Never Enough

by Harold Robbins

  “It’s a dream,” said Sara mournfully.

  “Dreams are made possible by money: the careful use of money.”

  “I see,” said Reitsch, sadness and defiance mixing in his voice, “that I will not have complete control.”

  “But you will have a business. You will see your dream become a reality.”

  “Yes, Hermann,” Sara whispered.

  “Reality is also a matter of cooperation, teamwork,” said Dave. “You’ve got a money man. That’s me. You’ve got your first lawyer, who is Cole Jennings. You’ve got a design consultant, who is Janelle. You will have accountants and—the whole schmear.”

  “I know you are right, Mr. Shea,” Reitsch said humbly. “I am grateful to you.”

  VI

  “He who controls the schmear controls the business,” Janelle said as they drove back toward Manhattan.

  The spring storm continued, and the wipers strained to clear the windshield of the rented Oldsmobile. She had pulled off her red minidress, sat in her panty hose, and was smoking a cigarette.

  “Bob made a big mistake when he talked so much in front of you, assuming you couldn’t understand. Anyway … My question for you is: Is it worth controlling?”

  “Yes, it is. He’s got a real possibility there.”

  “You can make it work better,” said Dave.

  “There is nothing in this world that can’t be made to work better,” she answered.

  “You know something? You’re too damned smart for a girl of twenty-four.”

  “I’ve been taught by experts,” said Janelle.

  “I never knew how you got involved with Leeman and what went down from there.”

  “Simple enough,” she said. “When I was fourteen, my mother realized I would never be able to realize my potential. I mean, I—Well, how to put it?”

  “That you were and are a certifiable genius,” said Dave.

  “It’s like Hermann Reitsch and his wonderful idea,” she said. “You can’t realize a potential from a basis of poverty.”

  “That’s cynical.”

  “The truth is cynical.”

  “I guess I’d be hypocritical to disagree,” he said. “I made some compromises to get away from what I was born into.”

  “My mother taught third grade in a public school. Still does. And we couldn’t live on what she made, so she sold her tail, nights.”

  “Where was your father?”

  “Who the hell knows. Anyway … Mom decided if she could sell her ass, she could sell mine. And maybe out of that I’d get the kind of chances in life that she never had. One of her Johns knew Leeman. I mean … I have to explain that Mom was never a bar hooker. She made dates with businessmen that she met like at PTA meetings. She confided in one or two of them that she had a nubile daughter who could go on the market to the right man for the right money. Okay. The guy sent her to see Leeman. She talked to him, and then she took me to meet him.”

  “Jesus!”

  “I’m going to tell you something, Dave. Never once in my whole goddamned life have I felt any obligation to regard my body as a temple of God. It has always been something to make money with. And to have fun with.”

  “And you had brains.”

  She grinned. “And so do you. So business ethics mean no more to you than they do to Bob Leeman. Ethics and morals are for dummies. We can beat the world by ignoring their superstitions and climbing over their bodies. Bob has done it. And so have you, I figure. Hell, I sucked off a couple of MIT professors to assure my summa cum laude credential.”

  “Jesus, Janelle!”

  “Tell me I made a wrong decision,” she looked squarely at him.

  “Anyway, I wasn’t the first guy Bob gave you to.”

  “Or the last. But he was good to his girls. He didn’t hand me over to drunks or bullies. He paid you a very big compliment when he gave you me.”

  “I offered to pay your tuition.”

  “I know. He told me at the time.”

  “I was very impressed with you.”

  “I didn’t forget you, either. You were nice to me. And you had a world-class cock, which is something I already knew something about. You weren’t the only one who thought that way. Technically I was a virgin when I went away to school. Hey! Remember what Marilyn Monroe said? Something like, ‘I’m a big star now, and I’ll never have to suck another cock.’ And you know what Marlene Dietrich said? Something like, ‘I’d much rather suck than fuck. Sucking, I’m in control, and I don’t have the heavy, sweating bastard on top of me.’ Marlene was smart. Marilyn wasn’t.”

