Part 11 (1/2)

Agatha leaned back and brought her nails to tap at her red lips. The tension was clearly getting to Henry Strauss. She had never before heard him use profanity or even raise his voice out of a monotone. Strauss prided himself in his Old World ways; he being from old money. Agatha despised his pretentiousness. She knew that the old money was long gone. They were poor as church mice, the lot of them.

”Relax, Henry,” she replied, wary now. ”All bad pennies turn up.”

”It's not like him to run off like that. Maybe he's dead. He was a mess when he left. A raging drunk.” He shook his head.

”Since when do you have sympathy for Charles Blair?”

Strauss looked up again, his pale eyes hooded. ”I don't. I simply don't trust him. Charles is like a snake. One never knows when or where he'll strike. He can be very dangerous, you know, especially when riled.”

Agatha's eyes narrowed. She thought of Charles's phone call to Sidney Teller. A small sense of alarm seized her. ”Has Bellows turned up anything?”

”No. Bellows has come up short.”

She swiveled in her chair. ”He's out,” she snapped. ”Understood?”

”Quite so.”

Agatha sat back in her chair, tapping the tips of her polished fingernails. ”I hear MacKenzie's widow has left town.”

”That's right. Bellows a.s.sures me she's out of the picture. A pathetic figure, actually.”

”Who cares about her? It's MacKenzie's papers I want. That conniving b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It would be just like him to keep a secret file on the deal. He was a double-dealer.”

”We have no reason to believe he did.”

”All MacKenzie would have had to do was implicate me in any way and that would have been enough for Charles Blair. He is too sharp and he loves the kill as much as I do. No, if those papers exist, I want them.”

”This whole deal reeks. MacKenzie never should have died. It was supposed to be a done deal. Prop up MacCorp. stock: buy low, sell high. Quick and clean. Who ever would have thought...”

Agatha narrowed her eyes. ”MacKenzie couldn't make the repayment schedule.”

”We held twenty-five million in the company as collateral for the loan, for G.o.d's sake! We should have been well protected. If Charles hadn't sniffed it out and called in the loan, we could have stalled. That was the plan.”

Agatha sank back in the upholstery, looking with disdain at the sulking figure. Oh no, she thought with satisfaction, that was not the plan. MacKenzie may have duped other bankers into believing his illusion of wealth, but not her. She'd known all along he was too highly leveraged; why else would she have chosen him for her plan? She felt a ripple of pleasure. Banking could be o.r.g.a.s.mically delightful.

Henry gritted his teeth. ”There are going to be some embarra.s.sing questions if this gets out.”

Agatha raised her brows. ”If? Surely, you mean when.”

Henry Strauss flushed along his starched collar. It had to be a first. ”We have got to keep MacKenzie's bankruptcy under wraps,” he said. ”It's agreed.”

”By whom?”

”Everyone. The banks, the auditors-everyone wants to get paid back and no one wants a scandal.”

”His company is headed for receivers.h.i.+p. It's being raided even as we speak. My dear boy. It's too late.”

”It's not too late.” Henry's voice rose as he did. ”The MacKenzie auction can satisfy our loans, at least. We just have to allow a delayed payment schedule. If not, the s.h.i.+t will hit the fan. Sidney Teller is already hot on my trail, trying to call them in. He's a solid banker. Teller won't give up.”

”Think, Henry.” Agatha's fingers tapped impatiently over the ball of her cane. ”What if the auction does not satisfy the loans?”

”The board will trace the loans to Charles Blair's office. He'll be forced out. We all will.”

”Not all of us. I will not be implicated.” She flicked lint from her lapel. ”I will protect you.”

”And let Charles take the fall?”

Agatha smiled. ”He's the top man. It was always the risk.”

Henry Strauss straightened his shoulders and looked Agatha in the eye. For a moment she thought the old Henry had returned. He appeared cool and detached.

”Of course,” he eventually replied, a hint of the patrician air returning to his voice. ”That was the plan all along. I was blind not to have seen it earlier.”

Agatha looked at Strauss now, not even attempting to disguise her disgust.

Strauss's pale lids fluttered. ”MacCorp. stock will surely plummet.” His voice flattened. ”I'm ruined.”

Precisely, thought Agatha. They both knew that now Strauss had no choice but to go along.

”It's only money. We can make more,” she told Strauss. ”You're tired. Ask Miss Wilton to give you a set of keys to Bar Harbor. It should be empty.” She flipped her thick leather schedule book. ”Yes, Cornelia is in Palm Beach already.”

Flipping the pages back again, Agatha a.s.sumed a magnanimous expression. ”Take a few days to unwind. The next few weeks will be critical if we are to pull this off. And we will. Charles has no power here any longer. I hold all the strings. We can't have you tense, now can we?”

Henry narrowed his eyes. Agatha searched them but could not read them. He was the old, cold Henry.

”Yes, I think I will,” he said. ”I am tired.” His florid features were immobile as he stood lifeless before her desk. His eyes, however, were staring without a blink straight at her, or rather, through her.

”Thank you for your concern,” Strauss finally said with a slight nod of his head. Then he turned and walked stiffly to the door, never once looking behind.

Agatha watched him leave, an inordinate hatred bubbling up against the younger man. Pathetic pup! How could men be such fools? Edwin, her husband, had proven himself naive, despite his intellect. His son, Charles, was of the same ilk. One after the other, they were all little boys with egos brandished like swords at play. Swagger, spin, and fall.

She pressed the intercom b.u.t.ton. ”Call Sidney Teller. Tell him I'm on my way to his office.... Yes, immediately.”

With Strauss out of town and Charles Blair on the horizon, it was time to get things stirred up a bit. She'd leak just enough to see how much Charles knew. In any case, the MacKenzie estate had to fall quickly.

”Well, little Henry,” she murmured, grabbing hold of her cane and raising herself up on stiff legs. ”You shall get yours. Poor Henry. You were the biggest fool of all. For you, a brief parry and score. But Charles...” Her hand tightened around the cane.

”Oh, for you, stepson, I waited till the moment when you were most vulnerable. When your mental guard was down. Now, at last, it is time for the attack.”

Agatha slowly, precisely, extended her arm, aimed her cane, and after a brief swirl of the wrist, thrust the cane forward in a mock fencing ritual.

”For you, Charles, the thrust lunge.”

11.

NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS comes on quietly, like a thief that steals the farmer's precious light. Nora climbed from her bed and, slipping a thick robe over her flannel nightgown, padded in her slippers down the stairs into the great room. Even in the evening shadows, the room was magnificent. The ceiling vaulted to twenty-five feet at its peak over huge windows that allowed the night to flow in.