Lioness

by Nell Brien

  Cat closed the Day-Timer. “No. I don’t know that. An architectural practice doesn’t fold when one partner is—” she stumbled over the word “—killed. Why should it?”

  “Okay,” John said. He took a breath, then said it again. “Okay. Cat, honey, without Joel, there is no Stanton Partnership. Alone, Bluebonnet doesn’t think you can handle the deal.”

  “What?” She felt as if she had taken a body blow. She’d expected it from other clients, but not from him. John started to speak, and she said, “No, wait a minute. Joel and I did everything together. Design, supervision. Everything. Could you ever, even once, tell where Joel’s work ended and mine began?”

  “Honey, that’s not the point. You weren’t born yesterday, you know what these Third World deals are like. You gotta have iron cojones.” He looked at the glass in his hand as if uncertain how it got there. He swirled the whiskey without drinking, then walked back to his desk. Abruptly, he said, “We’re going with Raul Guitterrez.”

  Her first thought was that she hadn’t heard the name right. But she knew she had.

  “You can’t,” she said. “John, you can’t do that.”

  Guitterrez. They had competed for the same jobs for years, and it had not been a friendly rivalry. Joel hated what he called the Disneyland School of Architecture, thought it made a joke of an honorable profession.

  “I can. I have to. Raul’s put his time in with Gehry here in Los Angeles, and he’s in Houston now in his own practice. He’s tough. And he’s a Texan.”

  “And that’s the qualification for this job? He’s a Texan who designs like Gehry?”

  “Don’t knock it, sugar. Anyway, that’s it. I’ll see to it that you don’t suffer financially.”

  “That’s not the issue.” She could barely hear him through the roar in her ears. She and Joel had learned early never to trust anyone but each other. Now, she realized, somehow over the years, in spite of everything she knew, she had come to trust John Rifken. How could she have allowed herself to do that?

  He went back to the bar, poured another drink. Cat pushed her Day-Timer back into her briefcase, reached for the sketches, started to stuff them into the stained envelope.

  John watched her for a moment, then said, “Sugar, listen to me. This is not the only job—”

  She did not let him finish. “It’s the only job that matters to me.” She turned away from him to pick up Joel’s cameras.

  “I’ve got a lot of other work for you, Cat. Honey, wait a minute.”

  His words registered. If she left now, she thought, she had no hope of getting what she really wanted: the legitimacy this hotel job would give her in Kenya.

  She left the cameras on the desk, turned to face him.

  “Let me spell this out, John. Because one of the partners of The Stanton Partnership was killed searching for a site for the hotel Bluebonnet Development is committed to build in Kenya, the firm is going to lose the commission. Do I have this right?”

  “Yeah, well, sounds pretty raw put like that. But I guess that’s about it.” He looked at her. “Honey, you know this business. We risk millions before we make a dime. And these Third World deals are even tougher to pull off. With a woman in charge—”

  “Oh, stop it,” she said impatiently. “This is the 1980s, for God’s sake. Even in Texas.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re not talking about Texas. We’re talking about investing millions of American dollars in some remote, goddamn beauty spot in Kenya we haven’t even found yet.”

  “But Joel did find it. I have the sketches. I just need to find where they were done.” She took a beat, then said, “I also have this deal, John. You were there when Bubba Nelligan shook hands on it after Joel’s funeral.”

  “A handshake deal ain’t exactly carved in stone, honey.”

  “John, I need to do this job.”

  “Christ’s sake, honey. I did my best for you. I was outvoted.”

  She wanted to believe him. She glanced out the window, took a second to gather herself. Below, on Century Park East, a silver stretch limo had been broadsided by a delivery truck. Ant-size men threatened each other with tiny waving arms.

  “Well, you’d better tell the guys that the surviving partner of The Stanton Partnership has a handshake deal and she is going to hold them to it.” The word lawyer did not have to be said. “I intend to finish what Joel started.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Cat! What is this? You don’t give a shit about this job—”

  “What makes you think that? I’ll get you that site—”

  “Sugar, you’re not interested in any site. I’ve known you kids all your lives. You think I don’t know you’ve got some cockamamy idea that Joel’s death was not an accident? That you’re going to go over there, dig something out that’ll back you up? Some goddamn conspiracy theory?”

