CHAPTER EIGHT: DREAMSTONE
Levon Haris hurried into the Dreamstone offices just after eleven. He did not look like a particularly rich or powerful man in his black silk tie, white shirt, and neat black suit. He might have been an undertaker. But he was a man accustomed to prowling the most influential corridors of power. He always wore black: acquaintances whispered that he had never fully recovered from the death of his first wife, killed in a car crash whilst he was still a young man. He had married again, a couple of times, and his new wives had tried hard to lighten him up a little. Levon preferred to stay in black.
Yet he could also smile. He liked to smile, especially at attractive women. But he also had watchful eyes: small, black eyes that watched and weighed, always assessing and calculating. He and Harry had built Haris family money into a major financial empire, encircling the globe and reaching into every kind of activity. Dreamstone was a name to work spells. Levon liked to credit much of his success to his roots: his grandfather had made a fortune building railways for the Ottoman Empire, and the Haris family still owned many hectares of pistachio groves along Turkey’s southern coast. Well, many of the groves had made way for hotels and holiday developments, but he still valued his ties. He also worked hard at charming women. Charm brought him a lot of money: first he married a Rothschild, and the alliance helped him off to a very good start. Then he linked into a rich Jewish banking family based in Rio de Janeiro, and closed some lucrative Latin American deals, before allying himself with Shosanah Berger, a super-rich New York Jewish princess. Shosanah possessed a sharp and bossy tongue, and it was said that she sometimes threw things. Old Hymie Berger, her father, had filled Levon’s boots with gold on her marriage: glad, no doubt, to get his daughter out of what little hair he had left.
Harry left his office door open to catch Levon’s arrival. They beamed at other, embracing like old friends, before settling in Harry’s two comfortable armchairs. Christine had vanished, and Harry knew that she had gone to brew up Turkish coffee. Levon liked to drink his coffee flavoured with powdered cardamom. Harry thought it rather an acquired taste, and preferred a strong black Robusta.
‘How’s it going?’ Levon has the hungry look of a man expecting delivery.
‘I’m having tea with Tim at the Waldorf.’
Haris’ small black eyes narrowed. He had never managed to get his head completely around the English. They liked to speak a strange language, filled with shadows and allusions, and sometimes he found himself wandering down blind alleys and tilting at semantic windmills. He was not a man to savour confusion.
Harry grinned. ‘He wants it all signed and sealed by this afternoon, the Shark must be snapping. I told him I’d bring the papers in person, and he switched me to the Waldorf.’
‘He’ll have to pay.’ Levon was a stickler for the formalities of courtesy.
‘I told him I’d bring a friend.’
Haris shook his head firmly. ‘I ain’t going. I got things to do. Important things.’
Harry smiled the smile of a triumphant man. ‘I’m taking a girl, as protective camouflage.’
Levon’s eyes brightened. His eyes always brightened around women. ‘Sylvia?’ He had a soft spot for Sylvia, even though Sylvia disliked being alone with him. She deemed him greasy, and considered Harry a safer bet.
Harry shook his head provokingly. ‘Much better.’
‘Better than Sylvia?’ Now Haris was running a scent, and ready to bay.
‘About half her age.’
The man with small black eyes stopped sipping at his coffee, and for a moment Harry thought he might drop his cup. ‘I’ll be with you.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Harry shook a reproving forefinger. ‘You got things to do, Levon. Important things.’
Dreamstone’s board meetings were always legal formalities. Sophie, Haris’ secretary, personal assistant, and occasional evening companion, also doubled as Dreamstone’s company secretary. Levon valued her, though she had already turned forty. She had well-brushed auburn hair that shone on bright days, and nice legs, but she had begun to put on weight. Too much companionship. Pierre Bonnier, Dreamstone’s ace tecchie, made up a quorum. Levon and Harry both stood a little in awe of Bonnier, a tall, vague French Canadian with a mop of unruly dark hair and a mind sharper than a laser. Bonnier wholly ignored women, and reportedly read treatises on advanced quantum physics with his bedtime cocoa.
