John Perona himself lifted the velvet rope at El Morocco to let me through the crowd. He groaned when he saw me.
I smiled at him. “You don’t seem happy.”
“Who could be happy in a place like this?” He looked out over the crowded rooms. “Problems, nothing but problems. I just finished telling my son that I hoped you wouldn’t show up tonight, and here you are.”
I grinned at him. “Why me especially?”
A reluctant smile came to his lips. “Every one of your ex-wives is here, plus three or four of your old girlfriends.”
I laughed. “Would you rather I told them to go somewhere else?”
He stared at me for a moment, not knowing if I were joking. Then he shook his head. “No, only tonight. It seems as if everyone in New York is here. Maybe in the whole world.”
I followed him as he threaded his way through the tables to an empty banquette against the wall. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Aly Khan and a party were at one table. Amos Abidijan, Marcel’s former father-in-law, was at another. Aristotle and Tina Onassis were at their usual spot with Rubi and his new young French wife. The motion-picture colony was represented by Sam Spiegel and Darryl Zanuck, at separate tables, and at another the prominent international attorney Paul Gitlin held forth on his two favorite subjects, his weight and such important literary matters as royalty rates and motion-picture sales. His patient wife, Zelda, listened and waited her chance to get a word in sidewise.
I sat down and before I had a chance to order anything the wine steward set down a bottle of champagne, opened it and filled my glass. I looked up at Perona questioningly.
“You’ll drink champagne tonight,” he said. “We’re too busy to serve anything else.”
“Very uncivilized. Besides, I’m hungry.”
“I’ll have a captain take your order.” Perona clapped his hands sharply and hurried away.
A captain materialized. “Oui, monsieur?”
I ordered a tossed green salad with oil, vinegar, and grosgrain Beluga caviar in the dressing, and a thick steak, medium rare, with french-fried potatoes. I leaned back, lit a cigar, and looked out over the room.
For a moment I felt like calling Perona back and informing him that though he hadn’t been entirely wrong, neither had he been completely accurate. I had located Caroline and Sue Ann but I hadn’t believed Amparo would be there and she wasn’t. Then the waiter brought my salad, and I began to eat.
I had just finished when a voice came from in front of my table. “I can’t believe my eyes. Things have certainly changed. You eating alone?”
I’d have known that gravelly voice anywhere. I got to my feet. “Irma Andersen.”
“Dax, dear boy,” she said, holding out her hand.
I kissed it, wondering if those pudgy little fingers had ever been young. “I’ve been working late and came out for a bit of supper. Would you care to join me, perhaps a glass of champagne?”
“No wine—my diet, you know. But I will sit with you for just a moment.”
The waiter hurried over to hold her chair.
“Tell me,” Irma said, settling herself, “what have you been doing with yourself? I thought I’d see more of you once you got back to New York.”
“There have been problems.”
“I know. It’s terrible the things that are happening down there. People say there will soon be a revolution.”
“People love to talk,” I said. “There will be no revolution.”
“Too bad. If there weren’t all this talk there might be an opportunity to revive the tourist trade. People are looking for a new place to go. They’re getting bored with the same old thing.”
I looked at Irma speculatively. She was a shrewd old bitch and if she was talking it wasn’t merely to listen to herself. “If you are saying that there will be no revolution and that things will soon quiet down, what you need is a new public-relations program.”
Now I knew what Irma was getting at. I nodded in agreement. “You’re absolutely right. But who outside of yourself could handle such a campaign effectively? No one. And you’re far too busy.”
She looked at me quizzically, then lowered her voice. “Frankly,” she said, “I’ve been looking for something new. Now that Sergei is so well established I’m beginning to have more free time.”
“Wonderful! Suppose I give you a call tomorrow? We can make a date to talk about it.”
“Do that, dear boy,” Irma said, getting to her feet. “Oh, by the way, did you know that Caroline de Coyne and Sue Ann Daley are here tonight?”
“I know, I saw them.”
“And Mady Schneider and Dee Dee Lester and—” Irma would have continued but I held up my hand.
“You don’t have to go on. I saw them all.”
“And still you’re eating alone?”
“Don’t feel sorry for me.” I laughed. “I like to eat alone sometimes.”
But as it turned out I wasn’t alone for long. Dania Farkas came in after her performance, and I invited her to join me. And perhaps because I was no longer alone the others came over. First Sue Ann, because she was curious to see if something was developing between Dania and myself. Next came Dee Dee, who never could resist making the scene when Sue Ann was present. And later Caroline, followed by Mady Schneider, who could never bear to be left out of anything.
Suddenly I became aware that an awkward silence had fallen over the table. They looked at each other and began to wonder why the hell they had come over. John Perona came hurrying over with two waiters, each carrying a bottle of champagne. He leaned over, a worried look in his eyes. “I hope there won’t be any trouble,” he said in a stage whisper.
Suddenly I laughed aloud. This was great, for a moment I was truly the Sultan of Morocco. “Don’t worry, there won’t be any trouble,” I said reassuringly. “The ladies merely decided to hold an impromptu class reunion.”
