Wicked Pleasures (76 page)

‘I like the sound of the trading floor,’ said Max. ‘Could I visit it tomorrow, do you think?’

‘You
would
like it. That’s an area of banking you’d feel thoroughly at home in. Yes, come in tomorrow. You can meet my friend Chrissie. She always says it’s the biggest casino going.’

‘Sounds fun. Yeah, I’d be interested. When should I come? I’m working till at least four.’

‘That’d be OK,’ said Charlotte. ‘Roll up then.’ She was feeling increasingly edgy, waiting distractedly for the door buzzer to go, longing for Max to leave, but managed to ask with a rather chilly politeness after Tommy. ‘Talking of casinos,’ she added rather tartly.

‘He’s OK,’ said Max. ‘Charlotte, I wish you’d give old Tommy a chance. He really isn’t so bad.’

‘I’m afraid I find it very difficult to believe that,’ said Charlotte. ‘He’s sponging off you, Max. You and all of us. With a bit of blackmail thrown in. I think that’s terrible.’

Max had learnt to live with his family’s attitude towards Tommy, but it still upset him. ‘Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Tommy doesn’t mean any harm. He’s a bit of an old roué, but he was kind and supportive to me, and he’s really very grateful for the little house in Pond Place. And he doesn’t spend nearly so much money at Les A these days. He’s even got a job of sorts.’

‘Really?’ said Charlotte. ‘What kind of a job?’

‘Oh, it’s acting as secretary for some charity. For some old ladies, whose husbands were in the air force or something. He really enjoys it, and it keeps him out of trouble.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Charlotte.

At that moment her buzzer went. Charlotte could feel herself blushing. She went over to the entryphone.

‘Yes? Oh – oh, hallo. Well no – oh, well –’ She put her hand over the receiver and looked at Max. ‘How long are you planning to stay?’

He grinned. He had never seen her so flustered.

‘Oh – only long enough to meet him. Then I’m off. Have him up, darling, and then have him. I won’t get in your way.’ Charlotte glared at him, and then spoke into the phone again.

‘Come on up. My young brother is here. But he’s just leaving.’

Jeremy walked into the studio a few minutes later, carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and an enormous bunch of red roses in the other. He was wearing an exquisitely cut suit, and had a large brownish sable coat slung across his shoulders. He smiled at Max, and held out his hand.

‘Hi. I’m Jeremy Foster. You must be Max the Model.’

‘’Fraid so,’ said Max. ‘Not for much longer, I hope. Good to meet you. I’m really sorry I have to leave, but I’m due somewhere in a few minutes, Charlotte tells me.’

Jeremy laughed. ‘Oh darling, for heaven’s sake. This is family stuff. I’ve met Max before when he was about – what – twelve? Max, stay and have a drink with us, tell us what you’re doing. We have plenty of time.’

‘Thanks,’ said Max. He was carefully ignoring Charlotte’s frantic eye signals. ‘That’d be great. Just a quick one, though. I met your wife once or twice. We even worked together. One nice lady.’

‘Very nice,’ said Jeremy easily, ‘we’ve been together for a long, very nice time. We’re really good friends.’

‘Well that’s nice,’ said Max.

When he had gone, Jeremy took Charlotte in his arms and kissed her for a long time. ‘I really love you,’ he said. ‘I love you to pieces.’

‘It’s me that’s in pieces,’ said Charlotte, ‘and you don’t love me.’

‘Yes I do. And I want to give you a really stupendous present. To say thank you for you. What would you like? A mink coat? A diamond ring? A box at the Opera? Just say the word.’

‘What I’d like,’ said Charlotte with a sigh, ‘is a really nice long spell of peace and quiet, with nothing happening to me whatsoever.’

‘I’ll see if I can fix that,’ said Jeremy.

What followed were the most terrible seven days of Charlotte’s entire life.

The divestiture at least had gone all right. More than all right. Charlotte felt she had won her spurs. Or whatever you won in banking. A raise probably. Of the three initial contenders for Peacheys, she had been left with one: a series
of nail-biting silences, interspersed by carefully timed phone calls, had persuaded her solo player that he was still one of a chorus, and that he was lucky to be in on the act at all. Charlotte closed the deal with the offer price twenty cents a share up.

Gabe walked in at midday. ‘Hi. How’s everything?’

‘Fine,’ said Charlotte. ‘How was Rome?’

‘OK. Rather foreign.’ He was sorting through the messages on his desk. ‘What’s this about a lunch tomorrow? Message from Freddy.’

