Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers

by kps

  Both Harris Phelps and Dr. Harold Brightman had been in or around the area during that time. And one other person as well.

  "For Christ's sake!" Tarrant swore as the tape clicked to a stop. "So that's what all those reports we've been getting from our friend in Iran meant. And they sound damn sure of themselves, don't they? When ... ?"

  "We'll have to move very fast," Reardon said calmly. "You've heard of the big fire in the area? It seems to have thrown some of the movie people into quite a panic, although I understand that Yves Pleydel has persuaded Phelps to offer them extra pay to stay on a day or two extra to finish shootings. So I'd say that we have a little extra time."

  "And a plan as well, I hope!" Tarrant snorted. Barstow thanked God that Reardon at least was all reason and no emotion.

  He unrolled the map that had been lying by the recorder as he nodded at the general.

  "That is why I particularly wanted to consult with you." His finger moved over contours. "Here's the coastline-the island-this area is where the fire is raging-and it's still out of control, they're having a hard time getting in there to fight it. Right here it's jumped the highway, and the telephone wires are down. They do have radio contact with the mainland, however, and their own generator .. ."

  Chapter Forty-four

  ANNE WAS DEAD TIRED in both body and mind. So tired she felt numb. Too many things, happening too fast, crowded in on her. She wanted nothing more than to get away-to run away. And Harris had promised her, soothing her. Then Craig, of all people, turning up to "protect" her, wearing the same air of angry patience she remembered too well from London. He'd been a little more gentle with her than he'd been then, putting his arm around her as he said, "My poor Anne! Look, I'll take you away with me if you really want to go! Phelps has no right to force you to stay here, especially inview of-"He'd bitten off the rest, but his meaning had been implicit.

  Webb, she had thought. He means Webb, of course. And if she'd needed any more proof, Craig had given it to her. Harris had left them together, and she stood passively, letting Craig hold her while he explained in a rough, angry voice that she was the reason why he'd broken with her father, jeopardizing himself.

  "I'm sorry, Anne! Until then, I just hadn't realized what he was like. I had him up on a pedestal, and I believed in what he was doing. But all he believes in is power for himself through manipulation. Not idealism, but cynicism. And Christ, to think that I went along with it all these years. I was patterning my-self after him, without realizing it, and I didn't give you enough understanding, did I? Anne, I'd still like us to try again.

  I've never stopped caring about you, and this time I promise you it'll be different. I don't give a damn about the past, or anything you've done."

  She wanted to tell him that it was too late, she was too numb, she seemed to have lost the capacity for feeling all over again. But at that moment she was too tired to answer him. She had to fight the impulse to give way to tears.

  And for once, Craig seemed to understand her silence. "You're still in shock, aren't you? You're hands are so cold, Anne! I suppose they've been making you work too hard. Look, I'll talk to Phelps, and to Pleydel. Why don't you lie down and get some rest? Do you want me to send the doctor up to you?"

  After he'd gone, she stared blankly at her own face in the mirror, wondering who she was. Daughter of a murderer. Lover of a murderer. Victim of a murderer?

  Webb's voice, whispering harshly out of the darkness, I'm crazy in love with you, baby, and you damn well know it, don't you? Another lie, meant to disarm her? Or the perverted truth?

  She had begun to twist her fingers together, a habit from the past. Victim ... she looked like a frightened mid-Victorian maiden from some gothic novel, standing here wringing her hands instead of doing something. No, dammit! She wasn't going to be anyone's victim! Cleansing rage made her snap her head up, as she sucked in a deep breath. That's right, Anne. Fight back! She didn't know if she was fighting for herself or for Webb-but she was sick of lies and subterfuge and intrigue.

  She was dressed in jeans and a shirt, and now, not giving her-self time to think any further, she snatched up a shoulder bag -blue denim to match her pants. She took the gun from the drawer and dropped it in. She wasn't going to hide in her room any longer, waiting fearfully for something to happen. She was going to make it happen herself for a change. She was going outside to find Webb, and face him with everything she'd learned.

