Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

He rose from the dim table in the storied bar. Tossed a ten euro tip on the varnished surface.

“I’ve reserved a room in your name. You should be able to rest and freshen up there. I doubt those men will bother you further.”

Her gray eyes flashed fury.

“I’ll be gone before you are in the morning,” he said. Threatened. “Thanks for your help.”

“That’s it?” she said before he could take up his cane and walk. “I nearly break my own ankles walking down half an Alp and I get a drink and a . . . what is it called in the American movies? A kiss-off? You don’t even want to know what happened to me, what those men wanted?”

“Do you know what they wanted?”

Her anger ebbed as she sat farther back into the leather club chair, reassured that he wasn’t leaving quite yet.

“They took me , but they wanted you. It seemed they were sure you would follow. They drove down the mountain slowly. Stopped for lunch! All the while holding a pistol on me.”

“What kind?”

“Black, sleek, how do I know what kind? I am a psychiatrist, not a policeman.”

“And they came straight to Zurich?”

“It’s the biggest city at the bottom of the northern Alps. Anyone leaving the clinic would have to go through Zurich.”

“How did they come across you? Know you? Know you were with me?”

“From the clinic.”

“And they didn’t force you to take them to me in the village?”

Her eyes grew evasive. “They didn’t want to cause a fuss in that little town. They said they’d make their move in Zurich.”

“In what language?”

“English,” she said, surprisingly. “But not American, as you speak. It had a more musical sound.”

“An accent?”

“I suppose so.” She frowned as she sipped again, more deeply. “It wasn’t British English. I’ve heard that on the BBC. Maybe English wasn’t their native tongue. Maybe they were Latvian. I don’t know!”

“Maybe what you don’t know is a safeguard.” He’d slipped back into a soft, nonstagy Irish brogue.

Her eyes widened like a child’s. “Yes! They spoke exactly like that.”

Max smiled, although he didn’t feel like it. The IRA was defanged these days, of its own volition. Why would Irish muscle still be after him? Unless it was the rogue branch, and even then, such a connection was ridiculous. Yet, the accent had enveloped him like a second skin when he’d wanted one to cloud his identity.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You haven’t heard a Celtic accent before?”

“Celtic? You mean Scottish?”

He didn’t correct her because she seemed sincerely puzzled.

European countries could be insular, despite being closer cheek by jowl than most American states. She’d probably heard a bit of a brogue in passing, but had never bothered to assign it to any particular foreign country. The French were almost fanatical about preserving their language from creeping Americanisms. Her ignorance of other accents seemed reasonable.

“You have come up in the world, Mr. Randolph, since we parted.”

He mentally shook himself to attention again. She meant his upscale new clothes.

“Same method of shopping?” she said.

“I haven’t won the lottery in the past twenty-eight hours.”

“Only twenty-eight hours? You counted. Is that all it’s been?” Her sleek features sagged momentarily.

“I take it you prefer my company to your friends in the Mercedes.”

“They are not my friends! Oh, they didn’t hurt me beyond worrying me to death, and you were as much responsible for that as they were.”

“I was?”

“You are my patient, infuriating and uncooperative as you are! I am responsible for you.”

“For my mind and emotions, maybe, but this is no longer a therapeutic situation.”

“Actually, it is.” She was all business now, as when she had first visited him in the clinic room, but she didn’t stop sipping the cocktail. Emotion and alcohol were warming her cool blond cheeks, and him by proxy.

“You have made an impossible physical recovery in the past few days. I daresay running for one’s life could now be recommended as excellent physical therapy. You laugh? I’m dead serious.”

“But you were being sarcastic, even funny. You’ve never been funny before.”

“I am not amusing. I am angry, rightly so. It’s clear that you have also recalled some survival strategies that indicate you have a most interesting history, professional or personal, I am not sure which yet, but I mean to find out.”

“And if I don’t mean you to?”

“Given the progress you have made in these last few days, if we had a few solid hours of consultation, you might make a real leap. Then you would know who these men are who tried to use a hypodermic to silence you, and who kidnapped me off the cobblestones of innocent Alteberg to use me as a hostage and lure. Why did they think I would be valuable to you? Why did they even bother with me?”

If she truly was the innocent bystander she claimed, that was an interesting question.

He felt his face flush. Going after her when she’d vanished, in his condition, with the distrust he harbored, was idiotic. Apparently, someone who wanted to kill him—or maybe someone else who wanted to use him—knew that he would be just that idiotic. Was he a fall guy for a pretty face? Or someone with an overactive sense of responsibility?

In a way, only time and maybe Revienne would tell. She was the sole link he had now to his past, both for what she might be able to do for him as a psychiatrist and how useful she might be as an ally, or a secret enemy.

Either way, having taken all this trouble to find her, it was even more idiotic to let her go.

“We can discuss this in your room,” he said.

Her pale eyebrows raised as she lifted her martini glass to finish it off.

“I ordered a bottle of champagne,” he added.

She lowered the wide-mouthed glass without drinking, eyeing him with approval. “A nice thought, but that is too . . . sleepy-making for the work we have ahead of us tonight. This is an occasion for unconventional methods. Martinis would be better to loosen up the unconscious.”

“Mine, or yours?”

“Let’s try it and see what happens.”

“You said a ‘room.’ ”

Revienne’s tone was accusing.

It would be called a junior suite in the United States. It had a small refrigerator, nice postmodern furnishings, a hair dryer and jetted tub in the bathroom for rich Americans used to excess.

“Ah, divine.”

She sat to yank off her boots and the nylons inside, now pocked with holes. She snapped them free at the thighs of a garter belt he’d never suspected she wore.

His pulse jumped. In America, garter belts were cheap or expensive sex accessories. Bought sex. From somewhere, he remembered that European women were different. They might not shave their legs or underarms, but they might just shave a more intimate area. They might just wear garter belts and hose daily, but skip panties.

My God, he’d been on the run for several days, around the clock, with a woman who wore no underwear and he hadn’t known it. Luckily, she hadn’t noticed his juvenile curiosity and even more infantile excitement.

“First, I bathe,” she decided. “You order me another martini and appetizers.” She unbuttoned her jacket to reveal a black lace camisole under it and threw it on a chair, disappearing into the bathroom, drawing the door shut behind her.

He heard the lock turn and smiled. She had her suspicions too.

The boots had been ruined; the hose too. He picked up her jacket. It was a light wool-silk weave, lined in silk crepe, hand-sewn with silken tape covering the seams. It would feel smooth as a cloud on, as his new designer clothes did.