The Adventurers

by Harold Robbins

  Dax still kept stroking her neck and whispering. After a few moments he reined her in and started back up the corral with her. In front of the hands at the fence, he turned her around until her rump was toward them, then he agilely slipped from the saddle. “You don’t have to be afraid of her now.”

  They stared at him. He was still stroking the mare’s neck. “Are you callin’ us cowards?” The man’s voice was harsh, the lariat still twisting in his hands.

  Dax glanced at him contemptuously for a moment, then turned back to the horse without answering. A moment later, the lariat dropped around his shoulders, pulling him roughly away from the horse. He half stumbled backward, almost fell, then caught his balance and turned.

  The man holding the other end of the lariat was smiling. “Were you callin’ me an’ my friends cowards, greaser?”

  From the corner of his eyes Dax caught a glimpse of Fat Cat moving toward them. With a quick gesture, he stopped him. The hand took the gesture for a sign of fear and pulled at the rope. Dax stumbled, went to his knees, and pitched face forward onto the ground just as Marcel and Horgan and several other men came into view around the house.

  Marcel reacted swiftly when he saw what was happening. He still remembered the savagery at Ventimiglia. “You better stop your men, Mr. Horgan. They will get hurt!”

  Horgan chuckled in a pleased voice. He was a big man. And this was his kind of Texas humor. “My boys kin take care of themselves. They’re just funnin’. They love to josh tenderfeet.”

  Marcel looked at his host, who was surveying the corral with a pleased smile. He shrugged with typical Gallic resignation.

  Fat Cat was leaning against the fence, and the hands had moved forward until they were standing over Dax. The man with the lariat looked down. He jerked sharply at the rope. The grin on his face froze into a look of surprise as it suddenly came away in his hands, then turned into a scream of pain as Dax broke his knee with the flat of his hand. He hadn’t quite hit the ground when Dax, coming up, caught the second man with a straight arm in the rib cage.

  Horgan and the others were standing more than twenty feet away but they could hear the sharp snap of the man’s ribs cracking as he collapsed. Dax began to straighten up as the third man came up behind him. But that was about as far as he got, for by then Fat Cat had him garroted with part of the rope that had fallen to the ground, and was shaking him like a terrier with a rat.

  “Fat Cat!” Dax’s voice was sharp.

  Fat Cat’s eyes turned toward him.

  “Basta!”

  Fat Cat nodded. Abruptly he let go of the man. The hand sank to his knees, gasping for breath, his face still congested and almost purple, his fingers rubbing his throat. The other two stared up in pain and horror.

  “In my country, señores,” Fat Cat said in a voice thick with contempt, “even the children can take better care of themselves. You would not last one day in the jungle.”

  Dax turned back to the mare, who was still standing there, her sides heaving, her legs trembling. Soothingly he stroked her neck. “Get some water for the mare, Fat Cat,” Dax said quietly. “She must be very thirsty.”

  Fat Cat turned. His round, smooth face didn’t change expression as he saw Horgan and the others hurrying into the corral. “Buenos dias, señores,” he said politely.

  ***

  Marcel came into the room. He was carrying a sheaf of papers under his arm. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting, gentlemen?”

  “No, Mr. Campion,” Horgan said. He closed the door behind Marcel. “If you’re ready, we can start now.”

  Marcel nodded. He looked around the room. There were five men there besides himself. Dax, Cal Rainey, Horgan and his two associates, Davis and Landing, both well-known oilmen. Their faces were expressionless; they were sure of their own position, and waiting for Marcel to prove his. Marcel took a deep breath.

  “I shall speak frankly, gentlemen. I know you are curious how I learned of your survey, and that you possibly suspect a leak in your organization. Let me put that fear to rest. It really was quite simple. The ship you chartered in South America happened to be mine.”

  Horgan looked at his associates. “I’ll be damned. Didn’t anyone think to check that?”

