“From what I’ve heard, it’s just a small operation. I don’t think it’s big enough for him.”
“If it should come up while you’re there,” Dick said, still casual, “you could tell him.”
“That’s an idea.” Dick could almost hear the wheels turning in the man’s head. “I have a few things to clean up down here. Tell the chief I’ll be up there sometime this evening.”
“I’ll tell him,” Dick said and put down the telephone.
His secretary came into the office with another pot of coffee. “Miss Al Fay is outside,” she said, as she placed the tray on his desk. “She asks if you would have a moment for her this morning?”
“Ask her to come in,” Dick said. Leila must have something on her mind, he thought as he poured his coffee. Usually she never came to the office in the morning.
Somehow she looked more like a young girl this morning than he had ever remembered. She stood hesitantly in front of his desk. “I won’t take too much of your time.”
“That’s all right. Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I came in especially to tell you that I was sorry about last night.”
“Forget it. I already have.”
“No, I mean it,” she said insistently. “I behaved like a spoiled child. I had no right to ask you things like that. I don’t want it to change anything between us.”
“It won’t.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly,” he answered.
He saw her look of relief and the strange hint of triumph hiding in her eyes. “Can I come to your room tonight?” she asked, still in the small voice.
“I would be very unhappy if you didn’t.”
“I promised some friends I would have dinner with them tonight. I’ll get through it as quickly as I can and come home.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
She came around the desk, took his hand and held it to her breast. “I don’t know whether I can wait until tonight,” she said.
The telephone rang. He took his hand from her breast and reached for it. “I’m afraid, young lady,” he said with mock severity, “we’ll both have to.” He picked up the telephone. “Hold on just a moment,” he said. Then he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked up at her. “You see, I have work to do.”
She kissed him swiftly on the lips and started for the door. Halfway there, she stopped as if struck by an afterthought. “By the way, you’re not going to mention anything to my father, are you?”
“No,” he answered, his hand still covering the mouthpiece.
“Good.” She blew him a kiss. “Until tonight.”
He kept the smile on his face until the door had closed behind her, but a troubled look came over his face as he took his hand from the mouthpiece.
Deep in the marrow of his bones, he knew that something was wrong. Very wrong.
CHAPTER 7
Baydr picked up the telephone. Youssef’s voice was cheerful. “I’m down at the hotel in town and I brought something very special from Paris with me,” he said. “Would you like to come and have some dinner?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Chief, you know me. When I say this is something special, it’s something special. She’s got a body you can’t believe and she’s crazy, completely crazy. There isn’t anything you can think of that she doesn’t love to do.”
“Put her on ice. It will just have to be another time. We have some people in for dinner tonight.”
“Maybe in the morning then.”
“That’s out too. I have some meetings here in the house tomorrow morning.”
“Then when will you want to see me?” Youssef asked. “Lunch tomorrow?”
“The whole day is locked up. It will have to be tonight.”
“Tonight?” A note of concern crept into Youssef’s voice.
“Yes. My dinner guests should be gone by midnight. Supposing you get up here around half-past.”
“Sure you wouldn’t want to come down here?” Youssef suggested. “The girl will be very disappointed. I told her what a great guy you were.”
“Buy her a little something in the jewelry shop in the hotel and give it to her with my compliments and tell her that I am as disappointed as she is.”
“Okay, chief. I’ll see you tonight then. Twelve thirty, right?”
“Right,” Baydr said and put down the phone. He was still sitting in the semidarkness on the library when Jordana came into the room.
“The boys are going to bed,” she said. “They asked if you would come up and say good night to them.”
“Of course,” he said, getting to his feet. He started past her when her hand on his arm stopped him.
“Is there anything wrong?” she asked, looking up into his face.
“What makes you ask?”
“You look troubled. Who was it on the phone?”
“Youssef. He’s coming up to see me after our guests leave.”
“Oh.”
“He’s coming alone. We have some important business to discuss.”
She was silent.
