Vanishing Point

by Morris West

  That left me as much in the dark as before. Sergio led us into the salone, served us drinks, and then left me alone with my Sibilline instructor. She began with a long preamble.

  “What will take place here tonight will be a psychodrama, which, we hope, may end in some act of revelation or purgation. It is, in fact, a modern version of a very old ritual, which, even in ancient times, had many variations. It begins always with a meeting of friends—and of strangers who are invited to join the magic circle. Greetings are exchanged and introductions are made, intimate introductions in which only first names are used. Alcohol is served, music is played, relaxation and intimacy are encouraged. Then the meal is served. It will be a buffet dinner from which the servants are excluded. Everything, therefore, is private. There are no prying eyes to see what happens later. That is, if you like, the mise-en-scene, the location and mood setting for the action which follows.”

  “Are you sure it will follow? Or is this just a tryout performance?”

  She gave me a tolerant smile.

  “Oh, yes! It will happen,” she assured me. “Everybody, even the spectators, will be involved in one fashion or another. Only the climax may be different from what we expect.”

  “So who are the actors and who are the spectators? And what roles do the actors play?”

  “Let’s take the spectators first. There will be two officers of the police, one male, one female. Both are Sergio’s friends; both have been trained in what is, in Italy at least, a new investigative discipline. They may elect to ask questions or to intervene in an emergency situation. It is unlikely that they will have to do so. They will, however, participate as guests in all the preliminary activities. Apart from the police, there will be another couple, again male and female. They are the ones who will pick up Prévost at her apartment and return her there afterward. They will also prepare her for the informality of the occasion.”

  “But the occasion will have no value if it is not recorded.”

  “It will be recorded on sound and film. The tapes will be held until it is decided to release them.”

  “And who will make that decision?”

  “You will, unless the police make a recommendation to the contrary. Whether you release them or not, you are the producer of this drama. You’re the man who’s paying the bills.”

  “You mean I’m paying the police too?”

  She threw back her dark head and laughed, a deep, velvet sound.

  “You’ll have to put that question to Sergio. Now, let’s talk about the actors. Sergio is the host, the compere. He is staging this special performance for you, his friend. You have an understanding of the theater of history and of ritual.”

  “And what part am I expected to play?”

  “You are a minor character. You are the one who does not understand the full import of the happening. You delight in the new experience. You express the excitement of it. You applaud and you incite the cast.”

  “Am I drunk or sober?”

  “At least sober enough to hear and understand and judge the dialogue between the two principals.”

  “Who are?”

  “Liliane Prévost and myself.”

  “And your roles?”

  “You will see them develop, slowly, from the very beginning of the evening to the end. Some of what you see may shock you, but you must not, under any circumstances, step out of your role or intrude in the play between Liliane and myself.”

  “Who controls that?”

  “I do. I alone. Even Sergio will not dare to interrupt the flow of the drama. Do you understand clearly what I have told you?”

  “What you have told me, yes. I don’t understand what you are proposing or why.”

  “Good! That’s exactly what we need: the innocent and the ignorant helping to elicit the truth. But even you, my friend, will not escape what the ancient Greeks called ‘the experience of the god.’”

  “What will happen to Liliane?’

  “No harm will come to her, I promise. Now, would you be kind enough to get me another drink? Every sybil requires a small libation to keep her eloquent.”

  I was just pouring the drinks when Sergio came back. I asked whether he would join us. He signaled yes and looked from me to Sibilla.

  “Where are we?”

  Sibilla answered with that half-mocking smile.

  “Ed, here, is a quick study. He knows everything he needs to know at this moment—though he claims he doesn’t understand it.”

  I handed them their glasses. Sergio made the old Hispanic toast: “Health, money, and love,” to which Sibilla responded: “And time to enjoy them all.”

  We drank.

  “Shouldn’t we look at the set, Sergio?” Sibilla asked.

  “Certainly. One question before we go down. Would our artist here be prepared to do some life sketches of our cast?”

  “If you like, sure.”

  “Are you any good?” Sibilla asked.

  “I’m told I am. What do you want them for?”

  “It’s another party piece,” said Sergio cheerfully. “It’s like a television show. We need warmups and happy, happy moments to keep everyone loose.”

  “Let’s look at the set,” said Sibilla firmly.

  “Subito,” said Sergio, and led us downstairs to the lowest level of the villa.

  The shutters were still closed but the lights were burning. We were in a large chamber with stone walls and a marble pavement, in the center of which was a tiled swimming pool, set about with canvas lounges and chairs. Each lounge and chair had a fresh dressing gown and a beach towel laid across it.

  Along one wall of the chamber was a refectory table set with dishes, glassware, and napkins. In the corner near it was a bar with liquors and wines. At the far end of the room were toilets and showers and clothes lockers. Sergio demonstrated that the light could be raised and lowered at will. Sibilla surveyed the place with a critical eye.

  “Good! It will work, Sergio, I promise. Now, let me give you the routine. Cassio and Candida will be the last to arrive, bringing with them Liliane Prévost. Michele will receive them and bring them down here to us.”