  “You’re a compendium of arcane knowledge,” Dave said dryly.

  “We’ll have—what?—an hour before you have to go home. Okay. I’ve sucked you off. We’ve fucked. Tonight I want to feel your tongue up in me. It’s time I got some of that, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve earned it.”

  She laughed. “I’ll pour some chocolate syrup in it. Or smear it with strawberry preserves. Which would you prefer?”

  Dave nodded. “I’ll think about it. In the meantime, we’ve got to make a deal. What do you want out of this Reitsch thing? A participation? Or a salary?”

  “Both. We’ll work something out.”

  “Okay, we’ll—”

  “DAVE! DAVE!”

  He hit the brakes with all his might, to stop before he ran under the rear of a huge semi. The Olds-mobile spun, went off the pavement sideways, turned over, and broke through the guardrail rolling. It rolled side over side down a slope and into water, disintegrating as it went.

  “Janelle … Is she all right?” he asked frantically as the emergency squad people were pulling him out of the totaled car. The water they had rolled into had put out the fire that burst from the ruptured gas tank. “Don’t let her die!”

  A squad woman wiped blood from his face as a man injected something into his arm.

  “We’ll get you to a hospital as fast as we can, sir.”

  “Columbia Presbyterian …” he sobbed. “Take us to Colum—”

  The last words he heard were those of the squad woman. “Well … he knows where he wants to go. Best hospital in—”

  VII

  Janelle did not die. She suffered four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a fractured pelvis. Dave suffered a broken arm, a broken leg, and skull fracture. She remained in the hospital for three months. Dave was released after five weeks.

  With one arm in a sling, he could not hobble around on crutches. He worked the phones. That was all he could do. Alexandra was not speaking to him.

  Harcourt Barnham was sympathetic. The bank continued his salary and even referred clients to him, whom he could advise and maybe earn commissions. With the computers in the apartment, he kept abreast of as much market information as was made public.

  But—

  “Cole … you’re my lawyer. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’ve got to deal with Reitsch for me. Get him on the right track and keep him there. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now I’m going to confide in you about something you have to know, sooner or later. Client-lawyer communication, right?”

  “Right …”

  “Okay. I want you to fly over to Zurich for me.”

  VIII

  AUGUST, 1992

  Cole sat down in the impressive office of Axel Schnyder. He had already noticed how hierarchical status in Trust Management AG was manifested by clothing: suits, ties, shirts, length of skirts. Coffee was served by a comely blond in a microskirt. The woman who sat with Schnyder and took notes wore a skirt to her knees. She was stiff and brusque. Cole didn’t ignore her, but paid her little attention.

  “I was very sorry to learn of the automobile accident,” said Schnyder. “I do understand that he is recovering slowly but nicely.”

  Cole nodded. “I believe that describes it accurately.”

  “It is apparent that he places complete trust in you. I knew that when you said Rei
nhard Bruning wanted to talk with me. I imagine he has acquainted you with all the facts of our relationship, including especially the confidential.”

  “He has.”

  Axel Schnyder smiled broadly and turned to nod toward the woman who was taking notes. “I believe, Frau Hess, we will not need notes. We can extend to Mr. Jennings the same kind of confidence our American friend obviously places in him.”

  She nodded, put down her notepad, and reached under the corner of his desk and … Cole did not guess, but she switched off a recorder.

  “So. This Mr. Reitsch. I have gained more and more respect, over the years, for Dave Shea’s business judgment. He has matured, become more careful. He really does believe he should commit a major investment to the Reitsch project?”

  Cole nodded.

  “And he thinks I should channel other clients’ funds into this … computer system?”

  “He recommends it.”

  “It is not entirely automatic,” said Schnyder.

  “I have powers of attorney,” said Cole. “To act for Reinhard Bruning and for Friederich Burger.”

  “Ah … He has complete confidence in you. Then … let us review all of this. And then we will augment our acquaintanceship over dinner this evening.”

