(1982) The Almighty (33 page)

She lay still a long interval, wide awake, trying to decide whether she should corner Nick in the morning before he left

or make an effort to confront him now. Tomorrow he might elude her. Right now, confined to his bedroom, he could not escape. Drunk or not, he would have to listen. This was the moment.

Throwing off her covers, she fumbled for the bed lamp, turned it on, and swung off the bed. She drew on her robe, glanced at the mirror, patted down her hair, and went into the living room. She crossed past the television set and the desk and stood before Nick’s door.

For an instant, she hesitated. Maybe he was not in condition to hear her out.

Never mind, dammit, she told herself, it had to be now.

She rapped on the door.

No answer. Perhaps already asleep.

She rapped again, more sharply.

This time, Nick’s muffled voice. ‘Come in.’

She opened his door and went inside his room.

The bedroom was dimly lit by lamps on either side of the unmade bed. Nick had turned from the bureau to face her, and he was undressed, naked except for his white jock shorts.

Victoria gave a small gasp, ready to leave, saying, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know -‘

‘Get off it, Vicky. You’ve seen plenty of men before.’ He grinned. ‘Not that I’ve been much of a man these days.’

She remained rooted, staring at him, realizing his body contradicted his self-deprecation. He was plenty of man. Her surprise was that he was neither bloated nor flabby from drink. His hairy chest and stomach were flat and his thighs strong. But when he stepped away from the bureau toward her he almost lost his balance, and when he spoke his words were thick. ‘Wanna join me for a nightcap?’ He held up his brandy glass.

‘Thanks, but no, Nick. I really wanted to talk to you briefly about something before you left. When are you leaving?’

‘The hotel? Eleven o’clock.’ He walked carefully around the bed and sat on it, drinking, looking intently at her over the glass.

‘I guess it can wait,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You’d better get some sleep. Maybe we can talk-in the morning. It is important.’

‘No, Vicky,’ he said, setting his glass down on the marble—

topped bed table. ‘Less - Let’s talk. Been wanting to talk to you for a long time.’

‘Well, if you really feel like it.’

‘Feel like it,’ he said. ‘Wanna talk about something important to me.’ He patted the bed. ‘Sit here.’

‘Okay,’ she said bravely, going to the bed, sitting. ‘But let me start first, then it’ll be your turn.’

He stared at her blearily, shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘My turn first. My turn’s more important. About us.’

She raised her eyes to meet his, at once curious, wondering, waiting.

‘About us,’ he repeated. ‘Never made a pass at you. Wanted to every time. Never did. Explain - lemme explain.’

‘You don’t have to, Nick.’

‘Have to, because.’ His speech was cottony. He was making an effort to pull himself together, be articulate. ‘Been a bachelor. Fell hard for a young woman, six, seven years ago. Was afraid to get involved, so close, but she loved me as much, I believed, I thought. We got married. Right after, found out she was pregnant by another guy, another guy she really loved, but he wouldn’t make it legal so she faked it with me to get married. I wanted to kill myself or her. I wanted to.’

She took his hands. Tm sorry, Nick.’

‘Old story, old hat. But never did it, never killed anyone. Just divorced her, left her. Vowed never to trust another woman, never to let myself be hurt. Meant loneliness, frustration, started drinking, never stopped drinking. Good company. Course had one-night stands all the time, fucking, no commitment, never trusted another one again. Never fell in love, till I met you.’

She felt her heart hammering.

‘Was afraid to fall for you,’ he was saying. ‘Afraid to trust any woman who meant so much -‘

‘I mean so much to you?’

‘What the hell, I’m in love with you, Vicky, and not holding back.’

‘Oh, Nick.’ She was on her feet over him, almost moved to tears. She sought his lips and kissed him and kissed him. ‘I’ve been so in love with you from the start.’

His arms came heavily around her, pulling her down to his lap, kissing her back. ‘Vicky, come to bed with me.’

She felt him hardening beneath her, and heat pervaded her from cheeks and breasts to the inside of her thighs. She caught her breath, tried to be flippant. ‘I - I thought you’d never ask.’

He started to bring her down on the bed with him. ‘Now, darling.’

