Villiers Touch (21 page)

The girl's big dark eyes pressed at him. “She wouldn't listen to me. I don't know what he used as a persuader—I have visions of him caressing her erogenous zones like a musician playing on an instrument, that's the kind he is, but with Mace Villiers there's always a knife concealed in his palm. Whatever it is, he's using her. Only she can't see it. Or she refuses to. Maybe you think of her as a tough bitch, Russ, but where men are concerned she's
la plus grande imbécile de la cité
.”

His hand had formed a loose fist. He said, “Why did you come to me, Cynthia? What do you expect me to do about it?”

“You're a financial cop. You must have files and records on Villiers. Trot them out—show her his record. Prove to her what a bastard he really is.”

He laughed ironically. Cynthia said, “I'm scared, lover. Not just for Diane—for me too. I've got a big stake in the business, and I have visions of the whole thing being flushed down the tubes. But mainly I hate seeing my best friend offer herself on the chopping block. I was hoping you still had enough feeling for her to help me get her out of this mess.”

“Even if I did,” he said, “I doubt I could even get an audience with her.”

“You don't have to hold hands with her, dahling. Of course she'll see you. She's not vindictive. Maybe you don't realize how broken up she was when you left her. Shit, I'm not saying she wants you back, Russ, but she doesn't hate your guts.”

“Cynthia, what the hell could I say to her? She'd suspect my motives the instant I said an unkind word about him.”

“That would be childish. She's not a fool—oh, hell, I take that back. Where he's concerned, she's a fool. But don't you see that's why somebody has to talk her out of it? God knows what he's got in mind, but his touch has always been the kiss of death to any business he got involved with. He'll destroy her if somebody doesn't pry her out of it in time.” She flung her arms wide and demanded, “Don't you believe he intends to gut Nuart the way he's gutted everything else?”

“It's my job not to believe anything too quickly,” he said. But he was frowning darkly. “I'll tell you what. I'll nose around in our files and let you know what I find. You can put it up to her yourself.”

“She wouldn't take it, coming from me. She knows I hate his guts.”

“Why?”

“Call it postcoital depression,” she said. “It was a long time ago, and I'd rather forget it. In fact, I did forget it for a while. When I first learned she was seeing him, I encouraged it. I thought he'd be good for her. She needs a man strong enough to bring her to heel. But as soon as I found out what he was up to, I got wise. Nuart is a dollar bill to him. Wherever there are two people and one dollar, there's going to be a fight to see who gets the dollar. It's always been that way with him. I'm scared to death, Russ. You've got to do something.”

“We'll see,” he said.

14. Steve Wyatt

The bullpen vibrated with a racket of phones and calculators and voices. Wyatt completed a call and glanced toward the secretary's railing. Anne had been absent from her desk all afternoon, taking dictation in the old man's office. He looked at his watch and leaned back in his swivel chair for a stretch.

The big room was filled with well-dressed young men, all cut from the same bolt, all imbued with the pep talk they'd received when, after the tough seven-month training drill, they had achieved the exalted nirvana of status—analyst, Account Executive: “Remember, gentlemen, from now on you're on your own. When you pick up that telephone, you
are
Bierce, Claiborne & Myers.” They were earnest, they knew the vocabulary, they knew everything from capital-gains taxation to corporation finance, they kept up with the required reading—financial pages, trade journals, tip sheets. They spent three-quarters of every working day on the phone, yet they had to know how to be discreet at all times.

He had to laugh.

The jangling phone cut off his ramble; he reached for it. “Bierce, Claiborne & Myers, Wyatt speaking.”

The caller identified himself and asked a question. Wyatt turned, bored, to run a finger down his note sheets. “It's quoted forty-five to forty-six bid and asked, CTM. Anything else right now?”

Getting a negative answer, he said good-bye, and looked toward the door beyond the railing. She was just coming in sight; she sat down, watching him with silent adoration.

