“You’re kidding yourself and you know it. If Dad’s made up his mind, the campaign has already begun. And we’re all going to be in it. The way Dad looks at it, it isn’t only Jim who will be running, it will be the whole family.”
***
The yacht was tied up at the private dock and Tommy and Von Kuppen were out on the porch when they pulled up in front of the villa.
“Have a nice drive up?” Von Kuppen called as they got out of the car.
“It was lovely,” Marlene said, “but we ran out of gas.”
“Bloody damned careless of me,” Jeremy added. “I should have filled up before we left.”
“Those things happen,” Von Kuppen answered casually. He got to his feet. “You must be exhausted, darling. Come, I’ll show you to our room.”
“That would be lovely.” Marlene turned to Jeremy. “Thank you for the ride up.”
“You’re welcome.”
After they had gone into the house, Tommy came down the steps and got into the car beside his brother. He let out a sigh of relief as Jeremy drove the car around in the back to park it. “Man, I’m glad you showed when you did. Things were getting a little bit sticky.”
Jeremy looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Von Kuppen didn’t like it at all. And yet I had the feeling it was just what he expected. Maybe even what he wanted. Very sick.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said thoughtfully. Probably he had been right in his appraisal. The marriage could be a cover. It was not uncommon. He pulled the car into the parking lot and turned off the motor.
“The hell with him. It’s his problem.” He was suddenly annoyed at himself for being caught in the middle of something he hadn’t anticipated. “Let’s go get a drink.”
***
Marlene did not come down for dinner, and the three of them ate in a curiously polite silence. It would be another day before any of the others arrived. His sisters and mother from Paris, where they had been shopping; his sister-in-law, Jim’s wife, and their two children from New York; and Jim and their father from Boston. At the end of dinner, Tommy looked across the table at him. “Are you using the car tonight?”
Jeremy shook his head.
“I’d like to run over to Juan-Ies-Pins and see what’s goin’ on.”
“Go ahead, I’m turning in early.”
Von Kuppen turned to Tommy. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to come along.”
“I’d be glad to have you.”
“Thank you.” Von Kuppen got to his feet. “I’ll be back in a moment. I’ll just tell Marlene so she won’t wait up for me.”
The two of them looked at each other when he left the dining room. “What do you make of that?” Tommy asked. “I was willing to bet he wouldn’t leave the two of you alone again.”
“We’re not exactly alone.” Jeremy nodded at a maid and the butler, who were busy clearing the table.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not going to worry about it. I’m just going up to bed.”
Jeremy came out of his bathroom rubbing himself vigorously with a huge bath sheet. He tied the towel around his waist and took a cigarette from the dresser and lit it. He looked at himself in the mirror with a feeling of satisfaction.
He was in pretty good condition considering his age. His belly was still flat and hard, his weight the same as it had been when he went into the army in 1941. That was eight years ago. Sometimes it seemed almost like yesterday. He had been twenty then.
“Go in now,” his father had urged. “We’ll be in it before the year is over. I want you boys to be ready for it.”
Jim had gone into the air force, he into the infantry. By March of 1942 they were both overseas. Later that same month he had looked up into the sky from where he clung precariously to a sheltering rock and seen the insignia of his brother’s squadron on the underwings of the planes that were flying over him. Suddenly, somehow the stupidity of the token raid on Dieppe no longer mattered, the danger from the murderous crossfire in which the Germans had entrapped them was no longer so frightening. His brother was up there watching over him.
Jeremy came back from that raid a first lieutenant, earned his captaincy on the beach at Anzio, and attained his majority in the fields of Normandy, together with the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.
That had been the real end of the war for him. After he came out of the hospital, he’d been transferred to General Staff and he hadn’t complained. He’d had enough. But Jim kept on flying the big bombers right up until VE Day, and came out a full chicken colonel.
Two days later, by a pre-arranged agreement between them, they had met here at the villa on the Cap d’Antibes, which had belonged to their father for so many years and where they had spent many fun-filled summers.
Old Francois, the caretaker, and his wife had come out to greet them. “Look, messieurs,” the old man said proudly, “we kept the pig Boche out.”
They had nodded, smiling, and murmured their approval despite the knowledge that the Germans for one reason or another hadn’t been interested in that area. Still, there was something very sad about seeing the condition of the grounds, the shutters nailed to the windows, the covered furniture.
When they were alone, the two brothers had looked at each other. Jim was older by only four years but already there was gray in his hair and deep lines in his face. The strain of the more than a thousand hours in war-torn skies had left their mark. By contrast Jeremy seemed almost unchanged, untouched. Perhaps it was due more to the prolonged rest in the hospital than to the comparative ease of headquarters duty.
“How is it?” Jim asked about the wound.
“Just a scratch. Nothing. How is it with you?”
Jim held up his hands in a mock punchy fighter’s pose. “Look, Maw, they never touched me.” But there was no humor in his voice.
“They touched you all right. I was lucky. You didn’t get off that easy.”
