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The traffic on the San Diego Freeway was backed up as far as Valerie could see in the rearview mirror of her red Ferrari. Five miles ahead, maybe more, the private planes landed at the southernmost part of Los Angeles International Airport. She turned up the classical music station. Vladimir Horowitz was playing Rachmaninoff.
Sitting, stalled in traffic, she watched the temperature gauge on the dashboard quiver upward. Her gauzy white dress clung to the leather of the seat. The engine was making strange popping noises, as if it were about to die.
Valerie glanced at the dashboard clock and checked it against her Piaget watch. The timepiece, with its loose, wide band and tiny diamonds at each number, had been a present from Victor when he returned from Paris several weeks ago. It was nearly three o’clock now, and the company’s 727 jet would be landing. Valerie felt a twinge of anxiety at the thought of being late. She was never late when it came to Victor. She was always there, waiting.
“I’m flattered,” she remembered Victor saying on the phone that morning when Valerie insisted on picking him up. “How long have I been gone? Two days? It must be love.”
“It is love,” she whispered, holding the receiver close to her lips as she pictured the living room of their penthouse in New York City. She visualized the signed antiques, the magnificent Sarouk carpet, the new Renoir already in its ornately carved gilt frame over the mantelpiece, the view of Central Park below. “I start to miss you when I even think you’re going to be out of my sight.”
“After twelve years of marriage?” he gently mocked in his soft, English-accented voice. “That’s quite a testimonial from a former child bride. I miss you, too. So much, darling.”
“We have that benefit tonight at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.”
“I know, I know,” he laughed. “We always have a benefit at the Beverly Wilshire. What’s the disease of the evening?”
“Cystic fibrosis,” she said, “and I have a new dress.”
“I can’t wait to see you in it. I can’t wait to touch you. What time is this thing?”
“The usual. Seven o’clock for cocktails.”
“That will give us a few hours alone, darling. I can’t wait to have you in my arms, to be inside you. I’m barely alive when I’m not with you, Valerie. You know that. I love you.”
A thrill went through her the way it always did when Victor, so proper, so formal, talked about making love to her. Even over the phone he could make her nipples harden, make her ready for him. Newspapers and magazines called theirs a great love affair; they were the perfect couple. Both were tall and slim; elegant and proud. Their colorings complemented each other perfectly. Victor’s hair was dark brown with just a bit of gray at the temples, his eyes a pale blue. Valerie’s hair was so blond it was almost white, cut to perfection like a cap on her small, well-shaped head. Her long, dark lashes framed large eyes that changed from hazel to green, following her moods or the clothes she wore.
When they were sensuously, erotically together, Valerie became so lost in Victor’s pleasure that she felt herself disappear into him. When he was finally spent, lying across her, it was always with a tiny shock that she found herself once again to be a separate body and mind. At those moments, Valerie would stroke his thick, dark hair, run her tongue along the nape of his neck, and think that never could there be another love so perfect, that no woman could feel as tender, trusting toward any man.
Well, Victor would love the way she would look tonight in her new gown, Valerie thought with a smile, remembering her reflection in the huge mirrored dressing room off her bedroom. The gown was glorious, in black silk chiffon with spaghetti straps that showed off her white shoulders, the white swell of her breasts. Below the waist, slight flares flowed in two tiers to the floor.
“It’s perfect,” Mary di Stefano, Valerie’s personal shopper, had breathed. “I knew it would be.”
“I love it,” said Valerie, spinning around. “Victor will love it. Nobody has taste like yours, Mary.”
“I think the emerald earrings surrounded with the diamonds,” Mary suggested. “Maybe nothing around the neck.”
“I thought the pear-shaped diamond drop earrings and the diamond necklace,” Valerie said.
“Which one?”
“The one that hits just below the collarbone, the ten-carat pear-shaped diamond.”
“Oh, right. The one Victor gave you one week ‘just because it was Tuesday.’”
“That one.”
“Your basic black and white?” said Mary doubtfully. “Well, maybe. But I still like the emeralds.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Valerie smiled. “They’re all paste anyway.”
“But great paste,” Mary grinned.
Valerie was still smiling at the thought of the conversation when the Horowitz piece ended and the cultured voice on the radio announced the news.
