The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [139]
As Dragoman wiped his hands with the kerchief, Stevie realised the bottle contained rubbing alcohol. The man was a germophobe, Josie had said, obviously afraid of the dangers of human contact.
A waiter—Stevie now noticed they all wore white gloves— appeared with a tall glass of dark green liquid and a plate of raw meat. Dragoman’s bracelet was black.
He carefully turned the pages of a large book, its cover encased in plastic. Stevie squinted to read the title: Woodblock Etchings of the Bubonic Plagues of the Dark Ages, Volume I.
Stevie turned quickly back to Henning.
‘According to my friendly nurse,’ he was saying, ‘Dragoman has taken the whole west wing of the castle. I suppose clinics and sanatoriums are a good way to launder money, meet discreetly with business partners, and hide other illegal activities.’
‘And from what I hear he makes good and frequent use of their services.’ Stevie slid her hand towards Henning’s coffee cup, her eyes on the waiter. ‘Apparently he is kept young and virile by injections of monkey hormones.’
Henning raised his eyebrows sceptically.
Stevie nodded. ‘Welcome to the weird world of beauty, Henning— there’s not much people won’t do to stay young forever.’
‘I wonder what the story is with this Heini.’ Henning looked over at the man in mauve, now busy teaching his pugs to beg for thin slices of Emmenthal cheese. ‘Are they in league? He doesn’t seem Dragoman’s type.’
But Stevie’s gaze remained fixed on Dragoman. ‘We need a way to get close to him.’
A nurse came to collect Stevie for her first treatment: a detoxifying immersion that was basically a scaldingly hot steam bath. Stevie followed her obediently down into the treatment rooms, followed by Henning who was planning to stickybeak when the chance arose.
Stevie shed her robe and slippers and entered the glass-walled hammam.
Inside she could hardly breathe or see, the steam was so thick. The air felt like semolina as it entered her lungs and she felt herself become light-headed. She lay back against the granite bench and closed her eyes.
She thought of Anya. Was she in the sanatorium, too? She shuddered and hoped Dragoman had not killed her.
The thing now was to make Dragoman believe that the men in Moscow had betrayed him. As she began to perspire, Stevie prayed for luck and courage.
The same nurse tapped on the door and Stevie floated out, her mind foggy. The nurse stood her under the huge water bucket they had seen the day before and tugged smartly on the rope.
Before she could realise what was happening, twenty litres of just-melted snow cascaded over Stevie’s pink and naked body, bringing her smartly back to her senses and covering her skin in burning pins and needles.
She gasped in shock and looked around for Henning, who was nowhere to be seen. Why couldn’t he have been the tired and emotional starlet, she thought crossly.
Stevie snatched her robe from the nurse and stalked off. Fortunately, petulance was firmly in-character for Mademoiselle Duveen, toxicomaniac.
Traipsing through the corridors, Stevie found she felt surprisingly better, considering the violence that had been done to her. She found Henning in the reception area, drinking lemongrass tea and flipping through French Vogue. She glowered at him.
‘You’d better have done your bit,’ she hissed.
Henning opened his navy cord blazer and Stevie saw the colour-coded schedule tucked neatly into the inside pocket.
Henning chuckled. ‘Sanatorium life obviously suits you—your cheeks are rosy pink like a little girl’s.’
‘That’s from the pain.’
‘Look, here,’ Stevie pointed to the schedule. ‘It says “black, blue, red and yellow, 12.00 Sonnenbad”. That’s where we’ll find him.’
They were sitting in the vast circular room they had seen the night before, with the turquoise curtains and the polished hexagonal tables. Henning looked out of the window. It was plummeting great snowflakes.
‘How long has it been, would you say, Stevie,