Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (128 page)

'Good. Remember to overestimate rather than underestimate. It is said that many businesses go bankrupt during the first year because they are undercapitalized. Now, to another
matter.' Abdullah sipped his tea delicately. He was silent for
a moment, staring over his cup, past Najib and out through
one of the arched doors to the gardens. When he spoke, his
face was expressionless, but his voice was gentle. 'Two weeks
from tomorrow you are to attend a wedding.'

'Western or Arab?' Najib smiled. 'I have to know so I can
decide how to dress.'

Abdullah did not return his smile. 'Arab, I would suppose.
Of course, that depends on the bridegroom.'

'And who is the lucky man? Anyone I would know?'

'The lucky man, as you so aptly put it, Najib, is you.'

'Me!' Najib stared across at him, his eyes wide in disbelief.
'Surely you are joking!'

Abdullah shook his head. 'I have never been more serious
in my entire life.'

From Abdullah's tone Najib suddenly knew that it had
already been arranged. The only thing left to do was exchange
vows. 'I think you have gone too far.'

Abdullah's voice left no room for argument. 'You will do
as you are told!'

Shakily Najib got to his feet and clenched his fists at his side.
He was fighting to keep control. 'Now, unless you have more
unpleasant surprises in store for me,' he said angrily, 'I think
it is time for me to leave! Do not bother to show me out. I
know the way.' He headed across the room, but before he
could reach the curtained doorway one of the guards slipped
through and blocked his way.

'You have not yet been dismissed,' Abdullah said mildly
from the couch.

Najib stared at the guard. His semi-automatic made it diffi
cult to argue. Wearily he retraced his steps to the couch. He
remained standing and looked down at Abdullah, his eyes
flashing. 'Do all your dealings have to be done from the other
end of a gun?'

'Only when obedience is questionable.' Abdullah gestured
to the couch. 'Sit down!' he barked sharply.

'All right,' Najib said wearily, and sat back down. He sighed
deeply. 'Tell me about her.'

'There is not much to tell. Her name is Yasmin Fazir, and
she is quite beautiful, if you like the independent Western
type of woman. Her father is a very wealthy Lebanese banker,
and her mother's side of the family is highly respected and also
quite wealthy. They are carpet merchants in Damascus.'

'Then what's wrong with her? Beautiful, rich daughters aren't generally passed out to poor young men like alms to a beggar. Is she crippled? Does she wear braces on her teeth?'

'She is cursed with none of those things,' Abdullah said
irritably. 'And you forget, with your education you are not
exactly a beggar. You have become quite an eligible young
bachelor.'

'Then give me one good reason why I should marry her.'

'Her father is willing to put up one hundred thousand dollars
for you to get your start in business,' Abdullah said quietly,
watching Najib's reaction. 'That is one good reason.'

Najib whistled softly. 'He must want to get rid of her pretty
badly.'

'You could do much worse,' Abdullah said sharply.
'Remember, you will need a beautiful wife if our plan is to
succeed.'

'I am sorry, but I do not quite follow your reasoning.'

Abdullah gestured irritably. 'A wife is necessary for
entertaining. .
.to
add gloss and respectability to your image.
Yasmin will serve those purposes quite well. As far as her
family is concerned, their uses are multifold. Her father is a generous supporter of our cause. And as for her mother's family, you might want to consider exporting their carpets overseas. We shall have to wait and see. Meanwhile, you will
meet Yasmin tomorrow. You and your parents are invited to the Fazirs' for dinner. They are Westernized, so you can wear
what you like. I was going to make it for this evening, but
Yasmin, like so many of the silly Western women she idolizes,
insists on holding a job. She flies often between here and
Europe.'

'You make her sound like a bird.'

'Be serious!' Abdullah said sharply. 'This is no laughing
matter. There is much money at stake.'

'It appears to me that my entire life is at stake,' Najib
reminded him.

'What is at stake is the future of the Palestinian Freedom
Army! That is far more important than your life.'

Najib sighed. 'It does not sound like you are leaving me
much choice.'

Abdullah smiled coldly in reply and got to his feet. Najib
rose also. 'She'd better not be a dog,' he growled morosely as
Abdullah put his arm around his shoulder and walked him to
the doorway.

As it turned out, he was in for a surprise. Yasmin Fazir was
quite beautiful, and he recognized her at once. She was the
petite MEA stewardess with the swept up hair and the tiny
mole above her upper lip.

She was beautiful and she was rich and she looked like a
lady. But there was one thing he knew she was not. And that
was a virgin.

