The House on Sunset Lake

by Tasmina Perry

  Listen to me, he thought as the driver made the turn. Native New Yorker already.

  Saul’s home was in the Upper East Side, and Jim’s smile faded as he realised they were about to pass near to Jennifer’s town house – or rather, Connor’s house as it would be, once Jennifer moved out. Jim imagined him at home, drinking his coffee, stewing, hating Jim, and wanted to get out of this part of the city as quickly as he could.

  He had received the summons to go and see Saul a couple of weeks earlier. His mother had been pestering him to visit his father’s old agent for months, but somehow Jim had never got round to it. He’d been at the office late one night when a call came in from Saul himself.

  ‘I’ve got something for your father,’ he’d instructed in his booming voice. ‘I need you to give it to him before the party.’

  With everything that had been going on with RedReef, Jim still hadn’t got round to seeing Saul, but as his father’s party was the following day, he knew he needed to make it happen. He hadn’t imagined for one moment that he’d be leaving Jennifer Wyatt in his bed. There was a certain irony to the situation: his visit to Saul’s was about to bring him full circle. After all, if it hadn’t been for his father’s agent suggesting Casa D’Or as a writer’s retreat, the Johnsons would never have met the Wyatt family, and Jim would never have crossed paths with Jennifer.

  He smiled to himself. Saul had always been such a man about town, a larger-than-life character; his booming Brooklyn accent and unflappable personality ever present during Jim’s formative years. Dinner was often interrupted when Bryn had to take a call from New York, which almost always ended in shouting or laughter or both, and whenever Saul was in London, he’d be at the Hampstead house for dinner and shop talk into the early hours.

  At last they pulled up outside an Upper East Side co-op. Jim knew the street well. Simon had a couple of blocks up here in the Desai residential portfolio, and they had even played with the idea of turning one of them into a deluxe hotel along the lines of the Mark and the Carlyle before they had received a deluge of objections from the wealthy residents nearby. Saul was probably one of them.

  Jim announced himself to the doorman, who directed him to a lift, gold, with a tiny plush velvet seat inside, that made Jim feel as if he had gone back in time to the fifties. He rode to the eighth floor and rang the bell. A Far Eastern lady dressed in a navy tunic and slacks, an outfit he recognised as a carer’s, greeted him at the door, and Jim was ushered through.

  He heard the noise first – a deep, long buzz – and then Saul appeared round the corner in a wheelchair. Jim was momentarily shocked to see him. He was old, thin and so frail that the chair seemed to drown him. But beyond that he was the same old Saul. His hair was now white, but still wild like a cartoon professor’s, the same mischievous brown eyes twinkling through heavy seventies-style glasses.

  ‘Hey, Jimmy!’ he cried, swivelling the chair to face him. ‘How d’ya like the place, huh?’

  What had once been a glitzy reception room, the scene of many drunken debates between Bryn and his agent, had been stripped and rearranged into what was obviously a living space, with a desk and a narrow bed and a large TV set in the corner.

  ‘It . . . it has character,’ said Jim.

  Saul laughed loud enough to shake the windows.

  ‘I brought the bed in here. I spend so much time in it I thought I might as well have the big window, the light,’ he said, bringing the wheelchair closer to Jim. ‘Look at you.’ He smiled, studying him. ‘All grown up. It’s good to see you, kid.’

  ‘It’s great to see you too, Saul.’

  ‘I’m surprised you remember me,’ he grinned, adjusting his spectacles.

  ‘You came round to our house at least twice a year until I was nearly twenty-one. Of course I bloody remember you.’

  Saul laughed. ‘Hey, Lucille, fetch us a couple of drinks, wouldya?’

  Jim was taken aback. ‘Saul, it’s not even lunchtime . . .’

  ‘I got a fifty-year-old Scotch in the cabinet. Better drink it, whatever time of day it is, before they confiscate it.’

  ‘Confiscate it?’

  ‘I’m moving into a home. Me!’

  He gestured to an armchair as Lucille brought over a couple of measures of whisky.

