Venom Business Page 21

  Laughing about what? he wondered, and continued on down.

  Lucienne was wearing a blue silk jumpsuit. Her feet were bare as she paced up and down in the living room beneath the glowering portrait of Herbert.

  “You shouldn’t have left him alone,” she said.

  “It was important.”

  “I’m paying you to watch him.”

  Raynaud shrugged. “I’m unreliable.”

  “Charles, for a thousand a day…”

  “Listen,” he said, “what does Richard know about you and me?”

  “Know? He knows nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course, Charles. Why?”

  “He is acting strangely.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He shrugged. He was not going to tell her about the incident with the gun. He was not going to tell Lucienne any more than he had to.

  “Tell me, Charles.”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  She said, “Was he very drunk last night?”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “I heard there was a scene,” she said.

  He wondered briefly how she had heard. “There was.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing much. He made a fool of himself.”

  She sighed. “As usual. You were with him all night?”

  “No,” Raynaud said. “I wasn’t with him all night. He had a girl and he didn’t want me with him all night.”

  “I see.” She puffed on a cigarette, and stubbed it out nervously. “A thousand dollars a day is a lot of money.”

  “I’m earning it.”

  “You seem to spend a lot of time away from him.”

  “Not much,” Raynaud said.

  “Where were you last night?”

  “I spent most of the evening reading.”

  “Reading what?”

  “War and Peace,” he said.

  “Enjoy it?”

  “Too complicated,” he said, “for my taste.”

  The maid came in and said, “It’s eleven, madam.”

  She nodded, and said to Raynaud, “Come with me.”

  They went to a room painted bright yellow. It was not large, and the ceiling was low; in the center was a padded leather couch, and overhead was a bank of a dozen sunlamps. Lucienne flicked on a switch and glaring light poured down on the couch.

  “We don’t all live in the jungle, you know,” she said, as she began to undress. She did it slowly and gracefully, knowing he would watch. “London is very low on that vitamin, what is it?”

  “D,” Raynaud said.

  “Yes. Vitamin D.”

  She lay down on the couch and relaxed. At her side was a timer, which she set. A quiet ticking could be heard.

  “Ten minutes on a side,” she said. “It is like cooking a steak.” She smiled. “I loathe being pale.”

  Her skin was the color of burnt honey. “You’re not pale,” he said. And then he remembered Sandra’s skin, a natural olive, and smooth.

  “When I was younger, I would lie on the beach at Menton until I was almost black. And my hair was lighter then.”

  “You miss France?”

  “I miss the sun. Not France. France is a nation tied to the past, still dreaming of Napoleon. When I think of my father…”

  She lapsed into silence.

  “In Lyon?”

  “Yes. He was a military man, a colonel. Very strict. He did not smoke or drink, and when he was angry, he would beat us. With his brass-tipped cane. Sometimes he even beat my mother.”

  “When did you leave home?”

  “When I was fourteen. I met a nice boy and stayed with him. Not all night, just until midnight. Then I went home, feeling strange and happy and womanly. My father—he was very sick then—was waiting with his cane. I took one look and ran away.”

  “Have you gone back?”

  “No. Never. Sometimes I write to my mother, and sometimes I send her money. But I have no desire to go back to Lyon.”

  Raynaud leaned against the wall. He was silent, thinking about Sandra and what she had said.

  A buzzer sounded. Lucienne reset the timer and turned on her stomach.

  “They say it gives you cancer,” she said, “but I am not worried.”

  He said nothing, still thinking.

  “You’re very quiet, Charles.”

  “Thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Richard.”

  She arched her back into a hard, sensual curve beneath the hot white light of the sunlamps. “Charles,” she said, “I have an itch. Would you scratch it?”

  13. TRUSTED MEN

  WHEN HE WAS GONE she sat in the living room and brushed her hair and thought about what had happened. Charles was not a fool, not a fool at all. He had come back to her because he smelled a rat. A dozen rats.

  Perhaps she had made a mistake, bringing him to England. He was too clever for this job; she needed someone slow and simple, someone who did not think too much, or too clearly.

  And yet she knew he was perfect. Basically, he was the ideal man. If he were alive at the end of it all—and she was certain he would see to that—then it was important that he should be intelligent. The police would not believe it otherwise. It would look too arranged, too much like a gaudy still life. The police would be suspicious. But with a man like Charles, a clever, elusive, intelligent man—and an alien on top—the whole business would become reasonable.

  Sordid and reasonable.

  Well, she thought, it was rapidly becoming sordid. The girl, Sandra, was a stroke of luck. She knew that he had slept with her, and was amused that he would not tell her. Was it caution, or a sense of honor? Amusing in either case.

  But it was good, because there would be tension between Richard and Charles over the girl. Real tension.

  And the reports of the other scenes she had received were equally encouraging. The party where Richard had made a proper ninny of himself, fighting with that agent. A lovely scene; all London was talking about it.

  Yes, she thought, things were progressing well. If only she could keep Charles on the string for a few weeks longer. Until everything was arranged, and the whole thing blew up.

