Private Demons Read online

  “No need to,” Calais replied. “That block—seventy thousand, if I'm not mistaken—wasn't mine.”

  Fong looked unpersuaded.

  “Oh, I tried to buy it,” Calais said. “But on that one, I missed. I think you'll find it, when you do, resting in a little offshore bank that often handles difficult transactions for Lord Sykes, Earl of Braeside.”

  Fong looked slightly puzzled now. Was this true? And if it was, why was Calais telling him?

  “As I'm sure you know, Mr. Fong, Gold Prow has not been making the best use of its assets.” Now Calais leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk; his hands were joined. “Your stock has been in a slow but steady decline for the past fifteen years. Your petroleum exploration venture yielded dry holes from the Gulf of Siam to the Bay of Bengal. Your shipyard has seen a fifty percent drop in its refitting business; in fact, at the present time nearly all of its commissions involve Gold Prow's own ships. And they need it; your fleet is, on average, seventeen years old.”

  The white-jacketed waiter who had served Calais's lunch came in with a silver tray, on which was balanced one tulip-shaped glass and a chilled bottle of Moët. Kwan took the glass, and the waiter left the tray on the edge of the desk.

  “I happen to believe,” Calais continued, “that the noble traditions of Gold Prow can only be sustained by a sizable and immediate infusion of cash—which I have—and by new and forward-thinking management.”

  Fong took a second before replying. “And you,” he said, again pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, “you think you are more the forward thinker than those who work for Gold Prow all their life, who have made the company their life?”

  “I think,” said Calais, in a low and measured voice, “that Gold Prow needs a change—and that like it or not, a change is going to come. Either from me, Lord Sykes, or for that matter the Sultan of Brunei.”

  “The Sultan of Brunei!” Fong exploded.

  Calais raised a hand to calm him. “I only meant it as a figure of speech. I do not know that the Sultan has the slightest interest in Gold Prow. But I do, and so do others. Your company is in play, Mr. Fong, and unless you can come up with some way to take it out of play, there's only one other thing you can do.”

  “And that?” Fong asked, reluctantly.

  “Decide who you want to play with.”

  Kwan nonchalantly crossed his legs, and smiled at the flustered Fong. It was as if he were just a spectator now, and the outcome meant nothing to him. Fong sat rigidly, his stubby fingers splayed across the papers in his lap.

  Epstein leaned forward, whispered something in Calais's ear, then handed him a bound leather folder. Calais nodded.

  “We both,” said Calais, addressing the silent Fong, “have interests in the same parts of the globe. Until now, we have been, in a way, competitors. That has done us both harm. We both have things that the other needs—ships, cargo contracts, harbor privileges. Together, Mr. Fong, we can be very strong. Stronger than we ever were apart. In this folder,” he said, sliding it slowly across the desk, “I have outlined my proposal for the merger of our two companies.”

  “No, no merger," Fong objected, “takeover. You want to take over Gold Prow,” he said, nonetheless snatching up the folder.

  Calais kept to a low and reasonable tone. “In there,” he repeated, “you will see the terms of my offer. You have fourteen days in which to take them back to your co-directors, study them, and make your decision. During that time, I will observe a voluntary stand-still arrangement.”

  Fong had already unlaced the folder, and was burrowing into the papers inside. “And after that?” he said without even looking up.

  “After that, I will do whatever I need to do to ensure harmony between us.”

  Kwan laughed at Calais's diplomatic reply. “There is harmony,” he said, swirling the last of the champagne in his glass, “in oneness.” He gave Calais a long and level look, a look that even Epstein noticed. Was there in it a suggestion of complicity?

  Fong looked up, too late to see it. “Your father would be ashamed,” he muttered to Kwan.

  “My father,” Kwan replied coldly, “had trouble recognizing me.” He stood up, draining his glass and placing it on the edge of Lucien's desk. “I have a match arranged, at the Park Avenue Backgammon Club. Do you play?”

  Calais shook his head.

  “You should. You'd do well at it.”

  Calais rose from his chair. He took the hand that Kwan lazily extended, while Fong stuffed the leather folder into his own attaché. When he'd gotten it in, he jerked to his feet, bowed toward Calais without meeting his eyes, and stalked out of the room. Kwan, turning slowly, followed him out. At the door, he stopped.

  “If you ever do decide to play,” Kwan said, “let me know. I know rather a lot about games.”

  Then he left—and Calais turned slowly toward Epstein. “Why,” he said, “do I think he wasn't referring to backgammon?”

  CHAPTER

  5

  It was nine o'clock that night before Lucien looked up again from his desk; rubbing his eyes, he pushed his chair back and stared out over the blackened sky and harbor. He had spent the remainder of his day dealing with the aftermath of the Garuda explosion; there had been countless calls and a thousand decisions to make. And Mancini and Newton had still insisted, after all of it, that there was only one way to defuse and contain the situation; it was absolutely essential that Lucien himself appear at a press conference, scheduled for noon the next day. With great reluctance, he had agreed.