  ‘Lucille’s become a grandmom, haven’t you, Lou?’ said Saul. ‘So she’s leaving me to help her own family. I haven’t got it in me to start with someone new, and I got to face it: an eighth-floor apartment ain’t the best place in the world for someone who lives in one of these.’ He tapped his hand against the side of the wheelchair.

  ‘I’m sure it will be social. Plenty of ladies to chase.’ Jim smiled.

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ snorted Saul. ‘Can’t do more than about two miles an hour in this, so let’s hope they got a few with bad hips. Anyway . . .’ He raised his glass towards Jim. ‘Good health, huh?’

  Jim sipped the Scotch and grimaced.

  ‘Pretty smooth,’ laughed Saul, catching the expression. ‘I thought you’d be used to the good stuff now you’ve got that snazzy job with Simon Desai. And you can tell your boss that if he ever wants to sell his memoirs, I know five publishers that would have them like that.’

  He clicked his fingers together in a slow but exaggerated gesture. Jim tried not to notice how much his hands were shaking.

  ‘Once an agent, always an agent, eh, Saul?’

  ‘You know I was still executive chairman of the agency until a couple of years ago. Problems started when I could barely walk to the boardroom, let along chair it. How’s your father?’

  ‘Good. You’ve heard about his CBE?’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’

  ‘Never knowingly hides his light under a bushel, my father. Are you looking forward to the party?’

  ‘I’m not coming,’ replied Saul, glancing away.

  ‘Not coming?’ said Jim incredulously. It was hard to imagine that Saul would want to miss being in the thick of a literary soirée.

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Saul, come on. From where I’m sitting, you don’t appear to be living in party central.’

  ‘Lucille’s night off, isn’t it.’

  ‘Then come with me. I can pick you up, take you to the venue . . . You’ll know everyone there.’

  ‘Precisely,’ he said quietly.

  He took another swig of his Scotch.

  ‘You know, I was someone once, Jim. Someone who made careers, who people listened to. And the truth is, the older you get, the more people should listen to you. But it doesn’t work like that. They listen to you but they’re not interested in what you’ve got to say.’

  ‘Saul, don’t be silly.’

  ‘Your father will have half of the beau monde at his party and I don’t want them to see me like this. I want them to remember me as I was. Racing to Elaine’s or Michael’s with the hottest manuscript in town in my briefcase and the prettiest girl in town on my arm. Not some old guy in a wheelchair they have to give five minutes’ polite chit-chat to.’

  ‘Saul, everyone will be thrilled to see you.’

  ‘The wise man knows when to bow out,’ he said quietly.

  Jim wanted to tell him that until a couple of days ago he would have said the same thing, but now he believed that you had to play your hand as long as possible, but Saul had already wheeled his chair over to the bookcase.

  ‘I’ve got something for him,’ he said, more briskly.

  ‘My father?’

  ‘I got Lucille to sort a gift. She’s better at that sort of thing than me. I think she got him some fancy case of wine. But then I found this as well,’ he said, struggling to lift something heavy off the shelf.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ said Jim, going over.

  ‘When you move outta place after fifty years, there’s always one hell of a clear-out.’ Saul handed him a thick white envelope. ‘We found this.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jim, feeling the weight of it in his hands.

  Ther
e was a twinkle in Saul’s eye.

  ‘Your father’s first draft manuscript of College.’

  ‘You kept it?’

  ‘He came to see me in New York, Christmas 1994. I was always the first person to see his work, and with your father, I never knew what to expect,. I was particularly nervous that meeting,’ he said, shaking his frail head. ‘I knew it was my final throw of the dice with him. If going to Savannah wasn’t going to help him find his writer’s mojo, then I didn’t know what I was going to do. But . . .’ He paused and looked away, lost in thought. ‘But I had nothing to worry about. I read it straight after he’d gone and couldn’t put it down until I’d finished it. I knew I had an important piece of fiction in my hands.’

  ‘And that’s it,’ said Jim, nodding towards the envelope.

  ‘The only original version in existence, I guess. Could have sold it, might have paid for one of those stair-lift things, but screw it, eh?’

