“He apologized when he got off the phone. She wanted a good-night kiss from New York.”
“Long distance parenting. We're raising a new breed of children. Four or six parents; eight or twelve grandparents; aunts, uncles, and cousins by the score. At least they'll know how to mingle. On with the story… Now, you wanted to tell him your heart didn't pit-a-pat and a handshake would be your preferred way to end the evening.”
“How did you know?”
“We've been friends since kindergarten. What do you mean, how did I know?”
“Okay, so that's what I wanted to say, but I didn't. I was feeling guilty because I didn't want to hop in bed with him. How do I get myself into these pickles?”
“You're too damned selective. You want the right chemistry up front. My philosophy has always been, make your own bloody chemistry.”
“No one looks good anymore,” Molly bemoaned, then her eyes sparkled with a buoyant levity, “and I wish someone did, dammit. Am I crazy? Why doesn't anyone look good anymore?”
“Look, Scott has a friend who's gorgeous and available,” Georgia ventured. “Want me to talk to him?”
“God, no,” Molly quickly retorted. “I know you adore young flesh, and I'm not knocking it, but it's just not for me.” She smiled. “I'd feel like his mother-or aunt, at least.”
“Scott's nineteen, he's of age,” Georgia replied with a negligent shrug. “And he's wonderful. Face it, they're not so damned opinionated at that age.”
“Only you would find your newest boyfriend defending him in traffic court,” Molly bantered. Although her style differed, she'd always marveled at Georgia's carefree attitude.
“Scott's mature for his age,” Georgia said with a Cheshire-cat smile, giving the wine in her glass a soft twirl.
“His body is definitely mature, I'll give you that,” Molly answered with a smile. She had seen him at Georgia's a few weeks ago dressed in a tank T-shirt and surfer shorts, and he was as near perfection as nature could devise.
“He's sweet, too, and he pampers me. He runs errands for me and insists on cooking, which is wonderful because no one else knows how to when Magda's off on weekends. He's really quite charming to have around.”
“Plus great in bed. Don't forget that,” Molly pleasantly reminded her.
“Never, sweetie. That comes first.” Her expression one of complacent well-being, her eyes half-lidded with luxurious memory, Georgia looked across the linen-covered table and, in a low, throaty voice, demanded, “Haven't you ever been hot… I mean really hot for a man?”
Even now it hurt to think about him, Molly reflected, even after all those years. Yes, she'd been flame-hot for Carey Fersten. Devouringly. Ceaselessly. So hot, she'd tremble for half a day before she'd see him. So hot that when he smiled, she shivered. But not since then. Never since then. Including her married life with Bart. “I'm not the hot type, Georgia,” she dissembled. “You're hot over anything that flexes good pectorals. I should learn the technique.”
“It makes for some really great recreation,” Georgia assured her, lifting one arched brow and tossing a silky fall of long black hair over her shoulder.
“Maybe if I get this last bank note paid off and I'm finally operating the business in the black, I'll get into your style of recreation. Right now my mind's on surviving financially the next few months.”
“If you need some money, hon, just ask.”
Georgia was doing well in her law practice, in addition to taking in a princely sum in child support from her ex-husband. But the kind of money Molly had needed to begin anew when Bart had taken her (his, he'd said during the divorce proceedings, and the papers were all in his name) small design studio was not something Georgia could write a check for. Now after two hard years, her mini-merchandise mart developed from an abandoned eight-story factory was open, completely renovated and beginning to get critical reviews as the smartest, trendiest, most complete, centralized array of wholesale manufacturers in the midwest. “Thanks, Georgia, I appreciate the offer, but I'm keeping my head above water.”
“Well, don't forget to take a break from your all-consuming obsession with work and save the weekend of the class reunion for fun.”
“You can count on it. Would I miss seeing Liz and Adele claw at each other?”
