Greg Rucka - Walking dead

"I'm sorry?"

"Shouldn't need more than that," I said.

"No, no, that will pose no problem," Sargenti said. "What did you say about Elizavet?"

"You saw her last week."

"We spoke, yes. I've seen neither of you since we were in Prague together, at the end of March."

"Sorry," I said. "I meant call, not saw. Jet lag, you'll have to forgive me."

"Of course. I remain, as always, at your service."

"Which we both appreciate."

"Please give my regards to Messrs. Mercer, Joshi, and Shephard. I hope your business with them brings much success, Michael."

"Yeah," I said. "You and me both."

I hung up, went back to watching the planes taking off and landing. It was a bright day outside the airport, a vivid blue sky and heat distortion rising off the tarmac. After a while, I swapped out SIM cards again, and then sent a text message to Alena's mobile, with the phone numbers I'd promised. Less than a minute later, she sent a reply.

That was all. That was all there should have been. Certainly nothing more, certainly nothing sentimental. Certainly no explanation as to why she'd deceived me about meeting Nicholas in Tbilisi, where she'd really gone, what she'd really done. No justification for lying to me. At twenty-three minutes past midnight, after ninety minutes in line, I cleared customs and entered the United Arab Emirate of Dubai.

Eleven The second night, for nine hundred dirham, I brought a hooker back to Danil Joshi's room at the Marina Palais Royale Hotel, which was as luxe an establishment as the name implied. I walked her openly past the security guard at the door the same way I'd seen countless other male guests do. We didn't touch, and we kept a reasonable distance between us, and no one looked at us twice, even though everyone on the staff knew what she was and my intentions with her, and never mind that sex outside of marriage was against the law. I was a business traveler, she was my guest, and in the end, weren't we only helping the economy?

Her name was Kekela, which means "beautiful" in Georgian, and it suited her. She was tall, almost Alena's height, tanned and fit, with black hair that dropped in a glossy cascade to only a few inches above her hips, held away from her face by a pair of pearl-inlaid hair clips. Her features were sweet, even innocent, and she knew how to apply makeup for best effect, highlighting her cheekbones and drawing out her auburn eyes so they shone with anticipation and passion.

Once inside my room, Kekela went straight to the couch, kicking off her high heels on the way. The shoes were black and shiny, part of her nightclub ensemble. I fixed the locks on the door, and when I turned around again she was already lounging, one long leg extended on the cushions, the other curled beneath it. The pose made her skirt ride up, revealing the top of one stocking and the elastic from the garter belt that held it secure. The stocking was black and sheer, the garter belt black and lace. With her right hand she pulled the clips from her hair, tossing each onto the coffee table, while her left worked the buttons on her blouse, unfastening them one after the other. As I watched, she teased her top open. Her bra matched the garter belt.

"I'd like something to drink, Danil." She spoke in Georgian, using the same husky register that had made me strain to hear her in the club. "What do you have to drink?"

"Vodka?" I asked.

Her smile, like everything else she did, sold me even more promise.

I opened the minibar and got out the two tiny bottles of Grey Goose, cracked them and poured them together into a glass, seeing her watch me in the reflection off the dead television screen. The act stopped when I wasn't looking at her, the eagerness and accommodation turning dull, but she was very quick, and it was right back as before when I returned to her and put the glass in her hand.

"You're not drinking with me?"

"I don't drink much."

I took the chair nearest where she had been resting her head on the armrest of the couch. She pulled from the glass, half of the alcohol vanishing, then lowered it and ran a finger around its rim, meeting my eyes as she did it. As innuendo, it should have been absurd and ineffective, but she gave it as much commitment as Bacall had ever done for Bogie, and I was surprised at its effectiveness.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Twenty-two."

It was a lie, but it was to be expected. Every prostitute I'd spoken to had claimed to be twenty-two, even the ones who'd looked forty, the same way every bribe in Georgia and Turkey had been fifty euros. In Kekela's case, though, it didn't appear to be a big one, and I couldn't imagine her much older than twenty-six.

"Where're you from?"

"Mtskheta."

"Where's that?"

An eyebrow rose slightly. "The mountains. North of Tbilisi, on the river."

"Right," I said. "That's right."

"You work in the capital?"

"Used to. Since the war I've been in Batumi most of the time."

She nodded slightly, slowly, then finished the rest of her drink and set it on the coffee table. The glass met the glass without a sound. She straightened up on the couch, ran her hands through her hair, stretching to give me the show as she brought up her arms. The movement caused her blouse to open wide, and her breasts strained against her bra. Even at two in the morning it was still almost 35 Celsius outside, and humid, and the air conditioner was running, keeping the room cool, and it was that rather than arousal that had turned her nipples hard.

Kekela held the pose for a beat longer than she needed to if she had been merely stretching, once more boldly meeting my eyes. Her mouth opened slightly, the start of a naughty smile.

Then she froze, and her arms came down, palms planting on either side of her on the cushions, as if preparing to spring. The performance mask disappeared, too, and her jaw set. The warmth in her eyes died.

"All right," she said, and the husky tone had gone the same way of the warmth, her voice turning hard and climbing half an octave higher. "What is this?"

"What do you mean?"

"What the fuck is this?"

"I don't know what you mean, Kekela," I said.

"I mean you keep looking in my fucking eyes. You don't look at my legs. You don't look at my tits. You don't look at my ass. You look me in the goddamn eyes."

"Well," I said, "you've got very pretty eyes."

She snorted. "Are you going to fuck me or not?"

"I'd rather talk."

"I don't do talk." Kekela pushed off the couch and onto her feet. She began buttoning her blouse. "I do oral. For extra, I let you cum in my mouth. I do anal, I do threesome, I do ass-to-mouth and I do ass-to-cunt, I do just about anything you can think of."

Her blouse was closed. I hadn't moved. She scooped her two hair clips from the coffee table with one hand, then fixed a glare on me.

"But I don't. Do. Talk."

I stayed exactly as before, not moving, presenting no threat, unless she took the slight smile I had on my face as one. She turned from the hips, locating her shoes, then snapped her attention back to me, as if expecting that I'd have tried something in the second she'd looked away.

When she saw that I hadn't, she added, as if I was an idiot, "And you're not from Tbilisi."

"No, I'm not. If you want to leave, you should. I won't keep you here against your will."

"I am going to leave."

"It's just that you're from Georgia," I said. "And I was hoping that would give us a connection, no matter how small. Hoping that the language would give us a foundation of trust."

Suspicion danced on her face. "Why?"

"I need help."

"You need help?" She snorted at me again, much the same way Alena did when she felt I was being unreasonably dim-witted. "Fucking obvious, you need help."