Haris glanced quickly at Sophie, poised ready in front of her laptop. ‘Harry will be confirming our formal offer this afternoon.’
Sophie tapped busily.
‘Natcam Bank will underwrite us up to fifty million cash.’ Haris tapped a folder. ‘We’ll send the papers round first thing in the morning.’
Bonnier held up a pencil. The gesture makes him look oddly like a schoolteacher. Haris nodded.
‘Washington will take the blue sky.’ The French Canadian smiles slightly.
Haris and Harry both stared at him. Bonnier had ruled Wide Horizon’s hi-tech dreams as total losers.
‘I did.’ Bonnier was plainly enjoying himself. He began to speak in short sharp machinegun bursts, his voice accented somewhere between Montreal and New York. ‘Underwood didn’t understand his scientists. He just wanted them to make money. I sniffed around, and located some possibilities. I didn’t want to shout about them, because they weren’t for sure. I called a friend in the Pentagon, and he understood me completely. We will do some confidential work under contract, and Washington will payroll our development across the board. The Pentagon will buy us a free lunch.’
Haris’ little black eyes widened. ‘Commercial spin-offs?’
Bonnier smiled slightly. He was a stern man, with a limited sense of humour, and he did not often smile. ‘We keep them.’
Harry felt he should intervene, if only to show that he was listening. ‘What do we chip in?’
The French Canadian spread his hands wide. ‘Nothing. The Ricains give us a contract, we provide the brains. We’ll give the Pentagon some fancy new toys…’
Haris broke in. ‘And laugh all the way to the bank?’
‘C’est le mot juste.’ Bonnier paused. ‘You have it a nutshell.’
The three men shared a boardroom lunch. Nothing heavy, a vegetarian souffle in deference to Bonnier, a man with strange tastes in food, Scots spring water to drink. Christine brought Dreamstone’s formal offer for Union Funds’ holding in Wide Horizons, and a private letter for Tim Matthews, Union’s helpful director. Harry signed the letter, a promise by a Dreamstone affiliate in the Cayman Islands to pay Matthews a tidy sum in dollars as a consultancy fee. He was already thinking of getting back to his flat. He looked at his watch.
Haris was watching him. ‘What time will you be at the Waldorf?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Private party.’ Then he relented. ‘If anyone see us there with Matthews we’ll drown.’
‘Maybe some other time?’
‘Wait for twenty years.’ It was a private joke. They have been working together for twenty years.
Haris pretended to look disappointed. ‘She’ll be too old.’
Harry got to his feet and placed his hand on Haris’ shoulder. ‘Levon, in twenty years we’ll all be too old.’
Doreen tidied Harry’s kitchen and then treated herself to a nice hot shower. She found a good shampoo in his bathroom, and some top of the range fragrances, and sprayed herself experimentally. She sometimes poached some Avon from Marje at Tithing St. Mary. But now she could choose between big flagons of Givenchy and Chanel and Paloma Picasso. She frowned at the Paloma Picasso. It was a powerful and heady, the kind of stuff for a really hot party. Chanel? She could scent upmarket excursions coming her way: shopping trips up West, and a liveried chauffeur tottering behind her laden high with top name packages. But she liked the Givenchy best. It smelled of summer flowers on her skin. She also explored thoroughly all the gear belonging to Harry’s other woman. She smiled to herself at the idea of having to share him, because she knew she would whip her rival with one hand tied behind her back. She decided to brush her hair well, to make it shine, and look for a light silk or cotton frock. Something quite tight, to make her a good backside, but nothing too tarty – she had no wish to tread in Marje’s footsteps. She imagined Harry would want her looking her best: she knew that men always felt good when other men eyed their girls.
She found the dress almost at once. It was cut from white silk, well, a kind of ivory shade of white, with a big swirling dragon baring its jaws where a nice young breast might fit. Doreen pulled it up onto her hips, and found it a perfect fit. She looked in a big mirror facing the wardrobe, and realised that it made her look really good.. So much for her Top Shop bra, she could do without it. She turned, anxious about her thong, because it was one of the few nice bits she owned, but the dragon concealed it completely. She slid an exploratory foot into a nice high-heeled white sandal, and it might have been made for her. She could wear it on their first outing together. She tried on more dresses as the morning ticked by, and felt just like Goldilocks. She found unopened packets of expensive pantihose, and a couple of really ritzy babydoll nighties. She pranced around for a moment, looking sexy for the mirror, and knew the nighties made her a stunner. She draped herself in a couple of silk negligees, pouting sexily, and let her hair fall free. She would have Harry eating out of her hand.
