Full Circle (11 page)

“I have the feeling,” she said, “that you’re in a very high-stakes poker game with some very, very good players.”

“Maybe I’ll have beginner’s luck.”

“Maybe.”

“Is there anything else besides Haigh?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. John Graham called, too.”

“The only thing I have going with Graham is his offer of ten thousand dollars for access to DuBois. Which, come to think of it, I could sell him right now, since I’ve got DuBois’s private number.”

“Mr. High Roller.”

“I’m not saying I will. I’m saying I could. But if I don’t make a deal with DuBois, then Graham’s offer will be a consolation prize. Which—” Struck by a sudden thought, he broke off, testing the validity of the new thought. Then, speaking slowly as he searched for the words that fitted the thought, he said, “Which, come to think of it, might be the best resolution of the whole thing. I put Graham and DuBois together, and collect fees from both of them. They make a quick deal. Graham writes out a check to DuBois for, say, twenty-five million dollars. He gives the check to DuBois, and hires a Brinks truck and a dozen gun-toting guards. Once the paintings are out of DuBois’s house, he can die in peace. And the paintings will stay in the legitimate art market, won’t be taken underground. In fact—” Aware of a rising tide of excitement, perhaps his shekel-smart heritage, he broke off again, considered more carefully. Then: “In fact, this might really work out. What if—” He took a moment, recalculating. “What if I got Graham to go twenty-five thousand for the introduction? He’s already offered ten thousand, so I’ll bet he’d go twenty-five, no problem. And if DuBois saw a chance to divest himself of the paintings and still be assured they’d be properly treated, I’ll bet he’d go a hundred thousand to me, for a finder’s fee. So Graham gives DuBois, say, twenty-five million for the paintings, which is a small fraction of what they’re worth. Graham would get the paintings at bargain prices, and DuBois would be safe from prosecution—and twenty-five million richer than he’d be if the government impounded the paintings. I, meanwhile, would be in the very big bucks. And best of all, the FBI would be screwed.”

For a full minute, only a static-sizzling silence came from San Francisco. Finally, tentatively, Paula ventured, “It could work.”

“Of course, if I went along with DuBois, get Betty here, help her dispose of the paintings, get them back to the museums, wherever, my end would come to more. Plus, that way—”

“Alan …” The misgivings were back in her voice.

“That way,” he went on, “Betty would get a slice of the pie, too. Which she wouldn’t if DuBois and Graham made a separate deal. She’d also be back with her mother, which would mean a lot to both of them. All they have is each other.”

“Unless Betty’s dead.”

“DuBois won’t have her killed. He needs her now more than ever. Besides, he
did
relent after he ordered her killed. He tried to stop Dodge in Borrego Springs.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“I’m sure. Also—” As another thought surfaced, he tested the logic, then said, “Also, if DuBois acts without Betty’s help, unloads the paintings to either Graham or the underground—or if the FBI gets a search warrant, and confiscates the paintings—then Betty’s screwed. For life. As long as DuBois has the paintings, he’s got to keep Betty pensioned off, out of the country. But once those paintings are off his premises, Betty’s got no more leverage. So sure as hell, DuBois would cut her off.”

“Jesus.” It was a reflexive response that nevertheless suggested vexation. Paula had no interest in complexities. Beyond two-dimensional speculation, she became impatient.

“I feel like I’ve got to do my best for Betty. I saved her life a few months ago. We’re—” Uncertain how the thought would end itself, he broke off, then said quietly, “We’re connected. Betty and me.”

“Ah, Alan.” He could imagine her as she said it: the resignation, the essential approval—and the exasperation. “I agree. You
are
connected, and more power to you, darling. But I don’t want you to go to jail. And I—” She interrupted herself, then said, “I just remembered: Mrs. Bonfigli said something about visiting her son in Sebastopol this weekend.”

“Ah.” It was a rueful, frustrated monosyllable. Then: “There’s that kennel up in Marin County.”

“In the first place, it’s not Marin County. It’s
Sonoma
County. And in the second place I’m not going to put Crusher in a kennel. He’s your dog. If you want to personally take him to a kennel, fine. But I’m not going to do it. I’m just not. All weekend I’d remember the reproach in his eyes when they closed the cage.”

