Hot Streak

by Susan Johnson

  “I knew you looked familiar,” Bart said, his smile cordial. “May I take this opportunity to tell you how much I've enjoyed your movies?”

  “Thank you, making films is such a lark.” Their dialogue could have been from a thirties film where both leads had slick hair and continental charm.

  A lark, Carey thought irritably. What the hell role was that line from? Sylvie was a temperamental, sullen, always inadequately prepared “star” who insisted on preferential treatment every step of the way. A lark, indeed. Sylvie was every director's nightmare; she required a dozen takes for every piece of dialogue over two sentences long.

  “Your joie de vivre shows on the screen,” Bart complimented, his voice an octave lower for effect.

  Along with everything else, Molly thought pettishly. “Bart, if you don't mind,” she said to the man dressed immaculately in white linen like some colonial planter or Colombian drug czar, “I'm sure Carrie's anxious to open your present.”

  “I understand, you share fatherhood with Mr. Fersten. How delightful. One can almost envision a movie from the concept.”

  “A bedroom farce-French style.” His smile was tight. “I was-I think the line is-the last to know, but hey, I'm a good-natured guy,” he smoothly lied. Sylvie's presence had altered his intention to demand some monetary settlement. Bart Cooper bitterly resented being cuckolded, especially so publically. “When Carrie's birthday rolls around, I'm the first one to remember my special girl.”

  With the usual unwrapped present, this one obviously purchased at the Walgreen's down the block, Molly felt sickened by his hypocritical sweetness. Hopefully, it wasn't another Barbie doll like the last three birthday gifts he'd given Carrie, damn his indifference. She considered choking Bart until his fine white teeth turned blue. “Bart-” she reminded him, her voice low with frustration and rage.

  “Am I in the way?” Bart asked.

  “No,” Sylvie said placidly, clashing with Carey and Molly's sharp, emphatic, “Yes.”

  “Actually, we were discussing a private matter, Bart, if you'll excuse us,” Carey said, his voice carefully modulated. Whenever he saw Bart he thought of all the misery he'd caused Molly, and it took great self-control to remain civil. He also thought of Molly living with Bart for seven years, and feelings of jealousy overwhelmed him. “Molly asked you to leave… if you don't mind,” he said, his eyes wintry as he motioned toward Carrie's room.

  “In a minute,” Bart replied, and turned back to Sylvie.

  “I must insist,” Carey said very quietly, struggling to maintain his composure.

  Bart swiveled back slowly and lifted one dark eyebrow. “Insist? Sounds like some chivalrous knight protecting his lady.”

  The air was palpable with tension.

  “Oh, Carey's chivalrous all right,” Sylvie cheerfully interjected, delighted to fuel the volatile situation. Maybe the woman would toss him out if sufficiently angered. Did she know his reputation for wildness? “Remember the young princess near Munich whose husband appeared unexpectedly at your private picnic? You were particularly chivalrous that time. The husband is very old, you see,” she said, as though everyone was concerned with the details of the scandal, “and the princess likes to ride motorcycles and live dangerously. The summer afternoon temperatures didn't require many clothes, I heard,” she went on, knowing Carey hated an audience for controversy, “and, well… under the circumstances, Carey felt obliged to defend the woman. It was all very romantic. Most men would have cut and run when Ludwig's touring car turned into the clearing. Gossip ran rampant for weeks. Marie told the story best; she's a cousin of mine and so sweet. I always thought Carey showed a remarkable sense of chivalry. Ludwig wanted to beat her.”

  Carey stood as if cut from stone, his dark eyes expressionless while Sylvie spoke. “Now if you're through,” he said as she concluded her recital with a smug smile, “should you hear from Egon, tell him to call me.”

  “He may not live to call,” she snapped.

  “I'm sorry… if you'll excuse me.” And he walked away.

  Molly turned to Bart. “If you actually care to see Carrie for her birthday, you know where her room is.” Her hostility was too intense to conceal. She looked very different from the woman in electric blue, her own dress a stark contrast as though the spring blossom pink was visual evidence as well of the enormous disparity in their lives. Suddenly uncomfortable in her own living room, she turned and followed Carey.