CHAPTER 11
C arey spent the next five days with a cranky, agitated ex-brother-in-law who drank coffee nonstop and yawned a lot. He brought a sweater when Egon shivered, and took it off when he began sweating. They sat on the terrace outside the bedroom, watched the yachts and launches cruising on the Mediterranean, made an attempt to eat at mealtimes, and talked about anything but the reason Egon had bolted Rome and come running to Nice. Finally, though, on the evening before he had to leave, Carey felt Egon was stable enough to come to terms with the fear. The stars seemed alive in the sky, brilliant against a blue-black canopy of night. The air was like velvet on one's skin. It was warm even late in the evening, and the scent of bougainvillaea invaded the senses with sweet reminders of spring. Carey was nursing his second Campari and ice; Egon had three empty espresso cups on the table beside his chaise. “If Rifat still wants those prototypes from you, remember they need you alive. He won't get them if you're dead.” Carey's voice was temperate, his eyes watching for Egon's reaction.
“They could kidnap me,” Egon nervously retorted, his long fingers clasping and unclasping restlessly. “I can't stand pain, Carey, you know that. I don't want my ear or my finger cut off. And with the current mood of the board of directors, even with a message like that, I'm not sure they'd exchange any prototypes for me.”
“You own the company, you and Sylvie. You own their jobs, don't forget. And even though they may not approve of your lifestyle, they'd be sensible about their obligations. Also,” Carey said with a flash of a smile, reluctantly admitting to himself that one had to admire her nerve, “don't think Sylvie wouldn't raise holy hell.”
Egon sat up straighter, rubbed his sweaty palms on the knees of his linen trousers, and smiled back. “You're right.” When Sylvie put her mind to something, she usually got it. “That makes me feel slightly more courageous. Keep in mind though,” he said, dropping back against the cushioned lounge chair, dolor replacing the brief elation, “everyone doesn't have what it takes to get two silver stars and a purple heart in Vietnam. That sort of bravery is genetically lacking in my DNA.”
Emptying his glass, Carey chewed on the last bit of crushed ice before answering. How could he explain to Egon that no one consciously prepares to be brave? “Everyone who went over there was afraid,” he said, his voice soft, “wondering how they were going to respond, whether they could actually shoot another human, if they'd let down their buddies someday, or die in a Saigon cafй innocently drinking a beer when a damn bomb went off. You're not lacking some shining virtue, Egon. There was more luck involved than anything when it came to survival in 'Nam. No one was doing much thinking over there-including the brass. Damn terrifying thought, so you just kept moving fast to cut down the risks or dug in and kept your head down. When someone's shooting at you there's no time to think, anyway; and when there was time, why waste it? Everyone got high. So it wasn't courage that kept me alive, but luck, and…” Carey softly added, putting the heavy tumbler on the flagstone beneath his chair, “a helluva lot of anger. It was a pretty stupid thing to do, enlisting like that, but at that age you don't readily admit to major blunders. So I figured I'd better learn how to use those weapons they gave me better than the guy who was trying to kill me. In a way,” he mused, his eyes on the stars, “I was fascinated by the ways man has devised to kill his neighbors on this planet. Do you know you can kill a man by jamming his nose into his brain? Really simple,” Carey said so quietly Egon had to sit forward to hear. His mouth twitched into a chill facsimile of a smile Egon had never seen before. “Hell, I wasn't brave, Egon.” Carey shook away the damning memories. “Just madder than blazes I'd ended up in a dripping jungle in delta mud up to my ass in the middle o
f nowhere for no good reason. We weren't stopping the VC, we weren't making progress that I could see in winning the hearts and minds as the general liked to say. There must be a better way, I thought, seeing the hundredth village burned to the ground to make the world safe for democracy. So I was damned determined not to die on that sweltering piece of real estate.” Shaking his head in an abrupt gesture of dismissal, Carey glanced up at Egon. “Don't let Shakin Rifat scare you into living on heroin. Don't,” he emphasized with a rough severity, “let anyone scare you into giving up your life. You just have to say fuck you!”
“I'll try, but I don't know… For me to say fuck you to Rifat would probably take the world's current supply of crank,” Egon replied with a simple honesty.
“Look,” Carey said, reaching over to splash another few inches of the red liquor into his glass, “why don't you get away for a while! You're a first-class rider. Come back, stay with me, do part of the circuit this year.”
