Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (27 page)

The traffic finally started to move, and Webb pushed his foot down slightly, letting her move. Her. Sweet machine-responding without asking anything of him beyond a certain amount of concentration.

Inevitably, angrily, his thoughts switched to Anne. Annie with the big blue innocent eyes. Managing to surprise him with her unexpected show of spirit and stubbornness.

And her deception. Was that what really bugged him? Anne Mallory-model turned movie star with a little help from her friends in high places. Harris Phelps's latest mistress. And maybe the reason her memory continued to rankle him was that he wasn't used to being made a fool of by a woman. Which took his mind back to that night in Dublin, with all its consequences.

While his hands handled the Ferrari by instinct, Webb let his mind reach back deliberately. Like sitting in a projection room, watching the day's rushes and trying to be objective. A series of fast-motion scenes; slowing down occasionally, even freezing in mid-action to hold one frame. He had a good memory-it had been trained and developed for the kind of "work" he used to be in, and had proved useful since; especially when it came to memorizing lines. Lines ...

Strain had begun to show in Venetia Tressider's face when he'd joined her after leaving the phone booth. Her smile was too bright and she held her purse far too tightly clutched in her hands. Her eyes looked frightened as they searched his face.

"Webb darling, can't we go now? It's so noisy and so close in here! And I do hate sitting alone in places like this, it makes me feel like a-a floozy!"

His anger at her for leading him into this unprepared made him say cruelly, "Then maybe you should stop acting like one, love-picking up strange guys at airports and inviting them back to your room for a quickie."

But he said it softly, with a smile for the benefit of curious eyes of the others, and after her first snatched-in breath of anger, she retorted sweetly, "But I'd heard so much about you it made me curious to find out. Besides, I thought we might console each other-we have both been rather played along, haven't we?"

Touche, Venetia. And it seemed they really had needed each other that night. Dual alibis. But that was to come up later.

Almost imperceptibly, coming to a straight four-lane stretch of highway, Webb's foot went down on the gas pedal, sending the speedometer needle flicking up to eighty.

And then, swearing under his breath, he eased it down to sixty again. Damn speed limits. Damn any limits at all! The only ones he tolerated were those he set himself; and there had been times during the past weeks when it had been all he could do to control his rage. He didn't like the feeling of being a pawn in someone else's chess game.

"Did you know that you have a dangerous face? You really do. It fits those macho parts you always play so well, and I think that under the surface you're really like that.

Are you, Webb?"

He'd listened to Venetia's nervous prattling in stony, resentful silence for the most part, letting her drive her car through the thick fog that seemed to close in on them like a billowy blanket. He was busy with his own thoughts and questions.

Nino-how in hell had Nino known he was here? Easy enough to figure out, he supposed, with all the publicity. But more important-what was Nino doing here? What did he want to talk about after all the twenty years? And where did Venetia fit in?

"Women belong between a man's thighs. There, they have their uses. Not in men's business. However, this one has proved useful, and since she brought you here to me, you might return the favor she has done us by helping her. No doubt she'll explain to you herself ..." That was Nino-not changed very much except that his hair had silvered. His embrace was still strong, and his manner had been affectionate as he stepped back, looking Webb over appraisingly.

"Ah, bene. You take after our side of the family, eh? It is difficult to tell too much from pictures or your movies, although I have seen all of them. I am proud. And if I have stayed out of your life all these years, it was only because you were making your own way in your own fashion. And there have been times in your life when any association with me would have been an embarrassment, sl? A pity-but then, family is always family, and since Lucia married Vito Gentile, the ties are even stronger.

You agree?"

Webb hadn't wanted Lucia to marry Vito. She was the baby of the family, his little sister. But Lucy, for all her gentleness, had a stubborn streak in her, and she had said she loved Vito. She didn't care what they said about him or who he was-she loved him and he loved her, and that was all that mattered. And he'd thought at the time, what the hell, he was living his life; why shouldn't his sister do as she pleased with hers? At least she still seemed happy, glowing with contentment after she'd borne two children, both sons.