  She found him in the kitchen sprawled on one of her painted pine chairs and looking grim.

  He glanced up when she came in and ran a hand through his already ruffled hair in a slow, weary gesture. Sylvie's lacerating energy had apparently drawn blood. “I'm sorry,” he said, “about the story and my unfortunate past. There's nothing else to say about Sylvie. She's a world-class bitch and that's it.”

  “She's pretty nice-looking,” Molly said softly, seating herself opposite him at the kitchen table. And there's a fortune sparkling in her ears, she thought, looking at the kitchen curtains that should have been replaced last year.

  “Who the hell cares?” he muttered.

  “Bart does,” she replied with a grin. When he heard the mischief in her voice he lifted his head and smiled wanly.

  “Then he's welcome to her, with my blessing. What the hell did you ever see in-” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the living room, “him.” Distaste was prominent in every word. Bart was everything he despised in a man-dressed as though he were ready for a photo shoot, haircut so trim the scissor marks must still be warm on his hair, and with that phony insouciance that always prompted Carey to clench his hands into fists to keep from taking a swing and cracking the slick facade.

  “I could ask you the same about Sylvie,” Molly replied, a hint of approbation in her tone, “but the answer's pretty obvious.” She was much more warmly voluptuous in person-as though the two-dimensional screen neutralized her sun-ripened, perfumed volume.

  “I was not sober. I had an excuse.”

  “Could we drop the subject?” Molly said with a sigh, unwilling to go into a topic they had rehashed on too many occasions. “I think we both agree we made a mistake.”

  “Lord, she puts me in a vicious mood,” Carey growled, sliding lower in the chair. “When are they going to leave?”

  “Now that, darling, depends on your handling of Sylvie. Normally Bart wouldn't stay more than five minutes with Carrie-if he even remembers why he came here. On the other hand,” she said contemplatively, “with anyone else but the world's sex kitten, I'd say Eldora Whitney and her millions would win out every time. However, Sylvie has her charms. Now that I think about it, you won't get me to bet on Bart leaving, one way or the other.”

  “There is Egon to consider, and Sylvie, despite her myriad faults, is loyal to him.” Carey sighed, his mind in turmoil, his own loyalties strained in two directions. Molly and Carrie came first, of course, but his heart went out to Egon. He loved him, too, like one would a younger brother, and Egon was in horrendous trouble: His future was definitely in jeopardy. It was simply a matter of time before Rifat found him, and after that Sylvie could expect a ransom note with perhaps some portion of Egon's body as evidence of their sincerity.

  When Rifat received the prototypes, he would profit for the next decade on every weapon manufactured. The profits in the arms industry had always been one of the great areas of capitalism. It was very much a matter of supply and demand, of pricing items to the limit of what the traffic would bear, and in many cases of selling to both parties in a conflict without scruple. The U.S. and Russia both understood the principles of free enterprise. They sold sixty-three percent of the arms manufactured in the world; and it was simply a matter of methodology to determine who was considered the number one or number two supplier of arms.

  Always a sound businessman first, Rifat saw an opportunity to become involved in one of the most profitable businesses in the world. And poor Egon was the key, the man who would be used to help Rifat realize his
ends. “She may not leave,” Carey quietly said, thinking aloud. “Sylvie's persistent, if nothing else.”

  “Oh, she doesn't lack in the other departments, either, I assure you. Coffee? While you mutter your way through this?”

  “No.”

  “Tea?”

  He glanced up at her with a knit brow.

  “Something stronger,” she immediately suggested, her spirits pleasantly mellow now that Sylvie was definitely not a threat.

  He smiled.

  “Cognac?”

  “Bring the bottle.”

  And Molly listened while he talked about the Egon he'd met the first summer in Yugoslavia.

  “He sounds very nice.”

  “He is,” Carey said, chinning the rim of his half-empty glass.

  “How dangerous a position is he in?”

