The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [122]
She says nothing. His sudden solicitude is more terrifying than his previous anger. It’s a trap of some kind, a trap she can’t see but knows is there, a pair of steel jaws already underfoot, all set to snap her in half. A frantic electricity sears her nerves, and there’s no release for it now. She feels Chas’s warm bulk pressing against her side as the two of them shift and settle into the same pose, forearms resting on the countertop, shoulders hunched, staring at the range top.
“OK,” he says, his tone measured, reasonable. “I can see you’ve got me in a bind. I can see you’re gonna go through with this fiasco to the bitter end if you have to. So what do we do now?”
She stiffens, feels her muscles getting sore. The trap is there, all set and waiting; it has to be. But what can she do? She reaches for the coffee but sees that her hand is trembling and quickly pulls it back. There’s no choice now. She has to go forward.
“All you have to do is sign these papers, and then you’re done,” she says.
He nods, angling his whole upper body toward her to make a study of her face.
“And what if I say I need some time to think it over?”
She faces him squarely. “There’s no time left, Chas. If you don’t sign these papers now, I’ll walk right out your door and right over to my appointment at the Phillips Federal Building.”
“I see,” he says, his eyes completely placid. “And what makes you so sure you’d make it as far as my door?”
He says this so softly—almost seductively, with that little pursed smile on his lips—that it takes her a moment to process the threat. Then her heart jumps, slams against the wall of her chest. And in the midst of her utter terror, she can’t help smiling, that scared, guilty smile of hers that surfaces at the most inopportune moments.
“Come on, Professor,” she says, going with the smile, struggling to keep her voice even. “Cut the tough-guy routine.”
They stare at each other, smiling. After a minute Ursula begins to admit to herself that his smile seems genuine. The discovery makes her more confused than she’s ever felt, but also a little less afraid, and she begins to breathe again.
Chas nods, as though acknowledging some change in her expression, and then laughs. He picks up the papers and begins to sign after the Xs without reading so much as a word.
“The point is, Ursula,” he says as he signs, “you don’t know what I’m capable of.”
The words are as matter-of-fact as they are nebulous. But he’s signing.
“Well,” she ventures, “you didn’t know what I was capable of, either.”
“No,” he says, a hint of ruefulness in his smile. “I knew. You’re a lion, kiddo. I told you. I knew it all along.”
He signs the last paper with a flourish.
“No hard feelings, Ursula,” he says, and to her astonishment she sees sincerity in his eyes. “And tell my worthy adversary James T. Couch I wish him the best of luck with his new company.”
He picks up the check, looks at it with amusement, folds it neatly in half, and drops it into the pocket of his robe.
Ice
In the cab Ursula and James T. Couch sit very still, staring straight ahead. Slowly Couch turns his head to face her. She glances over and finds his face plasmatic with teeth.
“Hey, Ursula.”
“What?”
“You look pretty good in that suit. That’s the one Javier got you, right?”
She nods.
“It really says I mean business. Very sexy, too.”
She has nothing to say to this. Her thoughts are humming along fine without him. She still can’t quite believe she stood up to Chas like that. She repeats the events of the last half hour in her mind again and again and has just as much trouble believing it each time. She keeps looking for the trap, wondering why it never sprang. He tried to scare her; was that the trap? She honestly can’t think of anything else he could have done under the circumstances, but still she doesn’t quite believe it. But that must have been the trap. And she avoided it. She called him Professor. That was good. She showed him she wasn’t afraid. Which of course