Private Demons

by Robert Masello

  “Considering you don't even like to face yourself in the mirror in the morning.” She leaned back in her chair, lifting her champagne glass to her lips and looking at him over the rim. “Ever give any thought to running for President?”

  “I can't. I'm only a naturalized citizen.”

  “You'd still get my vote.” Her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “And maybe more.”

  “More votes?”

  “More of me.”

  “Am I interrupting a tender moment?” Harbison, one hand planted on the back of each of their chairs, loomed over them. “Well done, Lucien. But I've just been told you have an urgent call from your office.” He leaned back again. “You can take it in my office if you like.”

  “This better not mean you're working tonight,” Hallie said, pouting.

  “Tell Hun to bring the car around. We'll be leaving either way.”

  Lucien preceded Harbison out of the room, and went straight down a carpeted corridor to a heavy oak door at the end.

  “Go ahead, it's open,” Harbison said.

  Lucien went in, punched the lighted button on the phone console, and picked up. Harbison tactfully closed the door, and waited in the hall outside.

  “Calais here.”

  “Epstein. We've just received some bad news. The Garuda's exploded at sea, about forty miles southwest of Pattaya. No survivors, no explanations.”

  “When?”

  “About three A.M., their time.”

  “How do we know it's true?”

  “Two reports so far, Lucien. The Rotterdam, on the scene. Confirmed now by a patrol boat out of Bangsary.”

  Calais stood perfectly still, absently staring at the elaborate pattern in the Kilim carpet underfoot. Accident, or sabotage? The Garuda had been totally refitted and overhauled just six months before. It had a seasoned crew, and an uncomplicated run.

  “What were the weather conditions?”

  “Good,” Epstein replied. “Good visibility, low seas.”

  “And there were no radio transmissions from Garuda before the explosion?”

  “No, no distress signals, nothing. Just a routine call to the Rotterdam, confirming its course and position.”

  Why had they done that? Just a routine check, or had there been some particular reason?

  “I'm on my way home now. You're at the office?”

  “Where else am I ever?”

  “I'll call you there.”

  He needed time to think, to decide for himself what else needed to be asked, or understood. Tankers didn't just blow up of their own accord—there were safeguards built in: reinforced bulkheads, computerized warning systems, fireproofed storage holds. There should have been some sign of impending trouble.

  Harbison was still waiting in the hall, smoking a cigarette. “Trouble?”

  “Possibly,” Lucien replied, closing the door behind him. No use advertising; the word would be out soon enough. “Do you mind if I leave by the staff elevator?”

  “That's what I'd do. You've endured enough of that mob for one night.”

  Harbison escorted him down. “Hope it's nothing serious, Lucien.”

  Calais waved one hand, as if to say it was nothing that couldn't be dealt with. The car—a coal-black Bentley, with a gleaming chrome grill—idled at the curb. Hun was standing by the rear passenger door.

  “Good night,” Lucien said.

  “Good night. And thanks again,” Harbison said, “for everything.”

  Calais climbed into the car, and Hun slammed the door after him; the man always used twice the force necessary for any job. Hallie was waiting in the back seat, the collar of her coat pulled up around her face.

  “Are we going home now?”

  “I'm afraid I have some work to do. We'll have to drop you off at your place.”

  “I knew it was too good to be true—a whole night together. And I don't even have a shoot tomorrow.”

  “Sorry.”

  Hun pulled the car away from the curb and shot into the Park Avenue traffic.

  “Hun,” Lucien said, “we'll be going down to Hallie's—”

  “Second,” she interjected. “If you're in such a hurry,” she said to Lucien, “it's stupid to go all the way downtown, only to come back up again. Hun can get me there on his own.”

  “Would you mind?” He was desperately anxious to be by himself, to think, and to get Epstein back on the phone. The car phone he trusted for only the most unimportant calls.

  “Not if you make it up to me.” She slid across the leather seat, and twined her arms around his neck. “Can you give a girl something to remember you by?” Her face, framed by her ash-blond hair, hovered just a few inches from his. “Hun, don't you dare look.”

