Sins of the Flesh

by Fern Michaels

  Bebe smiled. “Reuben would say we’re on a roll. Let’s go over it one more time to be sure we have everything right. We’re asking for basically all of Fairmont’s reserve to develop Philippe’s idea. And we’re doing this now because once my lawyer presents Philippe’s power of attorney to a judge, the studio’s assets will be frozen. Right?” Jane nodded. “Okay. In a few minutes I’m going to call Simon and Dillon and ask their permission to tap their trust funds. That money will go toward paying everyone at the studio half wages. And we’re going to promise all personnel a percentage of the television profits—if they materialize. Reuben would approve of that, wouldn’t he, Jane?” Bebe asked anxiously.

  Jane nodded. “You bet. Reuben’s always been fair,” she said loyally.

  “Onward and upward. Next I’m going to petition the courts to allow us to make Reuben’s film using our own funds, funds we will secure by mortgaging my house, your house, and the trust fund Reuben set up for me. If that works, we’ll be in clover, as the saying goes. If not, we’ll live with it.”

  Bebe cleared her throat nervously. “Now, at the meeting tomorrow morning I’ll present all this as a package deal. And the whole thing has to be arranged by the close of business tomorrow. I’ll turn over Philippe’s power of attorney late tomorrow afternoon, but it may take a week before the judge renders his decision.”

  Bebe met Jane’s eyes over the rim of her coffee cup. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” Jane asked, concerned.

  “Yes…My divorce from Reuben is far from final. I…I’m going to…withdraw my petition, which will place me in a position to mortgage the house in Laurel Canyon.”

  Jane’s jaw dropped. “Bebe, that house is joint property! You can’t forge Reuben’s name. All of this has to be legal!”

  “I know. I wasn’t planning on doing any forging,” Bebe assured her. “I thought we’d go to Max and see if he can sway Reuben’s banker in my favor. Look, it’s something to think about; we don’t have to do it.”

  “Daniel and Nellie?” Jane said in a choked voice.

  “I’ll call them now,” Bebe said quietly. “As Philippe’s wife, Nellie has a right to be at the meeting. She’ll be voting in his place, and we both know the way her vote will go. Daniel, of course…I believe Daniel will do whatever he thinks is right, regardless of Nellie.”

  Sighing, she picked up the receiver and dialed Daniel’s number. He answered on the first ring, his voice gentle and expectant. Bebe almost apologized for not being Jane. She explained about the meeting and apologized for disturbing him on New Year’s Day. Then she broke the connection almost immediately and turned to Jane with a thoughtful expression.

  “That’s one troubled man, Jane. I feel sorry for him.” Jane dabbed at her eyes. “But I think it will all work out in the end,” Bebe added comfortingly. “Daniel is a kind, wonderful man full of principle, and he won’t cast that aside when it comes to the final test. If he does, his whole life will have been a sham like mine. No, he’ll come through, I feel it here.” She held a hand over her heart. “And now for our final call.”

  Nellie answered the phone sounding forlorn and wistful. She must have assumed it was her father calling, Bebe thought as she identified herself and explained about the early morning meeting. Instantly Nellie’s voice hardened, taking on an edge of coolness when she replied that she would be there. This time it was Nellie who broke the connection. Bebe’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise as she cradled the receiver. “I think our little Nellie has had a setback of some sort. I don’t know what kind, but…”

  “Let’s hope you’re right. Have you notified Tillie?”

  “Lord, no. I’d better call her before I turn in. Tillie always stays up till the wee hours reading.” Bebe stood up and stretched. “I could use some fresh air, how about you?”

  Willie came on the run when he heard his leash rattling. He licked at Bebe’s shoes and then Jane’s as he waited for his ears to be scratched and the leash to be hooked to his collar. Two women meant a long walk, maybe a long run without the leash. He woofed happily, clawing at Bebe’s legs to make her hurry.

  “I feel so loved.” Bebe giggled as she allowed Willie to pull her toward the front door.

  Fairmont’s conference room was fragrant with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, thanks to Tillie’s early arrival. Commissary personnel had sent over a huge tray with assorted pastries and several decanters of orange juice, which had been set up in the middle of the conference table. Cups and saucers, silver spoons, crystal goblets, and linen napkins were arranged at each place setting, again thanks to Tillie, who presided over the early morning Continental breakfast. Identical pads and pencils were placed strategically in front of each cup and saucer. Only Daniel Bishop’s pad was different: paper-clipped to the top sheet was an old, creased square of paper.

