Tess Gerritsen - Double Impact

There was no response. Sighing, she pulled on a robe and padded over to open the door.

Guy grinned at her from the darkness. “Well?” he inquired. “Have you thought about it?”

“Thought about what?” she snapped back.

“You and me. Working together.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Either you’re hard of hearing or I didn’t make myself clear.”

“That was two hours ago. I figured you might have changed your mind.”

“I will never change my mind. Good night.” She slammed the door, shoved the bolt home and stepped back, seething.

There was a tapping on her window. She yanked the curtain aside and saw Guy smiling through the glass.

“Just one more question,” he called.

“What?”

“Is that answer final?”

She jerked the curtain closed and stood there, waiting to see where he’d turn up next. Would he drop down from the ceiling? Pop up like a jack-in-the-box through the floor?

What was that rustling sound?

Glancing down sharply, she saw a piece of paper slide under the door. She snatched it up and read the scrawled message. “Call me if you need me.”

Ha! she thought, ripping the note to pieces. “The day I need you is the day hell freezes over!” she yelled.

There was no answer. And she knew, without even looking, that he had already walked away.

CHANTAL GAZED AT THE bottle of champagne, the tins of caviar and foie gras, and the box of chocolates, and she licked her lips. Then she said, “How dare you show up after all these years.”

Siang merely smiled. “You have lost your taste for champagne? What a pity. It seems I shall have to drink it all myself.” He reached for the bottle. Slowly, he untwisted the wire. The flight from Bangkok had jostled the contents; the cork shot out, spilling pale gold bubbles all over the earthen floor. Chantal gave a little sob. She appeared ready to drop to her knees and lap up the precious liquid. He poured champagne into one of two fluted glasses he’d brought all the way from Bangkok. One could not, after all, drink champagne from a teacup. He took a sip and sighed happily. “Taittinger. Delightful.”

“Taittinger?” she whispered.

He filled the second glass and set it on the rickety table in front of her. She kept staring at it, watching the bubbles spiral to the surface.

“I need help,” he said.

She reached for the glass, put it to her trembling lips, tasted the rim, then the contents. He could almost see the bubbles sliding over her tongue, slipping down that fine, long throat. Even if the rest of her was sagging, she still had that beautiful throat, slender as a stalk of grass. A legacy from her Vietnamese mother. Her Asian half had held up over the years; the French half hadn’t done so well. He could see the freckles, the fine lines tracing the corners of her greenish eyes.

She was no longer merely tasting the champagne; she was guzzling. Greedily, she drained the last drop from her glass and reached for the bottle.

He slid it out of her reach. “I said I need your help.”

She wiped her chin with the back of her hand. “What kind of help?”

“Not much.”

“Ha. That’s what you always say.”

“A pistol. Automatic. Plus several clips of ammunition.”

“What if I don’t have a pistol?”

“Then you will find me one.”

She shook her head. “This is not the old days. You don’t know what it’s like here. Things are difficult.” She paused, looking down at her slightly crepey hands. “Saigon is a hell.”

“Even hell can be made comfortable. I can see to that.”

She was silent. He could read her mind almost as easily as if her eyes were transparent. She gazed down at the treasures he’d brought from Bangkok. She swallowed, her mouth still tingling with the taste of champagne. At last she said, “The gun. What do you want it for?”

“A job.”

“Vietnamese?”

“American. A woman.”

A spark flickered in Chantal’s eyes. Curiosity. Maybe jealousy. Her chin came up. “Your lover?”

He shook his head.

“Then why do you want her dead?”

He shrugged. “Business. My client has offered generous compensation. I will split it with you.”

“The way you did before?” she shot back.

He shook his head apologetically. “Chantal, Chantal.” He sighed. “You know I had no choice. It was the last flight out of Saigon.” He touched her face; it had lost its former silkiness. That French blood again: it didn’t hold up well under years of harsh sunlight. “This time, I promise. You’ll be paid.”

She sat there looking at him, looking at the champagne. “What if it takes me time to find a gun?”

“Then I’ll improvise. And I will need an assistant. Someone I can trust, someone discreet.” He paused. “Your cousin, is he still in need of money?”

Their gazes met. He gave her a slow, significant smile. Then he filled her glass with champagne.

“Open the caviar,” she said.

“I NEED YOUR HELP,” said Willy.

Guy, dazed and still half-asleep, stood in his doorway, blinking at the morning sunlight. He was uncombed, unshaven and wearing only a towel-a skimpy one at that. She tried to stay focused on his face, but her gaze kept dropping to his chest, to that mat of curly brown hair, to the scar knotting the upper abdomen.

He shook his head in disbelief. “You couldn’t have told me this last night? You had to wait till the crack of dawn?”

“Guy, it’s eight o’clock.”

He yawned. “No kidding.”

“Maybe you should try going to bed at a decent hour.”

“Who says I didn’t?” He leaned carelessly in the doorway and grinned. “Maybe sleep didn’t happen to be on my agenda.”

Dear God. Did he have a woman in his room? Automatically, Willy glanced past him into the darkened room. The bed was rumpled but unoccupied.

“Gotcha,” he said, and laughed.

“I can see you’re not going to be any help at all.” She turned and walked away.

“Willy! Hey, come on.” He caught her by the arm and pulled her around. “Did you mean it? About wanting my help?”

“Forget it. It was a lapse in judgment.”

“Last night, hell had to freeze over before you’d come to me for help. But here you are. What made you change your mind?”

She didn’t answer right off. She was too busy trying not to notice that his towel was slipping. To her relief, he snatched it together just in time and fastened it more securely around his hips.

At last she shook her head and sighed. “You were right. It’s all going exactly as you said it would. No official will talk to me. No one’ll answer my calls. They hear I’m coming and they all dive under their desks!”

“You could try a little patience. Wait another week.”

“Next week’s no good, either.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t you heard? It’s Ho Chi Minh’s birthday.”

Guy looked heavenward. “How could I forget?”

“So what should I do?”

For a moment, he stood there thoughtfully rubbing his unshaven chin. Then he nodded. “Let’s talk about it.”

Back in his room, she sat uneasily on the edge of the bed while he dressed in the bathroom. The man was a restless sleeper, judging by the rumpled sheets. The blanket had been kicked off the bed entirely, the pillows punched into formless lumps by the headboard. Her gaze settled on the nightstand, where a stack of files lay. The top one was labeled Operation Friar Tuck. Declassified. Curious, she flipped open the cover.

“It’s the way things work in this country,” she heard him say through the bathroom door. “If you want to get from point A to point B, you don’t go in a straight line. You walk two steps to the left, two to the right, turn and walk backward.”