  But for now, there was little else he could do. What he needed, more than anything, was to meditate—especially as there had been no time for it the night before. Slipping a few papers into his valise, he turned off the lights and left his office. Walking down the long corridors, he could see lights on in several of the open doorways. It was a difficult business; because so much of their commerce was done halfway around the world, the hours were killing. As he passed Mancini's office, he heard the words “containment boom” and knew that more of the Garuda complications were being attended to.

  Outside, a cold wet wind was blowing, and he hurriedly fastened the top button on his Chesterfield coat. Hun spotted him coming through the revolving door and quickly opened the back door of the waiting Bentley; once Lucien was inside, Hun clambered back into the driver's seat, and after carefully arranging his bad leg so that it wouldn't interfere with the pedals, steered the car out of the financial complex and around the tip of Manhattan, to take the FDR Drive uptown. As usual, he had country music playing softly on the radio.

  Lucien leaned his head back against the maroon leather upholstery and closed his eyes. Hun asked him if he'd like more heat in the car, and he simply shook his head no; he knew that Hun would be watching him in the rearview mirror. Sometimes he thought he knew more about Hun than Hun knew himself.

  And for that matter, Hun knew as much about Lucien as any man could know. Including, among other things, his affinity for heat.

  After a few minutes, Lucien opened his coat and leaned forward to pour himself a scotch from the crystal decanter set that folded down from the back of the front seat. It wasn't the alcohol itself that he craved; it was, again, the warming sensation that the liquor provided. He held it in his mouth until the burning subsided, then slowly swallowed. Within a half hour he was home again.

  At the front door, he handed his coat and gloves to Sokhim. “Hun is just putting the car away,” he told her. “Then he'll be done for the night.”

  “But what for your dinner?” she asked. “I can make some—”

  “Nothing,” he said. “If I'm hungry later, I'll find something myself.”

  She looked hurt at being unable to help him. “It's been a long day,” he said. “I'm too tired to eat. I'm just going to go downstairs for awhile. You can lock up after Hun comes in. Good night, Sokhim.”

  “Good-night, monsieur.”

  He went through the front parlor, and the
formal dining room, and on toward the back of the house; here there was a spacious sun room, with a curved glass wall that looked out over an enclosed lawn. Below it was the highway; beyond that, the East River. Right now the room was only dimly illuminated, by a pair of standing lamps fashioned from gleaming green malachite. Still, the light was sufficient for Lucien to fish a sterling silver key ring from his pocket and insert the largest of the keys into the lock of a narrow door set between the two torchères. Opened, the door revealed a steep, carpeted staircase; Lucien locked the door behind him, and descended to a concrete floor. Against three of the walls were ranged tall wooden wine racks; though they contained one of the finest wine collections in New York, Lucien seldom partook himself. The wines were chiefly there for the consumption of his guests and friends.

  The fourth wall was unobstructed, and made up almost entirely of a heavy metal door with a computerized combination lock. Lucien punched in the numbers, and waited as the door automatically swung open. It had once been a vault inside; now it was simply a small chamber, with its back wall removed to reveal a larger room beyond, flickering in an eerie green light. Before going any further, Lucien removed all his clothes and hung them on a mahogany and brass valet; then he put on a saffron-colored robe, hanging from a peg, and in bare feet padded down the steps.

  The room was large and rectangular, to accommodate the green-tiled swimming pool that occupied nearly all of its space. The air was hot and humid, and the water, kept to a steady eighty degrees, was perfectly still, so still it resembled, in the dim overhead lights, a flat green mirror. The walls of the room were rough-hewn, of the native New York bedrock, and adorned with huge sandstone reliefs depicting scenes from Buddhist and Hindu mythology. There were two marble benches, one on either side of the pool.

  Lucien made his way to the far end of the room, where he unrolled a rush mat and sat down upon it. Methodically, he prepared himself for his nightly meditation, first folding his legs into the lotus position, then opening his hands and leaving them upturned in his lap. Looming up behind him, and covering nearly the entire wall, was the largest relief of them all, carved from a single slab of fine-grained sandstone and flecked with gold. Dating from the eleventh century, it depicted the ancient Hindu conception of Heaven and Hell. Along the upper register of the relief, a procession of those who had been saved marched toward bliss in orderly single file; below them, those who had been damned were tormented by wild elephants and tigers. Ropes had been passed through their nostrils, as was done with water buffalo, and they were being dragged by demons toward the fiery pit known as Avici.

  Lucien found it to be a useful reminder.

  But for now he tried to concentrate on nothing but his own breathing. Lowering his eyes to the placid surface of the water, he took in a slow, deep breath, feeling it fill and distend his lungs, then slowly exhaled again. He tried, as he did so, to empty his mind of all the troubles that had occupied him that day—the Garuda, the Gold Prow negotiations, the impending press conference . . . He tried to cleanse himself, with each breath, of his daily affairs, of his business concerns, of the things that consumed him in all his waking hours. Sitting cross-legged at the edge of the pool, gazing patiently into the still green water, he waited, in the perfect silence that surrounded him, for the water, as it were, to gaze back up into him. That, for Lucien, was the purpose of his nocturnal ritual.