  She sighed. Poor Charles, he really did deserve better. In his own way he was a friendly sort, rather sweet at bottom, and gentle. The toughness was all superficial; it could be melted away. Poor man: for a thousand dollars a day—it was absurd, absolutely absurd.

  He didn’t even need the money.

  She mixed herself a stinger, lit a cigarette, took a deep breath, and called Jonathan. While she waited for him to answer the phone, she realized that she was gripping the receiver tightly, her knuckles white. That was foolish. Jonathan had nothing on her, and she had everything on him. He was in the ideal position—believing that he was controlling her, manipulating her, while in reality it was the other way around.

  She didn’t need Jonathan. Didn’t need his advice, or his help, or his sly, coaxing counsel. All she needed was his drugs.

  And, she thought, his friendship with Richard.

  When he answered the phone, his voice was soothing. Such in ugly man, and such a soothing voice. It never failed to surprise her.

  “How did it go today?”

  “All right. But he suspects something is going on.”

  “We anticipated that,” Black said. “Charles is not a fool.”

  “I know that.”

  Black chuckled. “He was probably just tired.”

  That annoyed her. He didn’t have to bring that up, to remind her.

  “I am well aware,” she said.

  “And angry?”

  “No. I consider it good fortune.”

  “Yes,” Black said, laughing again.

  “Damn it, I do!”

  “I’m sure,” Black said smoothly. “By the way, do you think the girl told him anything?”

  “Sandra? No. She knows nothing.”

  “I think you are right,�
� Black said. “Shall I proceed with the next step?”

  She had to smile, listening to him talk. “Shall I proceed?” as if he had planned it all, arranged it all. God, what an ego.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

  “When is she arriving?”

  “I don’t know. Tomorrow, or the next day.”

  “Then the stock sale will be made late this week.”

  “Yes,” she said. “What did you discover about the Board?”

  “Richard is up to his usual tricks. The eight hundred thousand dollars went to private commitments, all right.”

  “To whom?”

  “Three men. Including Sanderson of ITI. He’s in for half a million, himself.”

  “How?”

  “Cash, my dear. Transferred in Switzerland, bank to bank.”

  “Then Richard suspects nothing?”

  “Nothing at all. He still believes that Shore Industries is an impenetrable ruse—that nobody has figured out its true purpose.”

  “Good,” she said. “And you’re sure the stock sale will settle everything?”

  “Oh, yes,” Black said. “The Board will advise immediate liquidation.”

  “Of Shore Industries?”

  “Yes.”

  “Richard will be furious.”

  “Absolutely,” Black said.

  “Lovely,” Lucienne said.

  She hung up and stared at the phone as she finished the stinger. She thought about Richard, and then Charles, and finally the girl, Sandra. It must have given him considerable satisfaction, to have Richard’s fiancée. It must have pleased him no end. And she was beautiful enough.

  Lucienne sighed. The kind of beauty a girl found at seventeen, and lost forever at twenty-five. A beauty mixed with hope and young dreams and mindless confidence. She would be attractive to him, vibrant and energetic and confident.

  Damn.

  She had a sudden helpless feeling: there was nobody she could rely on, nobody she could trust. For a time she had hoped she could trust Charles, that he would be direct enough, simple enough to be truthful with her. But no longer. She was back where she had started, alone in a world of scheming men.

  Including, she thought grimly, the good Dr. Black.

  Once Lucienne had loved Black with a kind of desperate fierceness. He controlled her utterly, and she adored him for it. She was so completely in love that nothing else mattered: the rumors, the sly jokes, even the fights with Herbert. There had been bitter fights, violent, snarling, animal. But it didn’t matter to her; it seemed a fair price to pay for her few hours at his side. Those were the days when she still had her young, optimistic beauty. When she still believed in men.

  When Herbert finally died, she had been relieved. The manner of his death was a shock, of course—so sudden, so unexpected and brutal. She remembered the swiftness and the way his body had been flung against the fender of the car, and then slid off, leaving a smear of blood on the metal.

  And then driving to the hospital. She had wanted to ask directions, but Black, in the back seat with her husband, had said no, go directly to Aries. He had been quite calm as he administered first aid. She supposed the calmness came from his medical training.

  They told her gently at the hospital, but it was still a shock. She had sobbed, and later, was grateful for the suddenness. No one would guess her inner feelings.

  If she had any regrets, it was what Herbert’s death had done to her relationship with Black. Afterward, Black had become more distant, more difficult to reach, and the sex between them went sour. They fought once or twice and decided the affair was over. It had been over for ten years.

  She still saw him, because he was related to Herbert, and because she needed a man to lean on. He was strong, you could say that about him. And he gave her good advice on the management of the estate—much better advice than the trustees at Barclay’s Bank, a board of six grim little men she had never liked.

  She could not recall exactly when she bad no longer trusted Black. It was around the time when Richard began his business ventures. Jonathan had recognized what that meant long before she did; he had a better business sense, and was more perceptive about people. It was Jonathan who first predicted what would happen when Richard took over the estate: that he would summarily cut Lucienne off without a penny. Under the terms of the will he could do precisely that.