“You were lucky,” Jim said, a sudden bitterness in his voice. “At least all you fought were soldiers. They were trying to kill you, and you were trying to kill them. That made you even. But when I dumped one of those big ones, I never knew whom they might kill. You should have seen Cologne after we got through with it. And Berlin. Each time we came back it was easier. You didn’t need eyes, you just followed the aroma of burning houses reaching three miles up in the sky.”
“Wait a minute, Jim. You’re not feeling sorry for the Germans?”
His brother stared at him. “You’re damn right I am. They weren’t all soldiers, all Nazis. How many women and children do you think I killed? The soldiers were safe at the front.”
“We didn’t make the rules for this war,” he said harshly, “they did. In Holland, Poland, France, England. They didn’t care where their bombs fell or whom they killed. They didn’t give a shit because whoever was left they planned to take care of at Dachau and Auschwitz.”
“Did that make it right for us?”
“No, nothing makes war right. But when war comes, you have no choice. You either fight back or you get killed. And in our time, the rules of warfare are made by the aggressor.” He pulled out a cigarette. “Any time you doubt that, take a walk around Coventry.”
Jim looked at his younger brother, a sudden respect growing in his eyes. “Maybe you’re right. I’m just tired. I guess I’ve had it.”
“We’ve all had it but it’s over now. At least for us.”
“I hope so,” Jim said wearily.
Just then old Francois had stuck his head into the room and announced dinner. He was dressed in his old butler’s uniform, which had been pressed carefully. Silently they followed him into the dining room.
From somewhere Francois had got fresh flowers for a centerpiece, and candles were burning at either end of the table. The silver was sparkling, the linen soft and creamy white. And Francois’s wife was standing in the doorway to the pantry, her blue eyes shining behind her glasses. “Welcome home, messieurs.”
>
Jeremy had laughed, and run around the table to kiss her on both cheeks. “Merci.”
She retired to the kitchen in confusion, and they sat down. Francois had barely finished pouring the wine for their first course when they heard the sound of an automobile on the gravel driveway outside. For a moment they stared at each other, for no one was expected. Then as one they got up and went to the front door.
They were just in time to see their father get out of the old Citroën taxi that had brought him from the station. When he turned and waved to them, they could scarcely believe their eyes.
“I knew exactly where to find you guys,” their father called happily.
Then they were all crying at once, and there were a thousand questions. All through dinner they kept looking at each other and at the snapshots of the rest of the family that their father had brought. After a little while it was almost as if the war had never happened.
That year had been the first since the war that the villa was in full use. Not much time had been necessary to restore it, but other concerns kept some of them away. Jim had been married one month after his return home in June of 1945, and now there were two children, both boys. The senior Hadley took Jim into the office and bit by bit let him take over the general operations of his complex businesses.
Jim had almost completed his takeover by the time Jeremy picked up his diploma from Harvard. He had gone back for the one year he had missed, but once he was out, he was still uncertain of his future. As usual, his father had known exactly what was necessary.
When he accepted an appointment to the reparations commission, he had taken Jeremy along as his assistant, and for two years Jeremy had walked in and out of government offices in every major country of Europe. His tall good looks and easygoing manner made him a favorite everywhere he went. The fact that he was American and very rich hadn’t hurt either.
He enjoyed both his position and his social life to the hilt. European women were far more sophisticated than their American counterparts. If he had a slight tendency to become overinvolved with any particular one, his job took care of that. He rarely stayed in one place long enough to develop problems.
At the end of the job, he came back to the States and spent a year in Washington working on a report dealing with the work of the commission. In April that job was finished, and he returned to Boston with an offer from the State Department.
Again his father was quite definite. “Don’t take it, take a year off. Go back to Europe and enjoy yourself.”
“I have to decide where I’m going with my life, Dad.”
“There’s no hurry, you’ll know when the time comes. Besides, it’s time Tommy spent a little time there too. He’ll need someone to show him the ropes. He’s never had the chances you had.”
Jeremy smiled at the way his father put it. Tommy had just graduated from Harvard, and since he was only twenty-two, he had missed the war. But if what he had heard from Jim was correct, Tommy had missed very little else. Half the mothers in Boston locked up their daughters whenever he came around.
In a way he had enjoyed showing his young brother the Europe he had come to know. It was like seeing himself as he used to be before the war. And yet there was a sophistication about his younger brother that he and Jim had never had. It was almost as if the six years between them made Tommy of another generation. It was purely and simply the war; the naïveté and innocence had gone, never to return. There was a bomb and it had made death a constant companion to everyone who walked the earth.
Thoughtfully Jeremy came away from the mirror and, taking his pajamas from his suitcase, slipped into them. Thinking of his brother going down to Juan with Von Kuppen to catch the action, he smiled. They were all in too much of a hurry.
For the first time he thought he understood what his father meant when he had said there was no hurry. He was still young. He was only twenty-eight.
He stretched out on the bed and turned out the light. Lying on his side, he watched the shadows move across the curtained window. His eyes were just beginning to close when he suddenly became aware that one shadow was all wrong. It didn’t move with all the others.