He took her to Le Manoir for dinner. Afterward they window-shopped hand in hand along Fifth Avenue. He slipped the Jensen case out of his pocket and gave her the silver necklace, and she flung her arms around him and kissed him under the streetlight on the corner by St. Patrick's Cathedral.

He took her home to his apartment. When he closed the door, she moved against him and flicked her tongue against his, wheeled across the room in a gay dance, and stopped by the mirror to fit the necklace around her pretty throat. “How do I look?”

“Delicious.”

“Steve, there's never been anybody but you and me.”

He smiled and ran his fingertips up her arms very softly, feeling her shudder. Her eyes were half-closed; she began to lose her breath.

A full-length mirror hung on the back of the closet door. He twisted the door open, held it at the right angle, and stepped back toward the bed to test it.

He went into the kitchen to make drinks; dropped the liquid contents of a chloral hydrate sleeping capsule in her glass and delivered it to her; adjusted lamps and the record player, and came to her by the bed. He kissed the tip of her nose, and clicked glasses with her, said, “Bottoms up,” and watched critically while she swallowed half the drink.

She smiled her warm, loving smile. When he reached around her to undo the back of her dress, she put the glass down and watched the dress fall in a pool around her ankles, and stepped out of it. “Can't we go on like this forever?” she breathed. “Oh, my darling, I never thought it could ever—”

“I love you, Anne.”

“Always—always. We'll have eight kids. No, we won't have any, they take too much time, and there's no time for anything but this you and me, darling.… Do you love my breasts, darling?”

“Mmmmm.”

“Aren't they beautiful?”

“They're the finest perfect little breasts in the world.”

“They belong to you, darling. Oh!”

He lay across her and caught his breath. She fell fully, deeply asleep with a nesty little smile on her lips. He padded across the room, switched off the stereo, and picked up her handbag. The drug would keep her asleep for hours; he moved without stealth. When she came to she would blame it on sexual exhaustion, the way the old ones had in the days when he had made a practice of rifling rich women's jewel boxes.

He found the leather key case in her bag and dressed without hurry, and before he left he looked up a phone number and dialed it. When a man answered in an irritable tenor voice, Wyatt said, “I just wanted to make sure you were there. I've got to get these keys duped and return them in a couple of hours.”

The petulant high voice said, “I always keep appointments, Mr. Jones. You just bring the cash.”

“I'm on my way.”

He hung up and glanced back at the sleeping girl. She was superb in bed; he congratulated his luck. A little inexperienced, but he would teach her to make it soar. She had a good body and a great generous sensitivity to his pleasure. It was too bad she was the nesting kind. It would hardly do for a Wyatt to entertain marrying the daughter of a Polish taxi driver.

15. Mason Villiers

Ginger Hackman was long-legged and sad-faced. Villiers watched with tight-lipped reserve while she disrobed before him and came unwillingly toward the bed, her eyes half-closed. She said, “Make it good.”

He did. As always, he was bored afterward. He watched her slip into the bathroom; he lay back, sated and thinking. When she reappeared in the lighted doorway, he had trouble for a moment remembering who she was—just one more in the endless chorus line of golden-thighed girls.

The vagueness passed; he made a brief smile.

Ginger said, “You look like a leading man in dirty movies. Shall we have some lunch?”

“No.”

“I'm hungry.”

“Later,” he told her. He talked while he began to dress. “How long has it been since you saw Dan Silverstein?”

“Come again?”

“Don't tell me you've forgotten his name.”

“No. But it was kind of a non sequitur, wasn't it? Since when are we talking about the old crowd?”

“Since now. How long has it been?”

“I haven't seen any of that bunch since before I married George.”

“Does Silverstein know you're married?”

“I suppose so. Why shouldn't he? It was hardly a secret, the way George bragged it up at the time. Exactly the way he'd have boasted about buying a new Rolls. Only now it appears the chrome must have rusted overnight.”

“You haven't rusted,” Villiers said, granting her a piece of a smile. “George gets tired of all his new toys fast, like a kid.”

