Harold Robbins Thriller Collection

by Harold Robbins

  Heidi looked at Johann. He nodded imperceptibly. “Of course, darling,” she said.

  Johann bent to kiss Lauren’s cheek. He straightened up. “I’ll wait downstairs.” He turned and looked back before he closed the door behind him.

  Lauren was already in bed, the covers pulled over her chest. She raised her arms toward Heidi. “Would you tell me a story, Aunt Heidi?”

  He closed the door gently and went down the staircase. In the library he poured himself another cognac and sipped it slowly. For the first time in days he thought about Janette. He hadn’t heard a word from her since she had gone to the clinic. Suddenly he realized that she knew nothing about his coming marriage. He took a deep breath. Tomorrow he would call her.

  The surgeon came into her room and looked down at her. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  She looked up at him. “Lousy.”

  He smiled. “I would be worried if you felt any different. After all, it’s only three days. Come, get out of bed. I want to have a look at you.”

  He held out his hand as she sat up and stepped out of bed. He led her across the room to a full-length mirror. “I’m going to remove the bandages from your bust and hips. I don’t want you to get upset when you see the stitches and the bruises. They’re completely normal and will disappear a few days after the stitches are removed.”

  “My eyes are still black and blue and my nose is still swollen,” she said.

  “That’s normal too,” he said. “Just keep on with the ice packs every two hours. They’ll be gone in two or three more days. The swelling should go down in another week.

  “Take off your gown,” he said, at the same time signaling to the nurse. The nurse came forward holding a tray of instruments. He took a small scissors from the tray as her gown dropped to the floor. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror. “I’m just curious to see what I look like.”

  “I don’t know how much you’ll be able to tell,” he said. “It’s still very soon. All I want to do is check the stitches and see that everything is all right.” He snipped the bandage just under her left arm and then slowly, gently, began to unwind it.

  She watched the mirror as her breasts appeared. He took the last of the bandages off. Her breath caught in her throat. Her breasts looked ugly, covered with black-and-blue marks and dried blood. “Don’t be upset,” he said quickly. “They’ll look better as soon as I clean them up.”

  He worked rapidly with cotton and alcohol. In a few seconds the dried blood and scabs were gone and all that remained were the tiny cross-marks of the stitches. He stepped back and looked at her. “Beautiful,” he said. “You’re healing better than I had hoped for.”

  “Beautiful?” Her voice was angry. “You didn’t tell me there would be stitches around my nipples.”

  “Areolae,” he said. “When your breasts were reduced in size we saw that your nipples were too much toward the sides of your breasts. It wouldn’t have looked natural so we just lifted them and moved them to their proper location. But there won’t be any scars, they will become lost in the natural folds of the areolae.”

  She was silent, studying her breasts. “Can I touch my breasts?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But gently.”

  Lightly she cupped them in her hands. They felt smaller, lighter. “What size am I?”

  “Thirty-four B,” he said. “You were thirty-eight C.”

  “And the scars beneath them and under my armpits?”

  “They’ll heal and disappear too in the natural folds of your body.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Several months,” he said. “But after a few weeks you will hardly see them, and if you don’t like the way they look until then, you can always cover them with a little makeup.”

  She let her hands fall to her sides and turned so that she could look at herself sideways in the mirror. She nodded slowly. The look was right. She looked slimmer, more graceful.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Okay,” she answered.

  Taking the scissors again, he snipped at the bandages around her upper thighs and buttocks. This time she was prepared for the bruises and dried blood and said nothing until he had finished cleaning her skin. She turned and looked over her shoulder in the mirror. She ignored the thin line of stitches that ran in the fold of her flesh between each buttock and thigh. Again she nodded. Her buttocks looked smaller and also higher and firmer.

  “What size?” she asked.

  “Thirty-five,” he said. “And you’re still swollen. You may go down to thirty-four. You were almost thirty-nine.”

  She turned to him. “It’s like a miracle.”

  He smiled. “It’s not a miracle. It’s modern surgery. But we did have one advantage.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You’re young,” he said. “Generally when we do these things, our patients are much older and their bodies don’t have the resiliency to heal and mend the way you do.”

  She looked at herself in the mirror. “And the scars will all disappear?”

  “They won’t disappear,” he said. “But they will conceal themselves and in a few months, you’ll need a magnifying glass to find them.”

  “I’m glad I did it,” she said.

  “I’m happy that you’re pleased,” he said. “I’m going to replace the bandages once again just to make sure that you don’t do any damage to yourself while you’re asleep. I think in another three or four days we’ll be able to remove the stitches. And you don’t have to remain in bed, you can move around as you like. Just remember not to bend, stretch, or lift anything heavy.” He gestured to the nurse, who came forward with another hospital gown. He helped her into it, then walked back to the bed with her. “I’ll see you at the end of the week.”

  The telephone began to ring as he walked to the door. She picked it up. “Hello.”

