A Dangerous Glamour

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

LOVE TO READ?

LOVE GREAT SALES?

GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS

DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!

The Web’s Creepiest Newsletter

Delivered to Your Inbox

Get chilling stories of

true crime, mystery, horror,

and the paranormal,

twice a week.

A Dangerous Glamour

Marc Olden

A MysteriousPress.com

Open Road Integrated Media

Ebook

Contents

Book One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Book Two

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Book Three

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Book One

Chapter One

HE SAT IN THE BACK seat of the chauffeured Rolls-Royce Corniche and stared through the window as they drove past the Place de la Concorde. Even on a hot August night the center of the square was packed with empty tourist buses waiting while their passengers photographed the Egyptian obelisk, a stone column seventy-five feet high, and the illuminated cascading fountains that flanked it. He looked down the Champs-Elysees, which was lined on either side by parks, palatial hotels, sidewalk cafes, and, unfortunately, automobile showrooms, movie houses, and fast-food restaurants. The broad avenue ran like an arrow directly from the Place de la Concorde to the floodlit Arc de Triomphe clearly visible a half-mile away. This was the Paris he loved, a city that nightly became an ocean of multicolored lights.

He sipped from a small glass of Remy Martin cognac, then brought a black stiletto of a cigar to his mouth, ignoring the talk and laughter going on around him in the car. He was relaxed, assured, with the bearing of a man who knew where he was going and what to do when he got there. That was inherited from his Scots father, a hard man who had taught his son, a first-generation American, never to suffer fools gladly. But from that same father he had inherited a hidden blackness that he himself hardly understood and sometimes feared. The blackness, however, was relieved by a charm often dazzling in its calculated effectiveness.

At forty-two, he had thick, silver hair, a strong, tanned face with a Roman nose and alert gray eyes hidden behind smoked glasses. He was six-four, thin, and filled with a nervous energy that meant he needed only four hours’ sleep a night. He was aware that his height, coupled with an almost regal bearing, was a form of intimidation to be used to his advantage. The Rolls was filled with music from a Donna Summer tape and the harsh-sweet smell of a joint being passed among three giggling models and Prince Saddem al-Rahman. But Byron Hardy Terry, named for Kenneth the Hardy, the first king of a united Scotland, was thinking about yesterday’s meeting with Bergman in New York.

You owe us one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Bergman said, swiveling around in a high-backed leather chair to look at the Raoul Dufy on the wall behind him. You’ve paid a month’s interest at two percent a week but the principal remains where it remains. Unpaid.

Bergman swung around to face him. And today, my friend, you arrive here in my office to ask a favor. People up to their hips in debt, which you surely are, usually don’t ask favors of their creditors. Then again, Mr. Terry, you are a law unto yourself. May I hear this favor?

I’d like you to set fire to Annie Laurie’s office for me.

A frowning Bergman shook his head. What is this world coming to? Here I am, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School and a successful lawyer with season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera and a daughter who wins medals and cups for showing horses, and on a nice day like today I get this strange request from another so-called respectable businessman. What am I to do, Mr. Terry?

Burn down her office for me, if you’d be so kind.

Why?

Because the situation between us has become what you might term unpalatable. This morning I found out that two more of my models have gone over to my ex-wife. That’s forty thousand dollars a year in commissions lost to me.

Leaning back in his chair, Bergman linked his fingers together in his lap. Annie Laurie has opened her own agency and is stealing models from everybody, concentrating specifically on the most successful model agency in America, the Byron Terry agency, because it appears she loathes Mr. Terry. Mr. Terry has also lost money in the stock market, in loans to undependable friends, in poor business investments, and of course he has been hit by the rising cost of living and doing business here in Manhattan. Mr. Terry also lives well, with a Long Island country home, a Manhattan town house, and a well-staffed office. Question, Mr. Terry: Why does Annie Laurie hate your guts?

Byron Terry lit a long, black cigar, snapped a finger-thin gold lighter shut, and blew a spear of smoke toward the ceiling of Bergman’s huge Sixth Avenue office. Why? Well let’s skip that, shall we?

A grinning Bergman kept his eyes on the tall, silver-haired man who was in no mood to be stared down. Despite his education, manicured nails, country-club membership, and English secretary, Bergman was the underworld, a hood with high gloss. He wasn’t Sicilian, but he made a lot of money for the mob, which was what counted.

