Conspiracy (5 page)

“Too easy,” came Taggart’s voice. “Retake. Make him work for it this time.”

Three shots later, Rachel’s insides were a hollow, aching void, but after each shot she forced herself to walk over to Keith and help him up from the mat. Not because he needed help, of course, but because it looked good on camera and was a natural tie-in with the closing. She promised herself never, ever to make this mistake again. 

“Okay, wrap it up,” Taggart said. “I’ve got enough.” 

She looked at the clock. It had been twenty-eight minutes. Taggart was cutting it short. She wanted to cry with relief. She could make it!

She was halfway through the sign-off when Taggart’s voice whined in her earpiece once more.

“I’m looking at the black-and-white monitor now,” he said, “and do you know I can’t see the net against that light blue wall? It all blurs white! Al, why didn’t you check that before? Don’t you know not everyone in America has color? Break ten minutes, everybody, while Al gets a darker backdrop behind the goddam net.”

The cameramen switched off their lights and drifted over to the water cooler. Technicians moved toward the metal frame that held the net. Rachel felt a sense of hopelessness. Beside her, Keith said, “You look a little tired, Rachel. How about if I buy you a cup of coffee?”

She willed her voice to stay even. “I’ve run my nylons. I’m going out to the car for another pair.”

11

Alec Conroy did not hide his disbelief at the stubby, redheaded man beside him. “Sorry, guv,” he said. “I don’t know where you got that idea.”

Around them in the Ritz Hotel’s Felipe Salon, the buzz of the crowd continued unabated. A large part of the spacious room—the area surrounding the big-screen television—was jammed with people. Some in evening wear, some dressed casually, they sat on rows of sofas and folding chairs, on the carpet, on window seats, or they leaned against the walls beneath the gilded rococo plasterwork, watching the soccer game. Uniformed waiters from the two hotel restaurants downstairs hovered like stadium vendors around the periphery of the crowd, dispensing cocktails to be passed from hand to hand along the rows.

The red-haired man, who had been introduced to Alec as Jack “Fireball” Farber, had expected Alec’s denial. His watery blue eyes continued their alert, questioning gaze. “You won’t find a safer place to talk,” he said. “Nobody’s noticing either of us. They’re all glued to the big screen. You don’t have to be afraid. Here. Let me get you another drink.”

Alec drifted with Farber over to the bar, trying to decide how he felt about the offer the little man had proposed with such breezy confidence. Alec had never sold before, just given to friends like Rachel, on the understanding that there would be repayment somewhere along the line. And he had never been approached, had never even talked about cocaine with anyone outside the entertainment field. Farber was clearly a businessman, from conservative blue blazer and tattersall vest right down to thick-soled cordovan wingtips. Alec, who had worked in a haberdashery before his records began to sell, sized him as a thirty-eight portly.

But the hostess had said Farber was an independent operator—an American shoe manufacturer, sports shoes of some kind, and a primary sponsor of the British team. Beyond that, Farber had asked for only a small amount and had offered to pay a thousand dollars—triple the New York street value. Alec, who had resigned himself to living off Rachel Quinn’s expense account for the next month in order to conserve what remained of this quarter’s slim royalty payments, knew he could find many interesting ways to make a thousand disappear.

Farber handed him his drink, a stinger, his third tonight. “Well?” Farber asked. “Have you made up your mind that I can be trusted? I can, you know.” He spoke in a lowered voice, and Alec replied the same way, even though no one was within hearing range.

“I just don’t understand why you’d come to me.”

“Perfectly simple: you’re safe. I don’t want it getting around what I’m doing, and you don’t either. So you’ll keep it quiet. And you’re not watched the way a street dealer might be. Also, you’re a discerning person, accustomed to the best. I want first-rate stuff, and I know you wouldn’t have any other kind.”

Alec took a large swallow of his drink. “You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

“Preparation,” said Farber, beaming with self-satisfaction. “I always take a great amount of time preparing for any business deal, so I know what I’m doing. I’ve thought it through, you can depend on that.”

“Well, you must have thought wrong, that’s all I can tell you. I don’t use the stuff myself.”

