Blood Ties

by Warren Adler

  "You're quite beautiful. You have a career. You're intelligent." He rubbed her shoulder, then bent down to kiss a blade. "And desirable."

  "To everyone but Albert," she said, almost like a child. Her logic was growing fuzzy.

  "Well, I'm not exactly everyone."

  Again she lapsed into silence. Then a sob escaped her.

  "Please, no waterworks," he said firmly. His words must have had the desired effect, because the sob stopped almost as swiftly as it started.

  "No waterworks." She drained her drink. He lifted a hand and snapped the waiter away from his innamorato.

  "I thought perhaps we might recapture it. You know, it's like the tide. Sometimes high. Sometimes low. We had been through it before. A brief indifference. Even irritation with each other. Then pow, back in high gear. High tide again. You could feel the pull of the moon inside of you." The waiter brought her another drink.

  "I'm getting smashed," Dawn said.

  "Do you good."

  He felt his erection rise tightly against his pants. It has no conscience, he observed. Say anything. Do anything. He felt no guilt in encouraging her drunkenness. All's fair when it comes to this. And he let her ramble on.

  "Perhaps it won't last. If only I had the discipline to exercise patience. To stop being a caricature of the jealous mistress. He's my man, after all. Not that we've talked seriously of marriage." She swallowed a few gulps of her drink. "I think we could have married long ago." She looked at Siegfried and bit her lip, an obvious gesture of withholding. "Can I tell you something privately?" Her voice became low and, as if to mask her words, the violinist's music seemed louder.

  "I would never betray the confidence of a beautiful woman," he said with mock seriousness. She did not catch the humor.

  "I'm Jewish," she whispered. He felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek. He had expected something of the sort, a shocking intelligence. But the irony of this revelation had a special beauty. Considering that his uncle, the Count von Berghoff, had been convicted of crimes against the Jews for his mischief in Poland, which had hastened his death in prison, the revelation had a rather special aroma.

  "How fortunate," he said. "To belong to such an accomplished ancient race."

  "I was supposed to stay mum on that score," she said. "It's a sort of betrayal, don't you think?"

  "So in a way, your presence is a kind of rebellion. That does show a bit of character for Albert, wouldn't you say?" He felt a mandatory tug to defend his brother. Von Kassels stick together. But she was deep in drunken thought now and had lost his sense.

  "I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't smashed," she said finally. "I mean I am mad, angry. But I don't want to be vindictive. You understand. If I go, I'd like to walk like a lady. With a touch of class."

  He moved his lips to her ear and whispered, "How could you do otherwise?"

  "Dammit," she said suddenly, startling him. "Why is this happening?" The effect of the alcohol was telling. He kissed her neck, hoping to calm her.

  "If you belonged to me, I'd never let you go," he said, moving her hand to his erection outside of his pants. Her fingers clamped around it indifferently. She was going along, not participating. With her free hand, she finished her drink, but he did not call for more. Looking up, he noted that Adolph glared at him, obviously annoyed that their presence was keeping the young waiter from the pederast cousin's gratification. Suddenly her face loomed in front of his, the eyes heavy and bloodshot, the lips puffy. She was beyond the limits of her capacity now, having trouble with her tongue and the position of her head. But her mind concentrated on her central fixation.

  "Do you think I'm a fool?" Dawn demanded, her voice rising.

  "Of course not," he soothed.

  "You're not telling me the truth." Her disposition seemed to be taking an ugly turn.

  "But I am; you're agitated." He wanted to say, "You're drunk," but then he was still harboring thoughts of conquest. And her hand still held his hard organ.

  "I hate him for doing this to me," she said, whimpering. "He is everything to me." She paused. "I should go home. I am of no use here. I should go as far away from him as I can, from all of you." She removed her hand. "I detest being used. You von Kassels use everybody. You victimize people." He let her ramble. She was working herself up into a frenzy.

  "No one has the guts to stand up to you." It was now the central core of her theme.

  "Put her to bed," Adolph hissed. She didn't hear him, rambling on. Siegfried ignored the request, but then she raised her voice louder.

