“Dietz—okay. I’m Angelo.”

  “Dietz and I have been talking about a business proposition,” Cindy said to Angelo. “If we can work out terms he might sell me a partnership in his gallery.”

  “The terms,” said von Keyserling, “would be that we would work together. She is going to be a young mother, and I would not expect her to devote much time to the business at first. But as the gallery is now a sole proprietorship, I do not feel I can take a holiday. Cindy could cover for me when I need to be away, especially on buying trips in Europe.”

  The young man spoke virtually flawless English, which he had obviously learned in England and which so far had been only slightly modified for the States. Occasionally a word or two betrayed him—as, “we would vork togedder.”

  “I think both of you must look to lawyers for advice,” said Angelo. “A contract. And I don’t think a partnership is a good idea. You should incorporate the business and own shares.”

  “Ah. I looked to you for good adwice.”

  “I won’t object, of course,” said Angelo. He smiled. “As if I could.”

  “I assure you, Angelo,” said von Keyserling, “I would not enter a business arrangement with your wife without your consent. I am maybe old-fashioned that way.”

  IV

  1973

  1

  First class or no first class, 747 or no 747, the flight to Tokyo was long, boring, and tiring. Now, on top of that, the taxi ride from the airport was going to take an hour and a half and cost maybe a hundred dollars. Japan would never be a tourist trap, Angelo judged. Just a trap.

  He was in an evil frame of mind as he sat in the back of the little car and endured the ride. No wonder Chrysler had sent him first class.

  That’s what they’d said: first class all the way. He was traveling for Chrysler, which had hired him as a consultant to visit Japanese automobile factories to see if he could discover how the Japanese manufactured automobiles that ran reliably and economically and required almost nothing more than scheduled service.

  He had written in an automotive newsletter that the secret was quality control—

  The last time I took delivery of an American-manufactured automobile (for charitable reasons, I’ll omit the name), the salesman handed me a small notebook and asked me to keep it in the glove compartment. “Just write down any problems you have,” he told me, “and bring the car in after a month or so and get all the warranty work done at once.” When I went in after two months, the agency had to keep the car for three days to do the warranty work. The windshield leaked. It still does. The passenger-side door could not be locked and occasionally swung open. Sometimes the starter would not engage and just spun around without turning the engine. Gasoline consumption was outrageously high, the result, it turned out, of a leak from the carburetor. (Need I say what might have happened from gasoline dripping on a hot engine?) The wheels were out of line. The radio failed intermittently—and still does. When I drove through puddles on a rainy day, water dripped from under the dashboard and wet my shoes and socks.

  The point is, this car had left Detroit with all these defects. It was not a lemon, particularly. Tens of thousands of car buyers report these and worse problems every year.

  An American who buys a Honda takes it back to the dealer after six thousand miles to have the fluids changed and filters replaced. Usually that’s all it needs. Some Americans may think a Honda looks like a four-wheel motor scooter or a road-running power mower, but the car is built to standards of quality control American manufacturers do not match. The automotive industry in this country is losing billions of dollars on warranty repairs and will in time lose customers because its cars leave Detroit defective and not ready to give reliable service.

  Chrysler wanted to know how the Japanese did it. Many reports had come back, most of them citing a native work ethic that could not be matched in American plants because the unions would never allow it. Chrysler wondered and sent Angelo Perino to Japan to find out.

  When he finally reached his hotel, he quickly shifted to a better frame of mind. Service was complete, efficient, and obsequious. He was ushered to a luxurious suite on the eighteenth floor, from which he had a view of one quarter of the city and Tokyo Bay. The suite included a tiny kitchen, where he found bottles of Johnnie Walker Black and Beefeater gin, also vermouth and beer. A card by the bottles read—

  IT IS OF THE INNKEEPERS PLEASURE THAT ADDITIONAL LICORICE GOODIES ARE AVAILABLE.

  PLEASE TO TINKLE THE ROOM KEEPER.

  Vases of chrysanthemums stood in each room, including the little kitchen.

  The centerpiece of the bathroom was a sunken marble bath almost as large as a small swimming pool. It was exactly what he wanted. He loved Jacuzzis, and this bath promised strong jets from a strong pump. He downed one drink and carried another into the bathroom with him. The jets were as strong as he’d expected. He lay back in streaming, bubbling water and felt the tension go out of his body.

  When he had soaked for ten minutes or so and was about to go to sleep, the bathroom door opened and a smiling little maid stepped in. She brought towels and more soap. She nodded and murmured something, maybe a word of apology, as she leaned across the tub to put the soap in its place. She was exquisite, probably no more than sixteen or seventeen. As she straightened towels on their bars, she laid a lingering and obviously appraising stare on his crotch. She smiled widely, bowed, and backed out of the bathroom.

  Angelo shook his head and reached for his glass of Scotch, which by now was streaming condensation. He had been briefed on the protocol of dealing with Japanese businessmen and judged it would be taken as faintly less than courteous if he telephoned anyone on the day of his arrival. He decided he would go out on the Ginza early in the evening, then return to the hotel for dinner. The food in a place like this couldn’t be bad.

  “Room service!”

