"More cognac?"
"Mmm. Just enough to please the glass."
She lifted the snifter to peer speculatively into its depths, the golden warmth of the brandy drifting within it, its mellowness matching her mood.
They had talked of inconsequential things, sharing reminiscences of places they had known without remarking on their reasons for the knowledge. They had talked of Paris while they dined on buttered snails and fresh baked bread, of mountains and the freshness of spring while sharing poulet au gratin, and joked about summer picnics in burgeoning vineyards over the fruits of the islands. He talked with affectionate pleasure of life in the Marivellas; she countered with Hollywood parties and dictatorial directors. Their lives were worlds apart, and it didn't matter, for their souls were countrymen.
Over coffee they meandered back to Paris and evenings spent in backstreet clubs or ensconced at the Opera. They knew the same streets, had visited the same museums. His face had grown thoughtful as he realised that his memories were growing old with him: he had last been in Paris nearly a year before she had first seen it. She changed the subject with sympathetic ease, realising there was more to his presence in the islands than mere colonial ambition. He spoke of France as an exile spoke, and she had no desire to linger on sad things on this night of all nights.
With the cognac came the laughter, the verbal games, the compliments. They sparred with mellow merriment, swapping quote and wit with equal disregard. She gave him a speech from Dumas, he replied with Candide. Then they laughed, sharing the self mockery and savouring the goldenness of the wine. The bottle was nearly empty now, and she tasted the last few drops with infinite slowness. She didn't want the evening to end, but she couldn't slow the passing of time.
"I have not enjoyed myself so much for - years," she admitted recklessly as he emptied the last of the brandy and regarded the bottle with regret.
"Bon." He took the compliment as it was intended. "But we have not finished yet."
"We haven't?"
"Non." He cupped his chin in his hand and looked at her across the candle flames. "You have not lived until you have seen the Marivellas by moonlight." He smiled as if amused by some private joke. "And for once," he went on, "it is not raining ... "
She laughed, impulsively reaching to catch his other hand where it rested on the table. The touch was like the shiver of an electric shock and suddenly she knew what she wanted to do. It had very little to do with moonlight.
"Why don't we see if that bottle upstairs is ready to drink first?" she suggested softly.
His answer was a slow smile, a smile that was meant for her alone.
"Whatever you say," he breathed and, rising to his feet, he drew her with him, through the dimness of the now empty kitchen and out into the night beyond.
"Hey, Jake! Feeling flush?"
Cutter looked up from his empty glass to meet the expectant eyes of one of his regular poker partners. From somewhere beside him Jack barked once, a disgusted sound that his master chose to ignore. He cast a glance in Sarah's direction instead, finding her absorbed in a discussion concerning the current Sears catalogue; Micheal Tulliver was of the opinion that one had to see goods before one bought them, an option rarely open to an inhabitant of the islands as Sarah was intent on pointing out. The rest of the Hollywood set had dispersed; even Derwell had given up on convincing Sarah that it might be a nice night for a stroll. Her insistence that she had to work had been very convincing; so convincing that Jake had given up on the idea himself. The actor had found a more amenable audience in two of the Reverend's flock who had followed the pastor and Todd Harcourt into the bar a short while before. Kopanski was still holding forth, but this time to a group of merchant seamen who had turned out to be Polish. His native tongue sounded as strangled as his English, but the sailors seemed to be nodding in all the right places. Winter had joined Harcourt and the Reverend at the bar, and Mordecai - Cutter caught sight of him at the table his potential partner was indicating, and a slow grin spread itself over the pilot's face. Looked like the locals had found a willing victim to fleece. Too bad Louie wasn't playing tonight, or Hollywood would end up owing more than a hotel bill or two. But then, Louie did have other things on his mind right now ...
"Okay, Holo. Deal me in. Tonight might just be my lucky night."
He flicked the light switch with a practised hand, filling the room with the warmth of the shaded bulb, and she slipped past him in a swirl of fabric. A glance at the dressing table revealed everything laid out as before; the scatter of make-up below the mirror, the orchid lying pale and golden against the dark glass of the bottled wine. She smiled distantly, lifting the flower to catch its elusive scent. He closed the door behind him with a discreet gesture, moving to join her so that they studied each other's reflection in the tilted mirror.
