But the unthinkable had happened. Her Sigi never came back. The day after their divorce was final, Sigi and that Hélène woman exchanged vows in a civil ceremony downtown. Two months later, he dropped dead on the floor of the stock exchange, leaving Hélène with fifteen million dollars, leaving Z.Z. to give premature birth to his son.
How desperately she had wanted to have their baby! She had banked on its bringing Siegfried back. They would be closer than ever; surely fatherhood would force him to stop his philandering and settle down. She had even decided on a name. Carla if it was a girl. Wilfred if it was a boy.
But when the Jamaican nurse had brought her face to face with the baby boy, her hands had flown up to her face to cover her eyes. In one glance she had seen enough of that horrible, distorted little creature. She had caught sight of the little pink face with the wide-set eyes, an inheritance from her, the little red mouth lolling open, the expression of utter helplessness. She had caught sight of that face scrunching up into hideous distortions. Her baby had survived his early birth, but he had suffered irreversible brain damage.
'Mine?' Her hoarse whisper seemed to echo from the green-and-white walls.
The nurse nodded solemnly.
Z.Z.'s eyes widened in horror. 'It can't be,' she wailed in a shocked voice, shaking her head. 'It's not mine! It can't be! It can't be!' She had shrunk against the metal headboard, sobbing violently.
She couldn't believe it. She had given birth to a monster! The realization brought on a nervous breakdown.
When she recovered, Z.Z. told all her inquiring friends that the baby had been stillborn. And she had accepted their apologies and condolences and clucking ministrations for that which she wished so badly could only have been.
She was never able to erase Wilfred from her mind. Her rejection of him haunted her day and night. Did he ever wonder about his mother? she asked herself over and over. And what was he like now?
She shut her eyes and shivered. Always that same thought came back to her: What was he like now? But she had always been afraid to find out.
Hélène would pay for this, Z.Z. had sworn. Oh, yes, she would pay. It was all that whore's fault. If it hadn't been for Hélène, she would have inherited twenty-two million dollars instead of the paltry seven she'd had to settle for. And above all, she wouldn't have had to be alone while giving birth to Sigi's. . .She swallowed. Sigi's. . .child. She wouldn't have had to carry all by herself the horrible burden, the hidden stigma, of bringing a malformed child into the world. Sigi would have been there to share the anguish, and it would have seemed less.
And so, as it had become available, Z.Z. found herself buying three million dollars' worth of stock in Hélène Junot International, Inc.
She felt it was worth every penny. It was very satisfying to sit on the board, countering every move made by that woman she hated with all her being.
But that had only been petty warfare. The real offensive was just beginning.
The big Mercedes limousine fought its way through the dense morning traffic. Seated on the plush gray velour was a single passenger, the Comte de Léger. He was on his way from his fashionable brownstone on East Sixty-eighth Street to the Junot Building, the Fifth Avenue headquarters of Hélène Junot International, Inc.
A banker, a wine grower, and second cousin to the prime minister of France, the Comte was a member of the board of Hélène Junot, as well as an alcoholic. A sour, red-faced Frenchman with the handsomely cruel features that women tended to find irresistible, he had a flat stomach and stood six feet, two inches tall. His eyes were coal black and hard, and his abundant graying hair was swept back as if to offer less wind resistance. He was elegantly dressed in a blue suit that had been custom-tailored on Savile Row, highlighted by a black raw-silk tie. His cufflinks were engraved with the de Léger crest, a lion and a salamander supporting a shield between them. They were a family heirloom, passed down from one comte to the next. They had been fashioned from ancient gold earrings that had been a gift to the first Comtesse de Léger by King François I in 1546. The lion and the salamander symbolized the alliance of the de Légers to the French throne.
At the moment, the Comte was oblivious of the start-and-stop traffic, and he felt sick. He was oblivious of the traffic because he had more important things on his mind. He felt sick because he had spent a sleepless night drinking heavily. In the middle of the night he had received a telephone call from Paris. Hélène Junot had chartered a Lear jet and left Orly Airport in a tearing hurry, the faint crackling voice had informed him.
