“You mean I’m ‘in’?”
“You’re more than that.” Jeremy smiled. “As far as the columns and their millions of readers go, Eisenhower could be in Topeka, Kansas, instead of the White House.”
The waiter brought Dax’s drink. He tasted it and nodded, and the waiter, who was hovering nearby, went away.
“As a matter of fact, that’s why I suggested lunch.”
“You mean you want to interview me?”
Jeremy laughed. “You think it’s such a bad idea? Might be just the thing I need to hype up my readership.”
“You’re doing all right.”
“I suppose so.” Jeremy waited until Dax put down his drink. “This is off the record,” he said, leaning forward, his voice lowering confidentially. “My friend the senator is thinking of getting married.”
“I know, to that Back Bay girl. She’s very nice.”
Jeremy stared at him in amazement. “How did you know? It’s all been kept very quiet. Not a word has appeared in the newspapers.”
“Why should you be so surprised?” Dax asked. “If I’m as ‘in’ as you say, it’s only normal that I hear things.”
When he saw that Jeremy was still puzzled, he smiled. “It’s really quite simple. When I was in Capri last month I went water-skiing with a girl who used to be what you Americans call his ‘girlfriend.’ I must say she was quite philosophical about it. Apparently she’s been well taken care of.”
“Oh, brother! I suppose you also know why we’re lunching?”
“Not yet.”
“If you know the girl he’s going to marry you know the kind of a girl she is. Good family. Educated at the best schools, here and abroad. A very nice girl really, but a little distant, reserved, and cool. Slightly snobbish, the average American might think.” He fell silent.
“I see,” Dax said reflectively. “Not quite the image a man with ambitions to be President wants his wife to project.”
“That’s it in a way,” Jeremy admitted.
“I still don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“I’m getting to that. There’s a big flap going on about her clothes. She wants to go to Paris for her trousseau but he’s against it. He’s afraid there might be some political reaction. You know what I mean?”
Dax nodded. He had some idea of the complexities of American politics. In many ways the ILGWU commanded a great deal of respect.
“The senator asked me as a friend to help resolve the impasse,” Jeremy continued, “and I came up with the idea of Prince Nikovitch. She’d purchased some things from him last year in Paris, so she approved of the idea. The senator was satisfied, too, since the prince is now American based.”
“Sergei would be delighted.”
“I’m sure, but the senator had one further reservation. He thought it might be more acceptable if the prince announced his intention of becoming an American citizen before any announcement was made. That way there should be very little criticism.”
“That shouldn’t present any problem. I’m sure he’d be agreeable.”
“Would you speak to Sergei for us?” Jeremy asked. “I can’t, my association with the senator is too well known.”
“I’d be glad to. That’s simple enough.”
“There’s another thing.”
“Yes?”
“This may be trickier. My youngest brother, Kevin, is graduating from Harvard this year.”
“The baby?”
Jeremy laughed. “The baby? You should see him, he’s six foot two. Anyway, he and the senator’s brother, who is in the same class, are going to Europe on their own this summer. And if I know those two, they won’t be twenty minutes off the plane before the roof blows off.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“If it were just Kevin it wouldn’t be so bad,” Jeremy said, “but the senator’s brother will attract the reporters.”
“I see.” Dax looked at Jeremy. “Your friend has many problems.”
“We both know our younger brothers.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“I was wondering if there is some way we could sort of keep an eye on them, see they don’t get into trouble.”
“That wouldn’t be easy,” Dax replied thoughtfully. “Young men move pretty quickly.”
They sat silently for a moment, then Dax said, “If we could somehow control where they went and whom they met it would help.”
Jeremy didn’t answer.
“That might just be the way to do it.” Dax looked at Jeremy. “I’ll get in touch with an old friend of mine. She’ll see to it that they are occupied from the moment they land.”
“But how?”
Dax smiled. “You don’t know Madame Blanchette. She’s retired now but she will do it as a favor to me.”
“They must never know that everything is set up for them. If they do, it will be the end.”
“They’ll never know what hit them.” Dax laughed. “All I can say is that they may never want to come home. No matter where they go in Europe they’ll be up to their elbows in cunt.”
19
Dee Dee came into Dax’s hotel suite in Rome while he was eating breakfast. “Where were you last night?”
He paused in the act of buttering a roll. “Out.”
“With Sue Ann.” She threw a newspaper down on the table in front of him. “Your picture is on the front page.”
Dax looked down at it, then back at her. “Those paparazzi never really take good pictures, do they?”
“You didn’t tell me Sue Ann was here.”
Dax took another bite of the roll and a swallow of coffee. “I didn’t think you cared about her that much.”
“But we were supposed to have dinner last night,” she all but wailed.
“That’s right. I waited here for you until ten o’clock, then I called the studio. They said you’d be working until midnight finishing the picture so I figured you’d be too tired to do anything but go to sleep.”
Dee Dee stared at him silently.
Calmly Dax buttered another roll. “Now be a good little girl and go back to your room and get some more sleep. You know I don’t like arguments at breakfast.”
