by Stuart Woods
“No, I don’t want that.”
“Then let’s get to work,” Finbar said, picking up a hammer.
Mark leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I told you you were going to have to fight him,” he said, chuckling.
Everyone worked quietly through the day. Driving home that night, Mark asked, “Can you think of any reason why Denny should go after you like that? I think he would have killed you.”
I shook my head. “No rational reason. He’s always hated me, I think. Something to do with Connie. Maybe it’s been building up all this time. What happens, now?”
“Finbar will fire Denny. He says he won’t have that sort of thing going on. I suppose Donal will go with him.”
“I wonder. Will Finbar be able to find another electrician?”
“He says he knows a fellow working on merchant ships in Cork. He’s calling him tonight.”
“Mark, I can’t see Denny letting this stop here. He’s just not the sort.”
Mark nodded. “I know he’s not. I had a word with Finbar; he’s going to hire a guard from a local security service to stay at the yard nights. We’ve the budget for that.”
“Good.”
“Willie, don’t say anything to Annie about all this. She’d only worry; she’d think this confirms all our worst fears.”
“Maybe she’d be right,” I said.
Mark stared out into the darkness. “Maybe she would be. What did you do with that shotgun I gave you?”
“It’s in the cupboard in my bedroom.” “Best see it’s loaded tonight.”
28
SHE COULD not pray.
She knelt and clasped her hands together until the knuckles were white, but still, she could not pray. The wind around the stone building moaned and the echo sang softly down the halls, but there was no other sound. To make a sound would seem almost a sin.
She slipped out of the muslin shift, carefully folded it, and placed it neatly on the bed beside the habit. Naked, shivering in the chill, she took the flat package from the pillowcase where she had concealed it and untied the string. The brown wrapping paper rattled alarmingly as she undid it. There was no underwear, and she wanted to take nothing with her from the convent. She slipped into the jeans. How long since she had worn jeans? The sweater was rough against her bare breasts. There were socks, at least; the canvas shoes would not blister her feet. As she struggled into the nylon parka, she felt an odd weight to one side and unzipped a pocket. The shock of cold metal met her hand. The bastard; this was no place for a pistol. He could have waited to give it to her. She wanted to discard it, but she could not leave a gun in the convent. She shoved it back into the pocket and zipped it again.
Her throat was dry; she poured water from the pitcher on the bedside table. As she set down the empty glass, she saw the rosary there. She picked it up, quickly put it into a pocket, then stopped. Just as she could not leave the pistol, she could not take the rosary. She laid it gently on the habit.
She stepped into the hallway, looked both ways and eased the door shut behind her. The canvas shoes made a tiny, squeaking sound as she ran along the smooth, stone floor, and she slowed to stop the noise. One more door. She slipped into the garden and ran lightly along the rows of dormant plants. No point in bothering with the gate; that would be locked. She found an empty garbage can and upended it. From that she could get an elbow over. Astride the wall, she paused and looked, for a moment, back at the low buildings, awash in moonlight, then threw the other leg over and dropped to the ground. The Volkswagen waited fifty yards down the dirt road, lights out, engine running. The door opened for her as she approached. He laughed and leaned over to kiss her, and she reflexively shoved him away.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it still?” he chuckled. “Well, that’s over, luv. There’s no going back, now.”
“Shut up,” she said, “and drive the motorcar.”
29
THE DAYS after my fight with Denny O’Donnell passed uneventfully but not without tension. We expected some sort of retaliation, but none came. Finbar found an electrician who would start in the new year, and we breathed a sigh of relief that a technical matter, at least, had been put to rest. Mark and I both knew, though, that it would be a long time before either of us could put the matter of Denny O’Donnell to rest.
On the last day of December I flew from Cork to Paris at mid-morning, took a taxi to Jane Berkeley’s apartment building on the Avenue Marceau, deposited my luggage with the concierge as instructed, and set off on foot to absorb the City of Light.