"I am sent a lot of flowers" she murmured. "I never know what to do with them. But the wine ..." She looked back over her shoulder, studying his face with interest. "Most men send me champagne."
He smiled, reaching for the opened bottle, lifting it to examine the label with an expert eye. "Red wine from Bordeaux, for a lady a long way from home."
She laughed, no longer sad at the thought. "Louie," she announced, turning to face him with a strange look in her eye, "it has been a long time since I have been looked at as you have looked at me tonight."
His face expressed surprise as he filled the glasses on the dresser. She moved closer, laying a hand to his shoulder, the better to emphasise her point.
"It is true," she insisted. "For so long now I have been a commodity. An object to be bought and sold. Men have tried to use me for their own gain. For their self esteem. For their status and the furtherance of their own desires. Always," she continued forcefully, catching his hand so that he lowered the bottle to the tray and relinquished his hold on it, "I am the star, who can open doors, make money, introduce others to the right people. Never am I myself. But tonight - tonight you have reminded me that I am also a woman. And I find I like the feeling."
His arm slipped naturally around her, drawing their closeness into intimacy. "You should always remember you are a woman," he murmured. "For you are a very beautiful one."
She searched his eyes for the lie and did not find it. So she leaned into the curve of his embrace and, with the slightest of smiles, he bent his head to hers.
She melted into the kiss with an enthusiasm he wasn't expecting. The snatched moment became a prolonged exchange, and when they finally parted it was with a shared understanding of something started that neither wanted to stop.
"You know Louie," she breathed, reaching her hands inside his jacket to ease it from his shoulders, "I don't think it would hurt the wine to let it breathe a little longer ..."
"I'll meet your twenty, and I'll raise you another ten."
The sound of notes rustling on the table brought Cutter back to the present with a wry grimace. He'd been thinking of another game, one in which he'd been gambling, not for money, but for his life. He'd been lucky that night. Luckier than he was currently being. He was down twenty bucks, and his only consolation was that Mordecai was down a few dollars more. The production assistant seemed unconcerned with his losses. He played with studied intensity, as though it were something he did often. In fact his whole demeanour spoke of the dedicated gambler, from the way he handled the pack while he was dealing, to his thoughtful consideration of every card.
Cutter frowned as he considered his hand. He was sitting on a pair of aces, but he didn't know what Holo was holding, and Mordecai had thrown out a king on his last discard. That either meant he had a great hand, or that, despite his obvious practice, he was a lousy poker player.
"I'll see your ten, and raise you fifteen," the pilot finally announced. Behind him Jack barked twice in agreement, and the American allowed a slow smile to spread onto his face. Perhaps this wasn't going to be so bad after all ...
The flare of the light was answered by the sweetness of the cigarette smoke. Languidly she reached out and plucked it from his lips, turning her head against his shoulder to savour the taste of it.
"You know, in Hollywood I would have killed for French cigarettes."
He laughed, retrieving the fragile tube to taste, along with the fragrant tobacco, the remnants of her lipstick.
"Surely," he suggested teasingly, "this is much more rewarding than murder."
"Mmmm." She moved against him like a cat savouring the sunlight, her skin warm and smooth as silk. "Much." Her hand was a sweep of pleasure that lingered teasingly on its upwards journey before fingers tangled in the silk at his throat. "I shall not be recommending this hotel to my friends, you know."
"No?"
"No. I am going to keep this particular room service all to myself ..."
He smiled in the semidarkness and tightened his embrace, fingers curled around the sleekness of her hip, her weight resting on his arm.
"I shall take that as a compliment."
"Do. It was meant as one." She released her grip on the silk to retrieve the cigarette and blew a contemplative cloud of smoke out into the dimness of the room. Then she lifted herself up and planted warm lips briefly on his own.
"You were right about the practice," she murmured, and he pulled her down and returned the kiss with pleasure.
"All duets take two voices. You are delicious Yvette. It helps."
"Don't tell me," she laughed. "Like a good wine I've improved with age. And speaking of wine ..."