“Probably not,” Farber said, his smile undiminished, “but I still think I’m right. You see, I’m not saying that you have any or use any—I’m only saying that it stands to reason, you being very well traveled and in with all the people who know about this type thing, that you’d be able to get me some.”

Alec thought of the half-kilo “egg” carefully wrapped inside the snap-open transformer coil of his electric guitar amplifier. The amount Farber had asked for would scarcely make a dent.

“And I think you’ll agree,” Farber was saying, “that my offer is fairly generous. A thousand now, to cover expenses, and a thousand on delivery. Doesn’t that seem fair?”

Two thousand. Alec thought of the memorable evenings that would be possible while Rachel was at the studio with her nightly taping schedule. “If you’re looking for really top-quality stuff, I would think three would be closer to the mark,” he said, and then mentally kicked himself for using the word “mark.” He added a bit hastily, “Overseas, I’m told, it’s more difficult to obtain. And the Spanish laws are very repressive.”

Farber’s freckled pink hand slipped beneath his jacket lapel and emerged a few moments later, apparently empty. “I used to practice with a mail-order magic kit when I was a boy,” Farber said. “Comes in handy now and again.” The warm fingers pressed folded paper into Alec’s palm and squeezed lightly, a handshake of sorts. “They say never count your money in a crowd, but when you do, you’ll find fifteen hundred. Now tell me when and where.”

Alec was about to reply when he noticed the host, a tall, graying Britisher, bearing down on them. “Company,” he said quickly. Our host. Name is Harry.”

“I know him,” said Farber. After a hello and a handshake, Farber thought it was time to divert Harry’s attention from their current conversation. He nodded in the direction of one member of the British team, a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested gorilla of a man who stood in one of the front rows before the TV screen, holding a wad of bills and a stopwatch, taking bets on how long Italy would need to get off a shot at the goal.

Farber said, “One of your players seems to be going into business.”

Harry gave a grandfatherly, boys-will-be-boys chuckle. “That’s our Derek. Plays a fine defense.” He ordered whiskey and soda and added convivially, “And he’ll be wearing Far-lite shoes on Tuesday, when we go against the Tunisians down on the coast. That might do you a bit of good, Jackie boy.”

Farber, whose European distribution accounted for only three percent of his total sales, was not impressed. He had cultivated the British team only as a fall-back, guessing that the British would be the team most American soccer fans would follow if the U.S. team failed. The real money was in equipping the American team, because Far-lite sports shoes lived and died on their U.S. sales. Unfortunately, Farber had been able to convince only one of the U.S. players, the goalie, that an American player ought to be wearing an American-made shoe. The others on the team were all kids who thought Europeans like Adi Dassler were the only ones who could make shoes fit for champions.

He grinned at Harry. “I hope he’s not wearing a pair of my cleats in here.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t do that. Last year, yes, but not now. Our Derek’s become vastly more civilized since his wedding last month. His wife’s the sort who can teach him a few things. That’s Mrs. Bates over by the buffet, with those other chaps.”

Alec, who had been looking for an opportunity, stole a glance at the bills in his hand. And smiled. Fifteen hundred it was.

“Incidentally, Alec,” Harry was saying, “she’s asked to meet you. Says she was one of your greatest fans when she was growing up. Name’s Helen. Why don’t you come over with me and I’ll introduce you?”

Alec looked up. The sight of Helen Bates, even from across the room, made him catch his breath. A tall brunette, dark eyes wide and fearless, she wore a black evening dress of soft fabric that clung to her waist and hips and left her shapely breasts nearly bare. And she looked bored. The two men with her at the buffet seemed to know it as they nibbled their crackers and paté and talked with nervous smiles. 

Alec wondered how a woman of her magnetism would have gotten mixed up with the kind of boor that Derek Bates obviously was.
Possibly for the screwing
, he thought, and felt a surge of warmth cross his forehead and temples. She had asked to meet him!

Feeling as though some of Farber’s money would be well spent on such a woman, Alec drained his glass. “You go ahead, and I’ll join you,” he said. “I just want a few more words with Jack here, and a refill.”

He turned to Farber after the other man had gone. “Why don’t you get one of your own people to find your stuff for you?”

