Television cameras and surging reporters pressed against police ropes. The long lenses of the cameras were capturing every expression of the principals, as Angelo at last stepped down from the chopper and embraced Van and Anna.

  Anna asked Angelo to get inside the Stallion with her and Van so they could talk for a few minutes. They told him what had happened on the mountain.

  His face turned red and rigid. But he said, “All right, we’ve got a show to put on. You forget what happened. I’ll take care of it.”

  4

  A few minutes later a motorcade pulled away from the airport, led by two New Jersey State Police cars.

  The Stallion followed, driven by Van, with Anna sitting beside him.

  A sleek family van followed the Stallion. It kept alive the name Sundancer, though officially it was Model 000 V. It, too, was an electric-powered vehicle, driven by Angelo Perino. Cindy sat beside him. In the rear seats were Morris Perino, Mary Perino, and John Hardeman.

  A truck loaded with television cameras followed the two electrics, followed by half a dozen cars filled with reporters. Two helicopters hovered over the motorcade, affording television cameras an overhead view. Two more police cars finished the motorcade.

  “A triumph,” Cindy said to Angelo.

  Angelo nodded. “Provided we make the convention center without a breakdown.”

  She leaned closer to him and said under her breath, “Loren would love that.”

  “That’s why the two vehicles have been guarded by enough security men to fight a small war—with enough guns to fight a big one.”

  “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “Wait’ll I tell you what he’s already dared. I’m gonna kill him. I swear I’m gonna kill him.”

  “It couldn’t be that bad.”

  “No? I’ll tell you later.”

  Angelo turned and looked at this woman who was his wife. She was the mother of his five children. But she was a hell of a lot more than that. The gamine in torn blue jeans who had hung around the racetrack pits had turned out to be a well-educated, sophisticated woman. She loved Angelo. He’d never doubted that. But she had never been dependent on him. Cindy was Cindy: lovely, caring, erotic, yes, but also smart and astute, objective and realistic.

  She had aged well. Seventeen years younger than Angelo, she could no longer have wandered the pits as a racetrack groupie, but she could have haunted the docks as whatever a yacht groupie might be called. Race drivers, most of them, would lack the perspicacity to appreciate her. Yatchsmen, more sophisticated in their tastes to begin with, and more mature, would find her delicious. Everything she once had, she still had—including a supremely adventuresome spirit.

  Apart from that, she still had a great figure, and the marks of maturity that had come with the years only made her more interesting. He retained his special image of her: tight butt in ragged jeans that might have been painted on, tits hanging loose inside a white T-shirt, the race-driver groupie he had never seen in a dress until he’d known her a year—that image supplemented by the paintings Amanda had done of her.

  No marriage was perfect. She remained adventuresome and had her adventures, maybe was having one even now. Okay. He had his. But she was the love of his life. He wouldn’t have wanted her any other way.

  At the toll plaza for the upper deck of the GW, the New Jersey police cars pulled away, and their stations were taken up by blue-and-white cars of the NYPD. Crossing the bridge, they picked up two more news helicopters.

  Still speaking quietly to Angelo, Cindy said, “Anyway, it’s a goddamned triumph—and it’s a Perino triumph, not a Hardeman triumph.”

  “Shared,” said Angelo. “That’s why Van is driving.”

  “He’s Betsy’s son,” said Cindy, “not Loren the Third’s grandson. I wonder if he’s a Hardeman at all.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” said Angelo. “He may be a van Ludwige, but he’s a Hardeman, too. And so’s Betsy.”

  Cindy shrugged and stared southward toward the World Trade Center and all the rest of Manhattan visible from the upper deck of the GW on a clear day like this.

  Turning off the GW, the motorcade made its way down the variously called segments of the West Side Highway to Fifty-seventh Street, then across town to Broadway and down to the crosstown street that led to the Javits Convention Center.

  The idea of the circuitous route was to give a few more New Yorkers a look at the E Stallion and the Sundancer van. Few of them looked. To jaded New Yorkers, the motorcade was just another excuse to foul up midtown traffic.

  The media people were more easily programmed. They went bug-eyed on cue. As the Stallion and the new Sundancer swept into the Center and to their places on the floor, where they would be on display for a week, strobes flashed and reporters and cameramen surrounded the two vehicles.

  What the four young people had to say had been heard a score of times during the trip. Television and newspapers had already reported that the car ran smoothly, that it was comfortable, that it had plenty of acceleration, that it had never come near running short of electrical energy. Now the reporters wanted to hear from Angelo Perino.