I had had a loose sightseeing plan, but it left me as my shoes struck Paris pavement. I walked down the Champs Elysée, turned right, crossed the Seine, and continued to walk aimlessly down whatever streets looked interesting. Everything looked interesting. When my stomach growled and my feet ached I lunched in a bistro on dishes I knew only by name. I decided that escargots were nothing more than an excuse to eat garlic butter and that coq au vin was the best chicken I’d ever had—and that French wine tasted differently in France and went down very easily. I resumed my wandering slightly drunk.
Two hours later I stood on the top level of the Eiffel Tower and took in the city of my dreams in one long draught. The day had been clear, cold and still, and now the fading December light struck the rooftops of Paris and turned them golden. From here, M. Hauss-man’s plan for the city revealed itself as from no other vantage point. I could see all the landmarks I had ignored in my wandering and could nearly pick out Jane’s apartment building. Armed with a new intimacy with the city, I walked back to the Avenue Marceau and was told, in childishly slow French, that Jane would be delayed at the office, had instructed that I be given a key to her apartment, and had said, I believe, to make myself at home.
I traveled to the sixth floor of the seven-story building in a richly paneled elevator and let myself into the apartment. I set down my bags and had a look around. It was very different from her London mews house, no less elegantly furnished but full of personal things—photographs, books, porcelain—and I was immediately certain that no piece of furniture, no object, had found its way into these rooms without passing the close, personal scrutiny of Lady Jane Berkeley. There was only one bedroom. That pleased me. I poured myself a brandy from a forest of bottles atop a small, grand piano, gulped it down, and flung myself onto the bed. The bone weariness of my miles of walking seeped from me into the soft, silk bedcover, and I had only a moment to reflect that, with my new distance from our troubles in Ireland, a knot inside me had untied itself. I was asleep in seconds.
I woke in nearly total darkness, momentarily disoriented. The luminous hands of my wristwatch said nearly seven, and still no Jane. I switched on a bedside lamp, struggled to my feet, stiff and groggy, undressed, and got into a hot shower. I did not hear the front door open and close. I was unaware of another presence in the apartment until I caught a glimpse of movement outside the pebbled, glass shower door less than a second before it was yanked open. I threw myself back against a tile surface, the memory of a Hitchcock movie racing through my mind. I was Janet Leigh in Psycho, and a bewigged Anthony Perkins was slashing at me with a huge knife.
She flung herself at me, laughing, rubbing her naked body against mine, pulling my head down to hers with one hand in my hair, while goosing me in the ribs with the other.
“Jesus,” I gasped, “you want me to have a coronary before I’ve had a chance to improve my French?”
The hand in my ribs traveled to another, better place. “I’m about to teach you all the French you’ll ever need to know,” she laughed, doing interesting things with the hand.
“It may never work again,” I said, looking down, “after that sort of scare. I think you’ve just rendered me permanently impotent.”
“Want to bet?” she asked, still laughing, still continuing her work. I didn’t want to bet. I would have lost immediately.
We lay, damp and out of breath, on the bed. I was aglow with my newfound sexual prowess. Apparently
, I possessed some animal magnetism for women that had, heretofore, gone unnoticed by them. I could only assume that Jane Berkeley was a keener judge than most; I was unwilling to pursue the reasons for my good fortune beyond that.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “It’s nearly nine o’clock.”
“Pressures of work and all that,” she replied, rearranging herself so that her head rested on my lap. “There was an important meeting to decide on financing a big, new office complex in Lyon.”
“What did you decide?”
She laughed. “I didn’t decide anything. I’m here to learn, remember? I was lucky to even sit in on a meeting at that level.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Not a thing. I was thinking too much about what this would be like.”
“You’ll never learn international banking that way.”
“No, but I’ll have a rich fantasy life.”
I ran my fingers over her wet hair. “What’s on for tonight? How are we spending our New Year’s Eve?”