Egon grimaced. “It's too much work.”
“It'd be good for you,” Carey encouraged. “Breathe fresh air at dawn, eat well… tone up.”
“I can do all that on the party circuit,” Egon teased, “although the exercise is different.”
“You can't do the party scene and stay off drugs. It's killing you faster than Rifat ever could. I can't help after tomorrow with the race and filming and Sylvie can't do it alone. Would you consider a treatment center?” He knew he was on shaky ground after Egon's last experience where they'd put him in solitary confinement for a day and he'd freaked.
“Don't ask.” Egon's voice was soft but decisive. “I'm over the worst now anyway; Sylvie and I'll manage. Speaking of whom,” he continued, determined to change the subject, “you've been side-stepping my sister these past few days.”
“With extreme difficulty,” Carey admitted with a rueful smile. Since the first night he'd arrived, he'd been politely evading Sylvie's sexual advances with various excuses. He'd slept on the couch in Egon's room not only to discourage Sylvie's presence, but because he slept when Egon did and woke when he did and in general served as nursemaid. He'd worn a two-day stubble of beard out of laziness until Sylvie had brushed her fingers across his jaw one afternoon when she'd come to visit Egon and said in her throaty contralto, “Ummmm… sexy…” Immediately after she'd left he'd gone into the bathroom and shaved.
“You must be the exception to the rule: What Sylvie wants, Sylvie gets,” Egon observed.
“Now I'm the exception,” Carey reminded him. “Now. But I paid for the privilege of that hard-earned experience. I married her.”
“She can be a trial,” Egon agreed with the frankness of a younger brother.
“The understatement of the millennium.”
“Whatever came over you?” Egon asked. “I mean, to marry her.”
“Lord, I don't know… wish I did.” He shrugged, and the silk shirt he wore unbuttoned shimmered with the small movement. “I woke up one morning and said, ‘What the hell?' That was that rainy day in Belio, when we couldn't do any filming, remember? It rained buckets all during the ceremony. I should have recognized the ominous portents.”
“It was a swell party after, though.” Egon had his own fond memories of Carey that summer. Carey had been the first person since his parents died who listened to him and took him seriously, who didn't treat him like an obtrusive child.
“Yeah, it was.” They'd invited everyone in the small village to the reception, closed down the shops, and danced and drank till dawn. “At least one good thing came out of the marriage,” Carey said, his expression mildly amused as he recalled the festivities at Belio.
“Two things,” Egon softly rejoined. “I've you for a friend, and I don't have friends. Not real friends. I'll pay you back someday, Carey. For all you've done for me.”
Carey saw Egon's eyes fill and felt his heart go out to the young man who'd lost his parents too young and had been forced to rely on Sylvie for stability. And stable she wasn't. “Hey, what are ex-brothers-in-law for,” Carey responded quietly, putting out a hand to touch Egon's shoulder. He'd spent long enough growing up himself to recognize the problem. “Why don't you come back to the States with me?” he offered. “You can cheer me on at the Maryland Hunt Cup. There'll be parties there, too. It won't be completely tame.” He went on talking about the race because Egon was perilously close to tears and needed time to recover. The drugs did that, made every problem more intense, every emotion shaky, hair-trigger, turbulent.
“Maybe later,” Egon replied short moments later after he'd swallowed hard, “but Sylvie's dragooning me into going up to Paris with her for a shopping spree. She needs my company, she says. Actually, she wants an excuse so Bernhardt won't barge in. And I'm the excuse. I know how to be obnoxious. He's too old, she says, and dreary.”
“She's right there, poor devil; he's boring as hell. Well, come later if you can. You've an open invitation. But try to stay straight. Shakin Rifat isn't near as frightening when you're off the stuff.”
“I'm going to try. Really. I'm not as shaky today, am I?” He was pale under his tan and still very thin, but the tremor in his hands was almost gone.
