The Charmers: A Novel(65)

She said, in a whisper, so soft she barely moved her lips, “Thank you.”

I heard the Boss coming toward us, that solid tread of his, the sheer size of the man, a giant in the world of business, a physical giant in real life. He could crush each one of us with a single blow of his fist, and I was sure he had done that many times in his past.

“Well, well, my girls together. How lovely this is. I’ll tell you what I propose we do first, before…” He paused for a moment, laughing softly, as though at a good joke, “Before ‘everything else.’ I think we should have tea. I ordered it specially. After that accident with the wine, I think a nice hot cup of tea is what any good English girl, like Verity, would need. Isn’t that what Brits always say when in difficulty in wartime with bombs flying all around? ‘Why don’t we all have a nice cup of tea?’”

He laughed again at his own joke. I saw him take Verity’s hand, very gently in his own large one. Then he turned to me, still on the floor at her feet, and said, “Come, my dear, we shall talk this over together. And then I’ll tell you my plans for you.” He freed Verity and helped her out of bed.

And that’s how it was, with the three of us seated demurely around a table with a white linen cloth, with silver teapots and jugs and Limoges porcelain cups and plates of cookies and English jam tarts, stirring sugar round and round with silver spoons, afraid to drink that tea for what it might contain, when the door burst open. And Chad and the Colonel and a squad of uniformed cops came running toward us.

“Verity, it’s the cavalry,” I said.





54

The Boss

The Boss realized his mistake; a classic error. He had left the door unlocked. He did not wait for the cavalry. His own secret exit, hidden behind the paneling that held a Matisse of which he was particularly fond. Electronics fanatic that he was, it opened to the press of a finger, revealing a steep flight of wooden stairs, leading it seemed into nowhere but darkness. He had designed those stairs himself, used them many times for secret getaways, some as trivial as escaping unwanted guests or social obligations. But this getaway was serious and he knew it would be for good.

A touch of another switch revealed a small square room at the foot of the stairs. There was no furniture, only a stack of paintings leaning against the wall. He stopped for a second and looked at them, picked out the Turner, put it under his arm, and walked to the door that opened onto a wooden walkway, leading to a stone jetty and the sea.

His Riva was moored alongside the jetty. He clambered down the iron ladder and jumped into it. The boat rocked, almost sending him into the water, but still he clung onto the painting. He steadied himself, then took up his position behind the wheel, the captain as always, only this time there was no captain’s cap trimmed with gold flaunting his position. And there was no one to notice, to admire. The Boss was, finally, alone.

The powerful engines roared at his touch, loud enough certainly to attract attention. He checked his watch. He reckoned he had fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before his hunters realized this was the logical place from which he would run.

He was well prepared. A man like him had to be ready for anything. You learned that young and it was a habit that never left you. A suitcase stashed under the backseat contained enough clothing to see him through a week or two. There were even a couple of pairs of the Lobbs. He could not manage without those shoes and saw no reason why he should have to.

When he was about a mile offshore, he stopped the boat and stood looking back at his own house, the Villa Mara, lit as though for a party. He could almost hear those police dogs yelping in excitement, and he could certainly see the torches held by the cops, maybe even by that bastard Chad Prescott. Or even worse, the f*ckin’ Colonel.

He stood for a long time, looking at his past. It was not easy to give it all up. The prestige, the celebrity status, the acclaim. The women. The power. Everything he had worked for. He hated all the intruders with a force that was almost physical in its energy. It took him only a minute, sixty perfect seconds, to set the battery that would start the timer that would blow his past and everybody involved in it into eternity. There would be nobody left to come searching for him, no Chad, no Colonel, no woman wondering where he was, no walls left holding the Matisses and Picassos. He had the only painting that mattered in the boat with him. The Turner landscape, shrink-wrapped and weatherproofed, exactly, though of course he did not know that, the way it had arrived in Iron Man Matthews’s own hands, many years before.

The Riva purred down the coastline, heading for a small cove he knew well and had made his own. He used no lights, not even the starboard and port markers. He saw no other craft, no lights except for those dotted along the shore, marking homes or small coastal communities. When his instruments indicated he was close to his destination, he killed the engines.

The Riva rocked on the swell. The silence was total. In the darkness, the sky seemed to lower itself over him, pressing in a fine mist that immediately coated everything. Steadying himself, he stripped off all his clothing, stood, naked for a moment, then threw the garments into the sea. He watched until they disappeared. His old self had just died. The new self would begin.

Half an hour later, a man, slightly stooped, with too-long gray hair, wearing rimless glasses, a well-worn Panama hat with a brown band around it, an expensive blue short-sleeved shirt, khakis, and a pair of John Lobb loafers, docked at a small fishing jetty. Beyond the jetty was an asphalt airstrip, well-known to drug smugglers flying in under the radar from various points in South America. A large barnlike structure with a corrugated metal roof housed several small but powerful aircraft, many of which were capable of long-haul flights without refueling. Such as the flight to Columbia, where the Boss owned property. Under another name, of course. Another identity.