The significance of the Lear jet was not lost on the Comte. Obviously she hadn't taken the company's lavishly decorated Grumman Gulfstream II because she didn't want to alert anyone to her unexpected return.
She didn't want anyone to have time to prepare. He smiled. As if there was anything she could do now. Didn't she realize it was too late?
How naive she was to think that she could outsmart them! Especially when they had all waited so patiently and for so long.
Well, he was nobody's fool. He had expected a sudden move on her part, and he'd been prepared. She had been shadowed to Orly, and before the Lear jet had received flight clearance he had already known about it. And when the jet landed at Kennedy Airport a mere fifteen minutes ago, he had known that, too. The only thing that surprised him was that it had taken this long for her to make a move.
Ah, it felt so good to be on top of it all. Poor Hélène. She thought she was a queen when she was, in reality, only a pawn. His pawn.
She had been a fool. Somewhere along the way she had been lulled into a false sense of security. It was so easy to feel omnipotent just because of a few items in a lawyer's vault. He smiled secretly. Even the most secure vaults have a way of opening.
He felt the limousine lurch to another stop. The queasiness in his stomach returned. Better have another drink to dull that feeling, he told himself.
He opened the door of the built-in bar cabinet and splashed a generous portion of Armagnac into one of the Baccarat snifters. He drained it in one greedy gulp.
Ah, that felt good, he thought as the warm glow of the brandy spread through him like a much-needed caress. Then he poured himself another.
Suddenly his lips compressed angrily as he slammed a fist into the velour seat. 'Je suis bête!' he exclaimed. How stupid to have overlooked the obvious. He should have noticed it before.
Two hours were unaccounted for. He hadn't realized it at first, but Hélène's flight had taken 140 minutes more than the usual flight time. He had been notified upon both takeoff and landing. But what had she done during those two unaccountable hours? Surely she hadn't flown circles over the middle of the Atlantic. A Lear jet didn't carry enough fuel for that.
Yes, she must have interrupted the flight. She had landed somewhere. But where? And whatever for?
He picked up the limousine's mobile telephone. Someone would have to talk to the pilot and find out.
The Comte's black limousine was nearing the Junot Building just as James Cortland Gore III placed another syrup-drenched pancake into his mouth. Gore sat in the breakfast room of his baronial mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, a mere forty-five-minute drive from mid-Manhattan. The small bright room was covered with a green fern-patterned wallpaper, and the floor was laid with dark gray flagstones. Sitting across the wrought-iron-and-glass table, his wife was silently looking out the big bay window. It was a moment of fantasy. The morning sunshine was throwing elongated shadows of trees across the blinding snow, making the lawn look like a zebra-skin rug.
Then she glanced back at her husband.
Gore was a short, porcine man of sixty-one with sagging jowls, pursed red lips, and innumerable chins. He had a bald head, and the beady gray eyes peering out of the sagging pouches beneath his stiff salt-and-pepper eyebrows were focused on the front page of The Wall Street Journal spread out beside him. His pinstriped suit reflected his position. As a successful banker he had a $150,000-a-year salary, generous expense accounts
, and memberships in the exclusive clubs that cater to working gentlemen. He was at the pinnacle of his career.
Gore lifted his eyes from the newspaper and peered across the table.
One look at Geraldine left no doubt but that she was a pampered woman. She was fifty-seven years old but looked no more than thirty-nine. Painfully thin, she had striking Indian-like cheekbones and her skin was dark with the unmistakable Palm Beach tan from weekends spent in Florida. Her lemon gown trimmed with matching ostrich feathers had come from Martha's in Bal Harbour. Her ash-blond hair was bleached almost white by the sun and hung thinly to her shoulders. It was styled each Thursday afternoon at Susumu's salon on Fifth Avenue before her Friday flights to Palm Beach. Her nose was thin and delicate. More than fifteen years earlier it had been 'redone' in an exclusive clinic outside Lausanne. A sparkling canary-diamond bracelet hung from her bony wrist. She'd picked it out at Bulgari a week ago, and since then it hadn't left her wrist for a moment.