  Marcel smiled. “If you had, you would have found out nothing; the ship is registered in the name of its captain. The day after I learned of the existence of your survey I got in touch with Mr. Rainey. At the same time I had my attorneys in Washington institute a search to determine which South American countries had already granted mineral agreements for offshore development. Within a few days I learned they were pretty well taken up by the major companies. And those that weren’t were already controlled by men like Hunt, Richardson, Getty, and Murchison. I also found out that such individuals were pursuing an independent course. They were not a part of your syndicate.”

  Marcel paused for a moment to light a cigarette. “My attorneys inform me that the only country which thus far had not made any offshore-development deal is Corteguay. Mr. Rainey confirms that your survey indicates a high possibility of oil in that sector. My traffic department has completed a study of your worldwide shipping needs. At that point I asked Mr. Rainey to contact you directly with my proposition.” A faint smile crossed Marcel’s lips. “Now, gentlemen, you know. There are no more secrets.”

  Horgan was silent for a moment. “Thanks, Mr. Campion.” He glanced at his associates. “If I may, I’ll speak as frankly. I don’t exactly see where you come in. What’s to keep us from negotiating an agreement with Corteguay without your assistance?”

  Marcel glanced at Dax, then back to Horgan. “Nothing. Anyone can negotiate. But it is one thing to negotiate on the basis I suggest and quite another to compete in an open market.”

  “Are you suggesting that it will cost us less by negotiating with you?”

  Dax looked at Marcel. “I think I should answer that.”

  Marcel nodded.

  Dax turned to Horgan. “You will pay just as much, perhaps even a little more. But you will get it.”

  Horgan smiled at him. “Then I can’t see the advantage. What you and Mr. Campion seem to have forgotten is the simple fact that there may be no oil there. In that case we are not only out our investment but we’ll also have gone to the expense of rearranging our shipping contracts in favor of Mr. Campion.”

  “You have to have ships anyway, Mr. Horgan,” Marcel said. “And I’ll be shipping your oil for four percent less than any of your current contracts.”

  “Maybe so,” Horgan said, “but if we can’t make a deal for less, I feel we’re better off on the open market. We’ll take our chances.”

  Dax glanced across the table at Marcel. Marcel’s face was expressionless but Dax knew him well enough to recognize his faint pallor. Dax got to his feet abruptly. He was tired of playing games with these rich, self-centered men. “You’re not taking any chances, Mr. Horgan.”

  The Texan looked up at him. “What do you mean, Mr. Xenos?”

  “You’ll never get the contract on the open market.”

  Horgan got to his feet and faced Dax. “Am I to understand, sir, that you’ll stand in our way?”

  “I won’t have to.” Dax smiled but there was no humor in his face. His voice was very cold. “Because once we are home I have no way of keeping my friend from talking. And you don’t really believe that my country would make an agreement with you after Fat Cat tells the story of how you stood there and watched while your men called us greasers and attacked us?”

  “But they were only funnin’,” Horgan protested.

  Dax looked at him. “Were they?”

  Horgan sat down again. He looked at his associates and then back at Dax. After a moment he turned to Marcel. “O.K., Mr. Campion, you got your deal.”

  Marcel looked at Dax. There was a faint smile behind Dax’s eyes. Suddenly Marcel realized that it had all been a bluff. Marcel looked down at the table. He didn’t want the others to see the relief in his own eyes.
“Thank you, gentlemen.”

  That was the beginning of the Campion Lines, which in less than ten years would be the largest privately owned fleet of ships in the world.

  10

  “It is over with the two of you then?”

  Giselle looked at Sergei. “Oui.” Her eyes grew thoughtful. “It is strange after so many years to realize that the thing you loved is no longer a part of the man you fell in love with.” Her hands moved restlessly toward the cigarettes. “Dax has changed.”

  Sergei leaned across the table and lit her cigarette. He glanced around the restaurant and caught the waiter’s eye to bring them two more drinks. “Everybody changes. Nothing, no one ever remains the same.”

  “I left him in Texas,” Giselle said as if she had not heard him. “Suddenly I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to come home, to Paris. I am through with America. I shall never go back there again.”

