'Now we get her on her knees.' Mrs. Ramirez leaned close into Dorothy-Anne's ear. 'We need your help also. Help us. Support yourself on your elbows.''
Dorothy-Anne clenched her jaw as Freddie and Mrs. Ramirez helped her get into position. It wasn't an easy maneuver, not in her state of exhaustion, and with the clumsy, swollen belly getting in the way. When she finally stood on her knees, Dorothy-Anne let her head sag down between her arms, her triangular shoulder blades jutting from her naked back like two shark's fins, her limp hair hanging down over her face.
'Good. Very good.' Mrs. Ramirez, ignoring Dorothy-Anne's apparent collapse, sounded pleased. She knelt beside Dorothy-Anne, pressing the outside of the abdomen ever so lightly with the palms of her hands. The skin was stretched tautly against the pear-shaped belly. 'Is better?' she asked.
'I - I think so,' Dorothy-Anne whispered in surprise. 'It - it doesn't seem to hurt nearly so much now.'
Mrs. Ramirez nodded with satisfaction. 'Is because of the pressure. The little one no longer pushes on the wrong spot.' She gestured to Freddie. 'Now, move her back and forth. Gently. Like so. Like she is on a boat.' She made a cradle of her arms and demonstrated a steady rocking motion with her hands. 'Meanwhile, I feel for the baby. Now do it!'
Freddie began rocking Dorothy-Anne, holding onto her very gently, yet firmly so she would not collapse on her side.
Suddenly Dorothy-Anne sucked in her breath.
'What is it?' Freddie cried with concern. 'Did I hurt you?'
'No. it's the baby.' Dorothy-Anne looked sideways through her curtain of limp hair, her voice taking on a tone of wonder. 'It's - it's moving. I can feel it move.' Her back arched and tensed, and she lifted her head slowly, staring in wide-eyed amazement first at Freddie, and then at Mrs. Ramirez.
But Mrs. Ramirez was not looking at her. She had eyes only for the sagging belly. Even from the outside, she could see that the bulging outline which was the child was perceptively shifting from one side to another.
Mrs. Ramirez held her breath. 'A little bit more,' she whispered under her breath, wiping the tickling sweat off her mustached upper lip. 'A little bit more.'
The bulge stopped shifting. Then, after a moment, it continued to move.
Mrs. Ramirez let out a short sigh of relief. 'Stay like that,' she commanded as she changed her position on the bed so that she could insert her fingers into Dorothy-Anne's vagina. For a moment she felt around, she squeezed her eyes shut and heaved a massive sigh.
'What is it?' Freddie whispered.
Mrs. Ramirez slowly withdrew her hand. Suddenly she burst into laughter. 'The head! I feel the head! It is now down at the opening where it should be. Dios mia! We have done it. We have done it.' Tears of relief flowed from her dark eyes. 'Now quickly. We must turn her over - '
'You mean . . . it's all right now?' Freddie asked in disbelief.
'Is fine, is fine.' Mrs. Ramirez's head bobbed happily up and down. 'Quickly, get her on her back - ' Then in a softer voice she added, 'It will still hurt, but it will be a normal hurt . . . But now we can deliver. Do you hear?' Her eyes gleamed triumphantly. 'We can deliver the little one. We have done it!'
GENESIS
Quebeck, Texas
August 15, 1985
Dorothy-Anne had never known anything so glorious, so filled with amazement and wonder, as the moment she heard the first cry of her newborn baby.
'Look, a beautiful girl!' Felicia Ramirez cried happily. 'You have a perfect little daughter.'
Tears filled Dorothy-Anne's eyes, but they were tears of pure joy. The awful pain of the long night of labor was over, gone with the storm that had crashed and howled as ferociously as she herself had cried out. But that was all a memory now. The morning sun broke through the small bedroom window and lit the room with a warm glow like the happiness in her heart.
Freddie sat beside her, tears coursing down his own cheeks as he cradled their child in his arms. Dorothy-Anne savored the sight of them, then let her eyes wander to the Buccellati urn still standing atop the dresser. It gleamed brightly in the morning sunlight.
