Off the Edge (The Associates) (6 page)

He was getting some interesting flags.

Anders’ clients all believed he was in the assassination business, but really, he was in the research business. That’s what made him the best. That’s how he’d find and kill Macmillan.

Up in her room, Laney splashed water on her face, not sure if she should trust the hopeful, happy feeing she had. One guy connects with her songs and she’s ready to give up her firstborn.

She brushed her teeth.

Back in Stoley, Florida, back when she was Emmaline living in that overstuffed kit home full of mold and all the junk her mom couldn’t quite part with, she and her girlfriends would describe their future husbands. Her girlfriends gave their future husbands mansions and convertibles, but what Laney wanted was connection. She wanted to be with a man so completely that she could say one word and he’d understand everything she meant in it—the references, the echoes, the degree of jokiness, the color, the angle. And then he’d say a word in reply, and they would share their worlds so completely that those two words would be a conversation.

She’d never had anything close to that—not with anybody except her brother at times, but that was different. And as wonderful as Rajini was, as close as they were, they didn’t really
get
each other. Being on the run, she felt more distant from people than ever, like she was all alone, walking on the moon.

And suddenly this guy. Another moonwalker, traipsing along beside her.

She brushed her hair and put on a black felt hat with a small brim—a good nighttime hat. It didn’t have a net, but it was pretty, and it really changed her look when she pulled it down over her forehead.

She put on some lipstick and paused. The hopeful, happy feeling scared her a little. She’d sometimes felt like, getting out of Stoley, she’d tried to take too much—like a jack-in-the-box popped up too high, and she’d spent the following years getting violently stuffed back down by Rolly. And now, this feeling of hope made her feel dangerously popped up. Like maybe it was safer to stay inside her little box. Like hope and happiness were for other people.

She shoved the cap back on her lipstick. It was just the night market. And it was her birthday, dammit.

And she wanted to touch him again. Because he was beautiful and magnetic.

She locked her door and headed out the side way. The Shinsurins would frown on an excursion like this. Let them assume she’d gone to bed.

She dated now and then, mostly emo travellers, like the German boy who wanted to look at the stars. Or Darrin, the American singer, all sweetness and pop hooks. Like her they’d been in their late twenties, but she thought of them as boys because they were pretty and sweet, and the opposite of Rolly. Even Rolly’s face was hard, with sharp cheekbones, as if his hate was trying to bust out of his brain.

In both cases, the boys had up and left town after a few dates. It was probably for the best—any guy she was running with would be in big trouble if one of Rolly’s thugs showed up. But they were both so lovely and she’d enjoyed having sex with them, even if she didn’t ever orgasm during sex. Rolly had always said it showed she was frigid. Well, with Rolly it wasn’t so much a frigidity problem as a being-married-to-a-frightening-and-narcissistic-psychopath problem.

She was a shy orgasmer, that’s all, and she had great orgasms on her own. And as she got time and distance away from Rolly, the idea of sex was way more exciting. These days she was a very sexual person—at least in her mind. She was even a little kinky…in her mind. Or did that not count? Was being a little bit kinky in your mind like being a good gymnast in your mind?

She slipped down the stairwell and out the side into the hot, moist, diesel-flavored night, heading down the walk and around the corner to Tamroung Road where four lanes of traffic buzzed up and down like crazy, even at this time of night.

Across the way, a shop girl swept the neon-lit entrance of the 24-hour donut shop, but most of the other shops up and down the street were gated now. Shabby apartments and office buildings soared up into the sky, topped by colorful, constantly changing signs. You saw a lot of this mix of color and concrete grubbiness in Bangkok. Decrepitude and wealth at vivid angles with each other, like shards from different mirrors.

Then she caught sight of him and a smile spread across her face all on its own.

Hopeful.

Stupid.

On she went. He stood to the side of the entrance, talking with a tuk-tuk driver. This man, taking her to see a dragon. She pressed her fingers against the outside of her shoulder bag, locating the handle of her gun. Let one of Rolly’s guys show up. She’d protect the both of them. The stupid hope was making her feel brave.

