Katherine O’Neal (53 page)

“Right away. And the gentlemen waiting?”

“Let ’em cool their heels until we get some
more information. Then I’ll decide.”

* * *

It was an hour before Forbes returned. “I
found two items in back issues,” he said, referring to his notes.
“The first, just a small announcement dated two years ago,
describes a mine in New Mexico believed to be the only source of
the element aphroneium. The second is more recent, about a year
ago—an article about a man trying to sell options in this same
mine. Unfortunately, he could find no takers, as no use had been
found for this element. But here’s the incredible part. You won’t
believe this. We’re running a story
tomorrow
on this famous
Italian scientist, Dr. Siffredi. He believes this
element—aphroneium—can be used as a filament in electric-light
globes. He claims by replacing tungsten with aphroneium, the bulbs
would last ten times as long.”

“My God!” whistled Sander. “With the city on
the threshold of going electric... I could make a fortune. We’re
talking millions! What does he want for the mine?”

“I took the liberty of inquiring. Two hundred
thousand, he said. Sir, I wouldn’t mind putting a little of my
savings in—”

McLeod gave him an annoyed look. “We’ll talk
about that later. I’ll pay him a hundred thousand tops, which I’ll
get back on the payment for the paper— Shouldn’t be too difficult.
He’s been trying to sell his mine for some time, so he’ll be eager.
Ask him to wait. Check out his deed with our lawyers. I need some
time to think. Plan my strategy. Tell the others to go home.”

* * *

“He wouldn’t even see me,” O’Toole was
telling Mace. “Kicked me right out. I never even got past the
secretary. Who made it clear if I came back, the same thing would
happen.”

“Did you insist?”

“You better believe it! I made him tell me
why McLeod wouldn’t see me. He’s already picked some other sap with
a New Mexican mine to sell. I’m sorry, I gave it my best shot. Want
me to try again?”

“No,” said Mace. “It was essential that it be
today.”

“Some con men Stubbs came up with,” Saranda
complained when he’d gone.

“Now, now,” Mace soothed. “Don’t get
discouraged.”

“
Discouraged
? McLeod’s going to hand
over a hundred thousand dollars to buy some undoubtedly worthless
mine in New Mexico, while we’re left holding the bloody bag. I was
afraid something like this was going to happen, something totally
unforeseen. What about that flood—coming out of the blue the way it
did? What else is going to pop up to surprise us? And where in
bloody hell are we going to get our down payment now?”

He came behind her and rubbed her shoulders.
“O ye of little faith. Save the panic, darling. It’s under
control.” She could hear the excitement in his voice, and the tinge
of amusement.

“This setback doesn’t bother you?”

“The secret to success is not to be bothered
by setbacks. They’re a part of the process. They can even help you,
if you plan it right.”

She turned to face him suspiciously. “What
have you planned?”

He gave her a mysterious smile. “Something
that will make this work
for
us instead of against us.”

* * *

Mr. Forbes opened the office door and poked
his head into the outer office. “Mr. McLeod will see you now,” he
told the man who’d been waiting patiently.

The man stood. He was tall, with the
self-possessed air of a man of the West. Just the sort of man for
whom Mr. Forbes, a die-hard easterner, fostered great disdain. The
man from New Mexico removed his hat and lowered his head as he
stepped into the office, to make certain he didn’t bump it on the
door jamb.

“May I present Mr. McLeod, owner of the
Globe-Journal,”
Forbes said with forced courtesy.

The westerner extended his hand. “How do,
McLeod. ’Bout time you got around to invitin’ me in.”

McLeod shook hands, wincing at the viselike
grip. “I apologize for keeping you waiting, Mr. Earp. Now if you’ll
have a seat, perhaps we can get down to business.”

Mr. Earp sat in the proffered chair and
crossed his boot over his knee with an affable smile. “Call me
Wyatt,” he said, and placed his hat on the floor.

Saranda was offering suggestions, trying to
figure out some way of raising the hundred thousand dollars.

“You’re wasting your time,” Mace insisted.
“Why don’t you put your energies to better use?”