“Why didn't you tell me that before I let him marry me, Mace?”

“It was none of my business. You had your eyes open—don't tell me it was a love match, mad passion made you blind.”

“I knew what he was—but I thought he'd keep his part of the bargain.”

“George has plenty of talent,” he said. “It doesn't, show, but he knows his business. But he'll never keep a bargain unless you force him to.”

“He keeps bargains with you.”

“He can't afford not to.”

“Then you've got something on him,” she said.

“Possibly I have. Why go into it?”

“Because I need something to hold over his head too.”

“If you don't trust him, divorce him.” He feigned interest, but most of his attention was concentrated in the mirror; he was knotting his silk tie. His face was lifted, poked forward, the muscles hard at the angles of his jaw.

She said, “I may get a divorce, but it's going to have to be on my terms. I need ammunition—to keep him from contesting it.”

“Maybe I can let you have something,” he said. “I'll let you know.”

“Make it good,” she said. It made him look at her in the mirror, but she seemed unaware it was the same phrase she'd used before coming to bed with him. The irony amused him. Ginger said, “I don't intend to be thrown out like an old shoe. When I leave him it's going to be in style. I want to gouge him good when I go. He can afford it—thanks to you.”

“Suppose I ask you to hold off for a while.”

“Why should I? Have you any idea how intolerable he makes my life?”

“You seem to be surviving,” he said, shoehorning his feet into his shoes. “Hold off until I give you the word, and I'll give you the ammunition you want.”

“I suppose I never should have expected anything from you that didn't have a price tag attached.”

“If it didn't cost you something, it wouldn't be worth much, would it?”

“The puritan ethic, from
you?
” She was astonished.

He slipped into his suit jacket. “Let's get back to Dan Silver-stein. You used to get along with him pretty well, didn't you?”

“Carol got along with him better than I did. She was always his favorite. At least she was until they had some kind of falling-out.”

“Do you know what it was about?”

“She was pretty green—it was a long time ago, wasn't it? Four or five years, anyway. She wasn't used to all the tricks of the trade. He wanted her to do something she didn't want to do, he pressed the point, and she kept refusing, he got nasty, and she belted him one. Carol used to have a pretty good right hand. Do you keep in touch with her?”

“Sure,” Villiers said.

“The same way you keep in touch with me,” Ginger said dryly. “But that's all right, you're big, Mace, there's plenty of you to go around. I never felt possessive about you at all. I couldn't care less about your other women—I suppose I'm only being realistic.”

“You've always been realistic, Ginger.”

“All right, you win. What about Dan Silverstein?”

“He's on a few corporate boards of directors,” Villiers said. “I need his vote on a few things.”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“I want you to bump into him, by accident. He's in New York, staying at the Plaza. Generally he has his dinner in the hotel dining room around seven-thirty. Let him run into you there.”

“And?”

“Charm him. Reminisce about old times. Throw in a little nostalgia and a lot of sex appeal. He hasn't got his wife with him—he'll take you upstairs.”

“I suppose you've got his room bugged with cameras and microphones? What the hell have you got in mind, a badger game?”

“You've played it before,” he told her. “Don't be indignant, it doesn't suit you.”

“I don't think I like it. What if I refuse?”

“What if you refuse? Nothing. I'm not twisting your arm.”

“But if I don't do it, you won't help me with George, is that it?”

“Ginger, when you want something, you've got to be willing to trade something for it. I'm not a charity.”

She said, “I don't like it. If you get him on film, it means you get me on the same film. Suppose you turn around and show the film to George?”

“You're not thinking,” he said. “I've already got plenty of film on you. Don't you remember? If I'd wanted to show it to George I could have done it anytime in the past five years. Look, if you're worried, pull the sheets up over your face. Just make sure Silverstein's in plain sight. You know how it's done.”

“Some things you just don't forget—even if you try.”

He said mildly, “Go on, get dressed.”