Venom Business

by Michael Crichton

  There was no answer. He rang the bell again. From the car, Sandra said, “Perhaps she’s asleep.”

  “No, no.”

  He rang a third time long and angrily. Finally a voice, muffled through the heavy oak, said, “Who is it?”

  “Richard.”

  The door was opened. Lucienne stood there in a red velvet bathrobe.

  “What do you want?”

  “A little talk.”

  “Now? Come back tomorrow.”

  “I can’t.” He pushed past her, into the front hall.

  “Get out of here,” Lucienne said.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked mildly. “Anything wrong? You’re alone here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I should hope so. You wouldn’t be dressed like that if there were a man here.” He laughed.

  She walked into the living room, mixed herself a drink, and lit a cigarette. Her movements were quick and nervous. She sat down on a chair, pulled her bathrobe tighter around her, and said, “What do you want?”

  “A small loan.”

  “How much this time?”

  “Three thousand.”

  She said, “Impossible,” and sucked on the cigarette. “I haven’t got it.”

  “Lucienne, dear, you’ve got it twenty times over.”

  “I just gave you two thousand,” she said, “before you went to Paris. That was less than two weeks ago.”

  “I had debts.”

  “And now you have new debts?”

  “I have debts.”

  She sighed and brushed her hair back from her face. She looked tired and old, but there was a flush to her cheeks. She had probably just gotten it.

  “Enjoying yourself these days, Lucienne?”

  She shrugged.

  “You look well.”

  “Richard,” she said, “you cannot have the money, and that’s final.”

  “You have very good coloring tonight.”

  “You make me angry.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He cocked his head and pretended to listen. “I hear something upstairs. It must be a burglar.”

  “It’s nothing. Your imagination.”

  He stood. “No, I’m certain. A burglar. I’d better go investigate.”

  “Richard, stay here.” Her voice was cold.

  “I’m worried for you,” Pierce said, “all alone here in this house. If it is a burglar, you might be raped or something.”

  “Your concern is touching.”

  “I’ll just have a quick look.” He started toward the stairs.

  Before he had taken a dozen steps, Lucienne said, “Come back, and I will write the check.”

  “For three thousand?”

  “For three.”

  Pierce grinned. “Just to be sure, better make it four.”

  “As you wish.”

  She began to write the check. Pierce went over and sipped her scotch.

  “Nasty of you not to offer me one.”

  “I assumed,” she said, “that you were in a hurry.”

  “I am, but there’s always time for a friendly drink.” He leaned over her and watched as she filled in the amount. Four thousand pounds. Delightful.

  She signed the check, tore it off the pad, and waved it dry. Then she gave it to him.

  “Very nice,” he said. He went to the door. “Such a pleasure to see you again, Lucienne.”

  “Goodbye, Richard.”

  He opened the door, and looked back at the living room. Suddenly he saw a coat, a tan raincoat, draped over one of the chairs. Thrown there, no doubt in the heat of passion. Still, it was a funny-looking coat. Familiar, somehow. Funny how something so commonplace as a raincoat could look familiar.

  For a moment, he thought it was his. He almost went back to fetch it, and then he stopped.

  He knew.

  Lucienne was watching him. She had seen him notice the coat. She was wondering if he suspected….

  “He must be very important,” Richard said.

  “Who?”

  “The burglar. Is it that sod from the Westminster Bank again?”

  He gave her his leer, the expression he knew she loathed. It worked: she slammed the door in his face, furiously.

  Well done, he thought, as he went down the steps to the car. Well done. You’ve sized that one up beautifully. May save your life, even.

  A life saved is a life earned.

  And who could tell? Perhaps he could figure a way to screw Charles, really screw him. That would be enjoyable. Almost as enjoyable as screwing Lucienne.

  As he got into the car, Sandra said, “Everything all right?”

  “Everything,” Pierce said, “is just fine.”

  In the morning, Raynaud awoke to find himself alone. He stared up at his image in the mirror, frowned, then laughed.

  “You and the archduke, buddy,” he said.

  He felt good. He had slept well and was relaxed. The annoyance with himself that he had expected to feel was absent; he got up and went into the bathroom. A razor, soap, aftershave were neatly laid out for him, along with cigarettes—his brand—and an ashtray. Thoughtful, but practiced. A calculator, this one. He reminded himself for the hundredth time since he had first met Lucienne that he would have to be careful. She was one of those rare women who understood men better than they understood themselves. She could put you in the mood to do handstands in Hyde Park, or to fight a tiger, or, God help us, make love beneath a Victorian mirror.

  Very sly, Lucienne. And studied: every gesture, every movement, every expression had its calculated effect. It had bothered him, when he had first met her. Later he understood that she could not help it. It was the way she was, or perhaps it was the result of long years on the stage. He had never seen her sing, but he had talked to men who had; everyone who had seen her remembered her, vividly, down to the color of the dress she had worn, the color of the nail polish she had used.