  “Janette?” She recognized Johann’s voice.

  “Johann!” she exclaimed. It was the first call she had received since she had been at the clinic. “Where are you calling from?”

  “Geneva,” he said.

  “What are you doing there?”

  He laughed. “I’m on my honeymoon.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said.

  “It’s true,” he said. “Remember what you told me in the office? I decided to take your advice.”

  “How wonderful,” she said. “Do I know the bride?”

  “No,” he said. “But I’m anxious for you to meet her. I thought we might take a drive out to see you.”

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I’m not going to have anyone meet me for the first time out here. I’m right in the middle of my treatments.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Your voice sounds strange.”

  “My nose is stuffed,” she said. “But I’m fine, really I am. Tell me about your wife.”

  “She’s American. She’s beautiful. I know you’ll like each other. What more can I tell you.”

  “Have you known her a long time?”

  “Three years,” he said.

  “Johann, I’m very happy for you,” she said. “Congratulations, and I can’t wait to meet her. I really mean it and I will as soon as I come home.”

  “When will that be?” he asked.

  “I’ll be here a little longer than I thought,” she said. “About another month.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Too bad. Lauren misses you. She’s very lonely in that big house.”

  “It can’t be helped,” she said. “But even when I’m home we don’t see that much of each other. She’s usually in bed by the time I get in.”

  “Heidi and I took her out to the zoo last Sunday,” he said. “Heidi adores her. Maybe we’ll try to keep her a little company until you get back.”

  “That will be lovely,” she said. “Please thank your wife for me.”

  �
�It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m anxious to see you, to see what you look like.”

  She laughed. “I think you’re going to be surprised. But it all can wait. After all, you’re on your honeymoon.”

  He laughed. “That’s right.”

  “A big kiss to you and your wife,” she said. “And I look forward to see you both in Paris.”

  Slowly she put down the telephone. Johann married. Strangely, she found it hard to believe.

  Jacques was at his usual table in a corner against the wall at the front of the Relais Plaza at lunchtime. Usually he sat there sipping his white wine, casually watching everyone as they entered or left the restaurant, but today he had the International Herald Tribune and Vogue open on the table before him and was studying them carefully. The showings were over and the verdict was in. Yves St. Laurent. As far as the press was concerned there was no one else. Even the photographs of the young American Presidential candidate and his wife standing in front of the Elysée did not attract as much attention.

  It had been just a little more than four years ago that Michel de Brunhof, the editor of French Vogue, had spoken to him about finding a place with Shiki for the young boy who was living with him and attending the Académie de Couture. But even after seeing the boy’s drawings and sketches, Shiki wouldn’t have him. He had no time to waste on amateurs and dreamers and it would take too long to teach him the practical side of the business.

  Even after that, he had taken the designs to Johann and urged him to overrule Shiki or, if not to overrule him, start another small salon to reflect a newer, younger approach to couture. Johann studied them but shook his head. They were losing enough money in the couture division without beginning another operation that would increase their losses. Reluctantly he had taken the drawings back to de Brunhof. A month later the young man was at Dior. Almost immediately the boy’s name began to appear in numerous stories and articles in Vogue, and the rest was history. Dior had his heart attack and Marcel Boussac appointed the young man as designer for the House of Dior.

  Jacques stared down at the magazine. If only de Brunhof had come to him one year earlier when Tanya was still alive. She would have snapped him up. Even gotten rid of Shiki if that was the only way. Always the big if. But she was gone, and Johann’s approach to the business was oriented to the balance sheet rather than the concept.

  But perhaps it wasn’t too late. This was St. Laurent’s last showing before he began his compulsory military service in the French Army. Two years. Boussac was not going to mark time with the House of Dior just because of that. He couldn’t afford to lose the momentum that had been created. There were a number of names that were being bruited about as St. Laurent’s possible successor but he already knew who it would be. The designer who ran their house in London—Marc Bohan. He wasn’t St. Laurent, but as talented and individual in his own way, and very strong. By the time St. Laurent came out of the army, Bohan would be so entrenched at Dior that it would take a nuclear bomb to get him out of there. Then St. Laurent would be forced to look for a new home. This time, Jacques was not about to let him get away. Not even if it meant that he had to go out himself and find the money to found a new house of couture.

  He sipped at his kir slowly and idly kept turning the pages of the magazine. His, as usual, was an advance copy; it would not be on the newsstands for sale to the general public until next week. He always made it a point to go through the magazine thoroughly, reading the advertisements as well as the articles. In a way, the ads were even more important because they offered clues as to the directions that the various houses were taking. Almost halfway through the magazine he came to a sudden halt. He stared down at it in a sort of shock, his brain refusing to believe his eyes.

