Episode on the Riviera Page 5

  “It’s a dirty trick, Conny.”

  “Indeed? My friend, look at yourself, and then look at me. How old are you? Thirty-three or so? Look at your physique and your lean, perhaps handsome, American face. Then look at me, Conny Kamiros. I am fifty-one and not too well preserved a fifty-one at that. Perhaps I spent too many of my earlier years sitting at the card tables, to get proper exercise. So today, when we are rivals for a beautiful woman, you present a considerably better, ah, front, than does Conny Kamiros.”

  “What’s that got to do with collecting that loan on a week’s notice? Besides, the girl is back in London now.”

  The Greek looked at him strangely. “We all have our egos, friend Steve. You strike a man’s ego hard when you take his woman. Very well, you have your comparative youth, I have what everybody knows Constantine Kamiros has — money. In the conflict between two males for beautiful women, we must use what weapons we possess.”

  Steve said stiffly, “I’m sorry I upset you so much, Conny. I, too, in my time, have had my woman taken away from me by a supposed friend.”

  The Greek began to say something, but Steve spoke quickly. “I wasn’t about to beg. Your point is well taken. I don’t hold it against you, Conny, and I’ll either dig up the five thousand or my property is yours. And now I had better round up my good luck charm, before she loses all her coins.”

  He turned to go.

  Conny Kamiros began, “Steve …”

  But Steve Cogswell walked away toward where Nadine was energetically pouring coins into two machines at onces. “Broke yet?” he asked her.

  Her face was nearly as flushed as his became in the excitement of roulette. “Broke?” she said happily. “I’ve never seen machines with such a good percentage. You should see the terrible ones we have in the Country Club back home. I must be fifteen dollars ahead!”

  Steve said, “You really are hot tonight. Let’s not waste it on slot machines. Come on into the gaming rooms and you can place my bets for me. The Tiers de Tout system is going to get the workout of its history.”

  It did. It was fully an hour later that Steve Cogswell, feeling physically limp, emotionally drained from the fast play, totaled up the stacks of chips and plaques before him.

  He said hoarsely to Nadine, “Nearly thirty-five thousand new francs.”

  She whistled softly. “What’s that in coin of the realm of Uncle Sam?”

  “About seven thousand dollars.”

  “Heavens to Betsy,” she said, awe-stricken. “When you came in here you were kidding about winning five thousand dollars. But you did it!”

  He eyed the green-topped table, listening a moment to the croupier’s chanted Faites vos jeux, and moistening his lips. “I’m hot. I suppose I should continue the play.”

  She looked at him from the side of her eyes. “Why did you want to win five thousand, Steve?”

  He grimaced. “I owe it to Conny, in there.”

  She said, “I don’t want to be a dominating female, old chap, but gambling being what it is, I suggest we march into the bar and throw Mr. Kamiros his filthy lucre.”

  But Constantine Kamiros was no longer in the bar, nor evidently elsewhere in the Casino. By the time Steve and Nadine had discovered that, Steve’s playing ardor had left him. He cashed in his chips at the offices in front and was paid in five-hundred-franc notes, which he stuffed into his pocket.

  “I can look Conny up tomorrow,” he said. “Meanwhile, we’re going to throw the biggest celebration the Côte d’Azur has seen for yea many years!”

  “Mister,” she said, matching his exuberance, “you talk me into it!”

  They ate at La Bonne Auberge, on the main Nice-Cannes road, and Monsieur and Madame Baudoin themselves supervised their selection of traditional dishes of the cuisine of Provence and the Riviera, and the wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux.

  Over their table passed bouillabaise, then rouget grilled with fennel, artichokes à la barigoule and Bohémienne de Provence, and finally the goat cheese of Banon with its wild thyme flavor.

  At last, reeling with food, they took off for a tour of the Riviera’s offerings in the way of night life.

  The Candy Club in the Palais de la Méditerranée, in Nice; the Trocadero in Cannes with its La Belle Epoque décor; the Summer Sporting Club in Monaco; and finally the little boîte of Gordon Payant in Juan-les-Pins.