  He would have liked to see her. He lit a cigarette and began to shave, whistling to himself.

  A clever little girl. A minx. A fox. Funny, he thought, how often you described her as an animal. And never a cat. She had smooth, almost casually graceful movements, but she was not a cat. Something sharper and more predatory.

  He finished shaving and went back to the bedroom. His clothes were draped over a chair. He reached into the pockets and withdrew the small card written in a fine hand:

  My dear Charles:

  I write you on a matter of utmost urgency. I have reason to believe that Richard’s life may be in danger, most of all from himself. A close companion at this time would be valuable. If you could contrive to be at Houghton Graham villa on the 28 of this month, an accidental meeting between the two of you may be arranged.

  I recognize that my request is inconvenient and most sudden. I am prepared to pay you five hundred dollars a day if you can come.

  With fond love,

  Lucienne

  Damned funny letter. So formal, and yet so purposely puzzling. That fine about being in danger from himself—now what the hell was that supposed to mean?

  As he stared at it, he had a strange sinking feeling. He could recall that feeling only once before, when he had been conned into smuggling two emeralds from Mexico to Canada. They were enormous things, large as hen’s eggs, and they were stolen. He had suspected that, and had suspected trouble, but he had agreed to smuggle them anyway.

  Then, when he got to the airport, he saw the customs officers going over all the outbound passengers carefully; they had been tipped off.

  Raynaud, angry and afraid, had done the only thing he could—he turned and ran. A policeman stopped him at the doors, but he was able to say in a breathless voice that he had arrived at customs and suddenly realized he had left his passport at home and did not want to miss his flight.

  The cop bought it, and Raynaud took a taxi home, his clothes drenched in sweat.

  That evening, he had visited the man who had given him the emeralds. The man wa
s an engraver, specializing in stamps which he smuggled out to various countries and sold.

  Raynaud confronted him and did the only sensible thing: he crushed the man’s right hand in a press.

  The memory of those agonized screams just before the engraver fainted was not pleasant, even now. Nor was the memory of the airport, when he suddenly realized, with an awful horror, that things were wrong, terribly, terribly wrong.

  He had that same feeling now, looking at the letter.

  After breakfast, over cigarettes, he said, “I give up.”

  “About what?”

  “About Richard. Why you brought me here.”

  She smiled. “It really bothers you, doesn’t it.”

  He shrugged. “You’ve made elaborate plans for my meeting with him. To be certain he does not know. And—” He began to tell her about the incident with the car in Paris, and then abruptly decided not to. He could not be sure why he hesitated.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Well,” she said, “as I told you before, it’s actually quite simple. I am afraid that Richard’s life is in danger. He is not the most diplomatic of men, you know. In both his personal and business life, he has made enemies.”

  “Yes,” Raynaud said. “But there are enemies and enemies.”

  “Do you know about his knife wound? The limp?”

  “He told me how it happened.”

  “I wonder. It was a Greek girl, living in London last year. Her father was attached to the Embassy in some way. Richard managed to get her pregnant, but the girl didn’t mind. She assumed it meant he would marry her. When she found out he had no intention of marrying her…”

  “She went after him.”

  “Yes. Apparently she wished to eliminate the source of the trouble.”

  “Pleasant.”

  “But the point,” Lucienne said, “is that this is always happening to Richard. And over the years it has gotten worse. Now, with his business, he has made many enemies. He is arrogant with men who are not amused by it, and he has ruined at least three previously wealthy men that I know of.”

  “So you want him protected.”

  “Yes.”

  “Motherly concern?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Lucienne said.

  They had another cigarette in the living room. Lucienne nodded to a large oil portrait of a stern, solemn man dressed in a black suit with a black moustache. He looked like something out of another world, Raynaud thought—a master of commerce in the finest days of the Empire.

  “My husband,” Lucienne said. “Herbert. You can see for yourself what he was like.”

  “Lots of laughs,” Raynaud said.

  “He was a kind man, in his way, but strict. He was much more intelligent than most people gave him credit for. He knew that Richard and I were…not close. He also knew that Richard was a wastrel who needed time to mature. So he established the will, making me executor until Richard became thirty-four.”

  “I see.”

  “But he also did something else. I do not hold it against him, for it was prudent. But he did it: he wrote the will to state that if Richard did not live to reach thirty-four years, the estate would all go to charity.”

  Not a fool, Raynaud thought. Not a fool at all. He looked with new respect at the face glowering out from the painting.

  “So you see my position. If anything happens to Richard in the next few weeks, the estate is lost. And so am I.” She sighed. “I gave up a great deal to marry Herbert Pierce, Charles. I ended my career, and in some ways I ended my life, at least the life I loved. I did it because I was fond of Herbert, of course, but—”

  “There was also the half billion dollars.”