“I was under the impression we were partners.
What are you not telling me?”

But he was frustratingly mysterious. This was
his finest moment. He was in his element; he was in control. His
eyes beneath the thick brows glinted and sparkled like bits of
steel. He was so focused, his energy so electrically charged, that
just being in the same room with him aroused her. She could feel
her clothes brushing against her skin when she moved. She tingled
with new awareness of him, wondering always what he was up to, what
was around the next corner. Watching him in action was similar to
watching her father in the early days. He, too, had sought to keep
from her the details of his cons, not wishing to jinx them, but
even more, determined that his daughter would have no need of such
devices. Still, she’d pried from him every last professional
secret.

She wasn’t faring as well with Mace. He
refused to divulge the components of his plan until he was certain
of the outcome. Even then, she had the feeling he was teasing her,
enjoying her attempts to outguess him. Though his amusement was
apparent, however, all he would say in answer to her questions was,
“You’ll see.”

She did see when Wyatt showed up a little
later with a small black bag filled with cash. As he
matter-of-factly began to stack it on the table, Saranda asked,
“Where did you get that?”

“Sold my mine.”

It was beginning to make some sense. “What
mine?” she asked.

“My aphroneium mine.” By now he was
grinning.

“What’s aphroneium?”

“A rare element used for electricity.”

“For
filaments
in electric globes,”
Mace corrected.

“That’s it.”

Saranda was staring at the two smirking men
with her hands on her hips. “I think you’d best start from the
beginning.”

“I went to McLeod to sell my mine. So happens
it’s the only known source for aphroneium, which, like we said, is
fixing to—” Wyatt looked to Mace.

“Revolutionize the electrical industry on the
eve of the great cities of the world switching to electricity.”

“That’s it right enough,” said Wyatt with a
satisfied nod.

“McLeod bought this?”

“Looked it up at the undertaker’s—”

“The morgue,” Mace corrected.

“—and found out for himself what a great deal
it was. Shrewd businessman, though. Gave me half what I asked for.”
By now he was cackling. Wyatt Earp, who Bat always claimed was the
most closemouthed man on the prairies.

“Do you really own an aphroneium mine?”

“Up till this morning, I owned a mine in New
Mexico. Won it in a poker game. Worthless. Turns out it was salted.
It was a right satisfying pleasure to see someone fork over a
hundred thousand for the no-good hunk of rock.”

“I’m confused. If there
is
no
aphroneium mine, how was Sander able to look it up in back issues?
Unless...”

“Unless my contacts at the paper planted
those stories so McLeod would see them?” Mace finished.

He was standing with his arms crossed over
his chest, waiting with a glint in his eye for her to figure out
the rest.

“I see! So you sent O’Toole with phony
stocks, knowing they wouldn’t appeal to Sander, had him make an
obnoxious fool of himself so Sander
wouldn’t
pick him, and
planted Wyatt there as the preferable choice—along with your
manufactured stories in back issues of the paper.”

“I couldn’t be sure which one he’d go with.
But I had a fair idea. Either way, he was going to choose one or
the other.”

“What about this element? This aphroneium?
I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s because it doesn’t exist.”

“But where did you get it? What is it?”

“It’s from the classical Greek,” Mace
explained, enormously pleased with himself.

“And what does it mean?”

“Loosely translated?”

“However you bloody well choose to translate
it.”

The creases in his cheeks deepened as he
showed his grin. “Loosely translated it means... sucker.”

Saranda shivered with pleasure. “You’re a
ruddy genius!” she exclaimed. “You’re the most incredible...
brilliant... daring man on the face of this earth. What if he’d had
the good sense to look it up?”

“When this is all over, I think we should
mail him the translation. Or better yet, hand it to him when he’s
behind bars. I should give a great deal to see his face.”

She flew at him, leaping into his arms and
wrapping her legs about his torso while he laughingly swung her
around. Grabbing hold of his head, she kissed him voraciously, on
his lips, his brow, his nose, his rugged, handsome jaw. He fell
back into the settee, and she straddled him, ripping at his tie,
tearing the buttons from his shirt. Her realization of his
intellectual superiority—of the depth of his brilliance—made her
hotter than she could ever remember being. She suddenly cared about
nothing and no one. She had to have him—now, this minute—to show
him how wild he’d made her.

