Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

A few moments later someone stopped by her elbow and leaned close to examine the contents of the tray.

“Well hello, Cindy.” A man’s voice, a smile curving the sound of it. “And just what you got there, little lady?”

Thad, looking pretty nifty in the tux she’d made him rent. He bent over her tray while she explained the contents, making a big play over choosing between the caviar or the beef. And underneath, his other hand touched hers, and she slipped the Beretta into it.

“Well, thank you, sugar,” he said, taking a canapé with a flourish and slipping the gun inside his jacket with his other hand, like a magician. When the hand came out again, it was holding a snowy handkerchief, which he used to wipe his fingers and dab his mouth.

Layla had made him practise the move until it seemed so natural. Shame this was a one-time show. He would have made such a partner, someone she might just have been able to live her dreams with. If only he hadn’t had that cruel streak. If only he’d touched her heart the way Bobby had.

Poor crippled, blinded Bobby. Poor dead Bobby…

Ah well. Too late for regrets. Too late for much of anything, now.

Layla caught Thad’s eye as she made another round and he nodded, almost imperceptibly. She nodded back, the slightest inclination of her head, and turned away. As she did so she bumped deliberately into the arm of a man who’d been recounting some fishing tale and spread his hands broadly to lie about the size of his catch. He caught Layla’s tray and sent it flipping upwards. Layla caught it with the fast reflexes that came from years of waiting crowded tables amid careless diners. She managed to stop the contents crashing to the floor, but most of it ended up down the front of her blouse instead.

“Oh, I am so sorry, sir,” she said immediately, clutching the tray to her chest to prevent further spillage.

“No problem,” the man said, annoyed at having his story interrupted and oblivious to the fact it had been entirely his fault. He checked his own clothing. “No harm done.”

Layla managed to raise a smile and hurried out. Steve caught her halfway.

“What happened, honey?” he demanded. “Not like you to be so clumsy.”

Layla shrugged as best she could, still trying not to shed debris.

“Sorry, boss,” she said. “I’ve got a spare blouse in my bag. I’ll go change.”

“Okay, sweetheart, but make it snappy.” He let her move away a few strides, then called after her, “And if that’s caviar you’re wearing, it’ll come out of your pay, y’hear?”

Layla threw him a chastised glance over her shoulder that didn’t go deep enough to change her eyes, and hurried back to the little cloakroom.

She scraped the gunge off the front of her chest into the nearest trash, took off the blouse and threw that away, too, then rummaged through her bag for a clean one. This one was calculatedly lower cut and more revealing, but she didn’t think Steve would object too hard, even if he caught her wearing it.

She pulled out another skirt, too, even though there was nothing wrong with her old one. This was shorter than the last, showing several inches of long smooth thigh below the hem and, without undue vanity, she knew it would drag male eyes downwards, even as her newly exposed cleavage would drag them up again. With any luck, they’d go cross-eyed trying to look both places at once.

She swapped her false name badge over and took the cheap Makarov nine millimeter and a roll of duct tape out of her bag. She lifted one remarkable leg up onto the wooden bench and ran the duct tape around the top of her thigh, twice, to hold the nine in position, just out of sight. The pistol grip pointed downwards and she knew from hours in front of the mirror that she could yank the gun loose in a second.

She’d bought both pistols from a crooked military surplus dealer down near Miramar. Thad insisted on coming with her for the Beretta, had made a big thing about checking the gun over like he knew what he was doing, sighting along the barrel with one eye closed.

Layla had gone back later for the Makarov. She didn’t have enough money for the two, but she’d been dressed to thrill and she and the dealer had come to an arrangement that hadn’t cost Layla anything at all. Only pride, and she’d been way overdrawn on that account for years.

Now, Layla checked in the cracked mirror that the gun didn’t show beneath her skirt. Her face was even more bland in its pallor and, just for once, she wished she’d been born pretty. Not beautiful, just pretty enough to have been cherished.

The way she’d cherished Bobby. The way he’d cherished her.

She left the locker room and collected a fresh tray from the kitchen. The chefs were under pressure, the activity frantic, but when she walked in on those long dancer’s legs there was a moment of silence that was almost reverent.

“You changed your clothes,” one of the chefs said, mesmerized.

She smiled at him, saw the fog lift a little as the disappointment of her face cut through the haze of lust created by her body.

“I spilled,” she said, collecting a fresh tray. She felt every eye on her as she walked out, smiled when she heard the collective sigh as the door swung closed behind her.

It was a short-lived smile.

Back in the ballroom, it was all she could do not to go marching straight up to Venable, but she knew she had to play it cool. The four bodyguards were too experienced not to spot her sudden surge of guilt and anger. They’d pick her out of the crowd the way a shark cuts out a weakling seal pup. And she couldn’t afford that. Not yet.

Instead, she forced herself to think bland thoughts as she circled the room towards him. Saw out of the corner of her eye Thad casually moving up on the other side. The relief flooded her, sending her limbs almost lax with it. For a second, she’d been afraid he wouldn’t go through with it. That he’d realize what her real plan was, and back out at the last minute.

For the moment, though, Thad must think it was all going according to plan. She stepped up to the Dyers, offered them something from her tray. The secretary still hadn’t left his side, she saw. The girl must be desperate.

Layla took another step, sideways towards Venable, ducking around the cordon of bodyguards. Offered him something from her tray. And this time, as he leaned forwards, so did she, pressing her arms together to accentuate what nature had so generously given her.

She watched Venable’s eyes go glassy, saw the way the eyes of the nearest two bodyguards bulged the same way. There was another just behind her, she knew, and she bent a little further from the waist, knowing she was giving him a prime view of her ass and the back of her newly-exposed thighs. She could almost feel that hot little gaze slavering up the backs of her knees.

Come on, Thad…

He came pushing through the crowd nearest to Venable, moving too fast. If he’d been slower, he might have made it. As it was, he was the only guy for twenty feet in any direction who didn’t have his eyes full of Layla’s divine body. Venable’s eyes snapped round at the last moment, jerky, panicking as he realized the rapidly approaching threat. He flailed, sending Layla’s tray crashing to the ground, showering canapés.

The bodyguards were slower off the mark. Thad already had the gun out before two of them grabbed him. Not so much grabbed as piled in on top of him, driving him off his legs and down, using fists and feet to keep him there.

Thad was no easy meat, though. He kept in shape and had come up from the streets, where unfair fights were part of the game. Even on the floor, he lashed out, aiming for knees and shins, hitting more than he was missing. A third bodyguard joined in to keep him down, a leather sap appearing like magic in his hand.