In the wave of laughter that followed, the tension left the table, and while we all talked and laughed, the others in the restaurant went back to their normal occupation, which was talking and minding everybody else’s business.
It was two in the morning by the time I left the restaurant with Dania. “That was fun,” she said, smiling. “Each of us looking at the others and wondering what each was thinking.”
“It was amusing but I wouldn’t like to do it every day. It’s too wearing.”
She laughed. “Come to my place for a nightcap. It will help settle you down.”
“All right, but I can stay only a few minutes. I have a very full day tomorrow.”
It was after five when I left her apartment, and I stared at myself in the mirrored elevator. I looked a wreck. There were two long scratches on the side of my neck and my ears were still ringing from her moans and squeals of pleasure. I looked at myself ruefully. It had turned out more than I bargained for.
The doorman looked at me silently as he let me out into the street. There was not a taxi in sight, so I started to walk west toward Park Avenue. There were always taxis there. I didn’t notice the car that had pulled up alongside me until I heard her voice.
“Dax.”
“Beatriz!”
I turned, staring.
She sat next to the driver, a curiously hurt look in her dark-green eyes. “We’ve been following you all night,” she said, “hoping to find a moment when you’d be alone!”
15
One of the wonderful things about New York is that no matter what time of day or night, there is always someplace to go. At five in the morning, if you’re on the east side of Manhattan, the place to go is Reuben’s, a delicatessen kind of spot where you can get anything from a cup of coffee to a full-course meal.
It was almost empty when Beatriz and I came in. There were a few stragglers left from the night, and the morning people hadn’t yet stirred from their beds. The bored waiter didn’t even raise an eyebrow at my dinner jacket. He was used to it; it was perfectly normal at that hour.
“What’ll it be?�
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“Coffee,” I said, “lots of it. Strong and black.”
I looked at Beatriz.
“I’ll have coffee too.”
The waiter nodded and went away. I reached for her hand but she kept it on her side of the table. “I was worried when I found you’d gone away,” I said. “I thought about you every day.”
Beatriz looked at me, her eyes still full of hurt. “Your neck is scratched, and there’s blood on your collar.”
“I’ll speak to my barber,” I answered lightly, “he’ll have to be more careful.”
Beatriz didn’t smile. “I don’t think that’s funny.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going away?”
She didn’t answer until after the waiter brought our coffee. “You weren’t that worried.”
I took a deep sip of coffee. It was hot and its warmth raced down to my stomach. I began to feel better. “I don’t want to bicker. Besides, that’s not why you finally decided to see me.”
Beatriz looked down at her cup. Perhaps it wasn’t fair of me to throw it up to her but it was true. She raised her eyes again. “My father did not believe what I told him. He says it’s all a trick.”
“Your father!” I exploded. “I suppose he thinks the fifty-seven dead campesinos of Matanza are a trick too?”
She didn’t answer.
I thought of what the senator had said yesterday about the world being filled with cowards who asked that heroes die for them.
“What did you say?”
I hadn’t realized I was speaking aloud. I repeated it, adding a few words of my own. “Your father is like a general sitting safely miles from the battlefront, comfortable in the realization that the blood he orders spilled will never soil his own hands. If your father truly believes he represents the will of the people, let him come forward and run against el Presidente. Or is he afraid he might lose and be exposed as a charlatan?”
Beatriz’s lips tightened. “He would if he believed that el Presidente would keep his word about the amnesty!” she retorted angrily.
“El Presidente will keep his word!” I was equally heated; nothing was going right. “He has to, he has made the announcement to the world. Do you think he could go back on his word now?”
Beatriz stared at me. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I subsided into an angry silence.
After a few minutes Beatriz said, “Would you be willing to meet my father and talk with him?”
“Yes, at any time.”
“There would be no strings attached, and you would come alone?”
“Yes.”
“I will speak to him.” She got to her feet, and I started to get up also, but she gestured for me to remain seated. “Do not follow me.”
“Beatriz,” I said, reaching for her hand.
Again she kept away from me. “No. I made one mistake. I thought we lived in the same world, but about that one thing they were right. I can see that now.”
“Beatriz. I can explain—”
“Don’t!” she replied, her voice trembling. Then she turned quickly and hurried out of the restaurant.
I watched her go and something inside me ached. I got to my feet and through the huge windows I saw her get into the car as it moved away.
The waiter came over. “Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t until I was outside again in the gray light of the morning that I remembered I hadn’t asked her when we would meet again.
***
Marcel’s voice was confidential on the telephone. “I have the information you asked me for.”
“Good.”
“Yes,” he interrupted quickly. He did not trust telephones. “When can you come up and discuss it?”
I looked down at the clock calendar on my desk. “I have a dinner date this evening. Can I come up after that?”
“Fine. About what time?”
“Midnight too late?”
“No. I’ll tell my man you’re expected.”
I put down the telephone thoughtfully. In a way I had never really expected Marcel to give me the information I sought. Not about the guns, or where the money came from that paid for them.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I called.
