“Sure you do, Andrew,” she said softly.
“I do?”
“Ah! You don’t remember. I’m offended.” She pouted.
“I don’t mean to offend you, Miss. But I just can’t place your face at all. Where did we meet?”
The woman smiled and looked around quickly. No one was paying them any attention. All eyes were on the plump lady, the skinny man, and the Customs and Immigration agent who were embroiled in a boisterous melee.
The woman touched Goodings lightly on the arm. “Come on. Let’s move away from all this commotion. The flight’s not due for another hour at least. That’s if it comes at all. BWIA! But Will It Arrive?” she laughed. She hooked her arm through his and led him outside to a grassy patch under a frangipani tree in full red-and-yellow bloom.
Not a soul cast an eye in their direction. Word of the goings-on inside had spread and everyone who was lingering outside—self-appointed baggage handlers, taxi drivers, handicraft vendors, currency changers, those meeting an arriving passenger, and the usual compliment of street entrepreneurs sniffing around for a quick deal—was trying to get into the terminal for a firsthand look.
“You still don’t recognize me, do you? Sit down and I’ll refresh your memory,” the woman said mildly. Her smile teased as she arranged herself on the grass with exaggerated modesty.
Goodings remained standing. Georgetown was a very small place. Word got around like fire in a cane field. The last thing he wanted was to find himself in trouble for cavorting at Timehri Airport with a pretty woman who, for all he knew, was some big-shot’s property.
He himself was somebody’s property. He thought of his wife. “I…I don’t…”
“Oh, sit down, Livuh,” the woman commanded, pulling him down beside her.
That did it. Only people who knew him well dared use that name to his face. He relaxed.
“There. Is that so bad?” the woman pouted coyly.
She took a slim, sterling silver cigarette case from her purse, clicked it open, and proffered its contents to him. “Here. Have one.” Goodings looked at the cigarettes and held up his hands. “Don’t tell me you gave them up.”
“I’m trying to, actually.”
“So you haven’t had one in quite a while, eh? No wonder you’re so wired.” She lit one for herself, tossed her head back, sent a perfect ring up to the sky, and sighed with genuine pleasure before turning back to Goodings. “A strong-willed man like you, I don’t think one cigarette will turn you back into an addict. You need something to calm your nerves. Go ahead. Take one. They’re your favorite brand—or used to be.”
Goodings looked at the cigarettes again. Marlboros. This woman knew him, all right. He sighed with resignation and took one.
She was right. He could use a smoke. He didn’t know why he felt so uptight, as if someone were following him, watching him. He was only meeting a friend at the airport. How could anyone know who Theron St. Cyr was? And why would anybody be watching him anyway? He was putting too much drama into this whole thing about Savoy Aerospace.
The woman wiggled closer. “I’ll light it for you. I always lit your cigarettes for you, remember?”
He didn’t. But he did not say so. “I know you don’t,” she said softly.
Her lighter matched the cigarette case. Slim. Shiny. Expensive.
She cupped the flame expertly. Goodings inhaled deeply and exhaled. His shoulders dropped and he leaned back against the tree.
“That’s better,” the woman said happily. They smoked in silence for a while.
The woman spoke first. “You’re sure you don’t remember me, Andrew?” Goodings looked at her. “I’m sorry. I just don’t. I’ve been trying, but for the life of me I can’t remember who you are,” he said apologetically.
The woman sent another perfect ring up to the sky before she answered. “Poor Andrew. And I used to mean so much to you.” There was genuine hurt in her voice. “Perhaps if I took off my sunglasses—”
She reached up to remove the sunglasses. As she did so, the long, intricately painted nail of her little finger caught Andrew on his bare thigh. Shorts and sandals will be my standard attire when I go home, he had announced jovially at his farewell party in New York.
He flinched at the sting of the scratch. A thin line of blood appeared. “Oh, no! Oh, I’m so sorry. What have I done!” the woman cried, pressing her palm to her face.
“Please, please. It’s just a little scratch,” Goodings said, holding up both hands to keep her from throwing herself on him. He scooped up the blood with his finger and thrust the finger in his mouth.
