Killerfest (17 page)
CHAPTER 30 - BOOK DEAL
At
almost
60 square miles, Mahé is the largest of the 115 islands that make up the
archipelago nation called the Seychelles just over 900 miles east of Africa.
The capital city of Victoria is on Mahé, and its 80,000 residents represented
the bulk of the tiny nation’s population.
Chandra Khan
had not quite recovered emotionally from the forced sale of his publishing
properties to Randolph Shields. Mahé’s world-class resorts offered the
lifestyle, services and tranquility that he needed to plot his return to
prominence while he licked his wounds after the Quimper catastrophe. The merger
of Bengal Publishing, Albatross and Schuster House was one of the largest
business stories of the past decade. He thought he would throw up when he saw
Lisa Lovepuddle on the arm of “Randy” Shields on the Internet. There wasn’t a
doubt in his mind that the old dog was banging her brains out.
Still, he knew
he had little choice in the matter after Nigel Blue and that son-of-a-bitch
Scarne had walked into his office. At first he denied everything, calling them
both lunatics. Then Scarne threw the picture of the dead Gulle on his desk, saying
that Boga never looked better. There were more photos, he added, of the men
Gulle murdered in Brussels. Khan, of course, immediately disowned Gulle,
claiming that his trusted bodyguard and aide had obviously gone rogue or
insane, perhaps both. They couldn’t tie his death, or the others, to him. They
had no proof. It was outrageous.
Blue told Khan
to shut up. They didn’t need proof. Shields owned newspapers and cable
stations. They would crucify him with innuendo. Even if the charges didn’t
stick, no one would do business with him.
In the end, Khan
took 30 cents on the dollar for all his businesses, a financial hit that was
mitigated by the inflated Manhattan prices his corporate offices and his
townhouse brought. And he left New York, still a wealthy man. He would bide his
time and then make his comeback. He would find another Boga Gulle and make them
all wish they were never born. And the first payback would be Jake Scarne.
Just thinking it
made Khan’s heart race. Calm down, he said to himself. Things could be worse.
You are living in the famous Ian Fleming Suite, a villa elevated on stilts over
the crystal clear Indian Ocean at the Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort &
Spa. The adults-only resort, on Beau Vallon Bay facing Silhouette Island,
surrounded by verdant hillsides replete with coconut palms and cannonball
trees, was one of the most luxurious playgrounds on the planet.
“Would you
like another drink, sir?”
Khan looked at
the waiter and nodded. It would be his third bottle of SeyBrew, the local beer.
He much preferred it to the touristy rum concoctions that were the specialties
of the house. He longed for some Old Monk. Still, SeyBrew went better with the
Creole-inspired cuisine, which featured variants of curry even more spicy than
he was used to. In addition to the cold beer, many of the dishes needed side
orders of coconut cream. But the food was delicious and Khan had added an inch
to his waist in less than a month.
He pinched the
flab around his midsection. That wouldn’t do.
His beer came.
Tomorrow, he decided, starts the physical regimen that will be part of my
comeback. The woman he’d had dinner with the night before had asked him to go
snorkeling. He’d met her earlier on the beach, where she was sunning topless, rubbing
tanning cream over her wonderful breasts. The snorkeling promised a good
workout, in more ways than one. He knew the signs. She’d be in his bed before
the week was out.
***
Khan got to
the dock at 9 A.M. The weather was perfect, as usual, and the water calm and
clear. She was already stowing gear in a locker on the small cabin cruiser.
“I thought
there would be a guide,” he said.
“Don’t need
one,” she said. “I’ve rented this for my entire stay. I know these waters and
have just the spot on the other side of Silhouette Island.” She was wearing a
black string bikini, which accented her fair skin and hair. “You won’t believe
the variety of fish and coral. I have everything we need. Masks, snorkels and
the like. Can you untie that line?”
A half hour
later she pulled into a secluded cove just off an unoccupied Silhouette Island
beach and idled the boat’s engine.
“Drop the
anchor, will you, Chandra?”
He watched the
anchor slide all the way to the bottom in the pristine water, where it created
a small plume of sand.
“This is a
beautiful spot,” he said, looking shoreward. “That beach looks very inviting.”
“I brought a
blanket,” she said. “I thought we might bask in the sun au naturel later, if
you are up for it.”
“Wonderful
idea,” Khan gushed, thinking that just looking at her splendidly taut body was
getting him up for it right then and there.
She went into
the cabin and came out with their equipment. They put on their gear.
“I didn’t know
you liked to fish,” Khan said, pointing at the spear gun in her hand as he
lowered himself off the side into the warm, azure water.
“There a lot
of things you don’t know about me,” she said, looking down at him.
True enough,
Khan thought. Who needed Lisa Lovepuddle? Eleanora Fini was turning out to be a
surprising women.
***
Scarne and
Evelyn Warr were working on expense reports when Noah Sealth walked into Scarne’s
office.
“Did you see
this,” he said, handing Scarne
The New York Times
. “Bottom right.”
One of the
many things Scarne liked about Noah was the fact that he still read newspapers
in print.
Publishing Executive
Missing in the
Seychelles
By Robert Emmet Huber
Authorities
in the Republic of the Seychelles are looking into the mysterious disappearance
of Chandra Khan, the former chairman of Bengal Publishing Ltd.
Mr. Khan, a
charismatic figure considered somewhat of a maverick in the publishing industry
during his time in New York, was staying at the Hilton Northolme
Seychelles
Resort & Spa on the island of Mahé, where Victoria, the capital city of the
115-island archipelago nation is located.