Prieto came into the office, a newspaper in his hand. “Have you seen this?”
I looked down, following his finger. It was a small item buried on one of the inside pages of the Herald Tribune.
CORTEGUAYAN TO SPEAK
Dr. José Guayanos, former president of the University of Corteguay and once the vice president of that country, and presently living in exile in this country will speak tonight at Columbia University. His subject will be: The Need for Democratic Government in Corteguay.
I looked at Prieto. It had been more than a week since I had met Beatriz. This was the first word I had even indirectly had about her.
“What shall we do?” Prieto asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Prieto’s voice was shocked. “You will allow him to spout his lies in this public place?”
I leaned back in my chair. “This is not Corteguay. Here everyone has the right to speak as he pleases.”
“El Presidente will not like it. For more than two years now we have been searching for this man. Now he dares to come into the open with his false accusations.”
“I do not give a damn what el Presidente likes or doesn’t like!” Surely even Prieto could see that this was the first tentative step in testing the sincerity of the amnesty. The first faint glimmer of respect for Guayanos began to awaken in me. Even to speak out here must have taken a great deal of courage.
“But—” Prieto protested.
“This is my responsibility,” I said sharply. “You will keep away from him! You will do nothing to interfere with him!”
Prieto stared at me for a moment. “Sí, excelencia.” Sullenly he started to leave the room.
“Prieto!” I said, calling him back. My voice was cold. “Remember what I say. If I find out that you or any of your men have been anywhere near him, I’ll see to it that you are sent home in disgrace!”
Prieto’s lips tightened grimly but he said nothing.
“Is that understood?”
“Sí, excelencia.”
I waited until he left the room, then picked up the telephone and called my apartment upstairs. I told Fat Cat to come down. As much as I would like to, I could not attend Guayanos’ lecture. What went for Prieto also went for me. Even my appearance might be considered an intervention.
But there was nothing to prevent Fat Cat’s going. I had the strange feeling that Guayanos expected me to send someone and that whom I chose might be very important. And Fat Cat seemed the best choice for several reasons.
He could by no means be considered political, and it was well known that his only relationship to me was a personal one. And I could trust Fat Cat to report accurately, without bias or distortion, exactly what Guayanos said, which was probably exactly what Guayanos wanted. And lastly, and not the least important, Fat Cat would be able to tell me if Prieto had kept his word.
16
The senator’s sister met me at the door. “I’m Edie Smith,” she said, smiling, “I’m so glad you could come. This is my husband, Jack.”
The tall heavyset man behind her smiled. “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Xenos,” he said, a faint midwestern twang in his voice.
“My pleasure, Mr. Smith.”
“Come on into the living room,” his wife said, taking my arm, “we’re all having a drink in there.”
There were six or seven people standing around, all of whom I knew except the senator’s wife, a dark pretty girl seated in an armchair. Obviously she was pregnant.
“I believe the only ones you don’t know are my brother and his wife. Let’s fix that and the party can begin.” Mrs. Smith was beautifully oriented politically. She knew exactly what she had to do.
I shook hands with the senator as if it were the first time, and bowed to his wife. Then I turned to the others.
Giselle looked at me reproachfully as I walked over to her. “Aren’t you ashamed,” she said in French, “that the only times we meet is in someone else’s house? You’ve turned down our invitations to dinner so often I’ve stopped asking you.”
I kissed her hand and glanced at Sergei. He had put on weight but he looked very well. “Don’t stop asking,” I replied. “The way things are going, God knows when I may need a good meal.”
The smile left Sergei’s face. “The news in the papers has not been good.”
I nodded. “It is serious, my friend. Very serious.”
Concern came into Giselle’s voice. “You’re not in any danger, are you?”
“How could I be?” I smiled at her. “I am here.”
“But if they call you home—”
Sergei interrupted. “There’s no need to worry, my dear, Dax knows how to take care of himself.” He turned to me. “We think about you often. We are both deeply concerned.”
“I know.” I believed Sergei because there was enough time behind all of us to know who were our friends. I saw Giselle slip her hand into Sergei’s and his reassuring squeeze. For a moment I envied them. “You both look very well. And how is Anastasia?”
“You should see her!” It was Giselle who answered, before Sergei had a chance to speak. There was a mother’s pride in her voice. Then she laughed. “Or maybe you shouldn’t. She’s turning out to be a very beautiful girl.”
Jeremy came over. “You three are grinning like Cheshire cats. Let me in on it.”
But the senator’s sister appeared and took Jeremy and me by the arm. “One of the prerogatives of being the hostess,” she announced gaily, “is that one can preempt the only two bachelors in the room as dinner partners.”
Everyone laughed, and we went in to dinner. Several times I caught myself watching Giselle and Sergei and each time I had to force myself to look away before it became too obvious. They were close. Warm. And each time I looked at them I could see myself with Beatriz. We could be like that. I felt it. If ever we got the chance.
The Adventurers Page 73