Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (139 page)

'Yeah.'

'What is the news, then?'

'Daliah Boralevi's moved out of the Bond Street loft. She
lives on Central Park West now.'

'And?'

'She drove off this afternoon. One of my men followed her.
She's gone to a motel on Cape Cod.'

Najib was suddenly angry. 'You call that news?' he snapped.
He took a deep breath and fought to keep his anger under
control. 'I thought your instructions were to let me know of
any special travel or vacation arrangements. Especially over
seas.'

'
That's why I called.' The voice at the other end of the phone
sounded hurt. 'She's flyin' to Israel in a week.'

Najib was suddenly alert. 'Israel, did you say?' Surprise
edged his voice.

'That's right. She's goin' there for her brother's weddin'. It
seems it'll be a big family occasion. I . . . I've got her travel
timetable, if you're interested.'

'I am,' Najib said. He listened for a little while, and although
the man at the other end of the line could not see him, he
nodded from time to time. 'How did you get news of this?' he
asked.

'From her agent's secretary. She's pretty much of a dog, but
you'd be surprised how that type will tell a man anything if he
pushes the right buttons.'

Najib was immediately on guard. 'What did you tell her?'

'Nothin', actually.' The man laughed coarsely. 'I didn't have
to. The broad thinks I'm a reporter for one of those scandal
rags.'

'Good.' Najib nodded again. 'If anything else should come
up, give me a call and keep me posted. I trust you received
last month's cheque for your services?'

'Yeah, I did.'

'This month you will get a bonus.'

And with that, Najib hung up.

That had been several hours ago, and he had called his
dinner hosts and apologized profusely for cancelling at the last
minute. Then he had come up here to the media room on the
third floor of the quadruplex, and watched the videotapes. He
had spent nearly two hours deep in thought, wrestling with
the pros and cons of vengeance.

What surprised him most was that now, with the time for
vengeance at hand, he felt peculiarly remote from it all. He
had always thought that when the time came he would feel
heady with triumph. For decades the thought of vengeance
alone had kept him going, had fuelled his ambitions and dic
tated his every action. But now? Now he wasn't quite sure
how he really felt about it anymore. The past suddenly seemed
far away, part of another person's lifetime entirely, as distant
as the elusive features of Iffat whenever he tried to conjure
them up.

Strange, how the passing of time played games with one's
mind. Things that had once seemed important faded to incon
sequence, while other matters of new import moved forward
to take their place. There was a time when he had believed
that revenge would be with him always and motivate his every
action, but that had not been the case. His perspective had
changed. It was his empire, social position, and power which
mattered most to him now. And yet he was locked into his
vow of vengeance and his oath to Abdullah, and knew he was
neatly and inextricably trapped.

As though on cue, the telephone shrilled again. He glanced
at the control panel built into the couch. It was his private line
again, the same line his detective had called on. He raised the
receiver to his ear and activated the scrambler. 'Yes?'

'Allah Akbar,'
a distant voice greeted curtly. 'God is great.' Abdullah's voice echoed above the rushing static of the long-
distance lines, the scrambler distorting his voice even further.

Najib suddenly felt icy fingers stealing over him. Abdullah
calling him so quickly after he had spoken to the detective was
surely no coincidence.

'You do not sound pleased to hear from me,' Abdullah said
reproachfully after a long pause.

'It is always a pleasure to hear from you, half-uncle,' Najib
replied automatically. 'What can I do for you?'

'I was surprised you had not contacted me already. I had
the feeling you had news to tell me.'

Najib stared at the silent, flickering bank of video screens.
Now he was certain what Abdullah was getting at. Somehow, through spies or otherwise, he had already learned about the
detective's call. 'Y-yes,' he said slowly. 'In fact, I was about
to call you.'

'I hope so. I do not like to think that you are getting soft
after all these years.'

'How did you hear?'

'I have my sources,' Abdullah replied vaguely. He paused
and asked pointedly, 'You have not changed your mind?'

'N-no. Of course not.'

