Hooked

by Ruth Harris

  Above all, it concentrated on the remarkable circumstances that alone of all the Arab leaders Sadun was reported to be soft on Israel. There were no hard facts to back up this presumption, but “reliable sources” said that Sudan had made quite clear that a condition of his assuming the throne would be that he be allowed to back away from the war in Palestine on the grounds that Israel’s existence was a fait accompli and that money for weapons might better be spent on irrigation.

  Accompanying the article were several photographs. One showed a grossly fat Sadun in a bikini with his arms around a pair of generously endowed blondes on the beach at Nice. There was a photo of Sadun with his cousin Farouk when they were both Egyptian boy scouts, one with young King Faisal II of Iraq taken shortly before Faisal’s murder in 1958, and a recent shot of Sadun on the terrace of his villa. Beside him, smiling enigmatically into the distance, was an unidentified man. His name, known only to a very few, was Sadun’s physician, Dr. Gavin Jenkins.

  “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” asked Sadun. His pulse was dangerously slow, his blood pressure depressed, his respiration shallow and labored. If Sadun’s vital signs declined any further, he would die.

  “You’re not going to die,” said Gavin. “Not as long as I’m here—”

  Gavin was not about to lose the man he had brought to life and he told X to call Nicky Kiskalesi.

  “But it’s not time yet,” she said. “I’ll call him later.”

  “Call him!” Gavin said. ”Now!”

  She feared that if she didn’t obey him, he would tell Nicky about her and Sadun. She picked up the telephone and when Kiskalesi got on the phone, Gavin picked up the extension and told him that Sadun was in critical condition.

  “My bag is missing,” said Gavin. “It disappeared over night and Sadun’s going to be dead unless I give him another shot—”

  “What do you need?” asked Nicky. “I’ll have the drugs flown in from Zurich—”

  “Iron, thyroid, vitamins B-12 and E, testosterone, d-phenylamine—”

  “You’ll have it in a few hours. How long will it take him to recover?”

  “A couple of days—”

  “He’ll be able to stick to his timetable?”

  “Yes,” said Gavin. “If I get the drugs promptly—”

  “Will the treatment be completed by then?” Nicky asked.

  “Yes,” said Gavin. “In fact, I had hoped to have him completely withdrawn from medication by now but I’ve discovered an anomalous receptor in his amoeboid cells. It’s what made him blow up to two hundred and sixty-five pounds—”

  As soon as Gavin put down the receiver, he realized he had neglected to order glucose but decided not to bother phoning Kiskalesi back. He had already begun eliminating glucose from Sadun’s formula anyway.

  When the medication was delivered from Zurich, though, the package included glucose. Nobody could have known about it except the man who had taken his bag — or the man for whom it had been taken.

  That evening, Gavin began to fit all the pieces together and, immediately after giving Sadun his shot, he went into his room, locked the door, and wrote a three-page letter, with one carbon copy. In it, Gavin accused Nicholas Kiskalesi of the theft of his bag and went on to describe, accurately, Sadun’s position as a pawn in an international multimillion dollar oil gambit being manipulated by Nicholas Kiskalesi.

  When he had finished, Gavin put the carbon into an envelope and sent it to Nicholas Kiskalesi. He enclosed the original in another envelope marked DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. He mailed it to Cleo Talbot at her Fifth Avenue residence.

  Sadun’s vital signs improved after the second injection. By the third day, he was back to his old, new self and it almost seemed as if nothing had gone awry.

  The first thing Sadun did was to announce to the world’s press that instead of waiting until Ramadan, he would return to Egypt immediately. He ordered Rudy to do his packing and requested the loan of Nicky’s plane.

  In Cairo, public celebration of Sadun’s imminent return began — apparently spontaneously — in front of the presidential palace, in the marketplaces, and in the grand mosque of El Azhar. The military, partially loyal to the absent monarchy and partially beholden to the Nasser government, which paid its salaries, was momentarily paralyzed. Rumors of insurrection circulated and seventeen deaths were reported as a result of the 7.62-mm AK-47 assault rifles supplied by the Russian technical advisers.

