Thomas Perry - Poison Flower

He didn't appear to have been out golfing or swimming. His summer-weight sport coat and jeans could have been work attire in an informal office, but his T-shirt and sandals could not, and his Patek Philippe watch raised the question of whether work was necessary. He was handsome, but in a way that was too old for the way he dressed. She decided to take a chance rather than wait for another one. "Well, I have been waiting, but I'm beginning to wonder whether I should. Being late is manipulative. If I put in the time and effort to wait much longer, I'll have to persuade myself that he was worth it. Then I'll have to be willing to devote more time and effort to him."

"He sounds very sophisticated."

"It's not working. I'm just getting irritated."

He shrugged. "Anger is a passion, and it makes your blood circulate and starts you thinking about him. That's much better than indifference."

"Not if you want to get laid this year instead of next."

He threw his head back and laughed. "Good point." He took a fake step away, then stopped, as they both had known he would. He looked back. "If you'd prefer some company while you wait, you might make him jealous."

"I may as well inflict whatever pain I can. Have a seat."

He sat at the small table with her, gave a half wave to the waiter, and, while the waiter approached, said, "Is that iced tea"

She nodded.

"Two Long Island iced teas." To Jane he said, "You like to trade up, don't you"

Jane said, "Thanks, but four kinds of liquor and sweet and sour mix"

"It's just your iced tea's more fun-loving sister."

"No alcohol."

He nodded, and the waiter disappeared. "So what's your name"

"Tina Guilford. And you"

"Rick Chambers." He held his hand out, and when she shook it, he held on a half second too long.

She freed her hand. "Pleased to meet you. Do you golf here"

"Not often," he said. "And never in the summer. It's a hundred and six out there. By three it'll be a hundred and ten. I mostly just live here."

"Do you like it"

"Sure. It's a block from the Strip. It's got all the amenities, and the view in every direction is fantastic. It's safe from random people wandering in and out whenever they please. Not like the big hotels."

"I never got the idea they were unsafe."

"They're not, actually. But do you want all the people you see walk in their doors to walk into yours"

"I suppose not." She looked at her watch.

"Are you hungry"

"Well, to be honest with you, he did ask me here for lunch."

"It's getting to be mid-afternoon. Come on. Let's get a table." He leaned forward, his hands on the table as though he were about to push off.

"No, I don't want to impose. I'll just finish my tea and order lunch for myself."

"You're out of luck, Tina, honey. This is a private club. You can't pay for your iced tea, let alone lunch. We're too snobby to use money. It goes on a tab. Please. I'm hungry, too. I'll sit here and suffer with you if you want, just because you're beautiful. But it would be much nicer to watch you eat lunch."

She looked at the hostess, visibly uncomfortable. Then she smiled at him. "I'll take you up on your kind offer. You're a true gentleman."

"It's just my upbringing, and when I find a beautiful woman at my mercy I overcome that pretty quickly." He waved at the waiter and said, "We'd like a table in the dining room, please."

They went into the dining room, which was still well populated, and ordered. They ate and had a pleasant, unhurried conversation. Jane kept steering the conversation away from the way she looked, and moved her arm twice because he had the habit of laying his hand on it for emphasis. When they'd been there for nearly an hour, she said, "Well, I guess he's not going to show up at all, and he lives here."

"What's his name"

"Today, it's Fool. But he'll still be calling himself David Cavendish."

"If he comes in now, please don't make a scene. I'm too much of a coward for a fistfight."

"Do you know him"

"I don't think so. But he sounds Scottish. Probably throws the caber and drinks his single malt neat, and all that."

"Pretty close. I'm picturing him in a kilt now. This would be a better climate for a kilt than Scotland."

"Too much wind off the desert. It's the only show in town nobody would pay to see."

A few minutes later, she determined it was time to force him to decide whether to commit himself. "This was a lot of fun, Rick. I really enjoyed our lunch. You turned what started as a horrible day into a nice one."

"Oh, we can't just end it here. You were curious about the club. Let me show you around."

"I don't want to waste your afternoon."

"Afternoon is nothing. Half the people in town are asleep waiting for night. Come on." He came around behind her to pull out her chair, then led her out the far door that led to the residential part of the building. There was another door, and he used a key card to open it. Jane felt a blast of heat, but stepped into it after him.

"Out here is the pool I like best. Over here, by the jungle." There was a thick barrier of sago palms, elephant ears, and flowering plants. The pool was a complicated shape with waterfalls and grottoes that opened onto some other part of the pool she didn't see. The impression was of a place apart, somewhere other than the desert. "Very pretty."

"The golf course is up that way, and the tennis courts are over there. You can follow the ambulances picking up the sunstroke cases."

He opened the door again with his key card, and stepped to the elevator. He pressed the "up" button.

"Where to now"

"You've got to see the view from the upper floors." When the doors slid aside he stepped in, pushed "18," and swiped his card on the reader beside the panel. The elevator rose. Jane followed him out on the eighteenth floor to a door marked 1829. "Here," he said. "Look the other way, and prepare for a sight."

Jane covered her face with her hands and looked up and down the corridor to spot the security cameras. She didn't see any. He pushed the door open, then said, "Now look."

She stepped across a symbolic expanse of marble into the large living room. In the floor-to-ceiling windows were the backs and sides of the hotels on the east side of the Strip-MGM and Venetian, Paris-and on the west side she saw the facades of Mandalay Bay Luxor, Caesar's Palace, Bellagio, Mirage. "This is absolutely breathtaking," she said.

"I love it. I'm glad I got to show it to you."

"I am, too."

"Now take a look on this side." He opened a door and they walked into a room that was a sort of den, but had a desk with papers on it. The big window in this one was on the other side, and looked out onto the dry hardpan and distant mountains.

"That's incredible, too," she said. "But it doesn't look any more real than the other side."

"Let's have a drink," he said. "You have to keep hydrated around here, or you fall over and get stepped on."

"What do you have"

"Nonalcoholic"

"Not necessarily."

"How about a nice, icy vodka martini"

"Well, okay."

"Great. I'll make them."

She followed him through the living room to a counter that was near the entrance to the kitchen. He took two martini glasses and walked off to put them in the freezer. He took the shaker and ice and poured in the touch of vermouth. She saw him shake and pour off the vermouth, pour in the vodka, then begin to shake it. As he shook it, he went back to the kitchen with the shaker, took out the two iced glasses, and walked across her line of vision to an angle she couldn't see. He returned with the two martinis, smiling. He handed her one, clinked his glass against hers, and said, "To serendipity."

He tipped his glass back, and Jane raised hers. She saw that the stems of the two glasses had small metal rings around them. His was a silvery color, like platinum, and hers was gold with a little ruby on it. She touched the glass to her lips and turned her head to survey the windows again. The rings were obviously part of a set that people attached to guests' glasses at parties so they could identify their own drinks and not take someone else's. "That's a nice martini," she said.