  Now what? Had he left the door unlocked, or had the maid done it? He switched off the water pump and reached for a towel. He didn’t have to let this one see him. She sounded more mature.

  The bathroom door swung back.

  It was Betsy!

  “Turn the jets back on, Angelo,” she said. “There’s room in there for two.”

  No matter that he shook his head and said no. In a quarter of a minute she was naked and in the water with him. She pressed the switch to set the jets streaming again and turned on the tap to bring in more hot water. Then she crawled up Angelo and kissed him so fervently that she brought blood to both their lips.

  “The man I always wanted,” she murmured as she kissed his neck, his ears, and his eyes.

  “How the hell—?”

  “I read in Automotive News you were coming to Tokyo. I’m staying two floors down. I’ve been here a week and have traveled all over Japan. I’ll still be here another week after you leave. But for the next two weeks—”

  “I’m going to be very busy.”

  “If you’re too busy to come back to this hotel and sleep with me for two glorious weeks of nights, I’ll tell tales out of school. I’ll send back word that I’m here, that we’re here, together.”

  “Betsy—”

  “If you become the first man to turn me down, I’m going to conclude you are queer.”

  “I don’t think I have to prove anything about that.”

  She lifted his penis in her right hand. “At least I give you an erection. I guess you’re straight. So what’re you going to do, Angelo?”

  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He’d only been married a year. He loved Cindy, and they had a baby boy. But Betsy … She was twenty-one years old, and she was perfect. “Well…,” he muttered.

  “‘Well, what the shit?’ Is that what you’re thinking? Even on those terms I’ll take you. You know, I’ve spent a goddamned fortune to be here with you. Listen, this place has got great room service: Japanese food and American. Let me order for us. I’ve gained a little experience in the past week. You know from sashimi?”

  “Raw fish,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

  “You never had it till you had it with Betsy van Ludwige sitting naked at the table with you.”

  “I have a feeling…” He paused and drew a deep breath. “I’m not going to get you pregnant, Betsy. If you’re not on the pill, then—”

  “I’m on the pill, damn it. I don’t want to get pregnant again right now, not even by you. Pregnancy is no damned fun, you know? It ruins your figure.”

  He ran his hands over her breasts, which were still youthfully firm, even though she’d had a baby. “Didn’t ruin yours,” he murmured.

  “Bingo! That’s the first affectionate thing you ever initiated with me. C’mon! Play with my titties. Put your fingers other places.”

  “We can’t do it in the water,” he said. “Believe me.”

  “We don’t have to do it this instant. Just make me feel good. Then, in a little while … Listen, I’ve got some delicious scandal for you. Guess what? Number One is not Anne’s grandfather!” She stopped to laugh. “He—”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “She’s his daughter. Before my grandmother—Sally—died, she told Anne that she and my great-grandfather had an affair, of which Anne, Princess Alekhine, is the result. Can you imagine that? That horny old bastard!”

  “Not so old. He’d only have been in his fifties when Anne was born.”

  Betsy shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Anne told me. Number One tried to make her promise not to tell anyone, but she called me as soon as she got back to France. I was still in Amsterdam, tidying up, closing the house, and so on.”

  “Does your father know this?”

  “He does now. Want to hear a man choke on the telephone? Anne is not his sister. She’s his aunt. She figures she’s senior to him in the family.”

  “I don’t imagine Number One sees it that way.”

  “No. But Number One is ninety-five years old, and how he sees things isn’t going to count much longer.”

  “Be careful, Betsy. He can do a lot of damage in the time he’s got left. If you and Anne have some kind of idea you can wrench anything out of his grasp…”

  Betsy laughed. “All I want in my grasp right now is your cock, Angelo.”

  2

  Cindy switched off the television set and returned to the couch to sit down beside Dietz von Keyserling. They had just watched the announcement of the resignation of Spiro Agnew as vice president.

  “I will never understand American politics,” said Dietz.

  “Don’t try.”

  Dietz wore what was all but a uniform for him: double-breasted blue blazer and white turtleneck. In the privacy of her home, Cindy wore soft and faded old jeans and a gray sweatshirt stained with automotive grease—a relic from her racetrack fling.

  He picked up his drink, a snifter of Courvoisier. “Do you agree about the realists?” he asked.

  “Whether I like them or not, they will sell,” she said. “There is always a market for that kind of art, particularly the nudes. I do like the Pearlsteins.”

  “You could hang several Pearlsteins here and have a dinner party. Who knows? Philip might even come. Inviting the right people, you could almost certainly sell a painting or two.”

  “That’s why I decorated the apartment this way: to be able to use it as a gallery.”

  Dietz frowned. “I will have to borrow the money to pay my share of the cost of doing the realist show. I am assuming the bank will be no problem. Sometimes they ask for security.”

  “Why borrow from a bank?” Cindy asked. “I’ll lend you enough for your share.”

  “Would you do that for me?”

  “You give me a note, secured by the art we buy. If you don’t repay, I’ll own the whole show.”

  Dietz grinned. He put his snifter aside and leaned toward Cindy to kiss her. She had allowed him to kiss her before, and she did now, in fact returning his kiss. He reached for her left breast and caressed it gently. As he had guessed from looking at her, she was wearing no bra, and quickly he ceased to caress and began to fondle. She had never allowed him to touch her before, but she did now.