“A jet has crashed in Mexico in the last half hour,” the newscaster said. “From eyewitness reports, it is believed to have gone down approximately a hundred miles northeast of Acapulco.” Now, as Valerie cut across the lanes of the free-way, the speedometer climbing to sixty-five, seventy, the palms of her hands on the leather steering wheel were damp and her mouth was dry. But it was Acapulco, she told herself firmly, and it couldn’t be Victor.
The roar of a silver jet overhead cut off the newscaster’s words. That would be Victor’s plane, Valerie thought, relieved. She jammed the gears back into second and heard the tires squeal as she hit the off ramp. How she loved to drive. In the cossetted world that Victor had created for her, driving the Ferrari was about the only thing she did in which there was any element of chance.
“None of the airlines with regularly scheduled routes in the Acapulco area is missing an aircraft,” the newscaster continued. “Early reports indicate that the plane may have been illegally transporting drugs from South America.” Drug smugglers, Valerie thought, as the car crept up to the gates of the private section of the airport. Well, you could feel only so sorry for drug smugglers.
As she parked, all she could see were a few corporate Learjets off to the left of the terminal that serviced private planes. On the ground in the distance was a shimmer of silver as Victor’s plane made its final turn to taxi up to the entrance. Members of the ground crew, in orange overalls, waited beside the aluminum stairs. On the field, two chauffeurs in black stood chatting between two white stretch limousines.
Valerie expertly applied a pink lipstick as she studied her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her face was flushed, she saw, which gave her a healthy glow. She looked close enough to the image of the elegant international beauty, Mrs. Victor Penn, to bring that look of pride and even lust to his face. As the jet cut its engines and the ground crew wheeled the aluminum stairs into place, Valerie could almost feel Victor’s arms around her, his cheek pressed against her own.
It took her an instant to comprehend that the plane that had just landed was a DC-9, and that the legend painted on its side read Air Am rather than the familiar Penn International.
So Victor’s plane was a little late, Valerie thought with disappointment as she pushed open the door of the terminal building. Behind a long counter, two men huddled together over the screen of a computer.
“Is anybody home?” Valerie asked brightly, leaning against the counter.
The two men turned.
“Hi, Mrs. Penn,” said the shorter, stocky man.
“Hi, Mike, Kevin. I see Mr. Penn’s plane is late. How soon will it be here?”
“We don’t really know,” Mike said. “There’s some kind of mix-up. We’re working it out with the control tower. The computers have been down and we don’t know where we’re at.” He ran one of his big hands through his hair. “Look, why don’t you come around the counter and sit down. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
Valerie felt her stomach muscles tighten, her mouth go dry again. Her dress suddenly felt wet against her body. “Mike, what seems to be going on?”
Mike was at her side, his hand on her arm, as he led her around the counter and guided her into a chair.
“Maybe you’d better call somebody to come be with you, Mrs. Penn. A relative. Maybe your mother. Is your whole family in England?”
“I’m American,” Valerie said, hearing her voice rise. “I don’t have any family. Just Victor. Mr. Penn, that is. He’s my family. He’s my life.”
“Maybe a friend. Your doctor,” Mike said, pouring her a cup of coffee from an automatic coffee maker. “Surely your doctor would come.”
“Has Victor’s plane crashed?” she asked. “Is that it?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know what to tell you.”
“Well, what do you know? Tell me what you know.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “Everything was just the same as always. A flight plan was filed this morning by the pilot. La Guardia to LAX. The plane took off. And that was that. It just vanished. We haven’t heard from it since. And we’re not talking a Piper Cub here. It’s pretty hard to lose a 727.”
“Could they have been hijacked?” Valerie asked, panicking.
“You know how it is when they board at La Guardia. You do it all the time. The limousine pulls up right next to the plane. The ground crew didn’t notice anything unusual. It was the pilot, the copilot, the flight engineer, the stewardess, Mr. Penn, and that guy he always travels with. The bodyguard, I guess. It was the same as always. Of course, there could have been somebody hiding on the plane, but there’s always a guard posted at the Penn International plane when it’s on the ground.”
“Sometimes the plane stops to pick someone up in Chicago,” Valerie said.
“We’d know about that,” Mike said. “The plane didn’t land in Chicago. It didn’t land anywhere.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “Look, Mrs. Penn. I really think you should call someone. What about one of your girlfriends?”
“There has to be some explanation,” Valerie insisted.
Mike shook his head.
“Call someone, Mrs. Penn. Please. We’ve got a jet that just went down in Mexico, and we’ve got the only plane missing in the world. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe it isn’t.”
