Hooked (5 page)

Nicky was attracted to Gail but wondered whether his attraction was to the idea of Gail — a seemingly aloof American beauty who had married into one of the most prominent families of the Spanish aristocracy. He, Nicky, had been one of eight children born to a poor Turkish peasant who harvested fruit on apricot farms in the rich agricultural valley between Izmir and Aydin. Despairing of ever being able to support his family, Nicky’s father had moved with his two youngest sons to Izmir, the big city, whose streets, he had heard, were paved with gold.

Nicky’s father, it turned out, had heard wrong, and he had ended his life as a porter in a commercial rug-weaving factory and died leaving nothing but debts. Nicky and his younger brother, now orphaned, began to earn their own living at the ages of nine and eight, guarding the tobacco warehouses that rimmed the port of Izmir.

At the age of ten Nicky made his first thousand dollars, when a tobacco agent who liked him tipped him off to a naive Chinese buyer who could be persuaded to overpay for inferior leaf to go into counterfeit Cuban cigars. When the buyer found out that he had overpaid and demanded repayment, Nicky refused. His brother repaid the buyer with an icepick through his left eye into the brain.

After that, Nicky and his brother supported themselves by dealing in tobacco, both legal and contraband, until, seven months later, they had earned ten thousand dollars. Since then, the dollars had never stopped rolling in.

Nicky had noticed that Gail’s breasts were larger but had no way of knowing that her breasts were responding to the hormones with which Gavin had been treating her excessive menstrual bleeding. All he knew was that there was something tantalizingly different about Gail de Córdoba. Something that appealed to the peasant in him.

“He made you feel good, didn’t he?” asked Nicky. He and Gail were lying on the enormous king-size bed in Nicky’s suite.

“And I made you feel good, didn’t I?” asked Gail. There had been a difference in the quality of their lovemaking. An abandon and a tactile intensity that hadn’t existed before.

“Was it different for you, too?” asked the billionaire.

Gail nodded. “I always thought our lovemaking was wonderful. But this was better than wonderful—”

She wondered about the future. Could it be that the key to marrying Nicky was as simple as giving him the best orgasms he had ever had? Rich men, poor men, Gail thought, maybe they were all the same. Maybe sex was the secret of possession.

“Much better than wonderful,” said Nicky. “The best—”

“Is he the reason?” Nicky asked. “The doctor?”

“I’m not sleeping with him if that’s what you want to know—”

“I don’t mean that,” said Nicky. “I mean his treatments. His cure. Whatever you call it. You’re different and I want to know why—”

“Yes. I think it
is
his treatment,” Gail said and caressed her own breasts in a lascivious way which appealed to Nicky and which he had never before seen her do. “My breasts are bigger, more sensitive. I feel sexier. I want it more. I want
you
more.”

As Nicky pulled her down on top of him, Gail wondered if she could lure Nicky away from Adriana Partos. Her sold-out concerts were winning rave reviews and wild ovations but rumor had it that Nicky was tired of coming in second to the diva’s career. The world was at Adriana’s feet, but perhaps, Gail thought, maybe Nicky wasn’t.

At the same time, Nicky’s thoughts went in a different direction. He had almost but not quite made up his mind about Dr. Jenkins. He would invite him to a dinner party the next evening and make his final decision. A decision on which could rest the fate of eight hundred million dollars.

“He’s as repulsive as ever,” X told Nicky. She was calling ship-to-shore to
Lydia
from Abd-el Sadun’s villa on the island of Cilek. Cilek was the property of Nicholas Kiskalesi, who had bought it for eighteen million dollars fifteen years before as a favor to the Turkish government. The Turkish pound was in perilous condition in the world’s money markets and Nicky’s eighteen million dollars in hard U.S. currency had saved Turkey from a major financial crisis. Nicky ran Cilek as a personal kingdom and favored Sadun with the use of a villa and staff, rent-free.

“He’s eating like a pig,” continued X. “He has a boy and girl here. They can’t be much over thirteen—”

“Is he still taking hashish?” asked Nicky.

“He mixes it with honey,” replied X. “And there’s been a new development. He’s been eating rams’ testicles before lunch and dinner. He complains he’s impotent.”

Very interesting, thought Nicky, recalling vividly Gail de Córdoba’s confident new energy and enhanced eroticism. “Is Rudy still there?”

“Yes, he is,” said X. Rudy Sarvo was Sadun’s bodyguard, drug connection and procurer of pornography, adolescent boys and girls and any other perverted whims of his master.

