Free The Predators by Harold Robbins Page B

out the note. They didn’t lose any time. I was ordered to take the draft card and go directly to Grand Central and take my physical.
    I handed the letter to Kitty. She glanced at it quickly and then looked up at me. “You were expecting it.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “But not so soon. I haven’t even had enough time to decide what I want to do.”
    “If you’re one-A,” she said, “you have no choice, anyway. They just send you to the army or navy. But if you’re lucky and get four-F, then you stay here and get yourself a real job, not a crummy one like at Harry’s.”
    “What kind of job?” I asked. “They don’t train you for anything at high school.”
    “There’s a lot of jobs,” she said. “Just read the classifieds in the newspaper. All the good jobs are for the men that are left here. Maybe you don’t realize it, but men are a real property—in demand.”
    “Maybe I can get a job fucking some rich society dame,” I said kiddingly.
    “You can’t even handle what you’ve got,” she said laughing, going along with the fun. She reached for my fly. “You have just enough to keep me satisfied.”
    We got out of our clothes and rolled onto the bed. I really liked Kitty; she made everything fun. I hoped I made her happy, too. Now that I had graduated we’d have a lot of time to do things together. That’s what I thought, but we never had a chance. By the middle of March I was in the army.

BOOK TWO
    PART ONE
    ONE FRANC A LITER

1
    France—1914
    Jean Pierre heard his father and grandfather screaming at each other from behind the heavy, ornate library doors. He pressed his ear closer to the door, but then Armand, the heavy butler, pulled him abruptly away from the door by the collar and dragged him upstairs to his bedroom. He pushed him inside the room and slapped him twice on the face. “You never eavesdrop when your eiders are speaking!” he snapped.
    “But they were talking about a war!” Jean Pierre said. “I love wars.”
    “You’re still young. You don’t know anything about wars,” Armand said. “Now you wait up here until you are called downstairs.”
    Jean Pierre watched as the butler closed the door behind him. He muttered at the butler under his breath. “Son of a bitch! I know why he has a job in this house. He sucks my grandfather’s cock and lets my father fuck him in the ass.” Still muttering under his breath, he walked to the window that overlooked the beautiful flower garden in the front of the villa. He continued wondering what they were talking about.
    *   *   *
    “Papa!” Jacques said. “Why are you so afraid? If we do have a war it will be over quickly. A matter of months.”
    Maurice looked at his son sadly. “Jacques, you’re stupid. There is never a war that is over in just a few months. I remember when the French were fighting the Prussians when I was only twelve years old. Your grandfather took me and ten men with four wagons in the middle of the night to bring water into Paris because the Prussians had cut off the water supply. The French are never prepared, even then, as well as now.”
    “So what?” Jacques replied. “That’s how we became rich and started a whole new business.”
    “You don’t understand, Jacques,” his father said. “Those were different days. Now Briand, our premier, is an egoist. I have to believe that he had Jaurès, the pacifist, murdered so that he could get us into the war. Don’t deceive yourself, Jacques, the Prussians will beat the whole of Europe. We can’t beat shit. Even our football teams can’t win a game.”
    “But Briand is not in charge of the government; Poincaré is the president,” Jacques answered.
    “You must learn, Jacques, to read between the lines. He will become president within two years. Then all Europe will have to beg America to save us,” Maurice stated.
    Jacques looked at his father. “Perhaps we should ask his mother to let him live with her in Switzerland until this is