She squirmed free. ‘Yes, now,’ she said huskily. She came to her feet. ‘Let me go into the bathroom first. I’ll only be a minute.’

Barefoot, she hastened to his bathroom, closed herself in. Divesting herself of the bathrobe, hanging it up on his hook, she reached down and pulled up her cotton nightgown, drawing it up over her breasts and her head. She was flushed, throbbing with excitement. He loved her. He wanted her. They would never be apart again.

She looked into his mirror over the sink. She wished that she had her makeup, her lotions, her perfume. But never mind. Her reflection told her what he would see, and what he would see was a flawless naked young woman in full blossom of love, from hardened nipples to moist vagina.

He would enjoy her. And she wanted him.

Not another second of their togetherness to lose.

She left the bathroom, turning down the light, went in measured step around the corner and, in her nudity, entered the bedroom as unself-consciously as possible.

He was waiting for her on the bed, she could see.

She advanced to the side of the bed, arms limply at her sides, breasts rising and falling.

She could see him fully now. He was lying on his side, still in his jock shorts, his head deep in a pillow. His eyes were shut. He was snoring lightly. He was sound asleep.

He had passed out completely.

Glaring down at him, she remained transfixed, wanting to cry, and wanting to laugh.

Considering his inert figure, she tried to assess his earlier confession. Uninhibited, had he truly spilled out his love for her, or had he been merely plain stupid drunk and capable of saying anything?

The answer?

She’d once, as a youngster with her father, attended a movie festival of silent films, clips of silent day Saturday

serials. They always left you hanging at the end of an episode. To be continued, they said.

She smiled ruefully to herself.

To be continued, she told herself.

She turned away, walked back into the bathroom, retrieved her nightgown and bathrobe, and dragged them behind her through his bedroom, across the living room, and into her

bedroom.

If she was not fulfilled, she was at least sleepy at last. As for the rest? To be continued.

At ten-thirty in the morning, Victoria Weston came down to the lobby of the Plaza Athenee Hotel, took her reserved copy of the day’s International Herald Tribune from a concierge, and sank deep into an easy chair at the far side of the room. Partially hidden by the newspaper held open in front of her, she kept an eye on guests entering the main lobby from the elevators in the inner lobby beyond. She recalled that Nick had mentioned he would be leaving the hotel for Charles de Gaulle Airport at eleven o’clock in the morning, and she was determined to catch him before he departed.

When she had awakened earlier, she had thrown on a robe and crossed the sitting room to his bedroom door. She had knocked loudly several times, but there had been no reply. Tentatively she had opened the door and called out to him, but still there was no response. She had gone inside. He was neither in the bedroom nor beyond the open bathroom door. She spotted his packed bag, typewriter, trench coat on an armchair. So he was away somewhere, but he had not yet left for the airport. After that she had hastily dressed, taken the elevator downstairs, and tried both bars, but no Nick. In the court restaurant, picking a table near the entrance, keeping a watch on the inner lobby, she had gulped down a quick breakfast. Still no sign of Nick. This meant he was out on some private business, like seeing Sid Lukas or maybe saying good-bye to a girl friend in the area. She knew he could return to the hotel through some other entrance, possibly the Relais Plaza bar, but he could not leave the hotel without paying his bill. Realizing this, she had planted herself in the corner of the main lobby.

Absently scanning the paper as she waited, her thoughts were really on last night, on last night’s fiasco, and Nick’s unexpected profession of love for her. He had been terribly drunk, she knew, and babbling anything, maybe even

insincerities. At the same time, he might have known what he was saying and meant every word of it. She could not be sure, but once she had a chance to speak with him and hear him out, she would know one way or the other.

Victoria had reached the editorial page of the Herald Tribune, observing also that her wristwatch was at nine minutes to eleven, when she saw him striding into the lobby, preceded by a bellboy gripping his heavy suitcase and his portable typewriter. The bellboy continued straight to the revolving door leading to the Mercedes sedan waiting on the narrow pavement between the sidewalk and the Avenue Montaigne. Nick had detoured to the concierge’s counter. Victoria saw him handing out some francs, obviously a tip, kept him in view as he moved along the cashier’s counter, where he was signing his bill.