“I don’t know why I like to wear them so long,” the woman wailed. “My mother always told me my vanity will get me in trouble. Oh, Andrew, does it hurt?” Her eyes were wide and appealing as she reached tentatively for his thigh. Andrew moved his leg deftly out of her reach.
“No, it doesn’t hurt. You were about to remind me who you were.” An edge had crept into his voice. He wasn’t superstitious, but the sight of his blood seemed to underscore the strangeness of this encounter.
Just then, a loudspeaker crackled.”Announcing the arrival of BWIA Flight 425 from New York!”
The woman squealed and scrambled excitedly to her feet. “Well, what do you know! It’s here already! Here it comes, Andrew! Here it comes!” Before Andrew could move, she dashed off toward the building. She did not look back. Not even once.
That was the last time Goodings saw her.
Much later, as his heart collapsed from the poison he had unknowingly inhaled when he smoked the Marlboro laced with the powder of tiny dried leaves from a plant that grew deep in the jungle of his beloved country, he remembered thinking, that day at the airport, that no girlfriend of his had ever called him Andrew.
And just before he died in Theron St. Cyr’s arms, he thought how curious it was that the woman had never shown him her face, nor told him her name.
Strange, too, how he knew that she had killed him.
§
“Dígame!”
The man answered the phone the Castilian way, although he had lived in Venezuela all his life and had visited Spain no more than three times.
“It is done.” The woman’s voice was hushed. “Good. Was there any difficulty?”
“None. I gave him a special cigarette. It’s made from the leaves of a deadly plant that the Makushi tribe of the Rupununi savanna has used for centuries during special ceremonies. There’s a way to prepare the leaves so that you get a safe ‘smoke,’ one that gives a mild but long-lasting high. The formula is known only to certain initiated elders. Unfortunately for Goodings, some very enterprising tribesmen have created a different kind of market for the leaves. His blood has already begun to thicken and in a couple of hours it will be moving like sludge in his veins. His heart will pump faster and harder to compensate and eventually it will give out. It will be all over before the night is through. No trace of the poison will show up in the autopsy. The thickening of the blood lasts only for a few hours, just long enough to trigger a heart attack. By the time they cut him open, his blood will have returned to normal, so it will be as if his heart simply gave out. Everyone will attribute it to the rigorous exercise routine he put himself through. He was a vain man.”
The man chuckled. She was good. He had left the method of execution entirely up to her. “You did well. And the people you used?”
“They created the perfect diversion. A fat woman about to give a skinny man a good ass-whipping? Mmmm! You can’t get more entertaining than that in my country.”
“You will take care of them appropriately, I am sure.”
“I have already compensated them. Unfortunately, the woman was killed in a car crash on her way back to the city from the airport. She was in a taxi. Guyanese taxi drivers are notoriously reckless. As for the man, I believe he will accidentally drown in a day or so.”
The man on the phone tut-tutted. “May all their souls rest in peace,” he said dryly.
�
��Indeed.”
The secure line between Caracas and Georgetown abruptly went dead. The woman eased open the bathroom door, tiptoed into the bedroom, and replaced the cell phone in the purse on her dresser. In the silvery slivers of moon and starlight she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and paused. She touched her face. It was an arresting face. Amerindian. “A Makushi face,” those who could tell the difference between the indigenous Indian tribes would say. The high cheekbones, wide-set, piercing Oriental eyes under thin, perfectly arched eyebrows, a gently sloping, almost bridgeless nose, and surprisingly full lips gave her face a sensuousness most men found hard to ignore.
She smiled at her reflection, reached up, pulled a hairpin from the fat twist of blue-black hair at the nape of her neck and shook the tresses free. They fell like silk almost to the middle of her back.
She turned from the mirror, tiptoed to the bed, and dropped her satin robe on the floor. For a moment she stood there, naked, contemplating the sleeping, heavyset figure sprawled on her bed under the mosquito netting. The man lay on his stomach. He, too, was naked, the sheets barely covering his buttocks. The woman’s nipples hardened as she stared at him. She liked it when he stayed the whole night at her house, which he rarely did. She understood, of course. Wife, children, reputation. None of that counted tonight.