Gore cleared his throat. 'By the way, dear, there's some bad news.' His chins quivered as he spoke.
'Bad news?'
'I'll have to work late tonight.'
'Oh, no, darling,' she said with a moan. 'Don't tell me! You. . .you can't! Not tonight. You promised nothing would interfere with tonight. We're invited to the Asburys' for dinner, remember?'
Gore was annoyed. Remember? How could he forget? 'Sorry, dear,' he said calmly. 'You'd better call them up and cancel.'
'Oh, d-a-m-n!' Another fine evening spoiled by his work. And she'd been so looking forward to this one. The Asburys had houseguests from France, and Geraldine was dying to show off her half-forgotten Sorbonne French and the taffeta Gres gown she'd bought in Paris last year. It was gorgeous, in geranium, port, and bottle green. There was no doubt about it— the Gres was a masterpiece. It hugged her body where it was supposed to, but not too tightly; rather it. . .yes, it caressed her.
Now the evening was ruined. She couldn't go to the Asburys' unescorted. It just wasn't done. S-h-i-t, she spelled out in her mind. Careful, she told herself. Simmer down. Be dignified. She glanced at her husband.
Across the table, Gore, not content with one helping of pancakes, was engrossed in sating his unusually limitless appetite. He was, however, genuinely sorry for ruining Geraldine's plans. Nobody knew better than he how much she'd been looking forward to dinner with the Asburys and their French guests. He didn't enjoy disappointing her. But tonight he had other plans. Tonight he was going to make one of the most important decisions of his life.
Just three days were left, he thought. Just three more days and the Junot bank loan would be due. If it could not be repaid on time, then it would be up to the bank—up to him—to decide the fate of the collateral: 20 percent of the entire stock of Hélène Junot International, Inc. A juicy 20 percent of Hélène Junot's personal 51 percent of the corporation, for it had been a personal loan. And members of the board of Hélène Junot International, Inc., had approached him—discreetly at his clubs, openly through associates and attorneys, and even secretly with mysterious telephone calls. There were whispered offers of what he would receive. One million dollars, tax-free, as long as Hélène did not get an extension and the bank decided to distribute the shares to the other stockholders for their market value.
Like greedy vultures, they were all waiting to pounce on her. For one reason or another, each of them seemed determined to have her out of the way.
Oh, what a million dollars couldn't solve. There had never been a time he needed it more. He enjoyed living comfortably, and Geraldine demanded a life-style that. . .well, that had practically gone out of style. There was the mansion in Greenwich and the house in Palm Beach, both so very necessary socially, and both so prohibitive financially. Both were mortgaged to the hilt. On the landing strip outside town sat the Beechcraft Bonanza that they used each weekend to commute to Palm Beach. The honey-gold-and-champagne Bentley sat in the heated garage between the brand-new Cadillac Seville and the late-model Lincoln Continental. Then there were the shopping sprees in Paris, where Madame Gore was becoming an increasingly well-known fixture. The red carpet was already being rolled out for her at the couturiers' and she was even getting front-row seating during the shows. And finally there was the sixty-foot Chris Craft yacht Geraldine was determined he buy for her. After all, she reasoned with typical rationale, the house in Palm Beach looked stark naked with an empty dock. His suggestion that they tear out the dock had not been met with disapproval. It had been met with horror.
And then, two months ago, the most expensive habit of all had surfaced. 'Picking up trinkets' at Harry Winston or Bulgari. He glanced at the diamonds sparkling on her wrist and winced.
All that was so difficult to manage on $150,000 a year. Geraldine didn't know it, and God knows he couldn't bear to break her pretty heart by telling her, but his finances were looking very bleak.
