She kissed his chest, lightly. “And now you're all done?” Her breath was warm on his skin. “Nothing more to do tonight?”
He laid one hand on her shoulder, her smooth, round shoulder, which shone in the pale moonlight filtering through the curtains. He stroked, gently, up and down her arm. “Nothing more to do . . . tonight,” he said.
“That's good,” she whispered, and kissed his chest again—this time directly on the scar. “Poor baby,” she said, and kissed him there once more. “That doesn't hurt, does it?”
“No,” he said, though it wasn't true. There was no pain in the physical sense, but inside he felt a cold, deadly chill.
She pulled the sheet further down his body. “Because I wouldn't want to hurt you, Lucien . . . ever.” Her head moved lower, her lips grazing his abdomen. “I only want to make you feel good.”
He closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the ceiling. “Good,” she repeated, before adding with a little laugh, “and hard.”
Her hand came up between his legs, then closed around his shaft. She stroked him, first with her fingers, then with her tongue. Lucien rested one hand on the back of her head, lacing his fingers in the thatch of ash-blond hair. The cold ache he'd felt in his heart, just below the scar, receded, gradually, beneath his mounting desire. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he slipped one hand below her chin and raised her head. Her green eyes, even in the darkness, he could see were glazed and unfocused with passion.
“Now,” he said, and without a word, she straddled his body. He felt himself slip effortlessly inside her. She raised herself up above him, her head tilted back, her breasts thrust forward; he reached up and cupped them in his hands.
“That's good, Lucien . . . that feels so good.”
She liked to talk, he knew, to say his name, while they made love.
“I love how you make me feel. I love what you do to me.”
She was swaying back and forth on him, her hands resting on her own hips. Her belly was flat and hard; he was reminded of the pictures he'd just seen of her, in Vogue. She'd worn a bikini that looked like it had been made of braided scarves. She still had her tan.
“I love what you do, Lucien. I love how you feel inside me.”
He spread his fingers to encircle her breasts; the nipples were hard and nubby. He massaged them with his palms, and felt them stiffen even more.
She ground herself down on him, her thighs locked around his own. Her head moved in slow, languid circles.
The chill around his heart was utterly gone, for the moment.
“Does it feel good to you?” she asked, breathlessly.
“Can't you tell?”
“Yes,” she sighed, “yes, I think I can.” Her motions quickened. “I think I can . . . I think I can.” She rocked on his body, breathing harder and faster, then dropping her hands from her hips, fell forward against him, gasping, coming. Her hair fell across his face, her cheek was hot against his skin. He put his hands below her, and thrust himself deeper, and harder. He came in one long, low, spasm.
They lay together, breathing silently, his arms clasped around her narrow waist. A draft at the window made the curtain rustle.
Hallie said, softly, “I can't believe it.”
“What?”
“That I kept saying, ‘I think I can, I think I can.’ I sounded like The Little Engine That Could.”
She raised her head just enough to look at Lucien. “You don't know that story, do you?”
“No.”
She shook her head, smiling. “Remind me not to tell you.”
“I will.” He stroked the side of her cheek, and she laid her head back down on his chest. His skin was warm and smooth, hairless, and made her think of a hard, polished walking stick her grandfather had once owned. But that circular scar, just above his heart . . . she'd once asked him how it had gotten there, but Lucien had just looked away and said, “A memento from Cambodia.” To Hallie, a country girl from North Carolina, it looked sort of like a rattlesnake, trying to swallow its own tail.
If Lucien had wanted her to know anything more about it, she figured, he'd have told her.
CHAPTER
3
How many hours, she wondered, over how many years, had she spent in contemplation of the statue? The saint on horseback, with a sword in one hand, the scales of judgment in the other . . . the dragon squirming under the horse's hooves. At times, when a cloud passed in front of the sun, and the wind from the river stirred the fronds of the coconut palms, the changing light and lengthening shadows imbued the gray stone statue with the illusion of movement. The dragon seemed to beat its wings, the horse to rear back . . . the scales of judgment, held so precariously in the saint's hand, seemed to sway with the weight of some uncertain soul.
