Lovers and Liars Trilogy (95 page)

Then, suddenly, it was over. The second policeman slammed the passenger door; the first folded up the documents and handed them back.

“Under the circumstances…”

He left the sentence unfinished, but Bertrand understood; he felt a dizzying relief. They were letting him off—not even a fine! He was safe. The second officer was already returning to his car. The first was also turning away, then stopped.

“Cazarès…” he said.

Bertrand tensed.

“You’ve worked there long?”

“Four years.”

There was a pause. Bertrand stared at the policeman uncertainly, trying to read his expression. It looked less officious now, almost reverential, he judged.

“Then you must have met her—Cazarès herself?”

Certainly reverential now, even awed. Bertrand relaxed.

He was off the hook. This question was familiar enough. He encountered it at dinners, at parties, at business meetings in Paris, in London, in Rome, in New York. It had its uses, working for a legend: little ripples of the glamour associated with Cazarès spread outward, touching all those who worked for her, whether executives or seamstresses. He smiled. He said that he had seen Cazarès, of course, on those celebrated occasions twice a year when she came out of seclusion to take her applause at the end of her couture shows. He paused, lowering his tone to one more confidential: and, he added, he had had the privilege of meeting her. He had been introduced, two years before, at a reception in her honor, by Jean Lazare himself.

“You mean you actually spoke to her?”

“A brief exchange, yes. Mademoiselle Cazarès is very shy, as you know, very sensitive. She didn’t remain for that reception, of course, so I was exceptionally fortunate. A woman who dreads her own fame—an artist—so beautiful. An encounter I’ll never forget…”

The lies tripped from his tongue; they were well rehearsed, for they were company policy, and he had given this same answer, or variations upon it, on many occasions before. It had to be made known that while Cazarès was shrouded in mystery, she did function, she did continue to design. Other senior Cazarès personnel might choose to stress her appearance, or her charm, or her degree of inspiration: Bertrand, who had never spoken to Cazarès, had always found that tortured artistry went down best.

“An extraordinary woman,” the policeman said now, and shook his head.

Bertrand solemnly agreed, but offered no further information, since the more extraordinary aspects of Maria Cazarès—and he knew of them only by deduction in any case—could be imparted to no one, not even his own wife.

The incident was over. The police car departed. Bertrand, still shaken, returned to his Mercedes, smoked a cigarette to calm himself, and decided that he would not, under the circumstances, mention this little incident to Monsieur Lazare.

By the time he reached the courtyard of the beautiful seventeenth-century
hôtel particulier
which Lazare had purchased for the Cazarès business headquarters fifteen years before, he was nervous again. Lazare’s dislike of being kept waiting, and his temper when delayed, were notorious. He prepared himself for the tongue-lashing that would certainly come. He pushed past the doorman, waved the elevator attendant aside, made for the stairs, and broke into a run as soon as he was out of sight.

Lazare’s suite of offices was on the top floor of the building. His lair was guarded by a succession of secretaries and assistants and minions stationed in a sequence of hushed rooms. Since Bertrand was anticipated, no one made any motion to stop him, though Lazare’s most senior secretary, a woman, lifted her eyes to an exquisite clock set into the paneling opposite her mahogany desk. She gave a tiny gesture of warning:
“Calmez-vous,”
she said.

Bertrand straightened his tie, tightened his grip on that attaché case, and opened the far door. He walked through an anteroom, along an enfilade flanked by mirrors and by tall windows overlooking the rue St. Honoré. It was one of the most beautiful, and one of the most expensive, views in the world—or so Bertrand liked to boast to his wife.

The door to Lazare’s office was thickly padded with black leather to absorb sound. Bertrand paused, cleared his throat, then entered. He knew his arrival had already been announced, and—as always—he gave himself a few seconds in the doorway, so his eyes could accustom themselves to the gloom in which Lazare preferred to work.

He crossed the parquet floor to the desk and chair that constituted this office’s only furniture. He stood looking down at Lazare, gave a respectful half-bow, and braced himself for the onslaught.

There was silence. The onslaught never came. Lazare slowly raised his head. He looked at the attaché case rather than Bertrand. Then with one long-fingered hand he swept the documents in front of him to the side of his desk.