She was wrenching off his shirt when Wyatt
cleared his throat. “Well—I reckon I’ll be going along.”

No one bid him farewell as he left the money
and quietly closed the door behind.

Saranda was planting heated kisses all along
the chiseled contours of Mace’s chest. “You said not to doubt you,
and you were right,” she murmured. “My God, you’re unbelievable! I
always heard you were the best. But to see it happen—to be a part
of it—you make me so ravenous, I can’t bear it.”

She tore open his pants and without preamble,
without needing to ready herself in any way, impaled herself onto
him.

“I never dreamed a man like you existed in
all this world,” she panted as she rode him furiously. “Even my
father would be hard-pressed to pull this off.”

“Keep talking,” he said, as he grasped the
curving cheeks of her backside and squeezed hard, giving her
playful little slaps as she reverted to her days out West and rode
him like a bucking bronc.

* * *

“Now all we have to do,” Saranda said, “is
make sure McLeod sells to us and hand over the money. Just think,
Mace! It could all be over with so soon.”

“Let’s not get overly confident, shall we?
There may be an obstacle or two to overcome yet.”

“I’m not worried. Not anymore. I know you’ll
handle anything that comes up.”

“Well! This is a red-letter day.”

Stubbs sat at the table reading through some
copy Mace had written out for him to memorize. “I don’t know, boss.
Seems to me if I say this stuff to McLeod, he’s likely to sell to
that other—”

A knock at the door made them all jump. They
weren’t expecting anyone. Mace gestured to Stubbs, who, in his
Hungarian accent, called out, “Who is it?”

“Lance Blackwood from the
Globe-Journal
.”

Saranda’s alarmed gaze flew to Mace’s face.
“It’s all right,” he whispered calmly, as if he’d been expecting
this. He gestured for her to go into the bedroom, then whispered to
Stubbs, “Find out what he wants and get rid of him. Don’t let him
in, even if you have to knock him out cold.”

Stubbs donned his jacket, checked his
appearance, and went to open the door.

They closed the bedroom door in case Lance
forced his way in, but Mace and Saranda stood facing each other
with their ears pressed against the door. They heard snippets of
the conversation as the voices lowered and raised. Enough to know
that Lance was demanding an audience with Madame Zorina and that
Stubbs promised to inquire and send word to him at the paper.

By the time he’d left, Saranda had turned
white. She flattened her back against the door and closed her eyes.
“He knows,” she said.

“He
suspects
. It’s not the same.”

“I can’t see him. He’ll know in a minute. I
won’t be able to keep my voice even. Mace, I can’t do it!”

He took her arms in his hands. “I say you
can. If you don’t, he’ll be even more suspicious. We’ll arrange to
meet him somewhere private—somewhere dark, so he won’t get a good
look at you. I shall be there with you, hiding in case you need me.
Listen, Saranda. You have no reason to fear my brother. He’s
calling our bluff because he’s scrambling to save his own position.
He’s
the one we want to panic, not you. Do you hear me? If
you don’t show—”

“I told him about the baby.”

He was quiet for a moment, his hands slipping
to his side. “When?”

“In prison. When he came to see me. I tell
you, I can’t face him again.”

“What did he say?”

She lifted her eyes to his. Her voice
hardened at the memory. “He said you’d choose him over me. He said
you always do.”

“That’s absurd. If we play our cards right,
no choice will be necessary. That’s why you must meet him. We can’t
afford to have Lance foul things up for us at this late date. Not
when we’re so close.”

She paced around the room, clutching her
hands together, trying to find a less painful way to say what must
be said. There was none. “He told me something else. Something I’d
rather die than tell you, but something I think you should
know.”

He didn’t answer right away, as if
instinctively dreading what was to come. “What’s that,
Princess?”

“He told me he was the one who informed on
Pilar.”

“Then he lied to you.”

She stared at him. “Why would he do
that?”