnard? If he had to ask himself this question, doubt was in the air.

How would Barbara express her gratitude? He thought about it for a minute and felt his flesh tingle with excitement. Would she ever say, "Teddy, I love you. I want to marry you"? When he was alone, after they'd been out, he'd say the words to himself, imitating the sonorous timbre of her voice, but it would come out in a reedy falsetto that might have been the cry of agony coming from the tortured Christ in Rouault's painting, which hung on the wall opposite his bed, serving to remind him of the subtle pleasures of lancination.

He put the telescope and the glasses back in the closet and double-locked the door. Except for the size of the rooms, the view of the East River and the UN, which were some compensation for spending 3.6 million for the co-op, the United Nations Plaza had all the glamour of a morgue. Even the elevator men and porters had the ashy faces of people who were constantly exposed to abrasive chemicals.

"Who do I speak to about keeping people out of my apartment?"

"The concierge," the elevator operator said as they sped down to the lobby.

"Concierge," Teddy grumbled. All these new titles exasperated him; salesmen were marketing consultants, boiler-room closers introduced themselves as telemarketing associates "I'd probably have to make an appointment with him."

"That won't be necessary. I'll give him the message if you like."

"Please do that," Teddy said, handing him a twenty. "It's number ninety-one."

"Decorating coming along, Mr. Franklin?"

"I haven't started yet. And how do you know my name?"

"The staff here all reads Forbes."

"Really. I never should have given them an interview. And that was five years ago."

"And with all due respect, Sir, you must be even richer now."

Teddy's laugh had a snarl. "But I'm unhappier now."

He passed by the bistro against his will, then quickly got into the backseat of his car before the chauffeur could move from behind the wheel.

"Let's go to the office, Frank."

Teddy sank back into the soft, embracing seat. His sapphire Silver Seraph Rolls was about a year old, and the leather smelled strong and fresh, like the river when a breeze blew. It was a good smell. There were others: Pine forest, golf greens, malt scotch, wood fires, lavender, and, of course, Barbara, who combined all the smells and made him aware of the pure physical joy of breathing. He looked at his watch. She'd be drinking her coffee, and Noel would be mentally adding up the check and playing with her fingers, as he recounted yet again the splendors of the old family chateau. Barbara would counter with the merciless politics of Bordeaux's vineyards.

But he'd be touching Barbara while he talked; the ooze from his pores would be entering Barbara's body, poisoning her. Teddy lived in constant dread of being poisoned, as though he moved in circles frequented by Borgia heirs whose sole purpose in life was to drop some obscure and deadly henbane into his shrimp cocktail. His irrational fear of receiving a sudden dose of poison stemmed from a childhood experience of having some ham infested with maggots, which resulted in his having his stomach pumped at a nearby hospital and a twenty-four-hour stomachache. He had been nine and now, forty years later, the thought of eating ham made spots dance before his eyes. He picked up the cell phone from the rest and pressed a number on his automatic dialer.

After a minute a voice answered.

"Theodore Franklin and Company."

He had intended to call his private line, but had been careless.

"This is Mr. Franklin. Please put my assistant on."

"Yes, sir."

Teddy heard the tension in her voice.

"Mr. Franklin's office."

"Nancy--" The line went dead as they entered the underpass on the FDR Drive. "Hello? Frank, I've lost the goddamn connection."

"Sorry, I would've pulled off."

Mysteriously, Nancy came back on the line.

"We were cut off, Mr. Franklin."

"Never mind. My laptop's down. Give me Intel, Yahoo, MS, Disney, AOL, and the NASDAQ Internet garbage."

He listened to the stock prices she read off. "It looks like someone's been buying big blocks of Yahoo."

"Probably to cover a short position," he said.

"I didn't get that, Mr. Franklin."

"It's not important. If Mr. Pauley wants to know about the activity, tell him a few of the funds got caught with their pants down. I want him to start selling all of our Yahoo at two o'clock sharp in hundred-thousand lots -- bang, bang, bang. I want to create some confusion. All these stocks are hot air in any case."

"Yes, sir."

"Any calls for me to return?"

"About forty, and your son phoned. He said to call him after seven because he'll be in court." She paused. "Will you be back this afternoon?"

"I don't think so. I'll catch the close at home."

They were approaching Wall Street and Teddy barked: "Frank, I've changed my mind. Drop me at Trinity Church."

The Rolls-Royce swung, edging its way cautiously through the traffic.

"Don't wait for me. I'll catch a cab," he said as the young chauffeur opened the door for him.

He was twenty-four, just a year older than his son Robbie. Teddy wondered who'd go farther in life. He admired Frank's pluck and had discovered that the young man was borrowing money and buying on margin.

"We'll be going out at eight."

"When should I pick up Ms. Hickman?"

"Let's see--" He opened a small crocodile wallet that had Barbara's daily schedule typed on it. "She finishes at five, possibly six tonight with all this East Timor stuff she's been translating. Make it seven-thirty." He looked at Frank's long, horsey face. "How much Yahoo have you got?"

"Forty-one shares."

"Still buying odd lots."

"I couldn't raise money enough to buy a hundred."

"Unload it."

"I intended to," Frank said, smiling crookedly. "Do you think I ought to go short tomorrow?"

"No, you'll only pick up a few points, and it won't be enough to cover the interest and commissions you'll have to pay." He paused. "But, Frank, your thinking's right."

"Thanks, Mr. Franklin." As he opened the door, he asked incredulously, "Are you going to walk?"

"Either that or start smoking again."

Teddy waited for Frank to pull away before heading for Nassau Street. He couldn't take the chance of having him know where he was going.

All content © 1998-2002 by Norman Bogner (No Inc.).