Keep Calm (6 page)

*   *   *

GORDON WAS WAITING
outside of the Connaught when his son-in-law finally stumbled out. It was a solid four hours later. Adam was surprised to see the old man, rigidly standing there on duty as if he were Heaton's own portable porch jockey.

“You're still here?” His speech was slurred, his voice scratchy from three very strong cigars.

“I'm on until he hits the pillow and even after that. C'mon, let's get you over to the Millennium so I can get back here again before he leaves.”

“Are you his driver, Gordon?”

“No, of course not. He has a driver.”

“Are you his bodyguard?”

“Not me. He has a team of them. Two of them were in the bar watching you all night. I'm surprised you didn't notice 'em.”

Adam had in fact spotted two men in cheap, well-worn suits at the bar all night long. He had realized through the course of the night that they were watching Heaton and him quite a bit. He figured them for off-duty cops, maybe hotel security.

“So what are you, then, Gordon? What do you do for Heaton?”

“I'm a helper. I assist with whatever he needs help with. Sometimes I look after his house; sometimes I'm up at his farm feeding the dogs. Tonight he wanted to get to know you better. I helped. It seems to me you two got along nicely.”

“Yeah, we did get along. But why? I can't figure it out. I mean, at first, I thought it was all about you. You making it happen, doing this for Kate. But it isn't, is it, Gordon? This isn't coming from you, is it?”

Gordon looked into his eyes and came to the conclusion that Adam was too drunk and worn out to go into any detail tonight. There was explaining to do, but not at the end of a day this long. He did his best to put both the subject and Adam to bed.

“Let me just say that dealing with Sir David can be tricky. It takes a strong sense of self-navigation. But if you stay sharp, if you come out on top here, with what he has in store for you, you'll be a well-taken-care-of man. Understood?”

“No. Gordon, no. I don't understand a thing about any of this. Seriously? What does he ‘have in store' for me? None of it makes any sense.”

“Then maybe that's best, lad.” They had arrived back at the Millennium. “Go on; go upstairs to your family. There'll be time to fill you in.”

The two men said good night and Gordon headed back to meet his mercurial boss at the Connaught.

*   *   *

IN THE MORNING
, Adam had a serious hangover. Luckily he more or less got away with blaming it on jet lag. Kate and the kids were on Chicago time and were wide-awake at five a.m. They wanted Adam to come look at the view over Grosvenor Square, out onto the FDR statue and the 9/11 memorial. The bright morning light thundered in when Kate threw the curtains open, slapping him wide-awake, as if it were a jolt of electricity.

Later in the day, when he finally woke, he called the only person he knew in London to tell him they were in town and to make dinner plans. Beauregard McCalister and his wife, Tiffany, were Kate and Adam's good friends from Michigan. A London boy born and bred, Beauregard, a movie producer, had lived in Michigan several years back when the state had a hefty tax incentive. He filmed his movies, mostly Colin Firth–type, frilly necked, Jane Austen–era stuff, out in Pontiac at the Michigan Motion Pictures Studios, which is where they met when Adam was working construction at the facility.

Adam and Kate had loved to spend time with Beau and Tiffany when they were all in Michigan. They had other friends, but none that were as cozy a fit as the McCalisters, and ever since Adam's criminal adventures, most of their “friends” weren't all that high on dinners out. In fact, even when they got to Chicago, they had found themselves with no social life.

It was for this reason that Adam and Kate both were excited to reconnect with the McCalisters and their kids. When Adam had called, he was greeted with nothing but excitement. Beau and Tiffany were well aware of Adam's recent adventures in severe felony, but it wasn't in their nature to judge people harshly for mistakes they had made. They were true friends. A promise was made to get together. It was one of the first times in a long time that Adam had seen Kate smile.

*   *   *

WITH HIS WIFE
and kids on a double-decker bus tour of London, Adam spent the afternoon pulling himself together. Late that afternoon Adam, Kate, and their kids had a meal with Gordon at the Millennium's restaurant. Trudy and the handsome French boy had met once again in an elevator and headed down and into the lobby together, giving them the opportunity to have their first conversation. Trudy was happy to learn that he spoke almost perfect, if somewhat broken, English, and was already wondering how that would be—for her to marry a Frenchman. Where would they live? What would their kids be, French? English? Once again, the only thing Adam and Kate could do was stifle their laughter.