“Well, Jesus, the point is that I’m
not
there. And a weekend in a kennel isn’t going to—”

“I’m not going to do it. You
know
I’m not going to do it.”

“You’re a very stubborn lady.”

Now her voice turned soft, intimate. “It’s not that I don’t
want
to see you. You know that.”

“Well, see what Mrs. Bonfigli says. Her son, you know, is pretty erratic.”

“I’ve been working my buns off on that Patterson and Sayers case. What you’re doing, this high-stakes game, it’s a turn-on. But Patterson and Sayers could be bread and butter. For years. Decades.”

“Let’s get back to your buns. See, after the play, tomorrow night, we have a late dinner, and we get in our fancy car and come back here, then we—” On Paula’s end he heard the warble of the office’s other line.

“Why don’t I get that?” Her voice was husky now, an evocation of other weekends, other nights, remembered with sensuous pleasure. “Time out?”

His reply was resigned. “Time out.”

Her conversation was short, and when she came back on the line her voice was crisp, no longer sensual.

“That,” she said, “is John Graham. Again. He wants you to call him.”

“Hmmm.”

“The way he said it,” she offered, “it sounded like he knew you were out of town.”

“Does he sound anxious?”

“He sounds like if he wasn’t so cool, so Ivy League, he’d probably be anxious.”

He chuckled appreciatively. “That’s Graham. You’ve got him exactly. Is he holding?”

“Yes. But he doesn’t know you’re on the other line.”

“Then tell him you’ll try to reach me.”

“Right.”

“I’ll call you later. Meanwhile, check with Mrs. Bonfigli. And I’ll keep thinking about your buns.”

“Love you.” The line clicked; she was talking to Graham. Bernhardt cradled the phone on the nightstand, laced his fingers behind his neck, leaned back against the headboard.

Patterson and Sayers … a bird in the hand. Security. Predictability. Probity. Modest profitability.

Raymond DuBois…

How many times in the past months had DuBois dominated his thoughts like some cancerous temptation that fed upon itself, endlessly burgeoning? In those months, as if it were unintended, in random reading, he’d discovered more and more about Raymond DuBois. Like Daniel Ludwig and J. Paul Getty, DuBois was a virtual recluse, neurotically secretive. Opportunistic, utterly ruthless, a genius at predicting trends, DuBois had begun working as a boy of sixteen, a runner for a major brokerage house in New York. In less than ten years he had bought the business outright. Married twice, divorced for decades, he’d never had children. If he gave to charity, the gifts were secret. His net worth was at least three billion dollars, probably much more. Pictures of DuBois were almost nonexistent, leaving Bernhardt to imagine how he must have looked as a young man. Somehow the images closely resembled Franz Kafka: a slight, frail, dark-haired man with a pale face, large, lustrous, feverish eyes, and a small, tight mouth, vivid against the pallor of his skin. The mouth never smiled, the enormous eyes never wavered, pathologically intent, constantly probing, never smiling, never shifting focus. Bernhardt imagined the younger DuBois sitting behind a huge, austere desk. There might be a glass-domed stock ticker behind the desk. He would be impeccably dressed; he was the kind who in an earlier era would have worn a morning coat, striped trousers, dove-colored spats, and a black silk top hat when he left the office, perhaps strolling down Fifth Avenue from his office to his mansion.

Then cut to the Raymond DuBois he’d left only hours ago: a frail, shrunken man, totally bald, utterly helpless. Only the right arm and the right side of the face were functional. But like so many others confined to wheelchairs, the force of DuBois’s intellect was almost palpable, so that, sometimes, Bernhardt imagined a surrealistic Raymond DuBois: only a brain that resembled the distended head of an octopus. But instead of eight tentacles, there was only one member attached to the pulsating brain. It was a single forefinger, poised over the electronic console that was always just beneath his right hand. A touch of the forefinger on the console in a certain sequence, and the world of finance trembled.

Another touch, and a murderer would begin packing the tools of his trade.

A
S IF FROM A
lengthening distance, Powers was aware that the surrounding voices were receding until the separate words and phrases were no longer distinguishable, merely meaningless blurs that diminished as the urgency of his own thoughts blanked out the babble.

