Leonie (46 page)

The poor fellow’s crazed, thought Edouard, heading single-mindedly for the door to find Wil.

He’s leaving me here to drown, thought Verronet, frantic with fear.
That’s it!
He’s found out that I’m working for Monsieur, he knows that I know where Amélie is and that I’ll tell Monsieur that she’s in Rio, waiting for him.
Waiting for whatever he might do!
He wants to get rid of me.
To kill me! He’ll shut me in here to drown
—
and nobody will ever know!
Verronet lunged toward Edouard as he disappeared up the steps, grabbing him by the legs. Edouard floundered on the treacherous wooden steps, sliding backward, pushing Verronet beneath the water that flowed, two feet deep, through the wheelhouse. Verronet scrambled for a hold; the river was claiming him again, its mud was choking him, sealing his eyes, his lungs. Struggling to his feet, he shook the water from him. “Murderer,” he shrieked, his voice a thin knifeblade of fear. “
You want to murder me because I know
 … you planned this, you and your partner.…”

Blood streamed down Edouard’s face from the gash over his eye—were there two Verronets in front of him?

“The bastard’s gone mad!” yelled Beckwith.

Edouard tried to focus, to concentrate; what had Verronet said about him and his partner?
His partner! He had to find Wil!
He staggered again up the steps.

“You’re not leaving me here,” screamed Verronet as Edouard disappeared and the boat wallowed suddenly, sending another crushing wave of brown water to engulf him.

Edouard clung to the doorway as the river tossed the
Liverpool Lady
like a cork. Water flowed from every aperture. Tattered awnings flapped wetly over the slippery boards and steel deck rails, twisted like ladies’ hairpins, sagged uselessly from their fittings. Wiping the blood from his eyes with his sleeve, Edouard moved cautiously forward.

Verronet slithered after him. “Wait!” he yelled. “Wait for me, you’re not leaving me down here to die!”

An ominous rumbling came from beneath the decks and the
Liverpool Lady
shuddered and then slowly and gracefully tilted her bows from the water, lifting them to the top of a treacherous slope.

“Help me … help me …” screamed Verronet, scrabbling for a foothold on the smooth slippery boards.

That man is screaming again, thought Edouard, shaking his head to try to clear his vision. Why doesn’t he shut up, can’t he see the ship is listing?

Verronet rolled past him, sliding fast across the deck, and instinctively Edouard reached out a hand to grab him. Verronet’s fingers latched onto his like a claw, dragging Edouard with him across the deck. Edouard’s left hand searched frantically for a hold; he could see the river sucking at the ship. I’m just a foot away from death, he thought, his brain clearing. They were going over together, the river was waiting for them just a foot away. “I can’t die … I can’t,” he roared.

The metal bollard thudded into his belly, knocking the breath out of him as he curved his body around it. Edouard sucked desperately for air, searching the smooth metal with his free hand. His fingers locked around the metal ring as Verronet, still clinging desperately to his right hand, slid over the side.

White hot pain shot through Edouard’s shoulders as the muscles ripped. I must hold on, he thought, closing his eyes against the agony, I must hold on. Verronet dangled from his right arm, his legs and lower torso in the water. The thick brown river sucked at him eagerly.

“Murderer, murderer,” screamed Verronet.

Edouard’s puzzled eyes met his. “Murderer,” screamed Verronet again as the boat swung around, forcing him beneath the
water. The clawlike hand gripped Edouard’s with fearsome strength, dragging at him, refusing to let go, the nails biting into his flesh to the bone. The
Liverpool Lady
swung with the current and the hand slacked its grip and was gone.

Wil pulled himself to his feet, wading through the debris in the salon, kicking aside floating pieces of wood and lethal shards of broken glass, bobbing whiskey bottles, and the sodden newspapers that wrapped themselves around his legs. Hefting aside the splintered slab of oak that had once been the door, he emerged, trembling, onto the deck. He didn’t know by what miracle, but he was
alive!

Beckwith appeared from the wheelhouse, running and sliding toward him across the slippery deck. “It’s Edouard,” he yelled. “Get Edouard.…”

Edouard lay, half over the side, one hand clinging to the metal ring. They eased him back onto the deck and Wil examined him anxiously. “He’s unconscious,” he exclaimed, “and my God, look at his hands!” Edouard’s right hand was black and swollen, every finger broken.