‘Oh yes. He came in while you were away. Something about a mix-up with a date of his.’

‘I don’t know anything about a lunch,’ said Gabe. ‘What’s he on about?’

‘Well I don’t know either,’ said Charlotte irritably. ‘Did you see the other message from me. From Beaufort?’

‘Beaufort. Beaufort? For Christ’s sake, Charlotte, how do you know it was him and what’s he doing phoning me here?’

He looked white and shaken. Charlotte was surprised. ‘Well, I think it was him. He said to tell you it was about the Bloom deal and that you’d spoken before.’

‘Shit. Why’s he hounding me? I just don’t get this.’

She shrugged. ‘I just wanted to let you know.’

‘But the message isn’t here.’

‘It must be.’

‘Charlotte, it isn’t. What did it say?’

She thought a minute. ‘It said something like “The phantom caller from the airfield rang. Wants to talk more.”’

‘And you wrote that down?’

‘Yes I did. What’s so terrible?’

‘What’s so terrible is it’s indiscreet and cretinous.’ His eyes were dark and angry.

‘Oh Gabe, don’t be ridiculous. Of course it isn’t. It could mean anybody, anything. I was quite careful about it.’

‘Oh, very careful!’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Careful would have been not writing anything down, careful would have been just telling me, careful would probably even have been telling him I was away and you couldn’t get in touch.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Charlotte irritably. ‘Don’t be so over-sensitive. Nobody, but nobody could make anything of that message.’

‘Many people could make a lot of it,’ said Gabe briefly and walked out of the office.

Freddy came to talk to Charlotte and Gabe just before lunch. He gave his icy smile. ‘I hear you just handled a deal without Gabe,’ he said.

‘Oh, well – not really,’ said Charlotte. ‘Just finished it off.’

‘Grandpa’s acting like you saw through the entire sale of Gulf Oil on your own,’ said Freddy. He was trying to smile, but his eyes were very hard, his voice harsh.

‘Well,’ said Charlotte, slightly helplessly, ‘you know Grandpa.’

‘Yes I do, Charlotte,’ said Freddy, and she was frightened by the hatred in his voice. ‘I certainly do.’ He was looking very pleased with himself.

‘I wanted to let you know,’ he said, addressing himself to both of them, ‘before the official announcement, that is, that I’m off to Harvard Business School this September, as you know. And confirmed as a junior partner on the main board, as from now, but with effect from my rejoining the bank. I’m moving into the Heir’s Room next week.’

‘Great,’ said Gabe. He stood up and shook Freddy’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder, as if the news was a tremendous surprise and Freddy had won his partnership in the face of really tough competition. Charlotte, feeling sick partly at Gabe’s display of sycophancy and partly at the fact that Freddy was clearly making his way much faster than she was up the Praeger ladder, forced a smile onto her own face.

‘Brilliant, Freddy. Well done!’

‘Yes. I am naturally very pleased.’ He looked at her, his pale blue eyes rather watchful. ‘I’m giving a dinner here. On Friday. In the main dining room, to celebrate. I’d like you both to come. It will be mainly family, which naturally includes you, Gabe, and a few major clients. Clement Dudley, Jeremy Foster, a couple of the International Paper people. Eight. Black tie. See you then.’

He left, making it very plain that there was no question of a refusal. Gabe met Charlotte’s eye in open conspiracy for the first time she could ever remember.

‘He clearly needs a pair of bigger boots,’ he said simply.

They were working late on Thursday evening. To Charlotte’s annoyance, she had had to cancel dinner with Jeremy. Gabe sensed her distraction, and was increasingly irritable with her.

And then his phone went. It was Fred III. Could he get on down to Fred’s office right away.

Gabe, looking just slightly thoughtful, went. Summonses to Fred III could never be taken entirely lightly. Little more than two minutes later, Charlotte’s phone went. It was her grandfather. ‘Get on down here,’ he said.

When she got to the office, the atmosphere was hideous. Gabe was white, his eyes like huge dark holes in his head. His fists were clenched, and he was staring at Charlotte as if he had never seen her before.

‘Ah. Charlotte. I believe this is your writing?’ Fred pushed a piece of paper at her; she didn’t need to look at it.

‘Yes. Yes it is.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to explain what it means.’

‘Well – it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t think. It was just a message. For Gabe.’

‘From?’

‘Well, I don’t know.’

God, if only she knew what Gabe had said so far, how much she could say, whether she was making things better or worse.

‘You don’t know. It reads as if you know. “Your phantom caller,” it says, “wants to talk some more.” Clearly you knew he’d called before. Come along, Charlotte, I would like a slightly fuller explanation.’