Already he had 'borrowed' from the bank, discreetly giving himself loans from time to time. He always planned on repaying them when he had a windfall, or sometime when Geraldine wasn't costing him so much.
Damn her! he thought angrily. It was so hard to say no.
The million dollars offered for throwing Hélène Junot's shares in the other stockholders' directions was irresistible. An answered prayer.
And best of all, no one need ever know.
He tossed the newspaper aside. It was far more pleasurable to think about a million dollars than to scour the news.
That was how he missed a three-column headline on page two. It read: 'SHAKE-UP AT JUNOT PUBLICATIONS?'
The icy wind stung bitterly at his face as the Chameleon snapped the phone-booth door shut behind him. Frowning, he inserted a dime in the phone and punched out the number of another pay phone somewhere across town. He listened to the soft rings. Once. Twice. Three times. He replaced the receiver on the cradle and his dime jingled back into the return slot. He fished it out and waited twenty seconds. All around him he heard the noisy turmoil of Times Square.
Paper and garbage flew in the wind while neon flashed gaudy advertisements. The record and shoe shops weren't open yet. The porno theaters were quiet. No one dashed in and out of massage parlors. It was too early. Altogether, Times Square looked seedy, an ancient dowager turned bag lady.
Still, it wasn't too bad, the Chameleon thought to himself. Times Square never looked too bad at nine-thirty A.M. But at nine-thirty at night it was a whole different story.
Last night it had looked like a Babylonian carnival. Rows of movie marquees were festooned with cutouts of voluptuous nudes. Peep-show parlors promised a glimpse of Sodom for a quarter. Hookers in rabbit coats paraded around with bare, frozen thighs. Drag queens strutted on shaky heels, their coats open wide to show off rock-hard, expensive breasts. Hungry-eyed boys in tight Levi's were posed to accentuate their firm round bottoms. All available, for a price.
At Forty-fourth Street a Puerto Rican girl had stepped out of the shadows. She wore white plastic boots and a short skirt. Her long bare legs were red from the cold.
'You give me light?' she asked softly. Shiny black eyes looked at him over her cigarette.
He fished in his pocket for his lighter. As the flame flared up, he caught a glimpse of tawny skin and wet red lips. Her cheeks were powdered but gray, the shivering fingers holding the cigarette too thick, too masculine.
He shook his head and continued walking. Another drag queen. He liked real pussy, not a queer prick tucked out of sight. He sighed. Weren't there any women working these streets anymore?
At a red light he set his suitcase down on the sidewalk and lit a cigarette. Then he looked for a hotel.
On Forty-eighth Street, just off Broadway, he found one. He stared up at it. A real fleabag. Eight stories high, bricks painted an ugly gray. There was an alley beside it that led to a parking lot in the rear. Around the corner he could see an elaborate fire escape that led down to it. 'HOTEL ZANZIBAR,' the flashing red neon on the front announced. 'Rooms $5.00 and up. Permanents
and Transients Welcome,' a rusty sign read.
It was the type of place that offered total anonymity, where no one asked any questions. Pay for your flop in advance, and then come and go as you like.
Perfect.
He tossed his cigarette into the gutter and watched it land with a shower of sparks. Then, whistling softly, he went up the concrete steps, opened the door, and walked into the lobby.
The lobby was something else. It was tiled and looked like a cross between a Turkish bath and a 1920's theater lobby. The sconces along the walls were of surprisingly good quality, but dented and rusty and missing their shades. The tear-shaped bulbs glared harshly. From one of the rooms down the hall a radio was on full blast. It was loud, tinny salsa, distorted and painful to the ears. Steam radiators hissed and clanged like snorting locomotives.
To the right, just inside the door, was a glass-and-wood booth. It almost hid the short, tired-looking blond who sat behind it reading a confession magazine.
He cleared his throat.
Reluctantly she put the magazine down on the counter and her pale face looked up at him. 'Yeah?' she rasped unenthusiastically.
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