“I’m getting sick and tired of having Sue Ann show up everywhere we go.”
“I can’t tell Sue Ann where to go. She pays her own way.”
“You like having her follow you around.”
Dax smiled. “It’s not exactly bad for my ego.”
“Oh, I hate you!”
“I have a theory,” Dax replied. “She’s really not following me, she’s following you. I think she’s in love with you.”
Dee Dee was suddenly really angry. “You’ll have to make up your mind. I won’t have any more of it!”
“Don’t push it,” Dax said, his voice suddenly cold. “I don’t like being pushed.”
“I don’t know what you see in her. She’s like an animal.”
“That’s just it.” His voice was still cool. “You go out with Sue Ann, you have a few laughs, you go to bed, that’s all there is to it. No bullshit, no romance or lies about love—tomorrow is your own, no promises, no demands. Besides, she doesn’t require applause every time she farts.”
“And you think I do?”
“I didn’t say that. You asked about Sue Ann, and I told you.” Dax picked up another roll. “Now go away. I told you I don’t like arguments at breakfast.”
“You egotistical bastard!” Dee Dee exclaimed, her hand raised as if to swing at him.
Instinctively his arm shot up to ward off the blow, and by accident his half-closed fist caught her on the cheek. She stepped backward in surprise.
“You hit me!” she said in a shocked voice. She turned and ran to a mirror. “In the eye too.” She studied herself. “It’s turning black and blue!”
Dax got up curiously. He didn’t think he had hit her that hard. Besides, he knew how prone she was to overdramatize anything. “Let me have a look at it.”
/> Dee Dee turned to face him.
“It’s nothing,” he said, and began to laugh. “But it does look like you’re getting a shiner. Let me get you something for it.”
“Stay away from me, you beast! You’re going to hit me again!”
“Come off it, Dee Dee. The picture was finished last night. Stop acting.”
She turned and ran to the door. He caught her by the arm just as she opened it. She glared at him. “Make up your mind! It’s me or her!”
Dax was still laughing as he tried to pull her back into the room. Angrily she pulled her arm free. “You’ll never beat me up again!” she cried, and opened the door wide. She stepped out into the corridor just as the flashgun went off.
It made the newspapers all over the world.
There were even more photographs when she got off the plane the next day in New York wearing an eye patch. For the first time in her life Dee Dee received all the publicity she had ever wanted. But it wasn’t until a week later, when a reporter thrust a newspaper at her with a terse “Any comment, Miss Lester?” that she realized what she had done.
“No comment.” Then she quickly turned her face away so that the reporter could not see the tears suddenly rushing to her eyes.
Dax and Sue Ann had been married that morning in Scotland.
***
“It’s dark in here.”
“I find it restful.”
“And it stinks. You’ve been smoking those damn cigarettes again.” El Presidente crossed the room and, pulling back the drapes, opened the windows. The warm sweet air came rushing in. He stood there for a moment breathing deeply, then turned to face her. “I don’t understand what you get from them.”
Amparo was sitting in a chair, half turned toward the window. Slowly she stubbed the cigarette out in an ash tray. “They relax me,” she said quietly. “Sometimes things get to be too much for me. When I can’t face myself or anyone else they bring me peace. They slow everything down so that I can see things more clearly and sort them out.”
“They are a narcotic. They are worse even than whiskey.”
“Not worse, not better,” she said. “Different.”
He came over to her chair and stood looking down at her. “I found out where the arms are coming from.”
Amparo didn’t look up. Her voice was without curiosity. “From where?”
“The American in Monte Carlo.”
“But I thought they were Communist made.”
“They are,” el Presidente answered, “the American is the agent. It is he who ships them, he who sells them all over the world. The same guns have turned up in Cuba and also in Santo Domingo.”
“Oh.”
“He must be made to stop.”
“How will you do that?” Amparo asked without any real concern. “There will only be others to take his place.”
“We will have to deal with the others, too. Meanwhile we gain time to prepare.”
“Prepare?” For the first time some expression came into Amparo’s face. “Prepare for what—disaster?”
Her father didn’t answer.
Amparo began to laugh quietly.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You,” she answered, her voice reflective. “Cuba and Santo Domingo. Batista, Trujillo, and now you. You men with your cocks and guns and power. Can’t you see that your time is drawing to a close? That you’re already extinct, like the dinosaur?” Amparo closed her eyes wearily. “Why must you all try so hard to outlive your time? Why don’t you all just go away quietly?”
“And who will take our places?”
Amparo didn’t answer. Her eyes were still shut.
“The Communists. And what guarantees are there that things will be any better under them? None. Probably a lot worse.”
Amparo opened her eyes but she did not look at him. “Perhaps the Communists must come before the people can think and do for themselves, as the night must grow darker before the day.”
“If they come the night might never end.”
Amparo’s eyes seemed suddenly luminous. “Even at the two poles, where the nights seem to take forever, the day comes. The world has survived many things. It will survive the Communists exactly as it will survive you.”
