An Ace up my Sleeve Read online

  I could use a spare driver. Do you want to come?

  That had been a mistake, but she didn’t have to worry, she assured herself. He had her money… why should he want to come to Switzerland with a woman old enough to be his mother?

  She began to think of him as he had sat opposite her in that squalid restaurant, eating, looking up at her from time to time, and of his warm, friendly grin. She wondered what it would be like to have him in this bed with her, and her body grew hot, moist and yielding at the thought. Angry with herself, she got out of bed and walked to the window. Pulling back the drapes, she looked down at the Rhine. The ferry steamer, packed with workers, was crossing from the far bank, its lights reflecting; in the leaden, cold looking river. Snow was falling, and had capped the church spires and the roofs of the distant factories.

  It would be a dreary drive, she thought, along the monotonous autobahn to Basle. Then she would have to face the traffic of Zurich, the climb to the Bernadino tunnel and the long, difficult descent to Bellinzona. She grimaced and went to the bathroom.

  Forty minutes later, the waiter brought her a pot of coffee. She was now dressed. Her mink coat lay across the chair, ready to put on. As the waiter entered, carrying the tray, she was adjusting her hat in the mirror, her eyes examining her make-up.

  At three minutes to 08.00, she stubbed out her cigarette, put on her coat, gave herself one more quick glance in the mirror, then taking her handbag, she left the room.

  She looked quickly around the lobby as she left the elevator. There was just a chance this tall, exciting boy might be there, waiting for her, but only a group of German business men and three pages met her eyes.

  She paid her account and crossed to the Hall Porter to tip him.

  “You should drive carefully, madame,” he said, palming the tip and becoming suddenly fatherly. “The roads will be dangerous.”

  She was in no mood for advice and she turned away to where the luggage porter was waiting.

  “The luggage is in the boot, madame,” he said. His English was even worse than the Hall Porter’s. “The tank is full. The car is fully serviced.”

  She tipped him and went out into the cold to the black Mercedes she had bought in Hamburg.

  The porter and two pages went with her like bodyguards. She paused to look down the drive of the hotel. Snow was falling steadily: there was mist. She could see people hurrying along the sidewalk and beyond them the early morning traffic, but there was no sign of Larry Stevens.

  She slid under the driving wheel. The porter closed the door with an elaborate bow and she shifted the gear lever to Drive. As the car began to move she glanced at her diamond studded wristwatch. The time was now 8.10. The porter had run the car engine for some minutes so now the heater was operating. She turned on the wipers and edged the car down the drive feeling alone in spite of the security and luxury of the car, and feeling uneasy about facing the nine hundred kilometres of difficult road ahead of her.

  She had guessed right, she thought bitterly. The boy had only wanted a free meal and her money. By now he was once more on his way, thinking she was just one more middle-aged sucker… which, of course, she was.

  She had to stop at the junction as a stream of cars, edged by. Then she heard a soft tapping sound on the car window and she quickly turned her head, her heart-beat racing.

  He was there, snow piled on the peak of his baseball cap, his face blue with the cold, his wide, friendly smile warming her. Suddenly she was years younger and suddenly stupidly happy. She waved to him to go around the car to the passenger’s seat. He nodded, ran in front of the dipped headlights, paused to shake the snow from his cap, his leather jacket and his shoes. Then he opened the off side door, letting in a blast of cold air, and slid in beside her.

  “Morning, ma’am.” His voice sounded as happy as she felt. “Makes you think of Christmas, doesn’t it?”

  Yes, she thought. Christmas! He is really my Christmas present!

  “Have you been waiting long? Why didn’t you come to the hotel? You must be frozen.” She was pleased her voice was controlled.

  “Not long, ma’am. I didn’t think I should go to the hotel. That kind of hotel is snooty.” He laughed. “This is a fine car… is it yours?”

  “Yes.” She slowed and stopped as the traffic lights turned to red. “Where is your luggage, Larry?”

