Marcel stared back at him. “Those I know about I can deal with. But there are those whose identity remains hidden. There is much resentment and jealousy because of my success. I am convinced that many are plotting against me.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s true.” Marcel’s voice lowered and he glanced around the crowded dining room at El Morocco, then leaned forward confidentially. “You have heard about my troubles with the draft board? They wish to take me into the army. Me, a key figure in their defense program. The father of three children.”
“How can they?” Dax asked. “You’re not even a citizen.”
“I am a resident alien, and therefore subject to their draft, or so they maintain. Of course, I have lawyers and influential people working on it, but they are stupid, they claim nothing can be done. Powerful people are out to get me.”
“Do you have any idea who they might be?”
“I can’t be sure. I can only guess.” Marcel was whispering now. “It could be Hogan and his group; they never really forgave me for the Corteguayan oil venture. Especially after they discovered there was no oil there.”
“But you are still in business together. Surely they would not disturb that relationship.”
“They need my ships,” Marcel replied, “not me, and they have a contract.”
“Could it be your former father-in-law? He probably hasn’t any great enthusiasm for you.”
A look of contempt crossed Marcel’s face. “Not Abidijan, he’s too greedy. My children are heirs to my estate, and they’re his grandchildren. No, Amos would do nothing.” His voice dropped even lower. “I don’t know who they are. But I will find out, I have ways. And when I do they will regret ever having tried to make trouble for me.”
Dax stared at Marcel. There was a sickness in his voice he had never been aware of before, an expression on his face that seemed almost psychotic. Dax forced an easiness into his voice he did not feel. “It will pass, Marcel. Everything will turn out all right, you’ll see.”
“It had better,” Marcel replied. “I do not intend to go down alone. There are many who will go down with me.” He looked up and suddenly the grim expression on Marcel’s face changed to a smile. He started to his feet.
Dax rose also. A tall, darkly dramatic young woman was being escorted to their table by the headwaiter. A kind of hush fell across the tables she passed.
Marcel bowed over her extended hand, his lips caressing it. “You know Dax, of course?”
“Of course.”
She turned her dark eyes on Dax and smiled, extending her hand. Dax also kissed it. Her fingers were cold as ice. “Madame Farkas.”
“And how did the performance go?”
Dania looked at Marcel as they sat down, and made a weary gesture. “As usual, I was magnificent. But that tenor! I told Bing as I came offstage, never again. Either he goes or I do.”
In the center of the big room the orchestra blared. The dance floor was jammed and a faint haze of smoke that even the air-conditioning could not wholly eliminate hung over the dimly lit room. Dax sat at the table alone, drawing on a cigarette, watching Dania Farkas and Marcel.
The tall blond girl moving toward a table behind her escort stopped suddenly. “Dax?”
Dax looked up. He smiled suddenly and got to his feet. “Sue Ann.”
“It is you, Dax. What in the world are you doing in that uniform?”
He smiled again. “I’ve been drafted.”
“Are you alone?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m with Marcel Campion and Dania Farkas.”
Sue Ann’s eyes followed his gesture and picked them out on the dance floor. “You’re alone,” she said definitely, “I’ll join you.”
“But your escort?”
“A nothing, a real bore. He’s one of Daddy’s trust lawyers. I had nothing better to do.”
At her gesture, her escort walked back to her. “Yes, Miss Daley?”
“I ran into an old friend,” she said imperiously, “I hope you won’t mind if I join him?”
“I won’t in the least mind,” he replied quickly, almost too quickly. “I’ll say good night then.”
Dax made room for Sue Ann on the banquette, and as she sat a waiter put down a champagne glass, which the wine steward quickly filled. Sue Ann looked at Dax approvingly. “You look marvelous in that uniform. What a perfect piece of casing. I wonder why no one thought of it before.”
Dax laughed. “El Presidente decided that in time of war a uniform looks more impressive.”
“I’m impressed. What are you—a general or something?”
“No, merely a lowly colonel. There is only one general in our army, el Presidente himself.”
“Your wife? Is she with you?”
“No, there is too much for her to do at home. El Presidente, her father, thought it best she remain. And your new husband?”
Sue Ann shrugged. “A stupid boy; we were divorced over a month ago. I don’t seem to have much luck with husbands. How come you never wanted to marry me?”
He laughed. “You never asked me.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Yes. You see, I have a secret. I’m shy.”
“And I’m stupid. I really asked for that one. But I shan’t make the same mistake twice. Next time I’ll ask.”
“How do you know there’ll be a next time?”
“I know you, and I know women. I’ve almost come twice just sitting here rubbing my leg against yours. If your wife is the kind of woman who can let you go away alone, even on her father’s orders, there’ll be a next time.”
“You’re all wrong,” he said, still smiling.
“No, I’m not. I can wait. You’re going to be my next husband.” Suddenly a mischievous grin came to her lips. “Now that everything’s all settled and we’re formally engaged, let’s get the hell out of here and go someplace and fuck!”
