Villiers Touch

5. Mason Villiers

Villiers stepped out of the rickety old elevator and walked the length of a narrow hallway. He knocked at a door and looked at his watch-just short of two-thirty. He stood without patience waiting for the door to open. Sometimes it was an irritant to him, his sexual imprisonment: he needed women frequently-sometimes two or three times in a day, when he was tense with the pressures of corporate juggling.

He knocked again and put his ear close to the door. He could hear the rapid clicking of a typewriter. Finally it stopped, and after a moment he heard Naomi’s voice, close to the door, husky and cross: “Who is it?”

“Mace.”

“Who?”

“Mace Villiers.”

She opened up, and hands impudently on hips, cocked her head to glare. “I’m in the middle of a chapter. Why didn’t you telephone?”

“Ran out of small change. Anyhow, a telephone’s always long distance.”

“You Goddamned sex maniac.” She looked him up and down with slow insinuation and stepped back to let him in.

She was a small, tight-packed, spider-waisted girl, fluffy and blond. She had huge china-blue eyes and a soft, heavy mouth. She wore a yellow dress, not quite chic because it had strong-seamed darts around the bustline to clothe her unfashionably big, plump young breasts, which bobbed and jiggled when she moved ahead of him into the large studio apartment.

Villiers pushed the door shut, indifferent to the surroundings, looking at the girl with desire.

The typewriter was on a small desk by the window. On the sill were dozens of teen-age girls’ novels, pointedly displayed, all by the same author: Naomi Kemp.

Villiers said, trying to put some show of interest in his voice, “What are you working on?”

“A simpering book about a prissy nurse. As if you gave a shit. Really, Mace, you could have picked a better time of day to come charging in.”

“I’m on my way downtown.”

“And that explains the whole thing? You just dropped in on your way to Wall Street for a quick bang?”

“That’s right,” he said, without humor.

“You’re a one-of-a-kind original, Mace. Don’t you know there’s a speed limit in this town?”

“If the idea doesn’t appeal to you,” he said, and turned to the door.

“You’re pitching low and inside,” she complained, and then blurted, “Come back here. You know you turn me into cream pudding. Can’t I be sore for a minute first? I haven’t seen you in months. Not even a postcard.”

“I’ve never sent a postcard in my life.” But then he smiled at her. “What would you want with a postcard from a man who was too far away to stick it in you?”

“You’ve got a foul mouth,” she said. “No shit.”

He peeled back his cuff to look at his wrist. “I haven’t got a lot of time.”

“You motherfucking bastard,” Naomi said, and stripped off her dress. He could see dark fluff in the translucent crotch of her nylon panties. She wore no stockings. She unfastened her brassiere, leering at him, doing a stripper’s bumps and grinds; she rubbed her back where the bra straps had welted her. He watched unblinking, savoring the milky full richness of her breasts. They were warm, red-brown-tipped; her body was the kind boys conjured up in adolescent masturbatory fantasies. Her breasts were so engorged, so thrustingly assertive, that it was never possible to look at her or think of her without focusing on them. Naked, she kept her arms wide of those proud organs, as if they were swollen to the point of tender soreness.

The bed, made up for the day with divan throw pillows, waited against the wall. He came to her beside it. She surged her warm breast up full into his palm, meeting his eyes with a sensual smile and quickened breath; she unzipped his fly and put her hand in. He clutched her breast and slid his left hand up her naked back to her neck, and pulled her forward for a kiss. Her lips were moist and parted; she sucked his tongue in her mouth. Her hand caressed his huge muscle-rippled shaft, thick and hard with pumping blood.

She drew back from his kiss and whispered, “You bastard, haven’t you even got time to take your clothes off? Never mind the window-let the voyeurs watch if that’s how they get their jollies. At least take your Goddamn pants off.”

She undid his belt buckle and the fly fastener of his trousers, and laughed at him when they fell down around his ankles. He kicked them away, shrugged out of his suit jacket, and pushed her down on the bed. He came down upon her, his fierce mouth on hers. Her arms came around him; her tongue probed him, her hands glided over his buttocks. He bent his head to suckle her soft white breasts. His rigid hot phallus brushed her thighs and found her ready moistness and thrust into her, lunging. She clung to him furiously, sweat-slick and arching herself ecstatically. He plunged and twisted, a hungry strong animal, mauling her around the narrow bed. As her flesh beneath him began its anguished tumultuous throes of completion, he was thinking of tomorrow night, his dinner date with Diane Hastings. Then his own excitement quickened, and he spurted himself into her. A shuddering sigh, and she clutched him tight, her eyes closed, her fingernails sharp against his back, scratching through the silk of his shirt.

Tension went out of his fibers. He lay across her, limp, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing under him. After a moment he got up.

She opened her eyes and frowned. He went into the bathroom, spent two minutes, and came out again to put on his pants. Naomi got off the bed, not speaking, not even looking at him; she pulled her panties up and stooped, making herself round-shouldered, to fit her spectacular breasts into the twin hammocks of her bra, hitched it into adjustment, and straightened, elbows spread-eagled, to snap it behind her.

He got into his jacket and straightened his tie, went to the mirror to comb his hair, and heard her say to his back, “Are you still rich?”

“Sure.” He turned around to regard her. “You always go with the winner, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What if I go broke?”

“Then I’ll find another winner.”

He smiled. “Anyhow, you’re honest. I’m still rich. Do you need money?”

“I always do. It takes me ten weeks to write a book, and I only get a fifteen hundred advance on it.” Her mouth twisted, and she added, “Just put it on the bed. That’s the way they do it, isn’t it?”

