The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [70]
The distinguished guests, with their ingrained oh-so-serious looks, found him witty, charming, even better-looking than had been rumored. They were easily convinced that the stories about Alexandre St.-Germain were apocryphal; media-inspired exaggerations. There was no way this European gentleman could be the things he was said to be.
Respectability, he remembered all through the night. It was a mask he wore easily; one of his more subtle disguises.
Late in the evening, he stood alongside Jimmy Burke on the yacht’s deck. For several years, Burke had been carefully preparing the way for St.-Germain’s emergence in New York. Now, the two men watched the glittering, super-rich party from shadows falling across the second deck of The Storm Rider.
“The créme de la créme of New York society,” Alexandre St.-Germain said. “A peculiar thing, the conversation of most American men—there is rarely any content, no depth of thinking or knowledge. It’s a consistent trait, I find. All that they know about is making money, and not so much about that as they think.”
St.-Germain pointed toward the main deck. He indicated a tall, striking blonde who was dancing there. He felt the need to do something that wasn’t so respectable. Something for himself tonight.
“You see the one I like? The blonde in blue. Quite stunning. Do you happen to know her?”
“I can find out for you.”
“Yes, find out for me. Bring her around. She’s the most beautiful creature here tonight. Tell her that. Tell her I would like to meet her very much.”
68
WHEN THE LAST OF THE guests left in the early morning, the young blond woman, Susan Paladino, remained on board the yacht. She couldn’t have possibly left the main stateroom by herself.
She was feeling uncomfortably warm inside the elegant and luxurious room. She was having trouble getting her dress up over her head and off. Underneath the cumbersome blue Azzedine, she wore nothing. She had planned to meet someone important and interesting at the party tonight. She just hadn’t been sure who.
Susan Paladino was feeling sleepy, but also sexy, and wonderfully important in the stateroom, which she knew belonged to Alexandre St.-Germain. She had the intoxicating thought that she had come a long way from Buffalo. She was somebody now; she really was.
The exotic shipboard room seemed to be moving around her. The walls and ceiling occasionally blurred, coming in and out of focus.
Finally, she had to lie down on the huge double bed. It was a good place to wait for him to come back. Alexandre St.-Germain. Handsome. Blond. Very, very rich… Susan Paladino. Very, very naked.
She tried to sit up, but it was no good. She wanted to speak, but couldn’t get control of her voice.
How could she be so drunk? She never let herself get like this. She felt completely separated from the scene, from her own body.
She suddenly noticed Alexandre St.-Germain there in the stateroom, along with a few other men, but he didn’t say anything to her. How strange. Hello? Hello there? Was she saying that out loud?
She tried to smile.
But he didn’t smile back at her.
How different he was. How interesting and provocative. How stunning with his long blond curls.
Why don’t you smile, Goldilocks? she wanted to say. Don’t take everything so seriously or you’ll ruin tonight for both of us. Why don’t you say something?
He sat in a chair across the room. His long legs were draped across the chair’s arm. He never said a word to the girl. He watched the other men use Susan Paladino. The Grave Dancer merely watched. Later, he watched as they injected her with cocaine, almost 90 percent pure.
There was nothing that compared with this forbidden thrill: watching someone die, especially a frightened, beautiful woman.