The Adventurers (69 page)

"Good, boss. I sure could use it."

Sergei looked out at the street. Traffic seemed unusually heavy and the sidewalks were jammed. "There seem to be a lot of people out tonight. What's up, Johnny?"

"Be that way every night for the next three weeks, boss. Christmas. That's why I'm glad to get the night off. Gives me a chance to get some things for the kids and the old lady."

Sergei leaned back in the seat thoughtfully. Three weeks until Christmas. It was almost fifteen months since he had left Paris.

It was nine forty-five. Sergei had had dinner sent up and he was sitting over the remains watching television when the door chimes sounded. "Come in," he called, thinking it was the waiter.

A moment later the chimes sounded again, and he got up and went to the door. When he opened it a tall beautiful girl was standing in the hall.

"Prince Nikovitch?"

Sergei nodded.

"May I come in?" Without waiting for an answer, she crossed in front of him into the living room. "I'm Jackie Crowell. Norman Berry sent me, he said to give you this."

Sergei took the small envelope and opened it. It was a calling card. One word was scrawled across it. "Enjoy."

In some strange way he was embarrassed. He felt a blush creep into his face for the first time since he had been a boy. "I'm afraid there's been a mistake. You see, I've just finished dinner." He gestured toward the table. "I didn't expect to go out."

"That's all right." The girl smiled. "Neither did I." She took off her mink coat and dropped it casually across a chair. Apparently she knew her way around the hotel because she went directly to the bedroom.

By the time Sergei got to the door she had already slipped out of her dress and was standing there smiling, clad in nothing but a brassiere and a pair of panties. She reached behind her back to unfasten her brassiere.

"Please," he said, "don't."

She hesitated a moment, a puzzled look in her eyes. "You're not queer, are you? I usually can tell right away."

"No, I'm not queer, I'm just tired. Very tired."

"Oh." The smile started coming back as she finished unhooking her brassiere. "That's all right. Norman told me you'd been working hard. Don't worry, you won't have to do a thing. Just lie back and enjoy it."

Sergei stared at her breasts. It was not until that moment that he realized how Americanized he had become. They were firm, full, strong-nippled, sex-symbol kind of breasts, and he felt the heat suddenly rise inside him. Almost as if mesmerized, he stepped into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him.

The girl looked into his face and grinned. "It's amazing how quickly most men forget how tired they are once they get a good look at my titties."

In the morning Sergei lay in bed watching as she finished putting on her lipstick. Then she went into the other room and came back with her mink coat hanging around her shoulders. She stood at the foot of the bed looking at him. "You feeling all right?"

Lazily Sergei propped his hands behind his head on the pillow. "I feel fine."

"You'd feel even better if it weren't for one thing."

"What thing?"

"If you weren't in love."

"In love?" Sergei started to laugh, then suddenly stopped. "What makes you think that?"

"I'm a pro, I can tell whether a guy takes it from the top or goes all the way. And you don't go all the way." "Am I supposed to?" he retorted, suddenly angry. "Any more than you?"

She stared at him silently, her face expressionless. "I guess not." She went to the door. "Well, in case I don't see you before, Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas," Sergei replied but she was already gone. He heard the front door close. More angry with himself than with her, he punched the pillow up behind him. That was all he needed on top of everything else. Merry Christmas from a whore. .

His eyes fell on the telephone. Sergei stared at it for a moment, then impulsively picked it up. "Get me Harvey Lakow in Palm Beach, Florida."

Less than a minute later he had Lakow on the phone. "Harvey, I need a vacation."

Lakow's voice was shocked. "My God, man, you can't go now. They're just beginning to cut the suits!"

"It's fifteen months since I've been home," Sergei shouted angrily. "I haven't seen my daughter in all that time, and I'm not going to let Christmas pass without seeing her!"

"That's no problem." Harvey's voice relaxed suddenly. "Isn't it about time you realized that your home is in New York now? Fly her over here."

The reporters pushed at Sergei and several flashbulbs popped. "Prince Nikovitch, look this way a moment."

