Cat In A Topaz Tango

Ciao Ciao Ciao

Max awoke, alive and well.

What do you know?

He awoke with Revienne draped over him, asleep and looking like a Botticelli angel. Of perhaps a couple dozen positions he could recall at this point, he was only physically capable of one or two so far. Apparently they’d sufficed.

He felt . . . mahvelous. Rested. Relaxed. He’d managed to satisfy this gorgeous woman with two game legs and a memory that couldn’t access High School Seduction One, much less the Kama-sutra.

He supposed, on reflection, that he owed an awful lot of that to her. As he owed his very survival. He felt the double afterglow of fulfillment and escaping mortal danger.

Not that he could trust her any more than before.

Still. He caressed her tousled yellow hair, kissed her pale temple.

Temple. The word gave him a twinge of something. Guilt?

Revienne stirred.

“I’m going to have to buy you clothes today,” he murmured into her Venus-pink ear. “I sorta hate to do that.”

“Sorta?”

“I’m reluctant to do that right now.”

She stretched, using him as a bed. “We could stay like this for weeks, couldn’t we?”

“Weeks,” he whispered back. “I’d be getting stronger every day. You wouldn’t have to work solo to satisfy me. I’d satisfy you every day from Sunday.”

“’Every day is nice, but why ‘from Sunday’? I do Sundays, Mr. Randolph. You can come with me after to church, to sanctify us.”

He gazed into her changeable gray-green eyes. “You have no sense of sin?”

“Over this? No. Do you?”

He did a quick examination of conscience. Where had that phrase come from? Ireland, probably, and the Church. He was aware of bitter bile rising from his gut. Ireland. The Church. Examination of conscience. He knew Revienne the psychiatrist could make hay of these phrases if she knew their effect on him.

An unwelcome thought, or maybe emotion, pricked his conscience. “You mean I could have been cheating just now, cheating on an unremembered woman?”

Her fingertips stroked his frown lines. “A man like you must have at least one woman somewhere. Cheating would be a way of life.”

“No. I can’t tolerate liars.” He frowned. “If there is such a woman, I’ll have to find her and find out if she and I can fall in love again.”

“And . . . this, you’d confess it?”

“Yes. If she asked.”

“And if you did confess?”

“If I’d been in love with her, she’d understand.”

He shook away the thought of this hypothetical woman. “What did you mean, ‘a man like me’?”

“Rich, clever, with enemies. Sexy even flat on his back with two broken legs.”

He shut his eyes. He was more than the sum of all those enviable things, flattering as the last evaluation had been.

If he’d been rich and powerful, as she’d assumed, his current situation had stripped any pride he’d taken in that anyway. He’d needed this encounter. Desperately. Needed her. A woman’s touch, and what passed for her love. He’d been wounded in body and mind.

He would not apologize to anyone for the human connection and bliss and self-confidence he’d gotten from her this past night, whatever she was, whether her intentions toward him were for good or ill. Why did he have to have this suspicious core? Why couldn’t he take anyone or any act at face value? He must be a very lonely man. Rich, yes. And with that came certain kinds of power, probably overrated.

He had the right instincts. Revienne had loved the expensive room service feast. Or had she loved his thoughtfulness, his thinking of her? That was free. That cost nothing but caring for another.

He looked at her again, remembering the moment of mutual orgasm. Thinking of hers, not his. How cool it was to be part of it, like he was rediscovering sex. Rediscovering himself.

She opened her eyes as his fingers stroked her brow. Caught him unawares.

“You are a very strange man, Mr. Randolph. You almost look right now as if you loved me.”

“This is only a situational liaison,” he said, smiling.

“Exactly what I’d call it, professionally. We are two, mostly healthy, heterosexual individuals forced by danger into close quarters. It is only natural that our will to live should manifest itself in an overwhelming attraction and sex. Classic.”

“I’m glad you didn’t say ‘underwhelming sex.’ Classic feels very good.”

“Yes,” she said. “It does. Are you still determined to be rid of me right away?”

“What about your sexual liaisons? A woman like you wouldn’t sleep alone unless she wanted to.”

“And what is ‘a woman like me’?”

“Intelligent, beautiful, sophisticated, compassionate.”

Her smile faded. She bit her lip on his last word. “You think this was a pity fuck.”

“Where’d you hear that phrase?”

“I’ve treated Americans before.”

“In bed?”

“Americans are not usually such a treat in bed. Nor Irishmen.”

“Based on your wide reading, or personal observation?”

“You think I’d tell a monogamous prig like you?”

“We don’t know for sure that I’m that warped. Check it out.”

“Again?”

She did.

He sat in the sleek Italian chair at the Hugo Boss Black collection shop in the Jamoli department store. This was where he’d bought his stressed champagne suede thigh-long jacket, to go with his slightly glossy gray casual pants and black silk T-shirt. The army-green silk shirt and toffee tie were in the Bally duffle bag at his feet. He’d been attracted to black, so avoided it. Might be a giveaway.

