The Predators

by Harold Robbins

  “Maybe the army is more modern,” Maurice answered. “But the Germans never change.”

  “Regardless,” Jacques said. “I feel I must do something to help save our country. I’m going to enlist in the army.”

  Maurice was upset. “Now you’re being stupid. Do you want to get killed?”

  “That will not be a problem,” Jacques answered confidently. “General Pétain has offered a captain position in supplies. I will be in charge of all the wines and the champagnes. I will be in the general’s office. Everyone knows that the general’s offices are the safest. I will not see combat, Papa.”

  Maurice looked over at his son. “What will you do about your petit ami, Louis? Do you think he will stay here by himself once you are gone?”

  “I thought I might take him along with me as my orderly,” Jacques answered.

  “You are more stupid than I thought,” Maurice said. “In one week you would both be discovered to be homosexual. How long do you think it would take the army to find out about you? Then you will be court-martialed and discharged by the army. Your life in society after that will be ruined. You would disgrace our entire family publicly.”

  “Then what can I do, Papa? I love that boy.”

  “Give him a job at the winery in the mountains in the Alpes Maritime. Give him a title. Assistant manager. A good title—after all, he is a very bright boy. He has a diploma in accounting.” Maurice nodded, pleased with his plan. “Now that I think of it, it’s a good idea.”

  Jacques stared at his father. “Merde! You want to fuck the boy yourself!”

  “What’s wrong with that, Jacques?” Maurice smiled. “After all, you will be away in the war. And I could keep him in the family. There’s nothing like a little incest to keep us all together.”

  * * *

  The first snow of the winter in Montreal laid a thin icy blanket over the campus of St. Xavier. The final bell rang dismissing the math class. The room emptied quickly as the boys ran to their dormitories. Jean Pierre was the last boy in his room. The other three had already arrived.

  Jean Pierre placed his books on the top of his wooden chest, then turned and sat down on the edge of his hard bed. He suddenly realized the three other boys were watching him. He stared back at them, not speaking.

  Alain, the biggest boy in the room, looked at him as he spoke. “You’re French, not Canadian. You can’t even speak English.”

  Jean Pierre stared defiantly. “You’re speaking French,” he said. “Not very good French, but none of the Canadians know how to speak French properly. But, somehow, I manage to understand you.”

  Joseph, the intellectual boy of the room, spoke nastily to Jean Pierre. “We all know why you have been shipped here. Your father didn’t want everyone to know that you are a homosexual. We also know about your man friend on the ship being murdered because someone was jealous.”

  Jean Pierre stared back at him. “How do you know about any of this?”

  “Everyone in school knows about it,” Alain taunted.

  “Who told you about it, you prick?” Jean Pierre said angrily.

  “The officer from the ship told the headmaster, who told all the teachers. Of course, then some of the kids found out about it.” Joseph sneered. “Would you like to suck any of our cocks?”

  Jean Pierre controlled his temper. He looked at them. “None of you have cocks big enough to play with.”

  This made Alain angry. He ran across the room to Jean Pierre and tried to hit him in the face. The blow didn’t reach Jean Pierre’s face. Jean Pierre was too quick. He rolled onto his back, so that his face was out of reach. He quickly kicked Alain in the testicles with his left foot, a maneuver he had learned in the Le Savate in the French gymnasium class.

  Alain doubled over, clutching his groin. He fell to the floor and began to cry.

  Jean Pierre looked down at him without moving from his bed and then turned to the others. “Do any of you know any more terrible stories about me?”

  They all returned the stare, but remained silent. Then Joseph knelt beside Alain to see if he could help him in any way. He looked up at Jean Pierre. “You didn’t have to do that. You might have ruined him for life.”

  Jean Pierre laughed. “Nobody ever got killed by a kick in the balls.”

  Paul, the shortest of the boys in the room, watched without speaking. Finally, he looked curiously at Jean Pierre. “How do you know so much about sex? You are not really that much older than the three of us.”