"Mmm. It would be a pity to waste it."
She slipped from the bed to stretch languidly, her nakedness a gleam in the shaft of moonlight that penetrated the half closed shutters. He savoured the sight, senses surfeited with the excesses of lovemaking, yet still able to appreciate the animal grace of her movements. She retrieved the waiting wine with a careful hand, and brought the bottle back with the glasses to rest it on the floor at the side of the bed.
"Your health," she offered as he took the glass, and downed the scarlet liquid with one long swallow, head back, her hair a flaming match to the darkened wine.
"Long life," he returned, unaware of the irony of the salute as he followed suit. The savour of the wine was tainted, but it slipped his mind as she slid against him again, sharing the scent of the grape with scarlet washed lips pressed against his.
They drank, and shared the pleasure, a slow sensuous indulgence of flesh and wine, gentled by the aftermath of passion. Neither noticed the subtle warning in the wine's bouquet, mingled as it was with other tastes and other scents. When the bottle was empty they choose to finally take that walk in the moonlight; they were laughing as they made their way down the outer stairs ...
I play poker for pleasure, not for gain, although there have been times when more than just my fortune depended on the turn of a card. They're funny things, the forces of fate. A high roller can be reduced to shreds in a moment of bad luck, and the biggest loser ever can still break even in the game of life. I'm not sure if I believe in guardian angels, but I still trust to luck if the moment demands it. I've been let down once or twice, but most of the time the dice roll in my direction. Sometimes I'm luckier than I've a right to expect. It makes you wonder if you can ever escape your destiny, or even if you would want to. The events of that night were precipitated by things over which we on Boragora had no control, happenings engraved into the books of fate weeks before they collided on our little island. But I know that if I had had a choice, one chance to redirect the threads that were woven into the pattern of that evening, then I still would have failed to prevent the tragedy that befell us. Only chance, and perhaps a guardian angel or two, prevented it from being far, far worse ...
"How about a breath of air, Sarah?"
She looked up to find Jake standing behind her, a warm grin on his face. He had abandoned the game after he had recovered his earlier losses, and, finding Sarah pensively alone, had decided that she needed some company.
"Why not?" she agreed, glancing round the bar. The evening was well advanced, the customers' mood mellow and subdued. Many had already left, ready for early starts and work in the morning, but the sailors on leave, some of the guests, and a few of the late night regulars were keeping a steady flow of business over the bar. She would scarcely be missed from that company.
They walked out onto the verandah, where Corky sat with Jack in his lap, watching the stars. Sarah made no protest as Jake wrapped a brotherly arm around her, and for a while they did nothing but share the silence of the night.
"Sarah - " Jake began, but was interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps along the wooden surface behind them.
Miss Wentworth had a worried look about her. "Excuse me," she asked in a slightly agitated voice, "have you seen Mademoiselle Carlin?"
"No," Cutter answered, questioning the woman at his side with a look. She shook her head.
"Not since earlier this evening. Louie took her in for dinner. Is there a problem?"
Liza Wentworth sighed. "I don't know. I called in, on my way to bed, to see if she was all right. The room was empty - and I found this on the floor under the dresser."
She produced a small waxed paper tub, the kind of thing doctors use to package pills.
"Her prescription," the woman explained. "Tablets to help her sleep. She doesn't take them very often. This was full this morning."
"Full?" Cutter took the box from her agitated hands and examined it. It had a powdery, clinical smell in its empty depths.
"Maybe she knocked it over," Sarah suggested. "Scattered the pills on the floor."
"I - don't think so."
Jake frowned, trying to decide whether an empty box of sleeping tablets counted as an emergency or not. If the box had indeed been full than the contents could well have made a lethal dose, perhaps several times over. But Yvette Carlin had not struck him as the kind of woman to take her own life. She'd seemed quite happy after Bon Chance had charmed her out of her room ... He grinned suddenly.
"I don't think we have to worry," he announced, sharing the grin with his company. "Not unless Louie's losing his touch."
Sarah picked up the implications of his remark and gave him an exasperated frown. "Jake," she scolded, "surely you don't think ..."