  For a minute or more he fondled her breasts, squeezing and lifting them.

  “You have just changed the nature of the relationship,” she said to him quietly.

  “Should I be sorry?”

  “Not necessarily. But we had better define what the new relationship is.”

  “You are irresistible, Cindy,” he said. “I want you. I want everything.”

  “Everything—I am not sure what ‘everything’ includes. Let me tell you what it can include and what it can’t. It can include recreational sex. It can’t include any kind of emotional commitment. I am married to Angelo, and I’m going to stay married to him.”

  “If he found out, he would kill me,” said Dietz soberly.

  “No, and he won’t kill me either. I am not so naive as to suppose he’s over there in Japan keeping celibate. The first time a Japanese businessman offers him a cute little bed-mate, he’ll accept her. I know him. And he knows me. He doesn’t expect me to be any more chaste than he is. What he does expect—and I expect it from him, too—is that we don’t damage our marriage. If he had any reason to suspect otherwise, we couldn’t go on being partners in the gallery. Do you want to risk that?”

  “I must,” said Dietz simply.

  “We can’t be together on a regular basis,” she said. “Probably not even frequently. Only when circumstances are just right. When he’s out of town and the nanny has gone for the night.”

  “I accept those terms.” He began to slowly lift her sweatshirt. “May I?” he asked quietly. She did not respond to the question, and he bared her breasts.

  “My God,” she said quietly when she saw his male organ. “I never saw one like this before.” It was small, and it was not circumcised. She twiddled his foreskin between her thumb and index finger.

  He gasped. “In Europe,” he grunted, “the barbarous mutilation of the male organ is not common. My grandfather saved his life by showing his uncut Glied to an SS Scharführer who took him for a Jew. Being intact, he could not be a Jew.”

  She bent down and licked his balls to see if that would make his penis grow.

  “It’s not very big,” she said frankly.

  “It performs its office,” he said. “I get no complaints.”

  He was right. When he left, an hour or so later, she had no complaints.

  V

  1974

  1

  “What can I say to you?” Cindy asked Angelo. “All I can say is, it’ll be costly if not fatal. Jesus Christ, man! Hasn’t the time come when Number One can’t summon you anymore?”

  “Well, he wants to talk to me, and he can’t come up here. He’s a fragile old man. He’ll probably never leave Palm Beach again in his life.”

  “Tough shit,” grunted Cindy as she walked to his office window and looked down on Third Avenue. Rain was pouring hard on the streets of New York.

  “Overnight,” said Angelo. “I’ll fly down and have dinner with him.”

  She glanced around his office. She was pleased with it. She had bought the furniture, and the three paintings hanging on the walls were loans from VKP Galleries—von Keyserling-Perino. Angelo was peripatetic. He didn’t spend much time in his office, but when he was here Cindy was glad that he could enjoy a handsome, well-thought-through design.

  “You will be here for the opening of the realist show? And the dinner.”

  “You’ve got a lot tied up in that.”

  “Want to make a little bet that I get my money out of it, and a nice profit?”

  “If you and Dietz think so, I have to think so.”

  “You’ll be here…,” she insisted.

  “God willin’ an’ the crick don’t rise.”

  2

  “Just who the hell do you think you are?” Number One shouted at Angelo. “I demand you keep your nose out of my company’s business!”

  “I don’t give a damn what you demand,” said Angelo. “I flew down here—at your expense—without much enthusiasm for it, without much interest in ever seeing you again; and if you think you can intimidate me or that I’m going to sit here and take abuse from you, you can go straight to hell.”

  The ninety-six-year-old Loren Hardeman the First glared at Angelo, but there was no force in his glare. What Angelo faced in that armchair across the dining table was a stiff suit not at all filled by a crumpled old man. The brim of his panama hat shaded his eyes. Betsy was at the table. Her eyes glittered as she watched and listened to the exchange between Angelo and her great-grandfather. Loren Number Three was there, too, a little drunk and a little sullen.

  “Do you remember how I reengineered your Bugatti?” Number One asked, the anger gone from his voice. “Remember that?”

  Of course Angelo remembered. That was when he’d first met Loren Hardeman the First. Even confined to a wheelchair, Loren Hardeman the First, in 1939, had been a big and obviously powerful man. Angelo had not immediately understood how powerful. Later he would understand only too well. There were giants in Detroit in those days, and the first Loren Hardeman was one of them. For decades he had believed that if he could get up on his feet he could be a giant again—and not just among midgets. He never surrendered that idea.

  “I think you owe me a little respect,” said Number One quietly.

  “And you owe me a little, old friend,” said Angelo.

  “You’re not associated with the company anymore,” argued Number One.

  “Exactly,” said Angelo “That’s what I said in the first paragraph of my analysis. I said I still own two hundred thousand shares of stock in Bethlehem Motors, but I have absolutely no other relationship with the Hardeman family or the management of the company.”

  Betsy’s brows rose skeptically, and she cast an amused glance at Angelo that the two Hardeman men did not see and could not have understood.