Impulse

by Catherine Coulter

  Marcus’s thoughts veered back to the first assassination attempt. All the checking around about those Dutchmen had led to nothing concrete. Dominick had many competitors, fierce competitors, in arms dealing.

  Marcus knew that as the white market had dwindled markedly during the 1990’s, the gray and black markets had become bloated with business opportunities. Antonio Cincelli, a powerful dealer in Italy, for example. He’d come awfully close to being busted by the Italian police just last year when it was discovered that a small southern Italian weapons manufacturer he used was shipping mines and other weapons to Iran. Cincelli had gotten off, but he’d blamed Dominick, among others, for the fiasco, and sworn, quite graphically, to shoot his balls off. Marcus himself had wondered if Dominick had tipped off the Italian police, used his influence in the corrupt government; but he’d never found out for sure.

  Then there was Oscar C. Blake, an American citizen born in Munich, Germany, who worked for and around the CIA, buying mostly Soviet-style weapons because they were less easily traced to the U.S. and they were cheap. He was a hard nose, a real professional who claimed everything he did was just business. Never anything personal. Who the hell knew? Marcus didn’t. Nor could he dismiss Roddy Olivier. Talk about a ruthless psychopath. And powerful, so powerful it boggled the mind. He and Dominick had discussed these men and a good half-dozen others. All powerful men; all ruthless and determined. They called themselves businessmen, but the kind of hardball they played was deadly.

  What did Bathsheba mean? Why the devil couldn’t anyone trace that helicopter? Or that ridiculous name?

  Odd, but Marcus would give more to understand that than he would to know the name of the man behind the attack on Dominick. Of course the two were tied together. They had to be.

  Marcus didn’t want Rafaella at the compound. DeLorio wouldn’t leave her alone. Paula would go after her. Why did she want to do a biography of Dominick Giovanni? Another Louis Rameau he wasn’t. He wasn’t a hero. He was a criminal. He wasn’t a romantic criminal, far from it, even though he could appear that way on the surface with his educated charm. Not all that many people even knew about him, except for all the feds and cops in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

  He was a criminal, and Marcus had known about him, at least indirectly, since he was ten years old, way back in Chicago. He’d sure as hell known about Dominick’s father-in-law, Carlo Carlucci. To think of him made Marcus’s guts cramp with remembered pain.

  Why had Rafaella chosen Dominick? He planned to ask her this very evening.

  At six o’clock that evening Rafaella opened her villa door to his knock. He gave her a cocky grin. “You look quite nice, but I guess you already know that. Another designer thing?”

  “It’s a silk sundress with flowers on it and you wouldn’t know the designer’s name so I won’t waste it on you.”

  It was off-the-shoulders and he remarked, “No bra. I like it even more.”

  “Well, I don’t like this,” Rafaella said as she eyed the motor scooter and the helmet she was to strap under her chin. “How do I know you can drive this sucker any better than you did the helicopter?”

  “Put your arms around my waist and be quiet.”

  She laughed. “Can’t take the heat? A very common male failing, I’ve noticed.”

  He revved the motor scooter and spun out. Rafaella grabbed his waist and threw herself forward against his back. “I’ll get you for that.”

  “Not until I stop this thing, you won’t.”

  He didn’t stop it until they reached the helicopter remains on the middle ridge. “Off,” he said, and swung his leg over.

  “Why are you stopping here?”

  “I want to ask you something and you’re going to tell me the truth or I just might shake it out of you.”

  Rafaella grew instantly still and braced herself.

  “Just as I had expected, I found out a bit more about you. Like the fact that your mother’s in the hospital in a coma and you’re down here in the Caribbean jet-setting around trying to weasel your way in with Dominick. Why? And don’t lie, Ms. Holland. I know you—from the inside out, I guess you could say.”