  At first, all he saw there was a pale green landscape, a rolling surface of wet, green fields, like those he had traversed as a young monk in Cambodia. Wearing a saffron robe like the one he wore now, he had carried his wicker bowl to the village each morning to receive his daily offering of rice . . . all around him had been lush vegetation, and endless vistas of rice paddies, glinting like copper in the morning sun . . . over these fields he now saw a flock of birds, black and soaring on the gentle wind. As he watched, the birds gradually came together, and in lazy circles descended to the undulating earth below. There, they coalesced, and became instead a sort of human figure . . . standing upright, and all in black. The figure was neither distinctly male nor female, and its face was concealed by a wrinkled hood . . . Lucien found himself curious to see the face of the figure, which was also averted; as best he could tell, it was gazing downward, into something surrounded by gray stones . . .

  “I missed you last night,” a voice whispered, interrupting his reverie.

  Ripples appeared on the surface of the water, the vision he had been observing was broken up, then vanished.

  “There was a problem,” Lucien said, “that I had to attend to.”

  He focused now on the figure in the pool—a naked girl, with long blond hair clinging wetly to her head and shoulders. Her hands, still bound together, rested on the edge of the pool. She usually knew better than to disturb him so abruptly. But he found it hard to admonish her; she was so very young and lonely.

  And she had died, less than a year before, in this very room.

  “Yes,” she said, thoughtfully, “something to do with one of your ships.” She seemed to float effortlessly in the water. “I can almost see it.”

  Her name was Mandy. She had worked as a hostess in a chic little nightclub called The Pleiades, which had catered to members of the international jet set and diplomatic corps. One night, she had accepted an invitation, from an Arab diplomat, to a private pool party at the townhouse Lucien now occupied. Working at the club, she knew the score; she was aware of what she might be getting herself into. But she hadn't known that it would cost her her life.

  “Will you be going away?” she asked now, fixing Lucien with her pale blue eyes.

  Lucien nodded.

  “Where?”

  For a moment, he had to consider. “Several places—London, Bangkok, possibly Malaysia.” It was hard to know what would happen over the next few weeks.

  Mandy smiled ruefully and said, “Those are all the places I dreamed of going to one day. I used to fantasize about traveling all over the world, and having adventures with rich, handsome men.” She gave a bitter little laugh and said, “Now I'd just settle for the sightseeing.”

  Lucien knew there was nothing he could say to comfort her. She'd been only twenty-one when she'd died, and she still couldn't accept it. In his own life, he thought, he'd seen so much death, it was sometimes hard for him to believe that he was actually alive. He'd seen acres of ground littered with bodies, and mountains of skulls bleached white by the sun. For a time, he had been forced to drink his daily water ration from a skull.

  “It's funny,” Mandy was saying, as she slipped her hands easily in and out of the black leather handcuffs she still wore, “these are just something for me to play with now. Now they're no problem at all.”

  On the night of the party, they had been; on that night, they'd been impossible for her to remove. Mandy had told him all about it—though her voice had still been tinged with disbelief. On the night of the party, Mandy and several other girls—models, stewardesses, a busty receptionist from the Norwegian consulate—had been offered everything from brandy to cocaine, poppers to champagne. Everything but bathing suits. After they had indulged in the other treats for a while, the bathing suits were no longer missed. Mandy had slithered into the pool, already half-drunk, in her panties and chemise. A crazy English guy had managed to remove even those, and when she clambered out again, she was naked.

  “No, no, no,” Ali had said, scampering up to her in his silk boxer shorts. “You must always wear something at my parties.”

  That was when he slipped the handcuffs on her, and pulled them tight. “My own invention,” he said. “How do you like them?”

  Even in her stupor, Mandy didn't like the idea much. “I don't know,” she said, trying to make a joke of it. “I kind of do better with my hands free.” She winked, suggestively, and made her first attempt to get the cuffs off. But she couldn't.

  “Do better at what?” This was Omar—he'd shared Ali's limo back to the house. She hadn't liked the way he looked at her then; she like
d it even less now.

  “Help me get them off,” Mandy said, “and maybe you'll see.” She extended her hands toward Omar and he took them as if he were about to escort her onto a dance floor. But instead he drew her toward him and pressed her bound hands against his bare chest. “First let's see what you can do with them on.”

  Bending the wrists back, he forced her down. She still remembered the dark hair that matted his belly—and the gold buckle, shaped like a crescent, on his alligator belt. “Take my trousers off.” He still held her wrists, firmly, while her fingers fumbled with the buckle. When she'd gotten it undone, he said, “Now the buttons.” She'd never known a man who wore a buttoned fly. It was difficult, with the wet leather gripping her wrists, to manipulate the buttons. And she didn't like to think about what would happen once she'd finished.

  “Good enough,” Omar said, undoing the last one himself. He released Mandy, to step out of his pants, and she rose.

  “Now keep your end of the deal,” she said, still trying to loosen the bands herself. If she could, she was going to make a quick getaway. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Norwegian girl already sprawled under the English guy, who'd been pawing her in the pool.

  “What deal?” Omar said, and she heard Ali, close behind her, give a high-pitched laugh.