He was saved from having to respond by the sound of laughter drifting up from the quayside. Yvette Carlin herself, leaning heavily on Bon Chance's shoulder as the two of them half walked, half staggered towards the Monkey Bar.
"Well." Miss Wentworth reacted indignantly at the sight. "Really!"
Cutter laughed softly. "What did I tell you?" he asked, unsure if he were laughing at Louie and his companion, or the indignant expressions on Sarah and Miss Wentworth's faces.
"I don't want to sleep," Yvette was saying in a slurred voice as they came close enough to hear. "I want to dance!"
She threw her arms wide as she said it, overbalancing so that he reached to catch her as she fell. She hung there for a moment, then sighed.
"All right," she surrendered in English, throwing her arms around his neck and regaining her feet. "Take me where you will."
He was trying not to laugh, and made no effort to disentangle himself. "Yvette," he cajoled, his own voice a slur in the moonlight, "you will find it easier if you take one step at a time, mm?"
"Oui!" she laughed, throwing back her head.
The shot was a crack of thunder that cut through the air seemingly from nowhere. Yvette Carlin's laugh was cut short with a startled gurgle of pain. Her body jerked once, then went limp, hanging in her companion's embrace like a discarded rag doll.
Liza Wentworth screamed.
Cutter galvanised into action as soon as the sound of the gunshot had registered, and he hurtled into the dark towards the source of the attack, yelling behind him as he went. "Corky, get the gendarmes!"
Corky went one way, Jack the other, after his master. Sarah hesitated, glancing at the other woman's glazed expression, but others were coming out of the bar, drawn by the sound of the scream, and she ran the short distance to Bon Chance's side, trying to ignore the crash of vegetation that echoed in the darkness from the direction of Jake's pursuit.
The waif of Paris was dead. She hung head back, eyes glazed, in Louie's arms, her blood a warm cascade over his hands, her hair dulled by the scarlet of it. He was staring at her, seemingly unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"Yvette?" he was questioning, then, more desperately, "Yvette!"
Sarah wasn't quite sure what to do. She was so used to Louie being always confidently in control that his fuddled uncertainty was terrifying. She wasn't even sure that he realised what was going on. Steeling herself she put a hand to his shoulder.
"Louie," she tried tentatively. "Are you all right?"
He looked at her slowly, his eyes fighting to focus, and Sarah felt a sudden flare of anger. He was drunk. They'd both been drunk. So drunk that not even the shock of her sudden death had snapped him out of it.
"Sarah?" He recognised her with an effort. She frowned, her annoyance temporarily taking precedence over any other emotion.
"Louie," she hissed. "Either pull yourself together, or put her down and get yourself out of here!"
The barb sank home. He glanced behind her, at the gaggle of people coming out of the bar, and cold realisation swept across his face.
"Oh mon dieu," he breathed, closing his eyes briefly. "It is all right, Sarah. I will take her in."
He gathered the limp form up into his arms and with a remarkable effort of will he carried her back into the hotel with a steady step, seemingly oblivious to the shocked reactions of his curious customers. Sarah followed him, half expecting him to stumble at the last minute. She heard Kopanski, somewhere in the crowd, almost screaming in an unintelligible mixture of Polish and broken English, and then Corky was beside her, and the gendarmes were clearing the gathering back, allowing Bon Chance to lay his burden on the billiard table and Gushie to close the shutters behind them.
When Cutter reached his quarry he expected the man to resist him, to put up some kind of a struggle; maybe even run. But instead he just crouched there, staring into the night as though paralysed. Jake carefully disentangled the weapon, a light .22 hunting rifle, from nerveless fingers and dragged the man to his feet. It was Derwell, and he was shaking.
"I didn't mean - I didn't want - oh God," he muttered, "I only wanted to scare them! It was all so simple, why did she have to - I thought she'd - why did he - oh God." He stared at his captor in stunned disbelief, the scent of whisky clear on his breath. "What did he have that I didn't?" he demanded suddenly, as though seeing Cutter for the first time.
"Come on," the pilot growled in disgust. He'd just seen this man commit cold blooded murder, and he was in no mood for excuses, particularly self pitying ones. He dragged the actor back to the village, where a curious crowd had gathered outside the entrance to the bar.