  “When they enter, we’ll be five.” Sergio picked up the narration. “Sibilla and I, Ferdy and Isabella, and you in the role of Edgar Benson. We are all lounging around the pool, in dressing gowns, sipping champagne, very relaxed and intimate, all friends together.”

  “We are decorously draped.” Sibilla smiled. “But we are naked under our robes.”

  “What is this, an orgy?” I had to ask the question. Sibilla delivered the answer very concisely.

  “It is the prelude to an experiment in hypnosis, aided by sexual stimulation of the subject. As I understand it, this woman is lesbian by inclination, as I am myself; but she is, for professional or other reasons, bisexual in practice.”

  “I have that only on hearsay.”

  “It doesn’t matter. For me it is a hypothetical beginning. The truth I shall discover for myself. You, Sergio, and the rest of the company will be witnesses to what occurs.”

  I was about to interrupt, but she held up a warning hand. “No comment, please. Let me instruct you first. When Liliane Prévost arrives, you, Edgar, will greet her warmly. You will be delighted that she has come, et cetera, et cetera. I shall be at your elbow. You will introduce her to me. I shall take her around to meet the rest of the company. I shall be the one who conducts her to the changing rooms and instructs her in the ritual of our little parties. I shall feed her drinks and be close to her during our playtime in the pool.”

  “In other words, you’re going to seduce her.”

  “Not quite; in any case, not here and not yet. By the end of the evening she will be wanting me to do just that, and I may be interested enough to do it. In that case, I shall go home with her. However, before she leaves, you will have all the information she can give us about her work at the agency and her personal connection with the man you are seeking: Larry Lucas.”

  “And
you propose to film and record the whole procedure?”

  “Do you have problems with that?” The question came from Sergio Carlino.

  “I have questions about it.”

  “Ask them, please.”

  “Will Liliane Prévost be coerced in any way to take part in the hypnotic procedure?”

  “No, she will not. I shall ask for volunteers. Candida will agree and Ferdy will offer. Both are good subjects for a simple demonstration. I shall invite Prévost to take part. I’m sure she will agree. There will be no coercion.”

  “Next question, then. You realize, I hope, that very little of her evidence—if indeed we get any—will be admissible in an American court. Most of it will be hearsay and the rest tainted by the method of obtaining it.”

  “You forget.” Sergio reproved me quietly. “We are not in America. We are in Europe, where American and British rules of evidence do not apply. Here in Italy, and in France, a charge is made upon denunciation. An inquiry—an inquisition is made. It continues until the truth—if truth exists—is fished up from the bottom of a deep well. In America, you still have trial by adversarial debate, which is just another form of trial by combat. Sometimes the combat is rigged. Here we are seeking grounds to make the first denunciation. If we find them, we may either file the denunciation or remedy the situation by other means. Any more questions?”

  “One more. What happens to the video and the sound tapes?”

  “That’s up to you.” Sergio gave me his most winning smile. “You’re paying for them. You’re paying for everything and everybody here tonight—including Sibilla. I just want to make sure you get value for money!”

  “He’ll get it!” Sibilla made the affirmation with superb conviction. “The only time I ever lost an audience was years ago in Bali. I was entertaining some wealthy Germans when one of the servants ran amok with a kris. But that won’t happen tonight, I promise you!”

  She laughed, cupped my face in her hands, and kissed me full on the lips. The energy that went out from her was like fire in the blood.

  * * *

  Even as I write now, I cringe at the memory of that evening at the Villa Calpurnia. The images are banal enough—a small group of affluent and cynical people, disporting themselves naked in a private pool, drinking, eating, exchanging gossip, building about themselves a hothouse atmosphere of privileged indulgence. Caresses were exchanged, and brief bodily contacts made and broken, under the vigilant stage management of Sibilla.

  My own contribution was a series of sketches of male and female bodies in action and in brief moments of repose; but the figure of Sibilla dominated them all. It leapt from every page of the sketchbook, dynamic and demonic.

  She hovered over us all like a guardian spirit, but she seemed literally to envelop Liliane Prévost, to draw her into a whirlpool of desire from which, even had she wished it, there was no possibility of escape. In and around the pool, sharing food, sipping each other’s drinks, exchanging caresses, the pair of them gave a performance of such balletic intricacy and sexual intensity that we were like spectators at an exquisite piece of erotic theater.

  There was no question but that Liliane Prévost was the happy and willing victim of this extended seduction. But victim she was, just as the rest of us were collaborators, in a drama of oppression of the weak by the strong. When the meal was over and Sibilla called for volunteers to play her game of hypnosis, Liliane Prévost was the first to offer herself.

  Sibilla accepted her immediately and made her lie down, with her dressing gown drawn about her, on one of the chaise longues directly in line with the camera and the microphone housed on one of the roof beams. Then Sibilla seated herself beside her and began the opening ritual: the concentration of vision, the monotone incantation to induce hypnotic sleep, the continual assurance. “Trust me, let go. Nothing but good will come to you. When I call, you will wake and you will remember nothing but good…”

  Then, as she had promised, it happened. Liliane Prévost seemed to lapse into a deep hypnotic trance, oblivious of her audience and her surroundings. Sibilla gently parted the dressing gown, so that the girl’s body was exposed to us all and to Sibilla’s own caressing hands.

