Always - Iris Johansen [2]
“Do that.” Clancy turned to leave, moving with the lithe grace of absolute fitness and trained coordination. “I’m tired as hell and not in any mood for a hassle.”
“Have you checked into the hotel or shall I do it for you?”
Clancy paused at the door. “I’ll stay at my villa down the beach. It’s close enough so that I can be on the spot in five minutes if I need to be. I’m tired of living in hotels. I’ve spent the last six weeks moving from city to city on Baldwin’s trail.” He took a key ring out of his pocket and tossed it across the room. It landed on the blotter in front of Berthold. “Send a maid down to open the villa for me right away, will you?” He didn’t wait for an answer but shut the door behind him and set off briskly.
As he crossed the lushly carpeted foyer of the reception area, he made an effort to relax the tense muscles in his neck and shoulders. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Len Berthold he was tired. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours today on the long flight from Los Angeles to this tiny island in the Bahamas. L.A. had been a blind alley, too, dammit, he thought. Baldwin had gone underground without a ripple. Oh, well, if he couldn’t find the rat’s bolthole, he’d wait patiently until that rodent ventured out to nibble at his favorite delicacy, namely Lisa Landon.
The cafe was small and darkly intimate, like a thousand others he’d seen over the years. Postage-stamp-sized tables were covered with white damask cloths; candles in translucent cylinders cast half shadows over the faces of the guests speaking in quiet tones over drinks and hors d’oeuvres. A trio was playing soft, evocative jazz on the tiny stage at the far end of the room, and Clancy paused a moment in the doorway to listen. He’d always liked jazz. That fact had never failed to surprise Alex, and he could understand why. Jazz was the most lazily sensual and mellow music on the face of the earth, and laziness, mellowness, and sensuality were qualities that were absent in his personality. He was highly sexed and required women fairly frequently, but it was always just a hunger to be appeased and then forgotten. Sensuality required softer, gentler emotions, the kind his profession had allowed little time to cultivate. Still, he did like jazz, and this trio was surprisingly good.
“Clancy?”
His head swiveled quickly to the left. Galbraith.
“John.” Clancy nodded in acknowledgment to the man standing close to him. Galbraith was dressed in impeccable evening clothes and blended into his elegant surroundings with the adaptability of a chameleon. His features were handsome, but not too handsome. His brown hair was cut in a trendy but not avant-garde style, and his smile was as deceptively cheerful and wholesome as a college boy’s. Not that college kids were more wholesome than anyone else these days, Clancy thought wearily. Childhood didn’t last much past puberty in a world as crisis-shadowed as this one. “Do you have a table?”
Galbraith gestured. “Ringside. I usually sit toward the back when I’m doing surveillance, but I thought you’d prefer to have a closer look at her. You said on the phone that you were going to talk to her, anyway.” He turned and led the way through the thickly clustered tables. He dropped into a chair at the ringside table he’d indicated and picked up a half-empty highball glass. His eyes, set deep in his round, tanned face, were as bright and inquisitive as a squirrel’s. “You look really beat, Clancy. What the hell have you been doing to yourself?”
“The usual.” Clancy sat down and shook his head at the waiter who paused to look at him inquiringly. He wanted to keep a clear head, and he was too tired to risk even the slightest alcohol haze. “No sign of Baldwin?”
“Not one. She’s made no telephone calls since she’s been here. She takes long walks on the beach every day, but she doesn’t speak to anyone.” He shrugged. “Or no one important. She stopped this afternoon and helped a little kid build a sand castle. Then she