But which way, she had often wondered, did the scale tip, if the soul were adjudged to be innocent, pure, and fit to enter into the company of the Heavenly Father?
And which way did it fall, if the soul were found evil, corrupt, and deserving of damnation?
And how must it feel, at that moment beyond time, in a place beyond imagining, to learn for oneself the irrevocable verdict of eternity?
CHAPTER
4
At half past seven, Hun was waiting outside, with the motor running. Lucien got into the car, then caught his eye in the rearview mirror.
“You shouldn't have done it,” Lucien said.
Hun said nothing.
“Thank you.”
Hun nodded, and smiled. On the way downtown he listened, at a low volume, to the country music station while Lucien combed through a sheaf of papers pertaining to the Gold Prow negotiations.
There had been no further news of the Garuda explosion.
At the circular drive in front of the World Financial Center's third tower, Hun stopped the car and Lucien snapped his briefcase shut. “Hallie probably won't be up for another hour or two,” he said. “Take her wherever she wants to go after that.”
Hun turned in the front seat. “What if she don't want to go?” His broad, flat face was creased with a smile.
“Don't push it.”
Hun pretended not to know what he meant.
Lucien got out of the car; the February air had an icy bite to it, and he hurriedly buttoned his coat. Beneath it, he wore a charcoal-gray suit, made for him in London, and carried the battered Moroccan leather briefcase he'd had since first founding the company; it had become something of a talisman for him.
At the elevator bank, he found Epstein, clutching three newspapers and a pink and white bag from Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Late night?” Lucien said.
Epstein snorted and said, “The usual.”
They got into the car, and Epstein punched 45, one of the four floors L.C. Carriers, Inc., occupied. On the way up, Epstein lifted the bag and said to Lucien, “Did you know Forest Rangers use these doughnuts to bait bear traps? That even when the bears know it's a trap, they'll still go in if they see a bag from Dunkin’ Donuts inside?”
Lucien said, “And you think we're laying traps today?”
Epstein raised his eyebrows. “You tell me. I just follow orders around here.”
At 45, they stepped out, and into a large, oval-shaped reception area. The walls were paneled with rare Laotian rosewood that gleamed with a kind of purple fire; hanging on either side of the reception desk were long, woven scrolls depicting the celestial nymphs known in Cambodia as apsaras. The nymphs wore conical headdresses, painted a bright gold, and balanced themselves on one leg. The receptionist was bent over a black console telephone.
“Good morning, Mr. Calais. I've just put through a call from the Wall Street Journal.”
Calais nodded, and went past the desk and down the hall toward his own office. Simone would handle the call from the Journal.
Indeed she was on the phone when he passed through the anteroom she occupied just outside his own door.
“No, Mr. Calais is not in the office.” She mutely handed him a sheet of pink paper
with the calls that had already come in listed by time. “Yes, of course I'll see that he gets the message.” Lucien could see that word of the Garuda had traveled far and wide. There were calls from several newspapers and television networks. “No, there is no one at the company in a position to comment at this time.”
Lucien left her to it. In his own office the vertical blinds that ran from floor to ceiling had been pulled back, leaving him with a panoramic view of New York harbor. It was this sweeping view, of the gray water and gray sky, that never failed to hold him. Staring off into the distance, for what sometimes seemed like hours on end, he would feel as if he could see forever . . . see beyond the very curve of the earth and back into time itself. The thick banks of slow-moving clouds that often massed on the horizon of the open sea were like a scrim, a vague gray backdrop against which he could project, and discern, his own inner visions. Not a day went by that he did not see there, in the morning clouds or the gathering dusk, the image of his sister, as he last had seen her, waving good-bye from the upstairs porch of their house in Phnom Penh . . . over seventeen years before.
Simone came in, carrying a manila folder which Calais knew held a typed list of that day's meetings and appointments. Simone was straight as a stick, and wore her glasses on a chain around her neck. Lucien had never heard her laugh.
“I assume you know by now that there was an accident involving the Garuda," he said.
She nodded, almost imperceptibly, as she sat down; her severe black skirt coursed easily over her knees, and a couple of inches below that.