  There was a rhythm to what happened next, but it took a little while before the rhythm established itself in our minds. First Sibilla asked a question, softly and persuasively; then, when the answer came, she rewarded it with a brief erotic caress. If Liliane hesitated, or seemed to be groping for an answer, the caress was withheld or merely suggested by the touch of a fingertip. As the interrogation went on, their rhythm and the rhythm of the responses became faster, as Liliane’s desire for stimulation became more urgent.

  However, it was not the sensual quality of the scene which came to dominate my memory, it was the unquestioning ruthlessness with which Sergio Carlino and Sibilla had embarked upon it—and most of all my own readiness to come to terms with what they were doing, in my interest and with Strassberger money. It was the old old story, worthy ends vitiated by unworthy means. It was the argument of all tyrants: If you want omelets, you have to break eggs, and the bigger the omelet, the more eggs you crack.

  You ask, as I ask still: What did we get at the end of it that was worth the ceremony of mutual debasement? The most important pieces of information were the organization plan of Simonetta and the relationship of Simonetta and Dr. Hubert Rubens of Geneva. Liliane Prévost had a sharp, gamine intelligence and she had been trained to collect and interpret snippets of information from client prospects and sources of information like Delaunay, the concierge. The working model of the travel agency had been put together by Francesco Falco. It was he who had conceived the idea of a press gang of attractive young women, hustling travel business through expensive hotels and, in the same operation, sweeping up the lost, stolen, or strayed men and women of substantial means, whose lives had been disrupted by domestic tragedy of one kind or another and who dreamed of a fresh start in a faraway place. Liliane’s comment, while still under hypnosis, had a certain pathos: “I never knew there were so many sad ones with so much money.”

  There was a fringe business, too, from certain criminal elements who needed money washed or documents provided or couriers moved on the safest possible routes. This business, however, was handled exclusively by Francesco Falco with a select team of girls of whom Liliane had been one but was no longer. It was too risky, she said, and Dr. Rubens did not approve. Falco was forced to be careful to keep this sector and its revenues under wraps.

  However, the core of the organization was Dr. Hubert Rubens. He saw it not only as a money earner but as a route into foreign real estate and a source of information on mining and related enterprises, where he did not have to risk either capital or reputation until his information was complete.

  According to Liliane, the staff was more in awe of the mysterious doctor than of the ever-present Falco. Falco could be rough and dangerous, but he was a type with whom they were familiar. Rubens was a more legendary threat whose power reached across frontiers, who could arrange your death as easily in Rio as in Rome.

  Larry Lucas? He was everyone’s favorite. He was rich, amusing, generous, but—come down to the facts of a girl’s life—he expected too much of women. When the dark moods were on him, he needed to be coaxed, soothed, mothered, and what kind of role was that, even for a professional companion? When he came back to Paris, after he had left his family and the company, he was in a high manic mode. Liliane called it “une excitation hors raison.” He was obsessed with the idea of going to some distant place in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius or the Seychelles. The Simonetta staff did a lot of research work. Dr. Rubens laid out an elaborate financial system. Everything seemed to be under way when Dr. Rubens became alarmed at the rambling quality of Larry’s phone calls. He advised Falco to hold Lucas in Europe as long as possible. Meanwhile, he sent Dr. Langer to meet him at Sirmione and accompany him wherever else he wanted to go. In Rome, the mania reached its peak. Lucas disappeared. He was picked u
p by the police, talking and raving incessantly in a bar in the Via Margutta. Dr. Langer administered medication and took him back to Zurich for hospitalization. For Falco, all this was a great bore. According to him, “This kind we should push quietly off a train.”

  For her own part, Liliane Prévost asked little enough out of life: a well-paid job, which she still had, a passionate lover, “Like you my dear Sibilla, just like you,” and some way of escape from the sinister currents in which she found herself swimming. “But you don’t really know how dirty the water is until you’re swimming in it. Then it’s too late, isn’t it?”

  Sergio and Sibilla looked at me. Each asked the same question.

  “Enough?”

  “Enough. Bring her out of it.”

  “She deserves her reward,” said Sibilla firmly. “It would be a cruelty to refuse it.”

  In full view of us all, she stimulated Liliane to climax. Her action was cool and detached as that of a professional masseuse. Then, when Liliane’s body had subsided into calm, she covered her with the dressing gown and awakened her with a curiously peremptory phrase.

  “Wake up, child!”

  Liliane woke and stretched herself in comfortable languor. Sibilla held out a hand to draw her to her feet and then into an embrace. She was in possession now, and she wanted us all to know it.

  “Get dressed now, my love. Candida and Cassio will drive us home to my place.”

  Liliane drew close, leaned her body against the older woman, and allowed herself to be led, lover and captive, toward the bathrooms.

  It was after midnight. All the guests had gone. Sergio was staying overnight at the Villa Calpurnia to drive me to the airport in the morning. We were sitting in the salone, savoring the last brandy of the evening. Sergio grinned at me over the rim of his glass.