Swimsuit - James Patterson [64]
“She put money down for the check and stood up to leave. I wanted to talk to her, and all I could think to say was, ‘Do you have the time?’
“She gave me a long, slow look, from my eyes down to my shoes and back up again. My clothes were cheap. I had been out of prison for only a few weeks. The cuts and bruises had healed, but I was still gaunt. The torture, the things I’d seen, the afterimages, were still in my eyes. But she recognized something in me.
“This woman, this angel whose name I did not yet know, said, ‘I have Paris time, New York time, Shanghai time… and I also have time for you.’ ”
Henri’s voice was softened now as he talked about Gina Prazzi. It was as if he’d finally tasted fulfillment after a lifetime of deprivation.
He said that they’d spent a week in Paris. Henri still visited every September. He described walking with her through the Place Vendôme, shopping with her there. He said that Gina paid for everything, bought him expensive gifts and clothing.
“She came from very old money,” Henri told me. “She had connections to a world of wealth I knew nothing about.”
After their week in Paris, Henri told me, they cruised the Mediterranean on Gina’s yacht. He called up images of the Côte d’Azur, one of the most beautiful spots in the world, he said.
He recalled the lovemaking in her cabin, the swell of the waves, the wine, the exquisite meals in restaurants with high views of the Mediterranean.
“I had nineteen fifty-eight Glen Garioch whisky at twenty-six hundred dollars a bottle. And here’s a meal I’ll never forget: sea urchin ravioli, followed by rabbit with fennel, mascarpone, and lemon. Nice fare for a country boy and ex–Al Qaeda POW.”
“I’m a steak and potatoes man myself.”
Henri laughed, said, “You just haven’t had a real gastronomic tour of the Med. I could teach you. I could take you to a pastry shop in Paris, Au Chocolat. You would never be the same, Ben.
“But I was talking about Gina, a woman with refined appetites. One day a new guy appeared at our table. The Dutchman — Jan Van der Heuvel.”
Henri’s face tightened as he talked about Van der Heuvel, how he had joined them in their hotel room, called out stage directions from his chair in the corner as Henri made love to Gina.
“I didn’t like this guy or this routine, but a couple of months before I’d been sleeping in my own shit, eating bugs. So what wouldn’t I do to be with Gina, Jan Van der Heuvel or not?”
Henri’s voice was drowned out by the roar of a helicopter flying over the valley. He warned me with his eyes not to move from my chair.
Even after the silence of the desert returned, it was several moments before he continued his story about Gina.
Chapter 84
“I DIDN’T LOVE GINA,” Henri said to me, “but I was fascinated by her, obsessed with her. Okay. Maybe I did love her in some way,” Henri said, admitting to having a human vulnerability for the first time.
“One day in Rome, Gina picked up a young girl —”
“And the Dutchman? He was out of the picture?”
“Not entirely. He’d gone back to Amsterdam, but he and Gina had some strange connection. They were always on the phone. She’d be whispering and laughing when she spoke with him. You can imagine, right? The guy liked to watch. But in the flesh, she was with me.”
“You were with Gina in Rome.” I prompted him to continue with the main narrative.
“Yes, of course. Gina picked up a student who was screwing her way through college, as they say. A first-semester prostitute from Prague, at Università degli Studi di Roma. I don’t remember her name, only that she was hot and too trusting.
“We were in bed, the three of us, and Gina told me to close my hands around the girl’s neck. It’s a sex game called ‘breath play.’ It enhances the orgasm, and yes, Ben, before you ask, it was exciting to revisit my singular experience with Molly. This girl passed out, and I loosened my grip so that she could breathe.
“Gina reached out, took my cock in her hand, and kissed me. And