Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [106]
Artemis smiled, his eyes glittering. “Believe me, he is not here. If he were, there would be a lot of screaming.”
Butler scowled. Once, just once, he would like to get all the facts before they boarded the jet. But that wasn’t the way Artemis worked. To the young Irish genius, the reveal was the most important part of his schemes.
“At least tell me if our contact will be armed.”
“I doubt it,” said Artemis. “And even if he is, he won’t be with us for more than a second.”
“A second? Just beaming down through outer space, is he?”
“Not space, old friend,” said Artemis, checking his wristwatch. “Time.” The boy sighed. “Anyway, the moment has passed. It seems as though I have brought us here for nothing. Our visitor has not materialized. The chances were slim. Obviously there was nobody at the other end of the rift.”
Butler didn’t know what rift Artemis was referring to; he was simply relieved to be leaving this insecure location. The sooner they could get back to Barcelona Airport the better.
The bodyguard pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and hit a number on the speed dial. The person on the other end picked up on the first ring.
“Maria,” said Butler. “Collection, pronto.”
“Sí,” replied Maria tersely. Maria worked for an exclusive Spanish limousine company. She was extremely pretty and could break a breeze block with her forehead.
“Was that Maria?” said Artemis, mimicking casual conversation perfectly.
Butler was not fooled. Artemis Fowl rarely asked casual questions.
“Yes, that was Maria. You could tell because I used her name when I spoke to her. You don’t usually ask so many questions about the limo driver. That’s four in the past fifteen minutes. Will Maria be picking us up? Where do you think Maria is right now? How old do you think Maria is?”
Artemis rubbed his temples. “It’s this blasted puberty, Butler. Every time I see a pretty girl, I waste valuable mind space thinking about her. The girl at that restaurant, for instance. I’ve glanced in her direction a dozen times in the past few minutes.”
Butler gave the pretty girl in question an automatic bodyguard’s once-over.
She was twelve or thirteen, did not appear to be armed, and had a mane of extremely tight blond curls. The girl was studiously working her way through a selection of tapas while a male guardian, perhaps her father, read the paper. There was another man at the table who was struggling to stow a set of crutches under his chair. Butler judged that the girl was not a direct threat to their safety, though indirectly she could cause trouble if Artemis were unable to concentrate on his plan.
Butler patted his young charge on the shoulder. “It’s normal to be distracted by girls. Natural. If you hadn’t been so busy saving the world these past few years, it would have happened sooner.”
“Nevertheless, I have to control it, Butler. I have things to do.”
“Control puberty?” snorted the bodyguard. “If you manage that, you’ll be the first.”
“I generally am,” said Artemis.
And it was true. No other teenager had kidnapped a fairy, rescued their father from the Russian Mafiya, and helped put down a goblin revolution by the tender age of fourteen.
A horn honked twice. From across the intersection, a young lady gestured through an open limousine window.
“It’s Maria,” said Artemis, then caught himself. “I mean, let us go. Maybe we’ll have better luck at the next site.”
Butler took the lead, stopping traffic with a wave of one massive palm. “Maybe we should take Maria with us. A full-time driver would make my job a lot easier.”
It took Artemis a moment to realize that he was being ribbed. “Very funny, Butler. You were joking, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“I thought so, but I don’t have a lot of experience with humor. Apart from Mulch Diggums.”
Mulch was a kleptomaniac dwarf who had stolen from, and for, Artemis on previous occasions. Diggums liked to think of himself as a funny fairy, and his main sources of humor were his own bodily functions.
“If you can call that humor,” said Butler, smiling in spite of himself