His left was frozen around the metal ring, and as they pried his numb fingers free, blood ran where the metal had cut deep into the flesh of the palm. Wil looked helplessly at his partner. Edouard was very cold, and there wasn’t even a dry blanket to wrap him in. Wil lifted him gently and carried him into the saloon.

Men were emerging from below decks, staring with stunned, frightened eyes at the scene. The boat trembled fitfully and there was another ominous rumble.

“My God,” yelled the captain, “we’re not holed, it’s the blasted rubber that’s shifting ballast—it’s rolling. A few degrees more and we’re under!”

Wil had never realized how terrible the stench of rubber was until now. He’d thought he was used to it, but here in the waterlogged, stinking hold it overwhelmed him. Head down, shoulders straining, he sweated with the others, heaving and rolling the great two-hundred-pound balls of rubber from the flooded stern to the bow, dodging the rolling balls as they broke wild and careened past, snapping men’s bones in their path, like some nightmare billiard game. Endless hours passed, lost in the rancid, stinking, sweating hold, as Beckwith snarled commands and one by one the rubber balls were captured and tethered securely with steel cables.
Gradually, the
Liverpool Lady
settled back into the water to lick her wounds.

It was two weeks before Captain Beckwith guided his ship into the great floating dock at Manaus. Like many other riverboats caught in the
terras caidas
, the falling lands of the Amazon, she had been given up for lost.

Manaus’s finest doctor, fresh from Harley Street, London, tended Edouard’s wounds. He refused to stay in the hospital and sat with Wil at a café on Avenida Edouardo Ribiero, his shoulders strapped, his hands in plaster, and a jagged row of stitches across his forehead. Passersby turned to stare and whisper, but Edouard didn’t notice. He couldn’t get the image of Verronet out of his mind, the crazed eyes, the hand clawing his, sliding away. Why, he wondered for the hundredth time, why did he call me a murderer?

Wil sighed. “You know,” he said at last, “you and I are lucky to be alive. I don’t believe in pushing my luck. Let’s sell the Oro Velho to the highest bidder and get the hell out of here.”

–
• 44 •

Gilles took off his jacket and loosened his tie, glancing wearily at the two telegrams that lay side by side on his desk. He had come to the office directly from the station, after a much delayed train journey from Milan, and had almost forgotten that Verronet was in Brazil.

A puzzled frown crossed his face as he read the first message. What on earth did Verronet mean by “information of an important personal nature”? Had he got some new angle on the rubber deal? An idea for extracting more money for himself? He flung the piece of paper on the desk irritably. Or had he simply found a good gambling club in Manaus? He knew Verronet’s little weakness. He always knew a person’s weaknesses.

With a sigh of exasperation, he ripped open the second telegram, addressed to the European Iron and Steel Company. It was signed “Wil Harcourt of the Oro Velho Trail.” He drew in his breath sharply as he read it, placing the telegram next to the other on his desk and staring angrily at them both.

The fool!
How could he get himself killed in some storm on the Amazon? Verronet had been with him for fifteen years, he knew everything—just where to lay his hands on the right information, who was involved with whom, where the secrets of their rivals were buried. Damn it, how would he manage without him? And what had he meant by this odd message? God, the man was a
fool!
If he weren’t a fool, he wouldn’t be dead!

Gilles paced the floor angrily. What about the Brazilian rubber deal? Who was there that he could trust to take Verronet’s place? Who was as devious and as clever—and as loyal? He knew the answer. There was no one.

Gérard hesitated at the heavy oak door to the office. You never knew whether Father was going to be furious at an interruption or
so lost in his own thoughts that he scarcely even knew you were there—or whether he might be pleased. It had always been the same, even when they were small: one moment he’d be smiling and giving you all his attention and the next it was as if he had never seen you before. Gérard had learned to live with it, but he still couldn’t fathom his father’s moods.

Gilles looked up irritably. Ah, it was Gérard, he was a good-looking boy—no,
young man!
How old was he now? Nineteen, twenty? He couldn’t remember.

