The Scarlet Thread (24 page)

Angela smiled up at her husband. There was no doubt about her feelings for him. “That's wonderful news. But you mean it isn't on the market?”

“No,” Steven answered. “It's empty, though. Ralph heard about it. We went through the agents and looked at some properties, but they weren't suitable. Not big enough. Or too far out from the center. This would be ideal if we can get it.”

She said to Maxton, “How did you hear of it?”

He was quite an ugly man, with a hook nose and a long, thin face. But after a few minutes one didn't notice, because his manner was so engaging. He gave her his full attention.

“Through friends, Mrs. Lawrence. I've lived and worked in Monte Carlo for some years, and the Riviera's rather like a village. Everyone knows everyone else's business. This building belonged to a Russian aristocrat before the First War. He used to spend the winters here, and he had a French mistress at the time. It was designed on a very grand scale; more like a palace than a villa. When the Revolution came, the count got the chop, and the lady went on living there till she died. Then it was sold to a rich manufacturer, who used to let it, and during the war the Germans requisitioned it. They didn't know quite what to do with it, but it was used as office and storage space. Very little damage was done as a result. A speculator bought it after the war. It was said he meant to sell it as a hotel, but nothing came of it. Too expensive to convert and run, is my guess.”

“It must be enormous,” Angela said.

“It is,” Steven said. She could see that he liked it and was excited. “Too big for anyone to live in, but it would be just right for us. And wait till you see the site!”

“Directly overlooking the sea,” Maxton explained. “With about four acres of grounds. They're in a bad state, but they could be landscaped and made rather beautiful. The main coast road runs a hundred yards away from the entrance.”

“It's ideal,” Steven insisted. “It's perfect.”

“When can I see it?” Angela asked.

“Anytime you like, Mrs. Lawrence. I managed to get hold of a key.”

He hadn't fooled Steven. They went to the agencies and looked at everything unsuitable just to whet his appetite, and then Ralph had brought him to the great crumbling palace by the sea and produced a key from his pocket.

“A friend of mine knows the owner,” he'd explained. “He's had the key for ages in case someone expressed interest, but nothing happened.”

“Let's see inside,” was all Steven had said.

Double commission. Real commission to the “friend,” whoever he or she might be, and hidden commission to Maxton if he brought off the sale. It didn't matter. When the time came, he'd let Maxton know he knew. What was important was the potential of the place. They'd picked their way through the jungle of overgrown garden and into the vast, damp-smelling house, shuttered against vandalism. Steven didn't waste time. He didn't bother going up the stairs to the first floor; he only had to look at the sweep of them to imagine what an entrance they would make for the
salons privés
where the rich would go to lose their money.

He had said to Ralph Maxton, “I guess this is what I want. Let's go back to the hotel. My wife's expecting us.”

Angela turned to Steven. “Darling, can we go and see it after lunch?”

“Of course. That suit you, Ralph?”

Maxton had nowhere else to go. “Suits me perfectly,” he agreed. “What time shall I come back?”

Her response was generous. “Why don't you stay to lunch? Then we can all go together.”

“Good idea,” Steven added.

His hesitation would have escaped anyone less acute than Maxton. For a moment he was tempted. But it wouldn't be wise. He stood up. “You are kind,” he said sincerely to Angela. “But I've arranged to meet someone. If I came back at, say, three o'clock, would that be all right?”

“Fine,” Steven said. “We'll see you at three.”

Angela got up too. “I'm sorry you can't stay. Next time, you must.”

He gave his little bow and left them. He went down in the gilded elevator and out into the bright, crisp sunshine. Marvelous climate, even in November. He had a new suit, a decent shirt and a topcoat. He felt for the key in his pocket and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger like a talisman.

“Good old Great-uncle Oleg,” he murmured. “What a laugh you'd have out of this.” Then he made his way inward off the Croisette to a small café, where he ordered himself a cheap lunch. Lawrence would buy the place. He was the kind of man who made up his mind. There'd be no second thoughts. He was a man obviously used to making big decisions with a lot of money involved. Used to getting what he wanted.