Women like Lucy seemed meant for marriage and motherhood; and Vito, though he was accounted ruthless in his "business" dealings, seemed to worship her. Met socially, they seemed like any other young couple who had something going for each other, and the boys were normal kids for all that they had been taught Old World manners for company.

"They're really proud of their uncle, the big movie star!" Lucy had laughed the last time Webb talked to her on the phone. "You should have seen them when they were going through their cowboy phase!"

He hadn't met her since he'd made Bad Blood, although he'd wondered grimly what Vito would think about that. Still he was fond of his nephews and always tried to remember to send them souvenirs from his movies. A serape from Mexico he'd worn for two in a row. A battered flat-crowned hat with a bullet hole in the brim. They were all the family he had since his mother had died, and he'd always been close to Lucy.

But-what exactly did Nino mean when he talked so significantly of family? Had Nino known or suspected something even then?

Webb swore impatiently under his breath as he accelerated to pass a slow-moving camper, then slowed down to sixty again. Careful. He needed this time to think. To go back very carefully over everything that had been said and that had happened since that foggy night in Ireland.

They had talked, he and Nino, in Venetia Tressider's comfortable, fire lit room in the inn owned by a friend of hers. A man called Mike, with red hair and a mustache to go with his name. Mike had taken Venetia with him into the tiny bathroom, and from there through the connecting door to the next room, which he said with a wink was coincidentally unoccupied.

Melodrama. Webb had felt almost silly, standing there with his shoulder against the mantelpiece while he waited for Nino to tell him what he wanted.

"So!" Nino said briskly. "Time to waste we both do not have, eh? And you stand there impatiently and warily like a young mountain lion sniffing danger-or is it the woman in the next room? She will keep. I saw the way her eyes looked at you. However, after you've had what you need to take from her and the newspapers have made much of an affair between you two, I think it might be well if you drop her quickly. She is far too reckless, and too open in talking of the things she says she believes in ..." The older man's voice took on a contemptuous, cutting edge. "That is why she is being watched, and an interest is taken in her movements. But that is for her and her friends to worry about. They will not involve you, because they need what I and my friends provide them with, and she will not dare to involve you because she knows that if she does, she will die."

Very matter-of-fact, but Webb could sense the power behind the casual words, and it kept him quiet-and watchful.

"There is no need for blood oaths between us, because we are in truth and in fact uncle and nephew." Nino's dark, strong face was seamed more than Webb remembered it, but his eyes were the same-burning darker than his brown Sicilian skin. He chuckled suddenly. "I like it that you have not yet asked questions.

Questions are for fools, and those who listen learn-it is so? So now I will tell you ..."

Webb listened in silence, feeling the tautening of his muscles. This whole situation was fucking incredible. Nino, making a "simple request" that was in reality a thinly disguised order.

On the surface, it all sounded so damned reasonable. No risks involved-no real involvement at all, for that matter. Just a matter of information that he was the one logical person to provide because he was soon to leave for California to begin the shooting of Harris Phelps's latest production.

"This film itself-it's not important. It is the people involved-behind the scenes, as you would put it perhaps-who are of interest to us-I and my associates in the United States and elsewhere. Perhaps there are others who also find it a matter of some curiosity that so many important people, people with very big money, with much power internationally, should make themselves interested in the shooting of a movie?"

He mentioned names. Just a few of them were enough to make Webb's eyebrows rise. Some he hadn't heard of, but Nino, as if he could read his mind, explained very carefully who they were and what they represented.

"They have contributed-very generously-to the almost limitless budget. Harris Phelps himself does not need the extra money. But you see, it makes them associates of a kind. A good excuse for meetings, si?

For social occasions when they will all come together at this secret place where you are to film the movie-merely to visit and observe, you understand? Still, I do not think that is entirely all ....'