  Jean Pierre smiled smugly. “I’m French. All the French are experts in every kind of sex.”

  “There are other kinds of sex?” Paul asked, wondering.

  By now the other three boys were waiting for Jean Pierre’s answer. “I’m not going to become your teacher. You’ll just have to learn on your own time.”

  Alain spoke, still on the floor. “He doesn’t know anything, that’s why he won’t teach us.”

  “Could you at least teach us something to start us off?” It was Joseph who finally asked. The room was filled with curiosity by now.

  Jean Pierre looked at them. “Begin masturbating.”

  “How can we do that?” Paul asked. “Our pricks are too small.”

  “It’s very easy,” he said as he unzipped his fly and began stroking himself. “It doesn’t matter how small your prick is, it still feels good. Haven’t you ever watched the older boys in the shower use the soap to rub their pricks to make them hard until they are ready to shoot out?”

  The other three boys followed his motions. Soon they were all feeling the first tinglings of ecstasy. “How old are you really? Your prick is bigger than ours,” Paul asked.

  “I’ll be ten,” Jean Pierre said, “in a few months. But my father had to tell the school authorities that I was younger so I could get into this school. But it’s not too bad. I’m learning very fast about English. The headmaster is giving me two classes a day.”

  Joseph looked at him. “You mean that you’ve been speaking and understanding English?”

  Jean Pierre nodded. He watched the others closely. “Sometimes,” Jean Pierre added as his phallus was becoming hard, “it feels good to let another boy hold your prick and rub it.”

  “That’s for fags,” Alain said. “My father told me never to let another boy touch me.”

  “I saw a picture of a girl sucking a man’s penis once,” said Joseph.

  “I walked in on my parents one time while they were doing it. I watched until they caught me and my papa yelled at me to get out of the room,” Alain said.

  Jean Pierre walked over to Paul. He knelt down, watching the boy stroke his tiny penis. He bent over and with his tongue touched his penis and looked up at Paul. His eyes were glistening.

  Alain and Joseph in unison yelled, “That’s so gross! That’s for fags!”

  “I’m not a fag,” Paul yelled back, and quickly pulled up his pants.

  “You two should try it, you might like it,” Jean Pierre said to Alain and Joseph.

  “Let’s go outside and play.” Joseph shrugged and put on his coat.

  * * *

  Jacques sat up in bed and reached for a cigarette from the silver case on the bed table. He lit the cigarette from his sterling silver lighter next to the silver case. He inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. Then he coughed and turned to Louis, who was lying naked and sweaty on the bed beside him. “Jesus!” he gasped.

  Louis smiled up at him. “Am I getting to be too much for you? Don’t forget I’m only twenty.”

  “Don’t be a liar, you little whore.” Jacques laughed. “I know how old you are. You couldn’t even get your diploma in accounting until you were twenty-five years old. I saw your university papers.”

  “You really are a sneaky bastard,” Louis said.

  Jacques slapped him across the face. “You don’t speak language like that to me, or I’ll throw you out on the street where I found you.”

  Louis did nothing more than shrug. “I’m not afraid of you,” Lo
uis said. “You can do whatever you want to me. But your father has already offered me a position at the new winery that you bought.”

  “I suppose you are already having an affair with my father,” Jacques said angrily.

  Louis stared at him. “Why not? You knew I liked older men when I met you. You even watched me when I had that adventure at the masked ball on Bastille Day. You even let me do two of the German consular officials.”

  “Oh, shit!” Jacques yelled. “I don’t know why I even bother with you.”

  “I know.” Louis smiled devilishly at him and buried his face in Jacques’s groin. After a moment he looked up into Jacques’s face. “You always told me that I was the greatest cocksucker you ever knew.”

  Jacques snuffed the cigarette out in the ashtray next to the night table, then got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He sat down on the bidet to wash his genitals and bottom. Afterward he stood up and toweled himself and splashed some eau de cologne on himself.