  “I lost that with my money.”

  “You mean you’ve nothing except what you’ve got on?”

  He laughed.

  “That’s it. I sure walked into that one. Ron warned me. He said it could happen but I didn’t believe him. There was this girl… I thought she was okay, but I got rolled,” and he laughed again.

  “You mean she stole your things?”

  “Her boy friend did.” He shrugged. “Ron warned me but I still fell for the act.” He grinned at her. “Oh, ma’am before I forget: did you know you left three hundred marks to pay for that meal? I’ve got the change right here.” He took from his hip pocket a roll of bills.

  “I meant you to keep that.”

  “Oh, no!” His voice sharpened, and glancing at him, she saw he looked genuinely shocked. “I accept free rides, but I don’t accept money from anyone.”

  She thought quickly.

  “Then will you please keep it and pay for the gas when we need it?”

  He looked at her from under the peak of his cap.

  “Yeah… sure.”

  They were now approaching the entrance to the autobahn. The car’s headlights showed her the road was flecked with snow and she thought there was a chance of black ice. As she joined the stream of traffic, she saw cars were moving with caution.

  “We could be late getting to Basle,” she said.

  “Are you in a hurry, ma’am?”

  “No.”

  “Nor me… I’m never in a hurry,” and he laughed.

  No, she was now no longer in a hurry having him by her side. She had planned to get to the Adlon hotel in Basle by 14.00, but now she didn’t care. Thinking about it, she realized it could be embarrassing to take Larry - with no luggage - to the Adlon. It would be better to find a much more modest hotel where there would be no questioning eyebrows.

  “Where did you sleep last night?” she asked.

  “I found a room. You’ll excuse me, ma’am, but I had to use some of your money. I’ll let you have it back.”

  Another girl? She felt a stab of jealousy.

  “Don’t worry about that. I have plenty of money.” She hesitated, then went on, “Money is useful, but it doesn’t always bring happiness.”

  He shifted, pushing up the peak of his cap, then pulling it down.

  “My old man was always saying things like that.” She realized at once that she had said the wrong thing. “People with plenty of money are always griping about happiness.” His voice had become surly.

  “Yes… that’s right.” She was anxious to go along with his views. “When you have it, you don’t always appreciate it.”

  Again he shifted.

  “People say that. Ron says too few people have too much money and too many have too little.”

  Was that supposed to be wisdom? she thought, but she said, “You keep mentioning Ron… tell me about him.”

  “He’s my buddy.” He turned to look at her and she was dismayed to see the elated expression on his face. Once, out of sheer boredom, she had gone to a Billy Graham meeting and she had been surrounded by simple people looking just the way this boy was looking now.

  Again she felt a stab of jealousy, knowing he would never look like this if ever he talked about her to his friends.

  “Tell me about him.”

  He stared through the windshield for a long moment, then he said, “I guess he’s special. He’s the smartest cookie I’ve ever known.” He shook his head in wonderment. “You ask him anything… anything… and he comes up with the answer. You have a problem and he fixes it. He’s really smart.”

  “He sounds wonderful.�
� She was careful to make her voice m sound enthusiastic. “Where did you meet him?”

  “Oh, I ran into him.” The way his voice dropped warned her this was none of her business.

  “Why isn’t he travelling with you?”

  He laughed, slapping his big hand on his thigh.

  “Right now, ma’am, he’s in jail.”

  “In jail!” Her voice shot up a note. “But why?”

  He looked at her, peering at her from under the peak of his cap.

  “Don’t think he’s done anything wrong, ma’am. Sure, I know when you hear a guy is in jail you think he must be bad, but Ron’s not like that. He’s a protester. He staged this protest march in Hamburg so they put him in jail.”

  With her hands resting lightly on the driving wheel, her eyes on the road ahead, Helga asked, “What was he protesting about?”

  There was a long pause and she glanced at him.

