But now, with a double-layered rathole…with my wife’s relatives as the secondary layer of protection…well, all of a sudden it didn’t seem all that risky!
And then my mind zeroed in on my wife’s aunt Patricia—no, myaunt Patricia. Yes, she had become my aunt too! The first time Aunt Patricia and I met, we both knew we were kindred spirits. How ironic that was—considering what she had seen the first time she laid eyes on me. It was two years ago, in the Dorchester Hotel in London, and she had walked in on me right in the middle of a Quaalude overdose. In fact, I was in the middle of drowning in a toilet bowl when she entered the hotel room. But rather than judging me, she talked me through it and stayed up with me all night, holding my head over that very toilet as my body spewed out the poison I’d put into it. Then she ran her fingers through my hair, like my mother did when I was a child, as wave after wave of anxiety hit me from all the coke I had snorted. I had been unable to keep down any Xanax to offset the anxiety from the coke. In consequence, I was crawling out of my own skin. The next day we had lunch together, and, without making me feel the least bit guilty over what she had seen, she somehow convinced me to stop using drugs. I had actually stayed sober for two straight weeks. I was vacationing in England with Nadine, and the two of us had never gotten along better. I was so happy that I had even thought of moving to England, to make Aunt Patricia a part of my life. But deep down I knew it was just a fantasy. My life was in the United States; Stratton was in the United States; my power was in the United States; which meant I had to be in the Unites States. And when I finally arrived back in the United States, under the kind influence of Danny Porush and Elliot Lavigne and the rest of my merry band of brokers, my drug habit came roaring back. And with my back pain fueling the fire, it roared back stronger than ever.
Aunt Patricia was sixty-five, divorced, a retired schoolteacher, and a closet anarchist. She would be perfect. She had contempt for all things governmental and could be trusted without question. If I asked her to do this for me, she would smile her warmest smile and be on a plane the next day. Besides, Aunt Patricia had no money. Each time I saw her I would offer her more than she could possibly spend in a year. And each time she refused. She was too proud. But now I could explain to her that since she was doing a service for me, she had more than earned her keep. I would let her spend whatever she wanted. In point of fact, I would transform her life from rags to riches. What a wonderful thought that was! And, besides, she would hardly spend anything! She was a woman who had grown up amid the rubble of World War II and was currently living on a tiny pension from her schoolteaching days. She wouldn’t know howto burn through any serious cash—even if she wanted to! Most of what she would spend would be used to spoil her two grandchildren. And that was just fine! In fact, the mere thought of it warmed my heart.
If the U.S. government ever came knocking on Patricia’s door, she would tell them to stick it up their Yankee asses! With that thought I started laughing out loud.
“What are you so happy about?” muttered Danny. “That whole meeting was a waste of time! And I don’t even have any Quaaludes to drown my sorrow in. So, tell me, what’s on that twisted mind of yours?”
I smiled. “I’m meeting with Saurel in a few hours. I have a few more questions for him, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answers. Anyway, what I want you to do is call Janet as soon as we get back to the hotel and tell her to have a Learjet waiting for us at the airport first thing in the morning. And tell her to book the Presidential Suite at the Dorchester. We’re going to London, buddy. We’re going to London.”
CHAPTER 14
INTERNATIONAL OBSESSIONS
Three hours later I was sitting across from Jean Jacques Saurel in Le Jardin restaurant, in the lobby of Hotel Le Richemond. The table had some of the finest place settings I’d ever seen. A wonderful array of hand-polished sterling silver and an immaculate collection of bone-white china rested upon a heavily starched snow-white tablecloth. Really fancy stuff it was; must’ve cost a fortune! I thought. But, like the rest of this antique hotel, the restaurant’s decor was not to my taste. It was decidedly art deco, circa 1930, which was the last time, I assumed, the restaurant had been renovated.
Still, in spite of the less-than-stellar decor—and the fact that I was jet-lagged to the point of near exhaustion—the company happened to be excellent. Saurel had turned out to be quite a whoremaster himself, and at this particular moment he was in the middle of explaining to me the fine art of bedding Swiss Frog women, who he said were hornier than jackrabbits. In fact, they were so easy to coax into bed, he claimed, that each day he would stare out his office window and watch them walk along rue du Rhône—with their short skirts and tiny dogs—while he painted imaginary bull’s-eyes on their backs.
I found that to be a clever observation and was saddened by the fact that Danny hadn’t been present to hear it. But the topics Saurel and I were planning to discuss this evening were so horrendously illegal that you simply couldn’t have this sort of conversation in the presence of a third party—even if the third party happened to be involved in the crime. It was a patent impossibility. It was one more lesson taught to me by Al Abrams, who’d said, “Two people make a crime; three make a conspiracy.”
So here I was, alone with Saurel, but my mind was drifting back to Danny and more specifically what on earth he was doing right now. He wasn’t the sort of guy you just let out of your sight in a foreign country. Left to his own devices, it was almost certain that something badwould happen. The only saving grace was that in this particular country, there wasn’t much Danny could do, short of rape or murder, that the man seated across from me couldn’t fix with one phone call to the proper authority.
“…so most of the time,” proclaimed Saurel, “I take them to the Métropole Hotel, just across from the bank, and I fuck them there. By the way, Jordan, I must say that I find this English word of yours, fuck,to be quite satisfying. There is really no French word that gets the point across quite as well. But not to digress—the point I was trying to make is that I have made it my second profession, behind banking, of course, to bed as many Swiss women as possible.” He shrugged a gigolo’s shrug and smiled a warm Eurotrash smile. Then he took another deep pull from his cigarette.
“According to Kaminsky,” he said through exhaled smoke, “you share my love of beautiful women, yes?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Ahhh…that is very fine,” continued the Whoremaster, “very fine! But I was also told that your wife is very beautiful. How odd that is, wouldn’t you say? To have such a beautiful wife yet to still have a wandering eye? But I can relate to that, my friend. You see, my wife is also quite beautiful, yet I feel compelled to pleasure myself with any young woman who might care to have me, as long as she is up to my standards of excellence. And in this country there is no shortage of these sorts of women.” He shrugged. “But I guess this is the way of the world, the way things are supposed to be for men like us, wouldn’t you say?”
Jesus! That sounded horrific! Yet I had said those same words to myself many times—trying to rationalize my own behavior. But to be on the receiving end of it made me realize how truly ridiculous it was. “Well, Jean, there comes a time when a man has to say to himself that he’s proved his point. And that’s the point I’m at now. I love my wife and I’m done screwing around.”
Saurel narrowed his eyes sagely and nodded. “I have been to that point many times myself. And it is a fine feeling when you arrive there, is it not? It serves to remind us of what is truly important in life. After all, without a family to come home to, it would be an empty life, indeed. That is why I relish the time I spend with my family oh so much. And then, after a few days of it, I realize that I might very well slit my wrists if I were to stay around any longer.