Dana Stabenow - A Taint in the Blood

“Sondra-” Pete said, or started to.

“That’s all right, Pete,” Kate said, and smiled at Sondra. “Not my mother, my man.” She ran one teasing finger down the buttons of the glittering red jacket and back up again to trace the neckline. “He liked the idea of… buttons.” She gave the man hovering at Sondra’s elbow a languishing glance and ran her tongue slowly over her lower lip.

The man inhaled part of his drink and started to cough, spraying green liquid of some kind over Sondra’s leggings. Sondra swore. “You moron!” She brushed ineffectually at her leggings and glared at Kate.

Pete threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“Um,” the man said, his eyes watering a little, “I’m Greg Nowaka. And you are-”

The woman transferred the glare from Kate to him.

Still laughing, Pete waved him off. “Way out of your league, buddy boy. Run, run for your life.”

He towed Kate away as she said to the woman over her shoulder, “Did you practice that nostril flare in the mirror? It’s kinda cool, makes you look like you’re about to charge a red cape.”

“Jesus, Shugak, enough already.” When they had achieved what Pete considered to be a safe distance, he stopped to grin down at her. “Where’d you learn to do that? I figured I was shepherding a lamb through the wolf pack, but I’m thinking now I got that backward.”

“When in Rome,” Kate said, and wondered how soon she could get the hell out of there.

A touch on the shoulder stopped her. She turned to see Charlotte, Emily at her elbow. Emily looked at Kate with the first expression of approval Kate had yet seen. Charlotte was even smiling. “Thanks,” Charlotte said.

“For what?” Kate said.

Charlotte looked over her shoulder. “Hi, Pete.”

“Hi, sweetie.” Pete kissed her cheek and then Emily’s. “How you doing?”

Charlotte’s smile widened. “Better now.”

Pete laughed. “I bet.” He grinned down at Kate.

Kate, mystified, was about to inquire as to what had just happened, when Charlotte said, “Let me introduce you to my aunt.” She nodded to Pete, who stepped back. Charlotte led Kate to a chair tucked into a corner next to the windows. “Aunt Alice?”

The woman seated in the chair wore a sleeveless scoop-necked mauve linen sheath and was chatting animatedly with a well-dressed, smooth-featured man twenty years her junior, who looked like he was trying not to appear bored. She looked around at Charlotte’s greeting. Her hair had been artfully streaked, her large gray eyes were exquisitely made up, her fingernails were polished the same shade as her toenails, displayed in elegant sandals with delicate straps. Her collarbone was a knife edge above the neckline of her dress, her arms about the width of a piece of spaghetti, and there was something wrong with her face. The skin was very smooth and very taut, but it seemed to be pulling her lips open to show the fleshy inner lips inside. It tugged at the corners of her eyes and eyebrows, narrowing the eyes and elongating the brows. Kate wondered if perhaps Alice was recovering from burns of some kind. She’d seen burn victims grow just that kind of new skin.

“Aunt Alice, I’d like you to meet Kate Shugak.”

Aunt Alice extended a hand, the back of which was mottled with age spots. “How do you do, Ms. Shugak.”

Kate accepted the hand and wondered if she was expected to kiss it. “Kate, please,” she said.

Alice gave a perfunctory smile and said to the bored-looking man, “Alvin, meet Kate Shugak.”

Alvin took Kate’s hand. “How nice to meet you.” His eyes traveled down her throat. “Hmm.” He raised one hand and, before she could step out of reach, traced her scar with impersonal fingers. “Who’s your surgeon?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your plastic surgeon, who is he? Never mind. Whoever he is, he ought to be shot. Here.” Alvin produced a business card. “Give me a call. We’ll set up an appointment.” He took her chin in cool, impersonal hands and turned her face from side to side, and Kate was so dumbfounded at the uninvited familiarity that she let him. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” Kate said.

“Hmm,” he said again. “Not much else to be done there, at least not yet. In another twenty years, we’ll probably have to do some work on those eyes.”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Kate said, and then she pulled herself together. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. Who the hell are you anyway?”

Alvin produced a wide smile of practiced charm. “I’m sorry. I’m Alvin Bishop. I’m a plastic surgeon.” The mirthless smile widened. “Beautiful faces are us.”

“I’ve already got one, thanks,” Kate said smartly, and looked down at Alice. She understood the face now, although she would never understand the impetus behind the edifice. She had to work at keeping the pity out of her own (already beautiful) face.

“And how do you know my niece?” Alice said brightly.

Before Kate could reply, a booming male voice said, “And who do we have here?”

Kate peered up through the steadily thickening haze at what appeared to be quite the tallest man she’d ever met in her life.

The man stooped to kiss the cheek Alice presented. “Have I told you tonight how lovely you look, dear?” He dismissed the plastic surgeon with a look that stopped just short of insult. Dr. Alvin Bishop faded into the crowd, Kate catching a look of relief on his face as he went.

“Just fine, dear,” she replied. “This is Kate Shugak, a friend of Charlotte’s.”

He straightened. “Is it. Well now.” His eyes ran over Kate assessingly, and Kate got that instant vibe that every woman gets when a man is interested. Her own eyes narrowed a little.

He was a big man, long-limbed, rangy. She knew him to be in his late sixties or early seventies, but he looked twenty years younger. His face was long, the nose and chin very strong, his eyes blue and intent. His smile was more charming than Alvin’s, but there was power in it, and the arrogance that comes with power. Erland Bannister would be a man whose every move, from the wink and the slap on the back to the unfriendly takeover of a rival corporation, would be calculated for a specific effect. He looked like a man who got what he wanted when he wanted it and not a second later.

He was dressed more casually than anyone in the room, in slacks and a well-worn gray tweed sport jacket over an oxford shirt open at the neck. Kate was reminded of a story about Napoleon’s coronation, when he made all his generals wear gold braid while he wore a simple soldier’s uniform. Make everyone dress up and then dress down yourself. Yet another example of his power, a small one, but telling.

An arm snaked through Erland’s and a voice purred, “Erland, darling, who’s your little friend?”

The blonde in the green-stained leggings was back, looking at Kate as if she’d crawled out from under a rock. Next to Kate, Charlotte stiffened. Alice’s smile looked even more rigid, and it wasn’t just her latest face-lift. Suddenly, Kate understood the subtext of the little scene a few minutes before. She looked at Alice. Fitzgerald was right: The rich really were different. But Hemingway was righter; the only difference was they had more money, which they could spend on more dumb things. It occurred to Kate for the first time that there were advantages to being broke for most of your life.

She looked back at the blonde and examined her face with interest. “You must be a patient of Alvin’s, too,” she said, putting as much innocence into her wide eyes as she could muster.

The blonde went a dull red. She opened her mouth, but whatever bile had been about to spew out was forestalled when Erland patted her hand. “Why, you’ve met.”