Leaving his chair, Bergman walked over to the window and looked down at Radio City Music Hall fifteen stories below. You realize I can’t give you an immediate answer, Mr. Terry. I’ll have to pass your request on to a certain faction, which will consider it and render a decision. What do you hope to gain by this? It seems to me that a fire would only yield your wife—sorry, ex-wife—a lucrative insurance payment and the chance to shop for new drapes and carpets. What’s in it for you?

Byron Terry tapped cigar ashes on Bergman’s thick gray carpet.

My ex-wife’s files.

Bergman turned around.

Annie’s clever, said Byron Terry. She’s industrious, likable, inventive. With her files I can read her mind, so to speak. I can find out which girls she’s after, what sort of deal she’s offering, whether or not she’s taking less commission in order to entice certain models. I can find out which Paris and London agencies she’s contacting in order to represent their girls here in New York. Rumor has it that she’s planning to expand, to represent photographers and professional athletes. That’s something I’d really like to know for sure. I suspect that she’s planning to push her models into merchandising—tee shirts, posters, beauty columns, even syndicated television shows on exercise, nutrition, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Modeling offers more financial opportunities than ever before. The money doesn’t necessarily have to come from a photographer’s studio. Annie’s a successful agent and I’d like to know how she was able to do it so fast. It goes without saying that I simply can’t call her up and ask her.

Bergman said, You fascinate me, Mr. Terry. I know that somewhere in your well-tailored soul lies a certain amount of contempt for me—Oh, you hide it well.

Byron Terry smiled and crossed his legs. Not well enough, obviously.

Let’s say you hide it well enough for us to tolerate each other. But, I was going to say that when it comes right down to it, despite that twelve-thousand-dollar Cartier watch and tailored Giorgio Armani suit you’re wearing, you, my friend, are just like the rest of us. Just like the rest of us, and I’m sure you know what I mean by that.

To hide his sudden discomfort Byron Terry rubbed his eyes. Not only was the cost of his watch and his tailoring known by Bergman, but Bergman also knew what lay beneath Byron Terry’s good looks and carefully cultivated image of elegance and glamour. Bergman knew what lay in the shadowy corners of Byron’s soul, that destructive side of Byron that had caused him to betray Annie Laurie, the only woman he had ever loved. Money borrowed from the wrong people and an ex-wife who had vowed to destroy him. For Byron Terry the sky was black with chickens come home to roost.

The Rolls-Royce Corniche turned off the Pont de la Concorde, a small bridge dotted with thin lamp posts casting a pale yellow glow in the night, onto the Quai Anatole France. The Left Bank avenue ran between the River Seine and a row of old buildings which, despite plain, bare fronts, housed some of the most expensive and luxurious flats in Europe. The Rolls belonged to one of the world’s richest young men, Prince Saddem al-Rahman of Bahrain, who was taking Terry and three American models to dinner at Lapérouse, a two-hundred-year-old restaurant on the Quai des Grands-Augustins. Because the Bahraini chauffeur spoke only Arabic and didn’t know Paris, the slim, bearded Saddem had hired a taxi to lead the Rolls everywhere.

Byron Terry looked toward the shuttered wooden bookstalls that lined the embankment for miles. He hadn’t come to Paris to buy musty books or chase empty cabs through dark, cobbled streets, however. He was in Paris to get his hands on $800,000, which was what he stood to make in commissions, provided he could steal America’s highest-paid model from her agent.

The model was Karen Dial, now sitting in front of him in the Rolls, singing along with Donna Summer and getting high on some of the strongest hashish ever smuggled into France from Tangiers. A tall, beautiful dark blonde, Karen Dial had a crooked smile that was both sexy and vulnerable and a round face with clear skin pulled tightly over high cheekbones that made her photograph younger than her twenty-nine years. She was the supermodel of supermodels, earning $500,000 a year and receiving thousands of fan letters a month. A pop poster of her in a wet tee shirt and black bikini panties had sold almost three million copies. Cover stories in Time, Newsweek, and People magazines, as well as a piece in the New York Times, had lifted her celebrity status.

Byron Terry wanted her signature on a four-year contract that could yield her a million dollars a year. Karen Dial was a star, but with Byron’s help she could become a universe. By helping her, he of course would be helping himself. Eight hundred thousand dollars was his twenty-percent agent’s commission on four million dollars and it would buy a lot of Cartier watches, Giorgio Armani suits, Mercedes 450 SL’s, and winters at the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. It would wipe out his debt to Bergman and, most important of all, help him to fight Annie for control of modeling in New York. There was no room for compromise between him and his ex-wife; to survive one would have to destroy the other.