  “What was he protesting about?” she repeated.

  “I’m not too sure, ma’am.” He pulled at the peak of his cap. There was an awful lot of talk. All I know is he had good reason to protest.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  He shifted uneasily.

  “He told me so.”

  What a baby! she thought and she warmed to him.

  “If he’s as smart as you say he is, Larry, why is he in jail?”

  “He is smart!” He nodded emphatically. “He explained that to me. He told me if people don’t know about you, you’re nothing. He said publicity was the big thing. By getting tossed into jail, he got his photo in the papers. Right now, people are talking about him in Hamburg… that’s smart!”

  “He is anti-rich, of course?”

  Larry frowned.

  “Yeah… you could say that.”

  “Are you anti-rich?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t thought about it much.”

  “But you listen to Ron?”

  “Sure… you can’t help listening to him! This Hamburg shindig was a ball! He got a bunch of guys together. I was one of them. It was raining fit to drown a duck. I wanted to stay under cover, but Ron wanted me out in front, so that’s where I was.

  “We were all standing there like corpses… wet, hungry and cold. Then Ron started shooting the breeze. In five minutes he had us exploding like fire crackers. Man! That was something! We had a ball. We yelled, smashed shop windows, turned cars over and set fire to them. We threw bricks at the cops… we had a real ball!”

  “But why, Larry?”

  He looked at her, his eyes suddenly hostile.

  “It had to be done… Ron said so.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well the cops got tough. They used these water cannons and Man! was it cold!” He laughed. She was relieved that his hostility had been just a brief passing thing. “Then they used tear gas. It really got tough. Ron reached me. We were ankle deep in broken glass and there were five cars exploding… it was like a battlefield. Everyone was yelling and fighting. He said for me to get out of Hamburg fast… so I got out.”

  It was now light enough to turn off the headlights and the snow had stopped. She increased the speed of the car.

  “How long will he be in jail?” she asked.

  “I don’t know… maybe a week.”

  “Do you plan to see him again?”

  “Sure, I’ll see him again. I have his address. You don’t find a guy like Ron and then lose him. I’ll send him a card.” He nodded to himself as if a postcard solved all problems. “I sure hope to see him again… he’s something special.”

  His vagueness, Helga thought, could mean he wouldn’t see this man again, and she felt relieved.

  “You worry me,” she said. “You have no luggage, no clothes, no money. I can’t see how you are going to exist.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, ma’am. I’ll get by. I’ll find a job.” He smiled confidently at her. “It’s nice of you to worry. I’ll get a job in a hotel or a garage. I don’t need much money.”

  Ahead of her she saw a parking sign and she slowed the car.

  “Would you like to drive?”

  “I’d be glad to.”

  She drove into the parking bay and stopped the car. He got out, walked around to the on side door as she slid over to the passenger’s seat.

  By the way he drove on to the autobahn, she knew immediately he was an expert driver. He had the car moving at 170 k.p.h. in a few minutes, and she felt not only slightly ashamed, but also elderly that she had been driving so cautiously.

  “We’ll be in Basle in a couple of hours at this rate,” she said.

  “Am I driving too fast, ma’am?”

  He was driving too fast, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.

  “No… I like it. You drive very well.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  By the slight frown on his face, she realized he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to concentrate on his driving, enjoying the power of the car and showing her his expertise. She relaxed, and after watching the monotonous road racing towards her for some time, her mind drifted back into her past: something she caught herself doing as she grew older.

  The only child of a brilliant international lawyer, Helga had received a continental education. She had had training in law and top class secretarial work. Her father had joined a firm in Lausanne, Switzerland, which specialized in tax problems. When she was twenty-four and fully qualified, he brought her into the firm as his personal assistant. She quickly made herself indispensable. The heart attack that killed her father some years later made no difference to her position with the firm. Jack Archer, one of the junior partners, grabbed her for his personal secretary before any of the senior partners thought of doing so. She knew she could have had her choice, but Archer appealed to her: he was handsome, dynamic and magnificently sexy. She had always been over-sexed. Men were necessary in her life, and she had had so many lovers she had lost count of their faces. When Archer had asked her to work with him and when she had nodded, he had locked his office door and by way of celebration they had had what she called a “quickie’ on the floor and which had proved satisfactory to both of them.

