The Millionaires' Death Club Read online

  Sam tipped his head to one side but said nothing.

  ‘All you have to do is select the right victim. After that, everything else follows.’

  ‘And who is the right victim?’ I blurted.

  ‘I wasn’t speaking to you,’ she said, barely turning her head.

  ‘Tell me,’ Sam said.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? – someone who wants to die. If they commit a very public suicide, no one will believe they were murdered. That doesn’t mean they weren’t, of course.’ She laughed, and Sam started laughing too, albeit nervously.

  After a few moments, she smoothed out her napkin and turned again to Sam. ‘So, you like Robert Louis Stevenson.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ah,’ she nodded to herself, ‘the Clockwork Orange re-enactment was your clue, I see.’

  ‘I thought that guy with the cakes must be from some English movie,’ Sam said.

  ‘I think they did make it into a movie,’ Zara replied. ‘The cake scene was actually borrowed from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Suicide Club.’

  Hearing that, I almost choked, and the young man on my left had to slap me on the back.

  Zara turned sharply to face me. ‘Do you have any idea how fortunate you are? Every member of the Top Table is either a millionaire or an heir to millions. Normally, every prospective member, even guests, have to meet that requirement. You plainly don’t qualify. You’re way out of your league.’

  ‘Yet here I am.’

  ‘Indeed, here you are. But don’t forget, we invited you in.’

  ‘And when do we get into a Millionaires’ Death Club dinner?’ Sam intervened. ‘I must be rich enough for that.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘And when do we get our NexS?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, come on. They both put it in their suicide notes: your cake guy and the Clockwork Orange girl.’

  ‘So try asking them.’

  Sam shrugged but I got the impression he thought he’d scored a point.

  ‘On the subject of A Clockwork Orange,’ Zara said after a pause, ‘did you know the protagonist’s name was carefully chosen. “Alex” literally means “without law”. Like all truly great people, Alex was a law unto himself.’

  One of the waiters dropped a plate and it broke with a great boom. He started apologising and desperately tried to clear up the mess.

  ‘So, Sam, now that you’re in,’ Zara commented, without the slightest reaction to the commotion, ‘how far are you going?’

  ‘You know the answer to that.’

  Zara ran her hand through her hair. I had to confess she looked fabulous, even in men’s clothes. Sam’s pupils were dilated, sucking in as much light from her face as possible.

  ‘So. Be. It.’ The slow, emphatic way she said those words…like a threat.

  Turning to me, she said, ‘Did you know there’s a special part of the brain that’s dedicated to working out what faces tell us.’

  I squinted, trying to work out what she was talking about.

  ‘There’s nothing more important than knowing what another person is thinking. And the face is the biggest clue we have.’

  Sam edged his chair closer.

  ‘Did you know that severe autistics can’t read faces,’ Zara continued. ‘They can’t even recognise their own face if they see it in a mirror or on video. They treat it as an inanimate object, like a table or a chair.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ I snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m taxing your pretty little head.’

  ‘So,’ Sam interrupted, ‘you mean that if some people can’t read faces at all, there must be others who can read them too well.’

  ‘Clever boy,’ Zara said. ‘Some of us are blessed, or perhaps cursed is the right word, with superior sensitivity to facial movements. We can read every nuance, every flicker of doubt, every trace of attraction or dislike.’ She put her hands together, as if in prayer, and pointed them at me. ‘You don’t get on with your father, do you? You latch onto strong people because you’re searching for a daddy substitute.’ She stared right through me. ‘How does it feel to be so weak?’

  I sat there, speechless.

  ‘And you can’t hide for even a second how much you loathe me.’

  Well, she didn’t need any special powers to see that. Anyway, she was a good one to talk. Her face was contorting with her dislike for me.

  ‘You’re just another book that I’m dipping into,’ she said, ‘and not a very good one at that. It’s poorly written with a tedious middle and a bad ending.’

  I’d heard enough. I began to push back my chair to stand up.

  ‘Leaving?’ she smirked.