To talk to Karen Dial, Byron had flown on the Concorde from New York to London where Karen was filming a television commercial for Morgan-Knox, a new American company that made what it called The Crown Jewel of Cameras. The company had arranged for her to be photographed with England’s Crown Jewels, now stored in a tight security cavern beneath Waterloo Barracks in the Tower of London. But when Byron Terry arrived to meet her at the Dorchester Hotel on London’s posh Park Lane, Karen Dial wasn’t alone. She was having drinks with Prince Saddem and two models, Jennifer Bean, a nineteen-year-old blonde with frizzed hair and an Oklahoma drawl, who was represented by Terry, and Peace Johnstone, a stunning, twenty-five-year-old black with almond-shaped eyes, a fine-boned face, and skin the color of burnt honey. Harper’s Bazaar had flown the two from New York to model antique jewelry found in England’s stately homes.

Saddem poured from a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. I have invited the ladies to dine with me. You are welcome to join us. We leave in forty-five minutes.

Karen Dial held onto Byron Terry’s arm as they headed to the lobby. It’s going to be super. Saddem’s flying us to Paris then bringing us back in time for work tomorrow morning.

The agent’s smile was nothing more than a forced movement of his lips. He wondered if he had worked all of his life only to achieve a success indistinguishable from panic. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, Byron said, than fly thirty-five hundred miles for a bowl of onion soup.

Karen Dial enjoyed the life, the partying and good times that came with modeling. The Life. Travel, sex, drugs, fame, and $5,000-a-day modeling fees. It was living in the fast lane, a choice brought on by fear of growing old and the knowledge that a model’s career rarely lasted more than seven years. It was the chance to work and play in Hawaii, Cairo, London, Palm Springs, Rome, New York, Acapulco, Beverly Hills, the Caribbean. Above all, The Life was loving and being loved by new and beautiful faces. The word was now, for in modeling only the face and body mattered, and when they faded so did the money, fame, and love. Enjoy all of it now. It was today’s pleasure versus tomorrow’s promise.

The empty taxi, followed by the Rolls, halted in front of the ancient six story building housing Lapérouse restaurant. Immediately, a woman in shabby black clothing stepped from a doorway, her body sunken and bent by age. She shuffled toward the Rolls, a thin arm extended, a faded yellow rose in her wrinkled hand. Other roses drooped from a side pocket of her patched overcoat. After helping the models from the car, Byron Terry walked over to the old woman, greeted her with a kiss on each cheek, then covered her small hand holding the flower with both of his. When he spoke softly to her in French, her sunken mouth moved in a toothless smile.

Taking her flower, the agent snapped off the stem and carefully inserted the decaying yellow rose in his lapel. Then handing her two fifty-franc notes, he removed four roses from her coat pocket. He handed a limp flower to each of the three women, keeping the last for himself. Her name is Paulette, he said. Picasso introduced me to her. During the war she became the mistress of a very important Nazi colonel. They fell in love. Toward the end of the war, he decided to leave his wife for her. They would go to Spain.

Byron looked at the dark building. Lapérouse was their favorite restaurant. For their last dinner in Paris they came here. After dinner they went for a quiet stroll and the Resistance took them. It was time for revenge, you see. The colonel was tortured, beheaded. Paulette, beautiful Paulette, was gang raped and her head shaved and her face, it was beaten until it looked like a butcher’s apron. All of this destroyed her mind.

He looked at the silent models. Paulette was not a bad girl. She wanted to survive and have a good time, that’s all. She waits here for her colonel to return.

A misty-eyed Karen took his arm. God, did they have to do that to her?

Picasso thought it was jealousy, not patriotism. Men she’d rejected, women who resented her beauty and powerful protector. Patriotism was an excuse for getting even.

A sniffling Karen removed a compact and tissue from a small beaded bag then handed the bag to Byron. "Hold this while I make repairs. And stop telling me sad stories before I make a grand entrance. I don’t want to walk in there and have Cardin or someone from Elle catch me looking like a zebra."

