Deceptions by Judith Michael Page B

transporting two hundred people by train across Europe to a Yugoslavian dance festival. Sabrina hated him. He loomed above her, broad-shouldered, with a frizzled halo of red hair and flat gray eyes that guarded his secrets. Denton was surprised. *How can you not like him? You haven't talked to him; all you've done is say hello and make yourself at home on his boat.'
    'He's arrogant and brutal and I'll bet he doesn't know the first thing about art.'
    'How can you possibly—?'
    'I feel sorry for his wife, too. She's like a puppy, waiting for him to pet her.'
    Denton was silent. Sabrina slipped on her evening gown of blue-black silk that settled about her like a delicate moth's wing, baring her shoulders and back. 'You'd better dress, darling. Cocktails are at eight, and if we aren't prompt he'll stare at us with those awfiil eyes and turn us into statues. That's the kind of art he's in! He casts a spell on people and then sells them to their grieving families as mementos.'
    'Sabrina! Max is our host!'
    'I'm sorry, Denton.'
    'I hope so. Where are my cuff links?'
    Their stateroom was hung with a French tapestiy over the king-size bed. The carpet was deep, the furniture pale ash with ebony handles, the bath blue and silver with a whirlpool in the tub. The Lafitte, 104 feet long, had six such staterooms and five crew rooms. Its decks were teak. In its salon thirty people could move about comfortably beneath a teardrop chandelier. Its chef and wine cellar were famous. Sabrina had learned never to ask the cost of anything, but Denton, planning to buy one like it, said the price, with furnishings, was two million dollars.
    Five couples were the Stuyvesants' guests on the Lafitte, Over cocktails, Betsy Stu3nr^ant, Maxim's third wife, small and soft in cashmere and silk, her blond curls trailing wistfully about her ears, told them she was not allowed to interfere in the ship's operations. If they needed anything, Kirst, the head steward, was at their service. For going

    ashore, Maxim made all arrangements. She fell silent and did not speak again that evening.
    They dined on fish soup with sa£&on and orange peel» followed by baby octopus in champagne sauce; the wine was chilled wMte Palette from the hills above Marseilles. Max proposed a toast. To a successful cruise.' He smiled lazily at his dinner partner, a willowy blonde he had introduced as Princess Alexandra, from a country no one had heard of. Across the table, her husband. Prince Martova, looked fixedly at his plate.
    Beside the Prince, a tanned, sleepy-eyed woman asked, 'And where do we go tomorrow?'
    'East,' said Max, still looking at Alexandra. 'Along the Italian Riviera di Ponente to Alassio and Genoa and back. Four days. A lifetime.' Alexandra smiled.
    Sabrina glanced at Denton and saw him smile lazily at Betsy Stuyvesant, as if he were trying to look like Max.
    In the morning they foimd frvdt, croissants and coffee in the small dining room. Max was their maestro. 'Sunbathing on the afterdeck for those who want. Waterskiing at four. Games and stimulants in the salon at all times. Movies in the small theater; Kirst will run them if you wish. We lunch at one. Enjoy yourselves, mes amis/
    Denton stretched. 'The salon first, I think. Then sunbathing. All right with you, sweets?'
    Five people were, in the salon, sifting through the cocaine and hashish and varicolored capsules in a comer cabinet. 'Max is a lovely host,' the sleepy-eyed woman said, and asked Sabrina, 'What's yours?'
    Denton stepped in. 'Good of you, but I'll take care of my wife.' He tapped a small amount of white powder into an empty vial and pocketed it. Watching, Sabrina tried to separate this Denton from the one who lived with her in London. That one hardly took a drink, never smoked or used drugs, never looked at women as he had looked at Betsy Stuyvesant last night. On their travels she had seen hints of this other Denton; now he was in the open. Preoccupied, she followed him from the salon and along the