THE PERFECT KILL (10 page)

“Did you enjoy your meal, Michael?”

He looked puzzled.

“Yes, it was very good. I ate everything.”

“And you enjoyed your lunch and your breakfast and the roast lamb I made last night and the rabbit stew I made the night before?”

“Yes…the rabbit stew is my favourite. You make it like a Gozitan.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his face.

“Yes, you ate enough for two men. Laura gave me the recipe…Michael, what is my name?”

He was no longer puzzled. He was looking down at the table. Very quietly he said, “Your name is Leonie.”

“Good. I thought you had forgotten, now go and get changed, Michael.”

The boy stood up and walked to the door, then he turned and looked at her. He said nothing, just looked at her for about half a minute, then turned away.

Two hours later he was standing at the bar in La Grotta, drinking a Heineken and surveying the dance floor.

Joey said, “Michael, next week, you’ll be on your own.”

The boy turned in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

Joey’s smile was rueful, almost embarrassed.

“Tonight before I picked you up, I stopped by in Nadur, to see Maria.”

“So?”

“I stopped off to see her at the house. I went in. Had a drink with her parents.”

The boy whistled softly and then muttered, “So it’s like that, Joey?”

Joey was looking at the dance floor. There were scores of people dancing. The girls’ ages ranged from sixteen to thirty. Almost all of them were tourists, mostly Scandinavians, Germans and English.

He watched them, then sighed and said, “You know what it means, Michael. If I’m down here next week I’ll be with Maria and I’ll have to take her home at midnight and after that, go home myself.”

“You’re lucky,” the boy replied immediately. “She’s a great girl.”

“She is,” Joey agreed. “But what about you?”

“It’s no problem. I can walk down to Rabat and hitch a lift.”

Joey smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

Joey gestured with his chin at the dance floor.

“There are two girls dancing. Both of them fancy you like hell. Have done for the past week. Now you and I know you’re a virgin and it’s time you ceased to be one. I’m not going to be around next week. I know you’re as nervous as hell but tonight has got to be the night. You’ve got to make your mind up and go and do it.”

Michael looked at him, then turned to look at the dance floor.

He heard Joey’s whispered voice.

“But which one, Michael, the English or the Swedish one?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. I remember the first time for me. I was a bit younger than you and even more nervous. It was a disaster because the girl was as young as me and also nervous. The Swedish girl is beautiful but she is only seventeen. The English one is a woman of about twenty-five; you go for her.”

“But how do I do it?”

Joey laughed out loud. “You don’t know?”

“I mean how do I go about getting her?”

Joey watched the woman dancing. She was tall, small-boned with very typical English features, soft, milky-white complexion like a cameo, and slightly flushed cheeks. Thick fair tresses waved down her back. She wore a khaki, three-quarter-length skirt with a black lycra top, cut low and tight to reveal her small breasts. As she danced, she tossed her hair from her face and smiled at the young Gozitan boy dancing in front of her. He moved in, mistaking her smile for mutual attraction. He was mistaken. She was looking at Michael.

Without turning his head and speaking almost in a whisper, Joey said, “When she finishes dancing she’ll come to the bar and order a drink. She’ll come very near to you to order it. She always does. What does she drink, Michael?”

Michael whispered back, “Scotch and soda water…Johnny Walker Black Label.”

“Right.”

Joey gestured at the bartender.

“Vince has been chatting her up all week. Without success. You’ve heard his questions and her replies?”

Michael muttered, “Yes, I have.” His eyes were still on the woman.

“What’s her name?”

“Saffron.”

“Where does she live?”

“A place called Devon.”

“Where does she stay here?”

“In a flat in Marsalforn, with her girlfriend.”

“What work does she do?”

“She works in a bank, she’s taking a management course.”

“When is she leaving?”

Michael sighed. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

“You know enough,” Joey whispered. “It’s got to be tonight. You also know that half the guys in here have been chasing her every night and getting nowhere. You also know that she fancies you…so what are you going to do, Michael?”

“Tell me.”

Joey had a half smile on his face.

