He looked up. "Yes."

"Do you have a name?"

"Jeff Stevens."

"That's a nice name." He made no comment. "Do you know who I am?"

"No."

"I'm Louise Hollander. I own this boat."

"I see. I'm working for you."

She gave him a slow smile. "That's right."

"Then if you want to get your money's worth, you'd better let me get on with my work." Jeff moved on to the next stanchion.

In their quarters at night, the crew members disparaged the pa.s.sengers and made jokes about them. But Jeff admitted to himself that he was envious of them--- their backgrounds, their educations, and their easy manners. They had come from monied families and had attended the best schools. His school had been Uncle Willie and the carnival.

One of the carnies had been a professor of archaeology until he was thrown out of college for stealing and selling valuable relics. He and Jeff had had long talks, and the professor had imbued Jeff with an enthusiasm for archaeology. "You can read the whole future of mankind in the past," the professor would say. "Think of it, son. Thousands of years ago there were people just like you and me dreaming dreams, spinning tales, living out their lives, giving birth to our ancestors." His eyes had taken on a faraway look. "Carthage--- that's where I'd like to go on a dig. Long before Christ was born, it was a great city, the Paris of ancient Africa. The people had their games, and baths, and chariot racing. The Circus Maximus was as large as five football fields." He had noted the interest in the boy's eyes. "Do you know how Cato the Elder used to end his speeches in the Roman Senate? He'd say, 'Delenda est cartaga'; 'Carthage must be destroyed.' His wish finally came true. The Romans reduced the place to rubble and came back twenty-five years later to build a great city on its ashes. I wish I could take you there on a dig one day, my boy."

A year later the professor had died of alcoholism, but Jeff had promised himself that one day he would go on a dig. Carthage, first, for the professor.

On the last night before the schooner was to dock in Tahiti, Jeff was summoned to Louise Hollander's stateroom. She was wearing a sheer silk robe.

"You wanted to see me, ma'am?"

"Are you a h.o.m.os.e.xual, Jeff?"

"I don't believe it's any of your business, Miss Hollander, but the answer is no. What I am is choosy."

Louise Hollander's mouth tightened. "What kind of women do you like? Wh.o.r.es, I suppose."

"Sometimes," Jeff said agreeably. "Was there anything else, Miss Hollander?"

"Yes. I'm giving a dinner party tomorrow night. Would you like to come?"

Jeff looked at the woman for a long moment before he answered. "Why not?"

And that was the way it began.

Louise Hollander had had two husbands before she was twenty-one, and her lawyer had just made a settlement with her third husband when she met Jeff. The second night they were moored at the harbor in Papeete, and as the pa.s.sengers and crew were going ash.o.r.e, Jeff received another summons to Louise Hollander's quarters. When Jeff arrived, she was dressed in a colorful silk pareu slit all the way up to the thigh.

"I'm trying to get this off," she said. "I'm having a problem with the zipper."

Jeff walked over and examined the costume. "It doesn't have a Zipper."

She turned to face him, and smiled. "I know. That's my problem."

They made love on the deck, where the soft tropical air caressed their bodies like a blessing. Afterward, they lay on their sides, facing each other. Jeff propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at Louise. "Your daddy's not the sheriff, is he?" Jeff asked.

She sat up in surprise. "What?"

"You're the first townie I ever made love to. Uncle Willie used to warn me that their daddies always turned out to be the sheriff."

They were together every night after that. At first Louise's friends were amused. He's another one of Louise's playthings, they thought. But when she informed them that she intended to marry Jeff, they were frantic.

"For Christ's sake, Louise, he's a nothing. He worked in a carnival. My G.o.d, you might as well be marrying a stable hand. He's handsome--- granted. And he has a fab bod. But outside of s.e.x, you have absolutely nothing in common, darling."

"Louise, Jeff's for breakfast, not dinner."

"You have a social position to uphold."

"Frankly, angel, he just won't fit in, will he?"

But nothing her friends said could dissuade Louise. Jeff was the most fascinating man she had ever met. She had found that men who were outstandingly handsome were either monumentally stupid or unbearably dull. Jeff was intelligent and amusing, and the combination was irresistible.

When Louise mentioned the subject of marriage to Jeff, he was as surprised as her friends had been.

"Why marriage? You've already got my body. I can't give you anything you don't have."

"It's very simple, Jeff. I love you. I want to share the rest of my life with you."

Marriage had been an alien idea, and suddenly it no longer was. Beneath Louise Hollander's worldly, sophisticated veneer; there was a vulnerable, lost little girl. She needs me, Jeff thought. The idea of a stable homelife and children was suddenly immensely appealing. It seemed to him that ever since he could remember, he had been running. It was time to stop.

They were married in the town hall in Tahiti three days later..

When they returned to New York, Jeff was summoned to the office of Scott Fogarty, Louise Hollander's attorney, a small, frigid man, tight-lipped and probably, Jeff thought, tight-a.s.sed.

"I have a paper here for you to sign," the attorney announced.

"What kind of paper?"

"It's a release. It simply states that in the event of the dissolution of your marriage to Louise Hollander---"

"Louise Stevens."

"---Louise Stevens, that you will not partic.i.p.ate financially in any of her---"

Jeff felt the muscles of his jaw tightening. "Where do I sign?"

"Don't you want me to finish reading?"

"No. I don't think you get the point. I didn't marry her for her f.u.c.king money."