Then she glanced at her watch, and realised that she was hungry. She heard her mobile ring, and danced to the sound of the tone. Harry’s was talking about some kind of meeting, taking her with him, and she knew just what she would wear.
He hung up, and she took a look at his fridge. The top shelf was packed with goat and sheep cheeses, with interesting packs of Continental sausage further down, and foil packets of some black stuff that looked like an odd kind of bread. She nibbled at a slice, and found it good, filled with unground grains that gave it a nutty flavour. She spread a slice with some soft cheese, and then rummaged around in the salad drawer of the refrigerator, found a packet of mixed leaves and set herself a small salad around it. She would eat sparingly, and do a great deal of walking, not to say shopping and bopping, to keep herself trim.
She had just finished washing up her lunch plate and cutlery when she heard the flat door open. For a moment she tensed. The dresses in the wardrobe must belong to someone. She realised that she was still draped in a babydoll nightie and silk negligee, and wondered what the owner might do. They were both the same size and build. Perhaps they possessed the same size in claws. Doreen looked down at her hands and clenched her fists. They did not look very big. She had fought a girl or two, at school, but the fights had mainly been hair-pulling contests. She imagined she might be able to hold her own against another woman. She wondered where she might be able to hide.
Harry strode into the kitchen and stopped dead.
They stared at each other, and Doreen looked down demurely. She had glimpsed fire starting to smoulder in his eyes, and for a moment wondered whether his trousers might start to grow rather tight, but pushed the thought from her mind as wholly unseemly.
She felt his hand cup under her chin, and looked up, fluttering her eyelashes just a little. It was a trick she had practised many, many times in front of her bedroom mirror. Then she raised her arms, folding them around Harry’s neck, and kissed him.
He was already struggling out of his jacket, speaking at the same time. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this…’
Doreen stopped up his mouth with her own, her hands deftly unbuttoning his shirt.
‘We’ll have to go and find you something to wear.’ His voice held a note of desperation.
She stood back a little to smile up at him. ‘I don’t need a thing.’
Harry blinked. ‘I want to take you with me.’
‘I’ll wear her dress. The ivory silk one with the black dragon.’ Doreen giggled, enjoying his amazement. ‘She’s exactly the same size as me. Same shoe size as well. I tried all her stuff after you left.’
Harry swallowed. He had bought Sylvia the black and white silk dress to squire her to a film premiere, and it had cost him several arms and several legs. He knew that she ranked it as one of her prize possessions, at least until she could prize something even more stunning out of him.
Doreen was now on her knees, pulling his underpants down around his ankles, and then he feels her mouth enclosing on him, moist and caressing. She held him for a moment, before releasing him, and leaned back on her haunches to look up at him, and her breasts seemed to be straining towards him. ‘I look really good in it.’ She shrugged her shoulders, and the babydoll nightie and negligee fell away from her, and Harry knew that all his resolve had melted.
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s not yet two.’ She bent again to kiss his erect penis, now rampant in front of him, and then straightened, taking his hand to lead him towards his bedroom. ‘Come and have something to remember at teatime.’
Harry was uncertain how he managed to fit so much passion into such a short space of time. He seemed to move with Doreen in a time almost without end, and yet he also managed to have a shower, and get dressed again, and mobilise Dreamstone’s stand-by river launch, and storm ashore at the Embankment landingstage below the Savoy, and zip into a cab, to step out in front of the Waldorf only a quarter of an hour late, feeling most debonair. Doreen looked truly stunning in the black and white silk dress, he had to admit it. Several men, and several women as well, stopped to stare at her as they crossed the pavement, and she handled herself like a queen. Well, like a princess.