  Louis was still sitting in the bed watching him. Quickly, Jacques pulled on his trousers and a fresh shirt and slipped into his shoes. Then he turned to Louis. “Get up and take all your clothes and leave this house,” Jacques said savagely.

  “You can’t do that to me,” Louis said. “Your father wouldn’t let you.”

  “You stupid little whore!” Jacques snapped. “Do you think that my father will even bother with you? He has a dozen boys prettier than you.” He tossed down a thousand francs onto the bedsheet next to Louis. “Now get the hell out of here!” He went to the door. “I’ll be downstairs in the living room,” he said. “If you’re not out of here in an hour, I’ll have the two coachmen throw you out!”

  * * *

  Maurice entered the library and called to Jacques, who was reading the last edition of the newspaper in the living room. “I just heard that you had your petit ami thrown out of the house.”

  “I couldn’t stand the little whore,” Jacques answered. “He was beginning to believe that he was the head of the house.” He looked at his father. “How did you hear about it so quickly?”

  “He came to my office when I returned from lunch. He told me that you struck him and then threw him out of the house. He said that you were insanely jealous and he was afraid for his life.”

  “Merde.” Jacques spat the word. “I should have beat the shit out of him.”

  “He wants me to send him up to the winery as the assistant, which he had been promised,” Maurice said.

  “No, Papa, absolutely not. He gets nothing,” Jacques answered.

  “He said if we do not give him the position, he wants fifty thousand immediately or he will tell the newspapers about the fact that we have collaborated with and paid the Germans to turn the winery over to us.”

  “The little bastard,” Jacques swore.

  “What do you think we should do with him?” Maurice asked.

  Jacques thought for a moment. “Give him the job.”

  “What good will that do?” Maurice answered. “It will only give him more power over us.”

  Jacques smiled. “Only for a month. He will feel quite secure by then. I’ll speak to the Germans about his threats. The Germans don’t want any more trouble than we do.”

  “Then what will that accomplish?” Maurice asked.

  “The Germans are our partners,” Jacques said. “They are used to this kind of thing. He’ll disappear in a little while. We’ll wash our hands of the whole situation and no one will even remember him.”

  5

  The snow and sleet had turned the streets into sheets of dangerous and slippery ice. Paris was impossible. People were slipping on the sidewalks; horses pulling drays and carriages were falling and falling again as they tried to dig their hooves into the solid sheet of ice. Traffic was at a complete standstill.

  Maurice and Jacques stood at the bay window that looked out onto the street. “It’s hell!” Jacques said.

  “What do you expect?” his father asked. “It’s always the same. A savage storm in the early part of the year. January, February, or March. It’s the cycle, what can we do?”

  “We should build a villa in the South,” Jacques said. “Nice and Cannes are really beautiful. The beaches, the Mediterranean, the water, all are magnificent. We could even buy a little yacht. Then we can go over to Corsica or down the coast into Italy and on to Portofino.”

  “It’s just pissing out money,” Maurice answered. “What business could we do there?”

  “The English, the Germans, and even the Scandinavians are going there for winter vacations. There are big hotels being built. It means big business,” Jacques said. “The cost of shipping our bottles of Plescassier water will be a quarter of what we have to pay to ship it to Paris. There are also local wines that are not all that bad. We can buy land very cheap now back from the coast a few miles; we could build a winery and have our own vineyards for one-tenth of what it cost us in Cabernet.”

  “You are out of your mind!” barked Maurice sarcastically. “I am too old to build a project like that and you are planning on going into the army.”

  “Not anymore,” Jacques replied. “Pétain did not get his promotion to general. He is still a colonel. Joseph Jaurès has been appointed commander-in-chief of all French forces and Haig has been appointed to the same position in the British forces in France.”

  “Meanwhile, the Boche are making fools of all of us. They say that Italy will be joining us soon, but the Italians can’t fight anything. They will just be another problem for us,” Maurice said, turning to his son. “Now what are you planning to do with yourself?”

