Venom Business Page 11

  To Raynaud he said, “That’s Petunia, the model I was telling you about. Film credits across the tits.”

  Pet came up, smiling, swinging the purse. Her hair was long, blond, straight, hanging over her shoulders.

  “’Lo, Dickie.”

  “Give you a lift, Pet?”

  She smiled. “I’m up now, thanks.”

  “What on?”

  “Speed.”

  She leaned over, looked in, and saw Raynaud. “Who’s the friend?”

  “Charles Raynaud. You should meet him.”

  She gave Raynaud an appraising look. “Yes,” she said. “I should.”

  “Then hop in.” He opened the door.

  “Where’re you headed?”

  “Anywhere.”

  She laughed and got into the back seat. Raynaud turned and said, “Hi.”

  “You’re American.”

  “Yes.”

  She shifted on the seat, tugging at her miniskirt. “Here for the sights?”

  “More or less.” He grinned.

  Richard pulled out into traffic, heading toward Piccadilly Circus. Pet opened her purse, found a comb, and combed her long hair. She glanced at her face in a pocket mirror.

  “I’m such a mess,” she said. “I had an audition this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Chubby Norton. You know him?”

  “Sure.” Richard explained to Raynaud. “Chubby Norton is one of the young geniuses. He makes films about dollies that get preggers. Message cinema.”

  “He’s really quite nice,” Pet said.

  “Did you get the part?” Raynaud said.

  “No,” Pet said. “But he’s really quite nice.”

  They drove around the statue of Eros, and down Whitehall toward Parliament.

  “I’m showing Charles the town,” Pierce said. “We were going to call you later.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. We’re up for a bit of fun tonight.”

  Still combing her hair, Pet said, “Sandra coming?”

  “No. Can’t make it.”

  “Oh.”

  “You free?” Richard said.

  “Actually,” Pet said, “I’m not. Date with a heavy.”

  “Young Chubby?”

  “No. He’s not like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Quite the other way,” she said, with a sigh. “Shame. I like his eyes.”

  “I didn’t know you had a thing for eyes.”

  “Don’t be crude, Dickie.”

  “Don’t put on airs, Pet.”

  She finished combing her hair and snapped her purse shut. “I’ll be at the party tomorrow,” she said. To Raynaud: “Will you?”

  “He’s the best man.” Pierce laughed.

  “I see.” The news seemed to annoy Pet. “You’ve known Dickie a long time?”

  “More than ten years.”

  “How nice.” She turned to Pierce. “I take it you’ll be there, tomorrow night, Dickie?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “And Sandra will be there? She can make it?”

  “Don’t be nasty, Pet.”

  “Just asking.”

  “Yes, everyone will be there.”

  “Even your son?”

  “Very nasty, Pet.”

  “They say he looks like you.”

  “Just because she didn’t have your affinity for Doctor Winsten—”

  “You can let me off,” Pet said, “at the next corner.”

  “—doesn’t mean—”

  “The next corner, Dickie. Thanks for the ride.”

  Pierce pulled over and opened the door. Pet got out, showing lots of leg and frilly underpants.

  She glanced back at Raynaud. “Perhaps we’ll meet again,” she said.

  Then she shut the door and turned away without looking at Richard. He pulled out, and said, “Moody bird. Always has been. It’s the success. She’s forced to nob it with producers and directors who lust after her body. Quite incredible, did you notice? Practically the best body in England. When she was younger, she made a lot of money as a figure model.”

  Raynaud looked back and saw her standing on the corner as they drove off.

  “What did she mean about—”

  “A son? It’s true, I have one. A little boy in Bristol or Manchester or somewhere. He’s two or three now. I paid for the abortion, but the girl wouldn’t have it. Simple dolly. She was a close friend of Pet’s. Pet likes to play high and mighty, even though old Winsten has scraped her out three times that I know of, and maybe more.”

  Raynaud said nothing.

  “Some day,” Pierce said, “when I come into the money, I’ll adopt that kid. And he’ll have everything. Everything he could want. He’ll be the happiest kid in the world.”