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“I never liked him,” she answered. “You know that. He’s like so many of the men I see around you. They gather like predatory vultures hoping to pounce on the leavings. Meanwhile they suck up to you as if you were some kind of a god. There’s another one I met, twice, once on the boat and once in California after you had gone. Ali Yasfir. He’s like that.”
“I didn’t know he was in California,” Baydr said.
“He was. I saw him going into the Polo Lounge just as I was leaving. He was going to meet Youssef. I wouldn’t dare turn my back on either of them.”
He stared at her. Strange that she should group the two of them together. She was more aware than he had thought.
“You better go up,” she said. “The boys are waiting and there won’t be much time left to dress before our guests arrive.”
“Okay.”
“Baydr.”
He turned back again.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I’ve never seen the boys so happy. Do you know you’ve spent more time with them these past two weeks than you have in the past three years? They like having a father around. I do too.”
“I liked it too.”
“I hope we can have more of it.” She placed her hand on his arm. “It hasn’t been like this for a long time.”
He didn’t move.
“Do you think we will?” she asked.
“We’ll see. There’s always so much to do.”
Her hand fell from his arm. She kept her face carefully expressionless. “Better hurry,” she said, turning away from him. “I have to check out some last-minute dinner arrangements.”
He watched her cross the room to the other door leading to the grand salon. It was not until she had gone that he went out into the hall and up the staircase to the boys’ room.
They were sitting up in their beds waiting for him. He spoke in Arabic. “Did you have fun today?”
They answered in the same language, almost in chorus. “Yes, Father.”
“Mother said you wanted to see me.”
The children looked at each other. “You ask him,” Muhammad said.
“No,” answered Samir. “You ask him. You’re the oldest.”
“Baydr laughed. “One of you had better ask because I have to go and get dressed.”
“Ask him,” Samir urged his brother.
Muhammad looked at his father. His eyes were wide and serious. “We like it here, Father.”
“I’m glad.”
Muhammad looked at his younger brother for support. “I like it too,” Samir said, in his thin voice. He looked over at his brother in the other bed. “Now you can ask him.”
Muhammad took a deep breath. “We’d like to live here, Father. With you.”
“But what about Beirut?”
“We don’t like it, Father,” Muhammad said quickly. “There’s nothing to do there. There’s no snow or anything.”
“But what about school?”
“Our Arabic is much better now, Father,” Samir said quickly. “Couldn’t you—we thought—” His voice trailed off. He looked frantically at Muhammad.
“We mean,” Muhammad picked up, “couldn’t you bring the school up here to us? That way we could have the snow and still go to school.”
Baydr laughed. “It’s not that easy.”
“Why?” Samir asked.
“You just can’t pick up a whole school and move it. What would the rest of the students do? They’d have no school to go to.”
“We could bring them along,” Muhammad said. “I bet they’d like it better here too.”
“Our nanny says you can do anything you want to,” Samir said.
Baydr smiled. “Well, she’s wrong. There are some things even I can’t do. That happens to be one of them.”
He saw the looks of disappointment on their faces. “But I tell you what I will do,” he added.
“What is that?” Muhammad asked.
“You have another school holiday in about two months,” he said. “I’ll bring you back here then.”
“But the snow might be all gone,” Samir said.
“It will still be here. I promise you that.” He knelt over and kissed each one in turn. “Now go to sleep. I’ll talk to the ski instructor. Maybe he’ll let us try the north slope tomorrow.”
“Where the big boys ski?” Muhammad asked excitedly.
“Yes, but you’ll have to promise to be extra careful.”
“We will, Father,” they both said at once.
“Good night, then.”
“Good night, Father,” they replied.
He started for the door. “Father,” Muhammad called after him.
“Yes?”
“We forgot to thank you. Thank you, Father.”
He stood very still for a moment. “Allah keep you, my sons. Sleep well.”
Jordana was waiting in the hall when he came out of their bedroom. “Are they asleep?”
He smiled. “I’ve just tucked them in. Did you know what they were going to ask me?”
“No. They wouldn’t tell me, only that it was important.”
