“Komaroff?” she said. “No, no. He very much sticks to his own quarters these days. I think he has been ill. Why? He does not concern you.” She raised her upper body on her elbows, looking at me. “Come, Mr. Archer. The sun will heal your bruises...”
She looked up suddenly. Past my shoulder, at something behind me. No, make that someone behind me: his long shadow advanced along her brown legs. Her expression was one of quick rage.
I turned as fast as I could without shaking the ribs up any worse than I had to. It wasn’t fast enough. A fist as big as Walter Corbin’s caught me one over the ear and laid me out across Vicki Weiner’s brown body. The ribs felt like somebody had shot me there with something like an elephant gun.
“Constantin...” the girl said. She was trying to push me off. It didn’t help the ribs any. I shoved loose, gritted my teeth, and rolled over past her, keeping her between me and whoever had hit me until I could get my legs under me.
When I did — struggling up to my feet, muttering unkind words under my breath — I got a look at him at last. He was one of your beach-boy types, with the bunched-up bicep and deltoid muscles that look so good under the lights in posing contests. Strong as hell. Not somebody to let close to you. His eyes were on me but his words were for her. “Here... what you do with this... this swine...”
“None of your business!” she yelled. It was a good lusty yell; I had to say that for her, she didn’t screech like a fishwife. “I told you I come and go where I please. I gave you one more chance and you did not come.” And there it went off into rapid-fire French, as quick on the tongue as the incredible Spanish the women talk in Madrid. She still had an accent, I noticed, but she had a fine vocabulary of gutter argot. It began with telling him his mother was a cow and went rapidly downhill from there.
I stood up and circled away from her. I noticed she’d gotten into my jacket. I didn’t think a good look at me would scare him. I don’t, after all, have those pretty bunched-up muscles and all, having trained for the kind you can actually do something with. And the rib bandage only added to his self-confidence: he was going to be insufferable in a minute.
I gave him another look. He was about my height; his hair was a shock of unruly black, and there was that Levantine olive cast to his skin and that definitely Mediterranean nose that told me he wasn’t standing too far from his birthplace. “Come on,” I said disgustedly. “I don’t feel like chasing you, and I haven’t got all day to wait for you to come to me. Let’s get it over with.”
He showed me a lot of white teeth. And the bellow he let out at me as he charged was dark and full of phlegm. The big fists were raised; one of them cocked back as he came forward in a rush.
I didn’t feel like screwing around this time. My ribs hurt and I was feeling nasty. I’d have a nice headache after that wallop he’d given me. I stepped aside and gave him a nice medium-strength karate chop in the Adam’s apple, not enough to put him out, just enough to drop him to his knees, gasping and holding his throat. Then I aimed another one at his collarbone and only pulled it at the last moment. It landed him on his face on the rocky beach.
I looked down at him. He was still awake. I picked him up by the shirtcollar and dragged him to the waterline and dropped him on his kisser in two inches of ice-cold water. It woke him up all the way. He got up looking worse than I felt. He didn’t even think about coming my way. He did give me a bad glare though. I shrugged and felt my aching ribs with one hand, watching him plod heavily away.
I turned and looked at the girl. She held the two halves of her swimsuit in one hand; the jacket was still thrown over her shoulders. She was looking at me with new eyes, and precisely what was in them I couldn’t say. After a moment her eyes dropped; she turned her back and slipped into her ridiculous little suit under the jacket.
“What,” I said, “was that the hell all about?”
“He thinks I am his. I have not encouraged him. I had a date with him earlier, just to keep the peace. He was late. I went with you to spite him.” She turned to face me, the bikini in place now. She handed me the jacket. “I am afraid you have made a terrible enemy. I do not know what he will do. I am sorry. I was foolish. I have caused you great trouble. Please... please forgive...”
“Never mind,” I said. “You could show me where the booze cabinet is, though. The doctor who put me in this corset is going to kill me when he sees this.”
“Poor Mr. Archer.” She moved close to me and put one soft hand on my arm. “I... I will try to make it up to you, for my foolishness. Please let me. Please forgive...”
And now she did melt into my arms. Briefly. And the green eyes that looked up at me out of that lovely face were concerned, deeply troubled. Then she kissed me, quick and hard, and it was my turn to step back and do a double-take. “No problem,” I said. “Not if you can find me a drink. And... Miss Weiner...”
“Vicki, please...”
“Okay, Vicki. And it’s Harry, right?”
“Oh, yes.” She smiled again and took my hand, leading me around the headland again. When we reached the beach I’d found her on I felt both of her little hands on mine, grasping hard, as she walked close, very close to me.
It’d been a hell of a meeting. No place to go but up.
Chapter Eighteen
In her room she went modest on me. She’d been stark naked with me on the beach, and now when we got back to her suite of rooms, what did she do when she got out of that bikini she’d almost been wearing? She handed me a drink and stepped behind a curtain.
The big room we were in served her as bedroom and sitting room. She’d converted the second room into a painter’s studio and had let it become a comfortable mess, the way most painters’ studios are. This room was more like the rest of the house — First Empire, I guessed — and I ought not to have liked it any more than I did my suite or the rest of the house, which had a museumy feel I couldn’t get close to. But this was a room Vicki Weiner lived in, and she made the place livable. I’d been on the edge of being furious at her for her little stunt on the beach, using me to tickle her boyfriend’s temper; but now I found myself relaxing and feeling at home. Another chance for Vicki Weiner, I decided. And a few points for good vibes.
“Hey,” I said. “This Constantin guy. Just what’s his place here?”
“Oh,” she said. I could tell from the way her head and shoulders were moving that she was slipping into a bra and hooking it in the back. “He is a phony like the rest of us. He is supposed to be the pilot of the little launch that will take us to the Vulcan tomorrow when it anchors. With Alexandra away out of town so much, you can see that without other duties he would...” She shrugged.
“Yeah,” I said. “A captain without a ship.”
“Correct, Harry. Well, what he really is is the most recent one of Alexandra Komarova’s lovers to be... ah, put out to pasture. I have the right phrase?” I nodded. “I am not entirely surprised. He is not her usual type. She has fair taste in men sometimes. I don’t know. Perhaps she is changing. She has not been here in... oh, three months perhaps. I have heard nothing from her except impersonal cables. I am not looking forward to dealing with her again.”