Run Before the Wind (23 page)

On the last day of December I flew from Cork to Paris at midmorning, took a taxi to Jane Berkeley's apartment building on the Avenue Marceau, deposited my luggage with the concierge as instructed, and set off on foot to absorb the City of Light.

I had had a loose sightseeing plan, but it left me as my shoes struck Paris pavement. I walked down the Champs Elysee, turned right, crossed the Seine, and continued to walk aimlessly down whatever streets looked interesting. Everything looked interesting.

When my stomach growled and my feet ached I lunched in a bistro on dishes I knew only by name. I decided that escargots were nothing more than an excuse to eat garlic butter and that coq au vin was the best chicken I'd ever had--and that French wine tasted differently in France and went down very easily. I resumed my wandering slightly drunk.

Two hours later I stood on the top level of the Eiffel Tower and took in the city of my dreams in one long draught. The day had been clear, cold and still, and now the fading December light struck the rooftops of Paris and turned them golden. From here, M. Haussman's plan for the city revealed itself as from no other vantage point. I could see all the landmarks I had ignored in my wandering and could nearly pick out Jane's apartment building.

Armed with a new intimacy with the city, I walked back to the Avenue Marceau and was told, in childishly slow French, that Jane would be delayed at the office, had instructed that I be given a key to her apartment, and had said, I believe, to make myself at home.

I traveled to the sixth floor of the seven-story building in a richly paneled elevator and let myself into the apartment. I set down my bags and had a look around. It was very different from her London mews house, no less elegantly furnished but full of personal things--photographs, books, porcelain--and I was immediately certain that no piece of furniture, no object, had found its way into these rooms without passing the close, personal scrutiny of Lady Jane Berkeley. There was only one bedroom. That pleased me. I poured myself a brandy from a forest of bottles atop a small, grand piano, gulped it down, and flung myself onto the bed. The bone weariness of my miles of walking seeped from me into the soft, silk bedcover, and I had only a moment to reflect that, with my new distance from our troubles in Ireland, a knot inside me had untied itself. I was asleep in seconds.

I woke in nearly total darkness, momentarily disoriented. The luminous hands of my wristwatch said nearly seven, and still no Jane. I switched on a bedside lamp, struggled to my feet, stiff and groggy, undressed, and got into a hot shower. I did not hear the front door open and close. I was unaware of another presence in the apartment until I caught a glimpse of movement outside the pebbled, glass shower door less than a second before it was yanked open. I threw myself back against a tile surface, the memory of a Hitchcock movie racing through my mind. I was Janet Leigh in Psycho, and a bewigged Anthony Perkins was slashing at me with a huge knife.

She flung herself at me, laughing, rubbing her naked body against mine, pulling my head down to hers with one hand in my hair, while goosing me in the ribs with the other.

"Jesus," I gasped, "you want me to have a coronary before I've had a chance to improve my French?"

The hand in my ribs traveled to another, better place.

"I'm about to teach you all the French you'll ever need to know," she laughed, doing interesting things with the hand.

"It may never work again," I said, looking down, "after that sort of scare. I think you've just rendered me permanently impotent."

"Want to bet?" she asked, still laughing, still continuing her work. I didn't want to bet. I would have lost immediately.

We lay, damp and out of breath, on the bed. I was aglow with my newfound sexual prowess. Apparently, I possessed some animal magnetism for women that had, heretofore, gone unnoticed by them. I could only assume that Jane Berkeley was a keener judge than most; I was unwilling to pursue the reasons for my good fortune beyond that.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"It's nearly nine o'clock."

"Pressures of work and all that," she replied, rearranging herself so that her head rested on my lap.

"There was an important meeting to decide on financing a big, new office complex in Lyon."

"What did you decide?"

She laughed.

"I didn't decide anything. I'm here to learn, remember? I was lucky to even sit in on a meeting at that level."

"Did you learn anything?"

"Not a thing. I was thinking too much about what this would be like."

"You'll never learn international banking that way."

"No, but I'll have a rich fantasy life."

I ran my fingers over her wet hair.

"What's on for tonight? How are we spending our New Year's Eve?"

"Oh, there's a party at a friend's that should be interesting. After that we'll improvise." She wriggled her head in my lap.

"I may be all improvised out, you know."