“What you do, Michael, is that you change gear halfway through. First, you’re going to be ultra cool, then you’re going to be very uncool. You’ve got to throw them, Michael. In the last two weeks she’ll have listened to the pulling words of dozens of smooth operators.” He gestured with his chin at the dance floor.

“Those guys out there. Some of them have been around a long time. Sammy over there has had more girls than you’ve had hot breakfasts and he hasn’t got a hair on his head. Now listen.” He leaned closer. “First you order a large Black Label Scotch and soda and keep it next to you. Tell Vince it’s for Saffron and when you do that give him a hard look in the eye. He knows he’s shot his bolt. When she’s stopped dancing, which I guess will be the end of this track, she’ll come next to you and order a drink. Vince will point to the drink already on the bar and tell her you bought it. She’ll be a little confused or pretend to be. Immediately, you’ll say, “Saffron, can I talk to you?” Don’t forget to use her name.

Then slowly and without looking at her, you walk over there.” He gestured to the other side of the dance floor at some tables and chairs, in subdued lighting under some trees. “You do not look back, you just go over there and sit down. If she follows you, you’re halfway there.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“If she doesn’t you’re going to look and feel like an idiot.” Joey laughed. “Order that drink now, and be ready.”

“And what if she does follow me?”

“If she follows you and sits down you don’t say a word, you just look at her with those eyes, straight into her face, into her eyes. Don’t say a word. Make her start the conversation. She will say something like, “What do you want to talk about?” You will sigh and say, “It’s a bit embarrassing…a bit difficult to talk about.” At that moment you will look at her again. If her face shows any sign of concern or if she says something like “Tell me about it, Michael” then you are three-quarters of the way there.”

The boy was intrigued. “And then what do I say?”

“You tell her that you’re a virgin.”

“What!?”

Joey smiled. “Exactly that. She will laugh and ask you how old you are. You will lie a little. You look eighteen or nineteen. You tell her that you’ll be nineteen next month, on the twenty-fifth.”

“And then what?”

“You say that you know tonight is her last night. And then, Michael, you don’t say one more word, not a single word.”

“What if she asks me a question?”

Joey’s voice was emphatic.

“You say nothing. Not a word. You just look at her. Straight into her eyes. Either she will get up and walk away or take you down to the flat in Marsalforn.”

She walked off the dance floor, came straight to the bar and Joey edged away from Michael. She moved into the gap between them. Joey turned his back to her.

She called out to the bartender, “Vince, give me the usual, please.”

Vince pointed to the full glass in front of her and then at Michael. She turned her head, looking slightly puzzled. From behind him, Joey heard Michael say, “Saffron, can I talk to you a moment?”

Joey waited for a while then turned. Michael was walking behind the dance floor to the table under the trees and the woman was following him.

Five minutes later, Joey watched them walk up the long sweep of stairs to the entrance. He turned his attention back to the dance floor, to the Swedish girl. After all, it was going to be his last week of freedom.

“Is it really true?”

“Yes, it is.”

They were on the balcony of a flat in Marsalforn, looking across the bay at the reflected lights. It was after midnight. Michael made a decision.

“It is true,” he said, “but I lied to you about something else.”

“About what?”

“I’m not nineteen next month. I’m seventeen.”

She laughed and poured the last few drops of the duty-free Black Label into the two glasses.

“The first time for me was awful,” she said. “It was in the back of a car, a small one. It was messy. I was drunk.”

They were lying on the bed and she was looking down at him.

She stroked the black hair from his forehead and smiled. “For you, Michael, it will not be awful…it will be beautiful.”

They met for dinner at a restaurant four blocks from Capitol Hill. They sat at a secluded table at the back of the room. The Senator ordered a peppered steak, with a Caesar salad on the side. Creasy ordered coq au vin, with new potatoes and cauliflower. After the waitress had left, the sommelier came with the wine list, a very fat one.

“Do you like wine?” the Senator asked.

“Yes.”

The Senator passed him the wine list.

“Order anything, as long as it costs less than a hundred and ten thousand bucks.”