  Gavin, without whom Sadun had refused to budge, was in his room packing when he heard a scream from next door. He picked up a bronze candlestick and opened his own door softly. He looked both ways. The corridor was deserted.

  He walked the few paces to Sadun’s room and knocked. There was no answer and he let himself in. X lay on the bed in a lake of blood. Lying next to her was Sadun. His head, severed from his body, had rolled to the floor where it rested on the zebra skin rug, its eyes wide, frozen in an expression of horror.

  They will come for me next, thought Gavin. He ran down the hallway, down the rear servant’s stairs, through the kitchen and then to Seema’s room.

  He put his forefinger to his mouth. “Shhhh,” he told the terrified child.

  17

  The beheading of Sadun in his grotesque bedroom, his crimson blood staining crimson satin, made world headlines.

  Nasser’s government realized how precarious its base of power actually was and knew it needed support, political and financial, from sources other than the Soviet Union. When the Turkish billionaire Nicholas Kiskalesi offered to finance a dam project equal to the Aswan, Nasser was happy to accept.

  As part of the bargain, Kiskalesi asked for and was granted oil concessions. Nasser’s thinking was that dams and oil fields created jobs, and jobs created full bellies. With full bellies and money in their pockets, people weren’t so likely to harbor thoughts of a return to monarchy.

  The murderers of Cilek, as they were dubbed by the world’s press, were never identified. Speculation abounded; some said they had been hired by Nasser; others asserted that they were Soviet KGB assassins assigned to get rid of Sadun before he could seize control of Egypt and push it further to the West; still others alleged that they were CIA killers hired by the United States, who wanted to keep Israel in a vulnerable and therefore more pliable position.

  Nicholas Kiskalesi was never mentioned although he had profited by some eight hundred million dollars.

  “A new way to liquidate a corporation?” Adriana commented with the merest trace of a smile when she read about the Cilek murders.

  “Nothing in the world is new,” replied Nicky with an opaque smile of his own.

  He did not tell Adriana about Gavin’s letter and its accusations although he was furious. He knew Jenkins was far too shrewd to have sent him a carbon without placing the original in the hands of someone who would be able to hurt him.

  Nicholas Kiskalesi could not risk having Gavin killed and thus he wrote the check for eight million dollars. No one — except Nicky and, of course, Gavin — knew that Sadun’s murder had turned Gavin Jenkins into a multimillionaire.

  Gavin flew from Istanbul to London, and then, while waiting for the connecting flight to New York, he sent the cable.

  Cleo was waiting for him at the transatlantic passengers’ arrival area.

  “How many other men have proposed by transatlantic cable?” he asked, taking her into his arms.

  “Only you,” she said.

  Three days later — three days of lovemaking and bringing each other up-to-date — Cleo asked the question that had been on her mind. The newspapers reported that Sadun’s entire staff had been beheaded — even the girl, Seema.

  “How did you get away?” she asked. “Why didn’t they kill you, too?”

  “That letter I sent you?” Gavin said. “The one I told you to put in your safe-deposit box?”

  Cleo nodded.

  “There’s another copy—”

  ”There is?” she replied. “Who has i
t?”

  “I’m not going to tell you because it would put you in danger,” he said. “All I’ll say is that letter saved my life.”

  One other name was missing from the list of Cilek dead: Rudy Sarvo.

  The day after the murders he boarded Pan American flight Number One from Istanbul to New York City. From there, he would proceed by domestic carrier to Denver.

  He was carrying with him a sealed bid of $641.1 million for the oil-shale-development rights on a five-thousand-acre tract two hundred miles due west of Denver.

  18

  While Gavin and Cleo honeymooned in Bermuda, Cleo left instructions for her decorator in New York. She wanted certain changes made to her apartment before bringing Gavin back to New York and his new home. She asked for the master bedroom, formerly feminine and pastel, to be made bolder and more masculine and she had the guest suite converted into an office.