Over Marcel’s head Dania had seen Sue Ann come to the table and sit down next to Dax. An almost instant resentment ran through her which had nothing to do with Dax. In a way she did not like him either; he was the kind of man she had always resented. Positive, sexual, and sure of himself with women. But her real resentment was directed at Sue Ann.
The blond hair, the blue eyes, the fair skin. The casual sensuality and the awareness of her importance. There had always been girls like that in the schools that she had gone to, in the world to which she aspired. Girls who had to do absolutely nothing to get what she had had to struggle so desperately for.
Dania had always been the dark one, the Greek girl, the one with the accent, the tall, skinny, unattractive child with the strange complexion. And they were the goddesses—the blond leaders, the ones the boys always ran after. And then one day when she was about twelve something had happened.
She had begun to bleed, and the strange-sounding voice had suddenly taken on a richness. It burst forth from her throat and soared beautifully and majestically above the others in the class. Abruptly the teacher had silenced the singing and peered down from the platform through her steel-rimmed glasses. “Who was that?”
Dania remained silent, afraid that she had done something wrong.
“Who was that?” the teacher repeated.
Several of the others turned and looked at Dania. She could no longer hide. She stepped forward. “It was me.”
The teacher stared at her unbelievingly, wondering what sort of miracle had touched this strange plain girl and transformed her. “You will come back after school with your mother.”
There it began. The years of struggle. The study and self-denial. By the time she was seventeen Dania realized that she would never be beautiful. But her breasts filled out with the exercises, and she took on some of the dramatic depths of the music she was studying. Bit by bit this began to reflect itself in her makeup and her dress. She learned to accentuate her best feature, her eyes, which were large and dark. And she trained her hair down over her brow to disguise her height, and s
haded her cheekbones because they were too high and prominent. A pale lipstick made her mouth appear less wide.
At first there were many men, for Dania was aware that her mother could never furnish the money necessary to complete her musical training. But they did not reach her. It was almost as if from a distance she watched them writhe and spend themselves upon her, then took from them the little they had to offer. Then there was one, and that he was thirty years older did not matter. He was fifty-five, but rich enough to afford all that remained to be done. More important, he was well enough connected to make it possible. She was twenty when they married.
In her own way Dania had been honest enough with him. There was to be nothing between them but music, nothing that might interfere or distract her from her career. Blinded by her talent, he humbly forswore the few remaining years of his manhood and not once in the ten years of their marriage had they ever gone to bed together.
There were other men, and he knew it. Like the tenor who had got her the role of Carmen at La Scala, or the famous composer-conductor who brought her to the Metropolitan in New York. Now Dania was thirty and needed no one, not even him, and even this he accepted. He was content that she bore his name and he could bask in the bright sun of her talent.
But now Dania was no longer content. She thought she could detect the first faint traces of a weakening in her voice and suddenly she was filled with the fear that when it did go she would have nothing, that she would be condemned to spending the rest of her life in genteel splendor with an old man.
It was then that she had met Marcel. In him already rich, already powerful, Dania saw traces of herself. The same selfish greeds and desires. That he was married and had children did not matter; she as an artist was above such things. What did matter was that he like all the others was subservient to her talent, and that he mistook her passion and fire upon a stage as also a sexual capacity.
She waited confidently. Marcel obtained his divorce as she had thought he would. But then something went wrong. He did not ask her to divorce her husband and marry him. He seemed quite content to drift along as they had. Dania realized there were many problems besetting him, and after a while she settled into a routine of watchful waiting. That he would marry her in time she had no doubt. Meanwhile there would be nothing lost since she still had her husband in reserve.
Over Marcel’s head she saw Dax and Sue Ann talking and laughing. Suddenly Dania was bored with his mechanical dancing. She tapped Marcel on the shoulder. “Come, let us sit down. I am tired.”
“I’m sorry,” Dax apologized, “but I must go. I have an early plane to catch for Boston in the morning.”
“But it’s scarcely three o’clock,” Marcel protested.
“I know, but I have a lunch appointment with James Hadley.”
“I’m tired too,” Dania said suddenly. “It’s been a long day, Marcel, let’s go.”
Suddenly Marcel became stubborn. “No, I wish to stay.”
Dania stared at him. She knew instantly that he was trying to assert himself. Well, this was as much her game as his. “Stay then,” she said, rising. “The world does not have to stay up all night merely because you can’t sleep.”
“I’ll have to go, too,” Sue Ann said.
Marcel looked up at them, from one to the other. Suddenly his eyes were hooded and veiled. “All right,” he replied, his voice unexpectedly soft, “take my limousine. But tell the chauffeur to come back for me after he drops you off.”
Dax settled into the back seat of the big car between the two of them. The chauffeur turned and looked back questioningly. “You can drop me off first,” Dax said. “The consulate is nearest.”
The chauffeur nodded, and the window between him and the back seat rolled up. “You don’t mind?” Dax asked.
The two women shook their heads.
He was reaching for a cigarette when he felt their hands. Dania on his right, Sue Ann on his left. He smiled to himself in the darkness and slipped his own hands up under their dresses. Sue Ann was already wet but Dania was hot and dry, her pubic hair crinkly under his fingers. At almost the same moment, their hands found his manhood. And each other.
