Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers

by kps

  "Stop it! Why did you have to make a-a public exhibition of me? What do you think you're doing now? You .. ."

  "I want you, Annie-love. And I guess this is my crude way of showing it." His eyes narrowed at her. "When I want Something I usually go after it. A hangover from my street-fighting days, I guess. I'm snake-bit. I don't want to play the usual stupid games with you, baby." He talked to her quietly, as if they were alone, and Anne felt her heart pounding heavily as she tried to fight this new, strange mood of his, knowing that it was just an impullse-Webb never meant anything he said to a woman-not for too long anyway!

  She shook her head, trying to refute her own crazy feelings; she felt herself stretched taut between letting go and resisting.

  "Webb-then don't! Because I'm not very good at playing the kind of games you're used to." Seeing the look in his face, she whispered despairingly, "It won't work, Webb! We're too different. There's a physical thing between us, I can't deny that, can I? But it isn't going to last and I-I'm not prepared for being tom apart. Another Claudia, another one of a string. I've got to belong to myself, don't you understand that?"

  "Hey, you two! We're all going to Annabell's to dance. Coming along?" Carol's green eyes were unusually dark; her ringed fingers rested lightly on Jamie Markham's sleeve.

  It was like that other time in Carol's hotel suite when Webb had walked in and carried her off. Harris! Harris had brought her here. What would he think? His face was inscrutable.

  "You must do what you feel like, Anne. If you're tired, Webb can take you home." He was giving her an out, which surprised her slightly. And everyone but Carol and Jim seemed to have changed partners. It was Claudia and Karim; Yves and Venetia. It didn't matter. Right from the beginning, when Webb had walked over and kissed her, she had known how the evening would end, hadn't she?

  "Call me tomorrow, will you, Anne?" Harris made it easy. He kissed Anne lightly, squeezing her cold hand. "Anne-you're going to be a great actress. Keep that in mind, will you? And call me whenever you can. I'd like to have your attorney look over the contract I've drawn up for you."

  Webb turned back from making his casual farewells to the others, taking her arm, and Anne could finally let the tension drain from her body, giving way to what was inevitable.

  Chapter Sixteen

  SHE SURFACED SLOWLY to morning with the sound of a telephone shrilling in her ears and the feel of Webb's arm reaching over her body.

  "Shit! What time is it anyhow? I thought I told them noon!"

  Anne's eyes felt gritty when she tried to blink them into focus. The telephone wire stretched tautly across her breasts where Webb's arm had been a moment before as he turned over onto his back, still swearing.

  "Yeah?" And then his face changed, muscles tightening as he seemed to come wide awake. "What? Look, Caro, if this is one of your cute little tricks, I'll ..." And suddenly Anne was wide-awake too, all the way, watching Webb's face. "Tell me again-slowly this time, huh?" And suddenly, explosively, "Sure Anne's here with me! And I'll tell her. Will you try to calm down, dammit? Look-call Harris. Take a couple of tranquilizers-I'll call you back as soon as I can."

  He slammed the receiver back into its cradle, his body leaning over Anne's, staying there unmoving for a while, until her uneasy stirring seemed to snap him back to reality.

  "Webb ... ?" She could hardly pronounce his name, knowing suddenly, instinctively that something had happened. Something bad, that Webb didn't want to tell her about. His arms cradled her. No passion in his embrace this time, no fierce need or wanting, although he held her closely and tightly for all that.

  "Annie-oh Christ, love! I think I'm going to make a habit of kidnapping you from now on! Hold tight, will you?"

  "What happened? What is it?" She felt as if she screamed the words, her mind already starting to go numb in preparation for the shock he was about to deal her.

  "Violet. I'm sorry, baby. She's dead." And now the numbness spread from her brain, all over her body, as she listened to words without wanting to understand them.

  "They-someone broke into your apartment last night. I guess she was alone or else she surprised them. The police patrol saw the lights blazing and a broken window so they checked. They found everything torn apart, and-her."

  Mercifully, he didn't give her details. Driven by morbid urge, Anne was to read those later in the newspapers. The words that Webb had left unsaid repeating themselves over and over in her head like hammer blows. "It might have been you, Anne!"