  They wound up holding hands here in the candelit bar as the American Negro folk singer strummed his guitar and in the hushed silence of the tiny place sang in French and English, Spanish and Italian, German and Russian. The songs of little people, of peasant and soldiers, of children and the old, of the lover and the loved.

  After a song there was never applause. The jampacked room resounded intead to the snapping of fingers.

  Nadine was puzzled until Steve explained. This little boîte was in a residential section of town. Neighbors had complained about the noise several years ago when Gordon Payant had first opened up. So the institution of snapping the fingers instead of applauding was inaugurated.

  Payant spotted Steve and called over to him. “Any requests, Mr. Cogswell?”

  Steve waved back. “How about Little Boy, How Old Are You?”

  The singer’s deep voice rendered the strange song with moving effect.

  Little boy, how old are you?

  Little boy, how old are you?

  Why, sir, I’m only six years old….

  They returned finally in the early hours, sleepily, satisfied, the two of them. Steve Cogswell pulled the car into garages of the Pavilion Budapest and turned to her.

  He hesitated, momentarily, before saying, “How’d you like to drop down to the trailer and have a nightcap?”

  “Oh, is that your trailer near the beach? I can see it from the window of my room.” She thought for a moment, only a moment, then said, “That sounds fine, Steve. Excuse the cliché, but I hate to see this night ever end.”

  The half-moon gave some light but Steve took her by the hand to lead her across the lawn and to the path that wandered down the cliffside to where his trailer was parked.

  He felt a thickness in his throat. And she too knew what was ahead and an excitement was growing within her. This time would be different. This time she was calm and collected and knew what she was doing.

  In the small living room of the trailer, he didn’t even bother to switch on the lights. He turned to her and said huskily, “Nadine.”

  His arms slid around her and his lips mashed against hers. Pent-up passion flooded out to meet him, a decade of frustrated desire. As though widely experienced, her mouth opened hungrily and her tongue darted forth to meet his and to kindle flames that roared through them both.

  They sank to the couch, still glued together, and his hands ran over the contours of her body, quickly becoming impatient of her restrictive clothing.

  His hands, ultra-experienced, quickly darted to button and zipper, to clasp and elastic. They were both breathing heavily, urgently. Her own hands began to help his, to fumble with his clothing. Their minds were blank except to their passion, their need for relief from this frantic burning.

  She was murmuring, over and over again, “Yes, yes, Oh, so good. Oh, yes. Please, yes. Oh, darling!”

  And his voice was thick as he whispered endearments and admiration of her femininity. The swell of her rich, naked breasts, the softness of her woman’s belly, the sweeping curve of waist and hips, the smoothness of her long thighs.

  Deep within him he knew that all his worship of her tonight would sour by morning; and deep within him he hated himself for the fact. But there was no turning back. The urgency was all-conquering.

  And then she suddenly squirmed, pressed her hands against his chest, her words of endearment and passion choked off. He was pressing down upon her.

  “No,” she gasped.

  “Darling …” he muttered, unconscious of her changing reactions.

  “Oh, no!” she said tightly. There was horror in her voice. She pushed
at him. “I … no … don’t … you can’t . .”

  He stared at her, shaken with the suddenness of the reversal of her passion “What is it, darling? What’s the matter? Aren’t you ready?” He began pressing against her again.

  The girl was rapidly descending into hysteria. Her eyes were wide — staring wide. With alarm, with actual terror. She clasped her hands to her naked breasts, trying to cover herself, and from her mouth came meaningless, gibberish.

  “Uncle Nat! Don’t do that … Oh, no, Uncle Nat … Oh, please don’t. I’ll tell father … Don’t hurt me … No … Oh, no”

  Steve came to his feet, stood back. “What’s the matter?” he all but snapped.

  She rose from the couch. In a trice she had gathered her clothing. She scooted around him, like an animal fleeing a deadly foe.

  He put out a hand to detain her — not aggressively.

  But she avoided him, dodged and was through the trailer’s screen door and gone.

  He stared after her retreating figure, running hard for the rock stairway that led to the Pavilion Budapest above.

