Hooked

by Ruth Harris

  “What was that?” asked Sadun from his euphoric haze.

  “Willpower,” said Gavin.

  Every afternoon X placed a call to Lydia with a summary of the day’s events. At first Gavin thought it was her voluptuousness that appealed to Nicky. She had heavy, round breasts and an animal way of moving the lower part of her body when she walked.

  He soon realized, though, that Kiskalesi’s interest was in quite another area. X was his watchdog, efficient, discreet, and omnipresent. She was Nicky’s spy, Sadun’s jailer and Gavin’s supervisor and she made no secret of her role.

  “You know everything, don’t you?” Gavin asked.

  X smiled unpleasantly. “The spies to guard against,” she said, “are the ones who make a secret of what they do.”

  A few nights later, just after midnight, there was a knock on Gavin’s door. He was staying in the room next to X’s, which, in turn, was adjacent to Sadun’s own grotesque room.

  “Come in,” said Gavin.

  The paneled door opened, and a girl, perhaps thirteen, entered the room and closed the door behind her. She had clear olive skin and her brown eyes were outlined with kohl. As she moved wordlessly to Gavin’s bed, she pulled up the skirt of her gauzy caftan to expose a shaved pudenda.

  “Excellency,” she said. “You command—”

  “Who are you?” Gavin looked past the girl toward the closed door.

  “Seema,” she said. “Rudy send me—”

  She moved to get into the bed with Gavin but he stopped her with a gesture. He got out of bed and crossed the room, his footsteps silenced by the thick pile of the lush carpeting. He took the gilded doorknob in both hands, ripped the door open and found himself face to face with Rudy Sarvo.

  “Never again,” he warned. “Do you understand me?”

  “Next time I send perhaps a boy?” Rudy asked

  Gavin shook his head. “There will be no ‘next time,’” he said and told the girl to return to her room.

  Rudy shrugged and fished a piece of food from between his teeth with his tongue, extracted it with the two first fingers of his right hand, put it back into his mouth, and swallowed.

  “There is always a next time,” Rudy Sarvo said as he turned to leave. “Always.”

  “You American puritans,” Sadun sneered the next morning.

  He was in the enormous sunken white-marble bathtub and Seema, the girl who had been sent to Gavin’s room the previous evening, was bathing him with jasmine soap and a large sponge.

  “I’m surprised any American babies ever get born, you’re such a nation of prudes,” he continued. “Ouch!” he bellowed, interrupting himself. “You got soap in my eye.”

  He struck the girl in the face, so hard a red welt appeared on her cheek.

  “Clumsy ox!” he said and slapped her again.

  Gavin stepped forward and pushed the girl back from the edge of the tub. Then he slapped Sadun and, using both hands, held his head under water until Sadun stopped struggling.

  He came up, gasping for air.

  “You’re too old to be washed. You can wash yourself,” said Gavin. He dismissed the girl and flipped the wet sponge at Sadun.

  “But I’ve never washed myself,” Sadun whined.

  “You’ve never done a goddamn thing for yourself,” Gavin said.

  Sadun didn’t read for himself. He had an enormous morocco-bound library of pornography that he had read to him. Sadun didn’t bathe himself, he didn’t dry himself, he didn’t dress himself. Gavin was amazed that he even bothered to put a spoon to his mouth to feed himself.

  “I’m a royal prince,” said Sadun. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  “I can and I will,” Gavin said and threw the bar of soap into the huge tub where it promptly sank to the bottom.

  “You lost my soap.”

  “Find it—”

  “Rudy!” shrieked Sadun. “Rudy!”

  In an instant, Rudy Sarvo was at the door.

  “Excellency?” asked the pimp.

  “Make him go away,” pouted Sadun. “He won’t let Seema give me my bath—”

  Rudy headed toward Gavin but as he approached, Gavin grabbed him by both arms, spun him around, and propelled him out of the room. Then he shut the door and locked it.

  Without a word, Gavin let himself out the other door of the bathroom and locked it from the outside, leaving the man who could claim the throne of Egypt alone in his bath, unable even to find the soap for himself.