  Downstairs, everyone seemed to be gathered in the central courtyard. As Anne passed the open doors, she could hear Pleydel's voice; some kind of rally. Perhaps he was telling them that they were preparing to pack up and leave.

  She hurried down the great, empty hallway and out into the open air. The sun was shining, beating down hot and bright. Late afternoon already. But as she started down the path to the cottages, Anne could see the pall of smoke that towered up into the sky in the east-an angry yellow-orange from the reflected light of both the sun and the fire itself. All those acres and acres of ancient forest-and the animals, poor things, who must be fleeing panic-stricken, not knowing in which direction to run. Like her-except that now she had her direction and her determination.

  A sharp breeze blew up from the ocean; she should have tied her hair back. When she reached Webb's cottage, she didn't bother to knock. He hadn't knocked at her door last night.

  Anne walked in, pausing to let her eyes become accustomed to the cool gloominess inside. His bed was unmade, the door to the bathroom stood open. A pair of faded levis lay on the floor and a bloodstained shirt on a chair. But Webb himself was absent.

  Damn! Anne hesitated, biting her lip. He might have been in the courtyard with the others; she should have thought of that, shouldn't she? And then she heard a sound behind her and spun on her toes like a frightened cat.

  "Hi!" Jean Benedict said pleasantly. She stood there with her fists dug into the pockets of her blue sweatshirt, her black hair blowing about her face. And she didn't show any surprise at all at seeing Anne there. "Looking for Webb? I talked to him just a few minutes ago, and he said he was going to take a walk on the beach, while everyone else was deciding whether they wanted to stay on and finish up the few scenes left to be shot here or not." Jean shrugged. "I guess we're going to stay-it means extra bread, and it'd cost a hell of a lot more to pick another location and do it all over, I guess! Me, I don't care one way or the other. I'm getting so I kind of like it here, you know? It reminds me of home-or where home used to be."

  The beach, Anne was thinking. The beach! And all the time she'd been here she hadn't gone down there ... Aloud she said, "You're not afraid of the fire then? It couldn't reach us here in any case."

  "Oh, I knew that from the beginning, and I guess everyone else is starting to calm down." Jean grinned suddenly, showing strong white teeth in her sun-browned face.

  "That's a relief, because, with Sarah coaching me, I was actually starting to look forward to that other small scene I've got coming up." She looked straightforwardly at Anne. "You going on to find Webb, or do you want to walk back to the house with me?"

  She was wearing a "Jimmy for President" button, and Anne wondered how much the woman actually knew-not that it mattered any more than it seemed to matter to Jean that she'd wanted to see Webb. She still had to confront Webb, before her courage faltered. She didn't know which way Webb had gone. He might not know of the shortcut through the caves (why did a cold shudder go through her when she thought of it?) but if she used it, she'd get there before he did, probably. She had the gun to make her feel safe, and the thought-or was it an instinct?-embedded deep inside her mind that he wouldn't kill her, he couldn't, or he'd have done it before.

  "I-I'd rather you didn't tell anybody that-I've gone looking for Webb," Anne had said hesitantly. Jean merely cocked one dark eyebrow and said briefly, "Sure -okay, I understand."

  There was no one in the underground garage either, not even Palumbo, who was always around. Therapy. Going back in order to travel forwards. But Ann
e had to force herself to move, now that she was so close. She wasn't a scared child any longer; she was an adult who understood the reasons for her childhood terror, her fear of the ocean and dark, damp, echoing places.

  There was a door, standing slightly ajar, with a tide table tacked on it. Anne made herself study it. Low tide-the tide would still be going out. The sound of the ocean, when she opened the door, was muted. She wouldn't let herself hesitate now. The irrational terror was exactly that-irrational and ridiculous. A natural tunnel built by the ocean with a honeycomb of smaller caves and passages leading off it. Her smuggler ancestor had probably used it; her grandfather had as a boy. So had her mother ...

  and brushing that thought away, so, no doubt, had Danny Verrano and his friends.

  It was dark. She left the door open so that some of the fluorescent lighting in the garage could help her. And then, if she closed her eyes and felt her way, she would find it. She only had to remember that she was taller now. She mustn't run.