“Tell Rudy no more drugs,” said Nicky. “And no more children—”

“Sadun won’t like it,” said X.

“I don’t give a damn what Sadun likes—”

The dining salon of
Lydia
glowed with the reflection of dozens of candles in crystal holders set against the mirrored panels that lined the octagonally shaped room. The polished mahogany table was set with translucent white china and vermeil flatware. Red anemones and white orchids and pink roses filled gleaming silver vases.

Caviar was served in the original blue tins marked with the port of origin on the north shore of the Caspian Sea. Champagne, Roederer’s Cristal, flowed as if from a bottomless well and waiters wearing white gloves served lobsters fresh from the sea, buttery fillets of beef, Bibb lettuce grown in greenhouses owned by the host and dressed with olive oil from groves also owned by the host.

The company was as glittering as the setting. Roz Symonds was unforgettable in violet silk with enormous sapphires dangling from her ears. Her flawless skin, perfect features, and velvety voice made it obvious why she was the world’s most glamorous film star.

Her lover, Sean Kavanagh, was not known, as Roz was, for his physical attributes, but rather for his rare talent. His definitive portrayals of classical Shakespearean roles, his sharp intelligence and scorching wit, revealed a man of enormous magnetism.

Willy Cranford, who had led Great Britain through World War II, wore a dinner jacket that displayed ribbons and rosettes from virtually every major power on earth. At the age of eighty-six, Willy Cranford still showed the strength that had made him one of the most influential leaders of the free world.

Gail de Córdoba’s white dinner dress was set off with an emerald-and-diamond necklace, a gift from the host, Nicholas Kiskalesi, who was charming, interested, gossipy, and, apparently, relaxed.

“I’ve been reelected,” said Roz Symonds with a naughty giggle. She and Sean had been holding hands through the dinner.

“Reelected?” asked Nicky. “What office were you running for?”

“Scarlet Woman,” said Roz, and everyone laughed. “When I broke up the Senator’s marriage I was Scarlet Woman of 1953. Then, when my second husband died, I was the Grieving Widow of 1955. Now that Sean has left his wife for me, I’m back where I started — Scarlet Woman of the Year!”

When the laughing died down, Sean commented, “And who ever thought that I’d end up as Adulterer of the Century?”

“There are far worse things,” said Willy Cranford. “Far worse.”

“Such as?” asked Nicky.

“Such as old age,” said Willy. The party suddenly became silent as tears began to flow down the parchment-like skin of his face. The male nurse who attended him carefully wiped the tears away.

“Old age,” Gavin said. “I’m afraid it’s an inevitability of the human condition—”

“Not according to your friend Lars Mendl,” said Willy, suddenly sounding ferocious. He pronounced the word “friend” with acid sarcasm. “Do you want to know something about your precious Lars Mendl? He’s a fake. A fraud. An out-and-out charlatan. His famous treatment is a waste of time and money. It’s exploitation.”

Gavin was shocked at how frail Willy had become since the time he had last seen him at his easel in Seengen.

“I’m a dying man,” said Willy. No one contradicted him. It would have been rude and patronizing.

“Lars never said that he could prevent anyone from dying,” Gavin said. “He simply maintained that he could prolong life and the quality of life. I think, Willy, that you’re a testimonial to Lars’s ability—”

“Do you think so?” the old Prime Minister asked.

“Certainly,” said Gavin.

“We all do, Willy,” said Nicky with infinite kindness. “You are of immeasurable value to us. To the world. To generations that haven’t even been born yet.”

There was silence as Willy thought over Nicky’s words. Then he turned to Gavin. “You’re right, young man,” he said. “And I was wrong. I was asking for the impossible: I wanted Lars to give me a medicine against death.”

Gavin nodded. “Unfortunately, there is none. Not yet—”

“‘Not yet,’” repeated Willy sadly. He turned to Nicky and raised his champagne glass, “But thank you, you have pointed out my immortality—”

“To the generations in your debt still to be born,” said Sean in his resonant actor’s voice. He stood up, and the rest of the party followed, all except Willy, and they drank a toast to Willy Cranford’s immortality.

“You handle yourself well,” Nicky told Gavin. The two men were sitting in the paneled lounge slightly apart from the rest of the guests, sipping cognac from balloon-shaped snifters. “You were kind to Willy, and yet you didn’t lie to him—”

“Lies disgust me,” replied Gavin. “They’re a sign of weakness—”

Nicky nodded. “I fear weakness—”

The two men fell silent, sipping their cognac. Finally Nicky spoke again. “Tell me, Dr. Jenkins, what do you fear?”