  “I do not know General Jaurès, and Pétain has returned my letter of service, so I’m clear.” Jacques smiled. “I have decided to become a real businessman. I want to be a multimillionaire. Not only in France but in England and all of Europe.”

  Maurice laughed. “And how do you plan to do this? You still have the little whore that is blackmailing you at the winery in Cabernet. The minute you do anything he’ll make sure that he becomes a part of your business. And then if you don’t include him, he will tell the world about your tastes.”

  “He is the first plan I have developed,” Jacques stated. “I have made arrangements with two Corsicans—”

  “I told you before, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know of any plans like that,” Maurice said.

  Jacques looked at his father. “You’re getting soft, old man. I remember when you would have done far worse.”

  “The world is changing,” Maurice said quietly as he stared out the window. “I don’t know if I can change along with it.”

  Jacques had never seen his father like this before. He walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re doing pretty good, Papa.” Jacques smiled.

  Maurice sighed. “I worry,” he said. “A friend of mine who has a very important position with the German embassy has approached me with an interesting proposition. He says that it won’t be long until the Germans occupy most of western France. He has offered to pay us one million louis to allow Bayer, a German company, to distribute our Plescassier water to the officers’ clubs and restaurants here in France and also to distribute the water in Germany.”

  “What are they really offering to us?” Jacques said. “Germany can easily use up all of our production and then what are we left with? A company that has no water to sell in France.” He lit a cigarette. “Then the Boche will own our company.”

  “That is what I believe also,” Maurice said. “The world is changing and I am not fast enough to keep up. I worry. I don’t know what to do. If I don’t work with them, in time, they will take everything from us and we will get nothing.”

  “There is a way,” Jacques said. “Let me meet with your friend. I’m sure we can develop a better agreement.”

  Maurice looked at him. “But he’s not like us. He is married and has children.”

  “That’s his problem, not ours.” Jacques laughed. “Just let us all meet together.�
�

  “What will you be able to do?” Maurice asked curiously.

  “I know a small water company, Campagne. They are almost bankrupt; they have asked me to assist them, even buy them out.” Jacques looked at his father. “I can buy the company for two hundred thousand louis. Then I can merge it into Plescassier and, voilà, we have enough water for Germany and France.”

  “But is their water as good as Plescassier?” Maurice asked.

  “With today’s chemistry, it could be better,” Jacques answered.

  “But would it be natural?” Maurice asked.

  “It will not seem any different,” Jacques said. “The Boche have no taste. They would drink piss and think it is champagne.”

  6

  It was not until the middle of April that they were able to go to the south of France. Maurice decided that they should stay in Nice, because that was the largest city in the Alpes Maritime. The best hotel at that time was completely booked, so they went to the new hotel, Hotel Negresco, that had just been built by a rich American, Frank Jay Gould, who had moved to France after being ostracized by his family for marrying a Ziegfeld girl. Jacques and his father had rented the two largest suites on the top floor of the hotel. Maurice traveled with his man Hugo, who acted as his nurse, but also served other special needs that the older man desired.

  Jacques, who traveled alone, had a suite at the other corner of the top floor. It also consisted of a large bedroom and bathroom, a living room, and a smaller bedroom and bathroom for any servant that might be necessary. The hotel was luxurious and had many conveniences. The American made sure that the two Frenchmen were very appreciated. He had a private telephone installed in each room, even in the bathrooms. This was extraordinary since the average French hotel only had a telephone on each floor and a telephone concierge would call for you at your door and take you to the telephone. After you finished your call, he would escort you back to your room and hold out his hand for an extra gratuity, even though the hotel bill already included a normal gratuity for services.

  They had dinner at the hotel restaurant. They were very pleased that the cuisine was authentic French by one of the best chefs. They complimented the hotel manager and he arranged for them to meet the patron, M. Gould.