  ‘This changed our lives, you know.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Saul, nodding sagely. ‘Give it to him at the party, huh?’

  ‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you to come? It would mean a lot if you were there.’

  ‘I’ll catch up with him some other time,’ Saul replied in a voice that suggested he wouldn’t.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Jim said, knowing that time was ticking. ‘I’m on a flight that leaves in two hours.’

  ‘Tell your father I love him, all right?’

  ‘Now you’re getting mawkish.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  Jim nodded and left the apartment, glad that he had made the time to visit.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jim hesitated for only a moment as Gregor Bentley parked outside a large white villa on the outskirts of Baruda’s main town, St Sebastian.

  ‘Right, I’m going in,’ he said with more confidence than he felt, turning to Gregor and unfastening his seat belt, knowing that now was as good a time as any.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?’ asked Gregor, turning to the two burly men sitting in the back seat.

  Jim still hadn’t been introduced to them properly. Gregor had described them as security. They hadn’t said a word on the journey over to Marshall Roberts’ house, and Jim didn’t doubt they were both carrying guns hidden in their socks or underpants.

  He wondered if his younger self might have seen some sort of glamour in this situation, imagined he was in Ocean’s Eleven, but the truth was he was frightened. Here he was, about to go and negotiate with a known mobster, a dangerous and ruthless man who thought nothing of extortion and violence when it was a means to his own ends.

  Even an hour earlier, he had felt calm, had seen it merely as a problem he had to get efficiently out of the way. Perhaps his night with Jennifer had buoyed him, given him a little armour plating. But standing here in the hot Caribbean sun, he realised the folly of what he was about to do. He was about to go into Marshall Roberts’ house, and there was the possibility that he might not come out again.

  Just as life was getting interesting, he thought grimly, thinking of Jennifer in his bed, a montage of images flashing suddenly in his head, a realisation that he was happy and content and at peace.

  He slammed the car door shut, hearing the gravel drive crunch underfoot. Taking a deep breath, he pressed an intercom button on the gate, which opened after a second, a CCTV camera turning and focusing on him, like a beady eye following him as he walked up the path towards the house.

  Marshall Roberts’ home was not as grand as Jim might have imagined. It was large, but in a poor state of repair; the many millions he had extorted from businesses such as RedReef had clearly been ploughed into a Swiss bank account rather than his home.

  Jim was met by a maid, who led him out to a porch that overlooked both the town and the sea. Baruda was almost completely flat, unlike the more rugged and luscious islands like St Lucia, but Roberts’ house must have been at its highest point. Jim stood with one hand on the rail, consciously not turning his back to the house but keen to get some fortifying sun on his face. After a minute he heard footsteps padding through the property.

  He had imagined a man with presence, perhaps with a gold tooth or some Prohibition-style fedora, flanked by sinister-looking henchmen. But Marshall Roberts was alone. He was an unremarkable-looking man, slim, of average height, in suit trousers and a pale blue short-sleeved shirt. His black hair was cropped close to his head and was flecked with wiry silver strands. He had a big gold signet ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, where the dark skin had cracked and paled around his toes.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Johnson,’ he said simply in a deep voice that carried more gravitas than his appearance. ‘You wanted to discuss something with me.’

  Jim nodded and perched on the edge of a wicker sofa.

  ‘I’m impressed you had the balls to come and discuss things with me directly. So many don’t.’

  ‘I’ve dealt with people like you before, Mr Roberts,’ Jim said. In fact he had never been at the sharp end of hotel management. His only dealing with gangsters was the time he’d played a gig at a pub in Manchester and some scallies had asked him for protection money. He had ended up buying them a pint and they were friends by the end of the evening. He wasn’t sure it would go that way with Marshall Roberts. ‘I generally find that we can both reach a mutually beneficial position.’

  ‘I think I have what I want from you and your predecessor,’ said Roberts with a low laugh. ‘Although since the new owner of RedReef is one of the richest men in the world, maybe it’s time to renegotiate. A small uplift in the financial compensation for our services will be pocket change for Mr Desai.’