Someone had switched on the radio to the news. “Sources have confirmed that a 727 belonging to Penn International, the conglomerate that includes banks and real estate holdings in Europe, South America, and the United States, has not been heard from since it left La Guardia Airport in New York City at ten o’clock this morning after filing a flight plan for Los Angeles. It is believed that Victor Penn, the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate, was on the plane, as well as a four-person crew and a man thought to be Penn’s bodyguard. Authorities at this point refuse to conjecture whether there is any connection between the missing Penn International jet and the plane that crashed within the last hour northeast of Acapulco in Mexico.”
With shaking hands, Valerie picked up the phone on the desk in front of her and sat for a moment, wondering whom to call. The obvious person was Victor’s brother, Raymond. Calling Raymond wouldn’t do her any good right now, she realized. He was in London. It wouldn’t get her home where she could wait for Victor to turn up to straighten out all this nonsense. A friend? She had no friends. There was only Victor, and the people they paid to attend to their needs.
Finally, Valerie called Mary di Stefano at her apartment in Beverly Hills. She felt weak with relief when Mary answered on the fourth ring.
“Mary,” she whispered.
“Oh, God, sweetie. I’ve been hearing it on the news. Where are you?”
“I’m at the airport. I brought the Ferrari, and I don’t think I can make it home.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Maybe it would be a good idea to call Daniel and have him pick you up in the Rolls,” suggested Valerie. “I hope this isn’t too inconvenient, Mary. I really don’t know who else to call.”
“You try to stay calm, and we’ll be there in around a half hour.”
“Thank you, Mary.” It was all a tempest in a teapot, she thought calmly as she replaced the receiver, then leaned forward to let the blood rush to her head. It was just a computer error of some kind. Sitting up, Valerie looked through the window into the bright, sunny sky, willing the speck of silver on the horizon to be Victor’s plane.
Instead, the speck turned into a bulging 747 beginning its descent into LAX, two miles to the north.
2 (#ulink_921a7229-3b03-5cd2-b8dd-5ad468807893)
The Rolls was a ten-year-old custom-made maroon limousine that Victor liked because it gave him room to stretch his long legs. A nineteen-inch color television set had been built into the back of the front seat. The fully equipped bar was for the convenience of guests rather than for Victor and Valerie, who drank only wine or champagne.
Valerie sat stiffly behind Daniel, the chauffeur, her hands folded in her lap, her legs crossed demurely at the ankles. The images on the television screen floated in front of her eyes as if underwater. Regular programming had been interrupted to concentrate on the Victor Penn story. It was as if a president had been assassinated. Valerie felt embarrassed at the thought.
“I’m going to fix us a drink,” Mary said. Without makeup, her hair in a ponytail, wearing a pair of tight jeans and a striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Mary looked more Valerie’s age than her own. Tentatively, she put one tanned hand on Valerie’s arm. It was rigid. She’s like a block of stone, Mary thought.
“I don’t drink.”
“Well, you’re going to make an exception this time, sweetie.” Mary pressed the button that opened the bar and fixed two scotch and waters, heavy on the scotch.
Valerie took the glass from Mary’s hand and made a face as she sipped. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said graciously. “I forgot to thank you.”
Shock, thought Mary, mentally giving herself a pat on the back for calling Valerie’s doctor to meet them at the estate. He could give Valerie a shot and put her out of all of this until tomorrow.
On the television screen, the anchorman discussed the Victor Penn story with the station’s financial analyst.
“What do you think all of this is going to mean to the financial community, Jim? Where does Victor Penn stand?”
“Well, some say he’s one of the two or three richest men in the world,” said the financial analyst. “The Penn operation is international, with banks in London, Paris, New York, the Bahamas, Luxembourg. They’ve diversified into mining in South Africa, cattle ranches in Argentina, fish canneries in Alaska, all sorts of things. Since it’s a privately held company, there’s no way to know for certain.”
“But he’s certainly very much on the scene here in Los Angeles, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, yes. Victor Penn is a prominent philanthropist. He supports a dozen charities, and it’s said that he’s even more active anonymously, behind the scenes.”
“So if it’s true that Victor Penn has been killed in a plane crash, it would be a real loss.”
“Well,” the analyst said, hesitating, “there have been some ugly rumors in recent months about Penn International. There’s been talk in the financial community that federal bank examiners are about to step in to take a look at the whole operation. It’s also said that they are asking foreign governments to cooperate.”