He watched for a moment, then suddenly it disappeared. He leaped to his feet and flung open the French doors to the terrace. No one was there. It wasn’t until the next morning that he discovered his imagination hadn’t been playing him tricks. For at breakfast he discovered the Von Kuppens were gone.
15
There was a note from the German on the breakfast table thanking him for his hospitality and apologizing for having to leave so early. He looked up as Francois brought his coffee. “Have they already left?”
“Oui. I called a taxi for them at seven. They have gone to the Negresco in Nice.”
Jeremy picked up his cup thoughtfully. It was strange. Another hour and he could have driven them over himself.
“Ham and eggs, monsieur?”
Jeremy nodded.
“Me too,” Tommy said, coming into the dining room. He sank into a chair and reached for the coffee. “Oh, my head!”
Jeremy smiled. “You must have had yourself a time last night. I don’t see how Von Kuppen got off so early.”
“Oh, he wasn’t with me,” Tommy said. “Have they left already?”
Jeremy handed him the note. “Didn’t he leave with you?”
“He did, only by the time we got to the gate he had changed his mind. I offered to drive him back to the house but he said not to bother because he liked a little walk after dinner. So I let him out and went on.”
“I didn’t hear him come back.” Then Jeremy remembered. Or had he? The shadow on the terrace, could it have been Von Kuppen?
“You look odd. Anything wrong?”
He shook his head. He wondered whether Marlene had suspected that her husband might be laying a trap for them. Then Francois came in with their breakfast, and he pushed the thought out of his mind. The Von Kuppens were gone now, there was no point in thinking about them. He had been lucky.
By that afternoon he had completely forgotten about them. As usual his mother and sisters brought guests down from Paris. Sergei Nikovitch, who was doing their wardrobes that year, and Giselle d’Arcy, the actress. There was some talk that they were planning to get married; they had been going together for several years. Jim’s wife, Angela, and the children arrived in the afternoon.
The house began to fill with people, and in a few short hours Jeremy was certain the decibel rise on the Cap d’Antibes had alerted everyone that the Hadleys had returned.
Dinner that evening was the usual family madness. In the middle of it Francois bent over him. “There is a telephone call for you, monsieur.”
He went into the study and picked up the extension phone. “Hello.”
“Jeremy?”
Even though the voice was a mere whisper, he recognized it instantly. “Yes, Marlene?”
“I must see you.” There was a strained urgency in the whisper. “He is going to kill me!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He is,” she interrupted harshly, “you don’t know him. You don’t know what he is capable of, he is crazy. The reason I did not come down to dinner last night was because he had beaten me black and blue. That’s why we left so early this morning.”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t understand. He had no reason, unless you told him.”
“I told him nothing. But he says he will keep beating me until I tell him the truth.”
“Why don’t you leave him?”
“I can’t. When he leaves me alone, he handcuffs me to the bed.”
“Handcuffs?” His voice was incredulous.
“Yes.” She began to cry. “It’s been like this ever since we got married. Whenever he goes out.”
“Then how will you be able to see me?”
“He is going to the casino about eleven. I heard him reserve a seat at the tout va table. Come at midnight. I’ll have the porter let you in.”
&n
bsp; “But—”
“Come!” she said suddenly, fiercely. “I hear him coming now. I have to hang up.”
The receiver went dead in his hands. He looked down at it a moment then replaced it on the cradle. He didn’t like what was happening but her terror seemed very real.
He pulled up in front of the Hotel Negresco a few minutes after midnight. He got out of the car and stood for a few minutes hesitating, then walked a few blocks down the Promenades des Anglais to the Casino de la Mediterranee. He bought an admission card and went into the casino.
It was early in the season but already the roulette tables were jammed. He walked past the trente-quarante and chemin de fer tables. Behind the railing at the end of the large room was the tout va table, no-limit baccarat.
The usual crowd around the outside railing was watching the big-money players with fascination. Keeping well to the back, he peered over their heads. At least she had been telling the truth. Von Kuppen sat just to the dealer’s left, staring down at the table with fierce concentration. He didn’t even look up when the dealer threw two cards in front of him.
He turned and went back to the hotel and picked up a house phone and called her.
She answered in a whisper. “Room 406.”
“I’ll be right up.”
He replaced the phone and went to the elevator. When he got off on the fourth floor, he walked to the hall porter’s desk. The hall porter silently got to his feet and led him down the corridor. In front of 406 he took out a key and opened the door.
“Merci.” Jeremy pressed a coin into his hand.
“Merci, monsieur,” the porter answered expressionlessly.
He closed the door behind him and stood in the entrance to a living room. He crossed to another door on the far side and knocked.
“Jeremy?” Her voice was muffled by the door.
“Yes.” He tried the door. It didn’t open.
“He took the key and locked it from the outside. You’ll have to get the porter back.”
“That would be stupid.” He was beginning to get angry. Von Kuppen must really be out of his mind. “There must be another key around somewhere.”
The Adventurers Page 48