  She sighed. How often she had wished that Herbert had put in a clause for three thousand a month—even three thousand a year. But he had stipulated nothing for her. It was all to be left to Richard’s discretion.

  And Jonathan was right: Richard would be brutal and final in his disavowal of her. At the age of forty, she would find herself without a penny to her name—and she had grown accustomed to money, lots of it, an acquired taste, but easily acquired.

  Jonathan had come to her one afternoon and pointed to the house and told her that nothing, not even this house, would be left to her. He was chilling and cold as he talked. He said he was worried about her, thinking of her future. And he began to suggest things.

  At first he was subtle. Slight hints, little dropped comments and unfinished sentences.

  Later he became blunter. He talked about the will, and the provisions of the will. He talked about the legal problems of breaking the will. On one thing he was firm: Richard must remain alive. Herbert had been quite clear in that. If Richard died in questionable circumstances before the age of thirty-four, all the money went to charities. That clause could not be broken.

  She listened to Black quietly, hiding her inner amusement. She did not bother to point out that she had considered the problem months and years before, and had come to several conclusions. She had even drawn up a tentative plan of action.

  That was before she heard, quite by chance, from a lady acquaintance in Brussels, that there was a marvelous guide in Mexico named Charles Raynaud. The name instantly struck a chord—and why not? For years after leaving America, Richard had talked of no one except Charles Raynaud. Charles Raynaud was so witty, so strong, so daring, so criminal.

  She had decided to visit Charles Raynaud. And she had. Seducing him proved to be even easier than she had anticipated. When she left Mexico, she knew that she had him in her grasp and could call upon him at any time. All she had to do was offer him sex and money. A winning combination, every time.

  Charles: she wondered if he suspected, anywhere in the far recesses of his heart, that she had made a trip to the crummy jungles of Mexico precisely to meet him. To plan, two years in advance, this grand show with Richard.

  And a grand show it would be. The newspapers would kick it around for months. Two dead women, a smuggler, and a millionaire heir.

  Lovely stuff for the News of the World. They’d have a field day.

  In the end, she would win. That was the important thing. But equally important was the fact that Richard would be finished. And so would Jonathan. Jonathan she loathed with a quiet, steady hate, but Richard was different. Richard was a full-blown bastard.

  The telephone rang. It was four o’clock. That would be Carter Burgess.

  “Yes?”

  “Good afternoon, madam.” The proper, well-trained voice was hushed. “I have my report.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Yesterday afternoon, he was with a girl named Julia, on King’s Road. In the evening, he had a late supper and retired early. This morning he arose at seven, breakfasted alone, and read the papers. Then he went to the dispensary, where he shut the door—”

  “Listening to his heart again?”

  “I expect so, madam. He called the doctor.”

  “And?”

  “He has an appointment tomorrow, for ten.”

  “I see. Anything else?”

  “Three calls, one from his laboratory on technical matters. Another from a girl named Dominique, who urgently wanted to see him. And a call from Richard, who told him that a friend spent the night with Sandra. Richard was quite upset.”

  So tha
t was how Black knew, she thought.

  “All right, Burgess. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, madam.”

  She hung up, and smiled to herself, wondering what Jonathan would say if he knew she was paying his butler to spy to him.

  14. A PUZZLING MURDER

  “WHERE DID YOU GO?” Richard Pierce said. He was sitting rigidly upright in the Jacobsen egg chair set in a corner of his apartment. Across the room a girl with dark hair, wearing dungarees, had set up an easel and was painting his portrait. She stopped at intervals to wipe the paint from her hands onto the seat of her pants.

  “Out,” Raynaud said. He walked over and looked at the painting.

  “This is Michele,” Pierce said. “She’s doing my picture.

  “I want to catch his essence,” Michele said, frowning and bending over the painting.

  “Then just open your mouth, love,” Richard said, and laughed.

  Michele wrinkled her nose. “You want a portrait of that?”

  “It might be amusing,” Richard said. He turned back to Charles. “Where did you go, old buddy?”

  “Out,” Raynaud repeated.

  “Don’t move your head,” Michele said.

  Richard Pierce held his neck stiffly. He said to Raynaud, “You can tell me about last night, if you want.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “I don’t mind,” Richard said. “Frankly, I’d be interested to hear your reactions. To Sandra.”

  “She’s a nice girl.”

  “Hell, yes, she’s a nice girl. Do you think I’d get engaged to a pig?” He laughed shrilly, enjoying his own joke.

  Raynaud said, “Where’s Dominique?”

  “She went out. Wouldn’t tell me where. I’m surrounded by sneaky people, it seems.”

  Raynaud said nothing. He watched as the girl changed the line of the eyebrows on the portrait.

  “Something bothers me about that girl,” Pierce said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Her visa. She got a three-month visa. That’s not easy for a single girl who, uh, looks like Dominique. They usually catch hell at customs and immigration. Sometimes they don’t get in at all, unless they have contacts.”

  “So? She has you.”

  Pierce sighed. “Yes. She has me. But she didn’t use me. Didn’t need me.”