  "I won't let him victimize me," she cried. He stood up and raised her to her feet. She staggered against him.

  "Come on," he said. "The air will clear your head."

  She moved with him, docile, still talking, her body leaning heavily against his. And yet, he admitted that he felt some exaltation in his own sense of mischief. It was one of his most potent fantasies. Himself, in the role of the ultimate iconoclast. He wanted to molest both her body and her mind. It excited him to think that. He maneuvered her out into the air, drawing her away from the castle, to a clump of trees a short distance from the castle's outer wall. During the day he had remembered it as a place of repose, a wooden bench surrounded by a bower of well-kept flowers and a patch of manicured grass. The night air was delicious, clearing his head instantly. He replaced the air in his lungs with the soft cool perfumed night air.

  "Breathe deep," he urged her. He had wrapped his jacket around her bare shoulders but his arm was around her. The infusion of air seemed to calm her. In the distance the violin music stopped abruptly. Her head fell back on his shoulder and he held her quietly, looking upward at the canopy of stars, and the sudden rush of obscuring clouds. In the distance, caught in the odd telepathy of the night air, he heard faint voices.

  He was curious, but only for a moment, since he was watching her face, listening to her steady breathing. After a long pause, he whispered into her ear. He wondered if she had passed out.

  "Are you all right?" There was no answer. Siegfried repeated the question. Then he felt her head nod and kissed her forehead, feeling the renewed surge of sexuality. When he reached her lips, he first felt rejection in the hardened lips, then a softening, a yielding. When he removed his lips, he heard her voice, a faint protest.

  "Mustn't."

  "Let me comfort you," he said, his fingers caressing her nipples. He felt them rise and harden under his touch, but he did not act swiftly, unsure of his ground. She put a hand over his and tried feebly to remove it.

  "I understand what you're going through, Dawn. Let me help you." Both his mind and body were alert, summoning his powers of persuasion. She was vulnerable now, a condition he sought in women, working for the moment of ultimate consent, when whatever contrived defenses finally fell.

  "I hate him," she whispered, the tongue still heavy.

  "You have every right."

  He had removed a strap and bent over her breast, sucking a nipple, feeling its response. Despite the numbing alcohol, she was responding with strength now, as her breath came swiftly. But he was still reluctant to move too fast. The idea of the mischief excited him. He reached upward under her dress, his hand caressing her inner thighs, reaching for the Y of her body, seeking entrance into her moist parts, sure now of his method, caressing her clitoris, which was hard and large. Despite the sensuality of his own reactions, his mind grasped the bizarre wonder of it. His brother's mistress, on a bench under the stars. The full moon lightened the night and the bare skin of her breasts and thighs would be visible to the eye giving the episode a further air of danger. He was manipulating her easily now, pressing the advantage as her instincts gave in fully to the pleasures he was arousing. She was strongly sexual, he found, her breath staccato, as he touched her rhythmically, waiting for the moment. Then, with the skill of an experienced practitioner in the seductive art, he removed his jacket and laid it on the patch of grass, then lifted her onto it, first raising her skirt to mid-torso, seeing the ful
l outline of the white body reflected in the light, with the dark patch, hungry now and waiting.

  Loosening his pants, he let them fall, knowing that his buttocks would shine strongly in the odd light, providing some wild symbolic picture of his own contempt for the von Kassels. Kneeling, he guided his hardness into her, feeling the instant response as her body rose to meet his and abandoned itself to the instinct of creation. He pounded inside of her roughly, as if his own body required itself to be completely emptied, like a vessel filled with some bitter bile that needed to be expelled. His pleasure came from deep inside of him and even after he climaxed he remained hard inside of her, although he ceased to move. She quieted slowly, decelerating in sudden waves of pleasure, her body trembling like a sunken ship that continues to pulsate with life.

  They lay there until he felt the chill on the exposed parts of his body. She had closed her eyes and he saw big tears slip down over her cheeks.

  "It was necessary," he whispered. "We needed each other." He had expected her remorse.