  “Didn’t you have everything?”

  “Yes,” Pierce said. “But it was different.” He spun the wheel sharply, making a U-turn.

  “Now where?”

  “My offices,” Pierce said. “I want to see how my little project is coming.” He laughed. “It’s not much to look at, but you may be interested.”

  The gilded raised lettering on the mahogany paneling said: Shore Industries, Ltd. Beneath was an emblem, a modernistic representation of a drilling rig. The carpet beneath their feet was thick blue pile.

  “Come along,” Pierce said. “We’ll catch them unawares.”

  He opened the door. Four secretaries, all attractive, stopped typing to greet him. Pierce waved to them and walked through a second door, into a smaller room. One girl sat there, at a teak desk.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Pierce. Are you in for the afternoon?”

  “I am in,” Pierce said, “for exactly one hour.”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I put calls through?”

  “Yes.”

  The girl stood up behind the desk. “Here are the messages from last week. Did you have a good trip to Paris?”

  “Excellent,” Pierce said briskly. He walked through another door which said: President: R. Pierce.

  Raynaud watched him in astonishment. A few minutes before, he had been casual, almost sloppy, and badly hung over. Now he walked erectly and spoke in brisk, firm tones.

  “Sit down,” Pierce said, closing the office door behind him. His private office was starkly furnished: two Barcelona chairs, a glass-topped desk with chrome legs, a telephone, an intercom, and a dictating machine.

  “What do you think?”

  “Impressive. How much time do you spend here?”

  “Practically none. But it doesn’t matter. Business expense. And it’s mostly for show. You see, this office does no real business. Our work is largely financing; we subcontract for the drilling and search operations, and skim off a percentage of any strikes. Naturally, we also absorb losses. That’s why we can command such a large percentage of any oil that’s found. We act as a kind of buffer for subcontractors.”

  He sat down behind the desk and leafed through the stack of letters and telephone messages.

  “You’ll have to excuse me for a while,” Pierce said. “Make yourself a drink. Push the second shelf over there.”

  Raynaud did; it slid back to reveal a bar.

  “Want something?”

  “No.”

  Pierce turned away and picked up the first telephone message. He flicked on the dictating machine.

  “Reply to Mr. Angus Corford-Stone, of Worthingham, Limited. Please be advised that rates in excess of six and one quarter percent are unacceptable. Final decision from Worthingham, Limited, must be reached by the twentieth of this month. New message—”

  He tossed one aside, and picked up the second.

  “Reply to John Stack. Our west shore rig is tied up until late January of next year and hence is unobtainable. New message.”

  The third.

  “Reply to Mr. Lewis Jackson’s secretary. Please inform Mr. Jackson I do not bother with messages from secretaries. Mr. Jackson should communicate with me directly,
or by letter. New message.”

  Raynaud made himself a scotch, and watched Pierce work. He was like a different person, a whole new man, sitting there in the starkly modern room, snapping out decisions….

  “Reply to Edgar Morain. Current stock options are due April thirteenth, with a five-day extension obtainable by written application, filed not later than April first.”

  “You’re very efficient,” Raynaud said.

  Pierce did not seem to hear. He had picked up the next message, this one a letter, and was dictating a reply. Something about tanker deployment in the east fields and minimum tonnage per twenty-four hours. He went on to another letter concerning storage facilities in Dover and port fees and licenses.

  Half an hour passed, and then the intercom buzzed. As he answered it, Pierce glanced at the now small stack of messages left.

  “Mr. Pierce, Mr. Bryce has called to arrange an appointment.”

  “No time,” Pierce said. “I’m leaving the country in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “He says it’s urgent.”

  “Make an appointment for him a week from today at four.”

  He flicked the intercom off, finished the pile remaining, and stood up. He rubbed his eyes, sighed, and then seemed to notice Raynaud.

  “How about a drink?” he said, with a grin.

  “Finished?”

  “Yes.”

  Raynaud made a drink. Over his shoulder, he said, “Sometimes I think you’re schizophrenic.”