  Stumbling her way along, half-clothed, sobbing, desperation sweeping her, Nadine’s mind raced her despair.

  Like always before. Like with Roger Stuart. Always the same. Uncle Nat’s drunken face before her. His passion-flushed, drunken face. The pain, the fear, the horror. Like with Roger Stuart. Like with Gerald Silletoe.

  Chapter Three

  Sunday, August 7th

  Gerald Silletoe was seated in one of the two clients’ chairs in the Far Away Holidays office when Steve Cogswell turned up in the morning. He was seated quietly, thumbing through some of the tourist literature which lay on the tiny table which centered the room.

  Steve missed seeing him at first.

  He said to Elaine Marimbert, before she could make with her usual Bon jour, “If there’re any crises today, break them to me gently, honey bun. I don’t know if I’m in a good humor or bad. I’ve been lucky in finance, unlucky in love.”

  Her pert face wrinkled with astonishment. “The great Don Steve, unlucky in love? Incroyable!” But then her delicately plucked eyebrows perked up. “You won at the Casino? Enough?”

  He grinned at her. “Impossible, eh? But the answer is yes.”

  Elaine clucked her pleasure for him. She took a cable. “Only one crisis, this morning, and that’s from London.”

  He read the cable quickly, groaned and closed his eyes. “My God! Ten extra clients next week and I have to find reservations for them by that time. The boss must think this is May, instead of August. You can’t scare up first-class accommodations on the Côte d’Azur this time of the year on five days’ notice.

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do. Maybe the contessa can pack in some of them. Meanwhile, get me Conny Kamiros on the phone, Elaine. Brother, has he got a surprise coming to him, the old louse.”

  Elaine Marimbert cleared her throat. “Monsieur Cogswell, this gentlemen has been waiting to see you.”

  Steve turned and confronted the other, who now came to his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Steve said. “Didn’t see you at all.”

  “It’s all right,” Silletoe said easily. “Could I talk to you alone?”

  Steve looked at him. Obviously an American. Well dressed in the latest sort of thing you saw from Florida and southern California. However, there was a certain something missing in his squarely handsome face. What would you call it? Perhaps a something known as breeding. Snap judgment told Steve Cogswell that the man made a bad first impression — at least he did on Steve Cogswell.

  Steve said to Elaine, “How about going over to the garage and making arrangements for the bus to Nîmes? There’ll be thirty-seven of us in all. I imagine the big Renault will be best, if it’s available.”

  “Okéy,” Elaine said. She darted another quick look at Silletoe as she passed him on the way to the door.

  When she was gone, Steve turned to the newcomer. “What can I do for you, Mr….”

  “Silletoe,” Gerald Silletoe said evenly, almost patiently. “I just arrived this morning. And I don’t like something a … a friend told me.”

  Steve frowned, waiting for the other to get to the point.

  Silletoe said very evenly, “I want you to stay the hell away from Nadine Whiteley, Buster.”

  Steve looked at him. “That’s not quite the way to word it, is it?”

  “That’s exactly the way to word it, Buster.”

  “And why should I stay away from Miss Whiteley?”

  “Because she’s my fiancée, Buster, and I told you to.”

  “I don’t like the tone of your voice, Mr. Silletoe. But besides that, I don’t know Miss Whiteley well enough to have known she was engaged.”

  Inside, Steve was trying to fight off his growing irritation with this aggressive heavy. Heavy was the only term he could think of to apply to the other, who reminded him of nothing so much as a prosperous gangster type in a B movie. He did everything but speak from the side of his mouth.

  “You know her too damn well,” Silletoe said flatly. “I’m going to emphasize what I just told you, Cogswell.”

  He stepped forward so quickly that Steve had time neither to retreat nor erect defenses.

  The heavier man shot his right hand forward, not doubled in a fist, but pointed spearlike. It jabbed with shocking force into the small area on the stomach wall just below the sternum — the solar plexus. Even a trained boxer can be knocked out, on occasion, with a blow to this point, even when delivered with a gloved hand.

