Hot Streak

by Susan Johnson

  Glancing down at her, he smiled. “Thirty-three years,” he said. “Don't worry, I'll have someone bring your car in here so you won't have to see them again. Oh, shit!” he swore, and pushed Molly behind him just as a flash exploded from close range. “Jesus! Paolo, don't you ever give up?”

  The short, stocky man dressed in mechanic's overalls shrugged negligently. “Smile, Count,” he said in heavily accented English, “and bring out the signorina so your fans can see her face, per favore.”

  “One of these days, Cerelli, you're going to lose your teeth.” All the blandness was gone from Carey's voice. “Out of here, dammit! Now!” And Mr. Cerelli only snapped a half dozen more shots of Carey angrily striding toward him before prudently turning and fleeing.

  “He's resourceful,” Molly said with a touch of irony when Carey returned.

  “He's a pain in the ass,” Carey growled, watching the retreating figure.

  “You must be profitable for him.”

  “Hell, yes, but with Cerelli it's the damn challenge more than the money. I'd be happy to pay him double what he makes to stay off my back, but the bastard's refused. And like some goddamn ferret, he shows up anywhere!”

  “Like at the Rembrandt Hotel?”

  Carey's head snapped around.

  Molly lifted her brows.

  “Christ,” Carey muttered, “that picture must have been in every paper in the world.”

  “Serves you right, keeping married duchesses out all night.”

  Carey groaned. “Could we drop the subject?”

  “I, on the other hand, have been quite virtuous,” Molly replied, mischief and a touch of resentment blending in her voice.

  “Have the last ten years been a contest?” Carey asked.

  “It appeared as though you were attempting to set records.”

  “Are we having a fight? Because if we are, let's fight about something more interesting.” It was the primal masculine response to discord in general and inquiries into infidelity in particular.

  “Weren't they interesting?”

  Carey grimaced, considered briefly, and said, “Not particularly. Any more questions?” By now there was a certain terseness to his responses.

  It fell, however, on the fearless ground of Molly's pride. “Only one,” she crisply replied. “Could you keep Cerelli away from me? I don't care to be in every paper in the world as your latest fling.”

  “Okay. I'll have both his knees broken.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “You wouldn't, would you?” she finished, contrite and confused and feeling slightly out of her depth.

  “Look, honey, I'll do what I can, but seriously even broken knees would only slow him down for a few weeks. Now,” he said “can we not argue?” Pulling her into his arms, he softly murmured, “Personally, I've never been happier in my life. And if the future goes according to my pollyanna plan, I intend to make you equally happy. Okay?”

  His arms held her tightly, and she had to arch her neck to look up at him. It was cool inside the cavernous hangar, undisturbed by the morning sun held at bay outside the large open doors. For a moment she felt as though they were in some ancient pagan temple.

  “Okay,” she murmured without further thought. Suddenly discord seemed trivial. Her smile was strong enough to banish images of a dozen irritating Cerellis.

  “I'll be back as soon as I can,” he whispered, not wanting to leave.

  “When?” she asked, not wishing to relinquish him, either.

  “Tomorrow… the next day.” And then Allen's insistent reminder overrode his own potent wishes, and he amended, “Probably a couple of days. Do you want to come back with me?”

  “Can't,” she breathed just before his lips brushed hers.

  “I'll try and wait two days, then.”

  “Why wait?” It was a breathy invitation, a flirtatious promise from a young woman who had until very recently relegated her own sexuality to a future place on a future list of future leisure time.

  Carey's head came up, and his sweeping glance took in the quiet dim, interior.

  “I haven't done it in the backseat of a car since that night at Lake Fourteen,” Molly teased, reaching up on tiptoe to nibble his earlobe.

  Bending his head, he kissed her very hard. He'd also remembered that night, had recalled it fondly countless times. “Let me show you,” he said a moment later when his mouth lifted from hers, “the inside of my plane.”

  “That is the smoothest line I've ever heard.”

  “You're the only one who's ever heard it.”

  “I find that charming,” she said, her chin resting on his chest.

