Olen Steinhauer - The Tourist

Patrick, it turned out, was in Paris with Paula. All those P's confused her. He wanted to know if she could "swing through town" so she and Paula could finally meet. "She really wants to," he'd written.

Tina had crossed an ocean to get away from her problems, and then-

"Excuse me."

On the other side of her table stood an American, somewhere in his fifties, bald on top, grinning down at her. He pointed at the free chair. "May I?"

When the waiter came, he ordered a vodka tonic, then watched another vaporetto glide past. Perhaps bored with the water, he started watching her face as she read. He finally spoke: "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Oh," she said. "No, thanks." She gave him a smile, just enough to be polite. Then she took off her sunglasses.

"Sorry," he stuttered. "Just that I'm here alone, and it looks like you are, too. You'd get a free drink out of it."

Maybe he was all right. "Why not? Thanks…" She raised her brows.

"Frank."

"Thanks, Frank. I'm Tina."

She stuck out her hand, and they shook with stiff formality. "Champagne?"

"You didn't see." She grabbed the arms of her chair and scooted it back a foot. She touched her large, rounded belly "Eight months now."

Frank gaped.

"Never seen one of these before?"

"I just…" He scratched his hairless scalp. "That explains it. Your glow."

Not again, she wanted to say but cut herself short. She could at least be pleasant.

When the waiter arrived with his vodka tonic, he ordered her another orange juice, and she pointed out that a simple orange juice was outrageously expensive here. "And look how much they give you," she said, holding up her tiny glass. "Outrageous."

She wondered if she was being too negative again, but Frank pushed it further (complaining about the Vuitton knockoffs she'd seen before) until they were both complaining pleasantly about the idiocies of tourism.

In answer to his questions, she told him she was a librarian at MIT's art and architecture library in Boston, and she let out just enough casual, sarcastic asides to make it clear that the father of her baby had left in a particularly poor fashion. "You've got my whole life already. What are you, a journalist?"

"Real estate. I work out of Vienna, but we've got properties all over the place. I'm settling a deal on a palazzo not far away."

"Really?"

"Sold it to a Russian bigwig. So much money, you wouldn't believe."

"I probably wouldn't."

"The papers have to be signed in the next forty-eight hours, but in the meantime I'm entirely free." He considered his next words carefully. "Can I take you out to the theater?"

Tina slipped on the sunglasses again. Despite herself, she remembered Margaret's most insistent advice five months ago when Patrick first walked out: He's a boy, Tina. A child. What you need is an older man. Someone with a sense of responsibility. Tina wasn't seriously considering anything like that, but there was always a certain logic to Margaret's unasked-for wisdom.

Frank turned out to be a pleasant surprise. He left her alone until five, when he arrived in a tailored suit, carrying a pair of Teatro Malibran tickets and a single orange lily that smelled hallucinogenic.

She knew little about opera and had never considered herself a fan. Frank, despite having feigned ignorance, turned out to be something of an expert. He'd somehow gotten seats in the platea, the stalls on the floor of the opera, so they had an unencumbered view of the Prince, the King of Clubs, and Truffaldino in The Love for Three Oranges. He sometimes leaned in to whisper a plot point she might have missed-it was performed in French-but the plot hardly mattered. It was an absurdist opera about a cursed prince forced to go on a quest for three oranges, in each of which slept a princess. The audience laughed more often than Tina did, but the jokes she got she enjoyed.

Afterward, Frank treated her to dinner at a marginal trattoria and told her stories about his long years living in Europe. She found his description of the expatriate lifestyle particularly enticing. Then he insisted on buying her breakfast, which she first took as a rudely hopeful suggestion. She'd misjudged, though, and all he did was walk her back to the hotel, kiss her cheeks in the European manner, and wish her a good night. A real gentleman, unlike those Italian men lurking on every corner.

She woke early on Tuesday and, after a quick wash, began to pack her things for the next morning's flight home. It was a shame- now that she had finally recovered from her jet lag and met an interesting, cultured man, it was time to leave. She thought her last day might best be used taking a boat trip out to Murano to see the glassblowers.

She brought it up to Frank after he picked her up and they had reached the huge, pigeon-infested glory of St. Mark's Square. "This time it's my treat," she told him. "There's a boat leaving in an hour."

"I wish," he said earnestly, guiding her to an open-air cafe. "It's the damned job. The Ruskie can call for me at any moment, and if I'm not available it'll fall through."

It was during their continental breakfast that Frank went silent, staring past her shoulder, tense.

"What is it?" She followed his gaze, spotting a bald, thick-necked man in a black suit cutting through the crowds toward them.

"The palazzo." He bit his lower lip. "I hope they don't want to meet now."

"It's fine. We'll hook up later."

The tough-looking bald man reached the edge of their table. His head was shiny with sweat. "You," he said, his Russian accent thick. "It's ready."

Frank patted his lips with a napkin. "Can't it wait until we're finished eating?"

"No."

Frank glanced, embarrassed, at Tina. He put the napkin on the table with shaking hands. Was that fear? Or just excitement over a huge commission? Then he smiled at her. "You want to see the place? It's really fabulous."

She looked at the remnants of her breakfast, then at the Russian. "Maybe I shouldn't-"

"Nonsense," Frank cut in. To the Russian, he said, "Of course it's no problem, right?"

The man looked confused.

"Exactly." Frank helped Tina to her feet. "Not too fast," he told the Russian. "She's not built like you."

As soon as they passed the palazzo's front door and faced the steep, narrow steps leading up into the gloom, Tina regretted having come along. She should have known better. The bald Russian looked like the kind of Slavic thug that always populated action movies those days, and the steady walk from St. Mark's all the way up here had mauled her feet. Now, she was faced with this mountain to climb.

"Maybe I should wait down here," she said.

Frank's expression was almost horrified. "I know it looks tough, but you won't regret it. Trust me."

"But my-"

"Come" the Russian said, already halfway up the first flight.

Frank reached out a hand. "Let me help."

So she let him help. He had, after all, been a perfect gentleman so far. She used the memory of the previous night-the opera and the dinner-to distract her from the ache in her heels as Frank helped her up to the oak door at the top of the steps. She looked back, but only saw that bleak, indeterminate gloom of ancient buildings. Then the gloom disappeared as the Russian opened the door.

When she stepped inside, she realized Frank had been right. It really was worth it.

He took her across the hardwood floor to a modernist wooden sofa. The Russian went into another room. "You weren't kidding," she said, twisting to take everything in.

"What did I tell you?" He stared at the door that had been left open an inch. "Listen, let me go take care of the papers in private, then I'll see about a little tour."

"Really?" She felt much like a surprised child, cheeks flushed. "That'd be great."