Then what will happen to the company?
She was the one chance we had to stay alive. Without her, the bottom will drop out of the stock, we're finished." He wiped at his face with a handkerchief. "Now even Cord won't bother with us."
David stared at his uncle. "What do you mean?"
"Schmuck!" Norman snapped. "Don't you see it yet?
Do I got to draw for you diagrams?"
"See?" David asked, bewildered. "See what?"
"That Cord really don't give a damn about the company," the old man said.
"That all he wants is the girl."
"The girl?"
"Sure," Norman said.
"Rina Marlowe.
Remember that meeting I had with him in the toilet at the Waldorf?
Remember I told you what he said?
How he wouldn't tell me the courvehs' names because I stole the Marlowe girl from under his nose?"
The light came on suddenly inside David's head.
Why hadn't he thought of it?
It tied up with the phone call from Cord the night Dunbar killed himself.
He looked at his uncle with a new respect.
"What are we going to do?"
"Do?" the old man said.
"Do?
We're going to keep our mouths shut and go down to that meeting.
My heart may be breaking but if he offered three million for my stock, he’ll go to five!"
The dream didn't slip away this time when Rina opened her eyes.
If anything, it seemed more real than it had ever been.
She lay very still for a moment, looking up at the clear plastic tent covering her head and chest.
She turned her head slowly.
Ilene was sitting in the chair, watching her.
She wished she could tell Ilene not to worry, there really wasn't anything to be afraid of. She had gone through this so many times before in the dream.
"Ilene!" she whispered. Ilene started and got up out of her chair. Rina smiled up at her. "It's really me, Ilene," she whispered. "I'm not out of my head."
"Rina!"
She felt Ilene's hand take her own under the sheet.
"Rina!" "Don't cry, Ilene," she whispered. She turned her head to try and see the calendar on the wall but it was too far away.
"What day is it?"
"It's Friday."
"The thirteenth?" Rina tried to smile.
She saw the smile come to Ilene's face, despite the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. "Call Jonas," Rina said weakly. "I want to see him." She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them when Ilene came back to the bed.
"Did you get him?"
Ilene shook her head.
"His office says he's in New York, but they don't know where to reach him."
"You get him, wherever he is!" Rina smiled. "You can't fool me any more," she said.
"I’ve played this scene too many times.
You call him.
I won't die until he gets here." A faint, ironic smile came over her face. "Anyway, nobody dies out here on the weekend.
The weekend columns have already gone to press."
JONAS – 1935.
Book Five.
1.
I pulled the stick back into my belly with a little left rudder.
At the same time, I opened the throttle and the CA-4 leaped upward into the sky in a half loop, like an arrow shot from a bow.