"Nonsense, champagne will bring you back. Champagne is a restorative."

I certainly hoped so.

An hour later we were both dressed to kill; Jane was in something super elegant from Yves St. Laurent, and I was in my dinner jacket from the Cork men's shop. We stepped from her apartment into the hallway and started for the elevator.

"Aren't you going to lock up?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"It's a very secure building."

The elevator arrived, and we stepped in. She caught my hand as I reached for the ground-floor button. Instead, she pushed an unmarked button above the seventh, "top-floor" button. The light above the door moved to seven, then went out; the elevator continued to move upward for what seemed to be at least two more floors.

"Doesn't this put us somewhere above the building?" I asked, mystified.

"Not quite," she said as the elevator came to a stop. We stepped into a deeply carpeted, heavily wallpapered vestibule and were immediately greeted by a smartly uniformed butler.

"Good evening. Lady Jane, Mr. Lee," he said smoothly in very British English. Two other men were in the vestibule, large men stuffed into tuxedos; one took our coats, the other merely looked me up and down slowly and carefully, then checked our names off a list.

"Good evening. Brooks," Jane replied.

"Are we very late?"

"Oh, no. Lady Jane; very good timing, I should say." He turned and expertly opened a pair of sliding doors.

"Lady Jane Berkeley and Mr. William Lee," he announced. A man a few feet away turned and strode toward us, his arms outstretched. It was Nicky, the Arab I had met at Thrasher's place in London.

"Ah, Jane, Happy New Year, and Will, how very nice to see you again; I'm so glad you could come to Paris."

I shook his hand, remarking again to myself how very English he sounded.

"Happy New Year, Nicky," I replied.

"I'm surprised to see you in Paris; Jane didn't tell me." I was further surprised to glance across the room and see Derek Thrasher coming toward us.

He pecked Jane on the cheek and took my hand in both of his.

"Welcome to Paris, Will, and Happy New Year."

As we exchanged greetings I looked at him closely; he had changed, somehow; thinner, I thought, and rather tired-looking.

Before we could talk much he turned to greet other people entering the room, and Nicky propelled us toward a knot of people at the center of the room.

The makeup of the group was much the same as had been the case at Thrasher's house in London--film types, politicians, big business people--only the mix was more international. Genevieve Wheatley was in evidence. Jane guided me among the guests, introducing me to this producer and that cabinet minister; she knew them all. A paper-thin crystal champagne flute was put into my hand and kept full by liveried waiters who glided unobtrusively among the guests. I estimated there were at least three gallons of caviar distributed about the large, ornate salon in heavy, crystal bowls. With the champagne, I began to feel, at once, out of my depth and quite at home. My poor French was not a handicap;

people switched easily into English when Jane introduced me in that language. I felt unaccustomedly bright, witty, and, ridiculously, among my peers. Thrasher came and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Jane, may I borrow your gentleman for a few moments?" I thought he had intended to introduce me to someone, but he walked me into a small, mahogany-paneled library, grabbing a bottle of champagne from a waiter along the way. He motioned me to an overstuffed, leather library chair.

"Now," he said, pouring us both a drink and collapsing wearily onto a sofa, "I want to hear about the boat, all about it."

"You're going to love it," I said.

"It's going to be ... perfect, I think. Mark is doing a fantastic job on it; you couldn't have chosen a better man."

"At what stage are you now?"

"The hull has been finished and turned; the keel's on; the engine's in; decking is nearly complete; the electrical work begins next week."

"Sounds as if you're ahead of schedule."

"Not really," I replied.

"The interior work is going to be very time-consuming. The sort of standard you want on the furniture and electronics installations is going to take a lot of man-hours, and few men will be working on that pan. Mark thinks she'll be in the water by early June for sea trials; she'll probably have to go back to the yard for alterations and touching up after that, and she should be ready for the race to the Azores in late July."

"Who's going on that?"

"Just Mark, Annie, and I. Annie and I will fly back, and Mark will sail her back singlehanded to Cork to qualify for the Transatlantic.

He really only needs a three-hundred-mile qualifying cruise, but he wants to really give the yacht a tough workout."

"Good, I wish I could come with you to the Azores, but time will just not permit. Believe me, there's nothing I'd like more than a week or ten days at sea with you and Mark and Annie, but the situation ashore is demanding too much attention."