Now, tugging on the trench coat he had been carrying, he headed for the revolving door. He looked well-groomed, casual but neat in his beige sport jacket and slacks, and the picture of sobriety. He was inside the revolving door and outside on the sidewalk, when Victoria leaped to her feet. Casting aside her newspaper, she hurried across the lobby in pursuit.

The chauffeur had already left a group of his colleagues to hold the rear door of the Mercedes open for Nick, and Nick had already tipped the bellboy and the doorman and entered the back of the car when Victoria reached it, nodded to the chauffeur, and ducked inside.

Wedging into the back seat between Nick and the window, Victoria settled in and offered up a winning smile. ‘Mind having company on the way to the airport?’

Surprised, Ramsey made more room for her. ‘I’m delighted,’ he said. ‘But how did you know when I was leaving?’

‘I’m psychic,’ she said. She waited for the chauffeur to start the car and drive it away, turning right to head for the autoroute and the airport, before elaborating. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we talked last night and you mentioned when you were leaving.’ She paused. ‘Don’t you remember?’

His expression was honestly bewildered. ‘We talked last night? After I knew when I was leaving? I remember seeing

the night concierge and -‘ He faltered.’- and then I came up and went to sleep.’

‘We talked in between,’ she said adamantly. Ramsey shrugged. ‘I guess maybe we did:’ He tried to smile. ‘I guess maybe I had a drink too many.’

‘I guess maybe you did,’ she said, also trying to smile, but her lips hurt and her heart sank.

He was a total blank. He had been blind drunk. His memory apparatus had been fogged in.

The shortest love affair, non-love affair, in history, she thought miserably. It would be hopeless to remind him. It would be embarrassing, too, because maybe the sober Nick Ramsey, the real person, entertained no such romantic feelings toward her.

To hell with it, she decided. There was nothing more she could do but absorb her loss.

T really needed to talk to you, Nick, before you left. I tried several times, you know. Even last night at dinner.’

‘At dinner?’ He showed a glimmer of remembrance. ‘Yes, after the Carlos episode, before Armstead called to transfer me. I guess I was still shaken up by Carlos.’

‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘But you have been putting me off.’ ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I thought this was a good opportunity to discuss it.’ ‘Go ahead.’

She twisted toward him. ‘Nick, something strange has been going on, and it niggles at me. I want to get to the bottom of it. I very much need your good judgment.’ ‘All right. Let’s hear. What’s so strange?’ ‘The wave of terrorism going on since we’ve been in Europe.’

‘Vicky, there’s been terrorism over here for years.’ ‘Not like this,’ she insisted. ‘Not so much, not so bunched together, one incident after another. Not so spectacular, either. These have involved only big names - king of Spain, secretary-general of the UN, prime minister of Israel. And important artifacts stolen - the Dead Sea scrolls. That’s not how it used to happen.’

‘What are you leading up to?’

‘Well, Carlos and his gang have been blamed for every one

of these acts, even supplying weapons for the ETA operation in Spain. You were with Carlos yesterday. You heard him deny taking part in any of them.’

‘I’d hardly consider Carlos a reliable source on what he did or did not do.’

‘Do you think Carlos was telling you the truth?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘I don’t know either, but let me tell you what I think. I think Carlos told you the truth. I don’t think he had anything to do with the terrorist acts that have been happening right under our noses.’

‘What makes you so sure of that?’

‘Simply by reviewing what has been happening.’

Victoria launched into a point-by-point recounting of the recent kidnappings, robbery, killing. ‘I agree with Carlos,’ she concluded. ‘Not one of them his style. Not the operations. Not the ransoms. All this is not Carlos. It’s someone else, someone else is doing it.’

Ramsey stared thoughtfully out the car window at the passing suburban landscape. ‘If not Carlos, who?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Victoria helplessly. ‘I thought maybe you would have some ideas.’

‘There are a hundred splinter terrorist groups around,’ said Ramsey, ‘some large, some small. It could be any one of them, even a number of them.’

‘It’s the same group all the time,’ said Victoria without equivocation.

‘What makes you so positive?’

‘Bradshaw, Mark Bradshaw,’ Victoria said simply. ‘He’s the common denominator. Whenever something’s happened, he’s been there.’