  Pocahontas ... the game she used to play came back with a rush, and she almost giggled. Very well, she would be Pocahontas again. Looking for John Smith.

  It wasn't a long way-not as long as she remembered it from before. She tripped on loose rocks a few times and almost fell until she reminded herself not to run. Walk slow. And then she saw the light and heard the deceptively soft hush-hush sound of the waves as they curled and flattened out hungrily against the sand of the beach, the far-off pulsing murmur of the ocean itself. She was able to picture it before she saw it-rufffed blue and white reflecting the sun, seabird sounds and salt smell.

  Infinitely better than the ugly, decaying kelp odor in the cave-tunnel. She could see the crimson kelp beds where sea otters hid, rising and falling with the swell, but the beach itself looked as if it had been washed clean by the high tides last night.

  Anne stood savoring the freshness of the air and the feel of the sun on her skin. She was here, and it was as beautiful as she used to remember it. Not at all a place for nightmares.

  The mouth of the cave was partially shielded by a rock formation that had always reminded her of an elephant. At this end, the beach started to narrow. To the south, it curved in against the uneven cliffs to form a beautiful crescent. There were tide pools she'd loved to explore. Was that what Webb was doing, or was he walking? Would he be surprised to see her-angry or glad? She had almost forgotten why she had come out here, conscious only of the need to see him and read the look in his sun-gold eyes when he first saw her. She had done something very stupid by coming out here alone to look for him, in spite of all the warnings she'd been given, but she was sick of warnings. She could look after herself.

  The purse had grown heavy on one shoulder and Anne shifted it to the other before she stepped out from behind the rocks, giving her elephant a pat for good luck as she did. But instead of the stretch of wide, uncluttered beach she expected, she was brought up short by tall pilings, sunk deep into the sand. A deck? She looked up and saw that one end had been dug into the cliff itself-there were actually hewn-out steps leading down to it from the clifftop, cypresses shielding a wrought-iron fence with a gate that squeaked as it swung in the breeze. And the deck obviously doubled as a boat dock; she could see the winches, a canvas-covered shape of a boat directly overhead. Damn Danny Verrano, he was a vandal! This was her land now, and she'd have this monstrosity torn down ...

  And then she heard their voices. Soft, lazy laughter first, and Anna-Maria's voice sounding husky.

  "I have always wanted to make love like this-in the open and under the sun. I am glad that we found each other again, querido. Aren't you?"

  Listening frozen, as if she had turned into stone herself, Anne heard Webb say, "I wasn't at all sure at first, you tawny-skinned bitch! But now-I guess I never quite got over you, Ria."

  "Is that why you never married again? Even after you thought I was dead? Did you suffer when you thought you had lost me forever?"

  "Goddamn you, I almost went crazy. I should have killed you when I first set eyes on you again, instead of listening to your lies!"

  "But they were not all lies, and you know that now. I suffered, too. And I know what they did to you when you refused to work for them any longer, those dirty capitalist assassins! But we shall both get our revenge now, hmm?"

  "I haven't yet decided if I can trust you, Ria my love. Especially since you're mixed in with a bunch of capitalist assassins yourself." Webb's voice was dry. They were both unconscious of everything but each other as Anna-Maria raised herself on one elbow to look down into his sardonic face.

  "But you can trust me. Didn't I tell you that I would give you an alibi for the time that Karim ... vanished? And as for Harris Phelps and the other-pah, I spit on them! They are useful only to change the existing structure, and after that-no, you must listen to me and believe me, Webb, I am telling you all this, you see, because I know what you are! Yes, and I'll tell you something else, Harris knows, too. I was watching the monitor one night, and I heard him telling her. That bitch-that bastard Reardon's daughter. He was warning her against you, he even gave her a gun to use against you. I heard him say that you are a contract man, a man who will kill for pay. You killed some girl she knew in London, and a man called Frazier who was a CIA agent.