"We read something in the London papers. Is that as big a problem as it sounds?"

He took a long draught of his champagne and laid his head back on the couch.

"It could be. What you've read is absolutely not true, about the exchange control violations, but we're having a hell of a time proving it. I must say I've never been through anything quite like this. I can't even so much as visit England until we've sorted things out." He raised his head and looked at me.

"I understand you're having some problems of your own in Cork."

I was surprised he knew anything about it, but at least I was spared the decision of whether to tell him. I poured out the whole story, the trashing of the cottage, the leak about Thrasher's involvement through Connie's nun friend, the equipment disappearances, the attempt to sabotage the yacht, everything right up through my fight with Denny O'Donnell a few days before.

"Do you think this local IRA faction is dangerous?"

"I honestly don't know. Mark thinks not, and thus far he's been proven right, but ..."

"But what?"

"I think Denny O'Donnell is completely unpredictable. We might never hear of him again, or he might burn down the boatyard.

There's apparently a history of that sort of thing in his family, burning people out. Mark's got a security guard from Cork there nights; I hope that'll prevent anything terrible from happening."

"Now, listen. Will, and I want you to pass this on to Mark: I don't want any of you to get hurt on account of something as unimportant as a boat. If at any time you or Mark feels truly threatened, I want you to stop the project. I can always have the boat shipped to England and finished there. Are we clear on that point?"

I nodded.

"I'll pass that on to Mark. Mind you, he's not the sort to back down in a confrontation. He'd mount a cannon on the foredeck if necessary."

Thrasher laughed.

"I'm sure he would, but I don't want it to come to that. I'll have somebody get in touch with you in Cork about security. That shouldn't have to come out of Mark's budget;

I'll see that it's handled quietly."

"Derek, do you think we could do something about establishing better communications with you? We don't want to impose on your time, but there might be occasions when we really need to reach you."

He nodded.

"Of course. Will. I'm sorry you've had difficulties in the past." He took a notebook from his pocket, scribbled a number, tore out the page and handed it to me.

"Call this number at any hour; it's in New York. You'll hear an electronic beep; leave a message, state your problem as concisely as possible. Be circumspect;

don't mention my name. Someone, probably not I, will be in touch as soon as possible. Got that?"

I nodded. The door to the library opened and Nicky appeared, holding a legal-sized manila envelope.

"Excuse me, Derek, it's nearly time. We'd better hurry."

"Of course, Nicky." Thrasher stood up.

"You must excuse me for a while. Will, I'll catch up to you at the party later."

We walked into the salon, and Thrasher and Nicky went quickly toward the elevator. Apparently, business never stopped for Derek Thrasher; not even on New Year's Eve. I rejoined Jane in time for a sumptuous buffet supper that was being served at the other end of the room.

macadam IGNORED the hangover. He rose at eight, later than he used to, but still managed thirty situps and twenty pushups. The legs might not be quite what they were, but the biceps were still firm and the belly flat. He looked younger than his fifty-six years.

He had cereal for breakfast, read the Daily Mail, then dressed in one of his half-dozen three-piece tweed suits. MacAdam fancied himself something of a gentleman and dressed rather like a detective inspector in an Alfred Hitchcock film. It was a trademark.

He made the bed, then stepped into his parlor office pulling the curtains that separated it from the bedroom. The large oak desk was neatly arranged, and the leather furniture was dusted; the cleaning lady had been in the day before. He opened the curtains and peered out. He could see South Kensington tube station just down the street. An occasional ring of the cash register could be heard from the wine shop downstairs.

He was open for business promptly at nine, though the morning passed without a ring of the doorbell or the telephone. He checked in with his answering service; not much, some debt collections to do and an anxious husband wondering if his wife had been caught with the boyfriend yet. He would attend to those later in the day.

He spent the morning reading a new paperback about making a killing in the stock market. He was conservative with most of what he had tucked away, but now and again he took a flyer. He hadn't done badly.

