He left the bed and swiftly crossed the room to wait between the washstand and the door. The handle turned smoothly, with menacing slowness. There flashed into his mind the possibility that Serafin had decided to have him eliminated. He had asked questions, raised doubts. They couldn’t see him fitting into the plan. Or risk letting him out alive.
Crazy. They wouldn’t do a thing like that. Just the same, he picked up a glass toothmug, the nearest thing to a weapon within reach.
The door opened inward. The movement was stealthy, which was fortuitous, because it gave his keenly alerted senses a split second to pick up a trace of perfume. So, as he grabbed the intruder from behind, his brain telegraphed a reaction quick enough to prevent him crushing the toothmug into Melody Fryer’s skull.
Instead of an automatic, it had been a bottle in her hand. It had hit the wall and smashed.
‘Gee, lover boy!’ she said as they toppled against the door. ‘I didn’t know you cared. Whoops!’ She sank to the floor.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ he managed to say. ‘Don’t move from where you are. I’ll put on the light.’
‘Don’t do that,’ she quickly said.
‘Broken glass,’ he explained. ‘You’ll cut yourself.’
‘Lift me up and put me on the bed. Then I won’t get cut. I want to talk some. That was Campari. Pity. I’m partial to it. However, I have a flask of scotch in my pocket for you, and I think it’s still intact. You won’t mind sharing?’
‘Why shouldn’t I switch on the light?’
‘Because I wouldn’t care to be seen here,’ answered Melody. ‘No offense to you, Jack. It’s just that I’m shit-scared of my boss. Fraternizing with you isn’t on my job card today. Give me a hoist, lover boy. I’m only ninety-eight pounds.’
He carried her to the bed. She was wearing a jumpsuit of some weatherproof fabric. From the feel, it was fleece-lined.
‘Here’s the scotch. I don’t mind using that glass you nearly brained me with,’ she said. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’
He lit a Winston for her, poured her a drink and took a swig from the flask. ‘If you’d knocked, I might have simply opened the door and let you in.’
‘
‘You heard about that?’
‘Pete Klugman told me you had an audience with her ladyship after the workout this afternoon.’
‘That’s correct,’ he cautiously answered. ‘I fixed it officially with your boss.’
‘And you now suspect I’ve been sent unofficially to get your reaction?’ said Melody, holding out the glass for more scotch. ‘Don’t fret, lover boy. I can tell you what happened. She stripped and did her floor show in the shower and then stretched out the body beautiful on the slab for you to look at from every angle. And when you took it as a come-on, you found how wrong you were, huh?’
‘I went for conversation,’ said Dryden.
‘She can handle a conversation,’ said Melody. ‘Oh, yes, Goldengirl’s a smart talker. Trouble is, it never alters. When you give her a beauty treatment twice weekly, as I do, it jars a little. Like how she works hard in her training, and what standards she needs to get to Moscow. Like she’s an achievement-oriented girl and she doesn’t mind men looking at the goods so long as they keep their hands off. How do you like that?’ She swallowed the rest of the scotch and used the glass to stub out her cigarette. ‘My, it’s warmer in here than outside.’ She pulled down the zip of the jumpsuit to waist level. In the poor light, it looked like bare skin in the divide. ‘Did you find her stimulating, lover boy? You didn’t stand a chance. Shall I tell you why?’
‘If it pleases you,’ said Dryden.
‘Come closer, then. I’m not radioactive.’
Why refuse? He wanted a woman, and Melody couldn’t signal more clearly that she was available. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out, gently pulling her down. Fumes of scotch, cigarette smoke and Clinique. ‘Tell me why I wouldn’t succeed with Goldengirl.’
‘Kiss me first.’
His hand moved inside the jumpsuit, between fleece and warm skin. She wasn’t wearing underclothes.
She gripped his neck and pulled his face against hers until she was ready to take her lips away. This wasn’t bluff. Melody wanted it badly.
His hand moved across her breast and slipped the suit off her shoulder. He heard her zip tugged down to its limit and he attended to his own. ‘What is it with Goldine, then?’
‘Goldengirl, then?’
