Nazar stormed out of the lab. He needed fresh air.
Chapter 27
Firman looked up from the blackjack table while the dealer shuffled the deck. Again he spotted the woman, walking away from him this time: hourglass body, backless, black dress, and a single-string pearl choker. He tracked her with his eyes, a hunter savoring his prey. At the restaurant’s hostess station, across the gaming room floor from where he sat, she stopped to check the menu. The maitre d’ oozed over her for a few seconds before she slipped out of sight into the restaurant.
“Monsieur?” The dealer waited for his bet. Firman, playing in the private area reserved for high rollers, pushed his pile toward her.
“Color me up please, Marcella.”
She changed Firman’s chips for thousand-dollar markers and signaled the pit boss. Who, full of self-importance in a stiff dinner jacket, sauntered over to check her count. “Sixteen thousand two hundred,” the dealer said.
The pit boss glanced at the pile and nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Lechay. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I’d like to eat; could you check for a table?”
“Certainly, sir.” The suit waved to a uniformed guard who was positioned at the entrance to the playing area to keep tourists away from the high rollers; Firman’s table had a five-hundred-dollar minimum bet, and no maximum. The pit boss spoke in the guard’s ear and he set off toward the restaurant. “Jose will seat you, Mr. Lechay. Have a wonderful evening.”
Firman always came to Aruba after a job. However successful his assignment, he liked to lay low for a few weeks, check the news, in case the client broke any confidences and implicated him. The gambling was inconsequential; he played enough to be comped a suite.
Aruba had exceptional diving, warm weather, and clean beaches. An autonomous Dutch colony, if problems arose, a significant bribe could make extradition difficult, and the tiny island boasted direct flights to Europe, the US, and South America.
Jose, the maître d’, came out of the restaurant and looked over. Firman read the man’s nod, left the dealer two black chips, and went in search of the dress.
He spotted her sitting alone at a table for two. Instead of the place prepared for him, Firman pointed to a table that would allow him to observe her. She glanced in his direction — the way the staff fawned over him, he was difficult to miss. Dressed in chinos and a blue linen shirt, tailored to present his body well, Firman expected the woman to notice him. By the time two waiters had fussed him to his table, she was again staring out of the window.
He settled in, asked for a glass of Chablis, and followed her gaze. Below them, lights from the beachside bar made the breakers sparkle along the sand. A band played soft rock on the hotel’s boardwalk, and a crowd had gathered ready for the nighttime party. Every night was party night in Aruba.
He ordered foie-gras followed by lobster. The waiter brought a small plate of amuse-bouche with his wine.
The woman seemed intent on the scene outside. She had a classic profile. Yes, classic described her well; she was constructed like a pre-Raphaelite work of art: dark auburn hair pulled back tightly and held by a subtle, silver comb at the bun; tanned, flawless skin and a strong Spanish nose; ample breasts filled out the dress and offered an attractive cleavage, and her ramrod-straight posture accentuated the curve of her waist as it melted into her hip. A tingle of anticipation passed through him — the chase could be as exciting as the conquest.
She turned and caught him staring. He smiled, and she held his eye for a fraction before signaling the waiter. Although she made a point of not looking over again, as she returned to her study of the beach, he noticed a sly smile on her lips.
Firman finished his meal by sipping and swirling a two-hundred-dollar brandy in an oversized snifter. The woman was ready for her check. Three further occurrences of eye contact during dinner led him to believe it might be an interesting night. She called the waiter, gave him her key card, and he waltzed off to close out her tab.
Then, for the first time, she looked directly at Firman. The effect startled him: her finely balanced features were dark, tempting, and sensuous; burned-chocolate eyes seemed filled with mischief, and her mouth hinted at a half-smile. The waiter returned with her key and broke the spell. She signed and stood.
Warmed by the brandy and the inviting last look, Firman drank her in as she walked toward him. A full woman, unlike those rake-thin New York models, her hips swayed as she stepped out: a magnificent specimen, curved and tight at the same time. She smiled openly now, and he was uncertain what she planned to do. As she reached his table, she brushed his arm with her left hand, and with her right, dropped her dinner receipt in his glass. The contact lasted under a second.
Firman could not have been more surprised if she had smacked him across the face and admonished him for staring. The floating receipt, unlike the plastic room key, had her room number printed at the top. After signaling for his bill, he fished out her invitation, and savored the last few drops of brandy.
Give her a few minutes — mustn’t seem like a hasty teenager.
On the same floor as his, her room was a one-thousand-dollar-a-night executive suite: impressive. Firman strode past his door and rapped on hers, tingling with anticipation. A meticulous planner, he rarely experienced the unknown, and she intrigued him.
A few seconds passed, and then a brief shadow as she checked the spyhole. Opening the door wide, one hand on the frame and the other on the doorknob, she showed herself to him. The bathrobe she’d changed into yawned open, and her olive skin glowed against the fluffy white material. As her arms stretched around his neck, he received a tantalizing glimpse of dark nipples. She pulled him into the room, and kicked the door shut behind them.
He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her perfume: subtle, musky, but feminine. Inside the robe, his hands traced the curve of her waist and slid around to cup her butt cheeks: smooth, and taut. He felt a scratch on his neck, from her nail perhaps, then another, sharper this time, like an insect bite. His hand went up to swat away the pain.
Then he collapsed in a pile at her feet.
When Firman woke, he felt constrained, as though he had twisted in his sleep and gotten caught up in the sheets. Unable to untangle himself, he opened his eyes. He was in a travel-trailer, or RV. Curtains covered the windows. A canvas straitjacket encased his upper body, its sleeves attached to the bunk bed he lay on. Naked from the waist down, his legs were spread wide and strapped to rails that ran along the sides of the bed. He tested the bonds but couldn’t move any limb more than an inch. To his right, a half-full saline bag dripped through an IV into a shunt in his groin. He was alone.
He shouted, so his captors would come. “Hey, let me up!” No point in delaying the inevitable; better to understand with whom he was dealing. A door opened behind him, and a tall, well-built man with a shaved head and a chiseled face — mid forties — moved into his range of vision and stood over him.
“Good morning, Mr. Lechay. I trust you slept well?”
“Sure, I had a wonderful night. Now what?”
The man smiled, a warm smile, the smile of someone in control and in no hurry. The man picked an eight-by-ten photograph off a small table to his right, turned it over and held it so Firman could see a blown-up image of himself, face and torso. Firman recognized the “Mind The Gap” T-shirt he had bought in London after the Oxford Circus transaction. He still had the shirt at home; a souvenir of what, until this moment, he had thought of as a perfectly executed job. The man, smiling, showed a second photo: Firman again, this time entering the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Seoul holding Kimberly Stevens’ hand; she had on her cute black dress.