“We'll need to issue a statement of some sort.” He outlined the facts that he knew, and was willing to make public, while Simone took notes. “Have Newton draw up a release, and refer all inquiries to him. I am going to have no comment for the time being.”
She flipped a page of the steno pad. Lucien knew what was coming next.
“Do you want to go over your schedule now?” she asked.
He always felt like a schoolboy when she said that, about to be drilled on his studies. He swiveled his chair toward the computer monitor on his desk, punched one, and followed along on the display screen as she went through the day's appointments. Though the company's greatest visibility lay in its shipping fleet, it was in fact highly diversified, with significant bank holdings, blocks of stock in aeronautics and petroleum firms, a vast tract of timberland in northwest Canada, and mining ventures from Southeast Asia to Jamaica. It was on a mining venture, a search for rubies and other rare gemstones, that Calais had first hit pay dirt, and reaped the profits on which the rest of L.C. Carriers, Inc., had been founded. On his finger, he wore the most valuable ruby he had ever unearthed . . . and it was now another of his talismans.
“Cancel the meeting with the Brazilians,” he said, after scanning the schedule. “Put it into next week. And get rid of everything else between eleven and one. Get me anything that comes in on the Garuda and have Mancini pull together a report on the pollution potential from the spill. Tell legal I want a rundown on the extent of liability.” If the boat had indeed exploded, fire had probably consumed most of the cargo; bad, but better that than a wandering slick ten miles long.
Quickly, he outlined several other pressing matters, then dismissed Simone. In the time he'd cleared, he wanted to address himself to the aftermath of the Garuda, and to the meeting that afternoon with the representatives of the Gold Prow shipping line. Gold Prow was one of the oldest cargo fleets in the world, founded by a Chinese family in the late 1700's, and now operating out of Hong Kong. Though the stock was publicly traded, the vast majority of it was controlled by a select group of insiders; much of what remained had been quietly bought up, through a dozen different brokers, for holding companies that in fact belonged to L.C. Carriers, Inc. The primary holders of Gold Prow stock, the descendants of Wu Kwan, had gradually come to realize what had happened.
So had Lord Sykes.
Sooner than Calais had wanted, the company had come “into play” now, instead of quietly negotiating his way into a controlling position, he had to win the trust of the Kwans and their investors, while staving off the attacks of sharks like Sykes. At four that afternoon, he was scheduled to have his first face-to-face confrontation with Duncan Kwan, the scion of the family and the holder of the largest single block of shares. On his desk, in a sealed blue folder, was an unofficial “bio” of Kwan that had been drawn up by Epstein. He opened it now and began to read.
Not much of it surprised him. Kwan was thirty-five, Lucien's own age, and had spent most of his life in the pursuit of expensive pleasures. Educated, erratically, at private schools in Switzerland and England, he seemed most devoted to skiing, sports cars, and blond women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. The day-to-day affairs of the business were overseen by several longtime directors, who had managed over the years to guess wrong on everything from the emergence of OPEC to the toppling of Marcos. Still, they controlled a large, if aging, fleet that plied the same waters as most of Calais's ships. A takeover, friendly or otherwise, of Gold Prow would simultaneously eliminate Calais's major competitor and vastly enlarge his own operation. It was a target too tempting to ignore.
After reading through the dossier—"know your enemy” was one of the tenets Calais rigidly adhered to—he punched up on the computer the rest of the numbers Epstein had been able to acquire, or closely reconstitute, on the Gold Prow company. Epstein was a genius with figures; he could read through a corporate report and within seconds tick off the telltale discrepancies; he could take the smallest and most isolated facts—the price at which an asset had been sold, the size of a loan that had been negotiated and agreed to—and backtrack from them, extrapolating on the general health and well-being of the company in question. With Gold Prow, Epstein had had precious little to go on—he'd told Calais the company's literature appeared to be “inscrutable, on purpose"—but he'd still managed to put enough of the picture together to give Lucien an idea of the tactics, and leverage, he'd need to wrest away control.