  As Gavin headed down the corridor to the curved stairs that led to the ground floor, he heard his Royal Highness.

  “What about my shot?” he shouted. “Where’s my shot?”

  “Nicky said to tell you that he’s very pleased,” X told Gavin three weeks later. Subsisting on Gavin’s shots and beef bouillon, Sadun had lost thirty-five pounds. “He’s particularly pleased with Sadun’s mental attitude—”

  “As he loses more weight, he’ll improve even more,” said Gavin.

  “He’s becoming a different man—”

  “He’s improving in spite of Rudy Sarvo,” Gavin said. “He smuggles pastry in to Sadun.”

  “I’ve told Nicky you’ve had trouble with Rudy—”

  “It would be better for Sadun if Rudy weren’t around—”

  “The less you interfere with Rudy Sarvo, the safer you’ll be,” warned X. “Things are not necessarily what they seem.”

  13

  Gail de Córdoba ran her fingers through the thick platinum hair of the man in bed next to her and felt a wave of excitement surge through her. She was lying naked next to the richest man in the world, but at the moment it was not Nicholas Kiskalesi’s bankroll but his body that was filling her with ecstasy.

  “I’ve never been so happy in my life,” Gail murmured.

  “Nor I,” Nicky replied. He reached over and caressed her breasts.

  “Did you ever think sex could be this exciting?” Gail asked.

  Nicky’s teeth flashed the smile that charmed almost everyone. “There’s never been anyone like you,” he said.

  He was telling a half-truth. He had enjoyed the weeks aboard Lydia with Gail and this morning had been especially memorable. But the truth was that thrill of wild sex was wearing off. Gail was beautiful and charming, but he grew weary of her incessant gossip and chatter about clothes and jewelry.

  “Where are we going next?” Gail asked. They were anchored off the Turkish port of Marmaris.

  “I wish our cruise could go on forever,” he said, stroking her hair. “But it’s time for business—”

  “You mean our cruise is over?” His tone was matter-of-fact but Nicky’s decision had come without warning and Gail swallowed back tears.

  “Not over,” soothed Nicky. “Just an intermission. There’s a plane waiting to take you anywhere your heart desires—”

  “My heart desires to stay here,” Gail said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. “With you—”

  “This isn’t the end of something,” Nicky assured her with a caress. “It’s the beginning—”

  Gail forced a smile.

  “You’re very important to me,” Nicky said.

  “More important than Adriana?”

  Nicky replied with a kiss.

  Adriana Partos’s lush russet-colored hair was pulled into a tight chignon that revealed her bold profile. She was a tall, large-boned woman whose bearing commanded notice and respect. Her skin was chalk white, her eyes an intense emerald green but her real beauty came from her high cheek bones and broad, intelligent forehead.

  “I’m glad we’re together again,” Nicky said, embracing her warmly a few hours later as she boarded Lydia.

  “You’re glad because you got your way,” Adriana said, correcting him. “It’s official. I’ve informed everyone — my agent, my business manager, my public. Adriana Partos has retired. Never again will I play in public—”

  Nicky took her strong hands in his, lifted them to his lips, and kissed the fingers,
one at a time. Her hands were large for a woman’s, capable of reaching an octave and a half, with unpolished nails kept short, the habit of a lifetime of practice and concert performance. It was so strange, Nicky thought, that they should end up together — the son of a Turkish peasant with a gift for money and the only daughter of a Hungarian poet with a gift for music.

  “Thank you, Adriana,” said Nicky. “I’m glad to have you all to myself at last—”

  They’d been quarreling over her retirement for several years. Nicky wanted a full-time companion and had threatened to leave her unless she abandoned her career. He had even indicated, without quite promising, that they would marry. For years Adriana had rejected the idea of marriage, but now that she was in her mid-forties, the idea of permanence seemed liberating rather than inhibiting. Worn down by public demands, a hectic travel schedule, relentless concert appearances and Nicky’s almost-sadistic manipulations, she had finally surrendered and Nicky had won the battle.

