Philip Kerr - The Five Year Plan (1998)

'Sure you are,' he said. 'You know all the moves.'

'I think that's you you're describing.'

'Oh, you mean moves like in chess.'

She nodded.

'As in a gambit?'

'Mister Gary Kasparov,' she said.

'Could be,' he allowed. 'Only a gambit involves some kind of sacrifice.'

'So what have you got to lose?'

Dave said, 'I had the naive idea of simply expressing my feelings as they occurred. Will that do?'

'Sure. But maybe we'd better skip the movie. We might disturb the other patrons.'

'OK, but how about that Margarita?'

'If you think it'll help with that naive idea of yours. Just the one though, and remember this. One: I'm driving home. And two: I like to lick the salt off my own lips.'

Dave helped her to cross to his boat and, while Kate cast her eye over the salon, he stepped downstairs to make sure that Al was fast asleep. The first decent girl he'd met in five years, the last thing he needed was Al sticking his nose in. Behind the polished cedarwood door, the TV was still on, but Al was snoring loudly. Dave went back up to the salon to fix the drinks.

'Al's asleep,' said Dave. 'He won't disturb us.'

'Tell me about Al.'

Dave said, 'I guess you could say that Al's pretty much the guy next door. That is if you happen to live next to a zoo, or a pig farm. But he's useful to have around, y'know?'

Kate laughed. She was looking at the mock-glass aquarium by Lalique that surrounded the sofa and thinking that the boat's interior was a lot less obviously masculine than she had imagined. Quite apart from the glass there were the scattercushions on the sofa. She had never known a man to possess cushions aboard a sportfisher.

'Nice interior,' she pronounced politely.

'It's OK,' he allowed. 'A little fussy. I'm not sure that the glass works. So I'm thinking of a refit in the winter.' He handed Kate her Margarita. 'Something more practical, perhaps.'

She sipped her drink. 'Mmmm. Just right.'

'That's the way I like them.'

'A perfectionist.'

'That would certainly explain why I'm attracted to you.'

'Flattery's my favorite compliment.'

'I'd have thought you were used to it by now.'

'Not really. My ex-husband was a little stingy with his good opinions. He made up for it with his bad ones, though.'

'The ex part sounds good.'

'He's well out of my life,' she lied. 'Short on compliments, but he'd always take his hat off to a pretty woman. Only trouble was, it never stopped at just his hat.'

'Philanderer, huh?'

'Like his name was Phil, and er... he came from er... Philadelphia.'

Dave grinned. 'Who writes your dialogue?' he said. 'I love the way you talk.'

'Little guy, with a battered Remington, upstairs in my head, looks a bit like William Holden.'

'William Holden. He used to be big.'

'He is still big,' declared Kate, with mock solemnity. 'It's his arteries that got small.' She was pleased that he liked the way she talked. Howard had never cared for Kate's wit. She was always too quick for him and he had hated that. Sometimes she was too quick even for herself, saying things, funny things she would later regret. If her mouth had been a gun she'd have been the Sundance Kid. But in her own opinion it wasn't that Howard had lacked wit or intelligence, merely that he took himself too seriously.

'It's good that you and I share a sense of humor,' she had once told him. 'The only trouble is that I've got 95 per cent of it.'

There was certainly nothing wrong with David's sense of humor. Kate was pretty keen on the way he talked too. She said, 'You're not so badly off yourself. After all, you've got Van Morrison on your case. I always liked Van the Man. Where are you from, Van?'

Dave smiled and looked away for a moment. 'It doesn't matter,' he said. 'What matters most is where you're going and how you get there.'

'Uh-huh. So you're from Miami,' Kate said.

Dave laughed.

'People are always coy about being from Miami,' she explained.

'You're right,' he said. 'It's like saying you were born in a K-Mart.'

'You've lost most of your accent,' she observed.

Ever since he'd started learning Russian Dave had been trying to improve the way he spoke English too. To use conjunctions and prepositions. Except when he spoke to Al. It hardly seemed to matter the way he spoke to Al. Dave said, 'I didn't lose it. I wiped it off my shoe.'

'Self-improver, huh?'

'Isn't everyone? What about you? Where are you from? Or are you coy too?'

Kate said, 'Me and coy never got along that well. Him and his sister meek? I never liked them.'

'So you don't believe that the meek shall inherit the earth?'

'If they do it'll be because they had a good lawyer. Actually, I'm from the Space Coast. It sounds better than saying I'm from Titusville, doesn't it? If Miami's a K-Mart then I don't know what that makes T'ville.' She considered the matter for a moment and then said, 'A local church thrift shop, probably. No, the only good thing about T'ville was the view of the rocket assembly building twenty miles away. I kind of grew up with the space program. When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. To be the first American woman on the moon.' She shrugged, smiling brightly. 'And now I crew luxury yachts.' She finished her drink and licked her lips. 'A logical career move.'

Dave said, 'Do you want some more? I made a whole pitcher, in case you changed your mind about having just the one.'

'A man who knows female psychology.' She handed him her glass. 'Shall we add that to your list of accomplishments?'

Dave took the glasses, salted the rims and then refilled them to the brim.

'Who's counting?' he said.

She waited until Dave sat down again, looked him straight in his big brown eyes and answered him with a frankness she found almost exhilarating. 'I am.' Then she raised her glass before he could get too close, wanting to control this for as long as possible. 'Well, that's how I come to be the captain of a yacht. How do you come to be an owner? I mean this is a pretty expensive boat.'

'I guess I know what I like,' said Dave, with what he hoped sounded like evasive modesty. 'And then, if I can, I go and get it.'

'Do you go after everything you like?'

'No. Not everything. But it's the way I'd pick out a woman.'

'You make it sound like choosing a necktie.'

'Choosing a necktie is a serious business,' said Dave. 'It can be hanging around your neck for up to twelve hours a day.'

'Twelve hours a day? Sounds like you're in something that's high pressure. Exactly what do you do for a living?'

'Exactly?' Dave grinned. 'A bit of this, a bit of that.'

'That sounds like a really nice job. Which of them pays better?'

'Generally, that.'

'That's what I thought.'

'I work in the South East Financial Center, on Biscayne Boulevard.'

'Sure. The tallest building in Florida.'

'It has to be, for all the stories I have to tell my clients.'

'So you're a practiced liar, is that what you're telling me?'

'Not practiced. Perfect.'

Kate smiled. 'You must be doing all right.'

Dave looked noncommittal.

Kate said, 'I mean, we've already established that this isn't exactly the Sloop John

B. A boat like this must cost the best part of three million. That's a lot of tall stories. Even for someone in the Financial Center.' He put down his glass and said, 'What would you do if you had three million

dollars?'

'Is this Indecent Proposal?'

'I said, three million.'

'Well, naturally there'd be some change.'

Dave slid along the sofa and put his arm around her shoulders. He said, 'Where are we on the King's Gambit?'

And then he kissed her.

You could tell a lot about a man by the way he kissed you, thought Kate. Sometimes you could tell what he'd had for dinner. But mostly you could tell right away if you wanted to go to bed with him. Kate knew pretty much as soon as he pressed his mouth to hers that she wanted to have it pressed to other parts of her body as well. When eventually he drew back to look for her reaction, she said, 'I think it has probably been accepted. Only the White Queen is badly placed here. She ought to move if she's to avoid mate.'