  “Don’t make me into a nutcase, John. My brother was killed and I’m not satisfied with the explanation. I just want to follow his route.” It was out in the open, and she was relieved. “But I’ll also get you the site.” She shook the sketches out of the envelope again, spread them across John’s desk. “The guys at Bluebonnet Development have not seen these. Time is money—in this business, a lot of money. And every day, the clock is running on the interest on loans you’ve already got. Millions of American dollars.”

  He grunted, and Cat pressed her advantage. “With Guitterrez you’re back to square one.”

  “Sugar, you ain’t making a shitload of sense here, you know that? And you’re not gonna find that Joel’s death was anything but what Jock Campbell said it was.” For a moment, John stared at her silently. Then he said, “Okay.” He reached over, patted her hand. “Okay, sweetpea. You go clear your head of this nonsense or it’s gonna eat you alive. You got three weeks. Then Guitterrez takes over.”

  “Even if I get the site?”

  “I thought we’d settled that. You’re not going for the site. You’re going to get clear about Joel.”

  “But suppose I do get it?”

  “Then I guess we’ll talk about it. Now, you’ll be using Campbell Safaris. They’re the best at what they do—”

  “And what’s that? Letting their clients get trampled to death?”

  “Oh, Cat, for God’s sake! They work with film companies, the BBC, National Geographic, the documentary stuff you see on television. Mostly they do research work. They’re trackers and hunters, so they know the country like their own backyard.”

  She stared at him, stunned. Hunters! Joel and a party of hunters? He must have been crazed!

  She found her voice. “Well,” she said, “I guess you’d better let them know I’m on my way. Thanks, John.” She went over to him, pressed her lips to his cheek, a rare display of affection. She shouldered her bag and the cameras, started toward the door. His voice stopped her.

  “Cat.”

  She turned in the doorway, waited for him to continue.

  “You’re not Joel, remember,” he said. “Go easy on the attitude.”

  Three

  Cat awoke in the icy room, the reek of blood in her nostrils, the images of the dream already gone. Dread pressed against every surface of her skin. She lay still, waiting for her pounding heartbeat to return to normal—it usually took a few minutes. An unfamiliar drone filled the room. She wanted to turn on the light, but didn’t know where it was. Where she was.

  A toilet flushed on the other side of the wall and automatically she registered the thought, “cheap construction.” And remembered. Nairobi. The Inter-Continental Hotel.

  She pushed aside the blanket, padded across the carpet to turn off the air conditioner, silencing the drone. In the bathroom, she bent over the sink, bathed her eyes with cold water. The sense of dread still pressing down on her had the weight of ages behind it. Holding a wet towel to the back of her neck she crossed the room and swung back the drapes. The sliding glass doors opened easily, and she stepped onto her small balcony. On the other side of the square, windows of the Jomo K
enyatta Conference Center shone with the reflection of the midmorning sun. From his pedestal, Kenyatta threw his shadow across the canna lilies edging the public garden. Cat breathed deeply, hoping the spicy fragrance in the air would dispel the odor of blood. Even though it was a trick of her mind, it lingered.

  Five stories below, cars clogged the road, a lone bicyclist among them hugging the sidewalk. Cat clung to him with her eyes as he pedaled slowly out of sight, as if concentrating on his wobbling progress could keep at bay the dreadful image of Joel being lowered into a plain wooden coffin, silence the sound of the lid sliding into place, the deafening blows of a hammer sealing his crushed body forever into darkness.

  She turned back into the room, glanced at her travel clock on the table beside the bed.

  Ten-thirty. Time to get ready.

  “Campbell Safaris does not work with women.” Dan Campbell looked at his watch, clearly eager to be gone. “I’m sorry.”

  Cat made herself take a few seconds before answering. She was jet lagged, exhausted after traveling for two days halfway across the world, arriving in Nairobi at an ungodly hour and checking into the hotel by 7:00 a.m. that morning.