After the early dinner, the family, and Gordon, all walked over to Hyde Park, to the Serpentine. Gordon played with Billy as the boy chased a flock of geese to the point where he almost ran into the water. When the sun went down, at not yet seven p.m., the family was exhausted, their bodies' clocks still playing tricks on them, so they headed back to Grosvenor Square, said good night to “Poppa,” and went back to their room. Trudy and Billy were in bed by eight.

Kate was in as good a mood as she'd been in years. She took a long shower and came out to the bedroom smelling like a warm blast of spring air. Adam thought it was going to be a nice night. She had that glint in her eyes and was paying that telltale level of attention to him that she did on nights when the drawbridge was down, laughing at everything he said. Kate got into bed next to Adam. He kissed her softly and rolled on top of her as she wrapped her pajama legs around his bearlike body.

The hotel phone rang. It had that European clang to it. It didn't ring like a hotel phone rings in America—it was more mechanical, more staid, one grinding obnoxious blast after another. Another representative from HGI was on the line. Sir David and the others in the delegation were downstairs in two limos, waiting for Adam to come down and join them for “dinner and drinks.”

“When? Now? Right now?”

Kate understood, maybe more than Adam did. As he quickly dressed, she helped him pick a tie. The kids were fast asleep. He made her promise that they could pick up right where they had left off when he returned. She made a solemn, if comical, oath and kissed him good-bye at the door as he hustled down the six flights of stairs.

Gordon was waiting in the lobby. With a nod, he motioned Adam to join Heaton and several other HGI employees who were jammed into two Mercedes limos. Gordon escorted Adam to the limo containing Sir David. The French woman, the mother of Trudy's future husband, was in the car as well. There was a stocky redheaded man nestled into the front passenger seat. Adam recognized him and the tall thin bald man in the back of the limo as the two men watching from the bar at the Connaught the night before.

The whole group had dinner in a private room at Nobu, just off Berkeley Square. Heaton toasted “the deal.” They talked shop, discussing the figures around managing the pension packages of the entire British civil service's employees—staggering figures. Adam just listened. He knew enough of what they were saying to know that he had no idea what it all entailed, so he shut up and ate sushi.

With the herd thinned to more or less just men, they ended up at Annabel's, a trendy nightclub on the opposite side of the square for a long session of drinking, more business talk, and another toast from Heaton, this time custom-tailored toward Adam. Adam wasn't going to drink but Heaton of course insisted, so there wasn't too much of a fight.

Later, when the talk moved on to sports and movies and women and war, Adam was the center of attention, amusing Heaton with his easy style of banter, making him laugh and at one point even choking Heaton up with a story of his first sexual adventure as a boy in Michigan, with a twenty-year-old babysitter.

The group was later culled to just Heaton, Adam, two HGI men—one from France and the other from Texas—and, of course, Harris and Peet, the two ever-present bodyguards. They all drove in one limo to St. John's Wood and pulled up to a large, Victorian-era mansion that sat on the backside of Primrose Hill. Adam wasn't sure where they were going, but the others were all happy to follow the energetic Sir David into the house. Adam, now feeling zero pain, happily, almost giddily, took up the rear.

Inside there was a party going on. The house was warm and familial, decorated with a subtle, cozy, pedigreed style. It was a catered affair with waiters and waitresses taking and bringing drink orders and hors d'oeuvres. A round of cocktails was brought over. Several men were talking to what Adam finally, woozily, noticed were some of the best-looking women he had ever seen—seriously beautiful women from all walks of the world: Asian, Russian, Indian, and even just good old-fashioned, well-dressed British beauties, one stunner after the other. It was actually, he thought, a bit of a freak show: these women were all so perfect.

There was some dancing in a large room off the main hall. A gorgeous Jamaican woman was mixing records, and the room pulsated with elegantly sexual energy. A buxom, tiny blonde with an adorable pageboy haircut dragged Adam, at that point truly inebriated, onto the dance floor.