“No difficulties?” he asked.

“No, sir, none. The traffic was very bad on the autoroute. I apologize for being late.”

“You have the new product?”

“Yes, sir. As arranged.”

“We have enough time?”

“Yes, sir. They advise a four-day monitoring period, to establish tolerance. One tablet daily, first thing in the morning, with food…” Bertrand hesitated.

“Continue,” Lazare said.

“Food intake is advised, sir. Water intake must be ensured, before and after dosage. They stressed that point.”

“Side effects?”

Bertrand hesitated again. Lazare moved, leaning forward so the pool of light from his desk lamp lit his features. “You heard me. Side effects? Yes or no?”

“Well, obviously, sir, the testing of the product has been limited so far, but they claim no adverse reactions. In a few cases an accelerated pulse rate, but that lasts only a few hours. Sleeplessness has been known, but only in cases where dosage has been increased, or administered too late in the day—”

Lazare cut him off with a curt gesture of the hand. He motioned Bertrand to place the attaché case on his desk, then looked at it in silence for a while. These silences on Lazare’s part were famous, designed to intimidate, Bertrand had once thought. Now, more used to his ways, he saw Lazare’s silences as less theatrical, a product of his extraordinary and unsettling concentration. To all intents and purposes, Bertrand knew, he had just ceased to exist.

He stood quietly, looking down at Lazare, whose fine hands now rested on the briefcase. He had worked for him since 1991, yet he understood him no better than on the day of his arrival. In four years Lazare had permitted no intimacies or insights, had conveyed not one single personal fact. Bertrand knew only that Lazare was around fifty, that he was probably not French by origin, that he spoke five languages fluently, that he worked long, slept little, and was rumored to live alone—although Lazare kept several properties in and around Paris, as well as others abroad, so even that rumor might not be correct. Of Lazare’s famous business acumen and ferocity, Bertrand had firsthand experience; of his dedication to Cazarès as a business empire, there was no question. Bertrand remained uncertain whether it was true, as whispered, that this dedication and devotion extended to Maria Cazarès herself.

The silence continued. Looking down at the disconcerting and ascetic man who employed him, Bertrand, who did not like Lazare but respected him, felt admiration and fear mix with pity. It was not in Lazare’s proud nature to admit weakness, and yet evidence of weakness—a weakness he would never have suspected—now lay between them on Lazare’s desk. If this was what it took to get Lazare through the days leading up to the collection, then the strain upon him recently must have been greater than Bertrand had thought. Examining Lazare now, he realized he could detect evidence of that strain, and that he should have noticed it earlier. Lazare looked fatigued and bleak; when he raised his dark eyes, Bertrand was shocked by their expression.

“Open the case,” Lazare said.

Bertrand did so. Inside were a number of tiny packages, each painstakingly wrapped by Bertrand in his Amsterdam hotel room the night before, according to Lazare’s precise instructions. Each package consisted of a white box, two inches square, and each contained one tablet folded inside a piece of heavy gold
faille.
Each box had as its outer wrapping the heavy white raw silk that was one of Cazarès’s signature textiles; each box was fastened with Cazarès’s silver silk cord. The packages glimmered in the light from the desk lamp. They looked tiny, tempting, as if they contained something rare and sumptuous, a precious stone, some intricately worked jewel, or a minute phial of rare scent. It had been Lazare’s idea that they were best disguised as gifts. There were six of the boxes in all. Lazare moved them so that four lay next to his left hand, and two to his right. He looked up once more. The lamplight accentuated the sharp jut of his features, and the dark, impenetrable quality of his stare.

“A four-day monitoring period. That takes me to the day before the collection. Then?”

Bertrand swallowed.

“On the actual day of the collection, sir, two tablets may be administered.”

“I double the dosage?”

“Yes, sir. The level of tolerance will have built by then.”

“And the results?”

“An intense sensation of well-being and optimism, sir. Elation. Confidence.”

“How good to know one can purchase such things.”

“Together with a marked physical improvement, sir. The effect is temporary, but the renewed energy is visible. Radiance is imparted to the skin and…”

“The eyes?”