In the shuttered room Bon Chance was staring at his hands with an intensity that Sarah found disturbing. He was obviously in no fit state to even think about taking control of the situation.
"Louie," she suggested, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice, "why don't you go and clean up? Corky and I can cope here."
He started at the sound of her voice, nodded a tired acquiescence. "Oui," he muttered distractedly. "I am sorry Sarah, I'm so tired ..."
"Of course you are," she humoured him, guiding him out of the door and towards the stairs. A quick shake of her head dissuaded the approach of the gendarme at the door, and she watched him start the long climb to the second floor.
"I hope he makes it," she muttered to Gushie with more venom than perhaps she intended. He stared back at her in some surprise.
Before he could say anything, however, Cutter appeared in the doorway, dragging Derwell after him.
"Here," he said, practically throwing the man at the constable's feet. "Lock him up somewhere. Anywhere."
He made it as far as the inner door to his suite. The world had begun to spin around him, turning blurred and distant. He leant on the door, and the latch gave way, spilling him into the room and against a chair. He made a half hearted effort to rise, but he had neither the strength nor the desire to regain his feet. Instead he rested a heavy head against the coolness of the wood and watched the world tumble away from him. It didn't seem to matter any more. Nothing mattered any more. He was falling, smothered in darkness and the weight of the air.
Oblivion, when it came, was a welcome release.
The gendarmes took Derwell away, incarcerating him in the tiny lockup in the Monkey Bar's cellar. Jake joined Corky in the billiard room while Sarah enquired after Miss Wentworth, much relieved to find that someone had the sense to take her to bed.
"Where's Louie?" Cutter questioned when she reappeared. He was helping the mechanic cover up the still form of Yvette Carlin, laying a clean white cloth over her. Her face still carried the faintly surprised look with which she died. He reached over and gently closed her eyes.
"He's upstairs," Sarah was saying in answer to the question. "That's if he didn't collapse on the landing," she added pointedly.
"What?"
She grimaced her anger at the wall. "He was drunk, Jake," she explained tightly. "Stinking drunk. I'm not even certain he recognised me. I've never seen him like that."
Cutter came back around the table to stare at her in incomprehension. "Louie?" he questioned. "That drunk?"
"Never," Gushie denied from the doorway. "Louie can take his liquor better than any man I know - besides," he grimaced at the thought. "He would have been getting her drunk - not himself."
"She was pretty far gone," Corky interjected. "I mean - before she was shot."
"I know what I saw," Sarah insisted. "And he was drunk. Wasn't he, Jack?"
Jack barked once. A single sharp denial that turned all four heads towards him in surprise. Frowning, Jake thrust his hands into his pockets, and what he found there made his face drain of colour.
"Oh my God," he realised, lifting the waxed paper tub into the light. "Gushie - did Louie take any wine up to her room before they had dinner?"
"Yes." The answer was certain. "A bottle of Bordeaux. He opened it down here so that it would have time to breathe. Why?"
The blond pilot turned the box in his hand thoughtfully. "I hope to God I'm wrong," he muttered, "but its the only explanation. Gushie - get some coffee going. As strong as you can make it. Bring it up to
Louie's room as soon as it's ready, and you'd better get one of the gendarmes to watch mademoiselle here. If I'm right, Louie's going to need all the help he can get."
"I don't understand." Sarah caught at Cutter's arm as he made to move past her. He paused to give her a worried look.
"Sarah," he questioned softly. "You remember that night you Micky Finned Johnny Kimble?"
"Yes," she nodded, not seeing the connection.
"And you remember how difficult it was to wake him up afterwards because you'd given him an overdose?"
"Yes."
"Well, that stuff you used - even in quantity its pretty mild, isn't it?"
"Sure - guaranteed fast acting and few side effects. I wasn't trying to poison him, you know."
He smiled grimly. "I know. These," he thrust the empty box into her hands, "aren't quite so considerate. Especially if someone uses them to spike a bottle of wine. Sarah - drugs and alcohol can be dangerous. Together they can be lethal."