  He and Adriana would be together on his terms.

  X was reporting from Cilek that Sadun was making excellent progress.

  Seven hundred million dollars’ worth of oil was lying under the Egyptian desert just waiting to be taken.

  Things couldn’t be better and, for now, Nicky was as content as a man of such consuming appetites could be.

  It was during the following weeks that the trouble started.

  14

  “You should know,” X said to Nicky over the ship-to-shore telephone, “that Sadun asked for a newspaper this morning—”

  “A newspaper?” replied Nicky. “Really?”

  “The New York Times,” said X. “The London Times—”

  “Did he say why?” asked Nicky who was well aware that Sadun’s usual literary tastes ran to pornographic magazines imported from Germany and England and the sexually explicit novels published by the Olympia Press in Paris.

  “He spoke of the duty of a King to be informed—”

  Nicky was surprised. More than surprised. “Sadun said that?”

  “In those exact words—”

  Nicky, whose tendency toward paranoia was never fully suppressed, didn’t know the meaning of Sadun’s new request but he was disconcerted by the information and wondered where it might lead.

  “If Sadun has any visitors,” he said. “I want to know. Call me right away—”

  “Understood,” said X.

  “Do you have anything else to report?”

  “Sadun has become very demanding,” said X. “If Dr. Jenkins is even a few minutes late for the shot, Sadun becomes enraged. Yesterday he smashed the mirror across from his bed—”

  “Nothing to be concerned about,” Nicky said. “Sadun’s been spoiled since he was a child so he’s always been demanding. What else would you expect?”

  Sadun had lost almost sixty pounds, and the loss of weight had not only affected his physical activities — he now swam every day in the villa’s pool — but it had changed him intellectually. He was reading newspapers from Rome, Cairo, and Paris; he was reading Time, Fortune, and Newsweek.

  He had ordered Rudy to stop showing pornographic films at night, and requested, instead, newsreels. His sexual appetites had, if anything, grown as he turned from a grossly dissolute swine into a relatively trim and surprisingly intelligent human being. Shrouded beneath the layers of fat, Gavin had observed, lived a man of sensitivity, intelligence, and burgeoning ambition.

  “I could be a king if I wanted,” he told Gavin one day as he prepared Sadun’s 6 P.M. shot.

  “Could you really?” asked Gavin, concentrating on the mixture he was drawing into the hypodermic. As soon as Sadun was down to 170 pounds, Gavin would gradually withdraw the drugs. He wanted Sadun to be independently healthy and freed from any need for medication.

  “Really,” replied Sadun. “I am still popular with the Egyptian people and there is a royalist movement in Egypt, underground to be sure, but it could be mobilized, if I wanted—”

  “Would you want that?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Gavin smiled slightly. “I wasn’t born to a throne—”

  Sadun had begun to confide in him and talked about how worthless he had felt as a young boy. All the attention and praise had been lavished on his cousin Farouk, who would one day be king. The court hung on Farouk’s every word and moved quickly to satisfy each and every whim. Sadun’s distance from the throne accorded him inferior status.

  He had fewer and less expensive toys than his cousin; he went to a school with regular classes, while Farouk was educated by a retinue of tutors. It all created in him intense feelings of deprivation, which, he told Gavin, might have been responsible for his life of overindulgence. He blamed his failings on the fact that he assumed he could never claim the throne. Now, for the first time, it seemed possible.

  Sadun’s other sign of progress indicated to Gavin that he had succeeded in the assignment given him by Nicholas Kiskalesi: Sadun was now a man. He told Gavin he had proved it.

  “X,” whispered Sadun. “She comes to my room every night—”

  As Sadun continued to lose weight, he became even more interested in the outside world. Guests arrived almost daily for lunch and dinner, their long conversations interrupted only by Sadun’s shots. Their discussions were held in Arabic, so Gavin could not understand the words, but it wasn’t difficult for him — and for X — to guess at their meaning.

  “He’s talking about claiming the throne,” she informed Nicky Kiskalesi on the telephone.