She took a deep breath. She felt immensely drained, but she was exhilarated, too. She could hear the sounds of the birds and crickets returning, and Mrs. Ramirez making little cooing noises over the infant. And she could smell the moist, damp freshness mingling with the scents of citrus. A choked feeling came up in her throat, and she could feel a tear of sadness roll slowly down her cheek. She stared at the urn. It seemed to fade as the first ray of sunlight hit it directly, throwing off a blinding glare.
Great-Granny's voice was a dry whisper. 'Look up, Dorothy-Anne!'
She leaned her head way back, her eyes following Great- Granny's finger as it pointed up, up, to the Hale Palace. The thousands upon thousands of tons of pale limestone looked buttery soft and weightless; and the sunlight bathed the windows and turned them into silvery mirrors. The ornate twin towers scraped the fast-moving clouds that scudded across the Wedgwood-blue of the sky.
How could one adequately express thanks for such a gift, for the flagship of an empire that took a lifetime to build. How can one repay such a legacy as Elizabeth-Anne had left her?
Suddenly, she knew. The night had passed, and a new day had begun. Today was August the fifteenth.
Elizabeth-Anne Hale's birthday. She would have been ninety-one.
Dorothy-Anne turned around and reached out with her hands. Freddie gently laid the child in the crook of her arm.
Dorothy-Anne looked down at her tiny daughter and smiled. She was so lively, and looked so tiny and fragile. An almost angry scowl was on her face, as if she were protesting the indignity of her birth. Her tiny hands were smaller than a doll's and she kept clenching and unclenching them, grasping at air. Like a true Hale, the child's few, silky strands of hair were gold, and her large, inquisitive eyes were aquamarine.
Dorothy-Anne held her daughter close. She glanced up at Freddie. 'Elizabeth-Anne?' she asked softly.
He nodded. 'Elizabeth-Anne it is,' he agreed, 'though I warn you, it won't be easy for her to follow in her namesake's footsteps.'
'Not easy, no,' Dorothy-Anne said pensively. Then she smiled. 'But she'll do it.'
And Dorothy-Anne's lips moved slowly, soundlessly. So soundlessly that even Freddie couldn't hear.
'Happy Birthday, Great-Granny.'
FROM: THE FORBES FOUR HUNDRED
Fall 1989
Dorothy-Anne Cantwell
Inheritance, Hale Hotels, Investments. New York. 24. Married, 3 children. Raised by great-grandmother, Elizabeth-Anne Hale. Served as youngest-ever U.S. CEO with great-grandmother's company. Family oriented. Lives quietly. Noted for N.Y.-area philanthropies, otherwise intensely private. No photos, no interviews, execs keep mum if they value jobs. Despite motherhood, expanding super luxury hotel empire and lately investing in vacation 'villages' begun by Elizabeth-Anne Hale projected at $500 million over 5 years. Already spent $100 million upgrading current hotels. Refuses to go public. Reported annual income of $83 million. Took great-grandmother's place as world's richest woman. Certainly is the youngest. Husband Freddie expanding Hale conglomerate interests in real estate, apt. complexes, resorts, restaurants, travel agencies, banks, mineral mines around the globe. Refuses to confirm net worth of 2.6 billion, or income. 'I'm well fixed, that's all.'
The saga continues. Keep reading for a sneak preview of Second Love, the third and final volume, which will soon be available as an e-book.
Second Love
PROLOGUE
It could have been any of the thousands of uninhabited green islets that rose like dragon's teeth from the depths of the emerald-green South China Sea. Anchored in its lee, the junk was like countless others that still plied these waters, and the islet provided it privacy and refuge—as well as convenience. By helicopter it was a mere forty-minute hop from Hong Kong, yet it might have been worlds away.
The six elders had arrived separately. Two had come by helicopter and four by small powerboats capable
of attaining speeds of up to fifty knots per hour. In order to draw as little attention to themselves as possible, they had arrived at twenty-minute intervals, and their boats and helicopters had immediately been covered with camouflage netting.
Each elder was permitted one armed bodyguard to accompany him out to the junk. Once aboard, the bodyguards remained up on deck to perform guard duty.
Below, in the luxurious rosewood-paneled main cabin, the six elders sat around a circular cinnabar table, which symbolized that here each was of equal stature and importance. Uneasy partners and suspicious of one another though they were, they had secretly united to hatch this one plan, which was in their mutual best interests.
