F. Paul Wilson - All the Rage

Or maybe Doug had lapsed into one of his programming fugues. Nadia had seen it happen before. He'd take the phone off the hook, bury it under a cushion, and start hitting the keys. Gradually he'd fade into a state of altered consciousness where he became one with his computer and nothing else existed beyond their union. It was spooky.

But why did he have to fugue out today of all days? She'd been in a blue funk ever since running the inert Berzerk through the imager this morning. Seeing that molecule floating before her had drained her enthusiasm for stabilizing it.

Oh, God! she thought, stiffening. I left the sample in the imager!

She'd been so shocked after recognizing the molecule…

She calmed herself. No one would be in the dry lab until Tuesday. She'd go back first thing tomorrow morning and clean up.

What she needed most now was to talk about this. Her mother might be good for any other topic, but not this one. Nadia needed Doug.

"Come, Nadjie," her mother called. "Eat. You'll feel better."

Why not? she thought with a mental shrug. Not much else to do.

But when she sat down she realized she wasn't hungry. As she picked at her food she noticed the beer and shot of Reischman's sitting by her mother's plate.

"Mom," she said. "Would you mind pouring me one of those?"

6

Milos Dragovic gazed out upon the expanse of his grounds and was pleased. In less than forty-eight hours the army of laborers and craftsmen he had assembled had worked a miracle. And just in time. The final touches had been applied just minutes before the first guests arrived.

He watched them milling about the pool and clustering on the decks—the women mostly in black, the peacock men in coats of many colors. Quite a different crowd from Friday night's. Sprinkled among the glitterati he'd shipped in from the city were a fair number of Hamptons society. Not all the creme de la creme had accepted his invitation, but more than enough to allow him to call the party a resounding success.

He smiled. To the uninformed, the acceptance rate to a party hosted by a high-profile gangster might have seemed surprisingly high. But not if Milos's invitation strategy were known. He had investigated Hamptons society and divided the upper echelons into three groups. He then sent out his invitations in three waves, all mailed locally two days apart. When the first wave was received, he knew it would be chatted up in the social circles. He could just hear them: Did you know that boorish Dragovic fellow is having a party and he wants me to come? Can you imagine?

Of course the ones in the second and third wave were thinking, Why wasn't I invited? Not that I'd even think of going, of course, but why was I left out?

Then the second-wave invitation would arrive and there'd be a sense of relief— grateful relief that they hadn't been passed over. The post office's fault. Same with the third wave.

Thus the invitations would not be automatically tossed away. And then the talk that it might be rather interesting to attend—Hamptons slumming, you might say—and it will give us so much to talk and laugh about afterward… we'll postmortem it for days.

But with everything at the party arranged and orchestrated by Kim, seeing to it that only the very best of everything was served, and in the most tasteful manner, the only fodder for their postparty conversation would be how the affair had far exceeded their expectations.

The result would be that no one would turn down his invitations next year.

And in time Milos saw himself winnowing the list, cutting those who were not properly respectful. An invitation to the annual Milos Dragovic soiree would become an object of envy, to be coveted and striven for… like a membership at the Maidstone Club.

He wondered if any members of the self-styled East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee were present. If they hated him enough to dump refuse on his house, how could they bring themselves to attend his party?

Then again, there was the old adage: hide in plain sight. Milos's enemy might assume he'd be above suspicion if he attended. But there he was wrong.

No one was above suspicion. No one.

"Excuse me, Mr. Dragovic," said a voice to his left.

Milos turned and saw a tall, fair man. He stood with a glass of red wine in his left hand and his right extended. Milos recognized his face but the name eluded him.

"Jus Slobojan," the man said as they shook hands.

Of course. Justin Karl Slobojan. The wildly successful action-thriller director, worth a hundred million or so… originally a New Yorker, now living mostly in LA but still summering as much as possible in Amagansett.

"Mr. Slobojan," Milos said. "I've long admired your work." This was no lie. Even though his villains were often drug lords and gangsters, and always met a bloody end, Milos never missed a Slobojan film. "I am so very pleased to meet you."

And pleased he had come, especially after Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer had turned him down.

"And I'm pleased to be here. This is a wonderful party." He leaned closer. "Did I hear that you had some trouble here the other night?"

Milos stared at the director. Could he be involved with this East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee? Unlikely. He spent too little time out here to get upset over who moved in. In fact, he was probably an outsider himself. Milos understood he'd been born in the Ukraine. In a way, that made them almost neighbors.

"A little vandalism by some locals," Milos said. "Nothing important."

"Good," Slobojan said. "Some of the rumors mentioned quite a bit of damage, but I can see now that they were exaggerated. You have a beautiful house for a party. The food is superb, and this wine…" He held up his glass. "If this is your house red, I'd love to see what you keep in your cellar."

"You know wines then?"

Slobojan shrugged. "A little. I dabble."

In Milos's experience, a person who downplayed his abilities as Slobojan was doing was most often a true expert.

"Then I believe I have a treat for you. Come."

He'd led the director halfway across the living room when he heard a sound outside. He stopped and turned.

"What's that?"

"What's what?" Slobojan said.

The sound grew louder as Milos hurried back to the doors. A helicopter! He was sure of it! With his intestines writhing into painful knots, he rushed outside and scanned the night sky.

"Is something wrong?" Slobojan said, coming out behind him.

"A helicopter! I hear a helicopter!"

Slobojan laughed. "Of course you do, old man. The Coast Guard runs up and down the beach all the time."

Already the sound was fading. Milos forced a smile. "The Coast Guard. Yes, of course."

Where the hell had the Coast Guard been Friday night when he was being bombed?

Milos relaxed. He'd thought about this all day and had come to the conclusion that he had little to fear from the so-called East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee tonight. This was a gathering of their peers. As much as they might hate him and his presence here in the center of what they considered their private preserve, they would not risk an assault on members of their own precious social circle. They'd know that if—more likely when —their identities were revealed, they would become instant outcasts, shunned by their own kind.

For tonight at least, his house was safe. But who knew after that?

That was why it was essential that he track down these bastards—especially the one who had called him on Friday night Milos would deal personally with him.

He led Slobojan back into the living room where he had the 1947 Petrus breathing in a crystal decanter, the empty bottle beside it. As Slobojan bent to read the label, Milos turned the bottle.