  “Only talking?” Nicky asked. “Or is there more to it than just talk?”

  “He’s seen military advisers,” said X. “They assure him that both Germany and the United States will send him weapons. It is in their interests to destroy Nasser’s power and evict the Soviets from Egypt. His political advisers assert that underground royalists can be mobilized. Apparently, the majority of the Egyptian people still favor a monarchy.”

  “It’s interesting, isn’t it,” mused Nicky, “that the poorer a people are, the more they favor the trappings and indulgences of royalty? Tell me, X, does Sadun have a timetable?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  Nicky hung up the phone and speculated on various moves and counter-moves. Perhaps if he played everything just right, he could have an entire country at his disposal instead of just an oil-drilling operation. Sadun was making splendid progress but it was the doctor he was now worried about. In front of him was the dossier disclosing Gavin Jenkins’ penchant for defying authority.

  15

  “What’s in those shots of yours?” X asked Gavin.

  “Various things,” he said. He wondered if Nicky Kiskalesi were behind X’s question.

  “Such as?”

  “A drug to increase his energy,” said Gavin. “Another to depress his appetite. It’s a crutch, but a temporary one. As soon as he’s down to his proper weight, he won’t need anything anymore.”

  “You’re sure? He seems so dependent on your injections.”

  “I’m sure because I’ve experimented on myself,” said Gavin. “I injected myself with various medications until I found what works best. I customize the treatment for every patient.”

  “You seem very certain of yourself for a young doctor from — where do they call it in America? — hillbilly country.”

  X was being deliberately insulting and Gavin didn’t like it.

  “Have you been including every detail of Sadun’s private life in your daily reports to your employer?”

  X looked shocked.

  “How do you know?”

  “Sadun,” Gavin said. “He told me—”

  “Are you going to tell Nicky?”

  “I don’t work for Nicky,” Gavin pointed out. “Sadun is my patient. Mr. Kiskalesi merely pays the bill—”

  “He’d kill me if he found out,” said X.

  “I know,” Gavin smiled. “So just behave yourself.”

  Never wou
ld the former belly dancer have guessed that she would share Mohammed Abd-el Sadun’s bed.

  The first time, X ascribed it to too much champagne. She had been almost celibate since Nicholas Kiskalesi had spirited her out of the Cinar nightclub. Occasionally she picked up a sailor or a waiter but she had too much of a past to risk getting emotionally involved. It was in her interest to keep her emotional loyalties in strict order of priority — and Nicholas Kiskalesi had first claim on her fidelity.

  X thought only she and Sadun shared their secret and she was shocked to find out that someone else knew. Now her life was precariously balanced on the whims of three powerful men: Nicholas Kiskalesi, Prince Mohammed Abd-el Sadun, and Dr. Gavin Jenkins.

  She would come to wish she had never heard of any of them.

  16

  The sudden political activity on the obscure island of Cilek did not go unnoticed by the world’s press. Reporters were dispatched from news bureaus in Istanbul, Athens, London, Tel Aviv, and New York. The article in the September 4, 1958, issue of Image magazine was an accurate reflection of what was going out on telexes and teletypes the world over.

  FROM PLAYBOY TO POWERHOUSE

  As recently as 1957, any suggestion that Prince Mohammed Abd-el Sadun was seriously interested in the throne of Egypt would have been met with disbelief on the part of every knowledgeable observer of the Middle East. Overweight, rumored to be suffering from debilitating illness, Sadun went into hiding in Turkey on the day that his cousin, King Farouk, was expelled by General Naguib from Alexandria. Everyone agreed that Sadun would probably die in exile.

  Today, however, a slim, energetic Sadun has been making ever-widening contacts throughout the Middle East. Power brokers from that area gather on the island of Cilek, owned by the billionaire tycoon Nicholas Kiskalesi and used as headquarters by Sadun.

  The article went on for several pages. It documented Sadun’s hereditary claim to Egypt’s throne and mentioned the blood ties he had to the royal family of Saudi Arabia. It told of his education, his years as pampered playboy, his flight from Egypt, his years of exile in Cilek.