  And now this.

  “Well, I guess you are going to have to change your policy,” she said. “You have a contract with Bluebonnet Development Co. for this job.”

  “With Bluebonnet, Miss Stanton, not with you. I’m afraid you’ve had a long journey for nothing.”

  The coffee shop of the Inter-Continental Hotel buzzed with conversation, the clatter of china, bustling waiters filling orders, pouring coffee. He’d been late for their eleven o’clock appointment, and he was dirty and unshaven, his clothes filthy. He stunk of oil and smoke and heavy male sweat, and something else, an odor she recognized, but for the moment couldn’t name. His eyes were bloodshot and watchful.

  “You do realize this puts you in breach of your contract?” Cat asked.

  “Oh, the hell with that. Anyone familiar with East Africa knows that Campbell Safaris never takes women as clients.”

  “Well, you must find that quite limiting. Anyway, I’m sorry I’m not as familiar as I could be with East Africa.” She spoke pleasantly. It seemed to escape him that East Africa was not exactly the belly button of the universe. “I’m surprised it did not occur to you to inform John Rifken—” She stopped. John Rifken couldn’t be unaware of this, he’d known these people for thirty years. For some reason, he’d chosen not to tell her. To cover her confusion, Cat picked up the pot of coffee on the table, refilled Campbell’s cup, then her own.

  Campbell shrugged. “We simply did not expect a woman, and when we found out, it was too late. You were already en route.” He drained the cup, his third.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Cat said. “I’m here to take up where Joel Stanton—”

  “Listen, I’ve just said there is no way I will take you into the bush.”

  “There is no one else.” Deliberately, she allowed a plaintive note to enter her voice, but to get what she wanted, she’d plead with the devil himself.

  “Well, we could go around and around on this, but I don’t have the time. I’m sorry. It’s best if you return to Los Angeles. I’ll talk to Bluebonnet.”

  “Don’t bother. If I have to get another outfit to do this job, I will. And I’m quite capable of explaining the reason to Bluebonnet myself.”

  “Good. Well, that’s settled.” Campbell retrieved a few crumpled Kenyan pound notes from a pocket, dropped them on the table. For the first time Cat noticed that the rolled sleeve of his khaki shirt was stiff with dried blood and seemed laminated to his skin. Suddenly she realized that the elusive stink was cordite. She remembered it from a construction site she’d been on.

  Campbell rose to his feet and Cat stared up at him. “Wait a minute,” she protested. “You can’t just—”

  “Yes, I can. Have a good trip home.” He turned, walked toward the lobby.

  Cat stared after him, unable to believe what had just happened. He’d walked out. The man who had been with Joel when he died had turned her down and walked out.

  She gathered up her bag and the briefcase containing Joel’s sketches, got herself out of the booth and started after him, hurriedly threading her way through the tables.

  The lobby was filled with tourists sporting stiff new safari gear and hats from the hotel shop, and in his filthy, bloodstained khakis, Campbell’s tall figure would have stood out.

  But somehow he had managed to disappear as if he had never been there.

  Back in her room, Cat threw her briefcase on the bed. She’d left the doors to the balcony open and a warm soft breeze entered, ruffling the papers on the table. She crossed the room, stepped outside.

  For a few minutes she leaned on the balcony to watch the cars jockey for position as they tore around the square, unable to summon the strength to move. A mud-encrusted Land Rover with a heavy winch mounted on its front bumper bullied its way across three lanes of traffic, and Cat tried to make out the driver. A muddy Land Rover was exactly what she imagined Dan Campbell drove, but the Land Rover disappeared, and Cat turned back into the room to retrieve Stephen N’toya’s card from her Day-Timer.

  She wasn’t without resources here, she told herself. She had a copy of Joel’s itinerary. And she had Stephen N’toya. They’d met at Harvard. She and Joel were studying architecture, and Stephen was in the law school, but the two men discovered they shared a passion for wildlife photography. Stephen had returned to his homeland, but he and Joel had remained in touch over the years. And now Joel’s old friend was a rising star in Kenya’s Ministry of Justice.

