by Stuart Woods
“Yes.”
“Good day, then. Go and sin no more.”
15
I VISITED MY GRANDFATHER, something I had put off for no good reason, and found a letter from my mother waiting for me. I had written them from Plymouth.
“Your father and I are both pleased that you have found some focus for your year abroad. We think you are very fortunate to have met these obviously charming people who have offered you an opportunity to learn something entirely new and to have a bit of adventure, as well.
“Billy has business in England, so we are coming to London on the fifteenth and will be at the Connaught for three days. We hope you can come to London and spend a day or two with us. We’ve booked you a room on the off-chance.”
My mother does not take chances. A round-trip ticket from Cork to London was enclosed.
I wanted to go but hesitated to ask Mark for time off so soon.
As it turned out, the decision made itself. A couple of days later we arrived at the boatyard for work to find Finbar O’Leary looking annoyed and apologetic, in addition to his usual astonishment.
“They’ve gone, Captain,” he said dourly, as if we knew perfectly well what he was talking about.
“Who’s gone, Finbar?” Mark asked, reasonably.
“Not who. What. Those stainless fittings of yours. The special ones.”
Mark walked past Finbar into his office. “I saw them here yesterday right behind the door. A small, cardboard box.”
“I know the box,” Finbar said. “It’s gone, and the fittings with it.”
“It must be here somewhere. Maybe somebody moved it.”
“I’ve been through the whole place,” Finbar said. “Somebody moved it right out.”
The fittings were ones that Mark had designed himself and had had fabricated in England. They were essential to the early stages of construction of the yacht, having something to do with the keel area, I wasn’t sure just what. We conducted a new search. They were not to be found. Mark did not fret but began to plan.
“How long can we work around this problem before it delays building, Finbar?”
Finbar looked at the upside-down, half-complete mold onto which the yacht’s hull would be shaped and scratched his head. “Six working days,” he said, with finality. “After that we’re stuck without them—I shouldn’t think you’d want to improvise something that important.”
“Not bloody likely.” Mark went into Finbar’s office and placed a call to Southampton. Half an hour later he came out and called me aside. “Willie, they can fabricate a new set and put them on the train to London on the seventeenth. If we ship them here, even by air, they could be hung up in customs for days. Will you go over there and bring them back?”
I told Mark of my parents’ impending visit.
“Ideal! I’ll have them sent directly to the hotel. We’ll get you a flight booked, and I’ll give you cash to pay the duty.”
“They’ve sent me a ticket. It’s all arranged. I hadn’t mentioned it to you because I wasn’t sure if I’d be needed.”
“My lad, on this occasion you’ll be needed more in London than here. Something else. I’ll get a progress report written up for Derek Thrasher, and you can drop it off at his office.”
“Mark … would those fittings have any value for a thief?”
He shook his head. “Not unless he was building a sixty-foot yacht.”
“Is anything else missing?”
“Nothing. You’re obviously thinking the same thing I am.”
“Maybe something to do with Belfast?”
“That’s pretty farfetched. I doubt it’s connected.”
“Something personal, then? Are we making any enemies?”
“That would be news to me. Listen, just because that gear would be useless to a thief doesn’t mean the thief knows it. I think it’s just idle pilferage, maybe one of the apprentices. Let’s not attach any great significance to this. Finbar’ll let it be known among the lads he’s displeased. If we lock up gear that might be lifted, I doubt if we’ll have any further problems.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Mark picked up his tool belt and started for the mold. “I hope so, too,” he said.
On the morning of the fifteenth I drove to Cork airport. Shortly after I passed through the gates of the estate I noticed a car coming toward me on the road. I would have paid it no attention, except that there appeared to be a woman in the back seat, being driven by a chauffeur, and I had never seen a chauffeur-driven car in Ireland. Then, when my car was briefly abreast of the other I glanced sideways, but there was no one in the back seat. I came around a corner at my usual high speed and found myself almost on top of a cow standing in the road, grazing contentedly. I whipped the wheel to the right, barely missing the animal, ran halfway up a grassy embankment, whipped back to the left and met the road sideways in a spray of gravel before I was able to power out of the skid. In Ireland, if you hit a cow in the road, it is your fault and not that of the farmer who allowed it to stray. For this reason, the grass alongside the roads is referred to as, “the long pasture.” I drove the rest of the way to the airport trembling, thinking of what might have happened to my tiny car if it had come to rest against a large, bovine obstruction. I imagined myself being removed from the flattened wreckage with a huge can opener. My fear and relief drove the chauffeured car from my mind.
Two hours later I checked into the Connaught Hotel and was surprised to be recognized by the desk clerk. I had forgotten the resemblance to my father. There was a note: they had arrived on an early morning flight and gone straight to bed, not expecting to wake until early afternoon. I was to ring them at three to discuss plans for dinner. I went to my room and unpacked my clothes and the thick envelope that Mark had prepared for Derek Thrasher. I found the card he had given me in Cowes. I asked the hotel operator to ring the number. A silky female voice answered on the first ring, repeating the number.
“Is this Mr. Thrasher’s office?” I asked.