  There was no small talk, only worries and frowns as seats were taken and coffee stirred. Bebe waited a full five minutes before she called the meeting to order. The picture of elegance and confidence, she folded her hands and leaned forward. “Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your breakfast while I tell you a story…”

  When she’d finished, she stood up and walked slowly around the conference table, her coffee cup held in both hands. “I imagine my…story, confession, if you will, has startled all of you,” she said. “I’m going to ask for a show of hands in a few minutes. If any of you want to leave the room to discuss our decision, feel free. But before you leave I want you all to remember one thing. I’m doing this for Reuben. It’s what he wants. I realize I’m asking a tremendous sacrifice from all of you, but I have no other choice. Please return in ten minutes.”

  The room emptied immediately. Nellie, in a little-girl dress that she’d outgrown years before, was the last to leave. Bebe’s eyes flew to the paper clipped to Daniel’s pad. Either he hadn’t noticed it, or he’d replaced it exactly the way he’d found it. Jane stayed behind, as did Tillie. No one spoke as they waited for the others to return.

  To the minute Fairmont’s hierarchy filed into the room and took their places at the conference table. It was clear now of cups and crumbs, the pads lined up neatly with the chairs. Bebe took her seat and tried to read the faces at the table. Just as she was about to ask for a show of hands, Nellie spoke, her voice wan and weak. Tears brimmed her eyes.

  “This isn’t what my husband wanted. Philippe Bouchet wouldn’t approve of any of this. And I can’t reach him to have him say so because he’s at boot camp.” The tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

  Bebe risked a glance at Daniel who was unfolding the paper on his pad. Would he—dare he—renege on the agreement he’d drawn up years earlier? Drawing a deep breath, she turned to Nellie.

  “Do you have anything else to say, Mrs. Tarz?” she asked coldly.

  Nellie shook her head. “Just that Philippe wouldn’t go along with this. And I can’t go along, either.” She sobbed then into a dainty handkerchief.

  “Obviously, your vote is a no. All right, let’s get on with it,” Bebe announced to the table at large. “I want to remind you one last time, this is what Reuben wants. Now, let’s see a show of hands for Reuben’s side. Your vote represents me.”

  Jane walked behind each chair, calling out a yes or no vote, which Tillie recorded in her dictation notebook. “One abstaining vote, Daniel Bishop,” she said with a catch in her voice.

  Both Bebe and Nellie stared at Daniel. “You must vote, Daniel,” Bebe said coolly.

  Daniel could feel his daughter’s tear-filled eyes boring into him. As if in a trance, he stared at Bebe, recalling her singsong words years before after he’d signed his name to the hateful contract in front of him. “You owe me, Daniel. I’ll call this in sometime in the future, and you have to honor it. You owe me, Daniel, and don’t you ever forget it!”

  “We’re waiting, Daniel,” Bebe said again. After a mo-ment he inclined his head slightly.

  “Is that a yes or a no, Daniel?” Bebe demanded.

  �
�It’s a goddamn yes, all right?”

  Bebe smiled and reached for the old contract. “Thank you, Daniel.”

  “Fifty-one percent in our favor,” Jane said happily.

  Nellie scrambled from the table and ran to her father. Sobbing and choking, she lashed out at him. “How could you, my very own father! You know this isn’t what Philippe wanted. I hate you for this, Daddy, and I will never forgive you! Never! You just pretended to be my father all these years. You never really cared about me. My father would never do what you just did! You betrayed me! I hate you!” she shouted as she ran from the office.

  Bebe kept her eyes averted during Nellie’s outburst, as did the others. Jane busied herself at the coffee table stacking cups and saucers. Once things had quieted down, she looked up and around the table, smiling her appreciation at them all.

  “This meeting is adjourned,” she said. “Thank you all for your vote of confidence. When Reuben returns he will thank you himself. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” With a brief nod to Jane, she was out of the room and headed for her car.

  In the parking lot Nellie blocked her way. “That was a bitchy thing you did in there,” Nellie shrilled. “Somehow you tricked my father, I know you did. You haven’t heard the last of this.”