  She shrugged, wiped her tears and moved him away. Then she stood up, straightening her dress, while he fixed his pants. She was still having trouble with her balance and he held her steady with one arm. She giggled involuntarily.

  "Still dizzy?"

  "A little."

  But they were distracted by footsteps approaching, and voices. He looked at her and put a finger over his lips. They watched, recognizing the couple, moving slowly now along a gravel path toward the castle.

  "It is pointless," Siegfried warned, whispering. Her eyes had opened wide and her lips tightened in a contemptuous smirk. Although the sound of the others' voices carried, they could not make out the words. The path wound away from them and the two figures moved, swifter now, toward the castle, caught clearly in the entrance light. He wondered if they would embrace now or had experienced what he had just enjoyed. The anger emanating from Dawn seemed palpable.

  "The bastard," she hissed. The sound seemed louder where they stood, but her voice had not carried to the couple, who moved into the hotel.

  "What's good for the goose..." she said, her tongue clear again. "He couldn't wait for me to get out of there."

  "Accept it then." His sense of mischief was dissipated, along with his spent desire. He felt only pity for her now.

  "I accept nothing," she said. She shivered and looked up at the stars, now visible, as a patch of cloud had passed. He lifted his coat from the ground and put it around her shoulders. She shrugged it off.

  "Don't be so fucking solicitous. You got what you wanted."

  "Value offered. Value received."

  He expected a burst of anger. Instead, she smiled, throwing her head back and laughing. "You are alike you know," she said.

  "Are you angry?"

  "Not angry," she said. He liked her, genuinely, admiring her honesty. She shook her head. "I suppose I betrayed him. It would have been unthinkable even this morning."

  They walked into the empty lobby. The sleepy clerk lifted heavy moon eyes and tried to look alert as they passed him.

  "Accept it, Dawn," he said again as they stood waiting for the elevator, which creaked and groaned toward them. She looked at him with narrowing eyes, then smiled, flashing almost perfect teeth. A single imperfection, one crooked eye tooth, hardened the image of her. The elevator opened and they stepped in. They pressed their respective buttons and the cab churned into dubious action, like a great beast awakened from a sound sleep.

  "You mustn't do anything foolish," he said, knowing that the anxiety was visible now. It was, of course, his own Achilles' heel. It was perfectly safe to be mildly mischievous, clever and outrageous, providing that the rocked boat did not draw water. He watched as her smile changed. There were new aspects to her, as if her range were expanding before his eyes. The elevator stopped. The grated door clanked open. The embryo of a new fear gripped him.

  "I already have," she said. Then her face seemed to clap shut and he moved out of the elevator. He turned back only after the elevator door had closed, watching the mirrored surface of the outer door. In it, he saw his pale face clearly. Frightened, it stared back at him.

  CHAPTER 9

  The sun streamed brightly in the Baron's room through the arched windows of the high tower. The mist had disappeared early and the view from the window was panoramic, with the mountains and the valley sharply etched. Charles sat propped up by the overstuffed pillows on the high feather bed. Earlier, a barber from the nearby town had come by to cut his hair and shave him, an old custom that gave the Baron pleasure. By the time the others began to arrive for breakfast, he was properly groomed and rouged. His image in the glass stared back with satisfaction while Karla, with compliments, buttressed his sense of well-being.

  He always felt stronger in the morning, a condition which faded as the day progressed, although he was able to marvel at the stamina he displayed at last night's dinner.

  "You look well, Father," Rudi said as he entered the room and walked to the edge of the bed. Two waiters had set a large round table and the smell of coffee and bacon was pervasive and tempting. Charles nodded to his second son, offering a thin smile. The plutonium matter had put his second son in a new light. Perhaps over the years he had missed something about him, the clumsiness and chubbiness a barrier to understanding the person within.

  Siegfried arrived, pasty-faced, going directly to the coffeepot, taking it from the waiter and pouring a steaming cup, which he sipped saucerless with a shaking hand. The Baron's disgust with his oldest son was absolute. Perhaps he suffered him because he was, after all, the oldest, a lesser evil within the circle than outside of it. As long as he merely attended, said little, provided no difficulties or interference, he would be tolerated. Like Charles' own father.