  ‘Men like Simon Desai didn’t get to where they are without watching every penny, Marshall. And without being ruthless. Extremely ruthless to anyone who tries to take advantage of them.’ Jim tried to get the right note of threat into his voice. His palms had become clammy and his heart was beating twice as fast as normal, but he willed himself to stay cool and in control. ‘Contributions to your business from RedReef will be stopping from this moment on. New management, new policy. I thought I would do you the courtesy of telling you that in person.’

  ‘It’s a shame,’ said Marshall, lighting a cigarette. ‘I heard RedReef was going to be the flagship hotel for your new chain. I thought you’d want to make it work. It has such potential, given the right conditions.’

  ‘Simon Desai isn’t Connor Gilbert, Mr Roberts. As you say, this hotel is important to him. Fuck with him and it will be the worst business deal you ever make.’ Jim got to his feet decisively.

  ‘You obviously don’t realise how things work around here, Mr Johnson.’

  ‘I think I do,’ said Jim, edging towards the door.

  ‘I control the people who control this island. And that makes me very powerful. More powerful than your boss Mr Desai, despite his billions.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said as coolly as he could, before almost sprinting off the property and out to Gregor’s car.

  He half expected to hear gunshots follow him from the house, but he got back to the vehicle safely.

  ‘How was it?’ said Gregor, already starting the engine.

  ‘Short, sweet. At least I escaped with my kneecaps intact,’ replied Jim, staring straight ahead through the windscreen. ‘Shit, I can’t believe I threatened a gangster,’ he added, glancing down and seeing his hands tremble.

  ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘I just told him we weren’t going to pay any more. I mentioned Simon Desai’s name a lot. Reminded him how powerful he is.’

  ‘Not around here,’ said Gregor, accelerating away from the house. ‘Roberts owns this island. Not literally, but the police, the ruling council are in his pocket.’

  ‘And what do you think might change their minds?’ asked Jim, feeling hopelessly out of his depth.

  ‘Maybe it’s about time you went and asked them.’

  ‘What, now?’

&nb
sp; ‘The alternative is to call Simon,’ replied Gregor.

  ‘I don’t want to get him involved,’ said Jim resolutely.

  ‘Then it’s business as usual. We continue to pay.’

  ‘We can’t be the only people in this situation,’ said Jim, trying to think. ‘Perhaps if we all got together, put some pressure on the police, it would force them to take action against Roberts.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s been tried.’

  ‘How do we know?’

  ‘Have you spoken to Connor Gilbert yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Jim, not wanting to even think about him. If Connor had been avoiding him before, he certainly wouldn’t be wanting a convivial chat any time soon. ‘I want you to call Dean Davies. He was general manager before we bought the hotel. Find out what has been done about Marshall Roberts, if anything. And then get me a meeting with the mayor.’

  ‘Welcome to the island,’ said Leonard Martin, clinking his glass against Jim’s.

  St Sebastian’s mayor and de facto chief of the island had taken Jim’s call immediately, and had even suggested supper at his favourite harbourside restaurant to introduce himself properly. Jim had made small talk with the man over champagne and oysters, but now he wanted to find out if he really was screwed with the RedReef deal.

  ‘It’s good to be here,’ he said, switching on the charm. ‘The Omari group is delighted to be investing in Baruda. Simon Desai personally asked me to get in touch to say hello and just check we’ve got your support in making RedReef the most exciting new hotel in the Caribbean.’

  ‘He did?’ said the older man, obviously flattered. ‘Well, you can tell him that we’re thrilled to have you here. You’ve really got a beautiful stretch of beach over there. Did you know there’s a wreck off Catseye Point? I don’t know if you dive, but you should arrange to go down there next time you’re here. Maybe with Mr Desai. I could even come with you,’ he offered.

  Jim sipped his wine and assumed an expression of puzzlement.

  ‘One thing,’ he said, taking a strategic pause. ‘One thing that has been worrying us is the influence of Marshall Roberts in the area. Seems to be the only supplier in the food and beverage chain, and we don’t really find that a competitive way of doing business, to be honest.’