  Somehow Jack Archer had got hold of Herman Rolfe’s Swiss account. No one knew quite how he had done it: even he, himself, was unsure. Herman Rolfe had come to Lausanne in search of a top class lawyer and income tax consultant and somehow Archer had got himself noticed and got the job. This was a killing that promoted Archer to senior partner. The Rolfe account was as important to the firm as the White House is to a future President.

  Herman Rolfe, tall, lean, balding, the wrong side of sixty-five, tough and ruthless, had built an empire around electronics that had made him one of the richest men in the world. Long ago he had seen the red light of pending currency restrictions and had, at first legally, then illegally, siphoned off the bulk of his money to a numbered account in Switzerland. He needed a good man on the spot to handle his instructions and chose Jack Archer. As Helga was Archer’s personal assistant, she too became involved.

  Every three months, Rolf flew into Geneva where Archer met him to discuss investments. On one pending visit, Archer broke a leg while skiing and asked Helga to take his place.

  “You have all the know-how. Here are my recommendations. Watch him… he’s very tricky,” was his advice before she left for Geneva.

  Helga had heard a lot about Herman Rolfe as a man and as a tycoon, but she had no idea he was a cripple. She was a little shocked to find him walking with the aid of sticks and his skull-like face set in a sour grimace of pain. They had spent three hours together in Rolfe’s luxury suite at the Bergues Hotel. At this meeting, Helga had been thirty-six years of age and outstandingly beautiful. She had poise and she understood men. She had brains and her added suggestions to the suggestions made by Archer impressed Rolfe.

  Later, Archer had told her: You’ve made a hit with the old man… he wants to see you again.”

  Rolfe came to Switz
erland a month later and to the office in Lausanne - something he hadn’t done before. He had paused at Helga’s desk and had shaken hands with her. “Your suggestions were excellent,” he said, in his dry, harsh voice. “Accept this as an appreciation.” He had given her a small package which contained a platinum and diamond wristwatch.

  When he had gone, Archer called her into his office.

  “The old man wants you to be his secretary. It’s up to you, but I don’t advise it.” He looked at her, smiling. “Play your cards right and I have an idea you could become his wife. He’s lonely, he wants someone to run his various homes, wants someone with brains, someone he can show off. You qualify. Want me to handle it?”

  She stared at him. It took her several seconds to realize fully what he was saying, then she didn’t hesitate.

  “Do you think you can?”

  “I’ll bet on it.” He was excited. “We’ve always got along together, darling. It would be a big thing for me to have you as his wife. We could work together. If you will marry him, I’ll fix it.”

  The wife of one of the richest men in the world! It was an irresistible thought at her age!

  “Fix it, but I bet you don’t!”

  But Archer did.

  Three months later, she had a letter from Rolfe asking her to meet him at the Montreux Palace hotel in Montreux and would she have dinner with him?

  “This is it,” Archer told her. “I’ve handed him to you on a plate. Lock the door, darling and get your pants off. I deserve a reward!”

  Rolfe had been brisk and business-like. He explained he needed a wife. He had a number of homes dotted around Europe. He wanted someone to look after his place in Florida. He considered himself fortunate to have found her as she not only had looks, charm, poise but excellent brains. She was ideally fitted to become his wife. Would she accept him?

  Helga knew coyness or hesitation would be the wrong approach. She looked straight at him.

  “Yes. I hope I can give you as much as you are offering me.”

  It was a reply that pleased him.

  For a long uncomfortable minute, he stuthed her. His penetrating stare 23