Satori - Don Winslow [124]
“I understand you far too well.”
“Good,” Nicholai said. “Now I have an appointment.”
He took a cyclo-pousse back into the city and had it drop him off near the Ciné Catinat.
127
SHE WAS SILVER in the reflected light of the screen.
Solange sat two rows in front of him, arranged her long legs in the narrow aisle, lit a cigarette, and looked up at the screen.
Simone Signoret starring in Casque d’or.
The film was a Belle Epoque crime story that held little interest for Nicholai, and he was glad when, after twenty minutes, Solange got up and left the theater. He waited a few seconds and then followed her out onto Rue Catinat. She walked quickly, with long strides, and didn’t look behind her until she came to the Eden Roc Hotel, where she checked her image in the glass doorway and saw his reflection.
Nicholai waited until she went in, then followed her into the small lobby, where he saw the Vietnamese desk clerk smile in recognition and hand Solange her room key. So he knew that this was her official address, although he suspected that she spent most of her nights at the palace.
She went into the elevator and Nicholai stood off and watched the brass arrow above the doors indicate that she went to the second floor. He went over to the small shop, purchased a Journal, and perused the headlines before he allowed himself to walk over to the stairway door to make sure that neither the desk clerk nor the concierge were watching, then went in and took the stairs up to the second floor.
He walked the corridor and found that the door to room 231 was ajar. He stood outside for just a moment, allowing his senses to confirm that the perfume was hers.
He went in and shut the door behind him.
Solange stood in the small living room.
“That was foolish,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Foolish and jejune.”
“What was?”
“Your behavior last night.”
She’s beautiful, Nicholai thought. Her golden hair, a casque d’or indeed, soft in the muted afternoon light, one hip cocked in anger, her muscled leg set off by the high heels. She turned away from him, pried the bamboo window shades open with her fingers, and looked out onto the street.
“What did you want me to do?” Solange asked. “Starve? Live on the street?”
“I make no judgments.”
“How worldly of you,” she mocked. “How tolerant you are.”
Nicholai knew that this verbal slap was deserved. He asked, “Did Haverford send you here?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “A different one. He called himself ‘Mr. Gold’ … he arranged for me to meet Bao Dai. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you were alive, or dead …”
Diamond, Nicholai thought, is as unimaginative as he is brutal. He has all the subtlety of a bull. And yet bulls can be very dangerous when they turn, hook, and gore.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“It isn’t,” she said. “They sent me here to lure you, didn’t they? Even if we get out, they can use me to track you. You should leave me, Nicholai. Walk away now and never come back.”
“No.”
She looked back again toward the window, and Nicholai realized that she was afraid she’d been followed from the cinema. “I need to get back before the film is over.”
“To learn how it ends?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve seen it three times. The first two times, I cried.”
“And this time?”
“I will probably cry again.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm.
Nicholai brushed the hair away from her neck, kissed her there, and was rewarded with a moan. Encouraged, he unzipped her dress and ran his hand down the warm skin of her back.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmured. “This is crazy.”
But she shrugged the dress off her shoulders and let it slide down her hips. Then she unsnapped her bra and pressed her breasts against him. “You feel so good.”
Nicholai picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
Setting