  Frederick and Wilhelm arrived together, overly solicitous and fawning, taking their seats around the table, sitting stiff-backed and silent as they waited for the group to assemble. They were brothers although they were diametrically different in physiognomy. Wilhelm short and tiny boned. Frederick, tall, sandy-haired and rough-skinned. They were the grandsons of his grandfather's brother who had died early.

  Albert, Klaus, and Adolph followed, paying their respect to the old man while Karla fussed with the comforter and repositioned the pillows. Small talk seemed superfluous as the men silently ate and drank while the waiters hovered over them.

  "Excellent," Adolph exclaimed, wiping his heavy lips daintily with his napkin and smiling at one of the waiters, the younger one.

  "Really," Siegfried said, watching his cousin with amusement.

  Adolph blushed and lowered his eyes.

  "Will you please leave?" Karla said suddenly, directing the order to the waiters, who understood immediately and quietly left the room.

  When they had gone, Albert lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, exhaling the smoke through flared nostrils. The Baron recognized the gesture. Albert was uneasy. It would be an interesting test of his younger son's coolness.

  Since the last reunion, the von Kassel arms brokering network had pulled off the most complex deal in the history of the family. Orchestrated by Albert with superb cooperation of everyone seated around the table, the family had disposed of most of the American arms abandoned in Vietnam. It was done with such cool efficiency that even the old Baron had marveled. Albert had come to see him two years ago, and in the space of less than a half hour had outlined the deal without a note on paper.

  The von Kassels kept few records, except for a coded inventory on computers. Profits were siphoned off through countless international corporations. The Baron recalled his mounting excitement as Albert had outlined the deal in the characteristic monotone that von Kassels used in their business dealings.

  "The Americans have left five billion dollars worth in total value, 800,000 M16's, six hundred M48 tanks, a hundred self-propelled guns. Value, one million each. Seventy-three Northrop fighters, some still crated, and an IBM computer with a trained Vietnamese cadre. The com
puter they kept. The Israelis, as usual, bartered their Russian cache for a portion of the rifles and the self-propelled, laying off some on the Lebanese Christians. Otherwise, we stayed clear of the moderate Arabs. Too many American advisors aware of the inventory. South Africa took some of the Tigers for their rag-tag secret air fleet. Excellent customers for aircraft since they have a devil of a time getting them from anyplace else. We shipped them in Panamanian bottoms as Toyotas. Rudi did a hell of a job spreading the tanks around South America. Between Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil and, of course, Israel, we moved them swiftly and without a hitch. The goods were well spread, although we had to do some trading with the Yugos and the Hungarians who needed repo parts for their older Russian stuff which we got from the Egyptians. Adolph moved some of the tanks to the Thais and Indonesians and, of course, the Aussies came in for a fair share of the self-propelled. Wilhelm had his hands full moving the currency and gold around, but, actually, for such a massive disposal, it went rather smoothly. Thank goodness the Russians and the Americans got everybody hooked on different weapons. Otherwise we might have had troubles. The oddest factor is that all the spooks from CIA and KGB have got to know what came down, but nobody's talking or moving against the traffic because it's good for everybody, especially us. It was simple actually. Even the movement of gold to the Vietnamese. The Chinese were most cooperative and Adolph was masterful. Even the Americans got something out of it, considering that they'll have to move repo parts for the in-use equipment."

  The Baron had listened with awe to his son's description. Albert was not bragging, simply reporting on the transaction as he had been doing ever since the operational end of the business had been turned over to him. He had been satisfied then that his son had the capability to assume the control that he could no longer exercise. Then, why the hesitation now, he wondered, remembering what Rudi had said: "He is making a moral judgment that has no place in our business."

  It was Rudi's voice again, pitched high, that recalled his sense of place. Except for the light clinking of cups on saucers, the room was silent as soon as Rudi started to speak. The Baron watched as Albert punched out his cigarette in the ashtray and folded his hands.