Biremes, triremes, galleys, ships of war, whole
cargoes of works of art lost on the way to Imperial
Rome, and who knows, maybe whole lost cities
inundated before the dawn of history—”
Colby noted that Martine was sorting through the
photographs, and he had an idea she was struck by
the same curious aspect of the yacht’s personnel
that had attracted his attention. Aside from Sabine
Manning herself, the entire membership of the
expedition seemed to consist of only slightly
different versions of Carlito—all Latin, sunburned,
beautiful as Greek gods, of a median age of
nineteen, and—thanks to the scantiness of their
swim trunks—quite demonstrably and abundantly
male.
There appeared to be eight or ten different ones,
but then this was a six-months’ supply. No doubt the
membership was fluid; only the expedition went on
as an established and continuous entity.
He made another attempt to break in. “Yes, I
know. I’ve read quite a bit about it, and it’s
fascinating. But I’m not sure I understand why you
want to change your image, just to do a book about
it—”
“Lawrence, I’m surprised at you. Of course I have
to change it! It’s because this is so vital, so
important, so fantastically wonderful, I want people
to know about it—and nobody would believe a word
of it!” She threw her arms wide in a gesture of
heroic despair. “ ‘Oh, hell, it’s just Sabine Manning
—what does she know about anything but that
dreary sex junk of hers?’ ” They simply wouldn’t
believe I could write about something important,
something that really mattered. . . . But I’d like to
freshen up a little after that drive from Nice. Bring
The Wrong Venus — 161
the photographs, Lawrence, and come on back to my
room. We can go on with it while I’m having a bath;
we haven’t got a minute to lose. . . .” She had
started to turn away when she saw the hesitant look
on his face, and laughed. “Heavens, I mean through
the door, dear boy. I don’t expect you to scrub my
back.” She smiled at Martine. “Anglo-Saxons are so
adorably shy.”
“Yes,” Martine said, with a smile he could have
shaved with. “Aren’t they?”
Sabine Manning disappeared into the corridor. As
he gathered up the photographs and followed her,
Martine leaned close and whispered, “I’m sorry. Just
hang on, help should be here any minute.”
She was apparently trying to buy time, but he was
too confused and tired by now to figure out for what.
After over forty-eight hours without sleep and living
in a more or less continuous state of crisis,
everything was beginning to blur and run together,
Moffatt and Jean-Jacques and Gabrielle and Decaux
and Sabine Manning all going around in a slow whirl
in his head. He went through the study and into the
white-carpeted bedroom. He heard water running
into a tub, and Sabine Manning emerged from the
bath. She smiled. “Please sit down,” she said,
indicating an armchair near the bed.
He sat down and put the photographs on a small
table beside him. She threw off the car coat, tossing
it and the scarf onto another chair, and opened one
of her bags to take out a nylon dressing gown and
some toilet articles, talking all the while.
“The whole trouble with Anglo-Saxons, or at least
Americans, Lawrence, is our obsession with sex. Our
lives are ruined by it, we’re short-changed, we’re
robbed, mulcted, deprived, we’re culturally and
intellectually disinherited by this continuous stewing
over something that’s simply not that important at
all—how old are you, dear?”
“Thirty,” he said.
The Wrong Venus — 162
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought you were
anywhere near that. You’re very attractive, you
know.”
She sat on the side of the bed, hiked the hem of
the pale silk sheath halfway up her thighs, and
began to unclip the tabs from her stockings. Her
legs were as deeply tanned as her face, Colby noted,
and very nice they were too. If this bombshell of
vitality and hormonal fallout had ever really been
the desiccated old maid he’d imagined and felt sorry
for, no wonder Martine and Dudley had been
stunned. As though she’d read his thoughts, she
reached over to the night table, picked up a book,
and tossed it to him. It was a copy of These
Tormented.