“Don’t get sour, I only asked.”

She said, “When I was thirteen I laid my best girl friend’s old man. I guess I’ve always been a whore. But not for money, Mace. Always for free, for fun. Once in a while they give me something-a bracelet or a watch. But it’s not pay. I never take pay. The difference may not look very important to you, but it does to me.”

He said, not caring, “I understand. All right, you don’t want anything right now, because that would be too much like taking pay. Suppose we have dinner together, say Thursday night.”

For some reason he sensed but did not comprehend, she gave him an enraged scowl and turned her back, folding her arms. She said in a low tone, “When you invite a girl to dinner, at least you could look as if you cared which way she’ll answer.”

“I don’t make invitations unless I mean them.”

“You could look a little less bored.”

“Suit yourself, then,” he said indifferently, and opened the door.

When he glanced back, she had turned to watch him; her eyes were too wide and too bright. She said, “God damn you, you think you can come and go like a subway train.”

He made no answer; he pulled the door shut and walked to the elevator.

He emerged from the narrow apartment building onto a Greenwich Village street and looked around, planning to ambush a taxi before he saw the limousine and remembered that Sanders was driving him today. He crossed the curb diagonally and got into the luxurious back seat. Sanders had the engine idling and the air-conditioning on; it was cool but stuffy in the Cadillac.

Sanders, via the rear-view mirror, gave his cowardly apologetic smile and said, “Where to?”

“Hackman’s office.”

“Yes, sir.” Sanders looked over his shoulder at the traffic and eased out into the flow. Villiers sat back and frowned at the back of Sanders’ billiard-ball head.

They stopped for a traffic light, and Sanders cleared his throat. “Sir…”

“What is it?” Villiers snapped.

“My mother, sir. She’s ill, and I was wondering if you’d be needing me for the evening. I mean-”

“I may need you. I’ll let you know.”

“Yes, sir.” The traffic began to move, and Sanders turned into Seventh Avenue and manhandled the limousine through heavy traffic past St. Vincent’s Hospital, heading downtown toward the financial district.

Tod Sanders was becoming an annoyance, Villiers thought. For a while it had amused him to put Sanders through hoops.

Ten blocks farther downtown, Sanders said again, “I’m not looking for a chance to goof off, sir. She really is sick. My mother, I mean. I wish I hadn’t brought her down here from Canada. You know, this stinking hot wea-”

“Shut up,” Villiers said. “Nothing runs out of listeners faster than a hard-luck story. You ought to’ve learned that by now.”

“Yes, sir. I suppose. Mr. Villiers, why is it things like this never bother you? What’s the difference between you and me?”

“Difference? I dominate my world, Tod. Your world dominates you. Now, shut up, I’ve got thinking to do.”

But the back of Sanders’ head was an irritant that badgered him and kept him from concentrating. Memory took Villiers back to the Alaska oil fields two years ago, when he had met Sanders. He had thought he’d known the man from the past, but Sanders had refused to answer to the name Villiers had addressed him by. Sanders had been a petroleum engineer, thought to be very bright by the oil company that employed him. Thinking Sanders might be of use to him, Villiers had investigated-and found out that the youth he had once known in Chicago had fled a hit-and-run homicide charge and disappeared.

He had confronted Sanders with it, broken him down with ridiculous ease, and used him to obtain inside information from the oil company, which he had been in the process of raiding.

Tod Sanders was a small shy man with inky fingernails and a hangdog face. A thirty-four-year-old mama’s boy whose mother became ill every time he got serious with a girl. It had aroused Villiers’ interest, as a coolly scientific experiment, to see how far the man could be pushed without stiffening to retaliate. Evidently there were no limits to the degradation he was willing to suffer. He had been convinced from the moment he was born that the world was too much for him, and Villiers’ harsh treatment of him only provided him with added evidence of that which he was already convinced of. Sanders had become Villiers’ valet, chauffeur, shoeshine boy, and memo pad; he spent his scuffling hours arranging hotel rooms and procuring women for Villiers. He didn’t object to any of it. Sanders never seemed to be taxed by any desire to ask himself why he had to be subjected to such degrading ignominy; and because he was so unresisting, Villiers was sick and tired of baiting him.

By the time the limousine reached Hackman’s building, Villiers had forgotten Sanders; he was thinking about bigger things.

The car slid in at the curb, and Villiers glanced upward past the tall buildings at the thick sky which hung heavily masked in vapor. The traffic of pedestrians was a morass of hot bodies, tramping gray sidewalks and narrow streets in an area where every square foot of ground was worth more than six hundred dollars.

Hackman and Greene were on the nineteenth floor of a building which hadn’t been there three years before. The modern reception foyer reminded Villiers unfavorably of the waiting room of an airport. Beyond lay a collection of cubicles with desks, phones, and typewriters, inhabited by junior salesmen and brokers, secretaries, and the clerical staff. The firm boasted an English receptionist with high breasts and a good London accent, an elegant letterhead on twenty-weight linen bound stationery, and an acronymous cable address for clients abroad.

George Hackman, one of the big beefy hucksters of Wall Street, was standing by the receptionist’s pretty shoulder, leaning forward, with her telephone at his ear. He nodded to Villiers and went on talking into the phone-evidently the call had caught him here and he had taken it rather than go back to his own desk. Talking and listening on the phone, Hackman was jotting with his left hand in a brass-framed calendar pad on the receptionist’s desk. Villiers noticed Hackman’s brawny forearm brushing the receptionist’s breast as he wrote. The girl had a pretty face but sat with spreading heavy buttocks; Villiers wondered dispassionately why she didn’t wear a girdle.