  Hun glanced into the rearview mirror and smiled.

  Hallie bent her face to Lucien's and let her lips rest, gently, on his. She felt his arms slip up and around her. She was sorry she'd put her coat on; she wanted to feel his hands on her body.

  “You sure you have to work?” she breathed.

  “Yes,” he said, but with some reluctance.

  She pressed her lips harder against his, felt his mouth open. Then there were his hands, slipping inside her coat, caressing her. She was only wearing a silk sheath, with nothing underneath. She took a deep breath so he could feel that for himself.

  His tongue came into her mouth, and he suddenly turned her, drawing her across his lap, bending over her. Her coat fell open, one shoulder strap of her dress slipping down. “I could wait up for you,” she said, looking up into his eyes.

  And he almost said yes. He almost allowed himself to give in to the desire welling up inside him. It would be so easy, to wrap himself up in her and forget about all the rest, the death of his crew, the loss of the ship. Morning, he knew, would come soon enough. But Hun was already turning the car onto Fiftieth Street, then up and into the quieter precincts of Beekman Place; he was speeding the car along the curb, narrowly missing one inattentive dog-walker.

  “I can't,” Lucien replied. “It wouldn't be fair to you.”

  The car pulled to an abrupt halt in front of a four-story townhouse set behind a black, wrought-iron fence. Hun got out and yanked the rear door open. A blast of cold air entered the warm interior.

  Gathering her coat around her, Hallie sat back up, then fluffed out her shaggy blond hair. “You'll be sorry,” she said teasingly.

  “You're probably right,” Lucien said, and before he could change his mind, he turned away and went to unfasten the gate.

  At the front door, he used his own key rather than ringing for Hun's wife, Sokhim. He quickly crossed the marble foyer, turning on the lights that illuminated the wide, curving staircase. On the second floor landing, he encountered Sokhim, coming out of the library with a feather duster in her hand.

  "Mon Dieu!” she said, clutching at her heart. “You should let me know when you come in.”

  "Je m'excuse,” he replied, passing by her and into the library. "Ne vous dérangez pas, s'il vous plait.” He pulled the sliding doors closed and latched them from within. Sokhim had turned out the lights, so the room was filled with fleeting, silvery shadows; far below, the East River shone bleakly in the winter moonlight. Lucien flicked on only the desk lamp, an antique brass with a red shade, and sat down in the high-backed tapestry chair. Under the glass that covered the top of his huge desk, there was a map of the world, clearly demarcated for longitude, latitude, and time zones. His eyes instantly went to the trouble spot, the Gulf of Thailand, where the Garuda had been lost.

  LNG—liquefied natural gas—had been its cargo. Highly volatile stuff, but if the basic precautions had been taken—and his crews were well trained to take them—no more dangerous than grain shipments. His mind again went to sabotage—and who might stand to gain from it.

  Half a dozen candidates immediately sprang to mind, from Thai pirates looking for extortion money to old enemies still seeking revenge.

  But for some reason, the most unlikely of all,
Lord Sykes came to mind . . . and stuck. Calais had no reason to suspect him, indeed he was the kind of man most of the world would consider above suspicion, but Calais had learned, over the years, to live by his hunches . . . for without them, he wouldn't have lived at all.

  He punched the top button on the speaker phone, and Epstein immediately came on. “I don't suppose you've learned anything more,” Lucien said.

  “No, but I've got a line patched through to the customs house in Pattaya. Your old pal, Sri Halim, is standing by.”

  “Put him through.”

  There was a burst of static over the speaker, which then subsided to a low but steady crackling. Just over it Lucien could hear Sri Halim saying, “I am here . . . I am here . . .” as if it were necessary to keep the line alive.

  “And so am I,” Lucien cut in.

  “Calais, it is you?”

  Lucien could picture him perfectly, in a sweat-stained brown shirt, a strip of flypaper dangling over his head, crates of assorted goods which had somehow “fallen off the boat” stacked all around him.

