smell the mixed aromas from the steaming kettles.
Larry took one look at the tiny room and snapped, “I wouldn’t put my dog in here.”
“I’m sorry,” the bellboy said apologetically. “Miss Page requested the cheapest room
we had for you.”
Okay, Larry thought, I’ll find a way to beat her. Constantin Demiris isn’t the only
man in the world who uses a private pilot. I’ll start checking tomorrow. I’ve met a lot of
his rich friends. There are half a dozen of them who would be damned glad to hire me. But
then, he thought: Not if Demiris fires me. If that happens, none of them will touch me. I
have to hang in there. The bathroom was down the hall, and Larry unpacked and took out
a robe so that he could go take a bath, then thought: To hell with it, why should I bathe for
her? I hope I smell like a pig. He went to the hotel bar to have a badly needed drink. He
was on his third martini when he looked up at the clock over the bar and saw that it was
10:15. Ten o’clock sharp, she had said. Larry was filled with a sudden panic. He hastily
slapped some bills on the bar and headed toward the elevator. Noelle was in the Emperor
Suite on the fifth floor. He found himself running down the long corridor and cursing
himself for letting her do this to him. He knocked at the door to her suite, his mind
forming excuses for his tardiness. No one answered his knock and when Larry turned the
knob, it was off the latch. He walked into the large, luxuriously furnished living room and
stood there a moment, uncertainly, then called out, “Miss Page.” There was no answer. So
that was her plan.
I’m sorry, Costa darling, but I warned you that he was unreliable. I asked him to pick
me up at ten o’clock, but he was down in the bar getting drunk. I had to leave without him.
Larry heard a sound from the bathroom and went toward it. The bathroom door was
open. He walked inside just as Noelle Page stepped out of the shower. She wore nothing
but a turkish towel turbanned around her head.
Noelle turned and saw him standing there. An apology sprang to Larry’s lips, trying
to head off her indignation, but before he could speak, Noelle said indifferently, “Hand me
that towel,” as though he were a maid. Or a eunuch. Larry could have coped with her
indignation or anger, but her arrogant indifference made something explode inside him.
He moved toward her and grabbed her, knowing as he did it that he was throwing
away everything he wanted for the cheap satisfaction of a petty revenge, but there was no
way he could have stopped himself. The rage inside him had been building up for months,
fed by the indignities he had received from her, the gratuitous insults, the humiliation, the
risking of his life. All these things were burning in him as he reached for her naked body.
If Noelle had screamed, Larry would have knocked her senseless. But she saw the wild
look on his face and made no sound as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
Somewhere in Larry’s mind a voice was shouting to him to stop, to apologize, to say
that he was drunk, to get out before it was too late to save himself, but he knew it was
already too late. There was no going back. He threw her savagely down on the bed and
moved toward her.