  Frau Hess turned out to be Frau Hanna Hess, and she joined them for dinner at a private club. Her skirt was not as long as the one that had declared her seniority in the office, nor did she wear the dark jacket and white blouse she had worn there, instead appearing in a white silk pantsuit that clung to her husky, mannish form. She wore her blond hair brush-cut, so short that it stood up in bristles and showed her scalp all over except for the very top of her head. She wore little makeup, though she did wear handsome pearl earrings and a strand of pearls around her neck. She smoked a black cigarillo and drank brandy.

  Cole made a snap judgment that she was a dyke.

  “I gather,” said Axel Schnyder, “that Dave Shea is a long-time friend of yours.”

  “Since childhood,” said Cole. “We grew up together in a small town in New Jersey.”

  “You are his personal attorney?”

  “Not exactly. His business attorney. The only time I was ever involved in a personal matter, I represented his first wife in their divorce.”

  “What does he want, Mr. Jennings? Do you know?”

  “He wants to be a big player.”

  “I detect that he is more interested in power than in money.”

  Cole shrugged. “Money brings power.”

  “He has done very well. I can tell you this because he has so much confidence in you that he has given you access to his accounts. But let him beware. He is nothing so big as Milken was, or Boesky. And let him remember what happened to them.”

  Hanna Hess asked to be excused and left their table to go to the ladies’ room.

  “She is giving me an opportunity,” said Axel Schnyder, “to explain to you that she finds you attractive and may ask you to go home with her tonight.”

  Cole smiled. “I got the impression that she may not find men attractive.”

  “Everyone attracts her. Men, women … I have even heard it said—though I cannot confirm any such thing—that left alone she finds her big dog attractive.”

  “I am a married man.”

  Schnyder grinned. “Aren’t we all? But I must tell you—if you don’t want to go with her, assuming she asks you, you are going to offend her very deeply if you refuse. She has a sense that she is not a beautiful woman and assumes she is being rejected.”

  “Well …”

  “I don’t think you will regret it, Mr. Jennings.”

  After dinner, after much more talk about business, Hanna Hess spoke quietly to Cole, even realizing that Schnyder could hear. “I vould like to show you my flat. I have some … interesting things dere, including a razor so you can shave in the morning.”

  Cole glanced at Schnyder. “I would be honored, Frau Hess.”

  IX

  She did have interesting things in her apartment, including a huge German shepherd dog—a Schäferhund, she called him. His name was Schatzi, meaning sweetheart. Schatzi might have been menacing, but he was exorbitantly friendly and happy to welcome home his mistress and whatever friend she brought with her.

  Their night began with a walk in the nearby park, taking Schatzi out to do his business. In the park they met Trudi, a girl Hanna had called just before they went out. When they returned to the apartment they were three persons.

  No sooner were they inside the door than Hanna and Trudi stripped. Neither wore panty hose. They wore thigh-high stockings supported by garter belts: Hanna’s white, Trudi’s black. They tossed aside bras and panties. Hanna showed that she was a true blond, though she had clipped her pubic hair, not shaved it off, and a narrow strip of it stood along the sides of her cleft. The diminutive Trudi was smoothly shaved.

  “Vell, Mr. Jennings? May ve call you Cole? You, too, please. Down to your underpants anyway.”

  Unsure of himself, wondering what he had gotten himself into, Cole stripped to his slingshot underpants.

  Hanna grinned. “Trudi has some special interests, vich ve hope you vill find interesting.”

  She beckoned him to walk into the bedroom with them, where he saw a big, heavy X-frame standing in the middle of the room and supported in its upright position by ropes to rings in the ceiling.

  Trudi went immediately to the frame and stood against it with her arms extending along the upper parts of the X. Hanna smiled at Cole and quickly used leather straps with buckles to fasten Trudi’s arms to the frame. Then she squatted and buckled the girl’s ankles to the lower parts of the X. Finally, she ran a belt around Trudi’s middle and the intersection of the X, and Trudi was firmly immobilized.

