“Mr. Jeppson?” She smiled tentatively, dark brown eyes crin kling slightly at the corners, the lips softening.
“Yes.” He brushed quickly at his pants.
“My name is Valerie Robertson. I’m Mary Robertson’s daughter.”
His face darkened almost instantly. “Where in the world is your mother?”
The smile faded. “I—She asked if I would come and take care of the boys while you go to your class.”
“Well, that’s nice!” Marc snapped. “I wish she had thought of that about two hours ago.”
Valerie flinched, taken back by the caustic tone.
“Come with me!” He turned on his heel and started away. He stopped and looked back. “Come on! You need to see this.”
Valerie followed him into the kitchen, then stopped and stared. “Oh my word!” she breathed.
“I think that would qualify as a slight understatement.”
She stepped in far enough so she could see where the tracks led into the hall and the family room. “What happened?”
Brett snorted in disgust. “Matthew! That’s what happened.”
“Whatever your mother’s doing, I hope it was worth it.” Marc didn’t try to contain his irritation.
Valerie turned back slowly, her dark eyes snapping, but before she could reply, a voice from behind them cut in, turning them all around. “Daddy, I’m cold.”
Matthew was standing in the far doorway, a towel draped around his shoulders, water dripping from the rest of him and making dark spots on the carpet.
“Matt, I told you to stay in the tub until you’re clean. You haven’t even touched your face.”
“But I’m cold, Daddy.”
Marc went over to his son, squatted down, wrapped the towel around him, and started to rub him vigorously. Valerie watched, her anger softening. Brett was darker in both hair and complexion, and must have taken after his mother, but Matthew was a miniature of his father. Large, gentle eyes, angular features, shortcropped blond hair, firm mouth and chin. The flour smears on both faces completed the impression.
“Get back in the tub and wash your face and your hair.” Marc reached up and pulled a sticky glob from behind one ear.
“But Daddy, the water’s dirty and cold.”
“That’s no surprise. We’re lucky the water hasn’t turned to dough.”
Valerie laughed softly, and Matthew looked up, his voice dropping. “Who’s that, Daddy?”
Marc had forgotten they had company. He straightened slowly. “This is Mary’s daughter, uh…”
“Valerie.” She smiled at Matthew. “So this is the architect of the disaster?”
“Yes. This is Matt. He’s four and in big trouble.” He half turned. “And this is Brett.”
Valerie nodded. Both eyed her with open curiosity.
Marc gave Matt a swat on the bottom. “Brett, run him more water and see that he gets all this junk out of his hair.”
As the two disappeared he turned back to Valerie. “It’s amazing what a four-year-old can accomplish when he is left totally on his own for two hours.”
Valerie took a breath. “Mr. Jeppson, I took my mother to the hospital this morning. She underwent an operation for kidney stones.”
“Oh, no!”
Valerie nodded, mollified somewhat by the instant contrition. “She’s been having pain for several days. This morning it became acute.”
“I am really sorry.” He stepped forward. “I should have known she wouldn’t leave Matthew without good reason.”
“But she said you would be here when Matt came home from preschool. Otherwise I would have come sooner.”
Marc hit his head, suddenly understanding. “I was supposed to be. Then I got roped into a committee meeting.” His lips pulled down in a quick expression of disgust. “But we did get filters for the percolator.”
Her eyebrows raised, but he went on quickly. “So how is she?”
“Much better now. The doctor said the operation went fine. She’s resting now, but she wouldn’t go to sleep until I promised to come over. She said you have a big test tonight in your class.”
Marc nodded, feeling stupid. “Look, Valerie, I really apologize for being so rude. When I came home and saw all this…” His hand swept outward toward the kitchen, then dropped lamely to his side. “I feel like a creep.”
“I understand. It’s all right.” She smiled fully now, and he saw the resemblance between mother and daughter.