Awareness dawned in her eyes, to be replaced with horror. "Oh no - " she murmured. "Jake - "
He was gone, climbing the stairs two at a time, Corky and Jack at his heels. She followed more slowly, the box in her hands crushed between unheeding fingers. She'd been angry, jumping to conclusions about the state the Frenchman had been in, wanting him out of the way. What if her indignation had blinded her to his true state? What if she'd sent him away only to - she didn't want to complete that thought, shook it out of her head with determination.
At the upper landing she paused, and, wanting Jake to be wrong, slipped into the actress's abandoned room, seeking some sign to reassure her. Instead she found proof positive, the empty bottle on the dresser layered at the base with a white residue, the scented dregs in the glasses tainted with the faintest trace of bitterness.
"Oh Louie," she whispered, her breath tight with horror. "Why didn't you notice? You, of all people, should have noticed."
She let the crumpled box drop from her hands to lie, unnoticed, on the dresser, and stumbled from the room. The door to Bon Chance's suite was open, but she had no heart to go in. She put her back against the wall and, putting her head in her hands, she prayed that Jake would not be too late.
Bon Chance Louie was a crumpled white heap at the foot of the easy chair, his face pale and his breathing ominously shallow. Jake Cutter's heart sank at the sight.
"What - what do we do, Jake?" Corky asked behind him. The pilot bit his bottom lip, uncertain that there was anything they could do. Still, if they didn't try something ...
"We wake him up, I suppose. Then we keep him awake until it works its way out of his system."
"How?"
"I don't know." Cutter's look met the naked despair in his mechanic's eyes; finding there an echo of his own uncertainty. "Let's get by one thing at a time. If we can wake him up he might be able to suggest something."
Together they lifted the unconscious form into the waiting chair. Corky stared down at his hands as he relinquished his hold; they were covered in blood. Bon Chance himself was soaked with it. Her blood. A dark stain that marred the pristine whiteness of his suit like spilled wine.
"Come on Louie." Cutter knelt at the man's side, trying to raise some reaction from his friend with a mixture of shaking his shoulder and slapping his face. "Come on. Wake up, damn you."
A few moments and he was rewarded with the barest of groans. Jake allowed the briefest of smiles to creep onto his face.
"Hu-rah," he breathed. "Corky - get me some water will you, and - I know." Inspiration struck him with the relief of finding he might not have been too late after all. "Forget the water. Go check the shower tank. Make sure it's cold."
"What?" His mechanic stared at him in astonishment.
"You heard me. Go fill the shower tank with cold water. And hurry!"
"Uh - sure, Jake. Anything you say."
He disappeared back onto the landing, leaving his compatriot to concentrate on rousing his friend from his drugged sleep. He was halfway down the hall when he remembered. Jake had pulled the shower trick on him once, one time when he'd gone on a three day drunk in Nanking. He didn't remember that much about it now, but it had sure worked at the time. He'd even been sober enough to fix the fighter that Jake was due to fly that day. Of course, he'd only been drunk at the time ...
Sarah had finally found the courage that had deserted her. She slipped into the room as Corky left it, to find Cutter trying to coax Bon Chance back into the land of the living. He wasn't having that much success.
"Talk to me Louie. Come on. Talk to me dammit." The words were muttered through clenched teeth, and punctuated a series of open handed blows to the man's face. She drew in a breath at the savagery of their application.
"Jake," she pleaded, "is that necessary?"
"Yes," he answered without turning round. "We have to wake him up. He has to fight it. I can't do it for him."
"Avant," Louie's voice was a muttered, distant protest that spilled from disinterested lips. "Laissez moi ..."
"Oh no I won't," his tormentor almost yelled in delight. "Louie, listen to me. Are you listening?" He shook the man's shoulder again, and Bon Chance forced half an eye open to nod the barest confirmation.
"Good. Now - you mustn't go back to sleep. Mustn't! Understand? You've been drugged - poisoned. You have to fight it."
"Fight ...?" The message seemed to have penetrated. With an effort the Frenchman opened his eyes to stare unfocused at Jake Cutter's face.