They did not address each other by name. At their first meeting a bowl had been passed and they had reached inside and chosen a folded scrap of paper at random. On each was written the animal name for a different Chinese year.
Those became the code names that they now used.
After several hours of intense discussion, they had winnowed down their choices.
The eldest, Honorable Ox, a Chiuchow with a wispy goatee who was the lung tao of Hong Kong's most notorious crime syndicate, bowed graciously. He spoke in halting English as had been prearranged, due to their various languages and dialects.
'The time has come,' he said, 'to cast our votes. As agreed, we will mark our choices and vote by secret ballot in the barbarian fashion. The bird, since it soars like the human soul, signifies yes. The fish, since man cannot breathe underwater, means no. Are there any questions?'
There were none.
Each of the six men opened an identical teak box and extracted two short ivory chops, each pair of which had been identically carved with one of two delicate symbols—a bird or a fish.
Selecting the appropriate chop, the men pressed it into the solid ink in the imperial jade pot and stamped a chop mark on a sliver of rice paper. These ballots they then folded in half, and waited for their code names to be called before dropping them into the blue and white Ming 'dice' bowl in the center of the table.
'I hereby cast the first vote,' said Honorable Ox, dropping his folded slip into the bowl. 'Honorable Tiger?'
The Laotian general who protected the rich upland poppy fields of Laos added his vote.
'Honorable Rooster?'
The Thai chemist whose countless makeshift laboratories processed raw opium into heroin cast his.
'Honorable Dragon?'
The head of the Golden Triangle's largest underground banking system added his ballot.
'Honorable Snake?'
The government minister from Beijing, under whose aegis the refined drug was shipped overland to Hong Kong, added his slip of rice paper.
'And I,' said the man named after the year of the Horse, who controlled the major poppy-producing highlands of Burma, 'add mine.' He held out his hand and let the ballot flutter into the bowl.
'It is done,' said Honorable Snake.
'The die is cast,' added Honorable Ox. 'Honorable Dragon, would you be so gracious as to empty the bowl?'
Honorable Dragon upended it, six tiny folded slips of paper fell out, and he unfolded them.
'Ah!' Honorable Dragon nodded in approval. 'It is unanimous. You see? The gods are already smiling upon our endeavor. We shall enjoy very good joss.'
'I believe we have voted most wisely,' added Honorable Tiger. 'This shall give us unprecedented money-laundering facilities in over a hundred countries and a thousand cities around the world. Forty-four million dollars per day. Illustrious Dragon can see to it that the funds necessary to finance the first'—Honorable Tiger searched his mind for an appropriately delicate euphemism—'phase toward our legitimacy will be taken out of our special account. I believe Honorable Ox is in the best position to recruit the necessary talent.'
They all looked at the leader of the Hong Kong crime syndicate.
'We must use no one of Asian descent,' Honorable Ox decided thoughtfully. 'Not even some Korean or Japanese devil. I shall send one of my men to recruit a Western barbarian.' He looked at the others. 'By using a Westerner, we will be yet another step removed, and Oriental involvement will not be suspected.'
Honorable Rooster nodded. 'This is most wise. We cannot be careful enough.'
'Good,' Honorable Ox said. 'It is decided.' He paused. 'We shall depart separately, just as we arrived. As host, I shall be the last to leave.'
He and the others placed their chops back in the boxes and pocketed them. Then he stood up and bowed.
He said: 'Until the next time, Illustrious Elders. May the gods of fortune attend you.'
Honorable Ox waited until the others were long gone before he had his bodyguard row him ashore. Five minutes later they were airborne, skimming above the sea in the black Jet Ranger helicopter. As they flew past the anchored junk, he counted to ten before pressing the remote control in his hand.
Behind the helicopter, the junk exploded in a blossoming fireball, tossing lengths of timber, as if they were toothpicks, hundreds of feet into the air.
Within minutes all signs of the clandestine meeting were obliterated. It might never have taken place.
THE COLDEST WINTER
It should have been an uneventful flight.