They stared across him in surprise. He could feel his own juices begin to rise as they leaned forward to look down at him, then at each other.
Dax laughed aloud. He raised his hands and placed one on each of their heads pontifically. “Bless you, my children.”
143
James Hadley leaned back in the chair. “You have already spoken to Jeremy about this?”
Dax nodded. “He said he would give me all the help he could. But he suggested that you might be able to do even more. That’s why I came to see you.”
Hadley glanced out the window at the rain, then back at Dax. “Perhaps I can.” He leaned forward unexpectedly. “Did Jeremy tell you that he is leaving politics?”
“No.” Dax was surprised. “He said nothing about it to me.”
“Well, he is; at least, elective politics. He is more interested in going into the State Department. The rough and tumble of the other does not appeal to him.”
“Surely that is not the only reason?”
Hadley grinned ruefully. “No, Jeremy has made up his mind to marry that German girl. And he knows that the voters would never vote for a congressman with a foreign wife, especially a divorcée, in Catholic Boston.”
Dax did not answer. There was a moment’s silence, then Hadley continued. “Jeremy has pledged his support to Jack Kennedy. Kennedy will go for the Senate in fifty-two, the vice presidency in fifty-six, the presidency in sixty. Jeremy promised him he would go down the line.”
Dax felt a wave of pity for the old man. It had to be a bitter pill for him to swallow. Those were his exact plans for his own son. Now it was someone else who had taken them over.
“So that is what Jeremy meant when he said you might be able to help me,” he said softly. “Do you know the Kennedys?”
Hadley nodded. “They have a place not far from us at Palm Beach. They’re a big family.”
Dax smiled at the description, for Hadley’s wasn’t exactly a small one. “Do you think they might be interested in helping?”
“They might,” Hadley said. “I don’t doubt that Jeremy will talk to Jack, and I’ll see what I can do with his father. They’re very much interested, I understand, in bringing the South American countries more actively into the UN.”
Suddenly he changed the subject. “Did you see Marcel while you were in New York?”
“I had dinner with him last night.” Dax took out a cigarette. “He seems overly upset about his draft call.”
“Marcel is a fool. What does he expect when he flaunts himself in everyone’s face? People are bound to resent him. I told him to lay low, to keep out of the nightclubs and the newspapers. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“What should he do?”
“I advised him to go in quietly. At his age he’ll wind up at a desk job anyway. Then after he’s in, a discharge could be arranged for him. But Marcel won’t. He won’t listen.”
“What will happen then?”
Hadley looked across the desk. “If Marcel keeps on like this he’ll destroy himself. The one thing you can’t beat in this country is public opinion. He’s already identified in the public’s mind as a draft dodger.”
Dax got to his feet. “You must be very busy. I won’t presume on any more of your time.”
Hadley watched him to the door. “Dax?”
Dax turned. “Yes?”
“You’re a strange man, Dax. We’ve spoken much about business, but never once did you mention Caroline.”
Dax shrugged. “What was there to say?”
Hadley met his gaze steadily. “In my own way, you know, I loved her.”
“So did I,” Dax answered quietly. “Also in my own way.”
“She was not for you, and evidently not for me either.”
Dax did not speak.
“Have you seen her or heard f
rom her?”
Dax shook his head. “No; from what I hear she is still living with her father in Paris.”
“I have not seen her either,” Hadley said, a curious note of sadness in his voice. “Is it too late for me to apologize for what I have done?”
Dax looked at him silently for a moment before he answered. “There’s no reason for you to apologize. Perhaps it’s both of us who should apologize to Caroline.”
James Hadley stared at the closed door for a moment, then picked up the telephone on his desk. Perspective, he thought, everything was a matter of perspective. Jeremy’s decision to abandon politics, Marcel’s to fight the draft board. Even Dax’s viewpoint about Caroline.
His secretary’s voice in his ear interrupted his train of thought. “Yes, Mr. Hadley?”
What had he picked up the telephone for? “Oh, yes,” he said aloud, remembering. “Get Joe Kennedy for me.”
Sue Ann and Dania were in Dax’s apartment at the consulate when he got in from the airport. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What are you two doing here?”
“We came to take you out to dinner,” Sue Ann said.
“Not me.” Dax crossed the living room to his bedroom door. “I’m staying in tonight and going to bed early. I’m leaving for Japan in the morning.”
Sue Ann grinned. “Then we’ll stay and have dinner with you. You don’t think we’d let you spend your last night before going off to war alone, do you?”
“I have a lot to do. Papers to sign and that sort of thing.”
“You go right ahead,” Sue Ann said quickly. “We’ll just make ourselves comfortable, and I’ll call a caterer to send up a divine dinner.”
Dax stared at her. “Exactly what do you have on your obscene little mind?”
“Obscenities, what else?” Sue Ann’s expression changed swiftly to a look of mock horror. “Do you know what I found out last night?”
“No.”
“Dania is twenty-seven years old. She’s been to bed with more than a dozen men and she’s never once had an orgasm. Isn’t that terrible?”
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