“Because I don’t want any of my own people to know. I’m sure you can appreciate the need for privacy in this kind of business.”

Farber was still smiling, but Alec thought he detected a hint of impatience. He liked that, liked holding this rich little man’s money and keeping him waiting, not giving him even a promise. 

The barman handed Alec his drink. “Well, then,” Alec said, taking a healthy swallow, “one thing that puzzles me is why someone like you would want it. You don’t look the sort.”

Farber’s liquid blue eyes blinked once or twice. “It’s not for me. It’s for a friend. Now do I have your commitment or don’t I?”

It annoyed Alec that Farber would just come up to him and assume he would do what Farber wanted. “It may cost you more,” he said. “If I find out it costs more, I’ll have to charge you.”

“If it’s quality goods, I’m willing to pay what it’s worth over here. I’ll come prepared to go a bit higher. When can we meet?”

Alec figured him for at least another five hundred. “How soon does your friend need it?”

“Tuesday afternoon. At the latest.”

He finished his drink, taking his time. “Why don’t you have lunch with me at the Palace on Tuesday? Make it twelve-fifteen.”

A few minutes later, Alec stood at one corner of the buffet, occupied with Helen Bates and what remained of his fifth stinger. As they talked, he looked directly at her breasts for a long moment to see if she would blush, and felt a wave of excitement when she didn’t.

“What I want to know,” he said, using the approach he reserved for the bold ones, “is what you want to do now that you’ve met me. Some women want an autograph on an album cover.”

Her voice was a rich contralto. “Some women want more, I’d imagine.”

“Which kind are you?”

“The kind who wants more. I want the key to your hotel room.”

He looked back at her breasts again, and then into her eyes. “Just the key?”

Her fingertips touched his wrist, lightly. “Bring your key to my hotel room. After tomorrow, when Derek’s away in Elche for the games. We’ll have a week until the team comes back.”

“What happens if I don’t bring my key?”

“We’ll both be disappointed.”

12

When it was nine-thirty at night in Madrid, it was one-thirty in the afternoon in Utah, Mountain Daylight Time. Eugene Groves was now one hundred fifty-two miles away from the Dugway Proving Ground, where he had obtained the Cobor grenades. He sat in his jeep watching a truck-stop restaurant along Interstate 70, east of Green River. 

The sun, almost directly overhead, was burning the back of his neck above the collar of his uniform shirt. Worse, he felt exposed. He had tried putting up the canvas top of the jeep when he first came onto the Interstate a hundred twenty miles back, and had nearly been blown off the highway when the rusted clamp at the top of the windshield snapped open, letting the air billow under the fabric and fling the jeep back like a toy sailboat. Scared the hell out of him, and made him even more conspicuous. He had to pull over, slam the top back into the well, and check to make certain the grenades had not been disturbed before he pushed on. 

The jeep was another detail he had missed. He had tried to check them all, but he had failed in the most important, that of choosing the people he worked with. Now the whole operation was coming apart on him just like the top of the damned jeep. If only he hadn’t panicked, he thought. For the first time he began to worry that this job might be too big for him. He tried to dismiss the fear. The
Patrón
had forced him to do the job, so the
Patrón
must have believed. In Groves’s business, you could tell when someone had lost the touch.

But the question still haunted him. Four years ago, would he have been so unsettled by those unplanned killings? Four years ago, would he have fled away from the road, abandoning his carefully positioned car? He thought of the change of clothing, the ID, the cash he’d brought along to pay off the other two—all waiting in that inconspicuous little station wagon. Stupid, he whispered under his breath. Really stupid.

And now he was out on the highway in an open jeep.

He had started watching the truck stops an hour earlier, but had no luck. He allowed himself only fifteen minutes at each one, not leaving the jeep at any time, because he wasn’t about to risk going inside and then finding the highway patrol waiting for him around the jeep when he came out again. He just sat there watching the restaurant entrance, as though he were waiting for a traveling companion to come back out from the men’s room or the coffee counter.

In a way, of course, he was waiting for someone. But he could not stay long, because he could not afford to call attention to himself. So when fifteen minutes passed and he had not seen what he was looking for, he would start up the jeep again and move on east.