Villiers went to the window beyond and looked down at tiny New Yorkers crawling painfully across the hot pavements.

George Hackman said into the phone, “Bet your ass, Carl. You heard right, Continental’s buying them out. It can’t help but jack up Reuland Express, and Jackson’s gonna suffer from the competition, with all that new capital behind Reuland. So what happens, you go long on Reuland, and you sell Jackson short, got it?… Sure, just give me the word. All right, then, five hundred of each. See you, Carl baby.”

Hackman handed the phone to the English girl, leered at her, and walked over to Villiers to clap him on the arm; he said heartily, “How they hanging, Mace?”

Villiers gave him a cool stare. Hackman swallowed his smile and backed up a pace. Over his shoulder he said, “No calls and no visitors until I let you know otherwise,” to the receptionist, and steered Villiers back along a corridor toward the door to his private office.

“Sidney Isher’s already here,” Hackman said. Villiers went into the office and saw Isher in a chair. The lawyer nodded his red head and coughed. Hackman shut the door behind them and went around to sit behind his desk; he said, “How’d you like the new girl out front, Mace? Class with a capital ‘K,’ boy. She’s a pistol. Christ, I love to watch the way she shifts her carriage.” Hackman grinned and stuck a cigar in his mouth.

Villiers sat down and looked at him, not speaking. Hackman was big, meaty, hearty, with a broad red-brick face lined with broken commandments. He spoke with the rapid-fire delivery of a used-car salesman. He was the kind of man who believed his life could be measured by his number of old buddies and by his possessions, inside tips, and the athletic accomplishments of his adolescence. He was an after-office-hours alcoholic, casually unfaithful to his third wife, a former showgirl. He lived a lusty routine and threw rowdy parties in his suburban home. Isher had once described him to Villiers as a golfer who lied about his score at the nineteenth hole; it was an accurate thumbnail description.

Seated in an enormous leather chair behind his desk, Hackman pushed the office intercom button and said, “Honey, never mind that stuff on cocoa futures till later, I’ll be tied up for a while. Go powder your snatch if you want.” He flicked the intercom off and sat back to light his cigar. “Christ, Mace, long time no see. How’sa Canadian operations? Jesus, I may move up there myself pretty soon; I tell you, they’re running us out of business down here in the Street. The Goddamned Stock Exchange reduced our brokerage fees on big-block trades, down five percent. Going to cost me six thousand dollars in commissions this year.”

Villiers opened his mouth and said mildly, “Spare me your ululations, George.”

“The hell. Some broker down on the twelfth floor jumped out his window last week.”

Villiers shrugged. “Financial wounds aren’t fatal. I’ve never understood bankrupts’ suicides.”

Hackman exhaled a diaphanous cloud of smoke. “Country club had an antique-car auction last weekend. There was a 1913 Rolls Royce landaulet that went for twenty grand. I thought of you.”

“I know the car,” Villiers said. “I didn’t come down here to talk about it. What’s the market on Melbard?”

“The stock’s moving around a little. Up a quarter, down an eighth-I imagine it’s a few casual boys moving in, selling short, and buying it back half a point below, pushing it up and selling it again. Nothing to worry about. It’s all small stuff.”

Sidney Isher cleared his throat and remarked, “Nobody’s onto you, yet.”

Hackman said. “I sounded out a bank about underwriting the Nuart Galleries if they go public. They like it. The boy I talked to seemed to think the issue will be oversubscribed the minute it goes on the market. You ought to open with a nice premium, one-fifty or two dollars.”

Villiers said, “How much will they be getting?”

“The underwriters? Two and three-quarters percent, and options on ten thousand shares at two bucks above par.”

“All right,” Villiers said, without excessive interest. “I’m having dinner tomorrow with Mrs. Hastings. You’ll have word from me next morning, either way. She’ll probably come along.”

“Meaning she’s a woman,” Hackman observed. “You do have a way with them.”

“When you get word from me,” Villiers told him, “I want you ready to roll fast. Tell the underwriters to give it a good hard sell, like bond salesmen. And we’ll want to put out a nice slick report full of color photographs and expensive artwork on the heaviest coated stock you can buy. We’ll need front men to go out on the circuit, Elks and Lions and Kiwanis and whatever-any of those outfits that need speakers. Send the front men up with literature and lecture material, some off-color stories, plenty of illustrated color slides to sell the company. I haven’t got a year to get this one off the ground.”

“That’s why I picked Fleischer’s bank,” Hackman said. “They’ve got a network of correspondent firms. They’ll get the thing moving all over the country. But of course you realize we can’t tell how it’ll really go until we run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes.”

Sidney Isher made a face.

Hackman added, “It’s a fluid situation, Mace.”

“Don’t give me that crap.”

Isher said, “A fluid situation is what you drown in, George.”

Hackman flushed and puffed rapidly on his cigar. After a moment he said, “Not to change the subject, but I made contact with Colonel Butler for you-you know, the president of Heggins Aircraft. You said you wanted to talk to him.”

“I know what I said. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what he said?”

“I was coming to that.”

“Anytime you’re ready, George.”

“You don’t have to get sarcastic. Listen, I had a hell of a time reaching the son of a bitch. He’s always off on safari someplace collecting big-game trophies. I got him between planes last week. Told him what you told me to tell him. I’m not sure it worked. He thinks-”

Villiers said, “If Colonel Butler thought anything, he wouldn’t be a colonel.”

“Don’t underestimate him. He’s a retired colonel, but that doesn’t make him senile. He’s maybe fifty-two or — three and he acts like one ballsy tough bird.”