  Carey shrugged, not willing to go into detail about Rifat. The less Molly knew of his involvement the better. He'd decided in the last several minutes as he talked to bring Molly and Carrie to his father's for safety as he'd planned, and then try to find Egon before Rifat did. He had to at least try to save him, or he'd never be able to live with himself.

  But he'd do it without involving Sylvie. So after finishing his second cognac, he said, “Let's see if we can throw Sylvie and Bart out and enjoy what's left of Carrie's birthday.” He wanted time, too, to discuss going north. Carrie's horse was the perfect excuse, and once there perhaps Bernadotte could help him convince Molly of the seriousness of Rifat's threat and talk her into staying.

  With a promise to get in touch with Sylvie tomorrow, she was persuaded to leave, and Bart, practical man that he was, realized Eldora Whitney's promised account was decidedly more lucrative than an evening out with an international beauty, however enticing. Money came first with Bart. It always had.

  “Do you or do you not feel a freshness in the air now that our guests have gone?” Carey asked with a wide grin.

  “The stench of cauldrons bubbling has disappeared with your ex-wife's departure, and the aroma of manure is retreating now that my ex-husband has descended the staircase in his planter's suit. I almost expected an overseer or two to materialize and say, ‘Caught two more, Master, trying to escape.'”

  Carey laughed. “He looked more like Tom Wolfe to me, he was so-o-o smooth. I was wondering where his orange tie and pink suede shoes were.”

  “Bart would die before affecting anything so lowly as a writer's style. Really, dear, consider, would any good club allow Tom Wolfe a membership?”

  “Well, love, money talks. Sylvie has only a hundred-year-old title and wears blue leather pants or sometimes nothing at all and she belongs to some rather exclusive clubs.”

  “Bart doesn't have that kind of money.”

  “Oops… then he's blacklisted.”

  “Who's blacklisted?” Carrie asked, walking into the living room.

  “Anyone with less than a million,” Carey said, amusement in his eyes.

  “That's us,” his daughter cheerfully retorted.

  “But not for long,” her father replied.

  “Carey! Don't talk that way,” Molly protested, uncomfortable with his millions.

  “Mo-ther,” her daughter responded reproachfully, “it doesn't hurt to marry someone rich. Right, Dad?”

  “And hey, I'm nice.”

  “There, you see, Mom.”

  Molly often felt she was the naive one and her nine-year-old daughter the seer of the world. “Thank you for pointing out my error,” she said. “Should we check out Carey's bank account before we set a wedding date?”

  “Don't have to, Mom, for sure he's got more than we do.”

  Carey held his tongue, not about to make a verbal misstep.

  Molly would have liked to make some melodramatic comment about pulling one's self up by the boot straps, her own financial independence too hard won to be dismissed next to Carey's millions. But she resisted the impulse and consoled herself with a small jab only. “Money shouldn't matter.”

  Carey had no intention of discussing the disparities in their incomes. “Why don't we change the subject?” he said with a smile. “My mother always said that when my father and I disagreed.”

  Molly's brows were still drawn together in a faint scowl. “Did it work?”

  “She usually said, ‘Let's go for a ride,' next which always did work,” he replied in as neutral a tone as possible. He was walking a fine line here, needing to have his way about whisking them off while not giving the appearance of undue concern. “Speaking of riding,” he murmured, his glance swinging to his daughter. “How would you like to go up north tomorrow and ride your horse?”

  “Oh, Mom, could we?” Carrie pleaded, instant elation bubbling in her voice. “I just know I can ride! I really know I can! Think how many Black Stallion books I've read. I can practically do everything!” Doing a little dancing skip and a hop, she put her palms together and gazed up at her mother. “Say, yes, Mom-please, please, please, please, please!”

  Carey smiled at the unrestricted vitality in his young daughter. “You're going to be a great rider.” And he meant it. She had a natural fearlessness and competence, two primary components for world-class competition.

  “I'll clean the kitchen for a month!” Carrie cried, “and my room too,” she added, excitement flushing her cheeks. “And I promise to practice my piano every single night!”

  “I'd like to go up tomorrow, if you could,” Carey softly said, turning to Molly.