A short time later, Heaton had rounded two of the best-looking of the group, a brunette and the blonde whom Adam had earlier been dancing with, away from the party and headed up toward the staircase at the center of the house. He motioned for Adam to follow. Adam hesitated, but Peet quietly urged him to follow along. Adam finally realized at that moment that he was at one of the highest-end whorehouses on planet Earth. A combination of being drunk out of his mind and basically a naive guy from Michigan caused his ability to assess the situation to take a while. He wised up by the time he and Heaton and the two women had reached the top of the stairs. He hustled up to Heaton and caught him right before he went into a bedroom with the brunette.

“Wait, David, hold up. Hold up. I need to speak with you. Wait.” Adam grabbed Heaton's arm and pulled him aside. He talked low in a drunken whisper as Peet watched from the bottom of the hall.

“I can't do this, David. I can't. It's not me. I'm married. I mean, the one I'm with—not with, but that I'd be with—she's unbelievable, but I can't. Okay? I can't. I can't do this. Trust me, I appreciate it, but it's not me. I'm not that guy. I have other problems. Sadly, I'm too in love with my wife. I have to get out of here.”

He took a deep breath while waiting for Heaton to comprehend the situation he'd put Adam into. He was also hoping to take a beat and stop the floor from spinning underneath him. Heaton went into his room with his brunette, as planned. He looked back at Adam before he shut the door and gave him a snarky, yet friendly, conspiratorial smile.

“Something tells me you're a man that knows how to get himself out of a fix, Tatum. I'll leave it to you to sort this one out.” With that he was gone. Adam was on his own.

The blonde tugged his arm with a jerk and pulled him across the hall, opened the door to a candlelit bedroom laid out with fluffy shag carpeting and a plush queen-size bed with thousand-count Egyptian sheets and a quilt, already turned down. There was a bottle of champagne on ice on the sideboard, and an old Duke Ellington album was playing on a Bose stereo system,
Piano in the Foreground
. Before he could get a word out of his mouth, the blonde shut the door, with only the two of them in, the rest of the world out. She gently pinned Adam against the wall.

The soft piano tinkled, the candles flickered, and the rose petals on the bureau gave the room an aromatically erotic lilt. She rubbed her cute little nose against his, giggled, then stepped back and let him look at her in the fractured light. Expertly, she let him have a moment to reflect on the fact that she was all his, that it was just the two of them alone with Duke Ellington and that big playpen of a bed behind her.

With another expert turn she unsnapped her skirt and stood there in a pair of soft white panties. She did a cute spin and served up another perfectly adorable giggle. Adam thought that she looked like a young Lady Diana if Lady Diana had been a high-end call girl. He had always had a thing for Lady Diana. It was probably one of the reasons he fell so hard for a British girl.

He was drunk, good and drunk. That could even be his excuse. But he didn't take it. He fought himself, fought the silky shine coming off of her bare thighs.

“I can't do this. Just so you know. There's no way.”

She laughed. “There's always a way.”

She pulled her top off. She was built perfectly, with two ample, natural breasts, and a tiny toned and tanned little bottom. She came over and kissed him. Her lips were moist and clean, wet with an inviting liquid lightness. Her breath smelled like honey. He lost himself in the kiss. It seemed to go on and on, the two of them almost floating there in the darkened room. Finally, he pushed away and tried to get his mind to come to a stop; he tried to bring some sanity to the moment.

He just stared at her. Words weren't coming to his mouth. He was drunk, he knew it, but something else was overpowering him. She came close. He tried to push her away again as she unbuttoned his pants. She wouldn't take no for an answer. He saw a white light and he angrily pushed her away yet again. Hard.

She fell back, landed on the bed, and did a cute backward somersault to the middle of the bed that let him know she thought the force he had used was in the service of foreplay. It didn't faze her a bit. She maybe even wanted a little more from that column. She motioned him over with a sneaky forefinger, seductively. It was time.

He burrowed his back into the wall behind him, tried to catch his breath, tried to form words and an escape plan, but it didn't work. His breath wasn't to be caught. His mind and his senses weren't playing along.