  “Not even to Hollywood?”

  “Even that. Here I am an actress, there I am nothing but a symbol. A French sex symbol. Like the post cards the Americans take home from Pigalle.”

  “What did Dax say when you left?”

  “Nothing. What was there for him to say?” Her expressive dark eyes studied him. “C’est la fin. But I had the feeling it no longer mattered to him. Perhaps that was the hardest of all, that it just didn’t matter.”

  Giselle sipped at her drink. “There he was with all those horrible men. All they talked about was money and oil and ships. I might as well not have been there at all. And then one evening I came into the room, and Dax didn’t even look up. He kept on talking to those men. I looked at him and it was as if I were seeing Dax for the first time. And I saw all the children we could have had and hadn’t, and the life we might have had and wouldn’t. Suddenly I wanted those children and that life we’d never had.”

  Sergei saw the tears start to come to her eyes. She didn’t look at him, and her voice was very low. “Once, when I first met Dax, I felt that after the war, after all the mess was over, we’d make it. And I thought that deep inside he felt as I did. But that night I realized I’d been wrong. That all he had ever wanted from me he had taken, and all he had ever wanted to give had been given.”

  Giselle was silent for a moment. “It’s not too late for me, is it Sergei? I’m still young enough to love, to have children, and a man?”

  Sergei saw her into a taxi and looked down the street. The taxi stand was empty. He hesitated a moment then decided to walk back to his apartment. It was only a fifteen-minute walk.

  The blistering heat of August came up at him from the pavement. For Paris the streets were almost deserted. Any Frenchman worth his salt, from the highest executive to the lowliest clerk, was on vacation. They had gone either to the mountains or to the shore, or simply stayed at home, shutters drawn against the oppressive heat. The small signs on the doors or in the windows of most shops bore eloquent testimony to that. Fermeture Annuelle.

  Idly Sergei wondered what he was doing here. But he knew the answer. It was always the same, he was short of money.

  Bernstein, the Swiss banker, had put it even more succinctly. “You have no head for business, young man,” he’d said. “It wouldn’t matter if you had an income of fifty thousand pounds a year instead of fifty thousand dollars. You’d find a way to make it insufficient.”

  That had been only a few weeks ago. He had already borrowed against his payments from Sue Ann over the next two years.

  “What shall I do then?”

  The banker’s voice was very acid. “The first thing I’d do is get rid of some of your stupid investments. That couturier for example. Ever since you invested in his business you have been furnishing him with an additional twenty thousand dollars a year just to keep him from bankruptcy!”

  “I couldn’t do that!” Sergei’s voice was shocked.

  “Why not? Are you in love with the little faggot?”

  “Of course not. But he is very talented. Someday he’ll break through, you’ll see. The trouble is he’s far ahead of his time.”

  “And by that time you’ll be bankrupt!”

  “What he needs is a sponsor.”

  “That’s what you said a year ago, so you persuaded Giselle d’Arcy to have him do her wardrobe. It didn’t help.”

  “I mean an American. It is the Americans who really set the styles. What they accept goes, what they reject doesn’t.”

  “Why don’t you speak to your ex-wife?” the banker asked.

  Sergei looked at him. He had never suspected the banker had a sense of humor. But Bernstein appeared to be quite serious. “Sue Ann a style leader? No, it has to be someone else. Someone the Americans already accept as the height of fashion.”

  “Get rid of the business,” the banker urged with finality, “there is no such person. And if there were, she would already be involved with Dior, Balmain, Balenciaga, Chanel, or Maggy Rouff. Anyway, no one like that would come to an unknown like your friend. There is no prestige in buying clothes from a nobody.”

  Sergei got to his feet excitedly. “Prince Nikovitch! That should do it.”

  “Should do what?” the banker had asked.

  “The Americans love titles. Perhaps not all of them can marry one but they could be dressed by one.”

  “Ridiculous,” Bernstein said.

  “Not really. All we have to do is show that we are accepted by prominent Frenchwomen. Then the Americans will come.”

