Lace II (39 page)

Gregg said, “Are there any other alternatives?”

“Regrettably, yes.” The Colonel hesitated, looked at Judy, then continued. “We cannot rule out the possibility that this is an elaborately disguised murder. It’s not unknown for a murderer to lay a false trail, and the peculiar nature of the ransom notes suggests that this is not an authentic kidnap. Do you know whether Mademoiselle Lili had any enemies?”

“Why, I’ve just remembered something!” Pagan jumped up and knocked an engraved brass tray off its stand. “Lili’s just done a charity benefit in London and the performance was almost sabotaged. The man who did that is undoubtedly an enemy of Lili!”

Colonel Aziz made a note on his pad. “Did you make any inquiries at the time?”

“Yes, of course. Someone threw a big party for the entire theater audience at a smart hotel. That party was an expensive, well-planned, weird operation, like this kidnap.”

“Who paid for the party, Lady Swann?”

“The hotel staff was far too discreet to tell us who paid their bill. As nothing illegal had been done, they had to respect their client’s wish to remain anonymous.”

“We have no proof that whoever paid for the party made the hoax telephone call,” Gregg reminded Pagan.

“Now that something illegal
has
been done, the hotel will have to tell us all they know, and so will the bank which paid the draft.” The Colonel tore off a sheet of note pad and handed it to one of his assistants.

“I think it was a nutter,” said Gregg. “Just another sicko, with a bit more loot than most of Lili’s crazy fans. Lili gets a
regular stack of hate mail. Any one of those creeps might have flipped his lid and decided to grab her.”

“I doubt that the person behind this operation is the sort of person who pesters film stars.” Colonel Aziz looked from one face to another. “The obsessive fan is usually an inadequate, pathetic personality who can’t form relationships with real people, and so lives in a fantasy world. Any reality usually defeats such people.”

“But they still manage to assassinate the occasional rock star or head of state,” Judy observed, sourly. Having seen Lili besieged by obsessive male admirers, none of whom appeared inadequate or pathetic, she was exasperated by the Colonel’s bland psychological explanation.

“Such acts are generally accidents, rather than carefully planned crimes.” The Colonel dismissed Judy’s point. “But we are treating this as a carefully planned, clever crime. Whoever has kidnapped Mademoiselle Lili took great care to investigate your background, Miss Jordan. And he knew that Mademoiselle Lili would be in Turkey at this time.”

Gregg jumped up angrily, and started to pace around the room. “Anyone who can read a newspaper knows that Lili was on tour in Istanbul with Miss International Beauty.”

Colonel Aziz ignored him. “An obsessive man might want to possess Mademoiselle Lili as an art collector desires a painting.”

Gregg stood still. “Do you mean that the point of kidnapping Lili might not be to get money, but to get Lili herself?” Simultaneously, Judy and Pagan thought of the same man.

*   *   *

Slowly, the yacht Persephone sailed past the Leander Tower Lighthouse, then the vast white craft anchored in the middle of the shallow bay. Within a few minutes, the Haroun al-Rashid private launch, with one solitary passenger, was gliding across the blue-green water toward the yacht.

From the white linen cushions of the aft salon, Spyros Stiarkoz rose to greet Judy. No wonder this man frightens Lili, she thought, as she looked at the blunt hands, massive shoulders, and acquisitive, Levantine eyes of her host.

“My lawyer says that it’s unwise for me to be here.” Spyros waved Judy toward a white couch, and she sat down. A white-uniformed steward brought a brass pot of sweet Greek
coffee, as Spyros handed Judy the much-fingered sheet of buff paper. “Here’s the telegram.” Judy twisted her hands together in her lap, then pressed them against her thighs to steady the trembling. Wordlessly, her face asked Spyros a question.

Spyros shook his head, “I will not pay the ransom.”

“Then why invite me on your yacht?” Judy tried not to sound as hostile as she felt.

“Naturally, I’m concerned for Lili’s safety or I wouldn’t have sailed here. But my advisors have made it clear that if I accede to one single kidnap demand, I will be paving the way for every member of my family and every employee of my organization to be kidnapped. I cannot afford to be as soft as Getty, and see my grandchildren threatened by kidnappers forever.”