He stared down the corridor to their suite. She walked beside him. “They said they wanted to live here. They didn’t want to go back to Beirut.”
She didn’t speak.
“They even wanted me to move the school up here with all the pupils.” He laughed. “You never know what wild ideas children will come up with.”
“It’s not that wild,” she said. “Not when you know what they’re really asking.”
“And what is that?”
Her eyes looked into his. “They love you,” she said. “You’re their father and nothing can take your place. They want to live with you.”
“Didn’t you ever explain to them that I have many things to do? Surely they can be made to understand that.”
“It’s not as easy as you think,” she answered. “How can you explain to a child that the sun in the heavens from which all life comes is something you can’t have every day?”
CHAPTER 8
Despite the cold, Youssef’s face was covered with a fine mist of perspiration as he carried the heavy suitcase up the steps to the villa. Jabir opened the door. “Ahlan,” he said.
“Ahlan fik,” Youssef replied as he crossed the threshold and put down the valise. He straightened up. “Will you hold this for me until I leave?” he asked.
“It will be my pleasure, sir,” Jabir replied. “The master awaits you in the library. If you will please follow me.”
Youssef slipped out of his coat and gave it to Jabir, then followed him through the large entrance hall to a pair of heavy wooden doors. Jabir knocked softly.
“Come in,” Baydr called.
Jabir opened the door, held it for Youssef, then closed it softly behind him. Youssef looked around the library. It was a large old-fashioned room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Baydr was seated behind a desk, his back to the large French doors that led to the garden behind him. A beautiful shaded lamp on Baydr’s desk cast the only light in the room and left his face in shadows. He did not get up as Youssef walked toward him.
“The villa is beautiful,” Youssef said. “But then, I expected nothing less.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“You should have warned me about the drive up here.” Youssef smiled. “Parts of the road were covered with sheets of ice. Especially on the curves near the edge of the mountain.”
“I didn’t think of it,” Baydr said politely. “I forgot that the road sometimes freezes at night. I should have sent one of the chauffeurs down for you.”
“No matter. I made it all right.” He sank into the chair opposite the desk. “Too bad you couldn’t make it down to the hotel tonight. The girl was very disappointed.”
“The bauble didn’t help ease her pain?”
“I bought her a gold Piaget. It helped.”
Baydr looked at him. He wasn’t very imaginative. But then what else was there to buy for a girl in Switzerland except a watch? He saw the shine of perspiration on Youssef’s face. “Would you care for coffee? Or a cold drink, champagne perhaps?”
“Is there anything else?” Youssef laughed, a little too readily.
Baydr tugged the bell cord behind him. Jabir opened the door. “A bottle of champagne for Mr. Ziad.”
“Did Dick tell you of the settlement I made with Michael Vincent?” Youssef asked when Jabir had gone to get the wine.
“Yes. How did you get him to let us off so easily?”
“It wasn’t that easy. But I finally made him understand that it would do him no good to take us to court. That we would tie him up for years and eventually it would cost him everything he had already received in legal fees. Then I promised him we would try to get him on the other picture and if we had anything in the future we would certain come back to him.”
“That was very well done,” Baydr said.
Jabir came back into the room with a bottle of Dom Pérignon in an ice bucket and two glasses on a silver tray.
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Youssef said, watching Jabir open the bottle expertly and fill the two glasses. The servant left the room again and Youssef picked up a glass. He looked at Baydr. “Aren’t you having any?”
Baydr shook his head. “I have to be up early. I promised the boys I would go skiing with them in the morning.”
“Cheers then,” Youssef said. He emptied his glass in one thirsty swallow and refilled it. “I didn’t realize I was so thirsty.”
Youssef sipped the second glass of wine more slowly. He leaned back in his chair, feeling a little more at ease. Baydr’s next words put an end to that.
“Tell me about Arabdolls,” he said.
Youssef felt the sweat break out again on his forehead. “What is there to tell? They’re good clients. Other than that I know very little about them.”
Baydr looked at him steadily. “That’s not like you. Usually you know everything about the people we do business with. That’s always been one of our cardinal rules.”