  Steve Cogswell was no boxer and the hand was not gloved. The room reeled and turned black. Steve felt another smashing blow to the side of his head, and then he was on the floor.

  He came out of it how many moments later, he didn’t know. Silletoe was nudging him less gently with the toe of his shoe. When he saw Steve shake his head in an attempt to achieve clarity, he said evenly, “Now I’ve warned you politely, Buster. Stay away from Nadine Whiteley. Next time I’ll get rough.”

  He was gone before Steve had recovered to the point of coming to a sitting position and then to his feet.

  He stumbled his way, nausea churning his stomach, to the small lavatory which was the only other room in the Far Away Holidays quarters besides the office. There he washed his face and otherwise cleaned himself up.

  In spite of the pain which still racked his chest, he had to grimace ruefully at himself in the mirror. His luck with Nadine had certainly changed for the worse after she’d helped him win the money at the casino.

  He couldn’t figure Silletoe out. Nadine’s fiancé? It didn’t seem likely. And the man had said he’d just arrived that morning. How could he possibly have heard gossip rumors about Steve and Nadine so soon?

  Not that it was any of his business, confound it. After that performance the girl put on last night, if he never saw her again it would be six months too soon. In the past five years he’d been with some far-out women, but he’d never gone through an experience like the one of last night in his trailer. And to top it all off, here her boy friend had turned up and half-killed him.

  By the time Elaine had returned from the garage, Steve had brushed the dirt from his pants and light jacket to the point where he thought of himself as presentable.

  She said, “I was able to get the Renault. It will be ready immediately.”

  Steve cleared his throat, “Fine,” he said.

  Elaine looked at him, cocking her head to one side. “It would have been more gentlemanly if he had taken off his ring,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “There’s a small triangular cut on the side of your cheek, Monsieur.”

  Steve dabbed at it with his handkerchief, and scowled at her.

  “The price of being a Casanova, no doubt,” Elaine said snidely.

  He ignored her. “Get Conny on the phone for me, Miss Marimbert,” he said.

  She marched around the desk, her hips swaying pertly, and dialed the number. She said,
after a moment, “Mr Kamiros has gone off to Geneva for a couple of days, Monsieur Cogswell.”

  Steve growled, “Nick Lindos will probably do.”

  She spoke into the phone again, then looked up. “Mr. Lindos went with him, Monsieur.”

  Steve swore under his breath. “It’s not important,” he said. “Look, I’d better start rounding up the tourists for Nîmes. Thirty-six of them signed up for the bullfight. Some crazy American kid who’s all the rage down in Spain this year is fighting. Probably get himself gored, the way things are going today, and then all the clients will put a beef in to London that I took them to a gruesome spectacle. Anyway, you stay here and hold down the fort.”

  “How about the night club tour tonight?”

  “I’ll have time to handle that, too. You figure on the tour over to Grasse tomorrow. And have a talk with Pierre Labby in the shop there. That crook is supposed to kick back to me ten per cent of everything my clients spend for his perfume, and he’s been holding out.”

  “Okéy,” Elaine told him. She gave a sly snicker. “The bleeding has stopped, Monsieur Cogswell.”

  “Thanks,” he snarled at her, as he went through the door.

  • • •

  He had forgotten that Nadine Whiteley was one of the tourists who had signed up for the trip to Nîmes and the bullfight. He picked up his contingent at Menton, then at Monaco, and then looked at his list to remind himself whether or not any of the several clients who were staying at the Pavilion Budapest were on this tour. Yes, Nadine was, and a middle-aged Englishman named Farrell. He had the bus driver stop to collect them.

  Actually, until now Steve hadn’t had time to go back over the events of the night before, nor his episode with Silletoe that morning. Aside from a sense of outrage at the unprovoked and deliberate surprise attack, and a desire to meet the man under more satisfying circumstances, he hadn’t analyzed his feelings.

  Nadine and Farrell had been awaiting the bus, sitting in lawn chairs and discussing the bullfight to come. Neither of them had ever attended one. They came to their feet and were ready to mount into the vehicle almost as soon as it had stopped.