“Oh, there’s a party at a friend’s that should be interesting. After that we’ll improvise.” She wriggled her head in my lap.
“I may be all improvised out, you know.”
“Nonsense, champagne will bring you back. Champagne is a restorative.”
I certainly hoped so.
An hour later we were both dressed to kill; Jane was in something superelegant from Yves St. Laurent, and I was in my dinner jacket from the Cork men’s shop. We stepped from her apartment into the hallway and started for the elevator.
“Aren’t you going to lock up?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’s a very secure building.”
The elevator arrived, and we stepped in. She caught my hand as I reached for the ground-floor button. Instead, she pushed an unmarked button above the seventh, “top-floor” button. The light above the door moved to seven, then went out; the elevator continued to move upward for what seemed to be at least two more floors.
“Doesn’t this put us somewhere above the building?” I asked, mystified.
“Not quite,” she said as the elevator came to a stop. We stepped into a deeply carpeted, heavily wallpapered vestibule and were immediately greeted by a smartly uniformed butler.
“Good evening, Lady Jane, Mr. Lee,” he said smoothly in very British English. Two other men were in the vestibule, large men stuffed into tuxedos; one took our coats, the other merely looked me up and down slowly and carefully, then checked our names off a list.
“Good evening, Brooks,” Jane replied. “Are we very late?”
“Oh, no, Lady Jane; very good timing, I should say.” He turned and expertly opened a pair of sliding doors. “Lady Jane Berkeley and Mr. William Lee,” he announced. A man a few feet away turned and strode toward us, his arms outstretched. It was Nicky, the Arab I had met at Thrasher’s place in London.
“Ah, Jane, Happy New Year, and Will, how very nice to see you again; I’m so glad you could come to Paris.”
I shook his hand, remarking again to myself how very English he sounded. “Happy New Year, Nicky,” I replied. “I’m surprised to see you in Paris; Jane didn’t tell me.” I was further surprised to glance across the room and see Derek Thrasher coming toward us.
He pecked Jane on the cheek and took my hand in both of his. “Welcome to Paris, Will, and Happy New Year.”
As we exchanged greetings I looked at him closely; he had changed, somehow; thinner, I thought, and rather tired-looking. Before we could talk much he turned to greet other people entering the room, and Nicky propelled us toward a knot of people at the center of the room.
The makeup of the group was much the same as had been the case at Thrasher’s house in London—film types, politicians, big-business people—only the mix was more international. Genevieve Wheatley was in evidence. Jane guided me among the guests, introducing me to this producer and that cabinet minister; she knew them all. A paper-thin crystal champagne flute was put into my hand and kept full by liveried waiters who glided unobtrusively among the guests. I estimated there were at least three gallons of caviar distributed about the large, ornate salon in heavy, crystal bowls. With the champagne, I began to feel, at once, out of my depth and quite at home. My poor French was not a handicap; people switched easily into English when Jane introduced me in that language. I felt unaccustomedly bright, witty, and, ridiculously, among my peers. Thrasher came and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Jane, may I borrow your gentleman for a few moments?” I thought he had intended to introduce me to someone, but he walked me into a small, mahogany-paneled library, grabbing a bottle of champagne from a waiter along the way. He motioned me to an overstuffed, leather library chair. “Now,” he said, pouring us both a drink and collapsing wearily onto a sofa, “I want to hear about the boat, all about it.”
“You’re going to love it,” I said. “It’s going to be … perfect, I think. Mark is doing a fantastic job on it; you couldn’t have chosen a better man.”
“At what stage are you now?”
“The hull has been finished and turned; the keel’s on; the engine’s in; decking is nearly complete; the electrical work begins next week.”
“Sounds as if you’re ahead of schedule.”
“Not really,” I replied. “The interior work is going to be very time-consuming. The sort of standard you want on the furniture and electronics installations is going to take a lot of man-hours, and few men will be working on that part. Mark thinks she’ll be in the water by early June for sea trials; she’ll probably have to go back to the yard for alterations and touching up after that, and she should be ready for the race to the Azores in late July.”