'I am pleased to hear that. I do not care for men who disre
gard their blood oaths. I believe you have not forgotten what
happens to those who desert me?' He left the implied threat
dangling, and then the telephone went dead in Najib's hand.
Without looking at the control panel, he slowly put the
receiver down. He stared blankly at the television sets.

On the screens, the faces he had familiarized himself with
so often seemed to be mocking him.

Najib al-Ameer, the man whose very name was synonymous
with wealth, who could cause tremors on Wall Street, the man
who entertained presidents and prime ministers aboard his
four-deck yacht, whose power was such that a single nod of
his head could cause international repercussions, had broken
out in a cold sweat. He had more than just a healthy respect
for Abdullah.

More and more, his involvement with his half-uncle fright
ened him.

Chapter 5

She was car-weary and bleary-eyed by the time she hit the Cape. She had driven straight through, stopping only once,
and that was to fill up at Groton; on impulse she made a second
stop a few miles from Inge's at an all-night convenience store located between Truro and North Truro along Route 6. She
grabbed two bottles of Moët out of the cooler and waited for
the clerk to tear himself away from a portable typewriter he
was pecking away at behind the counter. She smiled automati
cally when he got up, and pushed the bottles toward him.

He rang them up and looked at her. 'That'll be—' The words
suddenly failed him as realization dawned on his face. 'Jesus
H. Christ!' he exclaimed softly under his breath. 'You're
Daliah Boralevi, the actress!'

Daliah nodded. 'That's right.' She tossed her head, shaking
her hair back over her shoulder.

'Well, I'll be goddamned.' He shook his head in disbelief.
'I just watched the rerun of
To Have and To Hold
on the Sunday-night movie. Must've been the tenth time I've seen it.
The crash scene at the end never fails to choke me up.' He
seemed awkward for a moment. 'You know, that shot of you
getting whiplashed as your car crashes through the police bar
ricades? It's something else.'

'You really saw it ten times?'

'At least.' He grinned disarmingly. 'The first time was right
after it came out, but to tell you the truth, I lost count after
the seventh.' He chuckled to himself. 'You wouldn't believe
the crush I used to have on you. Remember your swimsuit
poster?'

She nodded.

'Well, I bought one and hung it up in the fraternity house. The girl I was going with at the time didn't appreciate it one
bit.'

She smiled at him. He would have been in a fraternity, she thought. He had the big build and squeaky-clean look of a
campus jock. 'You're a quarterback for Harvard,' she
guessed.

He shook his head. 'I
was
a fullback at Brown. Then my kneecap got smashed, and bye-bye team, my brilliant career
in sports was over.' He snapped his fingers. 'Just like that.'
Then he shrugged and smiled. 'Since all I really wanted to do
besides play ball was write novels, I found myself looking
around campus one day and wondering what the hell I was
doing there. That's why I'm here now, pecking away on a
dead-end job. I dropped out to write the great American
novel.'

She eyed him more closely. He didn't look like a writer or
a shop clerk—whatever they were supposed to look like. With
his thick curly blond hair, toothpaste-ad teeth, and freckled
tan he could have been a California surfer gone three thousand
miles astray.

'You staying here on the Cape?' he asked.

She nodded.

'I tell you what. I get off in about forty-five minutes. What
do you say you step down off the pedestal and hobnob with us
common folk? I know the greatest little dive the tourists
haven't discovered yet where the lobsters weigh three pounds
each.'

'I'm sorry, but I've been on the road for half a day.' She
shook her head. 'It sounds tempting, though.'

'Tomorrow, maybe?'

She surprised herself by actually considering his offer. Normally, it would have been unthinkable. A star just didn't min
gle with her fans; it was begging for trouble. The world was
full of crazies. But he did seem genuinely nice, and he was good to look at, in that surfer kind of way. With a tan like
that, a good square chin, and big wide baby-blues, he couldn't
be all bad. Besides, other than Inge, she really knew no one
up here. It occurred to her that having a man around might
not be such a bad idea after all. Just possibly, the best way to get over Jerome might be to fight fire with fire.

She smiled.
'I’l
l think about it.'

A smile wrinkled his eyes. 'I'll give you a call.'