It had been that warm smile that had first drawn Marc’s attention to Mary Robertson at church. When Marc’s wife had been killed in an auto-pedestrian accident two years earlier, Marc had been in immediate need of someone to come in and help a totally nondomesticated widower cope with caring for two small boys and a house. He had heard that Mary, herself a widow of several years, was looking for work. He approached her. She accepted. He had offered his thanks countless times since, for not only had she proven to be a cook and housekeeper of competence, she had won over his boys and became a mother to them, filling with warmth and gentleness much of the gap Lynette’s death had left.
Marc smiled back at Valerie, grateful for her quick forgiveness.
“Look, Mr. Jeppson—”
“Marc, please.”
She smiled again. “Okay, Marc. Let me take over now. You go to your class. Brett can help me find whatever I need. I’ll take it from here.”
He hesitated.
“Really. Mom sent me over to do just that.”
“Well…”
“Go on! We’ll be fine.”
“Well,” Marc said again, “maybe I will.”
“You may want to remove some of your makeup before you go,” Valerie said soberly, tapping her cheek.
Marc swiped at his cheek with the back of his hand and saw the flour on it. He grinned sheepishly. “Thanks.”
Chapter Two
About twenty-five miles south of UCLA, where Marc sat taking his test, a stiff breeze pulled at the leaves of the eucalyptus trees on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. But Alex Barclay didn’t mind. The winds had scoured the Los Angeles Basin clean of smog, and the city spread out below them, a vast prairie of lights, cut through with the rivers of fire that marked the freeways.
“I can’t believe this!”
The woman’s voice brought Barclay’s head around. She was next to a man near the low wall at the back of the patio area. Just beyond it, the hillside dropped away precipitously. They were gazing out at the stunning panaroma, and she waved her martini in the general direction of Los Angeles.
“He must have paid a bundle for this land!” Her voice was already thickened by the liquor.
The man glanced around quickly. “Megan, for heaven’s sakes, be a little bit discreet.”
Barclay set his own glass on a nearby table and moved to join the couple. “How about that?” he said amiably, nodding toward the city below.
The man turned, startled, then recognized their host. “I’ve got to admit, it doesn’t look like this from my apartment in West Covina.”
Barclay laughed softly, and then for several seconds they stood in silence, shoulder to shoulder. When Barclay spoke, it was absently, without turning his head. “Four hundred seventynine thousand.”
“What?” They both spoke as one.
“Four hundred seventy-nine thousand dollars. That’s what I paid for the lot. Then you throw in a house with sixty-eight hundred square feet on the main floor, a separate four-car garage. You’re talking just about a million four for the whole layout.”
The man just stared, but the woman swore, her jaw slack.
Then Barclay remembered. Peter Shapiro, senior partner in the firm that handled Barclay’s legal needs, had brought them. “He’s one of the comers,” Shapiro had said yesterday over the phone. “He might interest you.”
Barclay chuckled. “But I figure the view is worth that alone.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Alex Barclay.”
“Derek Parkin, Mr. Barclay. I’m delighted to meet y
ou.” It was almost too eager, but controlled, held in check.
“My pleasure.”
“This is Megan McArthur.”
She transferred the martini quickly, and held out her hand.
Brunette, built well, good eyes, nice legs. Probably five years younger than Parkin’s thirty or so. Hardly world class, but very nice. Except for the cool, limp handshake. Barclay let go of it quickly. “Welcome to our little ranch house, Megan.”
“Little ranch house!” she blurted. A quick frown of annoyance flashed briefly across Parkin’s face. “It’s incredible!”
The naked covetousness made Barclay smile even more broadly. “Well, we kind of like it. You’re with Shapiro and Myers?” Barclay asked, turning to Parkin before Megan’s effusiveness spilled over the patio area and washed away the hillside.
“Yes, sir.”
“Peter mentioned you were one of his bright stars.”
“Well, thank you. I certainly enjoy working with him.”
