If either point surprised the Blonde she didn’t show it.
“How do you propose to do that?” she asked.
“I’ll need your help.”
Jill broke in, “Off the record, is there any real basis for your suit? I mean, I’ve known Sam longer than both of you combined and I’ve never heard him utter the word ‘marriage.’ ”
Marlowe smiled enigmatically. “I have it all on disk. Sam promised to marry me.”
“Disks can be faked,” Jade said.
“This one has been authenticated,” Marlowe said calmly.
“By whom?”
“By two separate and independent teams of analysts.”
“Hired by your law firm?”
Smiling again, with even more teeth, Marlowe said, “Why, Ms. Inconnu, that would be unethical, wouldn’t it?”
“How much?” asked Jill.
Jade was surprised by the question. Marlowe simply widened her smile slightly.
“How much do you want to drop your suit?” Jill asked. She looked slightly irritated, Jade thought.
“You’re a very wealthy woman,” said Marlowe. “Old money is the best kind.”
“How much?”
“I’m sure a jury would award me ten million, at least.”
Before Jill could reply, Jade said, “Wait a minute. There’s something else involved here.”
“Something else?”
“What?”
Jade said, “Sam’s up to something. He—”
“He’s always up to something,” said Marlowe.
“So what else is new?” Jill quipped.
“Why is he trying to get control of the orchestra?” Jill asked. “I mean, Sam doesn’t do things like that without some ulterior motive.”
Both the women nodded agreement.
“I wonder what he’s really up to,” Jade murmured.
Jill grinned. “It must be something convoluted, knowing Sam.”
Marlowe said, “Whatever it is, he still has to deal with my breach of promise suit before he does anything else.”
A silence fell upon them. Jade realized that Jill hadn’t pursued her offer of settling Marlowe’s suit, not since the sum of ten million dollars had been mentioned. That’s how old money keeps its money, Jade thought. Philanthropy goes only so far.
“Why does he want the orchestra?” Jade wondered again.
“Ask him when he gets here,” said Jill Meyers.
“If he shows up,” Marlowe said. “I wouldn’t put it past him to pull another disappearing act.”
“But he promised me!” Jade protested.
Both the other women stared at her. Marlowe said, “How can you be so naive? You’ve done all this biographical research about Sam and you still think—”
The doorbell chimed.
For an instant none of them moved. Then Jill said to the suite’s communications system, “Display entry hall, please.”
A misty Japanese landscape on the far wall of the dining alcove dissolved into an image of Sam Gunn out in the entry hall. He was fidgeting nervously and whistling something too low for Jade to make out.
“Hey, is anybody home?” he shouted. “Have I got the right room number?”
Jade pushed away from the table and sprinted toward the door. He could be halfway down the corridor by the time I get there, she worried.
But when she slid the door open, Sam Gunn was standing there, in slightly faded coveralls, a lopsided gap-toothed grin on his round, freckled face.
“There you are,” he said. “I was starting to worry.”
“It’s a big suite,” Jade began to explain, “and we were back in—”
But Sam was looking past her. Turning, Jade saw that the Blonde was standing in the middle of the spacious living room.
“You!” Sam gasped.
“Hello, Sam,” said the Blonde. Then she added, “Darling.”
Turning back to Jade, Sam growled, “You’ve led me into a trap! How could you?”
“It’s not a trap, Sam,” Jade said, struggling to keep the tremor out of her voice.
“You can’t hide from me forever,” Marlowe said, moving toward Sam like a cobra slithering toward its prey and sliding an arm in his. For his part, Sam stood there open-mouthed and wide-eyed like a paralyzed mongoose.
Jade cleared her throat. “Um, Sam, there’s someone else I want you to meet.”
Jill Meyers entered the room, smiling almost shyly. “Hello, Sam.”
“My God!” Sam blurted. “I’m surrounded by assassins!”
But he disengaged from La Marlowe and went to Jill with open arms. “I thought so! I knew Minerva La Guerre had to be a phony name!”
“And you came anyway?”
“Sure,” Sam said carelessly. “Why not?”
He gave Jill a hug; then, with Jill on one arm and Marlowe on the other, he grinned at Jade and asked, “So what’s this all about?”
“You promised to marry me,” said Marlowe.
“You’ve promised to marry me,” Jill Meyers said, “several times.”
“I never spoke the word ‘marriage’ to either of you and you both know it.”
“I have you on disk, Sam,” Marlowe said.
“Yeah, along with Godzilla, King Kong, and the Emperor Ming of Mongo.”
“You agreed to marry me, Sam,” Jill repeated.
The Blonde insisted, “I’ve got authenticated evidence—”
Jade wished she had a referee’s whistle hanging around her neck. She raised both her hands and shouted, “Wait! Hang on for a minute. This is getting us nowhere.”
Sam disengaged his arms and bowed politely to her. “And just where do want us to go, Oh most beautiful of producers?”
Jade pointed to the long, low-slung sofa against the wall. “You sit there, please.” Turning to Marlowe, “And you there, on the armchair.”
“And me?” Jill Meyers asked.
“This armchair, on the other side of the sofa.”
Once they were seated, Sam looked up Jade with a pleasant smile. “Okay, we’re all in our places with bright shining faces. Now what?”
Jade replied, “Sam, you promised me that you’d tell me why you’re so interested in the Selene Philharmonic.”
“I never promised.”
“Yes you did.”
“Did not.”
Jade began to fire another retort, then she realized, No, the little scamp never did promise. He implied that he’d tell me, but he never promised.
“You’re right, Sam. You didn’t promise. I apologize.”
“But he promised to marry me,” Marlowe said, as firmly as a judge pronouncing sentence on a doomed prisoner.
“Okay,” Sam said lightly. “I’ll marry you.”
“Oh no you don’t!” Jill Meyers snapped. “If you marry anybody, Sam Gunn, it’s going to be me. I’ve waited too long and been left at the altar too many times to let you go off with … with this … with anybody else.”
Smiling as benignly as a saint painted by Raphael, Sam said, “Don’t worry, Jill, I’ll marry you. Honest.” “You can’t marry both of us!” Marlowe said.
Sam raised two fingers. “You forget, people, that there are two of me. My duplicate is out at the black hole in the Kuiper Belt, but I can call him back. He’ll be overjoyed to make you his wife, Jennifer. I know, believe me.”
“Your duplicate! I don’t want a duplicate. I want the original Sam Gunn.”
Spreading his arms in a gesture that might, in another man, have indicated helplessness, Sam said, “But which of us is the original? We have the same physical makeup, down to the quantum vibrations of our atoms. We have the same memories, the same personality. Take your pick. For crying out loud, neither one of us knows who’s the original and who’s the copy.”
Marlowe gaped at him, her startling blue eyes wide.
Jill laughed. “I’ll take either one. Whichever I can get.”
Laughing back at her, Sam said, “Atta girl! That’s my Jill.”