  And you are with a Mafia, si? So what does one more killing matter? I will help you. I admit that I am jealous of her-I hate the thought that you have made love to her; I would like to see her suffer! And in any case"-her voice rose slightly, as she could read no expression in his eyes-"you can see now how dangerous she can be to you, as well as to the rest of us? I'll help you cover it up-it won't matter, we can make her disappear, too. You have to kill her to be safe, don't you see that?"

  At last he sighed, putting his hand up to shade the sun from his eyes, its shadow like a bar across his face. "Okay, Ria. I guess you've got me convinced. But you'll have to tell me more about your plans, baby, You've got a little something of your own cooked up, haven't yon? And if it's profitable, I want in. We're supposed to be a team now, remember?"

  Anne had started to back away, one step at a time; not able to take her eyes off their shadows; the shapes of their naked bodies lying together on the slatted boards. She was shivering -with blind terror and reaction-and part of her mind still screamed no, no, what she had heard wasn't real, wasn't true. And the other, primitive unreasoning side of her wanted to kill them both-take the gun she carried out of her purse and aim it and fire through the boards, shooting until there were no more bullets left.

  She had walked into a nightmare after all.

  She almost cried out when she backed into the huge rock. Her elephant hadn't brought her luck after all. For a few moments she leaned against it, trying to still the sobbing sound of her breathing, afraid that they might hear it. There was the low murmur of voices-Ria's mostly, with an occasional comment from Webb. Once, she actually heard him laugh. The sound galvanized her into moving. He could talk about killing her and laugh, admiring the other woman's clever viciousness. Everything he had done with her and said to her had been calculated pretense.

  'The sun was slanting towards the horizon, and at any moment they might decide to leave. If they stood up, they would see her. Suddenly, all Anne wanted to do was to flee-as far as she could from the sound of their voices and the ugly truth. She slid around the rock, still with her back to it, feeling her way with her palms. Its rough, shell-encrusted surface stung her hands and snagged at her thin skirt. She felt very cold, with the wind biting through to her skin, and her legs felt weak.

  When she reached the cave mouth it looked like the entrance to hell. It must be the smoke in the air-the sun seemed magnified, sending crimson rays all the way inside the tunnel, reflecting off salt-rime. When she forced herself to go inside again, Anne could see her elongated shadow running ahead of her. Running-get away, get away!

  The thought pounded in her head like the drumbeats of blood in her temples. She mustn't get lost. One more turn and she'd
be safe in the darkness again, feeling her way back to safety and sanity.

  Something tripped her, and she fell, sprawling. Fortunately, the floor of the cave was sandy here, so close to the ocean that had tunneled its way through what had originally been no more than a crack in the rocks. Anne lay there, gasping for a few moments, tasting sand and salt in her mouth. When her breath came back, she scrambled painfully to her hands and knees. And then she saw, her eyes dilating with the shock of horror piled upon horror, what had tripped her. An arm-bloated and turning blue with the shreds of what had once been a shirt clinging to it. A hand with swollen fingers, extended claw-like, gold signet ring glinting dully on one finger. She recognized the ring. The decaying odor she had taken for rotting sea-kelp assailed her nostrils, making her gag before she heard herself scream. It was involuntary; the sound was torn from her throat before she could stop it. Thrown back from the walls that enclosed her to reverberate against her eardrums and III her head.

  Karim. She had found Karim.

  Chapter Forty-five

  "I'M BEGINNlNC TO FEEL COLD. Look at the sun! It looks as if it's going to burst."

  Ria stood up, stretching. Consciously proud of her body, she posed it against the sun. She wanted Webb to want to make love to her again. She didn't know how it had happened-perhaps it was since she had discovered that he had changed as much as she had changed-but she knew now that she wanted him for her own. He used to treat her tenderly and protectively, as if she were made of glass, but now he treated her as a woman needed to be treated-roughly and fiercely. She gloried in the fact that he was as ruthless and cynical as she was. The fact that he was an assassin, a killer for pay, only made her glad, even proud. She was sick of the effete intriguers she had had to cultivate and play along with; she had needed, all these years, to have someone like herself whom she could confide in and share with. And she admired him all the more for not having been taken in by her in the beginning. Now, at last, with all the cards on the table, they could work together.