She moved closer to a lamp post and peered into the compact’s mirror. Byron, without thinking, tucked the last yellow rose into her bag and that’s when he saw the folded telegram. Curious, he tilted the bag to the left to catch the available light, brought it up a few inches and squinted: He froze. The telegram was signed Annie Laurie. Byron saw his $800,000 pulling away from him. The pain was almost physical.

He placed both hands behind him. No one was looking. Prince Saddem and Jennifer and Peace were clustered around Paulette. Karen was making repairs. Now’s the time, thought Byron. When he handed Karen’s bag back to her the telegram was balled up in his right fist. Terry’s law, he told himself. It is immoral to allow others to keep that which may be useful to you.

Lapérouse had a faded glamour, the dark oak and brass handrails of La Belle Epoque, that beautiful time of gaslight, parasols, and horse-drawn carriages. A headwaiter led the way up a narrow staircase to les salles, the private dining salons on the second floor. Prince Saddem had booked the popular Salon des Amours, which sat eight and had elegantly paneled walls, mirrors, and murals of cheerful pink cherubs. Byron seated himself on a red velvet couch, his arms along its back, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

If those cherubs could speak the conversation would be salacious, indecent, predominantly sexual, not to mention naughty.

I was telling Jennifer about these rooms, said Prince Saddem, stepping aside to allow two waiters to enter with champagne, ice buckets, and glasses. There are sixteen of them, each one decorated in a different style, and they form a most interesting tradition. These rooms are for lovers, for those who wish to dine and indulge other appetites as well.

He pointed to the door. Look. Just one doorknob and that’s on the inside. There is no knob on the outside. It insures privacy.

Jennifer Bean looked at both sides of the door. How about that? People, all I can say is this beats doing it in a Volkswagen.

Or standing up in a hammock, honey, said Peace Johnstone. That’s been tried before but don’t ask me to name names. This room is far out. So, people really get it on in here?

Byron stood up and walked over to one of the mirrors. "That they do, my child. That they most certainly do. Everyone follow me. I want to show you something. Voila!"

Their eyes followed his long finger as it moved over the mirror. See the names scratched here? It’s a custom that began almost a hundred years ago. Rather than check into a hotel, some married men preferred to cheat on their wives in these little rooms, which offered privacy as well as excellent food. Naturally there was no guestbook nor were the girlfriends ever allowed to sign in. The gentleman’s reputation had to be protected.

Peace Johnstone snorted. Tell me about it.

One girlfriend had a mind of her own, continued Byron. She took a diamond ring and carved her name on the mirror. Other women imitated her and soon it became a tradition to leave your name on a mirror in one of these private little rooms. Karen?

Removing a blue sapphire, diamond, and gold ring from a pinky finger, he handed it to the model. Her eyes widened and she licked her lips and took the ring. Slowly, carefully, she scratched her full name on the glass. When she finished the other models cheered.

Peace Johnstone took the ring from her. Time for the Third World to be heard from, y’all.

Prince Saddem handed Byron a glass of champagne and a smiling Karen rushed over to throw her arms around him and kiss him on the cheek. It could have been Saddem’s hashish or the champagne or the fun of being in Paris. Whatever it was, Karen was becoming more relaxed, more affectionate as the evening wore on. Byron took that as a good sign; if he could talk to her she would be responsive to his offer to represent her. Each of the three models in the small room had looks and was a high earner. But Karen Dial was first among equals, the most beautiful and the highest earner and therefore the biggest prize. Byron drained his glass of Moet et Chandon in one gulp. Dom Perignon, the old monk who had invented champagne hundreds of years ago, called it Stars in a Bottle. All the stars in Heaven wouldn’t help Byron if Annie Laurie had managed to reach Karen Dial.

Karen clung to him, her head on his shoulder as they watched Saddem hover over Jennifer, who was scratching her name on the mirror. Tonight the nineteen-year-old Oklahoman wore a lavender sari trimmed in gold and gold sandals with thongs laced up to her knees. She earned $750 a day, worked as often as she liked, and was having an affair with Saddem, who flew to wherever she was working in one of his eight private jets. Peace Johnstone, the highest-paid black in modeling, wore a white togalike gown belted at the waist by a thin silver cord. There was a wide gold bracelet on the bicep of each bare arm. Strongly sensual-looking, the six-foot-tall model earned over $200,000 a year, and so far neither Byron nor Annie had been able to talk her into leaving her present agent.