  “Aw-w-right! Hear that, Mom? Two against one. Hey! Lucy!” Carrie's scream was deafening. “Let's pack!” And she was out of the room in two seconds.

  “I'm not sure about this two against one,” Molly muttered. “Should we talk about this?”

  “It'll just be a quick trip,” Carey lied. “She wants to go,” he cajoled. “A day or two won't hurt your business, will it? And my father's anxious to meet you and Carrie. He'd be thrilled.”

  “Just for a day or so?” She debated the possibility of actually leaving her business when she never had before.

  “Promise.”

  “Promise, promise?”

  “Absolutely.” Did a lie count when lives were at stake?

  CHAPTER 31

  T hey left at six the following morning. The street and sidewalks outside Molly's building were quiet and devoid of jostling newsmen, thanks to Matt Black's team. But he'd been right. It was going to cost Carey in lawsuits. Three of the reporters had screamed “sue your ass off” as they'd been hauled away.

  That morning Allen contacted Sylvie at her hotel. He had a message from Carey: He'd try to find Egon as soon as he brought Molly and Carrie to a safe location. “Don't wait,” Allen told her. “He said you should return home and he'll contact you in Nice or Frankfurt.”

  “What if I want to wait?” she said, her tone chill.

  “Look, Sylvie, I'm not paid to argue with you. I'm delivering a message. But if you want some advice, I'd do what he says.”

  “And if I don't?”

  “Hey, Egon's your brother, not mine.”

  “Damn him!”

  “Jesus, Sylvie, he's doing you a favor.”

  “He always gives orders, never asks what I might want!”

  Nothing else works with you, Miss Bulldozer Queen of the World, Allen wanted to say, but instead said, “Have a good flight home.”

  So that warm summer morning in June while Carey, Molly, their daughter, and her friend Lucy were being driven north to Bernadotte's estate, Sylvie was swearing her way through a hasty application of makeup after ordering her car brought round. If she knew where Bernadotte lived, she would have followed, but Carey had always carefully protected his father from Sylvie. As Bernadotte preferred tranquillity, he and Sylvie would not have mixed well.

  “Ordered home like some underling, damn his arrogant ass,” Sylvie muttered, throwing toilet articles into her overnight bag. She was dressed in an Yves St. Laurent nautical-theme slacks outfit, and looked as crisp as her temper in starched white
and military blue braid. “And now I'm supposed to wait by the phone. I can't stand waiting… I hate it!” she breathed hotly. But her frustration was provoked not so much by the order as by the fact she had to obey or lose her best chance of helping Egon. She trusted Carey implicitly in this situation, unlike any hired investigators she might employ. No one understood her brother better than Carey; he seemed able to anticipate the direction of Egon's erratic thought process. So she sulked and muttered and swore under her breath, but she left because she needed Carey's help.

  In Rome, Rifat had just received a cable from Barcelona. It was early in the afternoon, and the palazzo housing his office was cool, despite the high temperatures outside. His temperament was cool, as well.

  The cable was encouraging after Ceci's unsuccessful mission, followed by the news of Egon's disappearance.

  ON HIS TRAIL. NEAR RR STATION LAST NIGHT. POINTS LEFT BEHIND.

  Egon would not be at his best on drugs, Rifat mused. A pleasant thought. He anticipated a speedy capture.

  CHAPTER 32

  W hat's going to happen to Egon?” Molly asked after watching Carey silently contemplate the view out his window for the last twenty minutes.

  He shrugged, too troubled to respond. Another five miles of suburban sprawl passed by as he tried to organize the turmoil in his mind… the major obstacle of Molly and her expected resistance, the overwhelming rush of emotion when he thought of how close Rifat had been to his daughter, the waves of fear and pity for Egon. And then, with an intrinsic decisiveness that was based more on feeling than logic, he decided now was as good a time as any to tell Molly his plans. Carrie and Lucy were in the front seat, happily chatting with Jess, and he hated keeping Molly in the dark. Taking a breath, he turned to her, his fair hair brilliant in the morning sun, his dark eyes watchful. “I'm going after him.”