  Should have been-would have been perhaps if Webb hadn't ... Why-why, dear God?

  Questions screamed across her mind, over and over without the release of knowing the answers.

  Violet was dead in her place. Bright so-alive Violet who had always loved life so and laughed a lot and talked too much. Violet sitting by the fire drying her hair, shaking her burnished curls loose. Don't think about it!

  The doctor who gave her sedatives and shook his head over her told her that. So did Craig, pale-faced and shaken. There was an inquest-the verdict "Death by person or persons unknown." Something out of an Agatha Christie novel.

  Burglars, everyone said. There had been a rash of them recently. Keep your doors and windows locked; call the police immediately if you hear any unusual sounds.

  What good did all the warnings do Violet?

  The funeral was quiet-very private. Violet's parents wept, and even Duncan was suspiciously red-eyed. Webb didn't go -he hadn't really known Violet. It was Craig who went with Anne, holding her arm tightly, protectively. Just as if he expected she might blurt out all her suspicions right there. "Those men! Craig, you weren't there at first. You don't know how horrible it was!"

  Craig, acting in part as her attorney, had warned her not to talk. Not to anyone.

  Emphasis on that last word. And since that terrible morning, when the ringing of the telephone had brought shock and terror into her life, she had stayed with Webb; so she knew what Craig meant. It made her angry, and brought on a scene she wished afterwards hadn't happened.

  "That wasn't what you told me when that horrible man Barnes was questioning me-interrogating would be a better word for it! Nor when that Scotland Yard man-"

  "Anne, you're being deliberately obtuse! Those men were merely performing their duty. But anyone else ..."

  "You mean Webb, don't you? Oh, let's be honest, Craig! You didn't mind my seeing Harris Phelps, but from the beginning you've been against my seeing Webb, Right from the beginning. And every time we're together, something comes up -first it was Tanya and Carol's ex-husband, so the company had to leave town. And now .. ."

  She heard Craig's voice sharpen and could have bitten her tongue out the next minute.

  "Tanya? Ted Grady? All right, Anne. Don't back off now. And if you don't want to explain, I can easily find out, you know!" It was the nearest Craig had ever come to threatening her. His face wore the appraising, slightly suspicious look of a stranger.

  Of course, Craig had to be working for or with her father-his friendship with Duncan (and Duncan worked for the CIA, as hard as that was to imagine) and the way Barnes and his cohorts had grudgingly accepted him as a colleague, knowing who he was . . . All the little implications had escaped her when she was still so upset, or she hadn't wanted to see, perhaps. Everything came rushing at her at once, almost stunning her. She must have been blind!

  "Anne, don't you realize you're playing with fire? I'm trying to protect you, whether you want to believe that or not. And everything-every little detail-you can tell me can help. For Christ's sake!"-he looked as if he wanted to shake her-"Will you stop hiding your head in the sand? It's been difficult-you've made it difficult from the beginning-for me to discuss Webb Carnahan with you. Anything I said could be twisted around, you see. Jealousy, hurt pride-and yes, damn you, I felt all those things! So I tried to keep out of it, keep away from you. But now, whether you hate me for it or not, I've got to speak out. He's dangerous for you, Anne. And not just for the obvious reasons.


  You've got to explain what you meant by that last statement you made-or I'm going to have to find out myself. I think it would be easier all around if you told me."

  There was something stern and unusually decisive about Craig now. An inquisitor, trapping her into a corner she'd backed into all by herself.

  Taking a deep breath, Anne tried to explain. Sullenly and almost mutinously, letting her resentment come through clearly. "It was nothing! Just a-a bad scene! You knew about Carol, I know you did. And Tanya-it wasn't Webb, if that's what you're thinking.

  He'd finished with Tanya, he had no reason to . . . anyway, he was with me that night!

  And I thought-I thought it was something that maybe my-my father had arranged! It's just the kind of thing he'd do, isn't it? A subtle way of-of making sure we were broken up. Seeing that the undesirables left town under their own steam, so to speak! It is the kind of thing he'd do, isn't it? I mean, violence wouldn't matter-what difference do a few little pawns make? It happens all the time, everywhere in the world!