According
to Philippe Rankalavan, a spokesman for the Seychelles Ministry of Home
Affairs, Mr. Khan’s disappearance was not noticed by the resort staff for
almost two days. The accommodations at the Hilton property consist of secluded
villas, Mr. Rankalavan said, and it is not unusual for guests to stay in their
villas. It was known that Mr. Khan was planning a diving trip, he said. A
source in the Seychelles Police Force, who asked not to be identified, said that
there was some concern that Mr. Khan, who was not known to be an experienced
diver, may have drowned. Reports that Mr. Khan was seen on a boat leaving the
dock in the company of a woman on the morning that he presumably disappeared
could not be confirmed.
The
luxurious Northolme resort is a favorite among jetsetters and has been home to
Mr. Khan ever since his sudden decision to sell all his publishing holdings to
Shields Inc., which then folded them into its newly formed Schuster Albatross
House subsidiary.
Authorities
launched an island-wide search for Mr. Khan. No one fitting his description
flew out of Mahé, Mr. Rankalavan said, adding that Mr. Khan’s passport was
found in his room.
Nigel Blue,
a spokesman for Randolph Shields, said that the entire Shields organization was
devastated by the news of Mr. Khan’s disappearance.
“Naturally,
Mr. Shields is hoping for the best,” Mr. Blue said. “He considered Chandra a
good friend and a visionary in the literary world. Coming so soon after the
loss of Sebastian Quimper, this is a hard blow.”
The rest of
the story was devoted to recapping Khan’s meteoric rise and fall in the
publishing world.
“What do you
think,” Sealth asked after Scarne finished the article and passed the paper to
Evelyn.
“He’s sleeping
with some very beautiful fishes,” Scarne replied. “She told me she was going to
even up the score for Mendelsohn.”
“What about
you? I’d hate to be on her list. She cuts heads off.”
“Nobody’s
perfect,” Scarne deadpanned. “Besides she said she only did it for effect.
Quimper was already dead.”
“You have to
admire a woman with standards,” Evelyn said.
“I suppose
that’s better than what women usually cut off a man,” Sealth said. He looked at
Evelyn. “Present company excepted, of course.”
“I’ll do
better than cut off your balls,” Evelyn said mildly, looking up from the
newspaper. “I’ll tell Juliette what you just said.”
“Anyway,”
Scarne continued, “we have a deal. She’ll keep it. Sometimes I think the only
people I can trust are stone killers, Noah. Your pal, Boyko, in Seattle.
Roddenberry. And now her.”
“Who the hell
is Roddenberry?”
“Another
European hitter,” Scarne said. “Not his real name, of course.”
He told Sealth
about his last case.
“Jesus, Jake.
But for the record, Boyko ain’t my pal. Although compared to the Noss woman and
Roddenberry character, he’s a choir boy. I don’t suppose Roddenberry was one of
Mendelsohn’s crew.”
“No. I
checked. Probably has a different agent. I got the impression that he wasn’t
the type to be geographically constrained.”
“What do you
mean?”
“Well,
according to your main squeeze, the authorities probably know who Mendelsohn’s
clients are. Vendela confirmed that there is some sort of gentleman’s agreement
to let them alone as long as they ply their trade outside the European Union.”
“So, it’s
Vendela now,” Evelyn murmured, still reading.
“You know,”
Sealth said, shaking his head, “if Quimper wrote that in one of his books, the
critics would say it was too far-fetched. Just what are you going to do with
the information you found on Mendelsohn’s computer? I know you copied it.”
“Keep it for
future reference, I suppose. There is nothing incriminating. They could really
be just a bunch of friends in an international gourmet club.”
“You could
always give them all a call,” Evelyn said after finishing the article. “See if
they want to be unionized. Just don’t offer them medical. Cost would probably
be too prohibitive.”
The two men
looked at her.
“Just a
thought,” she said.
“So,” Sealth
finally said, “as far as the world knows, Quimper was killed by a woman working
for terrorists. Shields is happy with that?”
“It’s a book
marketer’s dream,” Scarne said. “
From Here to Tehranity
now tops all the
bestseller lists. And Nigel Blue told me Steven Spielberg and Katherine Bigelow
are in a bidding war over the movie rights.”
THE END
(But Keep Reading)
If you enjoyed
this Jake Scarne thriller, you might want to try the first two novels in the
series:
Other novels
by Lawrence De Maria include the Alton Rhode mysteries:
And the Cole
Sudden thriller:
All are
available through St. Austin’s Press on Amazon.com. The author can be contacted
at
[email protected]
or through his
website:
www.lawrencedemaria.com
.
(There’s More! Just a little)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lawrence De
Maria began his career as a general interest reporter (winning an Associated
Press award for his crime reporting) and eventually became a Pulitzer-nominated
senior editor and financial writer
The New York Times
, where he wrote
hundreds of stories and features, often on Page 1. After he left the
Times
,
De Maria became an Executive Director at
Forbes.
Following a
stint in corporate America – during which he helped uncover the $7 billion Allen
Stanford Ponzi scheme and was widely quoted in the national media – he returned
to journalism as Managing Editor of the
Naples Sun Times
, a Florida
weekly, until its sale to the Scripps chain in 2007. Since then, he has been a
full-time fiction writer. Killerfest is his seventh novel.
De Maria is on
the board of directors of the Washington Independent Review of Books, and is a
frequent contributor of book reviews in many genres.
Thank
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(That’s
It, Folks)