  “And I find you irresistible-Excessively so at this exact moment. Damn the photographers.” And, sweeping her into his arms, he carried her to the gleaming jet parked outside.

  An hour later, Carey flew back to northern Minnesota and Molly drove home to face her busy schedule at the office. There were fewer photographers now; most had grown tired of waiting, and had left. So Molly didn't notice the gray sedan in the traffic behind her, following her on the freeway back into the city. Nor did she notice the man across the street from the Mart parking lot hastily fit a telephoto lens on his camera and run through twenty shots as she left her car to enter the building. From his vantage point near the wooden fence of Molly's small garden and yard, Paolo Cerelli noted with surprise and pleasure, the young girl walking toward the garden gate. An artist beneath his lucrative commercial profession, he immediately recognized the resemblance to the man he'd come to know intimately through the lens of his camera. “She's quite beautiful,” he murmured over the hum of the automatic shutter. “Like her father,” he added. That explained why production had been shut down so suddenly.

  Cerelli had been following Carey for nearly a decade, since he'd appeared as the barefoot boy director-everyone's darling at Cannes-with his first full-length film and walked off with the prize. And Cerelli knew how serious Carey was about his movies. Once production began, he was thoroughly dedicated, even in his enfant terrible stage when women and drugs were taking a great deal of his time. Even then, the cameras rolled every morning with the young director on the set bright and early doing his job. Nothing had ever interfered with Carey's film-making. Until now.

  After the pale-haired girl disappeared into the garden behind the fence, Paolo packed up his film and drove to the airport. He was anxious to express his newest photos to the sensational news magazine that paid him so well.

  CHAPTER 25

  C eci had contacted his team by phone and passed on his orders in a cryptic code impenetrable to listeners. With the specialized surveillance equipment throughout the world, no one relayed sensitive information in open language. Everyone was listening to everyone else, the modern-day Maginot Line of self-defense encumbered by its own informational bulk, just as its predecessor was by its static concrete.

  All the men collected from various points on the Mediterranean were to be in Paris in a week. There they would meet in a safe house near Orly and confirm the required procedures for kidnapping Count Fersten's daughter. Ceci was flying up with all the necessary bank account numbers to finance the venture. The men expected half-payment up front deposited in their Swiss accounts prior to the beginning of the mission.

  Deraille had only to travel from Marseilles, so he had arrived first, followed by Reha from Athens. They were still waiting for Timur Makal, but he was always the last to arrive, loathe to leave his gambling and women. Since the deadline for their meeting was noon on Thursday, Kemal “Ceci” Kiray expected Timur to arrive just under the wire, as usual.

  His entrance was as expected. At 11:45 there was a small flurry of flying gravel in the curved drive, and a black Porsche Targa came to an abrupt halt. A minute later, he stood in the drawing room doorway. “I drove all night from Vienna,” he said, and his eyes were dilated from the amphetamines in his blood. But he always appeared with a beaming smile, like an uncontrite young boy.

  “Was she pleasant compan
y?” he asked, indicating the peony pink lipstick stain on the coarse silk weave of Timur's putty-colored jacket.

  “They're all pleasant company,” Timur replied with a negligent glance at the pastel souvenir of his beautiful companion. “If she hadn't been so pleasant, I wouldn't have been so late.”

  “You're an irresponsible boy.”

  “But a lot happier than you, eh, Ceci? And ready to fly you wherever you're off to.” He moved toward the liquor table to pour himself a drink, undeterred by Ceci's mild censure.

  Both Deraille and Reha were familiar with Timur's nonchalance, though they were as different from him as day and night. Deraille was a small, dark Corsican who'd spent most of his life in Marseilles and was the very best in his line of work. He was a specialist in surveillance, and could reconnoiter the movements of an intelligence chief within the confines of his own safehouse. Rifat had first heard of him when the Cypriot Prelate had been assassinated in his isolated monastery cell. Bernard Deraille had found the way in. That job had taken him a methodical three months to reconnoiter… his longest ever. But the political ramifications of the murder were still being felt in Cypriot politics.