Judy jumped to her feet. “Then what exactly does your concern for Lili amount to, Spyros?” Her voice shook. “Floating around on the Bosphorus, wishing us well, while these bandits start cutting off Lili’s fingers in order to motivate us?”

“I’m here to make sure that this affair is properly handled.” Spyros sipped his syrupy black coffee. “Police are the same all over the world—incompetent, mediocre bureaucrats.”

“But…” Judy stopped as Spyros held his hand up.

“I wonder if you are aware, Miss Jordan, how easily a situation such as this can be mishandled?” He stressed the “Miss” lightly, but with contempt. “If the kidnappers’ hiding place is found, the local police might be trigger happy and attempt to storm the building.” He put his cup down and motioned to the steward to refill it. “If so, they would probably kill half the bandits, get killed themselves, and perhaps be responsible for the death of innocent onlookers. And by the time they found Lili, she would also be dead.”

Judy hated him for being right. “Do you think the kidnappers are bandits?”

“Perhaps. My people are making inquiries, but we haven’t had any firm news yet. It could be the Kemaiat—like your Mafia—or it might be AMLA, which is, as you know, a group called the Asia Minor Liberation Army. So far they’ve funded their activities only by robbing small-town banks and by hijacking lorries, but perhaps they’re getting more ambitious.”

Half an hour later, Judy had repeatedly, unsuccessfully, pleaded and begged Spyros to pay the ransom. She stood up, intending to leave, because there seemed no point in staying.

“I’d like to make it clear, Spyros, that I think the most useful thing you can do is pay the money. Somehow, between us, Lili and I will be able to pay you back.”

This damned yacht had cost far more than ten million dollars. The Persephone, for all its glittering white luxury, seemed sinister and claustrophobic to her, and Judy was afraid that if she stayed any longer, listening to Spyros’s patronizing refusals, she might lose her temper and alienate a very powerful man. Judy was also afraid because Spyros Stiarkoz was a rich man, a careful, clever man, an obsessive art collector, and he was besotted by Lili. His other passion, as every gossip writer knew, was to acquire whatever and whoever had belonged to his dead brother.

Certainly, Stiarkoz had received a ransom demand, but wouldn’t it be the move of a clever man to send one to himself, in order to throw the police off the scent? With a heavy heart, Judy realized that if Stiarkoz had abducted Lili, then his presence there could only be for one of two reasons. Either he had the gall to openly check on police progress, or else he had arrived to gloat at their unsuccessful efforts to find Lili. Either possibility would mean that Stiarkoz could not be entirely sane. And either possibility meant that Judy was unlikely to see her daughter again.

*   *   *

Later that night, before dinner, Judy and Sandy waited for Pagan in the comforting darkness of the domed, carved balcony that hung over the Bosphorus like an enormous birdcage.

“That Colonel Aziz shouldn’t have questioned you for hours.” Sandy’s voice was sympathetic, but she couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen to Miss International Beauty’s world tour. After all, they were now supposed to be in Egypt, but the Turkish police wouldn’t allow Sandy to leave.

“He was only doing his job,” said Judy, “and in very difficult circumstances.” The world’s press had descended upon the hotel and Sandy’s picture had been flashed around
the world. The press couldn’t believe their luck: one international beauty kidnapped, and another one available for photographs.

Sandy and Judy were now virtual prisoners in their hotel suite. All day, one or other of them had been barked at by the police and eventually, the telephone had been disconnected, because the Turkish operator could so easily be fooled by lying journalists, who assured her that they were returning Judy’s calls.

“I could have spat in the eye and stamped on the foot of that Colonel,” said Sandy. “In fact, when I think of what he put you through, I feel like kicking him in the balls.”

Judy was astonished to hear Sandy drop her genteel speech. “Why, Sandy, that’s the only criticism I’ve ever heard you make.” Judy was eager to divert her mind by talking about anything rather than the kidnap.

