Destroyer - Master's Challenge Part 13

"A bottle. And a water gla.s.s."

The unflappable waiter left. Remo smiled. "We've never met," he said.

"No."

"How did you know my name?"

"I guessed."

What kind of a con is this, he thought. "What's yours?"

"What would you like it to be?"

He sighed. A call girl. "I've got fifty-two dollars," he said flatly. "That's it."

"Good for you."

He was embarra.s.sed. "I only meant-"

The waiter showed up with the vodka and a large tumbler, which he filled to the brim.

"Have you decided on a name for me yet?" she asked, raising her gla.s.s.

"How about Sam?" he asked drily. "I knew a guy named Sam once who drank vodka by the bucket."

"Sam it is, then." She downed the gla.s.s in one draught.

"Who are you?" Remo asked.

"I thought we just decided on that."

"Come off it. My guess is you're some kind of bored society dame acting cute with the hoi-polloi-"

She laughed. "Not at all. I'm new in London. I walked in here alone, saw you, and sat down. Does everything have to be so complicated?"

"Have it your way," Remo said. "Are you hungry?"

130.

"Starving."

"Figures." He eyed the prices on the menu. His fifty-two dollars might stretch as far as one meal and two bottles, all for her. Another breakfast of berries along the side of the road.

"I'd like fish," she said. "Raw."

He sat still for a moment, then leaned over toward her. "How much do you know about me?"

"Why should I know anything about you? Are you famous?"

"The fish."

"It's much better raw. You ought to try it."

Well, maybe it was just a coincidence, he said to himself. He sat back, trying frantically to remember where he might have met her before. It was useless. "All right," he said.

The waiter set down their platter of raw fish at arm's length, regarding his two customers as if he expected them to jump wildly onto the tables at any moment.

The woman sent him away with a haughty stare. She picked up a sliver of fish with her fingers and slid it delicately into her mouth.

"Do you have something against silverware?" Remo asked.

"Useless," she said, offering a piece to Remo. Her nails were short and unpainted. She wore no makeup. And those eyes of hers were driving Remo crazy.

"What color are they?" he blurted.

"My eyes?" She shrugged. "Blue. Gray. Green. They change."

"Really strange," he muttered.

"How flattering. You've encountered your share of strange people, I suppose?"

"You have no idea."

"I think I do." She downed another tumbler of vodka.

131.

"Get some rice for yourself. That's what you eat, isn't it?"

He threw his napkin on the table. "Okay. Come clean. What are you doing here?"

"Calm down, Remo."

"Bulldookey!"

"Bulldookey?"

"There's no way you could have guessed my name."

"You sound like Rumplestiltskin. Eat your fish. You must be exhausted."

"1 am exhausted. But you don't have any business knowing that."

She leaned over and kissed him full on the mouth. Stunned, he felt as if his spine had just turned into an electric eel. The temperature in the room seemed to rise to the level of a pizza oven. When their lips finally broke away, he noticed that people all over the restaurant were staring at them. "What was that for?" he asked, dazed. "Not that I minded. Maybe you'd like to try it again for practice."

"Later," she said, resuming her meal.

"Later," Remo grumbled. She was playing some kind of game, but he was too tired to figure it out. And why bother, anyway, he decided. She was nuts, end of discovery. Still, kissing her beat eating restaurant rice at a table for one any day.

"I'm staying at Claridge's. Will you come with me?"

He gulped, standing up instantly. "Twisted my arm," he said.

Inside the doorway of her darkened room, she put her arms around him. He tried to gear himself up for the fifty-two steps to ecstasy, but something was different. Her touch was warm, electrifying, comforting. There was no naughty boom-boom about this girl. Even without speaking.

132.

he felt as if he had known her all his life, this girl whose name he didn't even know.

Remo had loved many women in his time. And yet none of them had felt like this one. There was something sure about it, as if their flesh belonged together, and always had. But he was being an idiot, he told himself. Any woman who wouldn't even give her name to a man she was going to spend the night with wasn't exactly in the market for true love.

"1 suppose you're being so mysterious just so you can avoid talking to me if we ever b.u.mp into each other again."

She let her arms fall from around his neck. "Your ways are too worldly for me to understand," she said simply. "I cannot tell you who I am because I cannot. That is all there is to know. And 1 wish to make love with you because my body longs for you. Is it not enough?"

Strange bird. Even in the darkness he could see the changing tones of her eyes. Remo kissed her gain. "It's enough," he said. And for some reason he didn't understand, going to bed with this woman seemed to be more important to him than breathing.

He made love to her like a schoolboy, frightened, delighted, surprised at his own artlessness. He forgot everything about the s.e.xual techniques that worked with other women, because this nameless girl was like no other woman he had ever been with. They laughed together and played and wrestled and touched each other like incalculably precious things, and Remo told her stories about the orphanage where he'd grown up, and she sang him lewd Viking songs about the glories of raping and looting in the land of the Francs, and when they finally came together, it was as if he'd never made love to anyone before.

He held her close until she slept.

"Sam?"

133.

She didn't answer. Her breathing was slow and regular.

"I think I love you," he whispered, shocked at his own words, grateful that she hadn't been awake to hear them.

Her mouth curved into a smile.

"You faker!" he muttered, pus.h.i.+ng her away. He could feel himself blus.h.i.+ng.

She entwined herself around him and found his lips again. "Bulldookey," she said.

Chapter Fourteen.

He shook her awake. "Sam. I've got to go."

She squinted, turning toward the window. The first red streaks of dawn showed. "Where?"

"Wales," he said.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was still in its knot, dangling down the side of her neck. She was so pretty that Remo was half afraid to look at her. He knew that the more time he spent with her, the more he would want to stay. He got up and dressed quickly.

"Can I go with you?"

"No." .

"Why not?"

"Because I say so."

"Oh." She sounded hurt "Hah. It hurts when the shoe's on the other foot, doesn't it?"

"What shoe?"

"It's just an American expression. What country are you from, anyway? Ah-ah-ah, just testing. I know you aren't going to tell me."

134.

135.

She stretched herself like a cat. The sight of her naked body in daylight gave Remo a pang of sadness. He dropped his shoe and stood for a few moments, watching her, wondering if he would ever see her again.

"Let's quit this," he said, disgusted.

"What?"

"This secrecy c.r.a.p. I want us to see each other again. Tell me how I can reach you."

"I'll follow you," she said.

He shook his head. He didn't trust himself to talk.

"Why not?" she asked.

"You can't, that's all. Not where I'm going."

"Oh, I see. You think I'm too frail and delicate for your rowdy life."

"You're about as frail as a Sherman tank." He slipped on his T-s.h.i.+rt. It smelled of her.

She walked over to him and took his hands.

"Don't, okay?" He broke away from her, suddenly angry. "You can't go, and I can't tell you why, and this is the last time I'm going to see your funny face because, for some reason, you want us to keep on being strangers. So don't make it any harder than it already is." He walked to the door.

"Remo ..." She came to him and kissed him. And again, it felt as if she had been with him all his life.

"Tell me who you are," he whispered. "I don't care if you're on the run from somebody, or married, or whatever. I don't even care how you know about me. I just want to be able to find you when I get back."

She gazed at him for a long time. Then, frowning, she lowered her eyes.