“It’s a bluff,” Villiers said. “He’s on the ropes and he knows it. But you still haven’t told me whether you set up a meeting.”

“I tried to have him here this afternoon-he’s in New York right now. He wouldn’t go for it. I needled him a little, and he finally admitted he didn’t want to be seen going into a business meeting with you. Nothing personal, Mace, but you know you do have a rep. A guy with Butler’s defense contracts on the line can’t afford to be seen at a conference with you.”

Villiers gave no indication whether or not he felt slighted. He said, “You’re hanging onto the punch line. What is it?”

“Well, I said suppose I could arrange a meeting on neutral ground where it would look accidental and nobody’d think anything of it. He didn’t say no, so I told him I’m having a party tonight at my place, which is true. There’ll be plenty of people there for camouflage. He said he’d come. He didn’t sound too happy about it but I dropped the hints you told me to drop, and he won’t ignore them. He won’t be able to let them alone-he’ll have to pick at it until he finds out what you want and what he can get out of it.”

Villiers said, “I detest parties.”

“What the hell do you want from me? I should set up a meeting in the bus-station restroom? Look, all you got to do is show up, mingle a few minutes, and go back to the guest bedroom. He’ll join you there, and you can lock the door from the inside, get your business done, and leave. I went to a lot of trouble to set this up, Mace. How about it?”

“I suppose so. But try to be less clumsy next time.”

Pleased with his success, Hackman sat back grinning, ignoring the chastisement. “Yes sirree Bob.” He opened the lid of his cigar box and pushed it forward. “Help yourself. Real Cuban Upmanns-cost me a hundred bucks from a U.N. diplomat.”

Villiers ignored the offer. Sidney Isher said abruptly, “I’ve kept my mouth politely shut through all this, but I’d be obliged if you’d let me in on it. What’s all this about Heggins Aircraft and the colonel? It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Elementary tactics,” Villiers said, not smiling. “Heggins has been in trouble for years. They brought in Colonel Butler a few years ago in the hopes he could swing Air Force contracts their way. He did, but that was some time ago, and the contracts are running out. The Pentagon’s changed its policy since then-there aren’t any negotiated contracts anymore, it’s all competitive bidding now, and Heggins is too loaded with sloppy management to be able to underbid the big companies. They’ve put in sealed bids that are due to be opened next week on two new VTOL planes, but they’re not likely to get the contracts, and even if they do, they’ll lose money in production. The company’s on the verge of collapse any way you look at it.”

“And?” Isher said.

“And I step in with an offer to bail the colonel out.”

“What the hell for?”

“To get my hands on a Big Board company name. Heggins is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.”

“Maybe, but it’s hardly what you could call gilt-edged. I don’t get it,” Isher said.

“You don’t have to,” Villiers said.

Isher cleared his throat to speak again, but Hackman frowned at him with a warning shake of his head. Isher dropped the subject, displaying his pique with a brief catarrhal bark, and reached into his briefcase. “About the Nuart Galleries business, Mace, were you apprised of the fact that Mrs. Hastings would save a good chunk of money if you were to buy into Nuart with stock instead of cash? If it’s a share-for-share trade, you avoid personal tax, both for Mrs. Hastings and yourself.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“I just want to make sure I understand the deal. You’re going to back Nuart with your own capital when she goes public?”

“Naturally.”

“Will Mrs. Hastings realize that?”

“She’ll realize however much is necessary for her to realize,” Villiers said. “Leave Mrs. Hastings to me.”

“Gladly. But inasmuch as you’re dealing with Elliot Judd’s daughter, it’s my opinion your scheme has the smell of insanity.”

Villiers said quietly, “Thank you for your candor, Sidney.”

Isher shrugged. “You’re made out of poured concrete, aren’t you? All right, be it on your head. Back to the matter at hand-”

“No,” Villiers said. “I’ll make one thing clear. We’re going into this to get control of Melbard, not Nuart Galleries. I have no intention of taking over Mrs. Hastings’ business-only taking over her controlling interest in Melbard when she obtains it. You follow me? She’s only the middleman in this. The Melbard stock goes through her hands into mine, that’s all. That’s the way you’ll set up the legal documentation with her, once I’ve sold her on the program. I don’t want to leave any openings for her to get suspicious that I’m trying to get my hands on her God damned art business. What the hell would I do with an art business?”

George Hackman said, “Okay, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Where do you get the capital? Money’s tight.”

“We issue stock and exchange it for the Melbard stock, through Mrs. Hastings.”

“What stock do we issue?”

Villiers said, “I’ve got a Maryland insurance company that’ll do the trick. We’ll issue the stock as part of the terms of an exchange-merger-on paper it will be a merger with Nuart Galleries, but you’ll arrange that the actual exchange is for Melbard shares. Since the stock’s to be issued by the insurance company as part of the terms of a merger, it won’t have to be registered as a public offering.”

“Memorize that,” Isher said to Hackman, “and then throw your head away.” He had a sharp, irritating laugh, like a small dog’s yapping.

“Piece of cake,” Hackman remarked. “It’s beautiful. Melbard’s unlisted. Insiders and control stockholders don’t have to reveal their trading in the stock, which you’d have to do if it was listed.”

Villiers said dryly to Isher, “Give that man a raise.”

Hackman guffawed. “Aw, shit, you don’t-”

“I mean it,” Villiers said. “We’ll put you down for a bonus commission on this job.”

“Well-Christ, thanks, Mace, I mean-”

“Don’t thank me. The more you stand to make, the more you’ve got to lose if you louse it up.”

