“You mean you want me to tell you about my father,” Dylan said cynically, refilling his wine glass.
“No,” she said patiently. “Your father was never my type. I was never big on muscle-bound action heroes. I’m interested in you.”
“More of your social work?” There was an unpleasant sneer on his mouth. “There’s not much to tell. I was a poor little rich boy. My parents weren’t around much, but they made up for it by buying me anything my heart desired.”
“They must be frantic.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” He’d cleared his plate in record time and was looking longingly at hers. “They don’t know where I am and they don’t give a damn. Last time I saw them they told me not to come back.”
“A lot of parents say that in the heat of the moment. I’m sure they’ve regretted that a thousand times.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. My mother’s remarried and living in Oregon and her new husband hates me. She’s too busy with her aging hippie lifestyle to even think about me. And my father’s got a coke habit, a seventeen-year-old girlfriend and a twenty-three-year old wife, not to mention triplets born by a surrogate who moved into the household as well. They don’t want me anywhere around upsetting the babies.”
“I’m sure . . .”
“No. You’re not sure of anything. They don’t want me, I don’t want them. I just wish they’d kept sending me money, but that dried up a few months before I ended up in the mountains.”
She didn’t bother arguing. Either the wine or the food or both had cast a surprisingly relaxed glow over the room. “How long were you up there?”
“Six months. It was only supposed to be a week or two, except that my parents refused to pay the ransom. You want the rest of that?” He pointed toward her dinner.
It took her a moment. “No, you take it,” she said, pushing the plate toward him. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m really hungry.”
“You know what I mean. How do you know they refused?”
“Because they told me. They were going to kill me, but MacGowan intervened. Told them my parents might change their minds. He also said I could be used for propaganda, and they decided to wait a few weeks until the big jefe showed up. Fortunately we got out of there before my time ran out.”
He seemed amazingly unconcerned about his close call. Beth had the feeling she ought to be weeping for him, but the good will the wine had cast settled over her and she smiled at him a little woozily. She was already tipsy, she thought, on one glass of wine. Must be the result of the stress of the last few days. “Who’s the big jefe?”
“Some dude named the Alcista. He’s the one who decides who lives and who dies. MacGowan knows all about him – apparently he was sent down here to kill the dude, but got caught before he could do it.” Dylan yawned.
“Alcista? Sounds like a girl’s name.”
Dylan looked at her with annoyance. “It means The Bull, and you don’t want to know why he’s called that.”
“The Bull? I remember stories about someone named the Bull.” Beth shivered. “He’s not our concern any more. I’m more worried about you. What will happen when MacGowan brings you back home? Will your parents pay up?” She was so damned sleepy she wasn’t sure she even had the energy to put the tray back outside the door. The hell with it. No, MacGowan would say “fuck it.” Let him get rid of the dishes when he bothered to get his ass back there.
“He’ll get the money,” Dylan said, stumbling back toward his bed. “You know MacGowan.”
She didn’t know MacGowan. Not at all. She stood up, and suddenly the room began to spin, and she reached her hands out to the table to steady herself. It wasn’t there. She felt herself begin to fall, and she tried to cry out, but Dylan was lying across the bed, passed out, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it that far. She went down in a crash of dishes as everything went black.
MacGowan ate steak. He ate the biggest, rarest piece of prime beef he could find and he didn’t feel a moment’s guilt. Tomas was going to have the paperwork ready for him in a couple of hours, and he’d be back at the hotel not long after midnight, check on his charges, and then see whether the scrawny desk clerk could find him a blonde to while away a few hours. While Beth slept upstairs, safe and untouched in the narrow bed he wasn’t going to risk sharing with her.
He should never have kissed her. He still wasn’t sure why he had, but in the end it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to do it again.
He’d stashed the priest’s cassock in an alleyway near the dockside hotel, making his way through the dark city streets like the shadow he’d once been. He wondered if Dylan was dumb enough to try to make a pass at Sister Beth. She’d smack him down soon enough – if she could keep MacGowan in his place then a sulky teenager would be child’s play. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t smack the hell out of the brat if he tried, but chances were Beth wouldn’t rat on him. She was that kind of woman.
A good woman. God preserve him from good women. Right now he needed a bad woman. Someone lowdown and nasty and willing to do just what he wanted.
The freighter was going to take six days crossing the Atlantic, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Six days holed up with her. Hell, maybe he could put them on a separate boat. No, he couldn’t afford to do that – he had to see them back to safety and a Nigerian freighter wasn’t exactly the Queen Mary.
He paid his bill with the last of the money he’d won off the rebels. Half the people he’d played poker with were now dead, at his own hands. He wasn’t a sentimental man, he couldn’t afford to be. He stared at the crumpled bills on the table for a moment, then headed out into the cool night air of the city.
It was strange, smelling of dust and diesel and a handful of different foods. It was the smell of choice, the smell of freedom, and he couldn’t get enough of it.
Tomas had finished the work, and the papers were impeccable. He looked at Beth’s passport photo and wondered where the hell Tomas had found the original. She was looking polished, made-up, clean and shiny, and untouchable. Hell, she was still untouchable. Dylan’s photo showed a younger kid, but that was okay – Tomas had adjusted the date on the passport to reflect it. He had the cash as well, a combination of currencies that would keep them until they reached Spain.