The letter arrived by messenger precisely at noon. Alfred MacAdam, who had permitted himself to be called "Blackie," but not "Tar," in his days on the force, was unaccustomed to receiving assignments in such a fashion, his clients preferring not to commit their problems to writing. Mind you, this client didn't give away much. There were 120 sterling in twenty-pound notes, an airline ticket, and a brief note, typed, but not signed: "Sir, with apologies for the brief notice and awkward arrangements, I would like to discuss with you a matter that might require several days of your services. If you can make yourself available under the circumstances please come to the above address at 10.30 p.m. this evening for a meeting of perhaps 30 minutes duration. I enclose an air ticket, 100 pounds to be applied to a mutually agreed-upon fee, and 20 pounds for incidental expenses. " There was an address and flat number. No mention of what to do with the money and ticket if he should decide not to come.

Whoever had sent the note had been pretty confident of his interest.

He could simply pocket the money, cash in the ticket and be nearly 200 to the good; still, he was intrigued. Whoever could afford to send 120 to a stranger had more to put behind it.

On the airplane he declined a drink, though. God knew, he could have used it. If this client were as important as he might be, booze on the breath would not be good. Then the stewardess came back with complimentary champagne, and he accepted. What the hell, it was New Year's Eve after all. The client would probably have had a few himself. He had a second glass.

Traffic was light, and he was early. He walked about for a few minutes, found a bar, and had a large whisky. At 10:29 he entered the building, took the lift to the top floor, and found the flat. He rang the bell; there was a delay, and he thought he heard voices before the door was opened by a short, swarthy, rather handsome man in evening clothes. Greek? Arab? Jew?

"Good evening, Mr. MacAdam," the man said blandly. He would have preferred to be called "inspector," though the circumstances of his leaving the force might have cast doubt on his right to that rank.

"Please come and sit down." The accent, the intonation were upper-class English. The man did not offer to shake hands, and no drink was forthcoming. MacAdam glanced briefly about. A woman's place, no doubt about it. There were photographs on the piano; he wished he were close enough to see them better. The door to the darkened bedroom was ajar. Somebody in there listening, probably.

The man sat on the sofa and motioned MacAdam to an armchair.

"I wish to engage your services for a period of, perhaps, five days."

MacAdam crossed his legs and smoothed the trousers of his tweed suit.

"May I ask who brought me to your attention?"

"Suffice it to say that you come well recommended, and that I am aware of the nature of your service with the London police."

"Just what services do you require, Mr.. . ?"

"I wish to know everything about a certain man. I can tell you his name, his nationality, and his most recent address in Greater London. I wish to know everything else you can find out about him in five days. I must ask you to accept or reject the assignment now, before going any further. If you reject the assignment, you may keep the funds advanced you and return to London. If you accept, I shall give you such information as I have about the man, and you may begin immediately. I shall require a report from you at noon on January fifth. The assignment will pay a hundred pounds a day, plus twenty pounds for expenses. You have been paid for one day;

I shall pay you for another before you leave, and the remainder will be sent to you by messenger after you have made your report."

MacAdam shifted in his seat.

"I don't ordinarily accept assignments with so little information about the client."

"Then I shan't keep you any longer," the man said, rising.

MacAdam motioned him to sit.

"All right, all right," he chuckled, "I'm just a bit curious, that's all. Just one thing; will this require any action on my part that might be other than kosh ah, cricket?"

The man sat again.

"You may not construe anything I may say to you as a proposal to break the law, Mr. MacAdam; however, I would not presume to tell you how to go about your work."

"Very well, I accept."

"Good." The man handed him a buff envelope.

"This contains what I know about the man. His name is Patrick Pearce; he is an Irish national; until recently, he was employed as an auditor for Avondale Enterprises, a registered company, with offices in London. A copy of his employment application is in the envelope, along with a photograph taken on the occasion of his joining the company some months ago. You are not to inquire of Avondale about the man; everything they know is in the envelope."

"Might I not speak to some of his coworkers?"

"He apparently kept much to himself. No one at Avondale is to be contacted."

"Is there anything in particular you'd like to know about Pearce?"

The man looked thoughtful for a moment.

"He is Irish; I'd like to know if he has any .. . political ... ah, associations; also, if he holds any great grudges--political or personal."

"You'd like me to interview him, then?"

"Not unless you can conduct such a meeting without his being aware that he is being interviewed."

"I see."

"Good." The man got to his feet.

MacAdam rose, as well.

"How may I contact you?"

"You may not. I shall contact you at noon on the fifth. Please be in your office at that time."