He still carried the cane, more as a weapon than a crutch. Necessity and the mountain had made a molehill of the process of rebuilding his leg muscles. He’d not be doing acrobatics for some time, but they were definitely in his future, he thought with some regret as Revienne came out from the dressing room wearing a Hugo Boss Black silk suit. The cut and sheen were fabulous, but it wasn’t pink, like her ruined one. Only Parisian designers tried something as surprising as that. The Swiss liked the colors of money, muted tones that whispered of great wealth.

This suit was a mossy mocha shade that made her gray eyes look almost green and her blond hair like saffron silk. It was belted, with a short, hip-hugging peplum and a neckline open to four inches above the belt. There was a large black-and-white photo of a runway model wearing it with nothing underneath, and not much of anything to show for so much exposure.

Revienne had chosen a dull violet silk T-shirt that made her glossed lips look good enough to eat.

He sighed. Enough of that nonsense. They had serious arrangements to make over lunch.

They ate at the excellent department store restaurant, their table for two well isolated. The expensive, marble-clad décor made the place a discreet echo chamber where it’d be hard to bug a conversation.

“You seem to have recovered from your scruples,” she said, tucking her box and bags against the wall. “Spending all these other people’s money, I mean, to see me off to the clinic.”

“The credit cards I filched before in Alteberg were from tourists, maybe on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Didn’t want to mar that too much. What I’ve taken here has been from millionaires, and probably predatory ones at that.”

“Won’t it be suspicious if I come back looking like a million dollars?”

“Au contraire. Here’s the story you tell: I’d had a bit of a paranoid episode and recovered enough of my memory to secretly call a driver. You didn’t think it a good idea to leave me in such a mental condition. So you accompanied me into Zurich, where I paid you royally for your trouble and the unexpected overnights and went off, refusing further treatment. I take it the clinic collects a portion of your fee, and it was prepaid?”

She nodded.

“There you are. If everyone is paid, no one is curious, unless they’re imposters. Stick to your story. Eccentric millionaire goes AWOL for a few days, treats you to dinner and a new ensemble, and drives off into the alpine sunset.”

“What if I spy some suspicious behavior when I’m back there?”

“I’ll get in touch with you in Paris when you’re back.”

“You still don’t have a memory, and you’re running on stolen credit cards.”

“I’ll be all right, thanks to you and mountain-training physical therapy school. Haven’t you realized I’m a survivor by now?”

“Yes. And, more important, you have as well, Mr. Randolph, which is the only reason I can leave you in somewhat good conscience.”

Their wineglasses were empty, a fresh credit card from an arrogant woman in the Hugo Boss Black for women department had paid for the lunch. They stood, and he took her hand.

“It’s best,” he said, “that you return to your normal haunts and routines.”

“‘Haunts?”

“Places you usually go, in the pursuit of your work . . . and pleasures.”

“What if my work and pleasures have come to . . . coexist?”

Was she anxious at losing a lover, a case, or a target? Damn suspicion!

“The only thing that coexists between us is danger. All mine. If I peel off, you’ll be safe.”

“You’re so sure?’

“No. So go immediately to be with colleagues. People you trust. Warn several to set up an alarm if you vanish.”

“And you? Your safety? Your whereabouts, your well-being? I do not give up easily.”

“I can contact you. And will. When it’s safe.”

“I am to wait, that’s all?”

Her fingers were curled into his suit jacket. When he left her here, at the department store, she wouldn’t know whether he was driving out of Zurich, or flying, or taking a train or another bus.

“Do I strike you as a woman who will wait?” she pressed.

“No, Revienne, that’s why I beg you to listen to me. I’m stronger for knowing you, for knowing you inside out.” That’s the closest he could come to love. He sensed he didn’t give love easily, to many. “You must keep yourself safe, give me a reason to keep myself safe. You understand?”

She looked deep into his eyes. “You feel responsibility so strongly you can block out love. That is both admirable, and a curse.”

“You don’t want to hook yourself up to a curse.”

She got the “hook up” part.

“No, but sometimes that’s not an option. Take care, whoever you really are. Live so that I can remember you, and not in vain. Come to me if you need to. And always remember what love we made. That was past the loss of your memory. You can never erase me and I will always remember.”

He didn’t let himself say anything more, but he wished he could.

“Au revoir, Dr. Schneider.”

She smiled and leaned in to press her cheek to both of his in the French manner, and to nip one earlobe.

“Au revoir, Mr. Randolph,” she whispered. “And if your uncle should inquire about you?”

“Tell him where you left me.”

“That’s all?”

“He’s likely as much a survivor as I am.”

He turned and strode away.

He could hear her last, agitated words, but he didn’t look back.

“Wait! You’ve left your cane.”

Yes, he had.

Both of them.