  What to say? How had he found out? Well, she hadn’t bothered to cover many tracks, because Dominick Giovanni wouldn’t recognize from her present connections that she was his daughter. He probably wouldn’t have recognized her if she’d walked up to him and said, “Hi, Daddy. You remember Margaret in New Milford back in 1975?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Talk. Now.”

  Rafaella just shook her head. She had to think, and think fast. Then she looked at him, really looked, and knew he was dead serious. His eyes were nearly black with concentration. She knew he’d catch her in a lie, and she wondered suddenly how he could have come to know her so well after such a short time.

  She sighed, becoming as serious as he. “All right. I can’t tell you.”

  “Just why the hell not?”

  “I just can’t. Are you going to tell Mr. Giovanni?”

  “I already did. Actually it didn’t seem to make all that great an impact. But with him you never know. He’s not all that straightforward, holds things close to his chest. I suggest you be very careful. If you’re here for reasons other than a book, you should leave while you’ve still got your sweet hide intact.”

  “I’m here to do a book on him. That’s all, I swear it.”

  “You’d better be telling the truth, because I think he finds you a bit toothsome. You could end up on your back in his bed if he doesn’t like your writing.”

  Sleep with my father? She very nearly laughed at that. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no.”

  “You prefer younger men, do you? Why did you leave your mother?”

  “My mother’s accident, her current condition—it’s not relevant to this. I’d already planned to do this book, and my stepfather told me there was nothing I could do back home. I was there for nearly a week after the accident. Now I call him every day to check on her condition. Nothing’s changed. But then, I assume you know I call every day to Long Island.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not a very trusting sort, are you?”

  “Since you’re about as trustworthy and as up-front as most women, I’d say I’m pretty smart not to trust.”

  “Sexist.”

  “Not really. It’s Dominick who’s the sexist, which, if you stay, you’ll discover for yourself. Take Coco, who’s one smart lady. She’s his mistress; he treats her well, buys her whatever she wants, but she’s not his equal—not in his eyes. She’s there to service him, to jolly him out of bad moods, to listen to him whenever he wants to talk, to feed his masculine ego.

  “He wanted DeLorio to marry Paula because he thought, mistakenly, that she’d straighten him out and produce offspring quickly and frequently. We’re talking barefoot and pregnant here. God, was he off target there. She’s hot for anything in Jockey shorts, and the last thing she wants is a kid ruining her figure. If she had a child now, no one would know who the father was. Oh, and there’s another thing. DeLorio will be after you in a flash. He’s like his old man in matters of the flesh. Unlike his old man, I’ve heard he isn’t all that considerate a lover. He likes a woman to be utterly compliant, submissive.”

  “Why are you warning me, and with such explicit language? You don’t even like me. You surely don’t trust me.”

  He gave her a slow smile then, his eyes lighting. “Ms. Holland, any woman I take on my front lawn, I don’t like to have despoiled by some other man, particularly one with such tastes as DeLorio has. No, no more throwing me on my back. I’m serious, and if you try your karate on me now, I’ll tie you up and take you back to the resort.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “You sound just like a little kid in the sixth grade, ready to fight it out. Come on, let’s get going. Do you still want to go through with it?”

  “Certainly. Thanks for the warning. And, Marcus?”

  “Yeah?”
r />   “I’m just here to do that biography. Nothing more, I swear it to you.”

  “It’s Dominick you’ll have to convince, Ms. Holland.”

  Eleven

  “I want to drive the rest of the way,” Rafaella said, and swung her leg over the motor-scooter seat. The skirt of the dress wasn’t full, but it had enough material to keep it from crawling up her legs.

  “A pity,” Marcus said, eyeing the skirt, then shrugged and climbed on behind her. He immediately hugged himself against her back, his arms around her waist.

  “Not so tight,” she said, and tried to shake free of him. “It’s bloody warm.” When he only tightened his arms, she twisted about to face him. “All right, lover boy, let me tell you something. You say you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t particularly trust you. And it’s not a question of my virtue. It’s just that you’re—well, you don’t seem the type of man to me who would be content to run a resort for another man, no matter how swank, no matter how high the salary.”