  “When will the car be on the market, Mr. Perino?”

  Angelo stepped up to a group of microphones that had been arranged for answering questions. “Next year,” he said. “The first E Stallions will be sold in the Los Angeles area. We’ve entered into contracts with two major gasoline companies to add recharging equipment to their stations.”

  “What will it cost to recharge the batteries?”

  “A little more than a tank of gasoline. Roughly two dollars more. Driving the electric Stallion will cost about one cent per mile more than a gas-powered car. On the other hand, you never have to change oil or transmission fluid, you have no filters to change, you never have to add antifreeze, you have no spark plugs to burn up, and so on. I think the car will run about as economically as a conventional car—and maybe later, when the oil companies reduce the cost of a charge, it may run cheaper.”

  “What’s it gonna cost to replace the batteries? Isn’t that the big question?”

  Angelo nodded. “Our test cars have averaged eighty thousand miles on a set of batteries. Then they cost about two thousand dollars to replace. How many conventional automobiles run eighty thousand miles with no more than two thousand dollars in maintenance costs? By eighty thousand miles you’re replacing piston rings, valves, carburetor parts, points, coils, water pumps, and so on—not to mention how many sets of plugs you’ve gone through.”

  Two security guards opened a path through the reporters, to make a way for Elizabeth, Viscountess Neville: Betsy. With her was Roberta.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, here is the Viscountess Neville, great-granddaughter of the founder of XB Motors, and Roberta Hardeman, wife of the founder’s grandson.”

  Betsy rushed to her son Van and embraced him warmly.

  As soon as he could, Angelo pulled Betsy and Roberta off to one side. “All right, where is he?”

  “Where’s who?”

  “Loren. Where is he?”

  Betsy glanced at Roberta. “You didn’t tell me, either.”

  Roberta flushed and shook her head. “He went to Florida last night. Palm Beach. He still owns Number One’s house, you know. Why?”

  “I’m gonna kill him!”

  5

  Angelo did not appear at the Hardeman house in Palm Beach for a week. Then he arrived, dropped off by a taxi. Loren had revived Number One’s old habit of keeping two vicious guard dogs on the premises. As Angelo walked toward the house, they lunged toward him, snarling. He had come prepared for that. He drew a cannister of Mace from his jacket pocket and dropped both dogs in their tracks. As they writhed and howled, he gave each of them an extra shot, to be sure they would not bother him again.

  The doorbell was answered by Roberta. She pointed toward the lanai. Betsy was there. Loren sat on a chaise longue, a .38 revolver in his right hand. He was wearing a beach coat. His hairy legs were exposed, and his feet were bare.

  “Did you expect me sooner?” Angelo asked Loren.

  “I did. Where’ve you been?”

  “I took the trouble to make sure I was right. I didn’t want to come here and accuse you until I was sure.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The Pennsylvania State Police were having difficulty figuring out how that truck driver got dead and why there were no license plates on his rig and why its various numbers were covered with brown paper and tape and why another rig was in the same condition. That is, they were having difficulty until I gave them the sworn statements of four witnesses.”

  “Really, Angelo,” said Betsy. “What are you talking about?”

  Angelo spoke to Betsy. “He tried to kill Van and Anna and John and Valerie—three of my kids and one of yours. He hired two truckers to run the Stallion off the road on a steep mountainside. The attempt failed, but one of the truckers was killed.”

  Loren pointed his revolver at Angelo. “Be careful of how you bandy words about, my wop friend. You know … you know, if I shot you, several witnesses would testify that you threatened to kill me. Self-defense.”

  “What witnesses?” Betsy asked.

  “You yourself told me he said he was gonna—”

  “Don’t count on my testifying that he threatened to kill you,” said Betsy coldly.

  “Can you prove this accusation?” Roberta asked, her face flushed and her voice breaking.

  “I don’t have to prove it. The district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania, is going to prove it.”

  “What lies did you tell him?” Loren demanded loudly.

  “I haven’t even talked to him. The Pennsylvania State Police are conducting the investigation. The four kids will testify that two big rigs tried to force the Stallion off the highway at high speed. Anna was driving, and thank God she was a skillful enough driver to escape the trap—though she caused the trucks to crash in the process, killing one of the truckers.”