“Take a look at that,” she said, sliding her
stockings down and tossing them aside. “The
photograph on the jacket, I mean. There’s the
generic victim of this sex-preoccupation of ours, s
woman not even half alive, shy, futile, plain,
ineffectual, because she has no interest in anything,
no curiosity, no desire for intellectual challenge, no
capacity for total and utter absorption in anything—
would you get this zipper for me, darling?”
She stepped over in front of him. He stood up and
unzipped the dress. She turned, threw her arms
wide, and cried out, “Look at me now! Look at my
complexion, my eyes! I’m alive! I’m alive all over—”
“You are that,” Colby agreed.
“—thrillingly, vibrantly alive right out to my
fingertips. You see what archaeology has done for
me? And why I have to tell people, make them see—”
She threw both arms around his neck and kissed
him. He felt like a fly falling into a whirlpool of
molten taffy, and tried to retreat, with about the
same success. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy working with
you, you dear boy. And I don’t think you’re thirty at
all—”
They were suddenly interrupted by running
footsteps and outcries from the salon. Colby ran out,
and the sight that greeted him was enough to make
The Wrong Venus — 163
him consider running back and throwing himself
into the arena again with Sabine Manning, except
that she had come out too. It was the end.
As well as he could piece it together afterward,
with some help from Martine in regard to the cast,
everybody must have landed at Orly at once. And
now the wrath of Holton Press and the Thomhill
Literary Agency descended on Dudley in the forms
of Chadwick Holton, Senior, Ernest Thornhill, four
attorneys complete with briefcases and forged and
violated contracts, and one Parisian taxi driver
shouting into the impervious and unheeding
maelstrom of charge and countercharge and
denunciation and denial that hell would freeze
before he would take his pay in lire. In his mental
state at the moment, Colby saw nothing unusual in
the fact that the United States had abandoned the
dollar; it was only afterward he remembered
Thornhill had been in Rome.
There was nothing he could do, except pay the
driver, who looked once more at the chaos in the
salon and departed, shaking his head. “A
madhouse.”
“We are authors,” Colby said with dignity. He
lighted a cigarette and waited for the police to come
and get him. Then he noticed that, strangely,
Martine was completely unperturbed, merely
watching and listening with interest. He went over
to her.
She glanced at his lips. “Apparently Horatius, and
the Alamo, are still on the record books.”
He scrubbed at the lipstick. “These things just
come over me, and I’m powerless. I once bit a lady
cop in the subway in New York.”
“Poor Lawrence. I’m sorry. I thought at thirty
you’d be reasonably safe.”
“She doesn’t think I look that old. Do you know a
good lawyer? Maybe if we called him right away—”
“Lawyer? Heavens, darling, the place is bulging
with them now.”
The Wrong Venus — 164
“I mean one of our own, to—you know—bring us
cigarettes, and things like that.”
“But Lawrence, don’t you understand? We’ve
won.”
He looked over to where Sabine Manning was
brandishing the manuscript over the cringing
Dudley. “. . . you mean you intended to have this
revolting piece of sexy slush published with my
name on it?” she cried out as she threw it toward
the ceiling. Sheets began to flutter down.
Colby shook his head. “We have?”
“Of course. It was just a case of hanging on till
they got here. The whole thing’s absurdly simple.”
She walked out into the center of the salon and
held up her hands. “Gentlemen, if I could have your
attention for just a minute. . . .”
* * *
Some semblance of quiet had fallen over the room,
and Colby had begun to sort people out. The whitehaired
man with the benign countenance who looked
like Santa Claus was Chadwick Holton, while Ernest
Thornhill was the austere type with the rimless
glasses. The four attorneys were all young, equipped
with narrow lapels and earnest expressions, and
were more or less bunched at one end of the room
as though drawn together by a shared distrust of the
insanity with which ordinary people handled their
affairs. Even Sabine Manning had broken off glaring
at Dudley, and all eyes were on Martine.
“—If you are wondering why I’m interfering here,”
she went on, “it is simply because this entire fiasco
is my fault. Having the novel ghost-written was my
idea, not Mr. Dudley’s. Which, of course, is the
reason I called all of you yesterday and read you
Miss Manning’s telegram—”
Colby started.
