Could Vera give someone that much Cantharidin?
“Were you having a good dream?” I asked as I slid into the car beside her.
“Not bad. You made all the arrangements?”
“Yes. There’s a boat that goes to Athens. I will go on it third class and you will go first class. The authorities would be suspicious if we traveled openly together.”
“Why?”
“It would be a statement that you are a prostitute in a Moslem’s eyes. There’s no reason to cause you that embarrassment.”
“You are a very unusual man, Raki.”
Suddenly she made me strongly aware that we were alone at night in a car. Her eyes were nearly luminous in the faint fight. I could feel the warmth from her body. I could very easily imagine my lips on hers and my hand inside the blouse of her dress, going close to the source of that warmth.
“You’re not a very ordinary girl yourself, Miss Cesare.”
“Vera, please.”
“Vera.”
And there, despite all my private warnings, I kissed her. My hand went into her honey-colored hair and pulled her face to mine. Her lips were already open, and her tongue was sweet and eager. She placed my hand on her breast. Through the silk the peak of her breast hardened. As if she could read my mind, her fingers began undoing her buttons. Pulling one sleeve down, she slipped her bra off her shoulder and guided my hand in. Then she brought my head down.
Her breasts were even larger than I thought they’d be but young, very firm, and slightly salty from a day of driving.
“Do the seats go down, Raki?”
Her smile was not flirtatious but earnest. She was as aroused and hungry as I was.
“Not in this model, Vera. There’ll be enough hotel beds to come if you want to wait”
There was to be no waiting. Her hand was at my belt, pulling it open, and when it was open smiling with appreciation. Her fingers caressed me boldly, urgently. Her head went down with a deep kiss that was long and erotic and drew every nerve I had below my belt.
Unbuttoning the rest of her dress, she pulled off her pants and, facing backwards in the car, straddled me. The golden skin of her belly ended in a gold blur. She descended while I rose, and I found her ready, tight and soft. I cupped her buttocks, cool in the night air, and eased her down very slowly. Her fingers grasped my hair, and I heard her breathing stop inch by inch.
In the dark, barely seeing each other, we made love. It wasn’t just an act of sex, a release after the day’s long tension. We recognized something in each other. Something similar, shared. At that one moment, she groaned and threw her head back, thrusting herself as far onto me as she could, her thighs locked, and we came, together. In that orgasm in the dark we were in every way one person.
“Raki!”
She held my head between her breasts and rocked back and forth, spent but still very much warmed by the mutual glow.
In the flame of the match Vera had an angel’s face. She lit the cigarette in her mouth and passed it to me with a kiss. An hour had passed since we made love but our desire still burned brighter than the flame. She blew it out.
“Raki, you have known very many women. Do they all fall in love with you?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And you? Do you fall in love?”
“Very rarely.”
“A killer, a racecar driver, a smuggler, and a perfect gentleman. I could love you.”
Her words were serious. She took the Sobranie from my mouth, inhaled, and passed it back.
“But I won’t,” she let the smoke drift out. “I can’t. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” the hypocrite in me said. The barrier between us was much greater than Mafia and Turk, but I let her carry the guilt for drawing the line in our relationship.
Perhaps she even thought it was a measure of trust that I was planning to let her out of my sight for the ship ride. The truth was that I didn’t care if she made contact outside of Turkey. I could deal with that. The core of the plan, my false Turkish identity was most vulnerable in Turkey, and I had to keep her away from all contacts until we were out of the country.
“You really do have the perfect plan?” she asked softly.
“Perfect.”
“I hope so. For both our sakes.”
I kissed the valley between her breasts.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked gently.
She reached behind me and pulled something from the back of the seat. In the light of a match I looked at it. Vera’s little cache was a glass cylinder with one sharp, brittle end. A clear fluid resided inside.
Vera’s eyes, a soft cocoa brown, reflected mine, as her fingers snapped the cylinder in half. The fragrance of strychnine wafted upward, as she poured the liquid on the floor.
“I put it between the seats while you were making your call. I was ordered to use it unless I was positive you could make the shipment.”
I kept looking into her eyes. They weren’t so soft, I realized. They were like the eyes of an expensive Burmese cat.
“No,” she answered an unsaid question. “I wasn’t supposed to make love with you. That was the last thing I was ever supposed to do.”
Vera might have been telling the truth, but I couldn’t help thinking of Frank Musio floating on the California tides with a bodyful of poison.
Seven
Dozens of sunburned bodies bobbed in the surf. They were not the survivors of some shipwreck but English tourists doing what English tourists do when they reach the Mediterranean.
The surf and beach were Portuguese in front of the resort town of Albufeira. Twenty years ago, Albufeira was a fishing village. Now the fishermen sit on their high-bowed, brilliantly-painted boats and shake their heads at the hysterically vacationing strangers and at the enormous stucco and whitewashed resort hotels that dot the rugged coastline like fat dollops of whipped cream.
One thing about resort hotels, though. They aren’t scandalized by unmarried couples like Raki Senevres and Vera Cesare. The maid who brought drinks to our balcony hardly noticed that we were making one pair of pajamas serve for two people.
“Vodka and lemon juice for breakfast. I’ve never had that before,” Vera sipped from her glass. She wore the top half of the pajamas, and that was purely for decorum.
We were three days out of Istanbul, and we’d gone a lot further than just miles. I was getting used to having Vera near me, and I could feel the same thing happening to her. It was one thing to be lovers, another to find someone who could be both lover and partner. And like vodka in lemon juice, Vera had an added kick: she might be my executioner, too.
“It’s so you’ll get all the vitamins you need. I know how Americans want their daily vitamins.”
She smiled, but her eyes kept returning to my bare chest. Special Effects did what it could about battlescars, but there’s only so much that can be done with skin grafts. The muscles of my shoulders bore enough stripes for a master sergeant.
“You know all about Americans,” Vera said. “I don’t know anything about you. Could you tell me anything?”
“There is very little to tell.”
I shrugged her question off because I had no taste for any lying that wasn’t absolutely necessary.
“You’re trying to be mysterious and romantic,” she pressed.
“Not at all. I’m a very practical person, anything but romantic.”
“Your English is very good. Where did you learn it? From a rich American lady?”
“Vera, anyone who wants American money must speak English.”
“And you want money. Or is it the thrill of getting the money?”
I downed the last of my vodka and lemon juice.
“I tell you what, Vera. Let’s just go get the money and see how many thrills we have.”