  “Hmmm. What else do you see in your tea leaves?”

  “You’re probably something of a renegade. You like to be in charge—Lord, do I ever know that personally. You value your independence and you don’t like to accept orders from other people.”

  Interesting, Marcus thought. He moved his hands up until they were touching the undersides of her breasts. That should distract her. It sure was getting to him. But she didn’t move, just looked at him.

  “No, you’re not what you seem, but you’re not going to tell me, are you? Are you a crook, Mr. Devlin? A plain garden-variety-type criminal? Is Devlin even your real name? You never answered me on that one, incidentally.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s in that strange looking book I saw you with that first night? The one that made you cry?”

  He felt the shock go through her body, but she didn’t flinch. She was very good.

  He pushed a bit more. “I saw it again on the side of your tub this morning. What is it?”

  “None of your business,” she said, and gunned the motor scooter.

  He could hear her muttering curses under her breath, and he smiled at the back of her helmet.

  But he was worried. He’d been very worried since he’d spoken to Dominick.

  She was one smart cookie, and perceptive. She was also too impulsive, and that could get her hurt.

  It was a clear, sweet-scented evening, and for an unwanted moment Rafaella found herself alone with Paula. Where was Coco? Marcus? Anyone?

  Paula wasted no time with preliminary skirmishes.

  “So tell me, Miss Holland, which one are you after? Marcus? Dominick? Or my husband?”

  Rafaella merely smiled at Paula, who looked innocent and young and vulnerable in a pale peach silk sundress, her long light blond hair hanging straight to her shoulders. She didn’t look like she wanted to get in every guy’s Jockey shorts.

  “I want you to leave. It isn’t healthy here, not for someone like you.”

  The two women were standing on the veranda that faced the swimming pool. The scent of hibiscus and bougainvillea filled the evening air. It was warm but not uncomfortably so. The sun had just gone down and it was that particularly spectacular time of evening in the Caribbean that lasted mere minutes.

  “On the contrary, it’s beautiful here. Just smell the air. So sweet. Don’t you agree?”

  “DeLorio’s my husband.”

  “Congratulations,” Rafaella said. “Look, Paula, I swear to steer very clear of your husband. Satisfied?”

  “And Marcus?”

  “Why ever should you care about Marcus? You’re not a bigamist, are you?”

  “You’re not funny, Miss Holland.”

  “Very likely not, but you know, Paula, it’s rather odd to be having this conversation in 2001.”

  “What do you mean?” Paula’s voice was heavy with suspicion.

  “Women competing over men, arguing over them. Women not seeing each other as allies, but as natural enemies.”

  “You mean all that sisterhood crap our mothers preached back in the Dark Ages?”

  “That’s what I mean. Listen up, Paula. I’m not after any man. You got that?”

  “Yeah? For someone who is not out to snare a guy you sure do seem to put a whole lot of care into presenting a pretty package—I mean, that designer outfit isn’t exactly sack cloth.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Paula had a point there. It wasn’t that Rafaella hadn’t ever exploited her looks, because she had. She’d played that angle plenty of times for the sake of getting a story. She remembered coming onto that jerk neo-Nazi—Lazarus, he’d styled himself—to get him to talk.

  “Would you just believe, Paula, that there’s more to life than men?” So much for keeping her mouth shut. So much for coming across like a hypocrite, which she probably was. Really she just didn’t want to admit to herself that Marcus, in a revoltingly short time, had managed somehow to throw her so totally off-balance again and again.

  “You just try going after Marcus and I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Paula?”

  “Make you sorry.”

  Such a little girl. At least that was how she was coming across. A spoiled little rich girl who needed the attention of any and all males constantly fastened exclusively on her. Rafaella eyed her closely. Al Holbein had told her time and time again not to be satisfied with surface appearances. “There’s always something deeper, Rafe, even if the person comes across like a glowing idiot.”