  Assassinations, violent death, carefully incited riots-violence, violence! It's all you read in the newspapers these days, isn't it?

  And it all comes under the name of international politics. It makes me sick, Craig! I suppose just saying that makes me a subversive! Will you add me to your list of undesirables?"

  "What a lot of slogans you've learned, Anne! And how little you really know. It's people like your father who are attempting to preserve some semblance of democracy and order in this chaotic world!" Bitterly Craig added, "And just so that people like you and your friends can be free to express themselves. But I'm not on a political platform, Anne. I don't think I need to defend either your father or myself. And I refuse to be sidetracked, if that's what you intended with that dramatic little speech."

  His eyes narrowed at her, and he was a cold, accusing stranger.

  "Let's go back to Webb Carnahan. And-who was she again? Ah yes, Tanya." "I don't want to discuss it any further, Craig. I've told you what you wanted to know, and now I .. ." He didn't appear to have heard her half-angry, half-frightened protests.

  "Sit down, Anne, and hear me out. I've kept Barnes from questioning you again in his own inimitable way. And I don't believe you had anything to do with that leak-not on purpose, that is. But there are a few facts-"

  Goaded, Anne cried out wildly, "Don't be condescending, for God's sake! You don't believe ... because I'm Richard Reardon's daughter? Caesar's daughter, and therefore above reproach? You kept Barnes off my back, but you put me on trial yourself, is that it? Well, I didn't do it. I'm innocent- isn't that the classic phrase?

  Because whatever I might have suspected, I didn't know. I just happened to be too wrapped up in my own life and my own affairs and the feeling that I was free to handle them-I thought!-to pay too much attention. But I was never really free, was I?

  Just let out on a long enough leash to give me that illusion. And when someone Big Daddy doesn't approve of came back into my life, then it was time to pull it in, wasn't it? Was that why you came to London, Craig? Because you knew Webb would be here and you were afraid we'd meet again?"

  "I won't dignify that with an answer, Anne. And you're not on a leash, as you put it.

  But you are your father's daughter, and that's an inescapable fact you have to learn to live with. It makes you vulnerable, whether you like that idea or not! Dammit!"

  Craig paced angrily from one end of the room to the other, coming back to stand directly in front of her, looking down into her' tear-stained, raging face. "Do you think I enjoy having to be the one to tell you this? Especially knowing what you will think of me afterwards? But it has to be done, and especially now, Anne. When far too many unpleasant things have begun to happen." He put his hand up as if to ward off the angry questions he saw in her eyes.

  "No. Please hear me out this once without interruption. And then I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. And forgive me if I'm brutally blunt-I have to be. Have you ever wondered what a man like Webb Carnahan saw in you? Beyond a quite natural sexual attraction, that is? Did you notice his reaction when he found out, as he must have, that you were Richard Reardon's daughter? God, Anne! Your face gives you away, you know that? And I have to give you certain information that's very confidential, information I should not be divulging at all. Carnahan has reasons-he thinks-to hate your father. It's a long story, and I can't go into. it all, but before he got into acting, he used to work for us. And so did his wife."

  Anne felt her throat go dry; she could not have spoken, even if she had wanted to.

  She listened to Craig, hearing his unemotional voice go on and on. And yet only part of it registered-while another part of her mind kept repeating over and over, a metronome beating time with her pulses, "Have you ever wondered what a man like Webb Carnahan saw in you?"

  Craig went on inexorably: "And then his wife died. On a mission she volunteered for.

  He blamed your father for letting her take it, and he got out of the Service. Went into acting-something he was always good at!"

  There were gaps in her consciousness, it seemed; she didn't want to hear, but an awful fascination made her listen all the same.

  "How do you think he made it to the top? True, he has talent, a certain charisma-isn't that what the fan magazines call it? A reputation with women. But he also has influential connections behind the scenes. Did he ever speak to you about his sister?

  I don't suppose he did. She's married to Vittorio Gentile. And he happens to be a very powerful member of that organization that is loosely and collectively called the Mafia."