  Spread across the two pages was a color photograph of a beautiful nude girl lying on her side, facing the camera, looking down at her hand, on the engagement finger of which was a large heart-shaped diamond ring. In bold type across the two pages were the words, “A simple diamond is all any beautiful woman needs to wear.” Then, in small letters, in the corner of the second page beneath the photograph: “janette marie de la Beauville for harry winston.”

  “Merde!” His lips moved silently. He was angry. More with himself than with the photograph. With all his contacts, he should have known about it before it even happened. But somehow she had managed to see that it was kept from him. Then the humor of it got to him and he began to smile. He studied the photograph. She had never looked more beautiful. He signaled the waiter.

  “Another kir, Monsieur?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll have a whiskey. With lots of ice.” He closed the magazine. To hell with Yves St. Laurent for the moment. This photograph was going to be the talk of Paris for the coming season. The waiter put the whiskey in front of him and he took a deep drink. Already his mind was working on how to capitalize on it.

  Johann looked down at the magazine, then leaned back in his chair. “Quite startling,” he said. “Why do you think she did it?”

  Jacques laughed. “Because she’s smarter than both of us. That’s why. There’s more of her mother in her than either of us realized.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Johann said.

  “Image,” Jacques said. “With one photograph she created an image. Something Shiki has not been able to do for us in five years. The day after this magazine is on the street she will be the new queen of the young Parisian haut monde. They’ll fall all over themselves trying to be like her. Anything she does, anything she says will be law.”

  “How is that going to help us?” Johann asked.

  “It’s a whole new market. And we’ll be there first,” Jacques answered. “We won’t be struggling, as we have with Shiki, trying to penetrate a market in which all we wind up with are the crumbs that fall from the tables of the other designers. We’ll have to begin a brand-new line with a brand-new concept.”

  “And what about our investment in Shiki?”

  “Finished,” Jacques said. “Over. We never made any money with it so why continue flogging a dead horse?”

  “But Tanya thought—”

  Jacques interrupted him. “Tanya is dead. Janette is now. If Tanya were alive, she would be the first one to agree with me.”

  Johann was silent for a moment. “Have you spoken to Janette?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to speak to you first.”

  “It means writing off fifty million francs,” Johann said. “That’s half her money now, which means the decision should be half hers. I am only responsible for Lauren’s share, and as trustee I can’t bring myself to accept such a loss for my ward.”

  “Eventually it will all be lost. Shiki will never make it. We’ve given him every chance he could ask for.”

  “I don’t know,” Johann said. “I don’t feel comfortable in this part of the business. I never quite understood it. Nothing makes sense. Nobody seems to know what will sell and what will not. The wine business is something else. You produce so much, you sell so much, you always know what is going to happen. Even the fragrance company has a steady market. Not very big, but you can also figure on what will happen. Couture, zero. You spend a fortune designing a line, showing it, advertising it. Two days later it’s all down the sewer and you can’t even give the samples away. I’m sorry we ever went into it, but Tanya wouldn’t listen to me. She had her own ideas.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Janette?” Jacques said. “Maybe she has some ideas too.”

  Johann looked at him. “Do you really think so?”

  Jacques nodded. “I’m beginning to know that lady. She never does anything without a purpose.”

  Johann stared down at the magazine on his desk after Jacques had left the office. The Janette looking seductively up at him from the photograph was a very different girl from the one who had told him three years before that she was going to change the way she looked. But it was more than her appearance that was changed. Something else had happened.

  There had st
ill been something of the child about the other Janette, a sophisticated naiveté. The naiveté was gone. This was a woman, aware of herself, of her body, her needs, her drives, her ambitions. But the calculation was hidden in her total look. What had emerged was the totality of her femaleness; yet, from the cut of her dark-auburn highlighted hair to the almost metallic rose-colored toenails, she was the epitome of the fashionably accepted figure, the individual flaws lost in that total look.

  She had been away almost five months before she returned to the office. And then no one had recognized her; even Johann’s secretary, who had known her for many years, had asked her name before she marched into his office, the shock evident in the secretary’s voice over the telephone when she announced her.

  He remembered looking up from his desk and just staring. She stood very still for a moment, then turned around slowly in full circle, then looked down at him with a smile. “Well, Johann, what do you think?”

  He was silent, then rose from his desk and kissed her on both cheeks. “You’re absolutely beautiful,” he said sincerely. “But do I know you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a half smile. “But then, I don’t know if I know myself. I’m going to have to find out.”

  He went back behind the desk and sat down. “When are you planning to come back to work?”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I still have much to discover. About myself. And about our business. And I think I will learn more working somewhere else for a while.”

  He thought about the hundred thousand gold louis in the bank in Switzerland and the note of caution that Tanya had left in one of the safe-deposit boxes.

  DEAR JOHANN,

  One third is yours because you loved Wolfgang as I did. The remainder I place in your trust for Janette and Lauren, to be used only in case of need. I love you and trust you and apologize for placing this additional burden on your shoulders. Be good to them, my friend, because in the end, my children, like myself, have no one else.