“Yeah. But thanks anyway. God knows I can use it.”

Villiers glanced at Isher. “That’s all for you for today. I’ll call you day after tomorrow, after I’ve seen Diane Hastings. We’ll want the articles of incorporation drawn up for Nuart by then.”

“Forty-eight hours? You’re moving too fast.”

“Maybe by your clock. Not by mine. Keep your staff after hours if you need to.”

“Is next week a holiday, or what? Christ, we’ve got to go through the Corporation Commission, X and Y and Z and divers others. You can’t just-”

“Don’t bitch, Sidney. Just do it.”

“Will you listen to me, Mace?”

Hackman said, “What’s to listen? You heard the man.”

“I want no lip from you, George.”

Hackman grinned at Villiers. “Mace, don’t give it another thought. He just likes to go on record with a few complaints. He’s a smart Jew-he’ll get it done.” Then, seeing the sudden shift of Isher’s expression, he said hastily, “What I meant to say, Sidney-”

Isher snapped, “You don’t need an interpreter. You made yourself clear the first time.”

“For God’s sake, I was only-”

“All right, shut up, both of you,” Villiers said, without raising his voice.

Isher was on his feet. “I’ll need the information on that insurance company.”

“Tod Sanders has it down in the car.”

“All right. You’ll call me and let me know how it went with Mrs. Hastings.” Without further talk, Isher left the office.

When the door closed, George Hackman chuckled. “Time you’re through, you’ll be able to drive your Cadillac right through Melbard’s board of directors. Christ, I don’t know how you do it. You’ve got a thousand-volt charge keeps you running, I swear-you’re a thirty-six-hour-a-day man. Nobody keeps up with you, do they? Watch out galloping senility don’t catch up with you by the time you’re forty.”

Villiers watched while Hackman went to the door, opened it, and looked out, then closed it and went back to his desk, saying, “He’s a sensitive son of a bitch, ain’t he? What the hell did I say that got him up on his high horse?”

“It wasn’t what you said. It was the way you said it.”

“Christ, you’d think I was anti-Semitic or something. Thin-skinned bastard.”

“George,” Villiers muttered, “I couldn’t possibly care less. Don’t parade your wounds in front of me, it’s a matter of no interest. Let’s get down to cases-you were supposed to have some private detectives’ reports for me.”

Hackman tilted the cigar in his teeth. “That’s all set. Hell, it’s open and shut-the cat’s in the bag, and the bag’s already on its way to the river.”

“Quit bragging and spell it out.”

Hackman halved his smile. “All right. Your boy’s a kid named Steve Wyatt, one of the portfolio managers over at Bierce, Claiborne amp; Myers. You wanted a man with a respectable name who could be controlled. He’s it. Young and fast, and he plays pretty loose. He’s what you might call a high-society black sheep-if your name’s Wyatt it means you can hobnob with Phippses and Cabots, it’s a wealth-symbol name, but Wyatt’s father was a klutz who spent the whole damned family fortune, or otherwise separated himself from it. Mostly in the twenty-nine crash, of course, but it had help from him. The Wyatt kid’s got the name but not the substance-he’s out to regain the family’s lost wealth any way he can, so he can resume his proper place in the scheme of things and mingle with the kind of people he thinks he deserves to mingle with. He’s got most of the credentials for it-fancy prep school and a Yale degree, you’ll find it all in the file.”

Hackman opened a desk drawer, withdrew a folder, and pushed it across the desk. Villiers reached for it. “I’ve got no use for Yale men.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’ve got no sand. Will you go on?”

“Okay. I went into this in considerable detail after I heard from you last month. I think Wyatt’s the one we want. We looked over quite a few, believe me.”

Villiers leafed through the file, not making any pretext of reading it. “How reliable is this information?”

“Impeccable. Ironclad. I had eight private dicks on it for a month. You’ll get the bill.”

“How did a man with his record get a job with Howard Claiborne?”

“It’s all in there. Family connections. Wyatt’s mother’s related to Claiborne, cousin or something.”

With more vehemence than he usually displayed, Villiers said, “I don’t trust anybody whose family put him where he is.”

“What’d I do, step on a sore bunion? Listen, if you wanted somebody trustworthy, you wouldn’t be able to use him. Wasn’t the idea for me to find somebody who’d be willing to sell out? What are you worried about? You can buy him, and he’ll stay bought-you’ve got enough in that file to make him jump through hoops.”

“All right.”

“You want me to interview him, or do you talk to him yourself?”

“I’ll talk to him.” Villiers looked at his watch. “It’s almost four. Get him over here in twenty minutes.”

“That may be a little rough-”

Villiers lifted his eyebrows. Hackman swallowed the rest of his statement, swiveled in his chair, and reached for the phone. He spoke into it briefly and hung up. “He probably won’t come on such short notice.”

“When you get him on the line, I’ll talk.” Villiers sat back and opened the file folder. “Then I’ll want a private office where I can study this before he gets here.”

“I’ll fix something up.” The phone buzzed; Hackman grunted into it, pushed a button, and said, “Wyatt? This is George Hackman of Hackman and Greene-that’s right. Can you hold on one second?”

Hackman cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and nodded. Villiers got up and reached across the desk for the phone.

“Wyatt? My name’s Mason Villiers, possibly you’ve heard of me.”

“Sure. Nice to talk to you.” The voice was young, well modulated, with quick delivery and a slight snappish arrogance.

Villiers said, “There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you that may be to the advantage of both of us.”

“Me? Are you sure you’ve got the right boy, Mr. Villiers?”