  They were in Duncan's office, Craig having borrowed it for what he termed a serious and very important discussion with Anne. And now the once familiar surroundings-the carpet that was worn in spots, the usual untidy clutter on Dune's desk surmounted by his overflowing ashtray, pipe still sitting in it-seemed alien and uncomfortable.

  Several long moments passed, punctuated only by the distant sound of the traffic outside, while Anne stared disbelievingly at Craig.

  "No, no, no, Craig! This time you've really gone too far!" She gave a hysterical giggle, almost choking on it. "Do you really expect me to believe that Webb-that Webb is a member of the Mafia? Just because his sister happens to be married to an Italian? I mean, Webb is half Italian himself! He told me."

  "How much did he tell you, Anne? Damn, do you think I didn't realize how melodramatic all I've said might sound to you? And yet, it had to be said. It's a responsibility I took upon myself, Anne, in spite of-well, never mind. The important thing is that you must be very careful. I'm not accusing Webb Carnahan of any overt involvement in the activities of the Mafia. I'm merely warning you that he has reasons-or so he believes-to hate your father and everything he stands for. He can't hurt Richard Reardon, but he can involve Reardon's daughter in a lot of ... to put it bluntly, very nasty publicity. He can involve you with people and things that could injure not only your father but also a great many other people. And you could be very badly hurt, Anne! Don't you see that? As long as you persist in this blind infatuation, that I'm sure is shared by many other women. Are you going to cling to him until he tires of you or has no more use for you? I find it hard to believe that you're the same girl I married-and cared for a great deal! And I still cannot believe that you would let your resentment of your father carry you so far that you would deliberately set out to tear down everything he's built up all these years. The image of an upright and honest man who's given his life to protecting and furthering his country's interests.

  And whatever you think, or your friends may try to tell you, that is what he's honestly tried to do!"

  Anne tried to speak, but Craig, openly angry now, cut her off ruthlessly.

  "I cannot make up my mind about you, Anne! As to whether you're merely a rebellious child or honestly deluded! At this point, I don't even know why I've bothered to try to explain matters to you-or why I should keep trying to protect you from the consequences of y
our own foolishness. You're in an extremely vulnerable position, you know, and men like Barnes don't give up easily." He rubbed at his jaw fiercely, gray eyes blazing. "Anne, you're in the middle of a very ugly mess that could get worse. We haven't yet got to the bottom of that information leak to the press-or what really happened to Violet, and why!"

  "But you told me it was ... burglars!" she said in a whisper.

  "I know what I told you! And I'm telling you too much as it is. That's why I chose Dune's office for our talk, because I'm sure it isn't bugged. Listen, I didn't want to frighten you, but if it's the only way to make you see reason ... Do you realize that if Violet's death was murder, there may be certain people who might think you know more than you do? Who might think she confided in you? Or who meant to find you and found her instead? You might be the target for kidnappers or worse-you could be in real, very real, danger, Anne. And don't let your recent bemusement with the movie industry blind you to reality. This is no screen entertainment, with actors playing roles. This is the real thing. And the worst part is that you won't be able to tell the bad guys from the good guys, my dear." And then he repeated to her white-faced silence, his voice suddenly heavy, "Won't you please go home, Anne? Go back to the States where you belong. You're internationally established as a model now, you could get work in New York-or anywhere else, for that matter, if that is what you really want to do. But you'd be safer-and out of all this mess!"

  Chapter Seventeen

  IT WAS STRANGE how everything could seem exactly the same-the afternoon as ordinary as any other-when it wasn't. There was the usual traffic snarl: red doubledecker buses towering over the horn-tooting tangle of cars of all shapes and sizes; motorscooters and bikes threading their way nimbly and riskily through the unevenly moving stream of vehicles. The sky was grayish-"typical London weather,"

  all the tourists would say, nodding resignedly as they brought out their umbrellas, wanting to blend in with the hurrying crowds in their light-weight raincoats. Shop windows bloomed with light. On an afternoon like this, Violet would have said, shivering exaggeratedly, "Do let's windowshop awhile, shall we? And then we can grab a bite to eat at a Lyon's Comer House before we get back. It'll save having to fix supper if no one calls!"