He followed proudly, but also with a twinge of misgiving. He knew that he was not Sylvia’s sole lover, but one of a select small stable, all contributing towards her material needs. So she could hardly claim exclusive rights. But he also knew that Sylvia harboured a cold, hard, vindictive streak when she was crossed. He had paid a great deal of money for the black and white silk dress now entering the Waldorf ahead of him, and he imagined that Sylvia would not take it well to see it worn by a rival. He would have to be firm, and bar Doreen from wearing it again, at least until he had paid Sylvia off. Sylvia was a solicitor, and would understand if he insisted on keeping things for which he had paid, and which lived in his flat. Well, he hoped that she would understand.
Doreen was now following a waiter across the floor of the Waldorf’s Palm Court, a big open room with chairs and tables and potted palms dotted around a dance floor, and heads were busily turning. Harry saw Matthews sitting with his secretary, a rather frumpish woman, and lifted his hand in greeting. He signed to the waiter to place Doreen and himself at the next table, and laughed within himself at the sour look on the secretary’s face. Doreen was putting on a class act, even to the way she folded the skirt of the silk dress neatly around her as she sat down, her back straight, perching on the edge of the Palm Court chair, and she was a real trophy.
Doreen surveyed the tables around them nonchalantly. She could tell that the overweight man in the baggy suit at the next table was the man Harry had come to meet, because of the way that he smiled at Harry, but kept staring at her, and from the look on the face of the woman with him. But she pretended to be preoccupied with something interesting in the middle distance. She had seen a similar scene once, in a film played on telly, and she reckoned – from the way all the people in the Palm Court seemed to be staring at her – that she was doing a pretty good replay.
However neither Harry, nor Doreen, noticed two women sitting talking together on the far side of the Palm Court, though both women were studying them intently.
‘Do you know, I could swear that was the dress Sylvia was bragging about.’ The speaker was a severe looking woman in a dark suit. She was straining to see through her spectacles, but it was obvious that Doreen was just out of her optimal visual range.
The second woman shrugged, and stirred her tea. She was dressed in a similar dark suit, and both women looked like lawyers. ‘Perhaps they made several.’
‘Perhaps.’ The woman with spectacles strained again, and then gave up, stowing her glasses away into a case. ‘Sylvia seemed to think she had the one and only.’
‘Women like her always do.’ The second woman’s voice held an icy edge. ‘Doesn’t she earn her wardrobe on her back?’
The short-sighted woman frowned disapprovingly. ‘Ssh, dear, you shouldn’t say things like that.’
The second woman shrugged. ‘It’s no great secret, Claire. Let’s have some more cake.’ She paused. ‘I imagine you’ll have great fun telling her.’
Harry did not introduce Doreen to Tim Matthews. He could see that Matthews was almost panting for an introduction, but he did not consider it necessary, and he was pretty sure Matthews’ sour companion would ice the air if he tried presenting the two women to each other.
There was no need, anyway, because Doreen and Matthews’ secretary were only providing camouflage. The two men exchanged folders of documents, and read through them carefully whilst Doreen queened it more than a little, and Matthews’ secretary looked more and more as though she has swallowed a mouthful of unripe lemon, and then they nodded to each, and Doreen smiled Matthews her most dazzling smile, whilst his secretary looked as though she wished she were holding a dagger with a very sharp blade, and their business was done.
Harry grinned as they wait for a taxi outside the Waldorf. They had both switched off their mobiles, and now they were ready to enjoy themselves. ‘That was a star turn.’
Doreen dimpled. It was another trick she had often practised in front of her bedroom mirror. She knew dimples worked well.
‘How about some shopping?’ He felt that she deserved a reward, though he was not sure what. But she certainly deserved something good.
Doreen was thinking much the same thing. But she also needed time to browse and evaluate, and she suspected that a couple of hundred might not go far. She thought she should take her time, and boost her credit into the bargain.
She shook her head. ‘No, I think we should go back, and recharge our batteries.’
She dimpled again as she saw Harry’s eyes light up: she had a feeling that she had found a golden path. ‘Then you can take me out to dinner.’