Elements of Chance

“As well as can be expected, I guess.”

“Is anybody up yet? Do you think we could get some coffee?”

“Nobody’s up, but we can make some coffee. I just didn’t think about it.”

“Do you think we can find the kitchen?” Mary asked.

“Well, I saw it once,” Valerie smiled. “I think it’s somewhere around the dining room.”

“John stayed too,” Mary said. “He’s upstairs in one of the guest rooms. He’s in the command post. Raymond’s orders.”

“Raymond,” said Valerie, her voice filled with contempt and fear. “I suppose he’s on his way.”

“He’s going right to Acapulco.”

“I don’t see why. Victor wasn’t on the plane.”

“Valerie, you’d better be prepared,” Mary said as they walked through the dining room and pushed open the swinging door leading into the hotel-sized kitchen. “Even if you’re right and Victor was kidnapped, he still could have been on the plane.”

“He can’t be dead, Mary. He’s my life.”

“I don’t think that comes into it,” Mary said gently.

The two women were on their second pot of coffee when John, wearing a pair of chinos and a blue polo shirt, came into the room.

“How do you feel?” he asked Valerie, then nodded to Mary.

“Better. It was just the initial shock.”

“Has there been anything yet?” he asked, thinking how pretty she was, how natural and young she looked without makeup, like a girl.

“Not yet.”

An hour passed before there was a news brief at five minutes to nine. “Ladies and gentlemen,” began the anchorman, “there have been sensational developments in the ongoing Victor Penn story. Five badly burned bodies, one a woman’s, are just being removed from the plane belonging to Penn International which crashed yesterday in the rugged jungle a hundred miles northeast of Acapulco. The rear door of the 727 was open, with the stairs extended, according to reports from the scene. Although six people were assumed to have boarded the aircraft at its point of origin, five bodies—I repeat, five bodies—were found. Raymond Penn, the brother of Victor Penn, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the corporation, has just arrived by chartered jet at the Acapulco airport. He declined to be interviewed before being driven away, with his aides, to meet with authorities.”

“Holy Jesus,” somebody whispered.

Everybody in the room turned to look at Gregson.

5 (#ulink_65b8c651-3eb2-541c-b885-72ef18a7532e)

Mary and John, just off the tennis court, sat at a table under a yellow and white striped umbrella sipping iced tea from frosted glasses. It was a sunny morning and the clear blue sky was punctuated only by one of the television station’s helicopters hovering overhead.

“You play well,” John said, wiping the sweat from his tanned face with a towel.

“Just another social skill,” Mary smiled. “It’s just like making polite chitchat at a dinner party, or holding your own at backgammon.”

“Yeah, engaging the attention of the rich. I guess we all do it in our own way.”

“Your way is more profitable,” Mary laughed.

“What about your way?”

“Well, it’s a good living. I’m sure you have some idea of what Victor pays me.”

“And I’m sure you receive finder’s fees, shall we say, from the stores and the jewelers.”

“That’s unkind,” she protested, running her hand through her blond hair.

“But true?”

“Of course,” she said. “Every single time anybody who works for Victor buys anything from anybody, there’s a finder’s fee.”

“What’s the justification?”

“We’re agents.” Mary shrugged. “We’re hired because we’re the best at what we do.”

“What’s your bottom line?” he asked between sips of his iced tea.

“What’s yours?” she asked.

“Well, money,” he admitted. “I’m sure you can imagine what having control of this account does for me. No matter what happens in this situation, though, I’m fine. Just fine.”

“I can’t say the same,” Mary said. “When I started all this,

I knew what I wanted. The contacts. Another rich man. Getting married again. Security.”

“Well, why not?” he asked, looking at her critically. “You’re one of the most elegant women in this town, or any other, I would think. I’m sure you’ve met everybody there is to meet.”

“Yes, but now I really wonder if marrying rich is what it’s about. Look at little Valerie. She works for Victor twenty-four hours a day. That’s quite a price, even for all of this.”

“But Valerie is in love with Victor.”

“Maybe she is,” Mary conceded.

“She really thinks he’s all right,” John mused. “Incredible.”

“What do you think?”

“I sure can’t see Victor parachuting from a 727,” John laughed.

“Are things bad enough that Victor would go on the run?” Mary asked casually.

“No you don’t,” John said, his voice lazy. “I’m a lawyer, remember? I keep my own counsel.”

“And you cover your own ass.”

“That too,” he agreed, thinking that she was really attractive in an understated way.