Friday night on the Beverly Hills dinner-party circuit—twelve of the beautiful people, the collar-and-tie crowd, not the bomber-jacket crowd. They were gathered together to celebrate themselves while they sipped chardonnay that lacked distinction and murmured polite approval of a tomato and fennel bisque that was too thin and too flat.

The Levys’ cook, it was reported, had received a better job offer, and the bisque would seem to confirm the rumor.

Once more he sipped the chardonnay, and swallowed another spoonful of the bisque. Then, as he pressed a napkin to his lips, the desolate refrain returned: Today, April ninth, might mark the beginning of the end: farewell Powers Associates. For hours now—ten hours, at least—the certainty had been growing. At ten-thirty that morning, at the Huntington, DuBois and Bernhardt had met. Powers had waited until two o’clock to call. DuBois, the nurse had said, was resting. She would see that DuBois knew Powers had called. As he thanked her and hung up, Powers could plainly sense the coolness in her voice, the distancing.

The first hints came, he knew, from the invisible people—the servants, the ordinary staffers. Keeping their eyes and ears open, they could predict the future, who was in the ascendancy, who was falling out of favor. Inevitably, then, they would join the winner’s retinue, distance themselves from a loser.

Was blindman’s buff the operative metaphor?

No, the metaphor was Machiavelli—or de Sade.

Raymond DuBois, the master manipulator, the consummate tactician. For years he’d worked through Powers, the puppeteer and the puppet. Pick up the phone, buy a million shares of copper, watch the market rise, see the suckers flock into the tent, buying. Then sell, pocket the profit, do the same with other commodities, other corporations. Sell lira short, go long on the mark. Lose a million one day, make two million the next. The buy or sell orders always originated with a phone order from DuBois and were routed to Powers, then to the traders—a hundred traders for a major transaction, protecting DuBois’s sacred anonymity.

And then had come the stroke, a burst artery in the brain, a microevent that had undermined a hundred deals, ruined a thousand careers when Powers had put his ear close to the pale purplish lips and heard two words: “Freeze everything.”

The stroke, and then the heart attack. Followed by the period of convalescence. The brain, that incredibly complex, infinitely inventive ganglia of neurons that constituted the particular genius of Raymond DuBois, had restored itself. But the body would be forever withered, henceforth a burden—the burden that had precipitated the unprecedented thirty-minute face-to-face meeting. Previously, their business had been conducted by phone: buy a given stock at a certain price, option a certain tract of forest at a given price per acre, sell a billion yen. Terminated, invariably, by the three words: “Thank you, Justin.”

But in the matter of Nick Ames, a face-to-face meeting had been required: DuBois in his motorized chair, dressed, as always, in a conservative suit, white collar, and tie, legs wrapped in a blanket even though the night was warm. The place was the deck off DuBois’s study, both of them staring out on the wondrous panorama of a clear night in Los Angeles, a miracle of a million lights. Betty Giles, DuBois said, had discovered a vital corporate secret. Nick Ames, Betty’s larcenous boyfriend, had learned of the secret, and was threatening blackmail. It was necessary, therefore, that Ames be silenced—permanently. Could Powers handle the job?

There’d been no question of refusal. Even though—

“—if the Japanese control the entertainment industry, then they control our culture.” It was Bart Estes, across the table. Estes was a dedicated Japan basher. Powers nodded, shrugged, sipped his chardonnay, exchanged a fragmentary glance with Marge. Also sitting across the table, she was frowning slightly as she looked at him. As always, Marge had guessed that he was troubled. During the hour’s drive to the party, he’d felt her watching him. Her expression had been pensive; she’d said very little. She was conducting a running review of her options. Like perfect gems, women like Marge required a suitable setting; no other possibility existed.

Perfect gems…

Utter perfection…

Always, DuBois required utter perfection. Nothing else was tolerated.

Almost two years ago, on DuBois’s order, he’d searched for a curator to oversee DuBois’s extensive art collection, most of it modern. Many of the paintings were done by fledgling painters. Inevitably, then, responding to an even deeper instinct than his passion for collecting art, DuBois began trading, buying and selling. And, also inevitably, the enterprise had prospered. After his first heart attack, but before his stroke, DuBois had decided to employ a curator. His activities in the art market, after all, yielded considerable profit. But to buy low at the auctions, it was essential that he be invisible. Thus, a curator.