With him, not for him, Barclay noted with interest. Again there was the quick appraisal. Dark-brown hair combed straight back. Blue eyes, quick and alert. Rounded features that somehow still conveyed an impression of sharpness. Three-piece business suit—gray, pin-striped, tailored—with an impeccably perfect maroon tie and silk handkerchief tucked in the pocket. His was the only coat and tie at the party, and yet he did not seem out of place. In fact the appearance secretly pleased Barclay, for he sensed Parkin had wanted it this way for their first meeting. This guy was definitely magna cum laude, Harvard Law School.
“Peter said it was you who pulled the Clayson contract out of the fire.”
Megan opened a small clutch purse she had tucked under one arm and took out a pack of Virginia Slims. She put one to her lips and turned to Parkin expectantly.
Again there was that brief flicker of irritation, and Barclay guessed that Megan McArthur had just dropped off Derek Parkin’s active list. Parkin reached for a lighter, lit her cigarette perfunctorily, as though for a passing stranger, then turned back to Barclay.
“That was an interesting case. For a while I thought they had us nailed.”
“Me nailed, you mean.”
Parkin’s laugh was easy and amiable. “Yes, I suppose so. But, I don’t think we—you—will see any more trouble on it now.”
“That’s great. I—” His head lifted slightly. Ardith had just come out of the house and was trying to catch his eye. She gave the slightest jerk of her head when she saw she had succeeded.
“I’m glad to have that one over,” he finished. Then quickly, before Parkin could respond, he continued, “Well, it looks like my wife is giving me the nod. Just make yourselves to home.”
As he moved toward the house, he nodded here, called a quick greeting there, and moved through the crowd, leaving people smiling or laughing as he passed. Alex Barclay was well liked. He knew that. He had cultivated that natural ability until it had become one of his most important assets. He was tall, broad through the shoulders, with no more than a hint of middleage paunch. Thick, wavy, silver-gray hair, trimmed weekly by a very high-class barber, gave him the look of a distinguished and prosperous banker. That too had not hurt him, though for a kid raised in a tenement in Chicago, it made him smile inwardly.
He speared a couple of slices of Verona salami from the hors d’oeuvre tray, popped them into his mouth, and entered the house. Ardith was just inside the family room arranging another tray of food. He stopped for a moment. Casual elegance. That was how Barclay always thought of his wife. Never overdone. She was one of the few people, outside himself, that Barclay was willing to credit for his success. He had been twenty-four, she seventeen when they had first met. It had taken him nearly a year to convince both her and her parents that he was totally serious about marrying her. Neither she nor they had ever regretted it. Nor had Alex.
She glanced up, saw him, and frowned slightly. “Russell Whitaker is here.”
“Already? Why didn’t you invite him to come out?”
“He wouldn’t.” Again there was the quick frown. “He has someone with him.”
He nodded and started down the hall.
“Alex?”
He turned. Her eyes were pleading. “Don’t be too long. Not tonight.”
The smile was brief and cool. “When an Undersecretary of the State Department comes all the way out here to see me, I’ll give him what time he wants. You can cover for me for a while.”
He walked quickly down the hall and opened the door. Barclay’s study was very much a reflection of his own tastes. Along the entire length of one wall ran oak cabinets polished to a rich warm luster. The top of the cabinets held four bronze pieces, one of them a Frederic Remington original. Above the cabinets, book shelves were stocked with leather-bound books, including several first editions. Two leather side chairs flanked a huge, antique mahagony desk. The mounted head of an African kudu with its gracefully spiraling horns was on the wall opposite the desk.
Two men were standing beneath it, talking quietly. Both turned as Barclay entered. The shorter of the two smiled and extended his hand.
“Hello, Alex.”
“Russ.”
They shook hands firmly, and Whitaker turned. “Alex, meet Lieutenant General Taylor Canning, United States Air Force.”
If Whitaker’s grip was powerful, Canning’s was like getting a fist caught in the treads of an M-60 tank. He was tall, with gray eyes that seemed kindly and grandfatherly, not those of a professional man of war. His hair was also gray and short-cropped, his features heavy but pleasant. And yet there was something rock hard about the man that was felt more than seen.