“Did you have a good trip, Father?” Gérard was still cautious. He didn’t want to get to the point until he knew what sort of a mood Gilles was in.

“A lot of problems, but everything went well in the end. I wish you’d been with me,” said Gilles suddenly, “you would have enjoyed the negotiations—it’s like a game, a complex fascinating game.”

“And you always win.”

Gilles shrugged. “So far. Won’t you reconsider, Gérard? The business is all here waiting for you—waiting for both my sons.”

They’d played this scene before, many times. His father knew he was set on becoming an architect—it was what he had always wanted. “You have
two
sons, Father, and Armand is crazy about cars. When he’s old enough, he’ll join the business.” Gérard seized his opportunity. “Father, I’ve been invited to spend the holidays with a friend. I wanted to ask your permission.”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Gilles abstractedly, his thoughts still on Armand and his future.

“Then may I go to Brazil?” Gérard pushed home his point eagerly.

“Brazil?” The two telegrams lay on the desk in front of him. Verronet was dead.
Dead in Brazil!
“You can’t go, Gérard,” said Gilles abruptly. “Look at this.” Gilles thrust the telegram into Gérard’s hand. “Verronet’s been killed in the Amazon. Do you think I’m going to let you go there?”

“But, Father, I’m going to stay with the do Santos family in Rio.…”

“I forbid it, Gérard. You’ll stay here in France.”

And that was that, thought Gérard bitterly. If his father hadn’t received that telegram about his assistant, everything would have been all right. He thought about Verronet, his father’s shadow,
always in the background. No one had really known him, except his father. “I’m sorry, Father—about Verronet, I mean.”

“The man was a fool.” Gilles’s face was expressionless. “It was his own idea to go to the Amazon for the rubber … he had only himself to blame. And he’s left me in a hell of a mess!”

Gérard watched his father as he busied himself with the papers on his desk. He didn’t even seem to care about Verronet. What about the man’s family, if he had one? No use asking his father about that, he’d take care of things in his own way. And there was no use asking him again about the holiday, he knew it.

Gilles was already reaching for the telephone, his mind on other matters, as Gérard made for the door. He didn’t even notice his son leave.

–
• 45 •

Léonie placed the spray of jasmine in a glass of water on her dressing table and looked at it thoughtfully. He still sent it, wherever she was in the world, he always knew the country, the city, the theater; even in the depths of winter she had jasmine. It was a romantic gesture—or it would have been if the man were anyone but Monsieur—still, she could never bring herself to throw it away. It sat there on her table, scenting the room with memories.

But tonight was different. There was a letter with the flowers. She eyed the envelope warily; what could he want now? Shaking back her hair impatiently, she fixed the gold circlet around her forehead, scowling at her image. It was time to go on stage—the last night of the season, thank heaven. And tonight she’d go south, like a migratory bird, back to her refuge. She stretched wearily. She was more tired this time than ever before, and there was the new American tour ahead. Sometimes she thought she was getting too old for all this. It was true, she thought suddenly. She was thirty-one years old. It’s thirteen years since I left Monsieur and still the battle between us continues. She glanced at the jasmine again, and then at the envelope lying untouched next to it. What had he said, she wondered. The envelope gleamed whitely, tempting her the way he knew it would. Turning abruptly, she walked to the door, slamming it shut behind her.

There was something exciting about traveling on the wagons-lits, she thought. Perhaps it was the idea of hurtling through the night across plains and mountains toward your destination, tucked up in crisp white sheets, and then waking to find yourself in another city. There was a magic about it.

She relaxed in the luxury of the private compartment, whose dark paneled walls were inlaid with designs of garlands and flowers
in lighter woods and lit by discreet, pink-shaded lamps. The ruby velvet banquettes were deeply padded and soft and a crystal vase held a matching ruby rose.

Chocolat explored the new territory, sniffing it with interest, and then settled down on the velvet cushions, watching Léonie.

“Will you be taking supper, madame?” asked the steward. “The dining car will be serving soon after we leave.”

“I don’t think so, thank you.” She felt too tired to bother with food. “But will you bring me some tea, please, with lemon, when you have a moment?” She smiled at the steward.