“—Because I’ve wronged her, and I want to make
restitution, I gather that in view of her new interests
she has no intention of agreeing to publication of
The Wrong Venus — 165
this novel—tentatively entitled This Driven Flesh—
under her name.”
“Not in a thousand years!” Sabine Manning cried
out. Colby saw simultaneous shadows flit across the
faces of Holton and Thornhill. They merely sighed,
however. They had already heard Miss Manning’s
views on the subject, at some length.
Martine smiled. “I applaud Miss Manning’s
attitude. There is too much written sex already, and
archaeology can be a lot more interesting, if
properly approached. So, since in a way I have
caused her money to be spent in having it written,
the least I can do to make amends is give the money
back. Fortunately, I have a small income from a
trust fund. I’ve already checked Mr. Dudley’s
records, and the sum involved is nineteen thousand
dollars.” She reached over on a table for her purse
and took out her checkbook. “So if the assembled
attorneys will draw up the papers for the transfer,
I’ll give her my check for the full amount and buy
the novel from her. And perhaps Mr. Holton will
publish it for me.” She smiled at him.
Colby had given up trying to fathom it. He merely
listened.
Holton returned her smile with a gallant little bow
and one of his own. “I think we might. But since
such honesty as yours demands honesty in return, I
must warn you of the brutal facts of publishing life.
Imitators of Sabine Manning are a glut on the
market. A sale of three thousand copies would be
about tops.”
“But it’s the same novel,” Martine protested.
“The same novel, my dear young lady, but not the
same thing. You could expect a return of—oh, say
twelve hundred” dollars. I’m sorry.”
“Well—” Martine gestured fatalistically. It couldn’t
be helped. She still had to return the money.
“Well, I should hope so,” Sabine Manning said
indignantly.
The Wrong Venus — 166
In surprisingly few minutes, considering there
were four lawyers involved, the papers were drawn
up. It had been Colby’s experience that even two
attorneys trying to agree on the wording of
something would have trouble ordering an extra
quart of milk in much under half a day. Sabine
Manning signed.
Martine smiled bravely as she passed over her
check and took the bill of sale. “Incidentally,” she
asked, “what is the title of your book? I want to be
sure to get a copy.”
“An Inquiry into Certain Analogous Practices in
Afro/Roman Naval Architecture of the Second
Century B.C.,” Miss Manning replied proudly.
The collective shudder by Holton and Thornhill
could have been felt in the next room, Colby
thought. Martine pursed her lips and considered it.
“Catchy, all right,” she agreed. She turned to
Chadwick Holton. “Should sell pretty well, don’t you
think?”
The latter’s expression was that of a man watching
himself bleed to death from a severed artery. “With
jacket endorsements by Moses and Julius Caesar,”
he said, “maybe three hundred copies.”
“Oh, that is too bad.” Martine turned to Sabine
Manning. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Sabine Manning shrugged. “I’m not
writing it to make money.”
Martine looked contrite. “Oh, I didn’t explain, did
I, why I suggested to Merriman that he have the
novel ghosted?” Dudley cringed even lower, as
though trying to disappear into his shoes.
“Archaeological research seems to be so expensive,
and with nearly all your money tied up in—shall we
say, immature securities—”
The uproar broke out anew, with the attorneys
once more in the thick of it. Amid cries of
malfeasance, misfeasance, and non-feasance, Dudley
was denounced, fired, and threatened with an audit
and prosecution. Martine held up her hand again for
quiet.
The Wrong Venus — 167
“I think perhaps we’re all being a little too heated
about this. After all, the electronics stock is in Miss
Manning’s name, and will eventually come back. I’m
sure that by retirement age, or maybe even by the
time she’s sixty, she will be able to resume her
archaeological researches.”
“What?” Sabine Manning’s face was a study in
sheer horror.