“Quite sure. I’m at Hackman’s office, you know where it is. Be here in twenty minutes.”

“Well,” Wyatt’s voice said, and after a beat added, “it’s kind of rough right now-I’ve got an appointment.”

“Break it.”

“I really can’t-”

Villiers cut him off. “Among the items I want to discuss with you is a woman named Sylvia.”

There was a long silence, at the end of which Steve Wyatt said in a different voice, “I’ll remember this, Villiers.”

“I’ll see that you do. Be here in twenty minutes.” Villiers handed the phone back to Hackman, who hung up, his face twisting up in spasms of soundless laughter.

Hackman said, “He’ll be here, just as sure as there’s a hole in his ass.” It was wasted on Villiers, who had gone back to reading the file. Hackman said less firmly, “Well, then, uh-suppose I leave you here to read that? I’ll be out front.” When Villiers didn’t respond, he left.

At six minutes past four the door opened and Hackman admitted the young man to the office.

Villiers looked up without hurry. The young man stood motionless just inside the door. He was handsome in a tennis-bum fashion-thin nostrils, large clever eyes, sandy hair brushed to one side, shaggy but carefully groomed sideburns and hair fluffing out fashionably over the back of his suit collar. He had a long, spare, sinewy body which looked neat in a lean dark suit, deep blue shirt, and modishly wide blue tie. Roman-coin cufflinks and soft expensive shoes. The suit, Villiers guessed, was a Dunhill-maybe five hundred dollars.

Villiers did not rise; Steve Wyatt did not offer to shake hands. He slid his cool glance past George Hackman and brought it to rest on Villiers. Villiers’ hard eyes penetrated him, sizing him up. “All right, you’ve had your look. I’m Villiers. Sit down.”

Steve Wyatt settled into a chair beyond the corner of Hackman’s desk. “I’m listening.”

Villiers opened the folder. “You know who I am and what I do. I’m-”

“What’s that?” Wyatt interjected. “The story of your life?”

“Not mine. Yours.”

Wyatt snorted.

George Hackman said, “Think again, boy. We’ve investigated you right down to the price you pay for pants and the brand of gin you drink and the number of women you balled in nineteen-sixty-two.”

Wyatt bridled. “What is this? Some sort of blackmail? You’ve come to the wrong store to make that kind of buy. I’m not rich.”

Villiers shook his head. “George, suppose you go outside.”

“But I-”

“It’ll be better if there are no witnesses to this conversation. Better for me and better for Wyatt.”

“Oh-all right. I get you.” Hackman got out of his swivel chair and went.

When the door closed Steve Wyatt lifted a flat cigarette case from his inside pocket, selected a cigarette, and lit it in the manner of an actor. Squinting through the smoke, he said, “What’s this all about?”

Villiers closed the file and set, it down beside his chair. “You’re twenty-eight years old, not married, no close surviving family except your mother, Fran Wyckliffe Wyatt. You-”

“Why tell me what I already know?”

“To convince you I’m not bluffing. You went to the right schools as a child, the right summer camps, the right birthday parties and dancing classes and tennis lessons and ski resorts. You marched with the Knickerbocker Greys; you graduated with gentlemanly marks from Hotchkiss and Yale, where you made Skull and Bones, and in nineteen-sixty-four you made a good showing in the Bermuda Cup Race sailing a boat that belonged to a second cousin of your mother’s. You’re a fair shot with a skeet gun, a good horseman and beagler, and a fair if casual hand with a tennis racket. You’re a good swimmer. You can hold up your end of a conversation, whether it’s opera, pop art, stock market, or who’s who. It’s only natural, because you come from a family that represents the luster of aged vintage money, if not the money itself. You’re poor, and your mother is poor. You’ve always been a hanger-on, living off relatives. When-”

“All right, all right. You said you wanted to talk to me about someone named Sylvia. I don’t know any Sylvia.”

Villiers shook his head with a mild grimace. “That won’t do, and you know it.”

“I tell you, the only Sylvia I ever heard of was Sylvia Ashton Warner, and I never met her. Sylvia Sidney, maybe? I never met her either.” Wyatt had a glittering smile and a quick glib-ness. His accent was the kind of maloccluded patois spoken by some of the upper crust who had obviously been taught as children to speak with pencils clenched in their teeth.

Villiers said, “If the name meant nothing to you, you wouldn’t have hurried over here. Forget it, you’ll only waste both our time by stalling.”

“I tell you I-”

“Sylvia Hunter, now deceased, was the alcoholic wife of a real-estate financier named Farris P. Hunter. Her life was a textbook history of notoriety and divorces punctuated by psychoanalysis, tranquilizers, and a parade of gigolos, of whom you were the last.”

Wyatt’s eyes were bright with venom. He spoke without bothering to pry his lips apart, “You fucking bastard.”

The phrase was, in a sense, a literal description of Mason Villiers. He didn’t respond to it. What he said was, “I’ll finish this, and then you can get the wisecracks off your chest. When you graduated from Yale you spent two years drifting the international watering places, worming your way into jet-set cliques as a professional guest, bed partner, and mascot with your brassy line of patter and your well-developed seductive talents. You cut a swath with eight or nine society wives and too many unmarried girls to count-I have a sampling of names and dates here if you want them, but it’s not necessary right now-incidentally, if you’ve got a microphone on you, you’ll find this conversation has been jammed to jibberish.”

“I’m not wired for sound,” Wyatt growled. “Go on-you’re doing the talking.”