  “Yes, old friend. I've been told I have some trouble there.”

  “Trouble?” Halim repeated, as if he weren't sure he'd heard it. “Oh, yes, much trouble. Nothing left, nothing at all.”

  “And what do you hear? What do your people tell you?”

  If anything happened in the Gulf of Thailand, if a fishing boat lost so much as a chum bucket, Sri Halim knew about it. For thirty years, and through nearly as many political regimes, he had “kept his net in the water,” as the locals put it, letting nothing of value escape.

  “My people tell me many things,” he replied, his voice fading away a bit. “They tell me LNG is dangerous cargo.”

  “Not that dangerous.”

  “They tell me that Ratsada is fishing more close to the coast these days.”

  Ratsada was the most feared of the Thai pirates who prowled these waters, and fish was one of the few cargoes he didn't deal in. Calais knew that much first-hand; he'd once been part of a cargo.

  “A year ago, my friend, you told me Ratsada was dead.”

  “A year ago, my friend,” Halim replied, “he was.” There was a sudden eruption of laughter over the phone. “This is what my people tell me.” He laughed again at his own joke.

  “And what else? What else do they tell you?” Lucien was growing impatient, and as if Halim knew that, he abruptly stopped laughing and spoke more soberly than before.

  “They tell me that fire devours itself.”

  Lucien waited.

  “They tell me that Calais made a deal with demons and that the demons have become hungry. They tell me that it is not by chance that it was Garuda the demons ate.”

  That was a particularly bad piece of luck, Lucien suddenly realized—Garuda was named after the four holy vultures that had protected the Buddha. Losing a ship by that name, in these waters, would only add to the superstitions that already revolved around him.

  “And what do you say?” Lucien asked.

  “I say Calais has lost a ship, and much else too.”

  Lucien knew exactly what he was referring to.

  “I say, the sea has many secrets,” Halim continued, “but if you are patient, sometimes she tells.”

  “The sea has been keeping her secrets very well.”

  Halim paused. “But I am still listening.”

  “Thank you, my friend. I will not forget your help.”

  When Sri Halim had clicked off, Epstein came back on. “You won't forget what help? All the guy told you was that you were in league with the Devil. For this we send him an annuity?”

  “Yes.” There were some things even Epstein, Lucien's right hand, didn't know about. “And a bonus. Get something off to him tomorrow.”

  “You're joking.”

  “No. And now get me Lloyd's on the line; we better talk to Morgan himself.”

  “It's three in the morning over there.”

  “Call him at home.”

  While Epstein was putting through the call to London, Lucien hastily jotted down a list of the items to discuss with Morgan. A consortium put together by Lloyd's underwrote half of the insurance maintained by the Calais fleet, and the Garuda incident would wreak temporary havoc on the maritime banking floors. Lucien wanted to put his house in order as much as possible before the next day's business began.

  A sleepy Morgan picked up the phone in his Islington flat, and after expressing his dismay at the accident, dutifully recorded all the issues that would need immediate attention. It was only at the end of the conversation that he thought to add, on his own, that Lord Sykes would no doubt feel “this wasn't quite cricket.”

  “You think so?” Lucien said.

  “Oh my, yes. He may want to acquire Gold Prow, Limited, badly—very badly indeed—but certainly not in this way. Not Lord Sykes. Not like this.”

  Lucien wasn't so sure of that, but he wasn't surprised to hear Morgan say so. Sykes's pedigree, three hundred years old, effortlessly raised him above such base suspicions, in all but the most cynical eyes.

  “I hope you're right,” Lucien said.

  There were several calls after that, to bankers and brokers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, informing them of the accident, assuaging their concerns, working out financial stratagems to deal with any market jitters or underwriter frenzies. Around two in the morning, Epstein asked if the rest couldn't wait till the next day. “Last I heard, I had a wife and a baby daughter. I'd like to go home and see if it's still true.”

