Free The Valentino Affair by Colin Evans Page A

cigarettes; he no doubt had time for a quick smoke before she returned.
    A full moon crept across the purple sky as Donner shifted stickily in his seat. He settled back and sucked in a deep lungful of smoke, keeping one eye on the meter, which already registered more than two dollars. Then he heard a muffled bang, almost like a gunshot. Probably some hunter looking to bag a meal for the dinner table. Four more gunshots broke the silence of that hot August night, and set the mayhem in motion.

T HE V ALENTINO A FFAIR

Jack de Saulles, Yale football star and Broadway ladies man

TWO
    An American in Paris
    W HEN THEY ARRIVED IN C HILE, THE NEWLYWEDS DECIDED, BEFORE moving permanently to Viña del Mar, to set up home temporarily in Santiago, staying at one of the many Errázuriz-Vergara residences dotted about the country. It would give Jack a chance to make himself known at the exclusive Union Club, where all the big players in Santiago gathered to trade gossip, cook up business deals, and cement alliances. Jack fit in perfectly. With the señora in Paris, he set about playing the role of a freshly minted grandee, and among his first tasks he applied to the administrator of the estates of his wife’s late father for all securities and title deeds belonging to Blanca. Under Chilean law at the time, a bride’s assets automatically became the property of her husband after marriage. 1 Jack was sounding her out. If he were to realize his dream of building a vast real estate empire, one to rival any in South America, he required an accounting of Blanca’s financial worth. When the documents arrived on his desk, he sifted through them with a practiced eye. After a few minutes he grew puzzled. A few minutes more and confusion turned to disbelief then bemusement that gave way finally to boiling rage. He rushed from his desk and went looking for Blanca. When he found her, he waved the papers in her face. “That’s hardly anything at all,” he yelled. “It is practically nothing. It is absurd to call you an heiress.” 2
    What Jack and every other potential suitor didn’t know was that most of Blanca’s assets were held in trust. Through a series of complicated legal maneuvers, her father had ring-fenced Errázuriz-Vergara millions to guard them against predatory fortune hunters by ensuring that his children gained access to the capital only upon their mother’s death. As it stood, Blanca was worth approximately one hundred thousand dollars 3 in her own right—enough for the couple to live comfortably but nothing like the staggering twenty-five million dollars that would have catapulted Jack into the upper echelons of Chile’s plutocrats.
    Jack raged at Blanca that he’d been negotiating to buy their own estate in Chile and now the deal would collapse. If that happened, he’d be the laughingstock of the Union Club; his future in Chile would be ruined! He ordered Blanca to write to her mother in Paris and demand that she forward sufficient funds to complete the transaction. Then his tone grew more menacing. If the funds were not forthcoming, he told Blanca, he would return to America and take her with him. If that happened, he swore that Blanca’s mother would never set eyes on her grandchild. The ferocity of Jack’s onslaught left Blanca reeling. She grabbed a pen and paper and dashed off a letter to her mother, spelling out Jack’s demands and threats. The reply came by cable. Señora Errázuriz-Vergara protested that, like Blanca, all of her wealth was locked up either in real estate or long-term securities, none of which could be liquidated easily. It was impossible for her, at such short notice, to find the cash that Jack needed to close the deal. However, as promised earlier, she was prepared to sign over one of her houses in Viña del Mar; perhaps he could use that as collateral to buy the estate?
    The offer was generous—but not generous enough to placate Jack. He was like an enraged bull, convinced his