She lifted the net and slipped noiselessly into the bed.
Compton Dalrymple, a light sleeper, felt her weight and her movements as she settled beside him. He stirred, raised his head from the pillow and turned toward her, his eyes half-closed.
“What’s the matter?” he mumbled drowsily.
“Sshhh. I just went to the bathroom. Go back to sleep,” she whispered as she snuggled closer.
“Not a chance,” he said. He rolled over and pulled her on top of him.
14
The black Cadillac limousine rolled quietly onto the pier that led out to the Pilgrim family’s private marina on the Hudson River in Nyack. It came to a stop just a few feet from the end.
The chauffeur, a craggy-faced, elderly Irishman in formal black livery alighted and walked away from the vehicle, his gait slow and burdened, his shoulders drooping. At a discreet distance, he stopped and leaned against the wooden railing, his face turned upward in an appeal to the sky. What, he asked in his mind, was the reason for this terrible thing that was making his eyes wet.
Off to the right, the Tappan Zee Bridge stretched mightily between Westchester and Rockland Counties, another testimony to civil engineering’s dominion over time and space and the elements.
The quiet of the late morning matched the mood of the limousine’s lone passenger, who stared out at the river from behind tinted windows. Minutes ago, Lawton Pilgrim had dried what he thought were his last tears for a life that, he still found it hard to believe, was rapidly coming to an end. He sighed.
Images of the people, places, and conquests that had filled that life tumbled one after the other into his consciousness, intimacies fleetingly renewed, each one rolling away as another took shape. He knew he would summon these images back again and again. They would help him to bear the pain as the cancer slowly devoured him.
Three months, perhaps sooner, his doctor had said earlier that morning. “Yes. If I had a chance to live all over again, I would live exactly as I did before,” he said aloud. He shook his head emphatically. “Exactly as I did before,” he repeated.
Reluctantly, he pushed aside his memories and turned his attention to the firm he had built. He would have to implement his succession plan much sooner than he had expected.
He smiled. As usual, he had not been caught unprepared. He had drawn up the plan months ago, never dreaming he would have to put it into effect so soon. He had given himself another three years as CEO before he would retire and turn the company over to Grant Featherhorn.
He shrugged. He would meet with the Inner Circle one evening after everyone else had left, maybe in the next two or three days, after he had straightened everything out in his mind. He would give it to them straight. He was dying and he was naming Grant Featherhorn his successor, effective immediately.
Well, maybe not immediately. He still felt fine. No need to rush things. His choice would not sit well with one member of the circle. As for the others, they all were brilliant thinkers who had no interest whatsoever in running Pilgrim Boone. Too much suck-up and wave-the-flag crap went with that territory. And too much blood and too much guts. They weren’t cut out for it. Oh, no! That bunch would accept his choice with a relief they wouldn’t know how to hide.
Lawton Pilgrim pictured that look on their faces as he announced Grant as his successor. He laughed out loud. The thought of Drucilla Durane’s reaction sobered him. Grant and Dru may have succeeded in hiding their feelings from the rest of the firm, but he, Lawton, had seen the tension between them blossom over the years into full-fledged hatred. He had seen it only because he kept a very close watch on the relationships among his senior-most staff, for he truly believed that Pilgrim Boone’s success in attracting the clientele it did was largely due to the perception that the foundation on which the firm’s management was built was solid as a rock. The company gave off good vibes at every level. That was a boast few of its peers could make.
People who negotiated contracts, he felt, had inner radar that picked up the slightest sign of discord in the upper ranks. No one would be foolish enough to entrust work of a sensitive nature to a firm whose management team had “issues” with each other. The risk of sabotage out of spite was too great.