  When they returned to the city, Cleo reached into her handbag for the gold monogrammed door key she had ordered from Tiffany’s for him and presented it to him.

  “For the man who has everything,” she said, pressing it into his hand.

  “For the man who has you, which is the same thing,” he replied, picking her up and carrying her across the threshold. “What plans do we have for tonight?”

  For an answer Cleo ran her right forefinger up the zipper of his trousers, making a scratching noise as her nail scraped against the metal teeth.

  “But first, the guided tour,” she said. The living room had a view of Central Park. The furniture was comfortable. “Perfect for entertaining—”

  There was a servants’ wing, a kitchen and pantry and a dining room. Then Cleo led Gavin to the former guest suite. His office had oak-paneled walls and built-in bookcases filled with medical journals, reference volumes and textbooks. The patients’ waiting room was sunny and comfortable, its coffee tables displaying the latest magazines and newspapers.

  “You’re incredible,” Gavin said.

  “All I needed was the right inspiration. You,” she smiled, leading him to the bedroom. “It’s hard to believe I lived without you for so long. I don’t want to ever again—”

  “You won’t,” he said, taking her into his arms. “I promise—”

  “I wonder why it took us so long to get together?” she asked.

  “Some things are worth waiting for,” said Gavin for whom there was no mystery. Cleo’s money, which had gotten her everything she wanted, prevented her from getting the man she wanted. He was unwilling to be Mr. Cleo Eames Talbot, a doctor from a modest background married to a rich socialite. Now that he was a millionaire himself, he belonged in her world because he had earned the right to be there.

  “I don’t want to waste any more time,” she said. “Make love to me—”

  “Say it—”

  “I love making love to you—”

  “Say it,” Gavin demanded, holding her by the shoulders.

  “Fuck,” she said. “I love fucking you—”

  Gavin smiled and released her. “Okay,” he said. “Now prove it—”

  She was obsessed by his body. When he was shaving in the morning, she would go into the bathroom in order to see him standing at the sink, naked except for the towel around his waist. He understood why she was there and reacted by removing the towel. She had the smoky glass of the shower removed and replaced with clear glass because she liked watching the water pour over his naked body.

  When she wasn’t with him, she pictured the slim, hairy legs; the narrow arms with the muscular biceps; the flat chest and stomach; the heavy brown pubic hair; and his penis, average in length but unusually thick and round, able to fill her with pleasures she had never even imagined.

  She lived in a state of almost constant arousal but after a while she realized she was never truly satisfied. She could not bring Gavin to orgasm. He would groan at all the right times but Cleo became convinced that his performance was just that: a performance. She sucked him and had intercourse until she was sore; she had climax after climax; but what she wanted most of all eluded her. She longed to see his milky fluid in the palm of her hand, to taste it in her mouth and feel its heat and liquid power deep inside her.

  “You want something more, don’t you?” Gavin said.

  Cleo nodded. “I want you to come inside me—”

  “I don’t have to,” he said. “I have something better—”

  “Better?”

  He got up and walked across the room. He opened up his medical bag and took out a hypodermic and a syringe. It took her a moment to realize what was happening.

  “You want to give me what you gave Gail, don’t you?”

  “You saw her, didn’t you?” he said, preparing the shot. “It’s even better than sex. Better than anything—”

  19

  Gavin talked about little except medicine, about new discoveries, about clinical advances he heard about from other doctors, about treatments he himself had created and was trying, about patients he was able to help that other doctors had given up on. His enthusiasm was palpable, contagious, and in the beginning Cleo shared his excitement.

  Gradually, though, she lost interest because she didn’t understand what he was talking about. When she asked him to explain, he did so patiently, but his answers were far too technical for her to follow. She nodded and smiled but eventually had to admit to herself that what fascinated him, bored her. How many hemorrhage problems of the adrenal cortex could she enjoy listening to over filet mignon?