At Aspen's smart little airport, the departing Learjet was unremarkable on all counts. At an airport where private birds had to be double-parked, everyone had long become inured to the comings and goings of the rich and famous in their luxurious aircraft: the rock star and his entourage stumbling out of a Challenger 600 in a pharmaceutically induced Rocky Mountain high, the European royals swooping down without fanfare in a Citation III, the multibillionaires zipping in and out on their big Gulfstream IVs and Falcon 900Bs, the planeload of elegant hookers flown in from Vegas on a Falcon 200 for a visiting Arab, and the film stars commuting from Hollywood and Palm Springs in a veritable private air force—Hawker 700s, Falcon 50s, Learjet 31s, Citation Is, and Gulfstream lis.
Freddie Cantwell—who was not a movie star, and who cultivated a low profile—had not rated a single glance as he'd boarded the small Lear 35, a stepchild among the impressive array of flying heavy metal. Even the flight plan his pilot had filed—Aspen to San Francisco—was unworthy of meriting attention.
In fact, the only notable distinction about this flight was that the predicted snowstorm had already begun, all incoming flights had been rerouted, and the Learjet was the last aircraft to take off before the runway was closed down. Thick swirls of powdery snow had reduced visibility to a hundred feet, obscuring the usual spectacular view. The weather reports had predicted ten to twelve inches, and airport employees were battening down the hatches.
Undaunted, the Learjet hurtled down the runway and climbed steeply through snow and clouds and then burst through the woolpack into a cerulean sky where the sun shone brightly and the world below was one endless mass of fluffy white cotton.
A normal takeoff in all respects.
Freddie Cantwell unbuckled his seat belt, placed his IBM Thinkpad on the walnut fold-down table in front of him, flipped up the screen, and switched it on. Changing floppy disks, he hit a few keys and brought up the massive file devoted entirely to the Hale Eden Isle Resort, currently under construction on an island off Puerto Rico.
He'd left there yesterday morning, after spending two grueling days on the site . . . two exhausting days of cracking the whip, inspecting the construction, attempting to ferret out ways to slash costs.
Costs.
Somehow it always came down to costs. Finding ways of cutting corners without compromising either safety, comfort, or the overall plan.
He sighed to himself, mentally inventorying what he'd accomplished—precious little, considering it was a billion-dollar project financed privately, and without shareholders.
A billion dollars.
Madness!
No wonder he'd stopped overnight in Aspen. He'd craved resuscitation from the oppressively humid tropical heat of the Caribbean, the pressures of a billion
dollars' worth of responsibilities. His business in Aspen had helped.
And everything behind schedule and way, way over budget... Christ! What had he and Dorothy-Anne been thinking? he wondered. Why hadn't they been satisfied? They should be downsizing!
Meanwhile, the Eden Isle Resort loomed in the future like a curse. Too far along to stop, yet too far behind to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
He rubbed the weariness from his eyes, shook his head as if to clear it. Then gazed abstractedly out the porthole at the field of clouds.
The jet was heading directly into the sun, and dusk was fast approaching; soon the clouds would do their disappearing act. He glanced around the compact cabin made posh by portholes with walnut tambour shades, six seats in fragrant butterscotch glove leather, generously sized fold- down tables, custom carpeting, and recessed lights.
Nothing had been overlooked. The jet was equipped with all the latest safeguards and state-of-the-art navigational aids.
Convenience, comfort, luxury, safety.
Freddie glanced at his watch. It was three p.m. Rocky Mountain Time. The 900-mile flight would take approximately two hours, perhaps longer, depending upon the jet stream. Time enough to stall the inevitable for an hour and a half before shaving for a second time that day and changing into his formal wear. Then, the moment he landed at SFO, he'd transfer to a waiting helicopter. With the rooftop landing, he'd make the grand opening in time.
Freddie knew how important his punctual arrival was. This is one occasion for which I can't be late, he told himself. Dorothy-Anne's counting on me. We're supposed to perform the ribbon-cutting ceremony together.
The inauguration of the newest and brightest jewel in the Hale Hotel empire had been planned to achieve maximum publicity. The guests included the governor of California, both senators, assorted congressmen, the mayor, celebrities from Marin County, and four hundred of the Bay Area's richest and most influential people. Plus, the press would be out in full force to cover the event.
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