  “But how will you attract an important Frenchwoman?”

  “Caroline de Coyne—Madame Xenos,” Sergei said. “Caroline would do it for me.”

  “But she is in America.”

  “She can be persuaded to return.”

  “But how?” the banker asked. “It is already July. All the showings have been held. No one will come.”

  “If Caroline comes from America, everyone will come, if only to see what brought her. We will have our showing on the first of September. And we will advertise it as the only true fall showing.”

  “It might just work,” Bernstein said. “But what will you use for money?”

  Sergei smiled. “You will give it to me.”

  “Are you out of your mind? I have already told you, you are on the verge of bankruptcy!”

  “Madame Bernstein would be most unhappy if she were to discover that she missed an invitation to the premiere of a Paris collection because of your niggardliness.”

  Bernstein looked at him. A faint hint of a smile began to show in his frosty eyes. “You are a completely unscrupulous scoundrel!”

  Sergei laughed. “That is quite beside the point.”

  “All right. I will lend you the money. On two conditions.”

  “What are they?”

  Bernstein leaned back in his chair. “One, that you show me an acceptance from Madame Xenos. Two, that you remain in Paris at the maison de couture until the showing is completed.”

  “I accept,” Sergei said, and reached for the telephone.

  “What are you doing?” the banker asked nervously.

  “What quicker way to reach Madame Xenos than by telephone? You don’t think I’m going to give you time to change your mind, do you?”

  ***

  Halfway to his apartment, Sergei changed his mind. Instead he went directly to the maison de couture. He paused in front of the small building and studied the brass plates bearing his crest on either side of the entrance. The doorman hastened to open the door. “Your highness,” he murmured respectfully.

  Sergei glared at him. “The brass is too shiny,” he said, pointing to the plaques. “Rub dirt over them, they look too new.”

  Sergei entered and hurried up the grand staircase that led to the main salon. The painters and decorators had been hard at work. Already his crest appeared everywhere in the building. He walked on through the grand salon into the workroom beyond.

  Here was a bedlam of activity. The little midinettes were running back and forth carrying bolts of cloth, and models stood abo
ut petulantly, some with gowns already pinned around them, others half nude, their tiny breasts casually displayed. Over all this he could hear Jean-Jacques’s voice screaming in the office. Jean-Jacques sounded almost hysterical.

  Sergei walked through the workroom and pushed open the door. A model was standing on a small stand. Around her stood two of the assistants and a cutter. Jean-Jacques was behind his desk, the tears streaming down his cheeks. When he saw Sergei he came forward wringing his hands.

  “What am I to do?” he shrieked. “They all are so untalented and stupid! They cannot do even the simple things I ask of them.” He clutched his hands dramatically to his forehead. “I’m on the verge of a breakdown. I tell you! A breakdown. I shall go completely out of my mind!”

  He pulled at Sergei’s arm and dragged him over to the model. “Regardez! Look what they do to my design! Ruined!”

  “Calm yourself, Jean-Jacques,” Sergei said soothingly, “explain to me what you are trying to accomplish. Then perhaps I can help them to give you what you want.”

  Jean-Jacques stood in front of the model. “Regardez. A completely new idea for the cocktail hour. I see a series of triangles suspended from milady’s shoulders like mobiles, thus providing a freeness at every important point. The bust, the hip, the knee.”

  Sergei looked at the model. The dress was exactly as Jean-Jacques had described it, exactly like the design he held in his hand. But he could understand the designer’s frustration. The dress itself did not do what Jean-Jacques intended it to do. He looked at the design, then back again at the model.

  A silence came over the office as everyone waited on his word. Sergei nodded after a moment and turned to the designer. “Jean-Jacques, you’re a genius! I understand your problem completely. And I think I know what is bothering you.”

  “You do?” Jean-Jacques’s voice was a mixture of pride and confusion.

  “I do,” Sergei said with assurance. “It is this!” Dramatically he pointed to the model’s hips. “Here, where the triangle should be wide, as you intended, it is apexed and tight.”