  Marcus had dismissed Paula as exactly what she appeared to be. But he was a man, and evidently Paula had come onto him. When he’d been helpless—What had she done?

  “What are you grinning about?”

  “I was just remembering what Marcus told me about you, when he was helpless and you—” She paused, not knowing how to proceed. She didn’t have to. Paula went pale, then turned as red as the mahogany sideboard inside the dining room. Then she looked furious.

  “He told you about that?”

  Rafaella just shrugged, her smile never slipping. What had she done anyway?

  To her further surprise, Paula looked humiliated.

  “That bastard. He loved it, he just pretended he didn’t at first. He was hard and he enjoyed pushing into my mouth, and he was groaning and pushing, the damned bastard.”

  And Paula was gone in a whirl of peach silk skirt and long bare legs.

  “What was that all about?”

  Rafaella jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice. “Oh, hello, Marcus. I don’t suppose you were eavesdropping? No, even you couldn’t have carried it off in magnificent silence, given the subject matter.”

  “Which was? Here’s a rum punch for you.”

  She sipped it. It was too sweet and far too potent. She gave him a sweeter smile.

  “Paula, er, taking advantage of you when you were down, and how you loved it.”

  “Well, well,” he mused aloud, but Rafaella wasn’t fooled for a moment. His fingers had tightened around his glass and there was an interesting tic in his jaw. He was embarrassed. He was mad. He had wanted none of it. Rafaella was watching him and thinking how odd it was that she seemed to know him so well after only a few days. And she knew him, or was coming to know him more quickly than she ever had another human being.

  “You were really that helpless? When was this?”

  “I was shot here a while back. I was laid up in bed and too weak to fend her off. Coco tried to protect me, but she couldn’t be there all the time.”

  “And DeLorio?”

  “He was in Miami. I wasn’t safe until he got back.” Then Marcus stared at her. He’d just spilled his damned guts and she hadn’t really questioned him in a pushy way, hadn’t pressured him, just looked at him so warmly, as if telling her would solve all his problems. Only it wouldn’t. Telling her anything could get both of them killed. “Look, Ms. Holland. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you on this island. I doubt that I even want you in the Caribbean. You’re dangerous to
yourself and you’re damned dangerous to me.” He was looking at her as though he wanted to smack her. Then he shook his head and plowed his fingers through his hair. “Oh, what the hell!” And like Paula, he turned on his heel and stomped off. Only he walked in the opposite direction, along the side of the swimming pool, toward the far deep end. It was shrouded in evening shadows.

  Rafaella watched him, not moving. He was a complex man and she wished desperately that she could have met him in another time, in another place, anywhere but here, with Dominick Giovanni. She recognized this in herself and accepted it, but not willingly. He was making her crazy. Even now she was looking after him, not wanting him out of her sight. She watched him stop suddenly and jerk around. He stared down into the water. Then he dropped to his hands and knees, peering over the edge of the pool, his body tense, his eyes searching. She watched him pull something out of his pocket and toss it behind him. Then in a fluid movement he straightened and dived into the water.

  Her heart jumped. Oh, Lord, what was wrong? What had he seen? A body? Something, something—? Adrenaline surged.

  She ran to the other end of the pool, stared down into the shadowed water, saw Marcus’s outline, and without further hesitation kicked off her shoes and jumped in. She sucked in air and kicked downward, her beautiful silk floral dress billowing up around her chest.

  His hands went around her waist and he pulled her to the surface, still holding her.

  She sputtered out water and tried to wipe her hair out of her eyes. “What are you doing? What’s wrong? What’s down there?”

  Marcus gave her an evil grin and pushed her against the side of the pool, letting her find her footing on the narrow ledge. It was nearly dark, they were in deep shadows, and the air was soft. Hummingbirds dived about the bougainvillea, pausing to feed, then dipping and fluttering to another blossom. Evening insects hummed. They were alone.

  Rafaella tried to pull away from him, but he held on. “You scared the hell out of me. What did you see?”