  ‘You know what, I’ll go when I choose,’ I said. ‘As for you, yes, you’re absolutely right, I can’t stand you. You’re a stuck-up bitch. Talk about delusions of grandeur.’ I turned to Sam. ‘This woman thinks she’s descended from royalty. She claims she’s the rightful Queen of England. Her main ambition is to move into Buckingham Palace down the road there.’

  Sam put down his glass and turned to Zara. ‘The Queen?’

  ‘Does that get you going?’ Zara asked. ‘Want to fuck me up the arse? That’s usually what Yanks tell me they’d like to do to me when they find out about my royal connections. Pardon me, I mean fuck me up my nice, tight ass.’ She pronounced those last words in a perfect Yankee drawl. ‘Somehow, the American version hits the spot so much better, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, how daring of you to mention anal sex,’ I snapped. ‘I bet you never do it the normal way.’

  ‘The natural way?’ she echoed. ‘Whatever you do, you can be sure I don’t.’

  I fantasised about strangling her. ‘This is all about creating your own little kingdom, isn’t it? You want to pretend you’re the Queen. This is your court and these sad students are your fawning subjects.’

  ‘An interesting fantasy. Believe whatever you like. Stupidity, as ever, is free.’

  I scowled.

  ‘Both of you are free to go any time you like,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the Tower of London.’

  I hoped Sam would want to leave, but it was clear he was staying put.

  ‘Tomorrow we’re performing,’ Zara announced.

  ‘Performing?’

  I could see the hook was back in Sam’s mouth.

  ‘It’s when we go out and inflict ourselves on the locals.’

  ‘You’re playing games just after two of your friends have died?’ I said incredulously.

  ‘What better way to celebrate death than with acts of life?’ Zara said. ‘That’s what the divine comedy demands, don’t you think? Anyway, as I said, you needn’t come. We dislike anaemic sorts, those who flee from life.’

  ‘What have you got in mind?’ Sam asked.

  Zara gave another of her smarmy smiles. ‘Come with me.’ She pushed back her chair, stood up and made a signal to the sommelier. Sam bounded after her as Zara wandered through the Great Hall, while I glumly trailed along at the rear.

  Zara led us to the Painted Room where she showed us two works by Hans Baldung Grien. One was called Three Ages of Woman and Death and the other Death and the Maiden. Each showed a beautiful naked woman gazing into a mirror while a horrific skeletal figure lurked behind her.

  ‘Have you ever noticed,’ Zara said, ‘how often you see this type of composition in medieval art? Mirrors, skulls, skeletons, Death and female beauty. These were called Vanitas paintings. Do you know why?’

  Sam shook his head. I stared straight ahead, not wanting to participate.

  ‘Vanitas is the Latin for vanity, of course,’ she said. ‘These paintings were allegories to show how fleeting beauty is, how fickle and ephemeral the glories of this world are. Everything decays and dies in the end.’

  ‘Where’s this heading?’ I asked impatiently.

  Zara ignored me. ‘I have a gift for you,’ she said to Sam, ‘a special prize for solving the puzzle I set you �
� a two-hundred-year-old bottle of champagne.’

  Zara looked at me. ‘You’re shivering, Ms, uh…sorry I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Miss York,’ I snapped.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, and put her hand over mine.

  Now I really did shiver, but it wasn’t the cold causing it.

  She clapped her hands and the sommelier stepped into the room holding an ice bucket containing the beautiful old bottle of champagne Sam had been promised, and three glasses.

  Zara flicked her gaze in my direction and for a second I imagined she felt sorry for me. ‘It’s yours to do with as you please,’ she said to Sam, presenting him with the bottle.

  Sam didn’t think twice, quickly opening it and filling the three glasses.

  ‘You first,’ Zara prompted.

  Sam took a sip. ‘Not bad. A bit sharp, but…’

  Without touching a drop, Zara tipped her glass and emptied the contents into the ice bucket.