  “I think I have,” Bebe said calmly. “There are no more tricks in your bag, Nellie. This is the way things are until Philippe and Reuben return. Now, get out of my way!”

  “You’re wrong,” Nellie called after her, and then headed for her car. From behind her she heard Daniel calling her name, but she didn’t turn around.

  “Nellie, wait, we have to talk. Nellie, please wait.”

  Nellie turned then, her eyes cold and hard. “I don’t have a father. You had your chance back there to act like one and you didn’t. I don’t ever want to see you again.” At the last moment, before she pulled away, she said, “I’m glad my name is Bouchet. I’d be ashamed to call myself Nellie Bishop.” With that, she yanked open her car door, got in, and drove off in a spurt of gravel.

  “I’m so sorry, Daniel. I wish there were something I could do or say,” Jane said, coming up behind him. “I think you know now that what we’re doing is the right thing. Bebe and I both want you to be a part of the project for Reuben’s sake. He will return, Daniel, I know he will. And if he doesn’t…for whatever his reasons, it will still be right. Look, come with me back to my office. We have to get our ball rolling here. We don’t have to talk about Nellie or even about you…. I’ve missed you, Daniel—No, don’t say anything,” she broke in as he opened his mouth to speak. “You’re raw and bleeding right now. Just let me be your friend. Later, if there is a later, we’ll deal with it. No confidences, Daniel, I can’t handle them now. Come along, Counselor, we have work to do.” Her smile was so genuine, so warm and inviting, Daniel found himself falling into step with her.

  “Yes, work,” he said numbly. “Everyone’s answer to problems they can’t handle.”

  He’d failed, first with Rajean and now with Nellie. But he couldn’t fail Reuben, never Reuben. Doing what Reuben wanted would mean his mental survival. His stride firmed and quickened until he was walking just as purposefully as Jane. Thank God, he hadn’t been wrong about her. He’d trusted his instincts the way Reuben had taught him to do.

  “We’ll make it work, Reuben,” he muttered.

  “Did you say something, Daniel?”

  “I was just telling Reuben we’d make it work,” Daniel said sheepishly.

  Jane smiled again. “He already knows that. He trusts us, and that says it all.” She reached her hand down for Daniel’s. It took a moment for him to grasp it in his own. Peace flooded through him.

  “Yes, that says it all,” he said quietly.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Miramar Air Station! Finally. Philippe was almost delirious with joy that things had gone so smoothly. It had been nerve-racking to stand by, sweating silently, while his papers were examined. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of waiting, the captain rose, shook his hand, and said, “Welcome aboard, Reuben.” Philippe knew in his gut that although his grades were top-notch, it was the creative letter from Rear Admiral William F. Halsey that had gotten him into flight school.

  He was safe. Everyone thought he was at Fort Dix in New Jersey. It would be hard as hell to track him down, and who among those he’d left behind would even think he’d join the navy, much less become an aviator under an assumed name.

  For the first time since arriving in the United States, he was actually happy, he decided. There was no longer any pressure to live up to his father’s name and reputation. He was his own man now, and would be judged on his own merit. Nellie was already a dim, distant memory, the nightmare of their marriage shelved far back into the recesses of his mind. His mother was going to take care of things, but that didn’t include the annulment he planned to file as soon as he could. There was no room in this new life of his for Nellie Bishop, his biological parents, or any of the people who’d been part of his life during his short stay in Hollywood.

  Philippe turned in time to see fellow trainee Mike Almeda bearing down on him. Mike was as tall as Philippe and just as broad-shouldered. But there the resemblance ended. Mike had sandy hair, greenish-blue eyes, and ten million freckles splattered over his entire body. He had a pug nose that he hated and the whitest teeth Philippe had ever seen, and he saw them a lot because Mike wore a perpetual grin. The young recruit hailed from Sacramento, where he lived in a white-shingled bungalow with his parents and twin sister named Elizabeth. “I’m the only one she lets call her Lizzie,” Mike had told Philippe when they’d first met. “She prefers Beth or Elizabeth. She’s going to Berkeley. She thinks she’s smart enough to be a vet—you know what, Phil? She is,” he’d added proudly.

  “Jesus, I can’t believe we’re really here,” Mike called in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the field. “It’s awesome, do you agree?”