  Hanna picked up a cruel-looking whip from the dresser. “Don’t vorry,” she said. “She vants it. Tell the gentleman, Trudi. You vant to be vipped, no?”

  Trudi looked back over her shoulder and nodded at Cole. “Ja,” she said. She understood English but was uncomfortable with it. “Schlagen Sie mir, bitte, Hanna … Schlagen Sie mir gut!”

  Hanna stepped back and slashed the girl across her bare buttocks. Trudi stiffened and moaned.

  Hanna shook her head. From the dresser she picked up a red rubber ball with a narrow leather strap through it. She shoved the ball into Trudi’s mouth and drew the strap around the back of her neck, where she fastened it with a buckle. Trudi was gagged.

  Hanna lashed her, across her bottom, then across her shoulders. Trudi writhed and tugged on her bonds, and she wept.

  “Uh … Are you sure she wants … ?” Cole asked.

  Hanna spoke in the girl’s ear. “Genup, Trudi?” she asked. Enough.

  Trudi could mutter words past her gag. She shook her head and said, “Mehr, bitte.” More, please.

  “Vould you like for Cole to vip you some?”

  The girl looked over her shoulder at Cole and nodded.

  He was reluctant. But he took the whip and gave the girl a stroke across her bottom.

  “Trudi … ?” Hanna asked.

  The girl looked back over her shoulder and spoke to Cole. “Schwerer, bitte,” she muttered around her gag. Harder.

  “Mitout the oonderpants, please,” said Hanna. “She’s entitled to look back and see your paynis.”

  Cole felt caught up in a situation he never could have imagined. He took down his underpants.

  Hanna had, apparently, an unending supply of straps. She seized his parts and ran a thin, soft-leather strap under his scrotum and up over the base of his penis. When she pulled it tight and buckled it, his confined penis grew yet more. His erection strained and throbbed. His balls were pulled up and forward.

  Trudi turned and looked down. “Gross,” she mumbled.

  Hanna now circled the shaft of his penis with still another strap and hung from it a little brass bell. When he moved, his penis swung the bell and rang it.

  Hanna laughed.

  “Now, our Ameri
can friend. Flog her!”

  He swung the whip. It cracked across Trudi’s buttocks. Her scream was stifled by the rubber ball, but it was real. Hanna grinned and nodded. He slashed the girl across the shoulders. She tried again to scream. She jerked on the straps that held her to the X-frame. She lowered her head and moaned and sobbed.

  Cole tossed the whip on the floor.

  Hanna laughed again. She unfastened the gag. “So, Trudi … How did he do?”

  “Gut.”

  Cole ran his hand down the back of her head. “I hurt you,” he said.

  “Es machts nichts aus,” she sobbed. That is nothing. “Danke, Cole. Danke!”

  The night had only begun. Eventually he slept between them in Hanna’s wide bed.

  SIXTEEN

  I

  SEPTEMBER, 1992

  “You’re out of the hospital,” Alexandra said coldly to Dave as he hobbled into their apartment.

  He was able now to get around, haltingly, with a cane.

  “Is the little girl better?” Alexandra asked acerbically.

  “Yes. She’ll be out of the hospital in a few days. Complete recovery, actually.”

  “I suppose you’ll be seeing her again.”

  “Not necessarily. She was working on the Reitsch matter, and now that we’ve decided to go ahead we really don’t need any more consulting services of the kind she offers.”

  “Ah. Consulting services. What kind does she offer, really? Does she consult with her clothes on? Or off?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Only that I’ve read the accident report.” Alexandra grabbed a document off the coffee table. “Quote: ‘When the emergency squad personnel removed Miss Griffith from the car, they observed that she was nude except for her hosiery. Her dress lay on the floor in the rear.’ Close quote. Just what kind of consulting was she doing, naked?”

  Dave shook his head. “Her dress must have come off as the car was rolling,” he said weakly.