Karen dressed sexier away from the cameras than she did in the all-American girl poses she used to sell cosmetics, cigarettes, and cameras. She wore a one-shoulder green dress by John Anthony with a slit up the middle revealing the inside of her thighs when she walked. Her flood of golden hair hung below her shoulders and rested on a see-through shawl of black gauze. Unlike most models, she had breasts and they pushed against the fabric, a soft yet insistent outline of a delicious promise. Despite her love of The Life she showed no sign of losing her looks or figure. In New York she shared a Sutton Place duplex with a handsome German photographer. They spent time together at a Santa-Monica beach house and a hundred-acre Florida farm, which she also owned. She was a shrewd businesswoman, a model who kept her money out of the hands of men who might exploit her. A love of partying and a happy-go-lucky attitude didn’t stop Karen Dial from doing what was financially best for her.

She had affairs but she was always discreet, having them only on location and never in New York. When location time was over so was the temporary affair.

Byron’s temporary affair with her began and ended a couple of years ago in Hollywood, when he had gone there for business meetings with the agency that handled his models on the West Coast. Paramount Pictures invited him to a huge party on the studio lot to celebrate the upcoming release of its four most important films of the year. In addition to actresses, starlets, rock stars, politicians, reporters, and members of Hollywood’s A and B lists, he ran into Karen Dial, whom he knew casually. Even now he wasn’t sure how it happened but the two of them talked, laughed, and then left the party to wander alone about the studio, finally coming to an empty Western set. In the darkness of a fake saloon they made love on blankets spread behind a bar. Afterward she found an empty six-gun holster, strapped it around her bare waist, and danced naked on the bar to the faint sounds of music coming from the party. An excited Byron made love to her again and that’s when she told him that for her the best sex happened unexpectedly in unexpected places. That’s why she enjoyed location shooting.

Their affair lasted seventy-two hours. At night she came to his suite at the Bel Air Hotel and exhausted him with a passion he never suspected. In the morning she left him to go to her shoot. On the day the shoot ended Karen flew back to her German photographer in Manhattan without saying good-bye to Byron, who accepted a situation he knew only too well. There was no reason to telephone her in New York and he didn’t. When their paths crossed, they chatted as if California had never happened, and only when she became worth $800,000 to him did he pick up the phone.

In the Salon des Amours a black-tied waiter finished taking the orders, bowed, and left. Kicking off her shoes, Peace massaged her feet then picked up a glass of champagne and walked over to the mirror to stare at her name again. Prince Saddem and Jennifer held hands and whispered on the red velvet sofa, while Byron and Karen stood near the door eying a pair of mischievous-looking cherubs.

Karen pointed to the one on the left. That fat little rascal reminds me of my brother. Ken was always a Peeping Tom. He’s only twenty-five and I think he’s already a dirty old man.

Dirty old men need love, too.

Speaking of love, you’ve been in these rooms before, haven’t you. How was it? And I don’t mean for the soufflé.

He reached out to touch one of the cherubs. Did you know that Lapérouse used to be one of the best restaurants in Paris? Unfortunately, it’s seen its best days; all three stars have been taken away. When a chef dies a restaurant automatically loses one star. That was the beginning of the end here, as far as food was concerned. In France losing a star is practically the same as losing an eye. Food is a serious matter in this country.

That’s not answering my question. Have you made love in these rooms?

The Blue Room down the hall is exquisite. Colette scratched her name on the mirror there.

His hand was still on the mural when she reached out and covered his hand with hers. I’d really like to see some of the other rooms, Byron. The empty ones, I mean.

Empty?

It would be better if the room was empty, don’t you think?

He squeezed her hand. Tradition calls for it and who am I to deny you tradition?

Right now, that’s the last thing I want you to do.

He raised his voice. Saddem?

Yes? said the Arab.

It’s almost six o’clock in New York. If I’m going to call my office I should do it now before everyone leaves for the day. It’ll be twenty minutes or more before the food arrives, perhaps longer. You know how picky the French are about their cuisine. I’m going downstairs to use the phone. Karen’s coming with me. We’ll be back as soon as we can.

In the hall they pressed their lips together to keep from laughing. Arms around each other, they went from one closed door to another, hands over their mouths to hold the laughter in. When they finally saw an open door they raced for it like children, rushed inside, then closed the door behind them and howled.

He found the light switch. The room was paneled in more dark oak with murals of short, hairy satyrs frolicking in green woods beside pools of pale green water.