  ‘But you haven’t tasted it,’ I spluttered. ‘You didn’t even smell it.’ I took a sip and instantly spat it out.

  Zara’s face crinkled with malicious glee. ‘It would be a miracle to find drinkable champagne more than a hundred years old,’ she cackled. ‘When I bought the stuff it was for the idea of it, not the actuality.’

  Was Sam thinking this was the last straw? I prayed he was. But he just stood there.

  That was when I got a text on my mobile. It was from Harry Mencken. It said: ‘See u at hotel 10 am tomorrow. Art gallery.’

  ‘Harry’s back,’ I said to Sam.

  ‘Ah, your master has summoned you?’ Zara mocked. ‘Do you roll over and let him rub your belly after he throws you a bone?’

  ‘Oh, fuck off!’

  Chapter 22: Narcissus

  ‘So, where’s my NexS?’ Mencken said as he strolled into the Sargasso’s subterranean art gallery, constructed beneath the hotel’s car park.

  I’d been waiting for him for over ten minutes, using the time to look at some of the exhibits and wishing I could have stayed in bed longer. The previous night, things had fizzled out after Zara’s stunt with the champagne. When I took Sam back to the Sargasso, he didn’t speak other than to say he was ‘going to get her’. I wasn’t sure whether he meant get revenge, or shag her.

  ‘I thought you would have it by now.’ Mencken was dressed in cream trousers and a white polo shirt that showed off his Californian tan to perfection.

  ‘I haven’t found a single trace,’ I confessed. ‘No one in the Top Table – well, no-one living – has ever mentioned it.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  Mencken walked over to a piece of modern art – a bust of Narcissus – exhibited on a polished silver pedestal in the centre of the room.

  It was a striking work. The artist had used a circular mirror to represent the water. Narcissus’s head was made from white clay, with pieces of mirror set in the mixture before it hardened. The bust’s eyes, lips and nose were all mirrored, and its hair was made from mirrored strips. A circle of gleaming mirrored roses surrounded the water, with Narcissus’s head reflected back from every petal. I think the idea was to show that beautiful people live in a mirrored world, always gazing into mirrors, or the lenses of cameras or human eyes. Maybe they ceased to be real and just became reflections.

  It could easily have been a sculpture of Mencken or any other Hollywood big shot. He crouched down and read out an inscription beneath the sculpture: If my eyes were mirrors, what would I see when I looked in the mirror?

  ‘NexS means everything to me,’ Mencken said. ‘I must have it.’ He sounded weary. ‘When you’re young, with everything ahead of you, you’re sure pleasure will always be waiting for you. You grab it in handfuls as you go along. You don’t understand that one day it turns to sand and runs through your fingers. Time kills pleasure. Every dream fades in the end.’

  He stared into space for a few moments. His usual self-confidence seemed to be temporarily deserting him. He resembled a past-his-sell-by-date playboy searching for the kicks he realised were now beyond him. I actually felt a little sorry for him.

  ‘You can’t go through life without messing things up,’ he went on. Then, quietly, as if to himself, he started to recite poetry:

  The eyes are not here

  There are no eyes here

  In this valley of dying stars

  In this hollow valley

  This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

  ‘Isn’t that from The Hollow Men?’ I blurted. For some reason, I stopped myself from mentioning that Zara had been spouting from it just last night.

  ‘How…’ Mencken shot me an astonished look. Then he laughed. ‘Hell, that poem is so famous Marlon Brando used it in Apocalypse Now.’

  ‘I’ve never seen that film,’ I said defensively.

  Mencken smiled, wandered over to a green leather sofa and sat down, beckoning me to join him.

  ‘The Hollow Men is one of my favourite poems,’ he said. ‘Your favourite things say a lot about you, don’t you think? I bet I can tell everything about you from a single item.’

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘Tell me your favourite line from a movie or a book, the thing that spoke to your heart.’

  I gave him the first thing that popped into my head. ‘It’s Off with her head, as said by the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.’