Martine appeared not to notice. She was frowning
thoughtfully, and now she turned to Chadwick
Holton. “There is one thing we’ve all overlooked,
which might have saved the situation. I mean, Miss
Manning doesn’t want her name contaminated by
any further association with sex novels, but she has
two names—”
There was a gasp from all around the room.
Martine went on. “Would she have made any more
money out of it, and been able to continue her
archaeological studies, if she’d published both
books? That is, An Inquiry into Certain Analogous
Practices in Afro/Roman Naval Architecture of the
Second Century B.C.: under the name of Sabine
Manning, and This Driven Flesh under her own
name, Fleurelle Scudder?”
Chadwick Holton was regarding her with awe.
“About fourteen hundred dollars for both. Reverse
the order, and you come out with a million two
hundred thousand.”
Martine looked blandly at Colby. “Maybe that’s
the way I should have put it.”
As soon as the chorus of approval, including
overwhelming endorsement by Sabine Manning, had
died down a little, Martine held up her hand again.
“But you’re still overlooking something, gentlemen.
Sabine Manning doesn’t own the novel any more. I
do.”
In the ensuing and ghastly silence, Chadwick
Holton asked, his face grave except for a suspicion
of a twinkle in his eye, “How much?”
The Wrong Venus — 168
Martine considered for a moment. “Well, since I’m
hoping to get away tonight for a vacation in Rhodes,
I don’t want to enter into any extended negotiations.
So I think that for an offer of forty thousand from
Miss Manning, plus a written guarantee that Mr.
Dudley gets his job back, I’d sell right now.”
* * *
They stayed at a hotel named for roses while being
smothered in bougainvillea on an island that had
been Zeus’ gift to Helios, and ate their lunches on an
awning-covered terrace with Moorish arches looking
on the sea while an orchestra played Turkishsounding
music full of high woodwinds and the
tinkling bells of camel caravans. They climbed on
muleback to the Acropolis at Lindos and walked
hand in hand through the old walled city where the
cobbled streets that were as neat and unlittered as a
floor had known the clanking tread of knights during
the Crusades and sandal-footed Romans who
followed the eagles a thousand years before.
They swam in the sea in the afternoons and
afterward they made love and lay in bed under a
fourteen-foot ceiling where wind banged the ancient
shutters of their room, a flower-scented wind that
somehow seemed to have a color, blue he thought it
was. On the tenth day they were there they received
an airmail letter from Kendall, posted in Gibraltar
and forwarded by Martine’s concierge in Paris. She
had accepted Thornhill’s offer to represent her as
her agent in the production of future Sabine
Manning novels.
They were lying on the beach in swim suits,
drinking ouzo under an umbrella.
“And you knew all the time,” Colby asked, “that if
it came to a showdown you could apply the
pressure?”
She shook her head. “Not till I saw those
photographs. Before that it was a gamble.
Calculated risk, rather. The telegram didn’t sound
like any embittered and heartbroken woman to me,
The Wrong Venus — 169
with all that stuff about cocktail parties and press
conferences. And Roberto’s attitude didn’t fit your
theory either. I had an idea it was the other way.”
“That he didn’t leave her, she left him?”
“Sure. She wanted to broaden her horizons. And
let’s face it, poor old Roberto is pushing twentyseven.”
“Pretty creaky for that kind of duty, all right.” He
rolled over and studied her fondly, “You know,
you’re hell on wheels at pouring crème de menthe in
watch movements.”
“Incidentally, did you know this was a free port?
And Swiss watches are just as cheap here as they
are in Geneva—”
He put a hand over her mouth. “No you don’t. Why
don’t we go up to the room?”
“What for?”
“Well, hell, do isometric exercises, tell elephant
jokes, write postcards. There must be something you
can do with a thirty-year-old fossil, with a
reasonable amount of care.”
She drew a fingertip along his cheek. “You may be
right.” They gathered up their gear and went in
through the bar.
The Wrong Venus — 170
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