Karen pointed to the murals. Green— and she burst out laughing. So did he. Green seemed the funniest word they’d ever heard.

And then they stopped laughing and she was kissing him, her tongue attacking his. Tradition, she whispered. Absolutely not to be missed.

Absolutely. His hands squeezed her buttocks until his fingertips disappeared into the flesh.

I hate to be the one to bring it up, he said, but this room’s probably reserved and some couple is walking down the hall this very minute to claim it.

Unzipping her dress at the side, she slipped it off her shoulder and let it fall to the floor. She was braless, her figure as perfect as any he had ever seen. Cupping her breasts with her hands, she pushed them up and together, dropping her head to lick the nipples. He couldn’t remember when he had last witnessed anything as erotic; it left his throat dry.

Shaking her head to clear the hair from her face, she said, My daddy is just a country sheriff in Florida, but he tells me that possession is nine points of the law. We’ve got the room and the doorknob. That couple, whoever they are, will be standing in the hall without a doorknob.

Taking off a pair of thin, red panties, she held them out as if offering them to him, then dropped them at her feet. Her vagina was hairless, shaved clean. He found himself staring at it with a sexual curiosity he hadn’t felt in a long time; it was almost enough to make him forget about the eight hundred thousand. The possibility of being interrupted was turning on not only Karen, but Byron as well.

He dropped his jacket to the floor, threw his tie after it, and unbuckled his pants. Before he could do more she was on her knees in front of him, licking his balls and nibbling gently at the base of his cock. Then she took his cock in her mouth as deeply as she could; when she moaned the vibrations sent threads of pleasure racing through his scrotum. He leaned back against the door, hands lost in her thick, dark-blond hair, and when he almost came he pushed her head away, stripped quickly, and went to the floor, holding her to him with all his strength, one hand squeezing her breast as tightly as he could.

Harder! Her mouth was against his ear and then her teeth caught the earlobe, sending pain up the side of his head. He squeezed more.

Oh yes, yes. Suddenly she couldn’t wait any longer. Pulling him on top of her, she guided his penis into her and clung to him, grinding her hips savagely in her own rhythm. She came quickly. Seconds before it happened she threw her mouth on his, using him to muffle the sound of her moaning, digging long, silver-painted nails into his back. A nail broke and he felt the sharper pain as the jagged edge sliced his skin. And then his own pleasure erupted and he dug his toes into the rug, one hand squeezing her shoulder, the other pushing hard against the floor near her head.

Breathing deeply, they lay on their sides facing one another.

Karen?

She kissed his eyes.

This is the only time I have to talk business. I wish it wasn’t but I have no choice. I want to represent you.

I know. Her tongue made wet circles in the hollow of his throat.

I’ve got something to offer. A million dollars a year for four years.

Oh?

Listen. Something big is going to break soon. It’ll be the fattest contract ever offered a model. No one knows about it yet, but I’ve got someone inside who’s feeding me information. Karl Rothman is planning to introduce a new line of cosmetics.

He is Mr. Cosmetics.

A prick, but a rich prick. He’s Hitler without the charm, but when it comes to cosmetics the man has a sixth sense about what women will buy. He’s calling his new line Touchstone and he wants a model to use in all his print ads, television commercials, counter displays, the works. He’ll only use her ninety days a year, meaning you’re free to do other products providing they don’t conflict. The money is unbelievable. Rothman will pay five hundred thousand a year for four years and that’s guaranteed. No options. No model’s ever been offered a better deal. Two million dollars, Karen.

How did you find out about it?

Karl, Jr. He’s Daddy’s number-two man in Rothman cosmetics and my inside man as well. He’ll have something to say about the model who’s finally chosen. He likes you, Karen. He swears he’ll go all out for you.

Sounds nice.

He frowned. Did you hear what I just said?

Two million dollars and Karl Rothman, Jr.

You make it sound like two million oatmeal cookies and Captain Kangaroo.

She rubbed his nipple with a thumb and forefinger. I’m listening, I’m listening.

"Karen, two million dollars is just the beginning. I’ve already started work on two different film deals for you. I’ve spoken to a producer at Paramount about writing a part for you in his next film. Nothing you couldn’t handle. Plus I’ve met an Iranian who managed to get almost a hundred million dollars out of Teheran. He’s living in Beverly Hills and wants to get in the movie business in the worst way. He’s seen your photographs and, to put it mildly, the man is besotted with you. He’s willing to base a film around you, providing he can come up with the right script.