  “Hey Deraille… killed any priests lately?” Timur inquired with another of his charming smiles, holding up a glass of the pear liquor he favored.

  “I'm saving myself for the Pope, now that the Bulgarians botched the job,” he replied, his teeth flashing white against his swarthy skin.

  “In that case, I won't bet a sou on the Pope's life. You're the best, Bernie.” And he drained the glass in one long swallow.

  “I know,” the wiry Corsican replied matter-of-factly. He'd been the best for many years; false modesty did not figure prominently in his psyche.

  “And Reha,” Timur went on lazily, setting his glass aside with precision. His finely tuned nervous system was singing. “I hear a prominent Athens shipping magnate died in his Mercedes outside a small taverna. Are the arms transfers out of Sofia finally cleared up?” Timur's smile was angelic.

  Reha only grunted. He lacked a sense of humor and had never appreciated Timur's whimsy. A former Turkish olympic heavyweight wrestler, he'd been cashiered out of the army after breaking one too many heads, then saved from prison by Rifat. A brute of a man with no neck or remorse, he was Rifat's most dependable bodyguard and assassin.

  Dropping into a tapestry armchair, Timur lounged, all dark-haired, dark-eyed, lean elegance. Contemplating Ceci over the hands propped idly under his chin, he said, “I suppose we gear up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

  “You're restricted to the flat tonight,” Ceci replied. “Departure is 0500.”

  Timur groaned. “You're a sadist, Ceci. Why can't we lift off at a respectable hour?”

  “Because my dear Makal, there are fewer people around at 4:30 in the morning to see us load the necessary supplies on board.”

  Timur sighed, his dark eyes half-lidded. “Where are we going?”

  “Minneapolis.”

  His eyes widened in inquiry. “Where?”

  “A city in the center of the U.S.” And then Ceci laid out the details of the kidnapping.

  CHAPTER 26

  D uring the following days Carey often flew down late at night, but he arrived and left as discreetly as possible. He had warned off as many of the photographers as his clout allowed; those on location understood-if they wanted to stay through the filming-that his private life was private. So it wasn't until well into the next week that Molly was faced with the sudden appearance of two photographers as she and Carrie walked through her garden gate, about to spend the afternoon at the beach.

  Retreating hastily, she slammed the gate in their faces, locked it, hurried Carrie upstairs, said, “Wait one minute. Mom has to make a phone call,” and dialed Carey's number.

  “Could I speak to Carey, please?”

  A male voice replied, “Sorry, Mr. Fersten's not taking any calls.”

  Her temper flared. The photographers were a disagreeable surprise, but she'd mostly wanted to seek advice from Carey, or ask if he knew who they were, or if he could dislodge them. She had a gut level problem about living her life on the photo section of some gossip newssheet. But coming up against the Hollywood celebrity he-doesn't-take-calls wall brought all the abrasive elements of Carey's life strongly to the fore. “Would you,” she carefully enunciated, controlling her urge to let the temper in her voice show, “leave him a message.”

  “Sure, honey, but it won't do you any good. He doesn't return messages. Look,” the voice was clipped and business-like, “if he told you he'd do you a favor, he will. The man's word is good. And if you don't know him, I'm sorry, babe, there's just too many of you calling.”

  Images rolled in accelerated fast-forward motion through her mind, and all the women in Carey's life appeared in blurred technicolor. “Tell him,” she said, icicles hanging from each word, “Molly Darian called.”

  “Oops. Put you right through. Sorry, but I usually run interference for Carey. No hard feelings…”

  And she heard the ringing of the extension.

  “Golden Bear Productions.”

  “How many people does he have running interference?” Molly asked.

  “Could I help you?” Allen said. If Joey had put the call through, it was someone worth being polite to, regardless of the sarcasm.

  “This is Molly Darian. I'd like to talk to Carey, if he has time for one of the many women calling him,” she crisply replied.

  “I'm sorry, Molly, he's out in the middle of the lake on a barge filming. Could I have him get back to you?”