“You look great,” Carey lied. “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER 12
T he men on surveillance that morning reported in their log that Charles Fersten left Villa Mariabelle at eight-ten with his groom, pilot, and chauffeur, then the logbook marked “Charles Fersten/Nice” was closed and sent by courier back to Shakin Rifat in Rome.
Egon was being watched by Rifat's staff, who noted that Egon von Mansfeld was once again cutting back on his excessive drug habit, and Charles Fersten was a prominent part of that rehabilitation. Shakin Rifat knew Fersten was someone of importance to Egon. He just didn't know yet exactly how he could make use of that association. In the meantime, the surveillance would continue.
CHAPTER 13
W hen Carey walked into his mother's house in the late afternoon, she greeted him warmly with a hug and said, “I didn't believe your father for a minute. Now sit down and tell me where you've been.”
“Baby-sitting Egon,” Carey answered, settling into a large overstuffed chair.
“The poor boy. Will he survive?”
“This time he will.”
“It doesn't sound too hopeful,” Juliana replied, perching on the arm of a love seat that had graced the empress's drawing room at Malmaison. Her hazel-eyed glance scrutinized her son.
Carey shrugged. “It's hard to tell. Someone or something gets him hooked again and who knows… But enough of that mess. You look wonderful, Mother. When are you going to start looking old? I'm starting to look old.”
Juliana was slender, tanned, and toned. Her blond hair was short and fluffy this season, making her look girlish although she was fifty now. “Just good clean living, darling. Something you aren't too familiar with.” And she grinned.
Carey smiled back. His open, winning smile came easily in his mother's company. “I've reformed, Mother. Only caffeine and an occasional Twinkie now. I'm disgustingly healthy.”
She looked at him with a mother's searching gaze for a moment and, discounting the fatigue of his session with Egon, she decided he looked well. “Have you found some nice woman to take care of you?”
“No, Mother.” She always asked and he always gave the same answer. “I'm trap shy after Sylvie.”
“She was most unusual, I'll agree.” Juliana was tolerant beyond the normal. “But not a very good rider.” On that criteria, she had exacting standards.
“She didn't ride at all.”
“Perhaps, dear, that was the problem.”
“The problem, Mother, was she screamed very early in the morning, often during the day and always at night after several drinks. I was beginning to get hearing loss.”
“Perhaps some therapy would help.”
“When I suggested it once, she broke most of the glassware on the table.”
“I see… well, it's lovely to have you here and afte
r a good night's sleep and a restful day tomorrow, you'll be ready for the race.” Her interest in Sylvie, exhausted, she moved on to topics which concerned her.
“No houseguests yet?” Carey asked. He'd expected full battalion strength.
“I put them off, love. I knew you'd be tired when you arrived. They'll be here in plenty of time.”
“How did you know I'd be tired?”
She snorted softly, then smiled. “Your father was always charming but he's never learned to lie. The story he gave me was reproachfully poor. I knew straightaway you were mixed up in something unsavory and would show up exhausted. Now tell me what you want for dinner.”
The day of the race the house was filled to overflowing. Breakfast was served to 200 guests and neighbors, all family or friends of Juliana and cheerful well-wishers of luck to her only child. The mimosas served with a hearty country breakfast buffet induced an early morning good humor, and Carey responded to his share of jovial back-slapping and animated advice. But his mother could see he was becoming impatient, and she excused him so that he and Leon could drive out to the course early enough to see to Tarrytown's preparation.
Tarrytown had been flown in four days before, and was rested and placid-unlike his rider.
Purses had been going up the last few years; steeplechase was becoming a growth sport in the States, and crowds of 30,000 people were no longer a rarity. Money had much to do with the boom. The $700,000 purses were a viable way to earn a living for trainers and riders, and steeplechase had actually become more than just a tax write-off for owners.
However, money hadn't changed the Maryland Hunt Cup. Forty years ago when timber racing was struggling to return from the World War II doldrums, an editorial bemoaned the lack of entries for the postwar renewal. Someone had suggested a $50,000 purse might encourage more owners and trainers to run their horses. The editorial argued against a large purse, suggesting entries would be swelled by horses unsuitable to the course.
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