He and the driver were speaking in Thai, she thought at first, until she drew near and realized it was English. Or had they switched to English?

He looked so handsome and tropical in his linen suit, like a character out of a Maugham novel, and he glanced down at her legs with a shadow of a smile that made her belly flip flop. Did he like the sheer socks? Or maybe he thought they were funny like Rajini did.

He looked up at her and her heart sped. He watched her approach with a glimmer of a smile that was like a cord to her belly, pulling her, enchanting her. He extended his hand as she neared.

She took it. Shivers played up and down her arm as he closed his fingers around hers.

“You went the scenic route,” he observed.

“Everybody’s always in your business when you live at a hotel. And here I am meeting some guy whose name I don’t even know.”

He helped her in and let her have her hand back, settling at her side as the driver took off.

“Maxwell,” he said.

“Is that your first or last name?”

“Last, but it works for both. It’s what people call me.”

“Well, isn’t that handy.” She sat back, enjoying his easy presence. “Business or pleasure, Maxwell?” She asked it half ironically, because it’s what
farangs
always asked each other in Bangkok.

His gaze was full of humor, as though he got exactly how she meant it.
Business or pleasure.
A thrill shot through her.

Business, as it turned out. He was teaching linguistics at the University. Not a professor, just an adjunct, there for the quarter. A
subject matter expert
, he called himself. The way he said it, she got that it was a buzzword, and that he didn’t quite like it.

“
Subject matter expert
,” she said, rolling it around for herself.

“S. M. E. for short.”

“But never a
smee
, I hope.”

He gave her a sly look. Lordy, his charm could light a burnt-out bulb. “Smee? Don’t even utter it. That’s how words like that start.”

She smiled innocently, thinking she might have to call him a
smee
later on. She was having fun already.

They sped down bright streets full of colorful signs and lights under thick, black power lines strung back and forth like ropy garlands for a strange kind of holiday, or the webs of power line spiders trying to trap the whole damn city.

She rambled on about her life at the hotel, carefully avoiding the whole being-on-the-run business, as they drew near the chaotic night bazaar. He had the driver stop at the west end and they got out.

“I thought your supposed dragon was on the east end,” she said, pulling out her money.

“It is.” He pushed her hand away and paid the man. “We’ve got a stop first.”

She frowned. A man paying for things and making decisions for her was a little too Rolly-ish. “You’ve decided to change our plan? Just like that?”

He smiled. “I’m going to spend the thousand bhat I’m about to win from you before I win it.”

She snorted as they began to walk. “So sure you’ll win?”

“I am,” he said.

“Total surrender—that was our agreement.” She felt her face heat as she said it.

And when he glanced at her again, she knew he’d caught it, like they were connected. Two travelers on the moon.

And then he said, “That’s what I’m expecting.”

“Hmph,” she said, trying to cover a rush of excitement. Again she imagined the way his hair would look during sex, no longer combed neatly back, but hanging down in his eyes, and him all sweaty, and their bodies mashing wildly. She resisted the urge to kiss him, just out of the blue. She hadn’t been impulsive like this since before Rolly. It was something about this guy. She could do it—she was close to doing it.

“Ready?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied.

He looked at her for an extra beat, and then he touched her elbow and they headed between rows of colorful stalls stuffed top-to-bottom with purses, puppets, electronics, jewels, and every other kind of merchandise known to humankind, all lit by slender fluorescent bulbs affixed to the undersides of colorful canopies. They wove through the crowds, past hawkers and shoppers and zombie-like tourists stuck in other time zones.

She kept an eye out for Harken. Rajini had been so sure it wasn’t him, but Laney couldn’t shake the residue of that scare. Looming danger. Eyes watching.

Deeper and deeper they went. Finally Maxwell stopped in front of a book stall, tables topped with boxes of colorful paperbacks, an oasis of calm in the bustle.

He had chosen books. She loved that. Just being in his airspace made her happy. He was hot, he made her feel happy, and he
liked books.

