Sins of the Flesh. Fern Michaels

Irene began to rise from her seat even though the appointment book was right in front of her. But she knew it contained no further clues.

      “Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Vanderbilt are seeing to Mr. Bishop’s clients. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I can have Mr. Rockefeller return your call when he gets in if you like….”

      “I want him to call me as soon as you hear from him or he sets foot in that office. More important, I want to be in touch with Mr. Bishop. Do you understand me, Irene?” Reuben said coldly, and rang off.

      He immediately dialed the house on Fire Island for the second time. This time Rajean answered the phone. “This is Reuben, Rajean. I’m trying to reach Daniel. Do you know where he is?”

      “Oh, hello there, Reuben, how are you?” Rajean drawled.

      Reuben fought to keep his calm, sensing Daniel’s ice-maiden wife was only trying to get a rise out of him. She knew he didn’t want to chat. “I’m fine, thanks. Do you know where Daniel is?”

      “No, Reuben, I don’t, as a matter of fact. His secretary called yesterday afternoon and…” Rajean took a drag from a cigarette and blew it out leisurely.

      She was toying with him. Reuben took a deep breath, waited a beat, and then said, “Yes?” drawing out the syllable as if coaxing a child.

      “She said he was going out of town for, as she put it, ‘an indefinite period of time.’ She said that when Daniel got back to her with a number she’d call me.” Rajean sounded peeved as she offered this information, as if she didn’t appreciate being kept in the dark—even about matters that didn’t interest her in the least. “Why, Reuben, is there something wrong?”

      Reuben deliberately kept his voice light. “Nothing earth-shattering. I just need to talk to him about something. It can wait.” It wouldn’t do to stir up a hornet’s nest—at least until he knew what was going on. He continued to speak in a friendly, less urgent manner. “How are you, Rajean, and when are you and Nellie coming to the land of sunshine?”

      “Daniel said something about October, but it isn’t definite. How is everyone?” she responded politely. One never knew when the services of a Hollywood mogul might come in handy.

      “Just fine. When Daniel phones, will you tell him to give me a call?”

      “Of course. Take care of yourself, Reuben, and give my regards to…your wife and boys.”

      “You bet.”

      His forehead deeply furrowed, Reuben stared at the shiny black telephone for a long time. Now he had a new set of worries. Where the hell was Daniel?

      The next call he made was to his own office. His secretary assured him Daniel had not called, and his third meeting with the union men had been canceled, but everything else was fine.

      When he hung up, Reuben looked around and realized the day was rapidly picking up speed. The dew of morning was gone, the debris of his gardening labors had already been cleaned up, and his coffee was dead cold. In that moment he made up his mind to fly East.

      It was more than a whim, he told himself as he stood beneath the stinging spray of his bathroom shower. Something was wrong, he could feel it, sense it in every pore of his body. Daniel was in trouble of some kind and hadn’t asked for his help. Instead he’d obviously turned to his two Harvard friends. Why? Was he in some kind of political legal trouble? When Daniel had called him, his voice had sounded strained, that much he remembered, and the call itself had triggered his own jittery feelings.

      As he dressed, Reuben’s mind whirled. Some kind of political intrigue, something top secret. That was the only situation that would account for the fact that Daniel couldn’t be reached. “Ah, shit!” Reuben exploded. An indefinite period of time could mean anything from a few hours to a few years. He knew Daniel to be an honest man, but politics was a dirty business, and no one had to be a Harvard graduate to figure that out.

      Reuben had one foot on the running board of his car when his maid called to him that a Mr. Rockefeller was on the phone long distance. He walked back to the house, his thoughts churning at this turn of events. An inner voice cautioned him to tread easy, but after he’d identified himself, he threw discretion to the winds. “I need to get in touch with Daniel, and I need to do it immediately. Where is he?” he demanded coldly.

      There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “I wish I could help you, Mr. Tarz, but I don’t have a number for Daniel. He said he’d get back to me with one, but so far he hasn’t done that. Jerry and I are manning the office, taking turns until Daniel gets back…. I’ll be more than happy to give him your message as soon as he calls.”

      Reuben instantly sensed in Rockefeller’s voice the same strain he’d heard in Daniel on his Fourth of July call. “Look, Mr. Rockefeller, in all the years Daniel and I have known each other, we have never, I repeat, never, neglected to leave at least a phone number. The simple fact is I’m not buying your story, or his secretary’s story. Now, what kind of trouble does Daniel think he’s in? Is it something to do with the government work he does?”

      Rocky’s agile brain sifted and collated as he paused for just the right amount of time. “Daniel said you were smart and wouldn’t buy our story,” he said sotto voce. “The Justice Department is…how can I say…Secrecy is the name of the game over there. It’s the best I can do, Mr. Tarz. For now.”

      “I’m coming to Washington,” Reuben said flatly.

      The alarm Rocky felt at Reuben’s words communicated itself in his voice. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. At least not right away. Look, let’s make a pact right now. I’ll call you the moment I hear something, day or night. If Jerry or I think you should be here, I’ll have one of our planes pick you up personally.” Then he threw in the lug wrench, the one he knew would hit Tarz between the eyes. He hated to do it, but he had no other choice. “Daniel wants it this way, Mr. Tarz. That’s why Jerry and I are here manning the office. It’s what Daniel wants. If you’re the friend Daniel says you are, then you’ll respect his wishes.”

      Reuben swallowed past the lump in his throat. He had to agree; he had no other choice. “All right, I’ll stay here for now. But when the time comes, never mind sending the old family plane, I have one of my own. And I’ll keep my end of the pact, but this is yours: You call me every three hours and I don’t mean every three and a half hours. Every three hours.”

      “Sealed, Mr. Tarz.”

      Reuben slammed down the receiver so hard, he thought he heard it break. Rockefeller’s words didn’t sit well with him. He’d been too glib, too…He hadn’t actually said Daniel was off on government work. What he’d done was pick up on Reuben’s hunch and ride with it. The only thing that halfway reassured him was the fact that Rocky and Jerry had always proven themselves good friends to Daniel. And he’d seen enough of the good ol’ boy Harvard-Princeton crap to know they stuck together like glue. That’s why he had made sure Daniel became one of them twenty-odd years ago. They would obey Daniel’s instructions to the letter, just as he himself would.

      He would simply have to wait, something he didn’t like to do and wasn’t very good at. The realization riled Reuben so, he lashed out at the leather sofa in his study. Cursing with the pain that shot up his leg, he jerked his foot away and stomped out of the room. There was no point in going to the studio, he decided, he’d just vent his anger and frustration on anyone who came near him. The servants were already off hiding somewhere. No, he’d change his clothes and go back to the garden, finish working on his roses. Or he could go through the Examiner and torture himself wondering about Mickey’s safety—He shrugged out of his suit jacket and ripped off his tie. The hell with changing his clothes. Who said you couldn’t prune roses in suit pants and business shoes? These days he did whatever he damned well pleased, and it pleased him to work on his roses exactly as he was. So why did he feel that he had to defend his actions, even to himself?

      Muttering a frustrated oath, he attacked the roses, all six feet three of him towering over the huge thorny stems and hacking away