  Conversely, it distressed her that Gavin rarely asked her what she did during the day. Whenever she spoke about her charity work, the boards she sat on, the friends she lunched with, the plays she thought he might like, he yawned and picked up a newspaper or medical journal. Cleo tried to make their evenings more interesting by entertaining or accepting invitations to dinner parties. Gavin went grudgingly but rarely engaged in conversation. Once, at one of her own dinner parties, he fell asleep between courses.

  Gavin’s patients irritated her. They started arriving at seven in the morning and, often enough, they were still there at midnight. Cleo regretted that she had had the guest suite converted into offices when she saw the waiting room overflowing with people waiting for their turn with the doctor.

  As much as she disliked the intrusion by Gavin’s patients, she resented the mobile radio receiver he kept in his inside jacket pocket even more. Even when she was able to drag him to the ballet or theater, she knew, just knew, that the goddamn thing would purr with a message. He would get up and leave and she would be left to go home alone.

  “Why is every call so urgent?” she had demanded late one night when he had left during the middle of a performance of The Magic Flute. “Can’t your patients wait until the morning?”

  “I am a physician,” he had replied. “My first responsibility is to my patients.”

  “All day and all night?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “As long as they need me—”

  The note of finality in his voice ended the conversation.

  On top of his jam-packed days, he consulted at the Department of Neurology at Lowell Hospital. He was researching a new treatment for hyperkinetic children that involved amphetamine. The drug had an unexpected effect on these youngsters and quieted them down. He was, he told Cleo, surprised at the high levels at which the drug could be administered to even such young patients.

  A year and a half after they settled in New York, it was Cleo who needed quieting down. Gavin had almost stopped making love to her. She would lie next to him at night and run her hand along his thigh but he rarely responded.

  Cleo bought filmy new nightgowns and sexy new underwear. She wore perfume to bed, sometimes dabbing it on her public hair. Remembering that he had prodded her into saying fuck, she talked dirty, hoping to excite him. Still, no matter what she tried, her efforts made little difference.

  Cleo kept hoping things would change until one evening when they had been invited for dinner at Bobbi�
�s. They were expected at seven-thirty, but it was almost quarter to nine when Gavin got home from the hospital.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Cleo demanded when he let himself in.

  “At Lowell, as you perfectly well know,” he said, his face stony.

  “I hate Lowell,” said Cleo, raising her voice. “I hate your patients and I hate your career—”

  “And I hate your goddamn dinners,” Gavin snapped back. “They’re a waste of time—”

  “You know how much trouble Bobbi goes to—”

  “The hell with Bobbi,” said Gavin in his cold, tight voice. He brushed past her and headed for the bathroom.

  Cleo’s anger boiled over and she followed Gavin into the bathroom. The mirrored room was steamy from his shower and his clothes lay in a heap on the floor. She noticed that the monogrammed gold key she had given him when they returned from their honeymoon was no longer on his key ring.

  “Where’s the key I gave you?” she asked as he stepped out of the shower.

  “In the top drawer of my bureau,” he said, drying himself. “If you want to know why I’m not using it, the answer is that it’s pretentious. If you want, you can have it melted down. You can have it made into your three thousandth piece of jewelry.”

  She followed him as he walked naked into his dressing room. Angry as she was, she still responded to his lean, strong body. She touched his shoulder.

  “Gavin, do we have to fight all the time?”

  “You’re the one who’s angry, not me.”

  “But you don’t care that I’m angry and hurt? We don’t spend time together,” she said. “We don’t even make love anymore except when you give me a shot—”

  “You’re angry, Cleo, because you don’t have anything constructive to do with your life,” he said. “Your life is boring and mine isn’t and that’s why you’re angry—”

  Cleo didn’t answer. She saw the reflection of the two of them in the mirrored door of the dressing room — she in the evening gown she had put on in anticipation of going to Bobbi’s, he in the casual clothes he wore for evening office hours.