“Welcome to my home, General Canning.” Then to Whitaker, “We’ve got a healthy party going on out on the patio. Are you sure you won’t join us?”
“Thanks, but we’ve got to meet some other people.”
“Then how about a drink? I’ve got some stock right here.” He moved to one of the cabinets and opened the door on a small refrigerator and a collection of bottles and glasses.
Whitaker started to decline the invitation, then changed his mind. “Scotch and soda for me.”
“That’s fine,” Canning nodded.
Barclay mixed three of the same, passed them around, then gestured to the chairs. As they sat, Barclay moved behind his desk, set his drink on the gleaming surface, then sat back and waited.
Whitaker sipped his drink for a moment, glanced once at the general, then looked at Barclay steadily. “We need your help on a project.”
“Okay.”
“This one is a little sticky. Like the Jakarta deal.”
Barclay kept his face impassive. “Go on.”
“This is an official request from your government, but…” He stopped and sipped again at his drink, staring into the dark liquid.
“But,” Alex finished for him, “officially, it’s unofficial.”
“Exactly.”
“Come on, Russ. The last deal like that, my man spent six weeks in a hellhole of a prison. He was lucky at that.”
“I know.” The Undersecretary’s dark eyes bored into Alex steadily.
Finally Alex sighed. “What this time?”
“A certain African nation—which for the present shall remain unnamed—wishes to purchase arms to fight against Communist insurgents.”
“Heavy or light stuff?”
“Light. Sixteen thousand M-16 rifles, four million rounds of ammunition.”
“That shouldn’t be so tough. Why come to me?”
“Same scenario as before. Officially the U.S. is neutral. The Saudis and Quwaitis are willing to bankroll the deal—they’re absolutely paranoid on the growing Soviet influence in Africa—but they want their role hush hush too. It will all be strictly under the table.”
Barclay was silent, then took a long drink from his glass. “All right. I think that can be arranged.”
Again Whitaker shot a quick glance at the general, then turned back. “You won’t be able to bu
y the rifles from the Colt Arms Company.”
Alex snapped forward. “What?”
Whitaker spoke calmly. “Sale of arms to this particular country is strictly illegal. The State Department will not give you the permit. Don’t even apply.”
“Hey, come on, Russ. How do I get that kind of hardware without a permit?”
Whitaker just continued to look at him steadily. Canning watched the interchange with interest, staying out of it for now.
Suddenly Barclay understood. “The North Vietnamese!”
The Undersecretary of State sipped his drink, his eyes never leaving Barclay’s face.
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“You’re the one who told us they contacted you in Paris.”
“Yes, I did,” Barclay retorted, his voice rising. “That was just to let you guys know I’m completely on the up and up with you.”
“We know that. That’s why we’ve come to you now.”
Barclay waved that off angrily. “If buying from Colt Arms on this deal is illegal, what does that make purchasing captured U.S. weapons from the number one country on the State Department’s hit list?”
“I told you this one would be sticky.”
“Sticky! Who’s going to keep the CIA off my back while I work out all of these little arrangements?”
“We’ll do what we can to smooth things for you, but if you’re caught, we’ll deny any knowledge.”
Canning leaned forward. “Will the North Viets sell you the weapons if they suspect they are to be resold to anti-Communist guerrillas?”
“North Viet Nam is so desperate for hard currency, they’d sell the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Boy Scouts of America if they’d pay in cash. No, that’s not the problem.”
Agitated now, Barclay got up, started to pace, thinking quickly. “You’re talking a four or five million dollar deal at best. Small stuff like this, I’m lucky to clear one or two percent. I could lose everything, not to mention facing Joliet or Leavenworth. The profit doesn’t justify the risks.”
Gerald N. Lund 4-In-1 Fiction eBook Bundle Page 59
