The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [160]
Genie didn’t need her notes on the autocue. She knew exactly what she had to say. She stared at the studio clock as its hands ticked slowly toward the hour. Valentin had been home since this morning and he still had not called her. And maybe now he never would. Tears pricked her eyes and she bit her lip. She couldn’t cry now, she would be on camera in a few minutes. Besides, she had cried enough in the last couple of days to last a lifetime. What had happened to the old Genie, the jaunty, fearless reporter? She’s still here, she reassured herself. After all, look what’s she’s going to do now.
She gripped her notes tightly as a makeup girl fussed with powder and lip brush. She knew there was only one sure-fire way to bring all the players in this game into the open. And only one way to find the murderer. It was the biggest gamble of her life, but one she was prepared to take.
She had made the decision that morning and gone straight to the network director. He had listened carefully and asked several pertinent questions, and then he had agreed to let her do it. “But you’d better deliver,” he’d warned. She had shivered. If she didn’t deliver her career was through. And maybe her life.
At four minutes to six the phone rang and the voice on the other end melted her into sudden softness.
“Valentin,” she whispered.
“Genie, I must see you,” he said urgently.
“Yes, yes … of course….”
“Your place,” he said tersely. “Seven o’clock.”
He rang off as the hands on the clock moved to three minutes before six.
“Okay, Genie,” the director called, “let’s have some action here.”
She took her place behind the big curved desk, blinking in the battery of lights as the makeup girl powdered her brow yet again, staring numbly ahead as the music intro’ed and the credits unrolled on the monitor. She was quite calm now. She was ready.
Cal slumped in a chair in front of the TV set, his jacket off, his tie loosened, and a can of Miller’s at his side. The credits had finished, the international headlines were read, and then the anchorman said, “First our reporter, Genie Reese, has some important revelations on the strange case of the Ivanoff emerald.”
The picture changed to Genie, cool, unsmiling, and tailored in a blue silk shirt that matched her eyes. Her hair was drawn back into a velvet bow and there were pearls at her throat and ears. Cal thought that she looked like a girl who would smell deliciously of Chanel No. 5.
Genie faced the cameras seriously. “It seems the case of the Ivanoff emerald and the speculation as to the identity of its owner, the unknown ‘Lady,’ has reached new depths with the murder of the agent in the purchase, Paul Markheim, in Düsseldorf, and now also the murder in Istanbul of the man thought to have cut the stone, Gerome Abyss. People are asking if the old story is true after all, and if the KGB is still on the ‘Lady’s’ trail. Or maybe it’s the CIA? Or—and this is looking more and more likely—is there a third player in the drama?
“There is only one person who can answer those questions, only one person who can stop this trail of murder and mystery, and that is the ‘Lady’ herself. I have been making my own investigations into the Ivanoff affair and I now know who the ‘Lady’ is. In three days’ time I shall present a taped interview with her, here on the six o’clock news on station WXTV. Be watching.”
“Genie,” her producer said through the ear mike, “you’d sure better have got it right, because all hell is about to break loose.”
“That’s exactly what I want,” she replied simply.
“Okay,” he said, “the limo is waiting to take you home. It’ll be at your disposal for the next week, and a couple of heavies will be mounting guard on your house as soon as they can get over there. Okay?”
“Sure.” She glanced at the clock as she gathered her things together. “I’ll see you guys in a couple of days then.”
The producer glanced after her worriedly as she walked from the studio. “I sure hope we did the right thing,” he said.
For a few