Barbara Wilkins - Elements of Chance

With shaking hands, Valerie picked up the phone on the desk in front of her and sat for a moment, wondering whom to call. The obvious person was Victor’s brother, Raymond. Calling Raymond wouldn’t do her any good right now, she realized. He was in London. It wouldn’t get her home where she could wait for Victor to turn up to straighten out all this nonsense. A friend? She had no friends. There was only Victor, and the people they paid to attend to their needs.

Finally, Valerie called Mary di Stefano at her apartment in Beverly Hills. She felt weak with relief when Mary answered on the fourth ring.

“Mary,” she whispered.

“Oh, God, sweetie. I’ve been hearing it on the news. Where are you?”

“I’m at the airport. I brought the Ferrari, and I don’t think I can make it home.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Maybe it would be a good idea to call Daniel and have him pick you up in the Rolls,” suggested Valerie. “I hope this isn’t too inconvenient, Mary. I really don’t know who else to call.”

“You try to stay calm, and we’ll be there in around a half hour.”

“Thank you, Mary.” It was all a tempest in a teapot, she thought calmly as she replaced the receiver, then leaned forward to let the blood rush to her head. It was just a computer error of some kind. Sitting up, Valerie looked through the window into the bright, sunny sky, willing the speck of silver on the horizon to be Victor’s plane.

Instead, the speck turned into a bulging 747 beginning its descent into LAX, two miles to the north.

2

The Rolls was a ten-year-old custom-made maroon limousine that Victor liked because it gave him room to stretch his long legs. A nineteen-inch color television set had been built into the back of the front seat. The fully equipped bar was for the convenience of guests rather than for Victor and Valerie, who drank only wine or champagne.

Valerie sat stiffly behind Daniel, the chauffeur, her hands folded in her lap, her legs crossed demurely at the ankles. The images on the television screen floated in front of her eyes as if underwater. Regular programming had been interrupted to concentrate on the Victor Penn story. It was as if a president had been assassinated. Valerie felt embarrassed at the thought.

“I’m going to fix us a drink,” Mary said. Without makeup, her hair in a ponytail, wearing a pair of tight jeans and a striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Mary looked more Valerie’s age than her own. Tentatively, she put one tanned hand on Valerie’s arm. It was rigid. She’s like a block of stone, Mary thought.

“I don’t drink.”

“Well, you’re going to make an exception this time, sweetie.” Mary pressed the button that opened the bar and fixed two scotch and waters, heavy on the scotch.

Valerie took the glass from Mary’s hand and made a face as she sipped. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said graciously. “I forgot to thank you.”

Shock, thought Mary, mentally giving herself a pat on the back for calling Valerie’s doctor to meet them at the estate. He could give Valerie a shot and put her out of all of this until tomorrow.

On the television screen, the anchorman discussed the Victor Penn story with the station’s financial analyst.

“What do you think all of this is going to mean to the financial community, Jim? Where does Victor Penn stand?”

“Well, some say he’s one of the two or three richest men in the world,” said the financial analyst. “The Penn operation is international, with banks in London, Paris, New York, the Bahamas, Luxembourg. They’ve diversified into mining in South Africa, cattle ranches in Argentina, fish canneries in Alaska, all sorts of things. Since it’s a privately held company, there’s no way to know for certain.”

“But he’s certainly very much on the scene here in Los Angeles, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, yes. Victor Penn is a prominent philanthropist. He supports a dozen charities, and it’s said that he’s even more active anonymously, behind the scenes.”

“So if it’s true that Victor Penn has been killed in a plane crash, it would be a real loss.”

“Well,” the analyst said, hesitating, “there have been some ugly rumors in recent months about Penn International. There’s been talk in the financial community that federal bank examiners are about to step in to take a look at the whole operation. It’s also said that they are asking foreign governments to cooperate.”

“What sort of rumors?” the anchorman prompted.

“The talk is that the Penn International banks have been lending vast sums to its other companies, sums that run as much as a thousand percent more than their assets, for example,” he replied. “Once this sort of thing starts, there’s a snowball effect. For instance, some of the uglier rumors are that the Penn bank in the Bahamas has been used not only to launder drug money, but also to launder money paid as ransom in terrorist kidnappings all over the world.”

“The disappearance of the plane carrying Victor Penn sounds like more than a coincidence then, wouldn’t you say?” asked the anchorman.

“It certainly seems suspicious.”

“Just who is Victor Penn? We’ll be right back after these messages.”

“How dare they talk about Victor like that,” Valerie said in a low voice, her eyes blazing. “Victor is the sweetest, dearest, most open man in the world. His integrity is more important to him than anything else. They’re a bunch of hyenas.”

“It happens every time, sweetie,” said Mary, between sips of her drink. She wondered if this meant the end of her hefty yearly salary, the end of all those delicious kickbacks from the stores where she shopped to dress the wife of Victor Penn. “They’ll always get you when you’re down. Nobody knows that better than I do.”

“Victor’s lawyers are going to have a field day with the slander suits,” said Valerie, her jaw tight.

“Did you know about this? That the government is sending the bank examiners in?”

“It’s a lie,” Valerie said firmly. “Victor is above reproach.”

On the screen, the visuals profiling Victor Penn began with file footage of Victor and Valerie at various charity events. Valerie in a white, beaded Givenchy, her diamonds glittering at her throat, with a tall, handsome Victor, his hand possessively on her arm, bending down to whisper in her ear. Valerie in a flame red Galanos, with Victor smiling dazzlingly into the camera and running a hand through his hair. Valerie, draped in full-length Russian sables, reaching up to kiss Victor on the cheek, his expression both proud and embarrassed. Then came the earlier films, of the brief time they had lived in their New York penthouse, of the many years in London. Victor and Valerie, each holding one of their newborn twins, beaming as they stepped off the aluminum stairs leading down from the Penn International jet. Valerie as a bride in a white gown with a cathedral-length train, a white veil covering her pale hair. She and Victor were on the steps of Saint-Ange in Paris, the first couple to be married there since well before the French Revolution. It had been Victor’s decision, of course. Victor had always wanted to be married at Saint-Ange.

The commentator resumed his voice-over. “Ever since Victor Penn appeared on the banking scene in the mid-fifties, he has been a man of mystery in international financial circles. Starting in London, Penn gained an impressive reputation in the community, entertaining lavishly at his Regent’s Park estate, or at his country estate in Sussex where the cream of London society often enjoyed hunt weekends, and where musical evenings featured such stars as Maria Callas, Arthur Rubinstein, and Jascha Heifetz among others. In 1973, Victor Penn married eighteen-year-old Valerie Hemion, a music student and the American-born niece of Lady Anne Hallowell, in a sumptuous, internationally celebrated ceremony at Saint-Ange in Paris. The couple has nine-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.”