The Villiers Touch

32. Naomi Kemp

Naomi lay on the bed pouting at the typewriter across the room. On days like this it was just as well to stay away from it. Maybe after lunch she’d feel better about it and write half a chapter.

She heard a knock at the door, a sharp impatient rapping, and she could tell from the sound who it was. She let him in.

He looked taut and pale; he seemed reluctant to pry his teeth apart when he spoke. “I want to use your phone.”

“You look terrible,” she said. “You look like the world just fell down around your ankles.”

He went straight to the phone and turned the dial once, held the receiver to his ear, and said, “I want Information in Montreal.”

She pushed the door shut and watched him; a slow frown of suspicion creased her brow. Villiers barked into the phone, “Montreal, Canada, for God’s sake. What have you heard from your head lately, sweetheart?… Directory Assistance, Information, is there one good reason on earth why I should care what you call it?… Yes, hello, give me the number of Harold Ward. He’s an attorney. No, I don’t know his address.”

He stood with his eyes shut as if frozen in statuary, pressing the phone to his ear. His eyelids fluttered just slightly. She had never seen him so agitated.

His eyes shot open. “Put me through to Ward. This is Mason Villiers… Sweetheart, I don’t give a shit if he’s in conference with the Prime Minister. Put me through to him or I’ll have your pretty head in a sack.”

His eyes closed once more, and opened. He gave her a glance, but he didn’t really see her at all. His shoulders tensed, and he turned half away from her. “Ward. Where’s Se

He slammed the receiver down hard enough to make the bell ring. Naomi said, “Civetta. He’s a gangster.”

“Shut up.”

“What’s wrong, Mace? I’ve never seen you like this before. Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” he muttered. “I’m fine. The whole world’s trying to break me down, but they’re not going to do it. They think they’ve got me by the balls. Well, we’ll see. By God, we’ll see.”

She said, “It’s about time. You’ve been getting away with murder for years.”

He brought his head around and seemed to recognize her for the first time. His face closed up; he said in a voice once more under control, “Not murder. You don’t know business people. They’re too stupid to get sore-they gripe about thieves, but none of them wants to stop the thief. They just try to figure out how they can get in on his act. They may be losing blood by the quart, but they’re still eager to come in. They’ve never stopped me before, and they’re not going to stop me this time. Come here.”

Startled, she took a step and then stopped. He strode across the room, grasped her under the arms, and pulled her against him. His kiss was harsh and urgent.

Her mouth twisted while she let him strip her clothes off like rags. He thrust her toward the bed; and with sudden anger she stood her ground. “Why in hell did you have to come to me?”

“Shut up, Naomi.”

“All you want is a Goddamned ego massage. You stand there with your dingle sticking out and you want to prove something to yourself by using me as a box to make a deposit in.”

He slapped her across the face and laid both hands against her breasts and shoved her back onto the bed. He put one knee on the bed between her legs. In a strange sort of rage she closed her hand on his throbbing penis, hard. She squeezed.

His face changed, and she heard him utter an odd sound, somewhere between whine and groan. Driven by some sudden and extraordinary urgency, he fell across her, clutched her body, clung to her bitterly. Suddenly she understood. Her smile was hard; she saw him fight the flames leaping in him, and she squeezed his phallus with a fast, pulsing grip. Instantly she felt him shudder and gasp, and the warm issue of him ran wet along her hand.

Hard-breathing and pale, he rolled violently away. He refused to look at her.

She gave him a lidded glare. “You’re no good to anybody any more, Mace-not even yourself.”

“Shut up,” he whispered.

33. Russell Hastings

Russ Hastings sat in his little office with a hand wrapped around a beaded cold can of soda. Bill Burgess was staring at the Post headline-“JUDD SUCCUMBS”-as if he hadn’t already read the entire story twice. Hastings said, “I am going to miss him.”

“He must’ve been quite a guy.”

“He was a good man.”

“Not much you can add to that,” Burgess said, and glanced at the ticker. His shoulders stirred; he changed his tone: “Dow Jones down more than fourteen points today, Russ-Exchange Index down sixty-two cents. Amazing how much impact one man’s dying can have. I wish I’d met him. What’s that you’re reading? You look like you’re trying to memorize it off the page.”

“The Act of Nineteen-thirty-four. Ever read it?”

“On my list of favorite reading, it’s second only to God’s Little Acre,” Burgess said. “I confess I have not read it. You find something fascinating?”

“Rule Ten B-Five.”

“Oh, sure. Yes. Absolutely. Now I comprehend everything.” Burgess rolled his eyes upward and threw up his hands.

“It says here,” Hastings drawled, “all investors have an equal right to material information that might affect stock values. In other words, anybody who’s privy to inside information can’t act on it before it becomes public knowledge-otherwise he’s guilty of fraud.”

Burgess sat up. “Ah-hah!”

“Villiers had information about Elliot Judd’s health before it became public knowledge, and he acted on it, and we can prove it.”

“How much could we hit him with?”

“On that charge? Maybe a three-year sentence.”

Burgess slid back down in the chair. “Or maybe we get a bleeding-heart judge who slaps his wrist and turns him loose on a suspended sentence. It’s not good enough, Russ.”

“Better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“Christ, I wish we could act on the evidence we got out of Wyatt. Villiers gave the orders to burgle Claiborne’s files.”

“But all we’ve got is Wyatt’s word against Villiers’. You know what happens to Wyatt’s credibility in front of a jury when some crack lawyer gets done tearing him to shreds. He could swear the sun came up this morning and you wouldn’t get twelve men to believe him.”

“Well, hell, Russ, we’ve got Wyatt tying him into stock fraud and we’ve got Ma

“If Wyatt makes a poor witness,” Hastings cut in sourly, “what would you call Berkowitz? We can’t go into court without witnesses more reputable than those two-we’d get laughed right out of the building. We’ve got to find an unimpeachable witness, or concrete evidence. Diane doesn’t know enough. The only things we’ve got on paper so far are documents that implicate Wyatt. That’s no help at all.”

“Then what do we do? Sit on our hands?”

“We’ve got to wait for Villiers to make a mistake. We’ve got a four-man surveillance team tailing him. We’ve got a tap on his phone in the hotel, and by tomorrow we’ll have bugs in his suite and George Hackman’s office. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I don’t-Wait a minute.” He turned in his chair, picked up Wyatt’s signed statement, switched on the desk lamp, and hunched over the deposition, thumbing pages back rapidly. “I’ve got an idea.”