"Yeah. Fight it. Give me hand will you Sarah - I want to get him into the bathroom."
"Where?" He grinned, slipping an arm under his friend's unresisting shoulder and dragging him to his feet. "The bathroom. A little trick the army taught me. You'll see."
As owner and manager of the Monkey Bar hotel, Bon Chance had the privilege of a private bathroom in his suite - actually a tiny cubicle that might have been mistaken for a closet in the bedroom, containing a panelled shower and a wooden unit that supported an enamelled washbasin. It was one of only two private bathrooms in the hotel, the other being a much grander affair leading off the best suite. Everyone else made do with the shared rooms, one upstairs (two tubs and a shower) and one downstairs (one tub and two showers) that lay at the back of the building. The plumbing, of which the hotel was justly proud, was supplied by three tanks in the roof; tanks that were, in turn, fed from the piped water that ran from a freshwater spring somewhere in the island's interior. One tank was for hot water, heated by an immersion coil with power from the generator. The second was for cold - ice cold when it arrived, insulated from tropical sun by its underground journey. The third was the so called 'shower tank', an ingenious method of mixing the two to provide an acceptable temperature for the showers and tubs. Theoretically it was supposed to maintain a constant heat throughout the day, but, owing to the vagaries of the generator and the fact that the Clipper passengers tended to hog the hot water tank, most of the time the shower water left for the more permanent residents of the hotel was lukewarm. This couldn't really be called a problem; Boragora's normal climate made even a tepid dowsing a refreshing relief, and by the end of a long day the tank was usually empty. On this particular evening it was nearly bone dry and it could have taken Corky only a few moments to reset the sluice and refill it with fresh water from the cold tank.
Cutter half dragged, half led his semiconscious friend over to the open cubicle, letting him lean on the wall as he turned back to the woman who hovered anxiously beside them.
"Sarah," he instructed briskly, "go downstairs and put some salt in a glass for me, will you?"
The unexpectedness of the request threw her for a moment. "Salt?"
"Uh-huh. Couple of spoonfuls should do it. Top it up with Perrier, stir in some vinegar from the pickles, and add - I don't know - some Worcester sauce and a raw egg if you can find one."
"Jake!" Her voice was disbelieving. "That's disgusting!"
"I know. That's the idea." He threw his cap on the bed and slipped out of his jacket in a distracted manner. "Sarah," he insisted when she stayed there and stared at him. "The more of that lethal mixture we can get out of his system the better, right? So make me up something to make him sick - and move it!"
She moved, as much because of the tome of his voice, as for the urgency of the errand.
"Sorry Louie." Cutter turned back to his patient with a jaunty grin that fell as quickly as it was assumed. Bon Chance was huddled against the wall, eyes closed, breathing in long gasps with too much space between them. "Louie!"
There was no answer. Swallowing a sudden dryness in his throat the American seized his friend by the shoulders and lifted him bodily into the shower space. Then, without time to have second thoughts, he reached up and twisted the controlling tap hard over.
The stream of ice-cold water took the Frenchman full in the face. He gasped, a shocked, startled reaction that jerked his eyes wide. Instinct backed him away, seeking escape from the tortuous impact. A strong arm held him there.
"Jake," Louie growled after a moment or two, his voice noticeably stronger. "I think I am going to kill you."
"Sure." The pilot grinned at his expression. "Feeling better?"
The man grimaced at the question, leaning into the curve of his companion's arm so that the stream of water was a numbing weight over the back of his neck.
"I will let you know," he muttered, then added, almost absently, "when I have seen the bill for the suit."
Cutter allowed himself a wry smile. So long as Bon Chance kept fighting it he had a good chance of making it. Depending, of course, on just how deadly that cocktail had been.
"Sue me for it," he suggested, shivering under the impact of the ice-cold water as it ran across his shoulders. "You know," he continued conversationally, "you'll have to widen your shower. It's not large enough for two in here."
"That," the Frenchman announced, somewhere finding the strength to straighten up enough to slip out of his jacket, "is the general idea, mon ami." The effort was too much. He leaned back against the wall of the cubicle as the world started to spin away again.