  “Just two more things.”

  Epstein groaned.

  “Is the Gold Prow meeting still scheduled for four tomorrow afternoon?”

  “You mean four this afternoon. And yes, as far as I know it is.”

  “Good. And now for the hard one. Have you got a list of the crew members of the Garuda ?”

  “Yes,” Epstein answered warily, “I have.”

  “Their families have to be notified.”

  “I know. And the list is on Hoster's desk, waiting for him. Along with a note about the compensation due in each case.”

  Even Lucien couldn't think of anything else that could be done just then. “Go home, get a good night's rest. See you in the office at eight.”

  Epstein laughed, hollowly, and hung up.

  And Lucien sat, in the small pool of light cast by the brass lamp, thinking of the crewmen—his crewmen—lost in the explosion. It was the one thing he'd resisted dwelling on, until now. But now there was nothing else. He could calm the markets, he could buy another tanker to replace the Garuda, he could outmaneuver Sykes and all his other rivals for the Gold Prow shipping line, but he couldn't bring the dead back to life. He couldn't do anything for the men who'd been blown to bits in his name . . . men he'd probably never even laid eyes on. Their families would receive word, and a sizable check, but that was all . . . and it could never be enough.

  He pulled his black tie, already loosened, from under his collar. He was bone weary, but also tense; he could feel the knots in his shoulders and neck. He flicked off the desk lamp and slowly stood up. Hallie crossed his mind; he was sorry now that he hadn't let her stay and wait up for him. Nights were never easy for him to get through.

  Unlocking the sliding doors, he stepped out into the hall. The house was dead quiet; even the dogs were asleep. He went up the curving, red-carpeted stairs, to the third floor. His bedroom door was half-ajar, and the light was on. Sokhim had probably left it on for him, after turning down the bed.

  He pushed the door open the rest of the way. Lying back against the pillows, her eyes closed, was Hallie; she was wearing his blue batik robe. A book lay open across her lap.

  Lucien didn't know whether to be angry or pleased; Hun had clearly disobeyed his orders and helped her to creep up to his bedroom. And he'd also anticipated Lucien perfectly; what he wanted now was Hallie.

  He stepped quietly into the room, and closed the door behind him. The latch clicked, softly, and Hallie's eyes cracked
open.

  “Don't fire Hun,” she mumbled. “It was my idea.”

  Lucien popped the cuff links out of his shirt and placed them in the silver bowl on top of the dresser. “How long have you been here?”

  “I don't know,” she said, stirring slightly. “What time is it?”

  “Close to three.”

  “No wonder I fell asleep,” she said. “After we dropped you off, we drove about halfway to my place before I managed to convince Hun that he'd be doing you a kindness if he brought me back.”

  “That can't have been too hard.”

  She smiled, and pulled the lapels of his robe closed. “It wasn't.”

  Hun was Lucien's oldest and most loyal friend; they had come through the killing fields together. Hun would do anything Lucien asked him to—and only rarely, like tonight, something that he hadn't.

  Lucien removed the studs from his shirt, placing them in the bowl too.

  “So . . . are you coming to bed?” Hallie asked, wriggling her toes; the nails were painted a bright pink. “Or are you just changing for the office?”

  “Coming to bed.”

  “Well, get a move on. I'm getting sleepy again.”

  He went into the bathroom to finish undressing, then took a blisteringly hot shower. He rubbed himself dry and reached for his robe, usually on the back of the door, before remembering Hallie already had it on. He wrapped a white towel around his waist and opened the door to the bedroom. The light was out, and his robe was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  “I'm over here,” Hallie said from under the covers.

  He turned off the bathroom light and made his way across the darkened room. The sheets were cool and crisp; Sokhim starched and ironed and changed them every day. As soon as Lucien leaned back against the heavy, carved headboard, Hallie swam across the bed to him and laid her head on his chest.

  “You take care of whatever it was you had to take care of?” Her voice was low and soothing.

  “I did what I could do . . . for now.”