1960 when Osman Spagna tapped him discreetly on the shoulder. One look at his expression caused Jordan to rise and follow the short man into the room where he had signed the contract on the villa. Behind him Spagna closed the double doors. Jordan saw before him four of the most influential and wealthy Knights: a Netherlands diamond cartel merchant, an English MP, an American money manager and the president of a South African-Australian metals conglomerate.
'Gentlemen,' Jordan said, approaching them. 'What have we here?' He laughed. 'A meeting of the minds?'
'We fervently hope so, Grand Master.'
They left it to the English MP, which was a bit of a surprise. Jordan had expected the American to be the mouthpiece. But they had opted to take the smooth path, the gentlemanly action.
'We'd like a bit of a word,' the English MP said in his mildest and plummiest tone. 'In theory, we have no problem with the action you've taken-'
'The coup,' the American said, arching forward on the balls of his feet.
'Something stinks in here.' Jordan stared hard at the American. 'Is it a mutiny I smell?'
The MP moved at once to smooth the feathers ruffled by the American's injudicious remark. 'Nothing of the sort, I assure you. We all recognize you as Grand Master, we all believe you're the man for the job.'
Jordan, waiting for the shoe to drop, said nothing. He was good at waiting, better than the four of them put together, he'd wager.
The MP, rail-thin and pasty faced, cleared his throat. 'We do, however, envision a potential problem.'
'A large one,' the American interjected. He was a big, beefy man with a Midwestern accent and the overly aggressive stance of a football thug.
No one was willing to restrain the American, Jordan noticed, which meant he was the designated attack dog. Smart move on their part.
'And that would be?' Jordan said.
'Your mother,' the MP said silkily. 'It's no secret that she's wanted to take control of the Knights. We've tolerated her machinations out of respect for you, Grand Master, but now… now she's inserted herself into the field with Damon Cornadoro, and we wonder… well, we wonder whether she would be playing so active a role in this most crucial venture if she wasn't your mother.'
A stifling silence now descended on the six men. The MP cleared his throat again, someone-the Netherlander perhaps-coughed nervously.
'It was my plan,' Jordan said evenly. 'You're questioning it now?'
'Not at all,' the MP said at once. 'However, reports have come to us of her activities and we think something needs to be done to rein her in.'
'You don't know my mother,' Jordan said.
'On the contrary, I think we know her quite well.' The South African stepped forward, placing a thick dossier on the table. He watched Jordan as he opened its cover. Inside were a series of surveillance photos of Camille and Cornadoro locked in amorous embrace.
After a moment, the MP said, 'This is a dangerous cocktail, Grand Master. Surely you can understand our concern.'
Indeed he could, better by far than any of them. Damn her to hell! With a hand he scarcely felt he pawed through the mess of photos, one more explicit than the next. Careful to keep his expression neutral, he said, 'I appreciate your diligence, gentlemen, but I already know about my mother's indiscretion.' This was a lie, but a necessary one. These men must never know they knew more about his family than he did.
'Surely you can see it's more than an indiscretion,' the MP said.
The American stepped forward. 'I think what you smelled, Grand Master, is a conspiracy between the two of them.'
'I have the situation well in hand,' Jordan said, 'I assure you.'
'Excellent,' the MP said. He was beaming now. 'That's all we needed to know, Grand Master. We'll leave the rest to you.' He pointed to the dossier. 'Rest assured all copies have been destroyed.'
Spagna opened the double doors, the murmur and aromatic smoke drifted in from the larger room, and the four, their business completed, headed briskly for the door. The last of the group was the American. As the others departed, he turned back as if in afterthought and, strolling back to Jordan, whispered so only he could hear: 'You know what you have to do, don't you? What is it the English say?' He grinned. 'Oh, yeah, 'Off with her head!''
Chapter 19
'So how is it with you, son?' Dexter Shaw said.
Bravo looked down, then away. 'Oh, you know. The same.'
'We haven't seen each other in over six months. You've been at Stanford and I've been away.'
Father and son were sitting at an outdoor Burmese restaurant off M Street. It was summer, and Georgetown was cooking. Bravo had come up to see him, and Dexter had taken the afternoon off. That evening, they were scheduled to hear the Washington Philharmonic, sitting in the president's box.
'Anyway,' Dexter went on, 'what I meant was girls.' He sought to catch his son's eye. 'Do you have one-a special one, I mean?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know?' Dexter cocked his head. 'Surely you can't mean that.' Then, after a long beat, 'Ah, I see. You don't wish to tell me. It's all right, Bravo, if you don't want to share-'
'Share? Why should I share?' Bravo blurted out. 'When have you ever shared anything with me?'
Dexter blinked. 'I can think of any number-Anything important, Dad.' Bravo had been unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice, 'And, come to it, when have you ever come out to Stanford-'
'A year ago October, I believe it was.'
'Sure, you were on your way to, where was it?'
'Bangkok.'
'Right, Bangkok. We were going to have lunch, go to the theater. I got tickets, and then-'
'My schedule changed. I told you, Bravo. I'm very sorry, but there was nothing I could do.'
'You could have stayed.'
'No I couldn't,' Dexter replied, 'I don't have that sort of job, I never have.'
Lunch came then, and they both fell silent, grateful for the distraction of eating. Fragrant smoke from the charcoal oven wafted through the leafy garden, strung with colored paper lanterns. Laughter and the murmur of other voices, the clink of tableware against plates, traditionally garbed waitresses silently coming and going.
At length, Dexter put down his fork and said, 'Honestly, I would be interested to hear about anyone special in your life.'
Bravo looked up, and his father smiled at him, an expression that brought him back to when he was younger, to the best days of their relationship. Still, doggedly, he said nothing. He felt keenly the spite his father's on-and-off attention brought out in him, the disappointment at his long absences, his father's refusal to talk about them.
'All right,' Dexter said, 'then I'll tell you about my first love.' He took a sip of beer, his expression turning even more thoughtful. 'She was smart and quite beautiful, but the main thing about her was that she was going out with my friend. I'd met her at a party-a pretty drunken affair-and we'd started talking while my friend was in a stupor, head in the lap of another girl who was also unconscious.
'Anyway, we hit it off. We were both so embarrassed we didn't know quite what to do, for days after walking around in a painfully pleasant haze-you know the sort I'm talking about, neither of us could sleep or eat. All we could think about was, well…
'Finally, we couldn't take it anymore and we met on the sly. Afterward, I wondered whether that was what poisoned the relationship. It was rather fierce, not that it lasted very long, but it felt like forever.'
Dexter's ironlike hands sat atop the table. 'One might have thought that the deceit necessary to sustain the relationship would have worn me out, but, really, that was no problem for me. But what I found out… you see, as