He turned and another flashbulb went off in his face.

"Does your daughter look anything like her mother?" one of the reporters asked.

Sergei smiled. "I hope so," he answered easily, "Sue Ann is a very beautiful woman."

"Is there some special reason why Miss d'Arcy is coming here with your daughter? Is there something on between you two?"

"No, Giselle is just a very old and close friend. We decided the child should not have to travel alone."

Overhead the speakers announced the landing of the flight.

"Will Miss Daley see her daughter while she's in New York?" another reporter asked.

"I expect her to," Sergei answered, then held up his hands. "Please, gentlemen, enough for now. The flight is down. I very much want to see my daughter."

For once Sergei was grateful that Norman had thought to get him a special customs pass. The reporters parted and he went through the gate, holding up the card. He walked down the long barnlike room and through the doors into Immigration.

It seemed like an hour, though it was only a few minutes before they came through the door. Sergei shifted the big fluffy panda and the flowers to one hand and waved. Giselle saw him first and pointed him out to Anastasia. The child looked up, smiled, and began to run toward him. An immigration officer saw her and started to hold out his hand to stop her, then noticed Sergei. He smiled and let Anastasia run through.

Suddenly shy, she stopped just before she reached him. A tentative smile came to her lips. He dropped to one knee and held the panda out to her. The golden-blond hair and blue eyes were Sue Ann's, all right. But there was a gentleness in the child she had never got from her mother. "Bonjour, Anastasia. Joveux Noel. Bienvenue a New York."

"Hello, Papa," Anastasia said slowly, with just the faintest accent. "Merry Christmas!"

Then she took the panda and was in his arms and his eyes were wet as he kissed and hugged her. "You speak English! How did you learn, who taught you?"

Anastasia spoke slowly and very carefully. "Xante—uh —Aunt Giselle taught me." She looked at him, then up at Giselle, and smiled proudly.

Sergei turned just in time to see Giselle's warm answering smile. Suddenly he realized many things. That the whore had been right, and that he had been wrong. Slowly he got to his feet.

Silently he held out the flowers. As silently Giselle took them, and came into his arms. Her lips were trembling as he kissed her.

"It's like a miracle," he whispered, "how can I ever thank you?"

Giselle's hand went down and she drew the child into their embrace. "It's no miracle. All Anastasia ever really needed was a mother."

They were married Christmas morning at Harvey Lakow's home in Palm Beach.

CHAPTER 8

"Marcel's a damned fool," Jeremy said. "He began to think he was more important than the government. The worst thing he could have done was let it go into court. He had to lose there."

The baron looked across his desk. "They sentenced him to eighteen months?" He picked up a thin cigar in his delicate fingers. "Of course he had the right to appeal?"

"The appeal had already been denied. And Marcel made such a stink about it that even though the judge was inclined to suspend sentence he had no choice but to let it stand."

The baron studied the cigar carefully. "That is the trouble when you tell too many lies. Sooner or later they catch up to you. He will get time off for good behavior?"

"Yes. In six months he'll be eligible for parole. That is, if he keeps his mouth shut and behaves himself."

The baron lit the cigar slowly. "How do you think it will affect him?"

"In his business?" Jeremy shrugged. "In what he already has, not very much, I imagine. But if Marcel has any plans for the future he'll have to move carefully. He'll be subject to a great deal of public scrutiny."

"I see," the baron replied thoughtfully. Already he had mentally decided against renewing Marcel's note on the Campion-Israeli lines. True, it would force Marcel to dispose of his equity, but the shipping company was well enough established now for the Israelis to take it over themselves. With the bank's support, of course. He drew gently on the cigar.

'Your President did a very brave thing in recalling Mac-Arthur."

"It was the only thing he could do. If he'd let MacArthur have his own way we might have found ourselves in the middle of another war."

"What is there about the military mind?" the baron mused. "Your MacArthur and our De Gaulle. They are very much alike, you know. Each thinks he is God. Though of course MacArthur is only the Protestant version."

