Susan Johnson - Hot Streak

“I'll try, but I don't know… For me to say fuck you to Rifat would probably take the world's current supply of crank,” Egon replied with a simple honesty.

“Look,” Carey said, reaching over to splash another few inches of the red liquor into his glass, “why don't you get away for a while! You're a first-class rider. Come back, stay with me, do part of the circuit this year.”

Egon grimaced. “It's too much work.”

“It'd be good for you,” Carey encouraged. “Breathe fresh air at dawn, eat well… tone up.”

“I can do all that on the party circuit,” Egon teased, “although the exercise is different.”

“You can't do the party scene and stay off drugs. It's killing you faster than Rifat ever could. I can't help after tomorrow with the race and filming and Sylvie can't do it alone. Would you consider a treatment center?” He knew he was on shaky ground after Egon's last experience where they'd put him in solitary confinement for a day and he'd freaked.

“Don't ask.” Egon's voice was soft but decisive. “I'm over the worst now anyway; Sylvie and I'll manage. Speaking of whom,” he continued, determined to change the subject, “you've been side-stepping my sister these past few days.”

“With extreme difficulty,” Carey admitted with a rueful smile. Since the first night he'd arrived, he'd been politely evading Sylvie's sexual advances with various excuses. He'd slept on the couch in Egon's room not only to discourage Sylvie's presence, but because he slept when Egon did and woke when he did and in general served as nursemaid. He'd worn a two-day stubble of beard out of laziness until Sylvie had brushed her fingers across his jaw one afternoon when she'd come to visit Egon and said in her throaty contralto, “Ummmm… sexy…” Immediately after she'd left he'd gone into the bathroom and shaved.

“You must be the exception to the rule: What Sylvie wants, Sylvie gets,” Egon observed.

“Now I'm the exception,” Carey reminded him. “Now. But I paid for the privilege of that hard-earned experience. I married her.”

“She can be a trial,” Egon agreed with the frankness of a younger brother.

“The understatement of the millennium.”

“Whatever came over you?” Egon asked. “I mean, to marry her.”

“Lord, I don't know… wish I did.” He shrugged, and the silk shirt he wore unbuttoned shimmered with the small movement. “I woke up one morning and said, ‘What the hell?' That was that rainy day in Belio, when we couldn't do any filming, remember? It rained buckets all during the ceremony. I should have recognized the ominous portents.”

“It was a swell party after, though.” Egon had his own fond memories of Carey that summer. Carey had been the first person since his parents died who listened to him and took him seriously, who didn't treat him like an obtrusive child.

“Yeah, it was.” They'd invited everyone in the small village to the reception, closed down the shops, and danced and drank till dawn. “At least one good thing came out of the marriage,” Carey said, his expression mildly amused as he recalled the festivities at Belio.

“Two things,” Egon softly rejoined. “I've you for a friend, and I don't have friends. Not real friends. I'll pay you back someday, Carey. For all you've done for me.”

Carey saw Egon's eyes fill and felt his heart go out to the young man who'd lost his parents too young and had been forced to rely on Sylvie for stability. And stable she wasn't. “Hey, what are ex-brothers-in-law for,” Carey responded quietly, putting out a hand to touch Egon's shoulder. He'd spent long enough growing up himself to recognize the problem. “Why don't you come back to the States with me?” he offered. “You can cheer me on at the Maryland Hunt Cup. There'll be parties there, too. It won't be completely tame.” He went on talking about the race because Egon was perilously close to tears and needed time to recover. The drugs did that, made every problem more intense, every emotion shaky, hair-trigger, turbulent.

“Maybe later,” Egon replied short moments later after he'd swallowed hard, “but Sylvie's dragooning me into going up to Paris with her for a shopping spree. She needs my company, she says. Actually, she wants an excuse so Bernhardt won't barge in. And I'm the excuse. I know how to be obnoxious. He's too old, she says, and dreary.”

“She's right there, poor devil; he's boring as hell. Well, come later if you can. You've an open invitation. But try to stay straight. Shakin Rifat isn't near as frightening when you're off the stuff.”