“May I have your name, please?” the woman replied, politely but noncommittally.
“My name is Will Lee; I’m trying to reach the office of Derek Thrasher. Do I have the correct number?”
“May I ask the nature of your business, please?”
“I just called to get the address of Mr. Thrasher’s office. I want to drop a package by, and he gave me his number but not his address.”
“Just one moment, please.”
“I don’t need to speak to Mr. Thrasher … ” But she had put me on hold. Almost immediately I heard Derek Thrasher’s voice on the line.
“Will! My dear fellow, what brings you to London?”
“Oh, hello, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ve come over to meet my parents for a couple of days and to pick up some gear for the yacht, and Mark asked me to drop off a progress report he’s prepared.”
“Wonderful! Come for lunch. I’ve just come back from a trip abroad, and I’m having a few people in. You might find some of them interesting. Where are you?”
“We’re at the Connaught.”
“You’re just around the corner.” He gave me an address in Berkeley Square. “Half an hour, then?”
“You’re sure I won’t be intruding … ”
“Not a bit of it. See you soon.” He hung up.
I was hungry and glad for the diversion. I changed and walked down Mount Street into Berkeley Square and found the address. It was a small, elegant building that had surely once been a private house; it certainly did not look like an office building, but all the houses in Berkeley Square had given in to commerce. Before I could open the door, a uniformed commissionaire opened it for me.
“Mr. Lee, is it? Please take the lift to the top floor. Mr. Thrasher is expecting you.” He opened the door for me. I pushed the highest of the three, unmarked buttons. Nothing happened. Through a glass panel in the elevator door I saw the commissionaire step to his desk and reach under the top. The elevator began to move. A
moment later the door opened, and I stepped directly into a large, sunlit room that was very much out of character with the period façade of the building. A collection of handsome steel and leather furniture was artfully scattered over a thick, wool carpet. The walls were nearly obscured by pictures, large and small. One looked very much like a Picasso; another, like a Van Gogh. Beyond a wall of sliding glass doors opening onto a terrace, Derek Thrasher detached himself from a group of people and strode into the room toward me. He was more formally dressed than when I had seen him in Cowes, wearing a perfectly tailored, three-piece gray suit and a sober necktie.
“Will, how very good to see you!” He shook my hand warmly and drew me into the room. “This is where I get most of my work done. Let me show you around before we join the others.” He led me about the room, commenting on this picture and that sculpture. I was jarred to learn that the Picasso and the Van Gogh were not reproductions. Neither was anything else. I began to reassess my notion of how wealthy Thrasher was. I had pictured him as merely a highly paid chief executive of a large company. I had met lots of those, friends and clients of my father in Atlanta, but this man owned an art collection the value of which probably exceeded the total net worth of any three of them. The fathers of some of my college friends were rumored to have fortunes ranging into tens of millions, but when I visited their homes I found they lived sedately, if elegantly, not very differently from the way we lived on our admittedly large farm. I began to see how small a commitment Mark’s project was for Derek Thrasher. He did not take it lightly, though. He quickly read through the report I had brought him, nodding and making affirmative noises.
“Good, good, you’re ahead of schedule. I like that.”
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to get my bearings, “is this your home or your office?”
“Both,” he replied. “I work on this floor and live in the rest of the house.” He indicated a door in the wall opposite the elevator. “That opens into the office building next door; most of my London people occupy that; there are others scattered about Britain and Europe; I keep offices in the Far East, as well. Incidentally, it’s not widely known that I live and work in this house; I’d be grateful if you would keep that fact in confidence.”
“Of course.” He led me onto the terrace and introduced me to the dozen or fifteen people gathered there, going slowly and usually commenting on their work or activities. It often was not necessary, as I knew half of them by sight. There were the male and female leads of a major film about to go into production in London—I had read in the morning paper on the plane that they despised each other and did not even speak off the set. They were holding hands. Two Members of Parliament were leaning against a bar and chatting amiably. One of them was a leader of the left wing of the Labour party; the other had been ousted from a previous Tory cabinet because of his radical, right-wing views. I began to get the feeling that Henry Kissinger could pick up a few pointers from Derek Thrasher.
There was a celebrity fashion photographer who had just published a wildly acclaimed book of photographs of pop singers and with him, a model whose name escaped me, but whose face was everywhere in magazines and newspapers and in gossip columns; there was an Arab called Nicky, wearing an English public-school tie and an accent to match; a couple of stockbroker types; and several other quite beautiful women, one or two as young as I.
Shortly we helped ourselves from a buffet and sat in twos and threes around the large terrace, eating and chatting, while the music of a string quartet wafted in from hidden speakers. I had quickly gravitated toward a striking girl with auburn hair and beautiful, long legs, who introduced herself as Jane. Thrasher moved from group to group and eventually came to us.
“Will, I would be very pleased if you and your parents would join me for dinner this evening. Do you think that would be possible?”
“I don’t know. They came in on an early flight and may be too tired.” I looked at my watch. “I’m to call them about now. I’ll see how they feel.”
“Please do. I have a table at nine in the Connaught Grill, so they won’t have to stray from home.”