“You met Sylvia Hunter in nineteen-sixty-four, in Biarritz. You ripened the acquaintance in sixty-five, when you made it your business to appear in Palm Beach at a time when Mrs. Hunter and her daughter were there but Farris Hunter was wintering in New York to take care of his business affairs. The daughter was seventeen, the product of one of Sylvia Hunter’s earlier marriages. Mrs. Hunter was forty-two at that time, plenty attractive from these photographs, in spite of the punishment she gave herself.”

“You had the draft board on your tail at the time, but Mrs. Hunter introduced you to a doctor who told you what drugs to take before your draft physical, so you were classified 4-F and didn’t serve. By this time, of course, you were already living on forgery-you wrote a lot of bad paper against the checking accounts of various people who couldn’t afford to expose you because they couldn’t afford scandals. A bit sordid for a Wyatt, you must admit. I’ve got photocopies of some of the canceled checks here with your forged signatures on them.”

Wyatt jerked violently. The back of his hand struck his cigarette, showering sparks over his pants. He brushed them awkwardly and straightened up, trying to smile; the effect was tremble-lipped, white, ghastly.

“To go on. You ingratiated yourself with Sylvia Hunter, and in the absence of Farris Hunter, you moved into their Palm Beach estate, living ostensibly in a guest house, but actually, of course, sleeping with Mrs. Hunter. But Mrs. Hunter’s daughter was underfoot all the time-Amy. You seduced the girl, of course. Amy was-is-a careless pretty blond who grew up with several stepfathers in seasonal homes in New York, Palm Beach, and the Adirondacks, with the usual visits to Riviera spas. She hated her mother. When you seduced her, she taunted her mother by revealing that she was taking you away from her mother. It was too much for Sylvia. She died of what the doctor friend called heart problems caused by an accidental overdose of reducing pills. The fact is, Mrs. Hunter didn’t take reducing pills, she didn’t need to. Was Mrs. Hunter so enraged by the way you let her daughter capture your attentions that she threatened to throw you out and expose you? And when she threatened you with exposure, did you kill her to keep her quiet? Probably not-and anyhow, I doubt anybody could prove premeditated murder at this late date. But the doctor who signed the false death certificate can be reached, and there’s enough circumstantial evidence lying around to put you in a bad fix if anybody decides to resurrect the case. Any comment?”

Wyatt’s crooked smile slipped. “You’re asking all the questions, and you’re answering them. What am I supposed to say?”

“I’ll go on, then. Mrs. Hunter died. You must have been sick of the kept-man role by then anyway-you could live in style, but you’d never accumulate the fortune you wanted, not even by forgery and blackmail. You’ve always wanted to restore the family fortune.”

Wyatt snorted.

Villiers picked up the folder and turned pages. “In April of nineteen-sixty-seven you persuaded Howard Claiborne, through your mother, to recommend you for an executive training program in a Wall Street firm, not Claiborne’s firm. You spent a year as a trainee, and with your brains and character you were well qualified to become a stock-market swindler. You-”

“You sound like you’re describing yourself.”

“No. I’ve never been a cheap swindler. One thing I learned early-if you’re going to take the risk, you may as well steal big. The penalty’s the same either way if you get caught. That’s something you’ll learn for yourself if you survive long enough.”

Wyatt cocked his head; for the first time, his curiosity seemed stimulated.

Villiers said, “Up to now, what I’ve described is ancient history, for you and for me. I have no interest in it, and I won’t use it unless you force me to.”

“Force you?”

“Let’s pick you up in May of nineteen-sixty-eight, when you went to work in the bullpen at Bierce, Claiborne amp; Myers. Your mother had to work hard on Howard Claiborne to persuade him to take you into his organization. He knew some of your background-he had a vague idea of your history. But you promised that was all behind you. You said you’d just been sowing wild oats, and now you were ready to take on adult responsibility. Claiborne swallowed it, provisionally. Not because he wanted to, but because your mother begged him to.”

“Within a year, always keeping your books scrupulously clean, you were made an account executive, and you-”

“Account executive,” Wyatt barked. “A two-dollar name for a ten-cent job. Salesman, that’s all I was.”

“With your ambition, I suppose it was menial. It would have been for me. But it was a leg up, and you used it. You got your chance late last year, didn’t you? You finally persuaded Claiborne to give you a crack at one of his mutual funds. He must have had misgivings, and you must have had your mother bend his ear quite a bit. But finally he let you take over the portfolio of the Wakeman Fund. You started carefully, but it appears it wasn’t long before you were manipulating it like a high-wire juggler.”

“Crap. Prove it.”

“Do you think I can’t? You committed the portfolio deep in Petrol stock, far deeper than Claiborne would have allowed if he’d still been auditing your performance as closely as he did the first year. You used the portfolio to cover your own operations-you bought and sold in the name of the fund, but the trades went into your own dummy accounts. I suspect you must have embezzled from the fund to get it started, but it’s immaterial, and I’m sure you put the money back before anybody could find out. The scheme succeeded spectacularly, and you must have put the money back fast-you didn’t want to get caught out by a minor indiscretion like penny-ante embezzlement.”

“You were deep in Petrol stock. Through the fund, you borrowed heavily to pay for the stock. You pyramided Petrol on factor margins, paying about ten percent cash and borrowing the rest from the factors. You started with ten thousand shares, which you bought for a hundred thousand dollars. It went up a few points, and you took the profits and applied them against the purchase of more stock on the same factored margin. Now you had approximately twenty times your initial cash investment, all tied up in Petrol stock.”