“Who’s going on that?”
“Just Mark, Annie, and I. Annie and I will fly back, and Mark will sail her back singlehanded to Cork to qualify for the Transatlantic. He really only needs a three-hundred-mile qualifying cruise, but he wants to really give the yacht a tough workout.”
“Good, I wish I could come with you to the Azores, but time will just not permit. Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like more than a week or ten days at sea with you and Mark and Annie, but the situation ashore is demanding too much attention.”
“We read something in the London papers. Is that as big a problem as it sounds?”
He took a long draught of his champagne and laid his head back on the couch. “It could be. What you’ve read is absolutely not true, about the exchange control violations, but we’re having a hell of a time proving it. I must say I’ve never been through anything quite like this. I can’t even so much as visit England until we’ve sorted things out.” He raised his head and looked at me. “I understand you’re having some problems of your own in Cork.”
I was surprised he knew anything about it, but at least I was spared the decision of whether to tell him. I poured out the whole story, the trashing of the cottage, the leak about Thrasher’s involvement through Connie’s nun friend, the equipment disappearances, the attempt to sabotage the yacht, everything right up through my fight with Denny O’Donnell a few days before.
“Do you think this local IRA faction is dangerous?”
“I honestly don’t know. Mark thinks not, and thus far he’s been proven right, but … ”
“But what?”
“I think Denny O’Donnell is completely unpredictable. We might never hear of him again, or he might burn down the boatyard. There’s apparently a history of that sort of thing in his family, burning people out. Mark’s got a security guard from Cork there nights; I hope that’ll prevent anything terrible from happening.”
“Now, listen, Will, and I want you to pass this on to Mark: I don’t want any of you to get hurt on account of something as unimportant as a boat. If at any time you or Mark feels truly threatened, I want you to stop the project. I can always have the boat shipped to England and finished there. Are we clear on that point?”
I nodded. “I’ll pass that on to Mark. Mind you, he’s not the so
rt to back down in a confrontation. He’d mount a cannon on the fore-deck if necessary.”
Thrasher laughed. “I’m sure he would, but I don’t want it to come to that. I’ll have somebody get in touch with you in Cork about security. That shouldn’t have to come out of Mark’s budget; I’ll see that it’s handled quietly.”
“Derek, do you think we could do something about establishing better communications with you? We don’t want to impose on your time, but there might be occasions when we really need to reach you.”
He nodded. “Of course, Will. I’m sorry you’ve had difficulties in the past.” He took a notebook from his pocket, scribbled a number, tore out the page and handed it to me. “Call this number at any hour; it’s in New York. You’ll hear an electronic beep; leave a message, state your problem as concisely as possible. Be circumspect; don’t mention my name. Someone, probably not I, will be in touch as soon as possible. Got that?”
I nodded. The door to the library opened and Nicky appeared, holding a legal-sized manila envelope. “Excuse me, Derek, it’s nearly time. We’d better hurry.”
“Of course, Nicky.” Thrasher stood up. “You must excuse me for a while, Will, I’ll catch up to you at the party later.”
We walked into the salon, and Thrasher and Nicky went quickly toward the elevator. Apparently, business never stopped for Derek Thrasher; not even on New Year’s Eve. I rejoined Jane in time for a sumptuous buffet supper that was being served at the other end of the room.
30
MacADAM IGNORED the hangover. He rose at eight, later than he used to, but still managed thirty situps and twenty pushups. The legs might not be quite what they were, but the biceps were still firm and the belly flat. He looked younger than his fifty-six years. He had cereal for breakfast, read the Daily Mail, then dressed in one of his half-dozen three-piece tweed suits. Mac Adam fancied himself something of a gentleman and dressed rather like a detective inspector in an Alfred Hitchcock film. It was a trademark.