Gavin thought for a moment. “Failure,” he said. “I fear failure—”

Nicholas Kiskalesi framed his next question carefully.

“Tell me, Dr. Jenkins, would you be interested in treating a patient every other physician has given up on as impossible?”

“Who is this patient?”

“A cousin—”

“A cousin?” Gavin mocked. “I just told you lies disgust you—”

Nicky leaned back in his chair and smiled. “All right, he’s not a cousin.”

“Then who?”

Nicky looked at Gavin closely before replying. “His Royal Highness Mohammed Abd-el Sadun.”

“‘Whore-monger, glutton, sexual degenerate,’” said Gavin, quoting a recent article in
Time
magazine.

Nicky smiled wryly. “I see you’ve heard of him.”

“He’s ill?”

“Not in the usual sense—”

“What do you want me to accomplish?” asked Gavin.

“Dr. Jenkins,” Nicky said, turning to face Gavin. “I want you to make a man of him.”

His Royal Highness, the Prince Mohammed Abd-el Sadun, was repulsive. His brown eyes were sunk in fatty, bruised pouches that protruded like sores over flaccid, puffy cheeks. His lips were red and gleamed wetly under a pencil-thin mustache. A hanging garden of chins fell unchecked into the open neck of his gaudy silk shirt, a flower-splashed, short-sleeve style. Half-moons of sweat stained his armpits and a nauseating odor of perspiration and sweet toilet water emanated from him.

His Highness sprawled in a cushioned chair nibbling honey-drenched baklava while Gavin conducted the interview.

They were sitting on the terrace of the whitewashed villa on Cilek, an island as ravishing as Sadun was repellent. The view over the harbor framed the amphibian Beechcraft bobbing in the harbor at its temporary mooring. The sun was shining, the air was soft, and in a wrought-iron chair pulled slightly to one side, Nicholas Kiskalesi, silent, ominous, powerful, listened.

“Age?” asked Gavin.

“Thirty-seven,” said Sadun, reaching for another piece of pastry. Bits of pastry spilled down the front of the prince’s shirt. Rudy Sarvo, Sadun’s personal body servant, darted forward and brushed the crumbs off his master.

“Height?”

“Six feet.” Sadun’s voice was high-pitched and whiny. “Why do you want to know?”

Gavin ignored the question. “Weight?”

A pause. “Two hundred and twenty pounds—”

“When was the last time you saw a doctor?”

“Oh, I never go to doctors,” said the Prince with a petulant smile. “I don’t need them. I’m in perfect health—”

“Really?” asked Gavin. “X tells me you snack on ram’s testicles before lunch and dinner.”

Sadun’s eyes darted from Gavin to Kiskalesi and back to Gavin.

“Vladimir Orloff prescribes that diet to cure impotence,” said Gavin, referring to the Russian physician whose treatments claimed to cure impotence, sterility, frigidity and other sexual dysfunctions. “Isn’t that true?”

“So what of it?” Sadun shifted restlessly in his chair.

“Nothing, except that you’ve been lying to me from the beginning,” said Gavin. “The fact is you are forty-two, five feet six inches tall and that you weigh two hundred seventy pounds—”

The information was in a dossier that Kiskalesi had handed Gavin when he agreed to treat Sadun for a fee of one hundred thousand dollars. Plus a bonus of one percent of eight hundred million dollars if the treatment was successful.

The goal, Nicky had explained to Gavin, was to get Sadun into physical and mental condition that would permit him to figurehead an Egyptian oil company whose financing would be secretly underwritten by Nicky. Sadun, Nicky had explained, would be acceptable to Nasser, because, despite his excesses, he was still a popular figure among the Egyptian masses.

As long as Kiskalesi was discreet and the fiction was maintained that Sadun was returning to Egypt as a legitimate businessman, Kiskalesi would be assured of his oil, Nasser’s treasury would get the tax revenues, and Sadun would have a position of respect and authority. Everyone — including Gavin — would gain.

“But I didn’t really lie,” wheedled Sadun with a slimy smile. “Just exaggerated a little. It really isn’t so terrible, is it?”

“The first thing we are going to do,” said Gavin, “is test you for heart and circulatory problems. We will take cholesterol counts and examine you for kidney or diabetic dysfunctions—”