At two o'clock, a white-jacketed waiter pushed into Calais's office a trolley with his lunch on it; the plates and glasses were quietly arranged for him on the glass-topped table at the opposite end of the office. A cold filet of salmon, some sliced fruit, a glass of iced tonic water; Calais had almost the same lunch everyday. He ate only because he had to, and because it helped to stave off the terrible headaches he was prone to; the food never really interested him. Eating was not something he particularly enjoyed.
Today, he ate with even less relish than usual. He was preoccupied with the Gold Prow negotiations, and the lingering mystery of the Garuda. He was done in less than fifteen minutes, and Simone, knowing his habits well, knocked on the half-open door and came in with another collection of papers.
“Here's the statement for the press on the accident. If it's all right, Newton will release it. Also, Mancini has enclosed a preliminary report on the pollution and liability potentials.”
Calais nodded, and she left them on the desk. A few minutes later, the intercom buzzed, and it was Epstein, with a question about the upcoming meeting. Calais told him to come down to his office so they could go over the details in person. They spent the time remaining planning strategy, and refining their position.
“Though as I understand it,” Epstein said, “this is just a get-acquainted session. Duncan Kwan isn't about to engage in any unilateral actions.”
Calais shook his head. “No such thing as just getting acquainted. These are the opening gambits. They decide how the rest of the game will be played.”
“You want Newton or Mancini to sit in?”
“No,” Calais said. “Just you.”
At ten minutes after four, Simone ushered in Duncan Kwan, and one of Gold Prow's longstanding directors, Mr. Li Fong. Fong was wearing an ill-fitting brown suit and a nervous smile. Kwan was the picture of composure and privilege.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Kwan said, extending his hand to Calais. Kwan had on a loo
sely constructed silk jacket and a striped shirt open at the collar. On his wrist he wore a fine gold bracelet.
“Thank you for coming,” Calais replied. “Please, sit down.”
Epstein took a chair slightly to one side of, and behind, Calais. Kwan and Fong sat directly across the desk.
“I've wanted to meet you for some time,” Kwan said. He was wearing aviator-style eyeglasses, with the lenses tinted a pale blue. “Half-breeds interest me.”
There was a silence, which Kwan seemed to enjoy; he smiled, with his lips closed. “Your mother was a Cambodian, as I understand it. Your father was French?”
“Yes.”
“So I'd been told . . .” He lounged in his chair, with one arm thrown over the back. “Of course, I'm in the same boat. . . . My father you know about; my mother was a Brit, one of the Mortlakes. You probably know about that too.”
In fact Calais did; it was part of Epstein's report.
“Gives one a different view of the world, don't you think? A little more . . . open-minded, perhaps?” He spoke with a casual arrogance, in a vaguely British accent that also carried, in its clipped cadence, a strong flavor of Chinese. He looked around the large, starkly appointed office. “I don't suppose it would be possible to get a drink, would it?”
“Of course.” Calais buzzed Simone. “What would you like?”
“Shameless of me, I know, but I seldom drink anything but champagne. It looks so much like water. I treat it that way.”
Calais relayed the request. “Mr. Fong?”
“No, no, nothing, please,” he said, shaking his head rapidly. He darted a glance, of disapproval, at Kwan.
“You've no doubt been reading up on my family and Gold Prow,” Kwan said. “Looking for points of vulnerability . . .” He smiled again, enigmatically, as if sharing a joke. “I was probably a great find.”
“Mr. Calais,” Fong burst in impatiently, clearly unhappy with the direction Kwan was steering the conversation, “as a director, now more than twenty years, of Gold Prow, I would wish to discuss with you the buying of stock in our company.” Short and squat, Fong was sitting as far forward in his chair as he could; he was holding in his lap a sheaf of papers he'd removed from the leather attaché at his feet. “We are fully knowing that you have bought over four hundred fifty thousand outstanding shares of our company. We know also that you have paid as much as five dollars U.S. over present book value per share.” He riffled through the papers, checking something. “We know that purchases of large blocks, on September 15, October 25, and November 10, done through Tokyo, London, and Geneva, are all to your account.” He looked up, pressing his glasses to his face with stubby fingers. “The purchase on January 1, we do not know . . . but we will find out.”
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