  “Sometimes,” Pierce said, “I am.”

  Late in the afternoon, they remained in the office, sitting by the large glass window, looking out over the city. Pierce was smiling happily.

  “You’re very proud of all this, aren’t you?” Raynaud said.

  “I bloody well am,” Pierce said. “Listen, all my life I’ve heard stories about how I got here because of luck. I was the lucky bastard, adopted by the millionaire. I was the worthless sod who came into the money. All my life I’ve heard that. And now I’m going to show them. Shore Industries will make a fortune. An absolute fortune.”

  He spoke with vehemence, then seemed to catch himself, and relaxed.

  “Anyway,” he smiled, “it’s a dream.” He glanced at his watch. “Ready for the evening?”

  “What’s on?”

  “A reception for Cora Archer. You know her?”

  “Only by photograph.” Cora was the latest of the fashion models to make it big.

  “In person, she is even worse.” Pierce sighed. “But she is sexy enough. And it should be a kicky reception. Lots of grooves and lots of grass. It’s that kind of circle. Which reminds me.”

  He picked up the phone and said, “Get me Sandra Callarini.” He set it down and waited. “Have to tell her I’m busy,” he said, and smiled.

  A moment later, the phone rang. He picked it up. “Sandra? ’Lo, love. Dickie. I’m tied up, I’m afraid. Yes. Yes. Showing Charles around. Yes. You know how it is. Yes, of course. No, no, but it’s very sweet of you. Of course. Right. Bye.”

  He replaced the receiver.

  “Simple as that,” he said, and grinned.

  The flame of the torch hissed out, blue-tipped, cherry core, sizzling and crackling in the air. It touched the metal, spitting sparks and a white hot light

  “I tell you your trouble,” Carlos said. He wore welder’s goggles and a T-shirt, and was bent over his newest creation, a three-foot-high sculpture of a nude woman. The model was a young, slim, blank-faced girl, standing on a crate nearby.

  “I tell you your trouble,” he said. “It is sex. All Americans worry about sex. Sex, sex, all the time. Darling, move your leg.”

  The model shifted her position. Raynaud smiled as he looked at her. She did not seem to mind standing nude in a corner of a room filled with people. On the other side of the room people were clustered around Cora Archer; here, only a few people stood to watch the sculptor work.

  “You are in trouble because of sex,” Carlos continued. “You are preoccupied, unable to release your inner energies. Straighten your back, darling, and stick them forward. That’s the girl.”

  “I’m tired, Carlos,” she said.

  “I know it, darling. That’s when you’re best.”

  Raynaud said, “Do you always work in the middle of parties?”

  “Always,” Carlos said. “It stimulates the juices.”

  “What juices?” said the girl.

  “The juices, darling,” Carlos said, and shook the torch at her irritably.

  Pierce wandered over. “Hey, lad, a bird wants to meet you.” Raynaud looked at him, at the eyes, and saw that he was very high.

  “All right.”

  “Kinky bird.”

  “All right. Coming.”

  “No, just breathing hard,” Pierce said, and drifted off again.

  Carlos, bending over his work, said, “He a friend of yours?”

  “Richard? Yes.”

  “That’s funny,” Carlos said. “You don’t seem like a bastard.”

  It was not a very large room, but in crossing it, he somehow picked up a girl who linked her arm in his and began to talk rapidly of the Chichester art school, did he know it, it was really quite good, quite a good reputation, you know, and that counted in the art world. A number of Americans, some rather nice, she had become fond of Americans, generally speaking, most people weren’t but she was, and she thought he was American, because he looked American, he just had that look, that wholesome look, that special nice look, he was really rather handsome, did he know it? Was he just visiting? Did he have a place to stay? Because she lived quite nearby, oh, it wasn’t much, really, just a place, a flat, but comfortable in its way. Cindy had had it before she did, and Cindy was absolutely mad on Americans, particularly blacks, but personally she didn’t care for blacks, it sounded terrible to say, but they did have a smell, after all, well, not a smell, but an odor, a distinctive odor, which you didn’t get in Africans, she meant real Africans, like from Ghana or Nigeria or places, now why was that? Of course, she had heard that the American blacks were all intermixed, diluted out, even the best of them, from the slavery days, was that true? Never mind, she didn’t care, where was he staying? Did he have a place…

  Just as strangely, she was gone, wandering off across the room, until she came to rest with another boy, who smoked pink cigarettes from a holder, and wore a uniform from the battle of Waterloo.