"Really, Mr. Stevens! I just----"

"Do you want me to sign it or don't you?"

The lawyer placed the paper in front of Jeff. He scrawled his signature and stormed out of the office. Louise's limousine and driver were waiting for him downstairs. As Jeff climbed in, he had to laugh to himself. What the h.e.l.l am I so p.i.s.sed off about? I've been a con artist all my life, and when I go straight for the first time and someone thinks I'm out to take them, I behave like a f.u.c.king Sunday school teacher.

Louise took Jeff to the best tailor in Manhattan. "You'll look fantastic in a dinner jacket," she coaxed. And he did. Before the second month of the marriage, five of Louise's best friends had tried to seduce the attractive newcomer in their circle, but Jeff ignored them. He was determined to make his marriage work.

Budge Hollander, Louise's brother, put Jeff up for membership in the exclusive New York Pilgrim Club, and Jeff was accepted. Budge was a beefy, middle-aged man who had gotten his sobriquet playing right tackle on the Harvard football team, where he got the reputation of being a player his opponents could not budge. He owned a shipping line, a banana plantation, cattle ranches, a meat-packing company, and more corporations than Jeff could count. Budge Hollander was not subtle in concealing his contempt for Jeff Stevens.

"You're really out of our cla.s.s, aren't you, old boy? But as long as you amuse Louise in bed, that will do nicely. I'm very fond of my sister."

It took every ounce of willpower for Jeff to control himself. I'm not married to this p.r.i.c.k. I'm married to Louise.

The other members of the Pilgrim Club were equally obnoxious. They found Jeff terribly amusing. All of them dined at the club every noontime, and pleaded for Jeff to tell them stories about his "carnie days," as they liked to call them. Perversely, Jeff made the stories more and more outrageous.

Jeff and Louise lived in a twenty-room townhouse filled with servants, on the East Side of Manhattan. Louise had estates in Long Island and the Bahamas, a villa in Sardinia, and a large apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris. Aside from the yacht, Louise owned a Maserati, a Rolls Corniche, a Lamborghini, and a Daimler.

It's fantastic, Jeff thought.

It's great, Jeff thought.

It's boring, Jeff thought. And degrading.

One morning he got up from his eighteenth-century four-poster bed, put on a Sulka robe, and went looking for Louise. He found her in the breakfast room.

"I've got to get a job," he told her.

"For heaven's sake, darling, why? We don't need the money."

"It has nothing to do with money. You can't expect me to sit around on my hands and be spoonfed. I have to work."

Louise gave it a moment's thought. "All right, angel. I'll speak to Budge. He owns a stockbrokerage firm. Would you like to be a stockbroker, darling?"

"I just want to get off my a.s.s," Jeff muttered.

He went to work for Budge. He had never had a job with regular hours before. I'm going to love it, Jeff thought.

He hated it. He stayed with it because he wanted to bring home a paycheck to his wife.

"When are you and I going to have a baby?" he asked Louise, after a lazy Sunday brunch.

"Soon, darling. I'm trying."

"Come to bed. Let's try again."

Jeff was seated at the luncheon table reserved for his brother-in-law and half a dozen other captains of industry at the Pilgrim Club.

Budge announced, "We just issued our annual report for the meat-packing company, fellas. Our profits are up forty percent."

"Why shouldn't they be?" one of the men at the table laughed. "You've got the f.u.c.king inspectors bribed." He turned to the others at the table. "Old clever Budge, here, buys inferior meat and has it stamped prime and sells it for a b.l.o.o.d.y fortune."

Jeff was shocked. "People eat meat, for Christ's sake. They feed it to their children. He's kidding, isn't he, Budge?"

Budge grinned and whooped, "Look who's being moral!"

Over the next three months Jeff became very well acquainted with his table companions. Ed Zeller had paid a million in bribes in order to build a factory in Libya. Mike Quincy, the head of a conglomerate, was a raider who bought companies and illegally tipped off his friends when to buy and sell the stock. Alan Thompson, the richest man at the table, boasted of his company's policy. "Before they changed the d.a.m.n law, we used to fire the old gray hairs one year before their pensions were due. Saved a fortune."

All the men cheated on taxes, had insurance scams, falsified expense accounts, and put their current mistresses on their payrolls as secretaries or a.s.sistants.

Christ, Jeff thought. They're just dressed-up carnies. They all run flat stores.

The wives were no better. They grabbed everything they could get their greedy hands on and cheated on their husbands. They're playing the key game, Jeff marveled.

When he tried to tell Louise how he felt, she laughed. "Don't be naive, Jeff. You're enjoying your life, aren't you?"

The truth was that he was not. He had married Louise because he believed she needed him. He felt that children would change everything.

"Let's have one of each. It's time. We've been married a year now."

"Angel, be patient. I've been to the doctor, and he told me I'm fine. Maybe you should have a checkup and see if you're all right."

Jeff went.

"You should have no trouble producing healthy children," the doctor a.s.sured him.

And still nothing happened.

On Black Monday Jeff's world fell apart. It started in the morning when he went into Louise's medicine chest for an aspirin. He found a shelf full of birth control pills. One of the cases was almost empty. Lying innocently next to it was a vial of white powder and a small golden spoon. And that was only the start of the day.

At noon, Jeff was seated in a deep armchair in the Pilgrim Club, waiting for Budge to appear, when he heard two men behind him talking.

"She swears that her Italian singer's c.o.c.k is over ten inches long."