Gary Braver - Elixir

Vince Lucas smiled and made a toasting gesture, encouraging Marcel to go along with the classroom charade.

Then Antoine motioned for Marcel to hold out his hands. The man looked perplexed, but Antoine was his boss making a point to impress his guest. So Marcel complied as Antoine removed the handcuffs from his belt and snapped one on his wrist. "Perfect trust, yes?"

Marcel nodded, then Antoine indicated for Marcel to turn around, which he did, half-proudly presenting his other hand behind him in perfect obedience. Antoine snapped on the second cuff, still keeping up his patter, while Quentin watched in anxious fascination. "Without trust friendship fails, families dissolve, empires crumble."

He led Marcel to the portside edge. Across the water, Antoine's villa glowed like a jeweler's display. Above them spread an endless black vault fretted with a million stars and a crescent moon rocking just above the horizon. "And it is for all this," Antoine continued. "A paradise island in a paradise sea under a paradise sky-the stars, the moon, the air. All the moments we steal from the gods. We are as close to immortality as one can get."

"Yes, monsieur."

"Yes, monsieur," Antoine echoed. He directed Marcel to look straight down into the water. "But not the face of deceit."

Before Marcel could respond, Antoine nodded to Vince Lucas who in one smooth move heaved Marcel over the side.

Marcel bobbed to the surface, coughing and choking.

"You guarded the wrong body, my friend." Antoine said.

Marcel shouted pleas to Antoine to drop a rope or ladder, aware that they were half a mile out with an offshore wind pushing him toward where the surf pounded the jagged reef to foam.

Vince pulled a pistol from under his shirt and aimed it at Marcel's head to finish him off.

"No, let nature take its course," Antoine said, "and prolong the pleasure."

From below, Lisa climbed onto the deck. She had heard Marcel's cries. "What happened? What did you do to him?"

Antoine turned to her with fierce intensity. "He wanted to get his dick wet."

She looked at him in horror, then at the two other men standing with champagne glasses, the Consortium inside celebrating a goal. She started away when Antoine pushed her to the side. He was about to hurl her overboard when Quentin cried out. "No, please, Antoine. Don't do this. Please!"

Antoine's face snapped at him, furious at the intrusion. But he caught himself and released the woman. "You can go," he hissed. "But you won't make the same mistake twice, will you?"

She stood gasping in hideous disbelief as Marcel choked for his last few breaths of air.

"Will you?" Antoine repeated.

"No," she whined, then backed down the stairs to her cabin.

Frozen in horror, Quentin looked for help to Vince who just winked and pointed out a shooting star, while Antoine poured himself more champagne then returned to the gunwale to watch Marcel die.

For two wicked minutes he choked and begged for his life-his words gurgling through the night waves, his legs kicking with all he had to keep his head above night surf-until totally exhausted he sank into the black.

Quentin was too stricken with horror to say anything else. He hid in his glass, wondering at the cruel justice of Antoine Ducharme, at the casualness of Vince Lucas as if he'd witnessed murders all the time, at what miseries Antoine had in store for Lisa-but knowing with brilliant clarity that he was dealing with a species of people who lived in a dark and gaudy world-a world whose principles were alien to the rest of civilized society.

But what bothered Quentin Cross almost as much as watching the young man drown was knowing that he was now part of that world-an accomplice and partner who had signed his name in blood.

And that the only way out was Christopher Bacon.

Or his own death.

Karen Kimball couldn't put her finger on it, but the guy in the tan sportcoat looked vaguely familiar.

It was the eyes. The heavy lids, the dark blue flecked with stars. It's hard to forget eyes, no matter what happens to the rest of the face. These were eyes she knew from long ago. And the way they followed her. Not leering, not lewd, just a kind of warm speculation. But he was too young to be making eyes at her.

She mopped the table in the booth across from his and chided herself. Here she was an overweight fifty-nine-year-old divorcee with three kids and a grandchild-not some teeniebopper flushing at each foxy guy who passed her way.

She dried her hands and pulled out her pad. "Would you like something to drink, sir?"

He eyed her waitress outfit. "Aren't you the owner?"

Everyone in town knew that. "One of my girls called in sick, so you're going to have to settle for me. What'll it be?"

"I think I'll have a black cow."

"A what?"

"Guess you stopped making them. Make it a Heineken instead."

For a moment Karen felt a blister of irritation rise. He was putting her down for not having a bar that made fancy mixed drinks. But as she headed away, it occurred to her what he had asked for-a black cow: root beer and vanilla ice cream. She hadn't heard that name for years. Not since the days she had worked at the Lincoln Dairy, when she was a junior in high school.

Karen got the beer and returned, now feeling a low-grade uneasiness. She took his order, all the while studying his face. A good face: open and pleasant, with a thin, slightly crooked mouth, sharp cleft chin, thick brown hair, and those blue starburst eyes.

Jesus, I know this face, she told herself. And that look: Each time their eyes met she could feel something pass between them-something that went beyond customer and waitress.

She moved into the kitchen, and through the small window of the swing door she again studied the guy. She knew he knew her, though she could not place him in any context. And he seemed to enjoy his mystery. He looked to be in his thirties, so maybe he was the son of some friend, a guy she hadn't seen since he was a child. She called Freddie over. "You know that guy in booth seven?"

Freddie peered through the door. "Never saw him before. Why, he giving you trouble or something?"

"No, just looks familiar."

"Whyn't you ask him?"

She nodded, and for several moments let her mind rummage for a connection, watching him look around as if for familiar faces. The way he moved his head and ran his hand through his hair, and the slant of his chin. And those eyes. Those eyes .

Jesus! It was driving her to distraction. Maybe she'd seen him in the movies or on TV. But what would he be doing in the Casa Loma? It was a nice family place, but not the Ritz.

She stared through the glass concentrating as hard as she could, feeling it almost come to her-like a bird swooping in out of the dark, then just before landing turning sharply and flapping away.

This is ridiculous, she told herself. She delivered other orders, trying to look neutral but checking him out from the corner of her eye. By the time his meal was ready she had worked up the nerve to ask. "I don't mean to be impolite, but do I know you?"

The man smiled coyly. "You might."

"You from around here?"

"Not anymore." That same teasing smile. He sipped his beer.

"It's just that you look familiar."

"Well," he began, but decided to continue playing coy, letting her twist in the breeze.

"I guess not," she said and walked away, thinking, The hell with this! If he was somebody she was supposed to know, then, damn it, let him fess up. No way she was going to get into a mind game with some jerk looking for a little action before he blows back out of town.

Karen delivered his order without a word or a glance. She placed it on the place mat and turned on her heels just as cool and professional as she could be. But as she moved away, the man began to softly sing a refrain: "Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song. The melody haunts my reverie…"