Charlotte looked helplessly at Gabe. He hadn’t moved; his eyes hadn’t moved either.

‘I – well –’

‘Charlotte, do you know who this person was, or do you not? Please answer me.’

‘Well – I’m not sure.’

‘Charlotte, I hope you’re not trying to do a cover-up job here. Out of loyalty.’ Fred’s voice was at its lightest, its most seductive.

‘No. No, of course not. I mean there’s nothing to –’ Her voice trailed away.

‘Right then.’ Her grandfather sat back more firmly in his chair. ‘Let me put the question more simply. Was the phantom caller as you put it, was he Beaufort or one of that crowd?’

Charlotte thought fast. She decided total honesty was the only way out of this. Covering up was simply making everything look worse for Gabe. ‘Yes. Yes I believe he was.’

‘Why do you believe so?’

‘Because – because Gabe had had a call two nights before. From – one of them.’

She didn’t dare look at Gabe, but she heard him sit down suddenly. She knew then she had made a bad mistake. Clearly he had been denying any knowledge of what the message meant.

‘Oh really. Do you know which one?’

‘Beaufort,’ said Charlotte. All was lost now, she might as well just give up, and tell everything. It made life simpler.

‘And how do you know?’

‘Gabe told me. He was very upset. And worried.’

Fred looked at Gabe. ‘Is this true?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Then why the hell didn’t you say so?’

‘I didn’t think you’d believe me.’

‘Fine. Why shouldn’t I have believed you?’

‘Because it was so – unbelievable,’ said Gabe. ‘I get a call in the men’s room in the middle of the night, at an airfield where no one knew I was, from Beaufort, wanting to talk business. How the fuck would he have known I was there, if I hadn’t told him?’

‘Don’t use that language in this office,’ said Fred.

‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t know. I have to tell you I do find it hard to believe.’

‘Well there you are.’ He looked at once sulky, angry and as if he was going to burst into tears.

‘And then you tell Charlotte about it?’

‘Yes.’

‘When and where did this conversation take place?’

He was talking to Charlotte now.

‘At – two in the morning. In my apartment.’

‘Dear God,’ said Fred, ‘this gets worse. Is he often in your apartment at two in the morning?’

‘Thankfully no,’ said Charlotte coldly. Fred’s eyes skimmed over her; for the first time he looked mildly amused.

‘He came specially. To ask me if I’d talked to anyone. He was very worried. I know he’d never talked to Beaufort before.’

‘So how do you suggest Beaufort knew where he was?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Charlotte. ‘We talked for ages about it.’

‘Gabe? Any explanation?’

‘None,’ said Gabe wearily.

‘Well, I don’t get it,’ said Fred heavily, ‘and I’m not sure if I believe you. I’m going to make some inquiries. If I think you’ve even exchanged the time of day with these guys you are out of a job, and never mind if your grandfather was my godfather. OK?’

‘OK,’ said Gabe. He was looking more cheerful now suddenly; clearly hopeful again. ‘Could I ask you something?’

‘You could ask.’

‘How did you get hold of that message?’

‘Dick handed it to me just now. When I was coming back into the building. Someone had left it on his desk around an hour ago. He said he hadn’t seen you, Gabe, all day, and he told me to give it to you. You know how he thinks he runs this place really.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Gabe. ‘Well – just a thought.’

‘I’ll see you both tomorrow,’ said Fred. ‘Goodnight.’

He didn’t look at them; they were dismissed.

‘Gabe, I’m so sorry. So very sorry,’ said Charlotte, half running beside him as he stalked along the corridor. He turned to glare at her; he looked so angry she thought he was going to hit her. Then he pushed ahead so fast it was impossible for her to keep up. When she finally got into the office he was pouring, most unusually for him, a paper cup of bourbon. She looked at him warily. He bolted it down, poured another, looked at her over it. She sat down, her legs suddenly weak.

‘You’re a silly bitch,’ he said, ‘a stupid silly bitch.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

Gabe bolted the second cupful of bourbon. Then he said, and she never forgot it for as long as she lived, ‘But you were great. Thanks. Have a drink.’

She went over to him with her own paper cup and looked at him very steadily as he half filled it.

‘That’s OK.’

His eyes met hers, and somewhere in their depths there was a new warmth, a friendliness, an acknowledgement that she was not entirely distasteful to him. Then he said almost casually, ‘Fred made a call that night. Straight out of the Bloom meeting. He said he had to call home.’