"Karen, listen. Modeling doesn’t last forever. But acting can last as long as you want, with a little luck. You can work as an actress until you’re eighty. Touchstone will be promoted heavily, and if you get it, you’ll also get a promotion job that will make you so huge Hollywood will come to you. I know the people out there. They’re tough, and every time you sit down with them you end up counting your fingers. I can deal for you better than anyone in modeling and it’s about time we get together to prove it. Between Touchstone and movies I figure, conservatively, four million dollars in the next four years. With the right management. That’s the key. The right management."

She scratched her nose. Four million, huh? She could have been talking about a pair of running shoes.

He sat up, his back to her so that she couldn’t see the anger in his face. Martin’s going in for his second bypass operation.

What’s that got to do with anything?

He’s your agent and if he’s in the hospital he can’t be representing you.

There’s other people in his office.

He looked at her. Did anyone mention Touchstone to you before today?

No. This is the first I’ve heard of it.

You know there’s some trouble between Annie Laurie and me.

She smiled. The whole world knows. Newspapers, magazines, everybody knows about the ‘model wars’ or whatever they’re calling it this week. The battle over fabulous beauties, that sort of thing. Her agency’s really on the move.

He watched her carefully. She’s doing her best to turn me into a chalk outline on the floor.

She hugged his knee and gave him her brightest smile. Come on, now, it’s not that bad. Just a little disagreement, is all. It’ll work itself out.

Before he could answer her there was a sharp knock on the door. Madame? Monsieur?

Oh Jesus, Karen scrambled to her feet. Where’s my underwear? What’s he saying?

He says he’s got a couple outside who’ve booked this room. He wants to know our names.

It’s a good thing models learn to dress and undress quickly. How’s my hair? She combed it with her fingers, then patted it into place.

Fine. He was dressing as fast as he could, but he still made a try at her. Karen, together we could—

What about Jennifer? Have you mentioned Touchstone to her?

No. She photographs too young and she doesn’t have your elegance. Rothman wants The Look—blond, blue-eyed, all-American, which also lets out Peace.

God, that Frenchman out in the hall is going crazy. I think we’d better leave before he calls a cop. I thought they ignored closed doors around here.

Unless the room’s reserved for someone else.

She smoothed the front of her dress and said casually, too casually, Let’s talk about this later, okay, Byron? I can’t concentrate now. Too much going on. Besides, I’m starving.

You go on ahead. I’ll square things with the waiter and the couple in the hall.

She kissed his cheek. You’re sweet. And thanks for showing me the room. I enjoyed being a part of the ‘tradition.’ I mean you come this far so why not go all the way, right?

Outside, he made his apologies to the waiter, gave him a few francs, and watched the man’s belligerence miraculously disappear. The other couple, who had obviously been in Lapérouse before, disappeared inside, leaving Byron and the waiter to watch Karen hurry down the hall and knock on the door of the Salon des Amours.

Magnifique, whispered the waiter, staring at the model.

Oui. In English, Byron added, A magnificent liar, too.

Monsieur?

Rien. It doesn’t matter. The door to the salon opened and Karen disappeared inside.

When the waiter joined the couple in the room, Byron pulled out the telegram. It read: DINNER CONFIRMED FRIDAY NIGHT WHEN YOU RETURN. NO COMMITMENT BUT ROTHMAN DEFINITELY INTERESTED. I THINK TOUCHSTONE WOULD BE LUCKY TO HAVE YOU, BUT WE’LL SEE. LET’S MAKE HISTORY TOGETHER. ANNIE LAURIE.

Carefully ripping the telegram to bits, Byron let the pieces fall from his hand. Rage and fear hit him simultaneously and his legs felt shaky. He would telephone New York but not his office. He was going to call Bergman to check on a fire.

Chapter Two

THE AEGEAN WAS A luxury apartment building that had replaced a Fifth Avenue department store. Its cheapest flat was a first-floor studio priced at half a million dollars. Security for its wealthy European, Arab, and American tenants was handled by a staff of ex-FBI men and Green Berets directed by a former CIA official whom the staff feared and none of the tenants had ever seen. The Aegean’s doormen wore designer uniforms and the building furnished butlers, baby-sitters, twenty-four-hour valet service, and gourmet