Consequently, her father deposited ten times more in
Najib's bank account than the originally agreed-upon one hun
dred thousand dollars.

Yasmin was, after all, damaged goods.

BOOK THREE

1977-1978

ISRAEL'S BEST-KNOWN EXPORT

WAS KIBBUTZ-RAISED,

BUT SHE'S NO VEGETABLE

Actress Daliah Boralevi pops vitamin pills like they're going
out of style, and her idea of a rush is B
₁₂
injections. 'I've
got more needle tracks than a junkie,' she confides. 'Some
times I look like a pincushion. I mean, just
look.''
Unself
consciously she hikes up the little something designer Yves St. Laurent ran up for her, gives a tug at her tiger-print
panties, and displays the needle tracks. 'I always tell the
doctor, "There . . ." ' She points to a tiny spot.' "You can only stick me there, in those two square inches." I don't
want holes punched all over me.'

The way her life has been moving along lately, it's small
wonder she needs vitamin boosts. During a single week
recently she finished location shooting in Ireland, zipped to Paris to be fitted for a new fall wardrobe, and flew to New
York, where she signed on for the next Woody Allen movie
and popped in on Liza Minnelli's party. She shot a commer
cial for Maybelline, managed an entire day at home for
herself, participated in preliminary discussions with Avon regarding a possible perfume line bearing her name, and
packed her bags to go to Cannes for the film festival
where . . .

—cover story,
People
Magazine

Chapter 1

Nine-twenty-two in the morning.

The first day of the two-week film festival.

As happened every year at this time, Cannes was swept up
in an orgy of madness. The lobby of the Carlton Hotel was a
shantytown of trade-fair booths, with giant overhead banners
advertising films, and showcard posters on easels creating a
maze, while outside the flags of all nations flapped along the Croisette and thousands of people crowded the sidewalks. Standstill traffic was backed up on the broad palm-lined
Corniche for miles, furious horns blaring a symphony of Man
hattanish frustrations. The celluloid peddlers were in town, and for the next two weeks Cannes would be a marketplace of high-stakes selling, buying, bartering, and financing. The
air was balmy and the sky a perfect powder blue with a regatta
of fluffy clouds headed for Italy racing across it.

On the breakfast terrace of the Carlton Hotel, Daliah was
cornered by a whirring, clicking swarm of cameras that was
steadily advancing on her like some hundred-eyed beast. The
lunging microphones waving at the end of tentacle arms were
coming so near that another inch and she feared the enamel
would be scraped off her front teeth. Behind the expensive Rolleis and Leicas and Nikons and shouldered video cams,
the photographers and reporters were one impatient, inhuman
mass.

She raked her fingers through her hair and shook her head.
Her gleaming raven mane was brushed to either side of her
face from a central part and flowed naturally to below her shoulders, where it frizzed out in baroque magnificence like the Madonna's in a Bartolomé Murillo oil. But her exquisite oval face was lively with a decidedly un-Madonna-like spark
in her eyes, and a flash of indignation highlighted her features
with photogenic animation. She was wearing a dress with a
skintight beaded sea-green bodice which had been appliqued with bright, oversize glass jewels. The full scarlet leather skirt
with the huge bustle bow matched her loose hand-stitched
Tartar boots, the inordinately high heels only adding to her
already impressive height.

Although she emanated the very essence of chic and con
trol, she was inwardly fighting to keep herself from exploding.
At the moment, Daliah Boralevi was a very angry, very
annoyed, and very steamy star.

It had been hard enough for her to agree to the press confer
ence in the first place, harder yet to actually subject herself to
it at that hour of the morning, without so much as a crumb of
brioche in her stomach. The eye drops she had dripped into
her emerald eyes only half an hour earlier had gotten the jet-
lag redness out, but had not done a thing for the stinging,
and the one demitasse of decaffeinated black coffee she had
foolishly allowed herself was now burning in the pit of her
stomach. But it was especially hard because Jerome St.-Tessier
—may he rot in hell for eternity, the putz, because he should
have been here at her side to keep the press reasonably at bay and the conference in some semblance of order—had simply
not shown up. No telephone call, no message—nothing. After
having kept the press waiting twenty minutes for him to show,
she hadn't been able to hold them off a minute longer and
she could sense their hostility and impatience growing by the
second. Not that she could really blame them. The town was filled with an international army of more famous, beautiful faces to interview and photograph than there was time to do
it in. Without Jerome, it was left up to her alone to appease
the press and provide fodder for their columns and empty air time, thereby hopefully getting as much free exposure for
Red
Satin
as was humanly possible.