Webb had sat there with a drink in his hand, listening with a growing sense of incredulity he had to fight back because he knew Nino wasn't fooling. Wherever Nino had gotten his facts, Webb had to accept them as facts-men like Nino didn't fool around with suppositions. And the facts he presented added up to some very intriguing questions. Damn Nino for making them stick in his mind, too, like nagging splinters.

"You find out what you can, eh?" Nino's voice said heavily at the end. "Call your sister-ask to talk to Vito. He'll be expecting a call from you. And be careful. If you run into any trouble, then you call him, too."

There was a sense of sureness in Nino that age hadn't taken away. And his embrace at parting was still strong and affectionate.

"You take care now!" he said again.

"You, too, Zio Nino." Webb caught the pleased look his uncle gave him and grinned, in spite of the dark thoughts that still raced through his mind. "By the way," he added casually, "it's a stupid question, but-what would you have done if that plane I was supposed to be on hadn't been fogged in?"

The older man chuckled. "Ah, I had wondered if you would ask that. Well, if the fog hadn't helped us, you would have been-accidentally detained. An unfortunate accident to the taxi in which you traveled to the airport . . . ? And then there would have been this beautiful woman to offer you a ride."

After that last touch of humor, the tautness stayed in Webb, reaching to his loins when Venetia returned to the room-alone this time.

"I've been taking a bath. Wasn't that nice of me, darling?" Her hair was still damp and she was flush-faced and warm-fleshed when she dropped her towel. "Webb darling, I want you! And I really meant what I said

when I told you I always go after what I want. I didn't mean our first time to be this way, but we can both unwind now, can't we?"

She had a cameo-perfect face, the type that some Irish-women were born with, but he couldn't see it now, hidden by the swing of her damp black hair. He felt the softness of her red, avid mouth sending age-old, wordless messages to his groin and felt the wet-silk texture of her hair as he wrapped his fingers in it, yanking her up and across his body. Venetia had a smooth-muscled body developed by tennis and riding and lots of screwing. And at the moment, he needed only the answers her body gave to his.

Webb and Venetia spent most of the next day together, acting like newly met lovers for the benefit of her watchdogs and the photographers that followed him. Including Johnnie Bardini. Webb didn't try calling Anne again.

His new leading lady, Harris Phelps's latest discovery. Damn her, why hadn't she told him? It didn't surprise him to learn, when he arrived belatedly in London, that she'd moved herself out of the suite they'd shared. Annie was good at running away-and he should have kept that in mind.

When he saw her again at Harris's press conference, she'd looked white-faced and almost guilty-trying not to meet his eyes as she pressed closer to Karim, as if for protection. And he'd damned her silently again. She ought to feel guilty, the false, scheming little bitch!

It was almost a relief to find out that she would be leaving England, along with Harris.

He had other things to take care of, including Venetia, who had begun to act as if their much-publicized "romance" was the real thing.

Bardini had already sold his pictures, and the Mirror and News of the World had them captioned, "Webb's latest love is a British Beauty .. ."

One of the women's weeklies quoted Venetia as saying shyly, "This time it's different for both of us. We wanted to be alone somewhere so we could get to know each other as people ... Webb's other romances have been mostly publicity things, but I'm not interested in getting into films, and I see him as a man and not a movie star ..."

"Jesus Christ!" he'd sworn disgustedly, throwing the page back at her, and she'd raised her eyebrows reproachfully.

"But, darling, I think it was very clever of me! And none of it was really untrue, you know! Besides helping get us both off the hook. When those nasty men started asking me all those nasty questions, I simply looked indignant and told them I didn't know what they were implying, because I'd only flown to Ireland to be with you!

Should we get engaged before you leave England, do you think? Webb, I'd adore a big, really vulgar ring-if I don't have to return it to you afterwards."

He'd been thinking of the new and obviously expensive ring that Anne had been wearing at that press conference. Karim? Harris? Christ, she was turning into a little whore-or maybe she'd been that way all along and he'd been the only one too blind to see. The thought made him grit his teeth with rage before he answered Venetia.