“You mean that?”

“Sure.”

Creasy studied the wine list for several minutes. The sommelier had the appearance that befitted his business: tall, sleek, and with a thin pencil moustache. He looked over Creasy’s shoulder at the pointing finger.

Creasy closed the wine list and handed it to him.

“Let’s have the Rothschild “49.”

The sommelier’s pleasure showed on his face.

“Would you like me to decant it for you, sir?”

“Please do.”

Creasy looked across the table and said, “Senator, that has made a dent in the hundred and ten thousand bucks.”

Grainger grinned.

“I hope so. I don’t know a lot about wine myself. Did you pick up the expertise in the Legion?”

Creasy nodded.

“That’s where it started. People don’t know much about the Legion. They have this romantic thing about Beau Geste and the desert. It’s not like that. It’s a highly modern Corps. It’s also unique in that a Legionnaire never has to leave if he doesn’t want to…for many it’s like an orphanage. The Legion has its own vineyards in France and makes its own wine. When a Legionnaire retires he can go and work in the vineyards or in the handicraft workshops they also have. The food is the best of any army in the world, not just for the officers but for everybody.”

“But you were pushed out?” the Senator said quietly.

“Yes, I was in the second REP. We had a Colonel we all worshipped. He was the bravest man I have ever known. He also worshipped his men.”

The Senator could see the memory in Creasy’s eyes. The man went on: “The Colonel decided to join the Generals’ Putsch. We even got ready to parachute into Paris itself.” He smiled at the memory.

“After the Putsch failed we blew up our barracks and marched out singing Edith Piaf’s song about having no regrets…Je ne regrette rien…The officers went into hiding or faced court martial, the NCOs were kicked out and the Legionnaires dispersed into other units.”

Quietly the Senator said, “Yes, I read of it in your file. You were an NCO…would you have stayed on, if they hadn’t kicked you out?”

Creasy thought for a moment, then nodded.

“I guess so, but I wouldn’t be fighting now, I’d be on a vineyard north of Marseilles, picking grapes and making wine.” He smiled. “But not quite like the wine we’re going to drink in a while.”

The sommelier brought the wine, holding the bottle like a nurse holds a new-born baby. Very carefully he placed it on a trolley. Then he extracted the cork and rolled it between his fingers before holding it beneath his nostrils.

He nodded with satisfaction and said to Creasy, “I think it’s good, sir. It has lasted.”

The sommelier put the cork on the plate in front of Creasy and said, “Senator, in all these years, you’ve never ordered a bottle of wine like this.”

As the sommelier had done, Creasy rolled the cork in his fingers and then sniffed it. He nodded and said, “Perhaps you’d tell the chef to hold our order for half an hour to give the wine time to breathe.”

The sommelier walked away with the air of a surgeon who has just completed a complicated but successful operation.

Creasy was wearing a sober grey suit with a faint pinstripe, cream shirt and a maroon tie. He reached into an inside pocket, took out a small business card and passed it across.

“Senator, that’s the name of a bank in Luxembourg. On the back of it is the account number. I’d like you to transfer the quarter mill to that account within the next seven days. Unlike with Rawlings, you won’t get any lists of expenses. At the end, whichever way it goes you’ll get back any balance due to you. My quarter mill is already in that account. If you want to check that you call the man whose card that is and you give him the code, “East is East and West is West”. He’ll tell you anything you want to know about that account.”

The Senator looked at the card and said quietly, “Creasy, since you sent me that finger, I’ve decided not to ask any more personal questions. Naturally, we’ll stay in touch and pass back and forth whatever we know. Of course I want to know how things are going and also if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Later on you might be able to,” Creasy said. “By the way, has your friend Curtis Bennett come up with any new information?”

“How do you know Curtis?”

“He’s been asking questions about me.”

“How do you know?”

“That I have to keep to myself, Senator.”

Grainger nodded thoughtfully.

“I understand that. By the way “Senator” is a mite formal. Call me Jim; my friends do.”

“Ok?”

“What do I call you?”

Creasy smiled slightly.

“Just Creasy.”