Jeremy laughed. "You French seem to have sidetracked De Gaulle. His party doesn't seem to have much power."

"The R.P.F. is a joke. In a few more years it will disappear. But not De Gaulle. He will not fade away like your old soldier."

"What can he do, then?"

"He can wait," the baron replied. "You see, he is aware that we French are not as wedded to the democratic process as are you Americans. In France there are too many political parties—some say one for each Frenchman—and power is always maintained by coalition. And since there are new coalitions every day, so will there be new governments. De Gaulle knows this, just as he realizes that a lack of continuity in government must inevitably lead to disaster. So he will wait and when the time is right he will come back. And that will be the end of the Fourth Republique."

"Surely the people won't stand for it?"

The baron smiled slowly. "That is a common mistake you Americans make. You are so steeped in self-governing that you forget what we French are really like. The average Frenchman, like the average European, will still prostrate himself before a man of power. We may have had our revolution before you had yours, but we still blindly follow the leader whenever one comes along. Napoleon returned. So may De Gaulle."

Jeremy laughed. "Certainly you don't think he has ambitions to become king?"

"Who knows?" The baron shrugged. "Only De Gaulle, and he talks to no one, only to himself. One thing is certain though—when he returns he will return to rule, not to govern." His voice turned reflective. "And who knows but what he may be right. Quite possibly the only way for France to regain her pride and power is to be driven to it."

After Jeremy left the baron leaned back wearily in his chair and closed his eyes. One more year, he thought, then Robert will be ready and I can let go. To say the things they wanted to hear and still say the things that had to be said that was the strain. Perhaps he was mistaken but it seemed to him that not too many years ago things had been much simpler.

He thought of the young man who had just left him and smiled. He liked Jeremy—his quick mind, his openness, even the strange American brand of idealism he professed. Now, that was the kind of young man that Caroline should have married. Strange that she should have fallen in love with his father. And yet perhaps not so strange; in many ways the father was very much like the son.

Idly he wondered whether Jeremy was still seeing that German girl. There had been talk a while back that they were to be married, but more than a year had passed and nothing had happened. Probably it never would now.

An idea suddenly came to him and the baron sat upright in his chair. His hand hesitated a moment over the telephone, then he picked up the receiver. After all, why not? It was not such a wild scheme after all. It would not be the first time that a son had married a woman who at one time had been the mistress of his father.

Denisonde answered the telephone. Quietly the baron told her to give a dinner party that Saturday night and to be sure to invite Jeremy Hadley.

Marlene was angry; Jeremy knew all the signs. As they rode silently back to the hotel he once or twice looked at her but she steadfastly kept her face turned away. But it wasn't until they reached their suite that she exploded. "Damn them!" she said, throwing her evening bag angrily across the room. "I never want to see them again, any of them!"

"What's the matter? I thought it was a very nice dinner party."

"Then you're even stupider than I thought! Couldn't you see what the baron was doing?"

Jeremy stared at her. "No," he answered stubbornly. "You tell me."

"He was throwing her at you. All night it was 'Caroline this, Caroline that.' Couldn't you see?"

"I didn't observe any such thing. Your imagination is running wild."

"It is not! And couldn't you see how they treated me? As if I did not exist. You sat at the head of the table opposite Caroline, next to the baron. I was put down at the foot next to two nobodies!"

"Cut it out, Marlene," he said wearily. "I'm too tired for an argument. Besides, the whole thing is ridiculous. Caroline and I have been friends for years."

"What's so ridiculous about it? If Caroline was good enough for your father, why shouldn't the baron think her good enough for you? Everybody knows she was your father's mistress!"

Jeremy's face whitened suddenly. "You'd better stop," he said grimly. "You've said too much already!"

But she was too wound up. "Don't go putting on that Holy Hadley act with me. I've been around you too long. I know all about your family. I'm aware of the second family your big brother Jim keeps in that sedate little house in Brookline. And the silent-movie star your father is still supporting. I also know all about your younger brother Kevin, swinging with the pretty boys down in New York, and how your sisters think nothing of switching husbands for the weekend—"