“Just very slight contraction of the pupils, sir. Nothing too marked, and perceptible only at close range.”

“Speech? Movement?”

“Unimpaired, sir.”

“You tested the product yourself?”

“Yes, sir, as instructed.”

Bertrand kept his eyes fixed on Lazare’s, as he found it prudent to do whenever he lied to this man. “I took one tablet yesterday morning.”

“One whole tablet?”

“Yes, Monsieur Lazare.” He had in fact taken half. “I took the medication at ten
A.M.
, after a meal in my hotel room. The effects were almost instantaneous, and startling—”

“I don’t require detail. The desired result was achieved?”

“Yes, sir. Dramatically so. There was an immediate release from all tension and anxiety. A sensation of calm and confidence. A heightened spatial awareness. Colors and sounds became extraordinarily intense, and…”

“Could you
rest
?”

Lazare posed the question with sudden intensity. Bertrand stopped short.

“Rest? Well, yes, eventually. I went to sleep around midnight—”

“You slept well? No dreams?”

“Only pleasant ones, sir.” Bertrand risked a smile. “They were the kind of dreams I’d welcome any night…”

“I don’t understand you.”

“All five senses are stimulated, Monsieur Lazare. The effects are erotic. I did notice, shall we say, a marked and immediate increase in libido. Had I not been alone, I…”

“You may go.”

The dismissal was curt. Bertrand, who had thought even Lazare might be amused by his last remarks, realized he had misjudged his tone badly. A closed, forbidding expression now masked Lazare’s face. He bent his head to examine the boxes once again. Bertrand looked at the sleek gleam of his black hair in the lamplight. He began to back away from the desk. Overfamiliarity was something Lazare did not tolerate: with luck, he thought, he might just make it to the door before Lazare’s temper snapped. He had been fortunate earlier, when his lateness went unrebuked. He could scarcely expect to be spared twice. Moving toward the door, he braced himself for the dressing-down, the icy sarcasm. One of the most fearsome aspects of Lazare’s temper was its coldness: he could reduce a man to zero without ever raising his voice.

“Wait,” Lazare said.

Bertrand paled, and turned to face him.

“Tell me…” Lazare was still examining the parcels. He was holding one of them, turning it this way and that.

“These little miracle pills—have they christened them? Have they given them a name yet?”

Bertrand, almost overcome with relief, confirmed that indeed, the little miracles had been christened. Their creator, the young Dutch chemist, had been in favor of a hard-edged, aggressive name, something that would give his new product immediate street cachet. His long-haired, spaced-out American partner had dissuaded him. What they needed, he argued, was a name that conveyed both the initial rush and the sensation of deep feathered calm that succeeded it.

“Once it hits the streets,” he had said, “the kids will rename it anyway, they always do. Meantime—it makes you fly, man, then it wraps you up in this cozy little nest, then…”

“What’s their
name
?” Lazare said again.

Bertrand, now recovered, came to the point. He told Lazare that the miracle pills, which were small, untinted, and sweet-tasting, were known as White Doves.

The name seemed to touch some chord in Lazare, who repeated it, as if to himself. He looked up at Bertrand again. His final question was sharp: “And they’re safe?”

Bertrand, eager to escape, decided that now was not the moment to go into further detail. He decided not to mention any of the Dutch chemist’s more crude remarks, or the American’s incoherent warnings. He certainly had no intention of admitting to Lazare the full effects only half a tablet had had on him the previous night. Bertrand, a married man and straitlaced on most occasions, was not used to such loss of control. Lazare was in for some surprises, he thought, not without a certain malice.

“Powerful, sir,” he replied. “But yes, completely safe.”

T
HE MEETING WITH ROWLAND
McGuire was scheduled for ten o’clock in his office in the features department, not in Lindsay’s in fashion. Lindsay agreed to this venue, then realized it gave McGuire a territorial advantage. Irritated, she had begun planning at once. She did not like McGuire; she was disposed to loathe McGuire, who, in the two short months he had been at the newspaper, had already bested her more than once. It was becoming urgent to deal with McGuire; Lindsay had decided that at this meeting there would be no more feinting: she would—somehow—deliver a knockout punch.