“What sort of rumors?” the anchorman prompted.
“The talk is that the Penn International banks have been lending vast sums to its other companies, sums that run as much as a thousand percent more than their assets, for example,” he replied. “Once this sort of thing starts, there’s a snowball effect. For instance, some of the uglier rumors are that the Penn bank in the Bahamas has been used not only to launder drug money, but also to launder money paid as ransom in terrorist kidnappings all over the world.”
“The disappearance of the plane carrying Victor Penn sounds like more than a coincidence then, wouldn’t you say?” asked the anchorman.
“It certainly seems suspicious.”
“Just who is Victor Penn? We’ll be right back after these messages.”
“How dare they talk about Victor like that,” Valerie said in a low voice, her eyes blazing. “Victor is the sweetest, dearest, most open man in the world. His integrity is more important to him than anything else. They’re a bunch of hyenas.”
“It happens every time, sweetie,” said Mary, between sips of her drink. She wondered if this meant the end of her hefty yearly salary, the end of all those delicious kickbacks from the stores where she shopped to dress the wife of Victor Penn. “They’ll always get you when you’re down. Nobody knows that better than I do.”
“Victor’s lawyers are going to have a field day with the slander suits,” said Valerie, her jaw tight.
“Did you know about this? That the government is sending the bank examiners in?”
“It’s a lie,” Valerie said firmly. “Victor is above reproach.”
On the screen, the visuals profiling Victor Penn began with file footage of Victor and Valerie at various charity events. Valerie in a white, beaded Givenchy, her diamonds glittering at her throat, with a tall, handsome Victor, his hand possessively on her arm, bending down to whisper in her ear. Valerie in a flame red Galanos, with Victor smiling dazzlingly into the camera and running a hand through his hair. Valerie, draped in full-length Russian sables, reaching up to kiss Victor on the cheek, his expression both proud and embarrassed. Then came the earlier films, of the brief time they had lived in their New York penthouse, of the many years in London. Victor and Valerie, each holding one of their newborn twins, beaming as they stepped off the aluminum stairs leading down from the Penn International jet. Valerie as a bride in a white gown with a cathedral-length train, a white veil covering her pale hair. She and Victor were on the steps of Saint-Ange in Paris, the first couple to be married there since well before the French Revolution. It had been Victor’s decision, of course. Victor had always wanted to be married at Saint-Ange.
The commentator resumed his voice-over. “Ever since Victor Penn appeared on the banking scene in the mid-fifties, he has been a man of mystery in international financial circles. Starting in London, Penn gained an impressive reputation in the community, entertaining lavishly at his Regent’s Park estate, or at his country estate in Sussex where the cream of London society often enjoyed hunt weekends, and where musical evenings featured such stars as Maria Callas, Arthur Rubinstein, and Jascha Heifetz among others. In 1973, Victor Penn married eighteen-year-old Valerie Hemion, a music student and the American-born niece of Lady Anne Hallowell, in a sumptuous, internationally celebrated ceremony at Saint-Ange in Paris. The couple has nine-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.”
On the television screen, the glorious teenage bride gazed into the face of her handsome husband, her eyes dazed with love. Victor was leaning down, gently kissing Valerie’s lips, touching her cheek with his.
“Great wedding gown,” Mary murmured. “Nobody can touch Givenchy.”
“Victor loves Givenchy,” Valerie replied automatically, remembering as if it were a moment ago the touch of Victor’s lips on her own.
“Still,” the narrator continued, “as visible as Victor Penn has always been, his origins remain unknown. Although it is thought that he is English, there is no record that he ever attended any public school or university in England. His acceptance into the banking and social circles of London seems to have been on the basis of his own personal charm and lavish entertaining. Once he had established his contacts, Victor Penn moved quickly to consolidate his position in the banking world.”
“This is absurd,” Valerie said indignantly. “Of course Victor is English. He was educated in Switzerland, just like the children.”
“Oh, they’ll probably figure that out by tomorrow,” said Mary, hoping that would turn out to be the least of their worries.
“Penn International, the umbrella for the vast international Penn empire, has never released a biography of its dashing chairman of the board, who also holds the title of chief executive officer. Nor has Penn ever agreed to be interviewed unless it has been in connection with one of the charities he supports. In short, Victor Penn has pulled off the impossible: simultaneously becoming the most visible of men and, at the same time, shielding himself in secrecy much like the late Howard Hughes.”
