Tona was.… Just keep me out! Understand? Don’t be a smart-ass.… I’ve got a proposition for you. You’re going to like it. It makes everything worth while for you.… It’s all yours. Everything!Make whatever deals you like. I’m out.”
There was silence from the other end of the line. Ulster Scarlett drew the figure of a Christmas tree on the scratch pad.
“No hitches, no catches. It’s yours! I don’t want a thing. The organization’s all yours.… No, I don’t know anything! I just want out. If you’re not interested, I can go elsewhere—say the Bronx or even out to Detroit. I’m not asking for a nickel.… Only this. Only one thing. You never saw me. You never met me. You don’t know I exist! That’s the price.”
Don Vitone Genovese began chattering in Italian while Scarlett held the receiver several inches from his ear. The only word Scarlett really understood was the repeated, “Grazie, grazie, grazie.”
He hung up the receiver and closed the leather-bound notebook. He sat for a moment and then opened the top drawer in the center of the desk. He took out the last letter he had received from Gregor Strasser. He reread it for the twentieth time. Or was it the hundred and twentieth?
“A fantastic plan … a bold plan … the Marquis Jacques Louis Bertholde … London … by mid-April …”
Was the time really here? At last!
If it was, Heinrich Kroeger had to have his own plan for Ulster Scarlett.
It wasn’t so much bold as it was respectable. Immensely, thoroughly respectable. So proper, in fact, that Ulster Stewart Scarlett burst out laughing.
The scion of Scarlatti—the charming, handsome graduate of the cotillions, the hero of the Meuse-Argonne, New York society’s most eligible bachelor—was going to be married.
CHAPTER 8
“You presume, Mr. Reynolds!” Elizabeth Scarlatti was seething. Her vehemence was directed at the old man who stood calmly in front of her, peering over his glasses. “I do not countenance presumptuous people and I will not abide liars!”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You got this appointment under false pretenses. Senator Brownlee told me you represented the Land Acquisition Agency and your business concerned the transactions between Scarlatti and the Department of the Interior.”
“That’s exactly what he believes.”
“Then he’s a bigger fool than I think he is. And now you threaten me! Threaten me with secondhand inflammatory gossip about my son! I trust you’re prepared to be cross-examined in court.”
“Is that what you want?”
“You may force me to it!… I don’t know your position, but I do know a great many people in Washington and I’ve never heard of you. I can only conclude that if someone like you can carry such tales, others must have heard them too. Yes, you may force me into court. I won’t tolerate such abuse!”
“Suppose it’s true?”
“It isn’t true and you know it as well as I do! There’s no reason on earth why my son would involve himself in … in such activities. He’s wealthy in his own right! Both my sons have trust funds that return annual incomes of—let’s be honest—preposterous sums.”
“Then we have to eliminate profit as a motive, don’t we?” Benjamin Reynolds wrinkled his brow.
“We eliminate nothing for there
is
nothing! If my son has caroused a bit, he’s to be criticized—not branded a criminal! And if you’re using the gutter tactic of maligning the name Scarlatti because of its origin, you’re contemptible and I’ll have you dismissed!”
Benjamin Reynolds, slow to anger, was reaching a dangerous level of irritation. He had to remind himself that this old woman was guarding her house and was more difficult than she would have been in other circumstances.
“I wish you wouldn’t think of me as an enemy. I’m neither an enemy nor a bigot. Frankly, I resent the second implication more than I do the first.”
“Again you presume,” interrupted
There was silence from the other end of the line. Ulster Scarlett drew the figure of a Christmas tree on the scratch pad.
“No hitches, no catches. It’s yours! I don’t want a thing. The organization’s all yours.… No, I don’t know anything! I just want out. If you’re not interested, I can go elsewhere—say the Bronx or even out to Detroit. I’m not asking for a nickel.… Only this. Only one thing. You never saw me. You never met me. You don’t know I exist! That’s the price.”
Don Vitone Genovese began chattering in Italian while Scarlett held the receiver several inches from his ear. The only word Scarlett really understood was the repeated, “Grazie, grazie, grazie.”
He hung up the receiver and closed the leather-bound notebook. He sat for a moment and then opened the top drawer in the center of the desk. He took out the last letter he had received from Gregor Strasser. He reread it for the twentieth time. Or was it the hundred and twentieth?
“A fantastic plan … a bold plan … the Marquis Jacques Louis Bertholde … London … by mid-April …”
Was the time really here? At last!
If it was, Heinrich Kroeger had to have his own plan for Ulster Scarlett.
It wasn’t so much bold as it was respectable. Immensely, thoroughly respectable. So proper, in fact, that Ulster Stewart Scarlett burst out laughing.
The scion of Scarlatti—the charming, handsome graduate of the cotillions, the hero of the Meuse-Argonne, New York society’s most eligible bachelor—was going to be married.
CHAPTER 8
“You presume, Mr. Reynolds!” Elizabeth Scarlatti was seething. Her vehemence was directed at the old man who stood calmly in front of her, peering over his glasses. “I do not countenance presumptuous people and I will not abide liars!”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You got this appointment under false pretenses. Senator Brownlee told me you represented the Land Acquisition Agency and your business concerned the transactions between Scarlatti and the Department of the Interior.”
“That’s exactly what he believes.”
“Then he’s a bigger fool than I think he is. And now you threaten me! Threaten me with secondhand inflammatory gossip about my son! I trust you’re prepared to be cross-examined in court.”
“Is that what you want?”
“You may force me to it!… I don’t know your position, but I do know a great many people in Washington and I’ve never heard of you. I can only conclude that if someone like you can carry such tales, others must have heard them too. Yes, you may force me into court. I won’t tolerate such abuse!”
“Suppose it’s true?”
“It isn’t true and you know it as well as I do! There’s no reason on earth why my son would involve himself in … in such activities. He’s wealthy in his own right! Both my sons have trust funds that return annual incomes of—let’s be honest—preposterous sums.”
“Then we have to eliminate profit as a motive, don’t we?” Benjamin Reynolds wrinkled his brow.
“We eliminate nothing for there
is
nothing! If my son has caroused a bit, he’s to be criticized—not branded a criminal! And if you’re using the gutter tactic of maligning the name Scarlatti because of its origin, you’re contemptible and I’ll have you dismissed!”
Benjamin Reynolds, slow to anger, was reaching a dangerous level of irritation. He had to remind himself that this old woman was guarding her house and was more difficult than she would have been in other circumstances.
“I wish you wouldn’t think of me as an enemy. I’m neither an enemy nor a bigot. Frankly, I resent the second implication more than I do the first.”
“Again you presume,” interrupted
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