“Honey, in my business, a girl learns to watch her mouth,” said Sandy.

Judy looked at Sandy; she was pretty, bright, shrewd, and deftly practical, but all that cleverness and capacity for calculation was carefully used to give the impression that she was foolish and incompetent.

“Sandy, what made you decide to be a beauty queen?”

“Honey, that’s only the first step up my ladder. In a few years, I aim to be hostessing my own TV show.”

“But why start on the glamour circuit? No one will take you seriously after that.”

“What about Bess Myerson? She was Miss America and now she’s in consumer affairs. Anyway, being a pretty girl is the only start you can get in a place like Baton Rouge.”

“Pretty is OK, Sandy, but what about your Southern belle act? Sure, the guys love it, especially the old ones, but you’ll have to stop being … acquiescent … if you want to host a talk show.”

“Honey, I guess I was brought up to be agreeable.”

“Sandy, it won’t work when you get older, and it won’t work when the going gets tough. There’s nothing more gruesome than an aging Blanche Dubois, simpering with girlish charm.”

Sandy was suddenly stung by the comparison to a Tennessee Williams version of a washed-up, neurotic Southern belle.

Boldly, she said what she’d been dying to say for days. “Judy, what I can’t understand is how Lili’s father can pay the ransom, when Lili told me that her father died long ago?”

“I have no idea, Sandy, how this kidnapper could be so crazy or so cruel.”

Sandy remembered the ransom note that had been delivered in the bunch of red roses. It read: “Wait in your hotel suite to hear from Lili’s father. He must pay the ransom.”

Sandy said, “I wonder how much longer we’ll have to wait?”

Judy’s nerves snapped. “For Heaven’s sake, can’t we talk about something else?”

Sandy said, “Why, yes, Judy, there is something else I have been longin’ to talk to you about, something I really want to ask you, Judy.” Sandy took a deep breath, then burst out, “Just which one of those bastards
is
Lili’s father?”

September 3, 1979

“IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!” Judy’s voice echoed across the dark water and rang around the still room behind them. “How dare you ask a question like that!”

“Honey, I’m not the only one who’s asking,” said Sandy. “Colonel Aziz gave me a really hard time in his office for two hours. After all, you told the world that Lili’s father was dead, then suddenly all these guys got telegrams.”

“For all we know, Sandy, ten other rich men may have received that telegram. Next week, the lunatic who’s writing them is probably going to send one to John Travolta and President Carter!”

Sandy persisted. “Who was it, Judy?”

“Lili’s father was a British soldier who was killed by the Communists in Malaya.”

Sandy said, “They’ll check.”

Judy jumped up from her seat and leaned over the balcony, with her back to the other woman. Sandy added, “Colonel Aziz said they’d do blood tests. He’s spoken to Lili’s doctor in Paris and he’s getting Lili’s medical records. A modern blood test can really narrow down the field, it’s not like one of those
old maybe-he-is tests.” Sandy’s voice was soft but warning. “They’re going to find out, Judy.”

Judy turned around to face Sandy. Beyond the darkened balcony, just inside the sitting room, moths were dancing around the fringed, pink-silk shade of a table lamp. As Judy watched, one of them swooped too close to the hot light bulb and fell, fluttering in agony, on the tabletop.

Sandy stood up and put an arm around Judy’s shoulder. “Honey,
I’m
rooting for you. We’ve got a lot in common, after all.
I’m
a small town girl. I know what it’s like to be no one from nowhere, and how tough it is to get started. I’m sure that there was a good reason for whatever you did or said.” She patted Judy’s shoulder comfortingly. “But I’m a card-carrying twister of the truth, and it takes one to know one. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant to hear Colonel Aziz ask if you’d slept with all these guys. But watch what you’re saying, because I can see that the Colonel doesn’t believe
anything
you’re telling him.”

In the cool, soothing darkness, only the lapping of water under the elaborate balcony could be heard. Since Lili disappeared, Judy had been in a state of almost unbearable tension, she hadn’t slept for two nights and, even before that, she had been exhausted by months of anxiety, due to her multiple business problems.