She studied the side of his face as he ran his finger down the colorful spines of the mostly mysteries and thrillers. She liked the way his smooth cheek swept up to his cheekbone under glasses that were neither square nor round. She liked his strong, straight, simple nose, and the way his linen suit tightened over his arm when he moved his hand to a different box. She had half a mind to touch him, to make sure he was actually real.

Maxwell spoke in a low voice. “He keeps the hard stuff in back.”

Hard stuff?
She stilled. Was he talking about porn?

He turned to her then, all secrets and danger.

Of course.
What else would a vendor hide from public view? Her heart sank. “Oh.”

Maxwell watched her eyes, like he found her disappointment amusing. He whispered, “I think you’ll enjoy it.”

It must be especially shocking, considering they were in the middle of one of the red light districts where you could buy an hour with a girl as easily as a pair of sunglasses. Bringing her out to see a man’s stash of dirty magazines or something? Creepy. Probably there wasn’t even a dragon.

“The books
are
a bit dirty,” he said, then he leaned over and spoke in Thai to the man behind the table. Requesting the box in back.

What a fool she’d been.

She looked around, strategizing her exit, feeling more upset than she likely should.

“But if you keep an open mind…”

“No thanks,” she bit out. His obvious amusement pissed her off more than this wasted night. “I come with you. Like a dope, I trust you have something fine to show me…” The man was coming up with a heavy-looking box. She averted her eyes as he heaved it up and onto another box.

“I thought you’d be into it.” Maxwell seemed to glow with pleasure. A real pervert.

“Seriously?” She motioned at the box the man had set down, looking over at it, finally. It was full of…old hardbacks. Clothbound editions with gold lettering. Classics. Poetry.

A hush came over her as she moved to the box. English language classics. You couldn’t get these in Bangkok.

“Forgive me,” Maxwell said. “I thought you were a certain kind of woman, but it seems I was wrong.”

She felt her mouth fall open. She didn’t bother to close it.

“I’ll have him get them out of your sight.” He moved to wave to the man and she caught his wrist and electricity flowed between them, and she wanted to laugh and yank him to her and push him and kiss him all at once. She turned back. “Sweet Mary, this is…”
Everything
. Shakespeare, Keats, Coleridge.

She pulled out a fat volume of Romantics and paged through. She only ever looked at this stuff on the computer, or on her phone. Here it was live, heavy with smooth, cool pages and the old book smell.

“I hope you’re not disappointed. It’s not exactly Naked Cowgirl Party.”

“Not funny.”

Except it was, a little. She slid her finger over the elegant, old-world typesetting. She turned to the Byron section and read the first line of her favorite. Her blood raced. “How did you think of this?”

“You told me,” he said. “Up on that stage you told me.”

She turned to him. She was so used to Rolly telling her what she wanted. Even Rajini told her what she wanted. But Maxwell listened. He saw her. He soaked her in, seemed almost to enjoy her, with a kind of sparkle in his eye that seemed just for her. It made her feel happy, bold. And it was mercilessly sexy.

“What’re you getting?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“What book? You’re here to get something specific.”

“This. For you,” he said. “Or choose another if you prefer.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m about to take your money. I insist.”

“I’ll say yes. But only because it’s my birthday.”

A cloud seemed to pass over his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He pasted on a smile. “Happy birthday.”

“You think it’s pathetic,” she guessed. “Here with a stranger on my birthday.”

“Not at all,” he said softly.

She turned over the book and ran her finger along the roughened edges. “This one.” Maybe she could trust him. The idea of trusting him felt like a flower in her heart.

He paid the man. “Come on.”

Maxwell touched the small of her back as they made their way through the increasingly wild crowd. The touch felt proprietary. She liked it.

“How’d you know about the place?”

“University colleague. We’re all very eggheady over there.”

Riiight
. To her, eggheady meant somebody with an overdeveloped brain and a weak body, liable to crack and break. Too many thoughts. Maxwell wasn’t that. He was an academic, sure…like Indiana Jones was an academic. Like an adventurer academic.