  “She killed him, then. I didn’t. And it’ll be those kids’ word against—”

  “The surviving trucker has not been able to explain why his license plates were in the cab with him and why his ICC numbers were covered with paper and tape—the same as the other rig, identification obscured. The trucker’s in jail. He knows he’s in big trouble, and he’s given a sworn statement—on the advice of his attorney.”

  “Okay, he and the other one tried to run the Stallion off the road. What’ve I got to do with it?”

  “Both truckers owned their rigs. Both owed on them. Odd. The mortgages on their rigs were both paid off a week before the accident. With cash—a hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars. The district attorney will be subpoenaing your bank records. You didn’t just happen to withdraw a hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars in cash recently, did you Loren?”

  Roberta screamed. “You did this? You tried to kill those kids? You stupid, drunken, insane—”

  Loren grinned. “Murder … It didn’t bother you before.”

  Roberta spoke to Angelo and Betsy. “Burt Craddock. He tried to blackmail us.” She turned to Loren, her face rigid. “Put that goddamned gun down. You shoot Angelo, you won’t have one favorable witness. Not me, for damned sure. And don’t forget you’re in Florida. Down here they favor the death penalty.”

  Loren stared at the pistol for a moment, as if maybe he was thinking of putting it in his mouth. Then he shrugged and laid it aside, and Betsy picked it up.

  “You better put your toothbrush in a little bag, Loren,” said Angelo without a note of sympathy. “A Pennsylvania grand jury is going to return an indictment. Then Pennsylvania will ask for extradition.”

  Betsy poured a water glass of Scotch and handed it to her father. “Have a drink, old man,” she said scornfully. “That’ll make you feel better.”

  6

  Early in the evening of June 24, Anna Perino married Loren van Ludwige. The wedding was held under a red-and-white striped tent on the lawn behind the Perino home. A string quartet played, stopping only during the ceremony itself. All the women wore gowns, some with wide-brimmed hats. The sun still shone, and Amanda Finch remarked that the women in their many colors looked like flowers.

  Anna had all the soft, appealing Mediterranean beauty of her ancestry. Her dark eyes were warm and fluid. Twenty years old, she was mature in every respect. Her physical maturity showed through her chaste white wedding dress.

  Van was a tall and handsome young man, which was to be expected of a son of Betsy Hardeman and Max van Ludwige. Max was a handsome man, but the genes of the Hardemans predominated in Loren—as they did in every child of that clan. He had inherited his mother’s strong simple face and pale blue eyes.

  The young couple were conspicuously, touchingly in love.

  “Even I don’t recognize all these people,” Betsy said to Angelo. She and the Viscount Neville were sipping champagne. “I can’t introduce George.”

  “Well, everyone’s here,” said Angelo. “Just about.”

  Everyone was there—all the other children of both families; the eighty-five-year-old Jenny Perino, grandmother of the bride, happily holding court in a peacock chair, a beaming Max van Ludwige and his ever-handsome wife; the supremely elegant Prince and Princess Alekhine; the dignified Alicia Grinwold Hardeman and Bill Adams; Henry Morris and his family, all confused as to who most of the guests might be; a conspicuously impressed Amanda Finch, Marcus Lincicombe, and Dietz von Keyserling; the formally polite Keijo Shigeto, Toshiko, and their children; jolly Tom Mason; a bemused Alexandra McCullough; Signor Giovanni DiCostanzo and an exuberant few members of the local Italian community, who brought generous cash gifts to the bride; and many neighbors and friends and classmates.

  “Not everyone, thank God,” said Betsy. “But for the first time in my life I have halfway human feelings about my father. I mean, in jail! That’s more of a comedown than you meant for him, Angelo.”

  “Well, he tried to—”

  “Yes, I know. Even so.”

  “He’s going to cop a plea, you know. Six, seven, eight years, he’ll be out.”

  Betsy glanced around. “I’m sorry I mentioned him. I don’t want to think about him.”

  The quartet, which had taken a break, now began to play dance music.

  “You should dance,” said Angelo. “Since I had the floor put down, you should use it.”

  The setting sun was still bright. The wind was warm and gentle and fragrant. Van danced with his new wife. Then Angelo danced with his daughter.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered tearfully. “For everything. For so very much.”

  “And thank you,” he murmured. “I’m very proud of you. You see, life is good … for the good.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HAROLD ROBBINS is the bestselling,

  most enduring popular novelist of all time.

  He lives in Palm Springs, California.

 

 

  Robbins, Harold, The Stallion (1996)

 

 

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