“I am thinking of sending Dax to negotiate with the American,” her father said suddenly.
For the first time real curiosity came into her face. “How will you explain that to the people,” she asked, “after what has already been told them?”
“The people?” El Presidente laughed. “It will be easy. The people believe what I tell them. I can be very magnanimous. For the many good services Dax has rendered our country, I shall order them to forgive him his one mistake.”
“And you think Dax will be eager to do as you ask?”
“Dax is his father’s son,” her father said quietly, “and in a different way also mine. He has been my son ever since I gave him over into Fat Cat’s care and sent him to the mountains.”
“And if he refuses?” Amparo’s voice took on a peculiarly distant quality. “There is nothing you can do. He is now beyond your reach.”
“He will not refuse,” el Presidente answered steadily. “As his father did not refuse me even after my soldiers had killed his wife and daughter. It was for Corteguay that the father joined with me, and it will be for Corteguay that Dax will return.”
“You are sure? Despite the fact that he may have made another life for himself in the two years he has been away?”
“You know he is married, then?”
“Yes,” Amparo said, reaching for another cigarette. “I heard it on the American radio.”
El Presidente stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “I am sure,” he said. “Marriage will make no difference to Dax. He has been married before. One woman has never been more important to him than another.”
“Why have you taken the trouble to tell me this?”
“You are my daughter,” he said, smiling at her. “And having once been his wife, I thought you should be the first to know that he has been returned to my good graces.”
When he looked back at her from the doorway Amparo was holding a match to a cigarette. Already its strange heavy aroma was again beginning to fill the room.
20
“Oh, Christ! Stop it! You’re hurting me!” Sue Ann’s voice was thin with pain, her hands suddenly beating on his back. She pushed him away and rolled over on her side, fighting for breath. The mattress lifted as Dax shifted his weight away from her.
Sue Ann heard the scratch of a match as he lit a cigarette. Gratefully she took it from his fingers and dragged deeply on it. The pain in her loins subsided as she heard Dax light another for himself. She turned her head to look at him.
He was seated on the edge of the bed, his lean, muscled, dark body scarcely moving, watching her with his inscrutable black eyes. “Better?”
“Much better, thank you.” She lifted her head, resting her chin on one crooked elbow. “That never happened to me before. I’ve gone completely dry.”
There was a flash of Dax’s white teeth in the dimness of the room. “Maybe you’ve never been on a honeymoon before,” he said, a faint note of humor in his voice.
“I’ve never spent four days in bed without ever leaving the room, if that’s what you mean.”
“Complaining already. The honeymoon is over.”
Dax got up from the bed and went to the window and pulled back the drapes. The sunlight came tumbling into the room, and then he threw open the windows to let the cold Scottish sea air come rushing in. “It’s a beautiful day outside.”
Sue Ann dove under the covers. “Close the window before I freeze to death!”
Dax pulled the window shut and stood smiling down at her. Just her eyes and her white-blond hair were visible; the rest of her from the nose down was covered.
“What kind of man are you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Has there ever been another like you?”
/>
“There must have been,” he replied, smiling slowly. “Adam began a long time ago.”
“I don’t believe it. I’m sorry, Dax,” she said, apologizing suddenly.
“For what?”
“For pushing you away. I didn’t want you to stop but I couldn’t take it any more. The pain was too much.”
“It’s my fault. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I know,” she answered in a low voice, “that’s what’s so wonderful about it. You don’t, you just do.”
Sue Ann watched as Dax left the window and crossed the room naked to the dresser. He picked up his wristwatch and looked at it silently.
“What time is it?”
A faint hint of laughter came into Dax’s dark eyes. “I forgot to wind it. I wonder why?”
A soft look came into Sue Ann’s face and she reached out and touched him gently. “Do you remember in Boston when I used to come to your room?”
Dax nodded.
“Did you ever think that someday we’d be married?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“I did,” she said, “once or twice. I wondered what it would be like being married to you.”
“Now you know.”
“Yes.” Sue Ann pressed her lips lightly to his. “Now I know, and I wonder why I wasted all those years.”
Dax put his hand down and stroked her hair gently. “We all waste years in one way or another.”
Sue Ann turned her head slightly so that she could see his face. “Are you happy with me?”
“Yes, for the first time in my life I know exactly what’s expected of me.”
She half kissed, half bit him, then abruptly slid away. “Oh, yeah? Well, you can slow down, boy. I’m grabbing a hot shower.”
He caught her in the shower stall just as the water came on. He lifted her up in his arms and held her against the wall. The bar of soap fell from her open hand. “Really?” he asked, his eyes laughing at her. “You’re wet now, what excuse have you got?”
He let her slide gently down the wall onto him. “Oh, God! Be careful, you’ll slip on the soap!” Then she felt him inside her and she closed her eyes, suddenly clinging to him frantically. “That’s it! That’s it. That’s it!” she gasped in shuddering ecstasy.
Later, when they were lying on the bed again, quietly smoking, she turned to him. “I think I’ll open the house in Palm Beach next month.”
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