"Right." MacAdam did not attempt to shake hands again, having once been rebuffed. He had the distinct impression that his client disapproved of him either personally or socially. The man had eyed his tweed suit in a manner that did not indicate admiration; and it from a fellow who had once worked at one of Saville Row's great tailors. He had kept the fellow out of the nick once, and now he got his clothes done for the cost of the material. MacAdam didn't mind. The money was right. He wondered who the man was, though. Perhaps he might do some checking into that while checking into Pearce. He wondered who might have been in the bedroom listening.

He went back to the bar and had another large whisky. Christ, these Frogs knew how to charge for it. He checked his airline ticket; there was just time to make his plane. The hell with it; one didn't get to Paris every day and get paid for it. He telephoned the airline and rebooked for a flight the next morning, then walked to the Champs-Ely sees, almost immediately found an acceptable whore, and spent the night with her in a hotel. On reaching Heathrow the following morning, he barely had cab fare home.

"YOU'VE BEEN IN TOUCH with Derek all along, haven't you?"

I tried not to make it sound like an accusation.

She smiled slightly and sipped her beer.

"This is a favorite place of mine. Wait'll you taste the choucroute."

We were at Brasserie Lipp, in St. Gennain des Pres, for lunch, at a prime table. A chauffeured Citroen waited for us at the curb.

Paris with Jane was interesting.

"Well, we did get the money on time; thanks for that. I just hope he doesn't scare the pants off us again next time."

"Derek is very reliable. He didn't need reminding by me."

"Is that his place upstairs?"

"It's Nicky's."

"It just looked like Derek, somehow."

"They have similar tastes; they've known each other since they were seven. They were at Eton together."

The choucroute arrived. I wouldn't have ordered it if I had known it was going to be sauerkraut, but she was right; it was delicious, as were the sausages and ham piled on top.

"That's where Nicky got the accent, then. Was he born in England?"

She shook her head, swinging a dangling bit of kraut across her chin.

"Nicky was born in a tent in the desert. It was a very nice tent, mind you. Nicky is an actual prince of his country."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding. His grandfather ruled mostly over camels and goats until the oil changed things in the late thirties."

"Is Nicky going to be king some day?"

She shook her head again.

"He has thirty-odd brothers. No chance. But he's probably the most important of them, because of his business skills."

"He and Derek do a lot of business together, do they?"

"If it weren't for Micky, Derek would probably be a successful stockbroker, nothing more. Nicky ..." She paused and put down her fork.

"Almost no one knows this. Will."

I nodded.

"Okay, sealed lips." I couldn't wait to pass this on to Mark and Annie, and to my parents.

"Derek's family were well-placed enough to send him to Eton;

he went to Oxford on a scholarship. He had no money. His future in business would have been to work for somebody else. But Nicky--once his family understood how bright he was--had access to virtually unlimited capital. Derek was even brighter, and with Nicky behind him, there was no stopping him. Just out of Oxford they invested about fifty thousand pounds in some houses in Islington and Camden Town--just workmen's houses, really. They fixed them up and resold them at a handsome profit, then repeated the process, reinvesting their profits in still more property."

"I'd heard something about wink ling old ladies out of their homes."

"I wouldn't put it that way; they were paid good prices at a time when there was no market. Derek found cheap flats for them and they were resettled with a nice little nest egg. It was a good arrangement for everybody."

I wondered.

"When Nicky's family saw how astonishingly well they were doing, they made much larger amounts of capital available, and everybody was happy. Derek grew very wealthy very quickly, in a lot of different sorts of ventures, and Nicky was able to stay out of the limelight. That's important to him. Few people are aware that he is the financial brain in his family. He lives the part of the playboy in Europe--and enjoys it immensely, by the way--and the family's fortune grows. People think of him as nothing more than Derek's sidekick, like those characters in your American westerns."

"So Nicky is Walter Brennan to Derek's John Wayne."

"For purposes of appearances, yes. But each of them shields the other in important ways. Derek's reputation preserves Nicky's anonymity as a financier, and Nicky can protect Derek by acting for him, seeming to be only a flunky, when Derek is anxious to preserve his privacy."

"Which is the dominant of the two?"

"Neither. Oh, Derek often seems to be in charge, because that suits them both, but they are, in fact, the most perfectly equal partners I have ever known." There was admiration, even sensuality in the way she said that.