Dru’s explanation of the loss of the contract with Jamaica notwithstanding, Lawton suspected that someone’s radar had picked up the tension in the Featherhorn-Durane relationship. It possibly was contributing to the foot-dragging in Guyana. He was aware, of course, of Grant’s true sentiments about people of color and what their place should be in society. He had deliberately made him Dru’s mentor to test Dru’s mettle. If she was going to function in the top ranks of Pilgrim Boone, she would have to learn to handle bigots like Grant; she’d have to suppress her natural response to such people and focus only on getting their business. Lawton had found out about Grant years before, when a lawyer contacted him discreetly, saying that his client would go public with his story if he were not compensated for Featherhorn’s behavior. His client, the lawyer said, was a young black man employed by a personal entertainment service that catered exclusively to the rich, famous, powerful, and all combinations of the three. Featherhorn was a patron of this service. His preferences were young and black, male and female. The young man in question was not the first to be physically abused and subjected to racist remarks by Featherhorn, the lawyer said. But he was the only one with the evidence to do something about it. He had video and he had audio.
Lawton met the lawyer and his client at the lawyer’s pretentious uptown offices at Fiftieth and Fifth, reviewed the video and audio, and wrote a check on the spot for a million dollars, payable to the client. Before he took leave of them, he made it clear to both the lawyer and his client that it would be most unwise to allow even a hint of what had transpired in that office to surface anywhere, ever. When he left with the tapes—he didn’t bother to ask if there were copies floating around somewhere in the cesspools of New York—he knew that the matter had been laid to rest permanently.
He had never said a word to Grant. Every human being wrestled with at least one demon, he reasoned. Who was he, Lawton Pilgrim, to chastise another for his or hers? Grant Featherhorn was far too important to Pilgrim Boone. As for Drucilla, she needed no one’s help to stand up to Grant. She was that strong, that proud, that driven. He was sure of it.
For the umpteenth time since he had hired her, Lawton congratulated himself on his choice. In an age of gender and ethnic correctness, the brains and creativity wrapped up in Drucilla Durane had been a tremendous advantage for the firm. That she would leave after he was gone, he was certain. He regretted that, but so be it. He needed Grant’s perfect mix of arrogance, powe
r lust, charm, and gutter savvy to keep Pilgrim Boone at the top of a world that seemed to be changing as fast as they made newfangled telephones. That world was increasingly an enigma to the Lawton Pilgrims that dwelt in it.
The CPAs had grown bolder and bolder in their greed: Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Touche, Ernst & Young, Price Waterhouse, Coopers and Lybrand, Peat Marwick—all of them. Double-dipping bastards. Too bad I won’t be around to see the SEC clip their goddamn wings.
He savored a feeling of vindication as he thought of Arthur Levitt, Jr., chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. After he got to the SEC in 1993, Levitt unleashed a crusade against the accounting firms. He argued that the inherent conflict of interest between their auditing functions as accountants and the massive sums they earned as consultants to the same clients had corrupted the reporting on which the country’s entire financial system depended. Investors had lost billions—eighty-eight billion was the going figure—as a result of that corruption.
It’s obscene! Lawton’s smug smile morphed into a scowl. And I bet the bastards will be running after Dru with all kinds of offers the moment word gets around that she’s left Pilgrim Boone.
The thought made him angrier still. It would make sense for Dru to join one of the big accounting firms. What else could she do? Start her own firm? That’s a laugh! A Drucilla Durane wouldn’t last a year on her own without a Pilgrim Boone behind her and she knows it. She’s got two strikes against her: she’s a woman and she’s black. Wall Street won’t stand for that. It’s a fact as ugly as sin, but that’s the way our world works. Her world. The one she’s used to.
No. Dru’s no fool, Lawton thought with a mixture of sadness and pride. I taught her everything she knows, he said under his breath. Everything. And to think it will all go to one of them! Christ! Isn’t life a son of a bitch sometimes!
The feistiness went out of him. A heavy feeling overtook him, creeping along his bones and into his heart, weighing him down. He thought of the word “melancholy,” that draining combination of utter futility and fatigue. That’s how I’m feeling: melancholic.
The Guyana Contract Page 15