Maxton drank very little; alcohol was not his weakness. You couldn't gamble unless you had a clear head. For ten years he'd kept clean, drinking no more than a glass or two of wine, maybe some champagne with clients when they were winning. When they lost, he paid for the drinks and encouraged them to try their luck again. What a shitty way to live. What a wonderful way to die, at the end of it all. During that lean and hungry year, he had thought about dying. Nobody would have given a damn if he'd followed his poor friend of long ago into the sea and let it take him to its peaceful depths. He had considered the idea, even tossed a coin in his despair, and been relieved to see the toss in favor of living.

His friends had been so good to him; two women had helped support him, and they had been the first to get some of his five hundred dollars back. One had said she loved him, and he believed her. But he didn't love her. He had never loved anyone, for he hated himself.

This was a second chance. He was as superstitious as the next gambler; he thought of fate as an entity, usually malignant, sometimes capriciously kind. Fate had brought him and Steven Lawrence together at the last moment to save him. He would work for Lawrence, build up a new casino, take his place among the rich and wasteful people of his world. Great-uncle Oleg, roistering with his French whore, would smile on him from the shadows. It was family legend that he had opened his trousers and pissed at the Bolshevik firing squad.

By three o'clock Maxton was sitting in the front of Lawrence's big, rented Cadillac and they were driving to the Palais Poliakoff. The first thing Lawrence had said was that they must change the name. Maxton agreed. But he would think of some way to resist it later.

“Well,” Steven asked her. “What do you think, sweetheart? Do you like it?”

He wanted her to be enthusiastic; he wanted her to see the plaster freshly gilded, the rotten floors carpeted, the wrecked chandeliers sparkling and restored to their old glory. He held her hand and asked her to support him, and she did. Not because she could share his vision of the future, but because she loved him too much to cast a doubt. To Angela it was a huge, run-down white elephant that would cost millions.

But she held tightly to his hand and said, “You'll make it wonderful.”

“And you'll help me?” he demanded. “You'll go every step of the way with me, Angelina? I'll need you. I'll need you to take care of the decorating, and the grounds—we'll make the grounds a feature. There's a terrace right on the sea. I'm going to rebuild that, have it lit at night.”

Maxton had opened the shutters. They had walked up the great staircase and opened double doors onto a series of huge reception rooms with superb plasterwork ceilings and majestic marble fireplaces. The chill sunshine streamed in through cracked window glass, and Steven stood with Angela beside him, visualizing how it would look.

Ralph Maxton had withdrawn, leaving them alone. He could see that she was bewildered, even overwhelmed, and admired her for concealing it. It wasn't her world. He knew what kind of world she had lived in. A nice country house, a village, a respectable, professional father, Women's Institute mother. His own family owned villages like that in England. His mother had been president of this institute and that local charity until she died.

He had flown back for her funeral in the grim Derbyshire church where all his family were buried, and he hurried back to Monte Carlo the next morning. No one had been pleased to see him or sorry to see him go. He was an outcast. The epithet “black sheep” had actually been uttered by an ancient relative still using the vernacular of sixty years before. His father had been too preoccupied with his own grief to make any effort for a son who had caused his mother so much shame and anguish. Ralph felt they would all have preferred that he not come at all. He had fled to his place of exile, where the sun shone and he was accepted by his peers.

No, this place wouldn't be easy for Angela Lawrence to encompass. This was dross and tinsel, in spite of its grandeur. No real values for her in Steven Lawrence's dream. Maxton reproved himself. He mustn't be morbid or sentimental. He went back downstairs to wait for them. When they came down the staircase and into the entrance hall, he walked up to them, smiling, and said, “Impressive, isn't it? Did you think so, Mrs. Lawrence?”

“Oh, yes. It's certainly impressive. My husband wants me to have it decorated. I'm going to need a lot of help.”