  ‘Nonsense, that’s not your favourite line, but…’ Mencken raised his finger. ‘…let’s run with it.’ He glanced at the Narcissus sculpture. ‘My theory is that everyone chooses a line relating to some cherished fantasy about themselves, a fantasy that’s usually the precise opposite of who they really are. So, your fantasy is of someone in total control who can get rid of anyone who opposes you.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘According to my theory that means you’re actually someone who doesn’t feel in control at all. You’re threatened by others, particularly rival women.’

  I winced.

  ‘Bang on the button, huh?’ Mencken smiled. ‘It’s one of my party tricks. If you love Edith Piaf’s song Non Je Ne Regrette Rien, it’s because your life is full of regret. If My Way is your favourite it means you’ve always done it someone else’s way. If you like It’s Raining Men, you’re having a date drought. When your life is so depressing that you’re contemplating suicide, you’ll be at a karaoke night with your friends belting out I Will Survive.’

  ‘You’re getting carried away.’

  ‘You’re sore because I did a ghost job on you.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘I saw right through you.’ Mencken winked. ‘I call it the Suckers’ Fifth Amendment – the Law of self-incrimination. It explains so many things, like why fat people are fat – because something’s eating them. Smokers? – someone lit a fire under their ass. The people who rush around so much? – they’re running from themselves. Druggies? – they’re so low they have to get high. People are always shouting out to the world what’s wrong with them. You just need to read the signs.’

  ‘So, your favourite line is from The Hollow Men?’ I asked.

  Folding his arms, Mencken chuckled. ‘It’s my theory, so obviously I can beat the system. Actually, my line is, “What I’m out for is a good time – all the rest is propaganda.” It’s from an old black and white British movie called Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.’

  ‘So, that must mean you’re pretending that all you care about is pleasure, when, really, it’s work you’re obsessed with.’ I peered at him to see his reaction.

  Sunlight streamed through a small circular window in the ceiling, capturing a funnel of dancing dust particles in its path.

  ‘Maybe that’s why I need NexS.’

  It was impossible to miss the sadness in Mencken’s voice. I got up from the sofa and went over to another of the sculptures – a giant clown’s head with glass tears dripping down its cheeks into a vortex of unsmiling faces cut out from magazine pictures. Some of the faces had been arranged into a sent
ence saying, ‘This joke isn’t funny anymore.’

  I saw my face, my life, reflected back in the clown’s huge tears. For a second, I wanted to pick up a hammer and smash it.

  ‘So,’ said Mencken, standing up, ‘I hear you and Sam have been, how shall I put this delicately, involved?

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘You should be careful with someone like Sam. Remember what Borges said: “To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.”’

  ‘Was it Sam? He’s such a jerk.’

  ‘Jez mentioned it, actually.’

  ‘Jez?’ I rolled my eyes. ‘What’s he been saying?’

  ‘It must be hard for you, seeing Sam lusting over that woman at the mansion. Jez is into her in a big way too from what I gather. He seems to think he’s in with a better chance.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He tells me Alphabet Love is as good as over.’

  ‘Why are men so obsessed with that woman?’

  ‘I hear she’s stunning.’

  ‘But you should see the way she treats Sam. She’s humiliating him. I mean, he’s one of the most famous men in the world. He doesn’t have to take shit from anyone, but he does from her. I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, that’s the whole point.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Sophie. I’m the person who first spotted Sam. I plucked him from the gutter. His father walked out on him when he was a kid. His trailer-trash mum was involved with a succession of drive-by men. He was bullied at school. All the guy had going for him were his looks. Everything else was a disaster zone. No one had it as tough as Sam Lincoln.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Zara?’

  ‘Don’t you see? She’s become the symbol of all the things that hurt him in the past. She’s a strong, dominant character – just how Sam imagined his dad. She’s smart and that makes Sam remember his shit time at school when people laughed at how dumb he was. He thinks that if he can beat Zara, he’s beating the dad who rejected him, beating the school bullies who tormented him, beating everyone who ever did him down. Let’s face it, everyone wants to beat their past.’