"You mean - oh." Jake picked up the implication of the remark as he rescued the jacket from nerveless fingers and tossed it out of the cubicle. "I always knew the French were an inventive race."
"Let me know," Louie murmured, finding each word a drain on his strength, "and I will let you try it sometime."
"Is that before, or after you kill me?" The American fought to keep his concern from his voice. He had to keep the man talking, stop him from slipping back into the depths of sleep. He wasn't certain if he could wake him up a second time.
"Business before pleasure." The words were a slur of barely breathed sounds and he flinched Cutter lifted him back into the icy stream.
"Stick with it Louie," Jake implored. "Tell me - tell me about Yvette. Why would anyone want to kill her?"
"Yvette?" Even thinking was becoming an effort. His world had narrowed down to the insistent impact of the shower and the tight grip of his tormentor. Cutter's voice was a nagging persistence that wouldn't go away, dragging him reluctantly from the embrace of oblivion. It would be so easy to let go, to surrender to it ...
"Louie!" Jake hit him, hard, an open handed blow to the cheek that pulled him sharply from the edge of nothingness. "Talk to me, dammit!"
Somewhere in the depths of the fog that had engulfed him, Bon Chance responded to the attack with a flare of anger. Anger that lifted him back to an awareness of his friend's face, written with sudden fear. It was that, more than anything, that fuelled the spark of fury that had taken hold of him. Fury to direct, not out at his torturer, but inwards, at himself. Anger that he should give in so easily, a burning determination that gave him strength to fight.
"Talk to you." His voice was strained. "About Yvette."
"Yeah." Cutter couldn't keep the relief out of his voice. For one terrifying second he'd thought that all his effort had been in vain.
"She had - so much to live for." Louie closed his eyes and turned his face into the falling water, letting the icy touch drive the sleep from his mind.
"Jake?" Sarah's voice queried from the room beyond, then added as she reached the doorway, "What the ...?"
"Did you get what I asked," the pilot demanded, and she held out the glass, her eyes doubtful.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she questioned, not quite sure what to make of the sight of the two of them in the shower. "I mean - Corky's bringing the coffee up, and ..."
"I'm sure." Jake reached out to relieve her of the concoction. "How about you, Louie?"
Bon Chance opened his eyes and stared distantly at Sarah's worried face. "Whatever you say, mon ami," he murmured finally. "Don't frown at me, cherie. It doesn't suit you."
She bit her bottom lip at the effort in his voice, wanting to help, still unable to forgive herself for how she had sent him away. Cutter frowned at her hesitation. The next few minutes were going to be unpleasant ones and, while knowing she wanted to assist, he felt that Louie would want as few witnesses as possible.
"Get us some clean towels will you?" he suggested, "and get Corky to fetch me something dry. We can't stand under the shower all night."
For some reason that struck Bon Chance as being funny. He leant into the support of his friend's arm and started to laugh. "Why not?" he questioned. "Don't two grown men share a shower fully dressed every day? The only thing to worry about would be hearing Gushie complain that there was no water for the guests in the morning."
Cutter smothered a wry grin, speeding Sarah on her way with a jerk of his head. "Do you know," he remarked, "that's the longest sentence you've managed to put together since I woke you up?"
"Oui?" Louie grinned faintly, swept by another wave of dizziness. "Perhaps there is hope for me yet, n'est-ce pas?"
"Drink this," his companion ordered, "and we'll see."
Afterwards, when Bon Chance was a huddle of wretchedness crouched in the bottom of his shower, Cutter wrapped a concerned arm around his shoulders and reached to shut off the shower tap. The force of the water had died to a gentle trickle as the tank had emptied, and his action simply silenced the insistent drip of the last few drops as they gathered in the shower head.
"Louie?" he murmured gently, uncertain of what to say.
"Jake Cutter - " Bon Chance's voice was a harsh effort of sound. "I am not going to kill you. I am going to save you for something much worse ..."
The smile cracked across the American's face with involuntary reaction. Relief was only part of it. There was tension in there too, a tight awareness of a long night yet to come.
"Sarah!" he called over his shoulder, suddenly aware that he was shivering almost as much as the man in his arms. "Where are those towels!"
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