“I'm going to try. Really. I'm not as shaky today, am I?” He was pale under his tan and still very thin, but the tremor in his hands was almost gone.

“You look great,” Carey lied. “Absolutely.”

T he men on surveillance that morning reported in their log that Charles Fersten left Villa Mariabelle at eight-ten with his groom, pilot, and chauffeur, then the logbook marked “Charles Fersten/Nice” was closed and sent by courier back to Shakin Rifat in Rome.

Egon was being watched by Rifat's staff, who noted that Egon von Mansfeld was once again cutting back on his excessive drug habit, and Charles Fersten was a prominent part of that rehabilitation. Shakin Rifat knew Fersten was someone of importance to Egon. He just didn't know yet exactly how he could make use of that association. In the meantime, the surveillance would continue.

W hen Carey walked into his mother's house in the late afternoon, she greeted him warmly with a hug and said, “I didn't believe your father for a minute. Now sit down and tell me where you've been.”

“Baby-sitting Egon,” Carey answered, settling into a large overstuffed chair.

“The poor boy. Will he survive?”

“This time he will.”

“It doesn't sound too hopeful,” Juliana replied, perching on the arm of a love seat that had graced the empress's drawing room at Malmaison. Her hazel-eyed glance scrutinized her son.

Carey shrugged. “It's hard to tell. Someone or something gets him hooked again and who knows… But enough of that mess. You look wonderful, Mother. When are you going to start looking old? I'm starting to look old.”

Juliana was slender, tanned, and toned. Her blond hair was short and fluffy this season, making her look girlish although she was fifty now. “Just good clean living, darling. Something you aren't too familiar with.” And she grinned.

Carey smiled back. His open, winning smile came easily in his mother's company. “I've reformed, Mother. Only caffeine and an occasional Twinkie now. I'm disgustingly healthy.”

She looked at him with a mother's searching gaze for a moment and, discounting the fatigue of his session with Egon, she decided he looked well. “Have you found some nice woman to take care of you?”

“No, Mother.” She always asked and he always gave the same answer. “I'm trap shy after Sylvie.”

“She was most unusual, I'll agree.” Juliana was tolerant beyond the normal. “But not a very good rider.” On that criteria, she had exacting standards.

“She didn't ride at all.”

“Perhaps, dear, that was the problem.”

“The problem, Mother, was she screamed very early in the morning, often during the day and always at night after several drinks. I was beginning to get hearing loss.”

“Perhaps some therapy would help.”

“When I suggested it once, she broke most of the glassware on the table.”

“I see… well, it's lovely to have you here and after a good night's sleep and a restful day tomorrow, you'll be ready for the race.” Her interest in Sylvie, exhausted, she moved on to topics which concerned her.

“No houseguests yet?” Carey asked. He'd expected full battalion strength.

“I put them off, love. I knew you'd be tired when you arrived. They'll be here in plenty of time.”

“How did you know I'd be tired?”

She snorted softly, then smiled. “Your father was always charming but he's never learned to lie. The story he gave me was reproachfully poor. I knew straightaway you were mixed up in something unsavory and would show up exhausted. Now tell me what you want for dinner.”

The day of the race the house was filled to overflowing. Breakfast was served to 200 guests and neighbors, all family or friends of Juliana and cheerful well-wishers of luck to her only child. The mimosas served with a hearty country breakfast buffet induced an early morning good humor, and Carey responded to his share of jovial back-slapping and animated advice. But his mother could see he was becoming impatient, and she excused him so that he and Leon could drive out to the course early enough to see to Tarrytown's preparation.

Tarrytown had been flown in four days before, and was rested and placid-unlike his rider.

Purses had been going up the last few years; steeplechase was becoming a growth sport in the States, and crowds of 30,000 people were no longer a rarity. Money had much to do with the boom. The $700,000 purses were a viable way to earn a living for trainers and riders, and steeplechase had actually become more than just a tax write-off for owners.