She scraped up the jelly. “It’s been the same with singers and actresses on his radio and television shows. He’d take one to dinner, and before dessert she’d know he was the most interesting man she’d ever met. Or they’d go dancing, really he’s as good as most professionals. Or sailing or skiing or flying; he’s good at pretty near everything exciting that most people only read about or talk about.”
I couldn’t dispute it.
“He’s so thoughtful and so — I don’t know — he has a flair for doing little things to please a girl.” She sighed at some intimate reminiscence. “There’d be presents, too, flowers, baskets of wine, things like that Stardust compact he gave Tildy. Next thing, the girl would be calling up two or three times a day, asking when he was coming up to her apartment. I had to talk to the poor things; it made me angry at him and sorry for them and bitter at myself.”
“Why didn’t Mrs. Lanerd divorce him?”
“She plain won’t. She knows he’ll always come home to her eventually. He always has, until Tildy put a spell on him. Give her credit; she didn’t hide the fact she was after him. I was in the studio the night Jeff introduced her to Marge. Tildy came right out with it. Laughing, but serious underneath it, you know: ‘Your husband’s absolutely the most attractive man I’ve ever known, Mrs. Lanerd. I believe I’ll try to snare him away from you.’”
“What’d Mrs. Lanerd say to that?”
“Don’t remember exactly. She laughed, too. Then there was some remark about preferring to put a knife in his gallivanting heart before she let him put a wedding ring on another girl’s finger. Kidding like. But she recognized the danger. She went to lunch with Jeff to question him about Tildy. She had Keith Walch, Tildy’s manager, out to dinner at Manhasset to see what he could suggest. She even tried to influence her through that firebrand maid, Nikky Narian. Marge nearly got her eyes scratched out for trying to tell Tildy where to head in.”
I wondered how much of it Ruth would tell Hacklin & Co., when they buzzed her door, as they were certain to do almost any minute. “You think the South American trip was for the purpose of Lanerd’s getting a divorce down there?”
“Yes.” She got up abruptly, went to the stove, began clattering pans. “I don’t know what there is about Tildy. They do have a lot in common; they’re both hipped on sports. And they’re both from Kentucky, least he was born there and she’s moved there—”
“Where’d he come from? Lexington?”