“But then, six months ago, the stock dropped three points, and you had to pony up twenty-five thousand dollars to cover with the factors. You managed to do that, but Petrol kept going down, and you got desperate. You short-sold a block of NCI, hoping to recover there, but NCI went up about three points. So now you had to produce the NCI stocks to cover your short sales, at a higher price.”

“Working through Claiborne’s bullpen, you started a rumor that Petrol’s new Chilean oil field was going to be taken over by the Chilean government. Then you sold ten thousand shares of Petrol short. That worked, didn’t it? There was a plunge, and you stepped in to buy the stock at a lower price and cover your previous short sales. It was a little clumsy, but a good trick, and you got away with it-as far as everyone was concerned but me.”

Wyatt’s cigarette, forgotten in his still hand, had grown a tall ash. He said, “You’d have a hard time proving that story.”

“I can prove enough of it to raise serious questions. I can produce at least four witnesses who’ll testify they heard the rumor first from you. I can see to it that the factoring banks produce their records of the money you borrowed on big margins to pyramid Petrol stock, and I can prove you were selling Petrol short at the same time you were spreading the phony rumor about the nationalization of the Chilean oil field. The lawyers call that manipulation and fraud-they take a dim view of it.”

“You ought to know,” Wyatt growled.

“It’d be pathetically easy to nail you,” Villiers said. “All I’d have to do is blow the whistle. In fact, I don’t even need to do that. All I need to do is see to it that the information falls into Howard Claiborne’s hands. It’ll get you fired on the spot-and unless your portfolios are in perfect shape, which I very much doubt, you can’t afford to have the slightest whisper right now. If Claiborne fires you, he’ll audit your books-and if he finds what I suspect he’ll find, he’ll have to prosecute you.”

Abruptly Wyatt grinned. “You’re slick, you know that?”

“I’m glad you’re impressed.”

“It still doesn’t mean I’ve got anything you want.”

“I didn’t ask if you’re selling,” Villiers said. “What I’m telling you is, I’m buying.”

“Buying what? You know I’m broke.”

“Buying you.”

Wyatt nodded. “Of course. What do you want me to do-and what do I get out of it?”

The youth’s brashness both irritated and pleased Villiers. He said, “I’ll want you to take care of a few chores inside Howard Claiborne’s organization.”

“Such as?”

“I’ll want every piece of confidential information Claiborne has on Heggins Aircraft and certain other stocks. Later on, I’ll want you to plant pieces of information in Claiborne’s files, and spread a few rumors.”

“To affect the market price of some stock?” Wyatt pursed his lips. “You’re after big game, aren’t you? Suppose I say I’m willing-if there’s something in it for me.”

“There will be.”

“Such as?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Villiers murmured. “You’re outside jail right now on my sufferance.”

“I see that. Only I’d be a happier workman if I was sure I’d get adequate pay for the job.”

“We’ll see.”

Wyatt studied him with narrowing eyes and said slowly, “I can compile a dossier on you too, you know.”

It made Villiers smile. “Go ahead and try.”

“You think I can’t?”

“When you get a little older, you’ll learn how to cover your tracks.”

“You must have left a few tracks when you were young, before you had experience.”

“I had experience from the day I was born,” Villiers murmured. “The difference between you and me is, you were born broke, but I was born poor. There’s a hell of a difference, even though you’ll probably never be able to distinguish it. Hell, I was peddling the streets of Chicago when I was eight years old. I state this as advice, not threat-don’t bother trying to dig into my past. You’d be wasting your time.”

“Maybe,” Wyatt said, making his face judicious and noncommittal. “In the meantime, you want everything I can get on Heggins Aircraft, is that it? I’ll have to figure out a way to get at it-it’s not in my department. Any suggestions?”

“You’ll think of something.”

“What if I don’t? What if I can’t bring it off?”

“I don’t think I have to spell it out, do I? Let’s not get tedious.”

Steve Wyatt swallowed. “All right. I’ve never tried spying before-maybe it’ll be amusing.”

“I’m sure it will,” Villiers muttered. “Now, this next is between you and me, and if it goes any further, I’ll have your head in a basket, understand that. Heggins Aircraft isn’t your main objective. What you’re really going to look for is confidential information on Northeast Consolidated Industries. Everything there is-You’ll have to get into Claiborne’s private confidential files. I particularly need to have anything you can get on Elliot Judd.”

“Jesus. You want a lot.”

“With parsley,” Villiers agreed.

“Do you mean personal items on Judd?”

“Anything. His private holdings, his politics, the state of his health.”

“You think he’s not well?”

“Did I say that?”

“It rings a bell,” Wyatt said. “He’s been hidden away on that Arizona ranch for almost a year. He’s about as accessible as Howard Hughes. I may not come up with much.”

“Howard Claiborne’s his broker. He probably knows more about Elliot Judd than Judd’s doctor knows. It will be in Claiborne’s files.”

“Those files are locked up, damn it.”

“Do you think I’d have gone to all this trouble to nail you down if Claiborne’s files were out in the open like merchandise on a dimestore counter?”

“All right-all right. You’ve made your point.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Villiers muttered. Without stirring in his chair, he closed his eyes and said, “You can go.”

“How do I get in touch with you?”

“Through Hackman.”

“How much does he know about this?”

“Best for you to assume he knows absolutely nothing about it. You’ll make appointments with me through Hackman. Other than that, you’ll tell him nothing. You may get instructions from me through him from time to time. If so, don’t argue with him, because he’ll only be delivering messages.”

“I understand,” Wyatt said, and got up. Glancing up at him, Villiers saw he had already gained his resilient composure. Wyatt grinned impudently. “So long.” And left the office.

Villiers picked up the file of investigators’ reports and folded it shut.