  The man's voice was too smooth, too soothing, as though he'd run through this number endless times. “Tell him I've two photographers camped outside my door. It's extremely annoying, and if they're not gone very soon, I'm never talking to him again.” Her statement was partly rhetorical, but a real anger colored her words when all the old jealousies resurfaced at the thought of Carey being bombarded with female callers. In all the idyllic happiness of their reunion, somehow she'd lost sight of the fact Carey lived another life outside her world. A life where he was sought after, panted after, seen as an enviable prize by beautiful women everywhere.

  I value my life, Allen thought. Let her tell him herself. “He'll call you as soon as he's off the lake.”

  “Do me a favor.” She couldn't keep the snappishness out of her voice, wondering how many times other women had been put off by that calm tone telling them Carey would call them back.

  “Sure, Molly, anything.”

  “Tell your boss, if these photographers aren't away from my front door and out of my life-” She paused, realizing how shrill she sounded. “Sorry,” she said, “I'm not used to this-”

  “Carey will take care of it,” Allen said in the reasonable voice he reserved for distrait wives, carping producers, and IRS officials. “Trust me. Just as soon as he's back on shore.”

  “God I hate this.” Molly's voice had begun to rise again. “He's notorious, you know. Not only famous, but notorious, dammit.”

  God in heaven. She just discovered that? In his position, however, Allen knew how to dodge a confrontation. His pacifying retort came automatically. “I'm sure Carey will straighten everything out. I'll have him call you.” But Allen also knew better than anyone that Carey Fersten was indeed notorious. Notorious for having a new woman on every location and in every city.

  But this Molly Darian was different. That was obvious to him, to the crew, the cast, to anyone who'd seen Carey since she'd walked into his life. He was adjusting his life for her; he was forcing a relentless pace on the film, pushing the shooting schedule up so that he could fly off and spend a few hours with her. And this movie was his personal pet, the movie he'd waited all his life to make. Changing his life for a woman? No one would believe it. Not anyone who knew Carey before. You had to be here. Yeah, Molly Darian was different, all right.

  She was the only woman Allen had ever seen who cost Carey Fersten a cool half million bucks. Tha
t was what the shut-downs had cost so far, and the accountants were screaming at him daily over the phone.

  An hour later when Carey returned to the trailor, he received Molly's message along with a newly arrived tabloid emblazoned with headlines in twelve-point type screaming: CAREY FERSTEN'S LOVE CHILD over a series of photos showing Carrie walking home from school.

  “Fucking Cerelli.”

  “None other.”

  “Shit.”

  “Molly called to tell you she wants the photographers making a home on her doorstep removed a little sooner than immediately.”

  Carey frowned. “She was mad?”

  “I detected a twinge of annoyance,” Allen said.

  “And she hasn't seen this yet.”

  “She didn't mention it.” And Allen thought of her final comment-that Carey was notorious. Soon she'd be in that same category herself. It went with the territory. “I'd ease into the subject if I were you.”

  “Diplomacy is required, then.”

  “Along with a running start.”

  Carey laughed. “Oh, hell, so what else is new.” But it was new. For the first time in his life he didn't walk away from an angry woman pressuring him. A novel experience.

  Molly wasn't like all the other women. Those headlines and Carrie's pictures would be public property by noon tomorrow. Molly would have to marry him now… very soon. A press conference was in order to announce the date and acknowledge Carrie. “We'll have to call a press conference.”

  “For-?” Allen tactfully inquired.

  “Carrie's my daughter. I want to acknowledge her, and if I can talk some sense into her mother, we'll announce a wedding date.”

  “The lady's reluctant?” After eight years of watching women try to entice Carey to the altar, Allen tried to disguise his astonishment.

  “Not reluctant, but she wants time for Carrie and me to get to know each other.”

  “The Star Inquirer moved that scenario into fast forward.”

  Carey shrugged and smiled. “I'm not complaining.” He picked up the phone. “Wish me luck,” he said, “she's going to be pissed.”