“We've been jumping the gun,” Steven interposed. “It's not bought yet. It's not even priced. Come on, darling, we'll go back. Ralph, we'll take you back, and the car can drop you off at your hotel. It's up to you now to get the details. We mustn't run ahead of the deal before it's made.”

He whispered to Angela as they went outside and Maxton locked up. “I don't want him to think I'll buy at any crazy price,” he said. “I'll get it, but at my figure.”

“But he's working for you, isn't he?” she asked.

“He's working for himself, and for the owner, and then for me. Don't worry, I know these guys. They take a cut out of everything. That's okay, so long as it's not too big. Now, my darling, when we get back, why don't we call Charlie, tell him all about it?”

“Yes, of course we can,” she said. The school didn't encourage parents to call unless there was an emergency, but she didn't want to dampen his spirits. “But I don't think it'll mean much to him,” she said. “He has no idea what a casino even looks like.”

“He will,” he insisted. “He'll get the idea when I've talked to him. It'll be his place one day.”

FIVE

He was a humble man, a man of no importance in the family hierarchy. But he'd had his hand in the till. There was no excuse, because he was doing well enough out of his delicatessen, and the amount he paid in dues was the same for everyone with his profit margin. He'd been greedy and dishonest, salting away part of his takings. And he'd been found out.

Piero Falconi liked to keep tabs on everything that happened, no matter how trivial. The conviction and punishment of a humble man who had turned thief was part of his responsibility. He decided to look at the condemned man. He'd been called from his shop and held in a warehouse. His wife was told he'd been sent out of town on family business. She didn't protest. She hoped he wouldn't be away long, because she had to manage the shop on her own.

He didn't see Piero. He didn't see anyone, because he was blindfolded. He had stood trial in that warehouse and argued with tears, pleading for his life. He told lies, hoping to be believed. He wasn't. He was taken away without knowing what his sentence would be.

Piero looked at the man. He was about the right age, though different in build and nearly bald. But he'd do. Piero nodded at the two men who guarded him. The man was slumped in a chair, abandoned to fear and despair, without enough hope to move. One of the guards silently moved up behind him and slipped the garrote over his head, pulling it tight. It took him a while to die, writhing and choking. Then at last his executioner released the cord, and the body fell forward onto the floor.

Piero said, “Load him up and get him out of here. Take him to Freddiano's place. He'll set it up like an accident.” He walked out.

Freddiano was a truck driver. He had the body rolled up in packing paper in the bottom of his truck, with a load of cases piled on top of it. He drove through the night and the following day, stopping to eat at diners and snatch sleep in his cab. He arrived in a small town on the southeastern seaboard when it was just getting dark. He was tired and hungry. He stopped at a gas station with a small snack bar. While he was inside eating, the owner's two sons removed the body and loaded it into the trunk of a secondhand Ford. In that and a pickup they drove out of town and parked on an isolated road. There wasn't a house in sight and no car had passed while they waited. They took the dead man out of the trunk. He wasn't stiff to handle anymore. They put him behind the wheel of the Ford. The older of the two sons of the garage owner noticed something.

He said, “Jesus!”

His brother looked where he was looking. The corpse had lost a finger on its right hand. They poured gasoline on the front seats, drenching the figure slumped over the wheel. They trickled gas along the ground away from the parked car; the engine was left running. They lit a twist of paper and tossed it onto the oily snake creeping across the road. Then both men took off at full speed for the safety of the pickup. They dropped flat behind it. There was a roar, a bright sunburst of flame and then an explosion as the Ford's tank ignited. When they stood up to look, there was nothing left but a red-and-orange ball surrounded by a river of flames.

Back at the garage, they found the truck driver drinking coffee and reading the sports page of the newspaper. He paid the bill and left. Nobody said anything.

The local police poked around among the blackened ruins of the car and found what was left of the dead man. The local newspaper carried a report of the accident, and the coroner issued a certificate of accidental death. The victim was identified by his brother. Strangely, a finger was missing. The name was given as S. C. Falconi, a resident of New York State. It meant nothing to the people of the coastal town where the accident occurred.