  “This is Cora Archer,” Pierce said. “Cora is a dear friend of mine. She’s grandniece of the Earl of Kent.”

  Cora Archer wore a high-waisted gown of white lace that looked like a nightgown. She had a thin, cadaverous body with large eyes, heavily made up.

  “Great-grandniece,” Cora Archer said.

  “All the same,” Pierce said, throwing his arm around her. “She’s still a dear.”

  Cora wriggled out of his arm and looked at Raynaud. “Do you work for a living, or what?”

  “I work,” Raynaud said. He was trying to guess her age. She looked young—sixteen or seventeen—but it was impossible to be certain.

  “Glad somebody does.”

  “Cora is super, absolutely super.”

  “She is the summing up, the complete summing up,” said a voice. Turning, Raynaud faced a smooth-cheeked young man in a dinner jacket.

  “She is turned-on, wired-in, with it. She is the next Twiggy, the final Shrimp, the successor to Verushka.”

  Raynaud said to Cora, “You model?”

  “She does not model. She is.”

  Cora said, “This is Luke, my manager.”

  “Adviser, personal adviser,” Luke said, with a slight bow. “I manage nothing: merely advise.”

  “He tells people how great I am,” Cora said.

  “You are great,” Pierce said, putting his arm around her again.

  Luke, the manager, looked at Pierce, then at the arm. Pierce took his arm away.

  “You can see it in her face,” Luke said. “In the luminosity of the eyes, the expr
ession of the body. She has it, this one.”

  “See what I mean?” Cora said. “See the way he is?”

  Pierce said, “Does he follow you everywhere?”

  “She’s busy tonight,” Luke said.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” Pierce said, glancing at Luke, then at Raynaud, as if for encouragement.

  “I’m telling you,” Luke said.

  Cora said, “I’m busy tonight, Dickie. Serious.”

  “You’re putting me on.”

  “No. Serious.”

  “There, she told you,” Luke said.

  Pierce said, “Why don’t you get yourself a drink?”

  Luke was short, no more than five six or seven, with the neatness of a small man. He smoothed the lapels of his jacket, and said, “Bugger off, Dickie.”

  “You think you own her, like you own your wristwatch? You think she’s your property.”

  “She’s not yours.”

  “I think,” Pierce said evenly, “that Cora wants to spend the night with me. I think she wants you to go away.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  Cora said in a flat voice, “I’m busy tonight, Dickie.”

  “You won’t be, in a moment,” Pierce said. He clenched his fists, and looked again at Raynaud.

  Very deliberately, Raynaud stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “All right,” Pierce said. “All right.”

  And then, without warning, he swung. The blow caught Luke in the midsection, staggering him, doubling him over. Pierce jumped forward, swinging in short, vicious jabs. Luke fended the blows as best he could as he struggled to catch his breath. His face was red.

  Suddenly, he caught Pierce’s hand, and in a single swift move swung him, flipped him, and threw him to the floor. Raynaud smiled: so the little man knew judo.

  Pierce got off the floor, his eyes on Luke, who was crouched, arms forward, feet spread, palms wide.

  Pierce lunged.

  Luke caught him, pulled him close, spun him and tripped him. Pierce slammed down to the floor, very hard. He recovered with surprising speed, attacking again. Luke parried once more, delivering a flat punch to the kidneys and a shove that threw Pierce against the wall. He bounced off with blood running from his nose and his left eyebrow.

  “Little fart,” he snarled, and threw himself forward. Luke caught him with a blow to the ear and a second to the stomach; Pierce collapsed and got up slowly, still bleeding. He was winded. For a moment he stared at his crouched opponent.