He directed me to a telephone, and I rang my parents’ room. My mother came on the line, sleepy. “Did I wake you? You asked me to call at three.”
“Oh, yes, I’m glad you did. Your father has a business appointment at four, and I want to do some shopping. I suppose we’d better get moving.”
“Mother, Derek Thrasher has asked us all to have dinner with him tonight. Do you think you’ll feel up to it, or have you made other plans?”
“What?”
“I said, Derek Thrasher … ”
“Derek Thrasher? Are you joking?”
“No, I’m at his house, now.”
“Where on earth did you meet Derek Thrasher?”
“I wrote you about him; he’s the one who’s sponsoring Mark in the race.”
“You never mentioned his name. Hold on … “ She covered the receiver with her hand, but I could hear her talking excitedly to my father. She came back on. “We’d love to.”
Thrasher approached with an inquiring look. I nodded. “Eight-thirty in the bar, if that’s all right,” he said. I passed the information on to my mother and said I would see them at that time. “Perhaps you’d like your new friend to join us?” Thrasher asked, nodding at Jane.
“Sure. That would be great.”
He walked to where she was sitting and spoke briefly to her. She smiled. He turned and gave me a thumbs-up sign. It was after three before the luncheon began to wind down, and I had had a lot of wine. I went back to the Connaught and stretched out on my bed.
The phone jarred me awake at eight. “Will, how are you, boy?” My father sounded very much himself.
“Great, Dad.”
“Why don’t you meet us in the bar at quarter past, so we’ll have time to catch up before Mr. Thrasher joins us?”
“Sure, I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
“Good, your mother is very excited about meeting Thrasher. I must admit I’m a bit curious myself. See you in a few minutes.” He hung up.
I quickly shaved and changed from my blazer into my only suit and went downstairs. Both my parents looked wonderful, rested, and delighted to see me. We ordered drinks.
“Listen,” I said to them, “what is all this excitement about meeting Derek Thrasher?”
My mother laughed. “Well, it should be very interesting to get a look at such a mysterious figure.”
“Mysterious?”
“My word, Will, have you given up reading the papers for the last couple of months?”
“Well, I suppose I just about have. I read one on the plane this morning; first one in quite a while, I guess. They don’t deliver to the door of the gamekeeper’s cottage at Coolmore Castle, and we don’t have a TV, either.”
My mother exchanged an amused glance with my father, then turned back to me. “Well, before this summer nobody had ever heard of him—not in the United States, anyway; he was known in business circles over here, but suddenly, he’s all over the papers.”
My father picked up the conversation. “In early July he surfaced in New York in a takeover bid for Arabco, which is a small oil producer that half a dozen companies were after. He was edged out by one of the big conglomerates, but only just. What blew Wall Street’s mind was a rumor that he was in the game with personal funds, which sounded just about impossible. Shortly after the takeover fight ended he bought a major Manhattan skyscraper—again, allegedly with nothing but his own money. Nobody in the business press could figure out how he could have made so much money without being known in the Wall Street community. There were rumors of Arab oil connections, and then, only a couple of days ago, there was a report in the New York Times that he had had a meeting with Howard Hughes in the Bahamas.”
“I thought nobody ever met with Howard Hughes.”
“Exactly, that got not only the financial press, but the gossip columns going. There was a big rush to find out eve
rything possible about him, and precious little turned up. There were some very poor old photographs of him from the mid-sixties, enjoying the swinging London night life, at a time when he was known here as simply a real estate speculator, and that was about it. There was a report in the New York papers that Time was doing a cover story on him, but couldn’t find a photograph for the cover. First time that’s ever happened. The story they did was just a rehash of rumors. Apart from not knowing what he looks like, they couldn’t even find out how old he is, though the rumor was that he was about forty. Nobody even knows where he lives.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess he’s about forty, and he lives about three hundred yards from where we’re sitting right now—just down in Berkeley Square.” As I wondered whether telling my parents that secret was betraying Thrasher’s confidence, two rather hard-looking men walked into the bar, looked carefully around, then left. I looked at my watch. “As for what he looks like, you should know shortly. It’s just eight-thirty.”
Thrasher entered the room as if on cue, accompanied by two beautiful women, one, my date, Jane, the other, a woman I had never seen but recognized easily. She was French, the widow of a man named Winston Wheatley, a British cabinet minister who had died about six months previously, when a bomb, said to have been planted in his car by the IRA, went off as he was driving out of the House of Commons car park. She had made an angry statement to the press shortly thereafter and had instantly been transformed by the newspapers into the sort of national heroine that Jacqueline Kennedy had become after the death of her husband. She had gone into seclusion, and I wondered if this was her first appearance in public since being widowed.
I stood and shook Thrasher’s outstretched hand. “Mr. Thrasher, these are my parents, Billy and Patricia Lee.
“Governor and Mrs. Lee, I am so very happy to meet you both,” he said. “May I present Lady Jane Berkeley and Genevieve Wheat-ley.” As we sat down and ordered our drinks I noticed that every eye in the room was on our table—not on Thrasher, who seemed to be preserving his anonymity very nicely, but on Mrs. Wheatley.