  “Hell, yes. Look at those trainers,” Philippe said gleefully. “It’s hard to believe we’re going to be sitting in them, and did you see the real ones on the runway?”

  “I not only saw them, I touched them! When we get our own planes we get to name them.” His freckled face scrunched up into a solid mass. “I gotta give it a lot of thought. It’s like naming a baby, you have to make the right choice. By the way,” he said slyly, “I found that picture of my sister I was telling you about. Wanna see it?”

  “You’re dying to show it to me, so hand it over.” Philippe laughed. “She can’t look any worse than you do.”

  Mike handed over the black-and-white photo. “I don’t know how the hell it happened, but she doesn’t have one freckle,” he grumbled.

  Philippe stared at the small snapshot. The girl in the picture looked as if she had the same laughing eyes as Mike and the same infectious grin. Her hair was long, curling around her shoulders, and she was tussling on the front lawn with two collies.

  “The dogs are hers,” Mike explained. “She loves all kinds of animals. Those are called Frick and Frack. When we were kids she was always dragging some stray home and wrapping it in bandages whether they needed it or not. One time she put this cat in a sling and he almost scratched her eyes out. Another time she had two hamsters she thought were males. Two months later she had sixty-seven of the little buggers, and boy did they smell!”

  Philippe smiled. “You love her, don’t you.”

  Mike looked embarrassed, but only for a second. “You have to love your twin, you dumb shit. We’re a close family,” he said defensively. “You want to carry it next to your heart. And if you ever meet her and tell her I said that, I’ll deny it.” He laughed.

  “Naturally. What’s wrong with her?” Philippe asked suspiciously, staring at the photo.

  “Not a damn thing,” Mike sputtered. “She’s a dreamboat and can get any guy she wants just by crooking her finger.”

  “I’ll bet,” Philippe said. “Most guys don’t go around trying to palm off their sisters on u
nsuspecting guys. What’s she got, a club foot or something?”

  “Actually, she’s about as perfect as I am. Sometimes she talks too much and she’s kind of bossy. But you should see her smack a ball and take three bases, and she’s as pretty as my mom. You don’t want the damn picture, give it back!”

  “Ah, shit, you’d just wrinkle it up.” Philippe grinned. “I’ve known you for only two days, but I can see you’re a slob,” he added, eyeing Mike’s wrinkled pants and shirt.

  “Enough of this bullshit, let’s go see those planes again. I felt like I was touching a naked woman,” Mike confessed.

  Philippe decided that he could love planes and flying and Mike Almeda’s twin sister, Lizzie. Carefully he buttoned the flap on his shirt pocket, the picture safe inside.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It was snowing harder now, thick, fat flakes that covered Reuben in minutes. Every so often he stopped to shake snow from his body, and he was constantly brushing at his eyelashes. Trudging up the steep incline was hard enough without adding to his burden. As it was, he had to stop every five minutes to catch his breath. The wind, vicious now, howled and roared in his ears. Christ, he was tired. If he could just sleep for a few minutes…But he couldn’t, he’d freeze to death in the high altitude. He had to keep going. One step, another, three, atta boy, now two more. Keep going, don’t look down, don’t think, just keep moving. Don’t stop. One time he fell, sliding backward and losing all the ground he’d gained in the past thirty minutes. He rested a moment, struggling to take deep gasping breaths. When at last he was on his feet, ready to move again, he heard voices. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, giving his tired legs the impetus they needed to reach the thin row of pines.

  “Gut!…Schon!…Um so besser!…Abfahren…des Alter…er Apparat…beeilen…der Berg…bergauf! Beeilen!…Beeilen!…Der Bericht!…Die Bewegung…Beeilen!…Beeilen! Gut! Gut!”

  Reuben struggled with the smattering of German he’d learned years earlier under Mickey’s tutelage. These were German soldiers, and they were in a hurry because they suspected…something…the mountain and going uphill…One of them wanted a report because they had…what? What the hell did die Bewegung mean? Reuben fought to remember…. Jesus Christ, movement! That’s what it meant. They suspect movement…Mickey and the children up the mountain. They didn’t know about him, were unaware that he was on the incline right below them. Thank God he’d slipped and fallen when he had. The voices were closer now, and crystal clear, carrying down the mountain. Would Mickey and the children hear them? Would these same voices carry up the mountain?