  She shrugged. “I am the widow of a wealthy man. I have my expectations.”

  “Yes,” Raynaud said, “but aren’t you forgetting something? When Richard inherits the estate, he may cut you off without a shilling to your name.”

  Lucienne laughed. “Is that what he told you?”

  “He mentioned it.”

  She shook her head. “He can’t. You see, Herbert was, if nothing else, fair. The will states that my income after Richard inherits the estate will be determined by him—but that it shall not be less than three thousand pounds a month.”

  That would be more than eighty thousand dollars a year, at the new exchange rate. Not bad, Raynaud thought, for an attractive widow with, no doubt, many wealthy male friends. Not bad in any case.

  “So you want to be sure Richard inherits the estate.”

  “He must inherit it. He must.”

  “And you’re willing to pay five hundred dollars a day?”

  “If you can guarantee his safety.”

  “But I can’t.”

  She looked up in surprise. “You can’t?”

  “Not for five hundred a day.”

  For a moment she was silent, and then she said in a low voice, “Charles, if you are putting the squeeze—”

  “Look at it this way,” he said. “If Richard lives through the next month to inherit the estate, over the next twenty years or so you will make about two million dollars. Give or take.”

  “So?”

  “To protect such an income must be worth more than five hundred a day.”

  She lit a cigarette. “How much do you want?”

  “A thousand a day.”

  “Impossible. It’s far too much.”

  Raynaud shrugged.

  Lucienne looked steadily at him and said, “You are as bad as Richard.”

  “Almost.” He nodded.

  She smoked her cigarette and stared out the window. Finally she said, “All right. As you wish: a thousand a day. How do you want it?”

  “A check will do nicely. Uncrossed, of course.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You have a Swiss account?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  She laughed, and wrote the check swiftly. “Five thousand on account,” she said, “and the rest at the end. Is that all right?”

  “Weekly is better, I think,” Raynaud said. “We’ll have another seven thousand next week.”

  She sighed and nodded.

  “Meantime,” he said, “tell me why you are worried about Richard.”

  “It’s his business,” she said. “You’ve seen Shore Industries? That shiny new office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s all a front.”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t be sure. But there are rumors that Richard is planning something vast. Some say he’s going to start a wholly submerged mining complex. Some say it’s the Channel Tunnel project he’s mixed up in. All I know is that he has poured money into it at a fantastic rate. An impossible rate. And it is money that does not appear on any ledger. Last year the sum of eight hundred thousand pounds simply disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a lot of money to have disappear.”

  “You can be certain,” Lucienne said, “that it wasn’t burned to provide heat.”

  “Any idea where it went?”

  “I suspect it went for bribes. He is buying out people in order to arrange his project.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “I’ve been trying to find out. Richard gets the financing for Shore directly from the estate trustees. A group of six connected with Barclay’s Bank. Presumably they have some idea what he’s up to, but they won’t say.”

  Raynaud nodded. The story sounded crazy enough to be true. It would be like Richard to move through the business world by buying businessmen. After all, he bought everyone else.

  “Any idea who wants him dead?”

  She shook her head. “None.”

  “That makes it difficult.”

  “I know.” She grinned wryly. “But you’re getting a thousand a day.”

  “I will need something more,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “A gun.”r />
  “A gun? Why?”

  “We’re talking about murder. People who commit murder don’t try it with rubber bands and paper clips.”

  “But a gun…”

  “Can you get one?”

  “It is very difficult in England. The laws are strict.”

  “Yes, but can you get one?”

  She frowned, thinking. After a moment she said, “I do not believe it is a good idea. You should not have a gun.”

  “I may need it.”

  “You must do without.”

  “It may make the difference—”

  “No,” Lucienne said. “No guns.”

  Raynaud found this very odd. He said, “What would happen if Richard did die?”

  “The estate would go to charity. I told you.”

  “There is no way to break the will?”

  “None.”

  “And if he died accidentally?”

  “The same.”

  “And if he committed suicide?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t think that is covered in the will.”

  “Do you have a copy here?”

  “Of the will? No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why should I?”

  Raynaud shrugged. “It seems an important document. I would have thought you’d have a copy.”

  “No. My lawyers take care of all that. I’m not much of a businesswoman, I’m afraid.”

  “I see,” Raynaud said.

  They walked in the gardens behind the house, moving between rows of neatly trimmed hedges.

  “What,” he said, “do you think of Sandra?”

  Lucienne shrugged.

  “Do you want Richard to marry her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “She is a willful, headstrong girl, and she has a good future as a film actress. She knows it. She also knows—or will soon come to know—that I have friends who can make or break her career.”

  “You’re looking forward to somewhat more than three thousand pounds a month.”

  “It sounds terrible, I know. But you understand Richard. You know how childish he is, how petty. One must meet him on his own terms.”

  “Blackmail through his wife?”

  “Pressure,” Lucienne said. “Pressure.”