  The card showed a number, but no address. Cat picked up the telephone, got an outside line, dialed. It started to ring, and she waited. No one answered. She let it ring a dozen times, hoping at least for a machine so that she could leave a message. But the ringing continued, and she finally replaced the phone. A call to information got her the number of the Ministry of Justice and she dialed again.

  A male voice in her ear said something that could have been “MinistryofJustice.” All one word.

  “I’d like to speak to Stephen N’toya, please.”

  “One moment, memsahib,” the voice said. Then, “No one of that name, memsahib.”

  “Is this the Ministry of Justice?”

  “Yes, MinistryofJustice.”

  “Mr. Stephen N’toya works there.”

  “No Stephen N’toya, memsahib.”

  “Well, would you mind checking again, please. Stephen N’toya.” She spelled it.

  “Yes memsahib. Stephen N’toya. No record of that name.”

  “Thank you.” Slowly, she put the phone back into the cradle.

  She shrugged off her disquiet. She still had the number on the card, and he’d have to return home sooner or later. If it was his home.

  She picked up the phone book, found it offered a daunting display of safari companies and, more to get an idea of what was available than anything else, she made a list of those that sounded most likely. Stephen would be sure to know whom she should hire, but meantime, it would not hurt to do some homework. She dialed the first number.

  A male voice answered. “Singh Brothers.”

  “Hello. My name’s Catherine Stanton. I’m an architect from the United States, and I want to make an expedition into the bush to do research for a hotel site. Can you help with this?”

  A silence, then, “Well, I’m sorry,” the voice said slowly, “there is not much call for that kind of thing, you see. We can show you some fine places close to the game parks, but you’ll have to talk to the government, you know. You can’t just decide to build hotels and such, willy-nilly.”

  He sounded as if he thought he had a child on the phone, Cat thought. “No, I realize that,” she said patiently.

  “Well, then, I can probably come up with something within the next couple of weeks.”

  Cat thanked him, hung up, dialed the next number on the list.

  Just af
ter two o’clock, she put down the phone and sorted through her notes. Several companies had dismissed her request, others knew exactly the place she was looking for. When pressed, they’d trotted out the usual game parks and waterfalls, the beach resorts. Out of the fourteen companies she had called, only one sounded possible, and she’d made an appointment for the following day.

  Then on impulse, she dialed Paul Neville’s number. It was 1:00 a.m. in Washington, D.C., but time meant nothing to Paul. He could sleep standing up, party all night, leave the country at a moment’s notice.

  They’d met at an art opening in a gallery in Santa Monica. It had been packed with the usual mix of impossibly slender girls, encased in minute black spandex dresses, and black-clad young men, their slicked-back hair clubbed into tiny bullfighter’s ponytails. Paul had stood out in rumpled tweeds, working his way through the crowd toward her, a couple of glasses of white wine held high. He’d thrust one of the glasses into her hand and said, “Here, you look like a woman with all the right moves. How would you like to get out of here and go dancing?” She’d laughed at his effrontery, but had been taken by his lanky good looks, the lock of straight brown hair he constantly swept off his forehead, the humor in his light blue eyes. They’d danced at Vertigo, eaten at the Pantry downtown. Since then he’d been part of her life, leaving without notice to cover foreign wars, returning as suddenly by way of Los Angeles whenever he could. They’d worked out a relationship that suited them both. No complications. No commitment. No questions.

  Before leaving Los Angeles, she had left a note for him with Mave in case he returned from Myanmar while she was away.

  “Gone to Nairobi,” she’d written. “See you when I get back.” Except for Nairobi instead of Rangoon, it was word for word the note he’d sent her three months earlier, attached to a papier mâché cactus with a suspiciously phallic shape.

  She had pinned her note to his tie—a bright blue Thai silk he’d had embroidered by a woman in one of the refugee camps on the Cambodian border. White daisies with green centers. She’d found it hanging over her bedroom door after he’d left the last time. It had surprised her. He never left his things, he knew she hated it. He never stayed overnight, either.