Snow Rush

by James Easton

  Probably scream. Bruises everywhere, some of which she could remember getting. Her knees were currently purple. There was a big bruise on her thigh, down the IT band. She’d nicked the back of her shoulder, and a scratch on her arm had bled. Every step seemed to make her muscles shake like they were made of concrete and coming loose. She took the tweezers and got the thorn out of her hand.

  The steam rose and soothed her emotions. When her bath was ready, Carolina lowered herself into the hot water, wincing as it stung her abrasions, then lay back and went straight to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Jean Haim, Max Rokos, and Rafa Nieto were dipping into a large dish of tartiflette and eating steak tartare with small squares of toast. It was quiet in the restaurant’s back room. They were looking at a map of the area around AB Langrenn drawn on a couple of paper napkins.

  Rafa said, “We need to think of comebacks.”

  “Why?” said Max, “They pay. They live. It’s OK.”

  Rafa snorted. “Ignacio Pérez is a man. And they’re connected up to here in the Spanish state apparatus.” He pointed at the ceiling.

  Jean smiled. “There’s a way around that one. You just tell them the threat is permanent, if anyone comes after you.”

  Rafa smiled. “So how would you approach the place?”

  “Some of us to the front door,” said Jean. “But that’s partly a distraction. I am staying here, Max is staying there, either side of the Berg house. We’d put a crew in each house. Both crews come over the hills at the same time, here and here. We take out the cameras, there, there and there. Your guys come in the front. They won’t stand a chance if we are quick.”

  “What about his cop, the woman?” asked Rafa. “I heard something since we spoke earlier, Jean.”

  “What?”

  “Ramone Muka. Heard of him, Max? No? Gun dealer, like you. Got taken six or seven weeks ago in Spain. Some woman, about her age, same description, was the girlfriend of a guy on the other side of a deal. GEO busted the deal. Muka’s guy starts shooting after letting off a flashbang. She draws a SIG 232 and drops him. Cool as anything. You know what this woman was?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Police. Tactical ops, armed cover. Those guys are chosen for reactions and mental strength under pressure. They are lethal. I didn’t know they used women, and definitely not her kind of age.”

  Jean was smiling. “You do now.”

  “Yeah. The guys I lent you Max, you thought one of them went over the edge. Mountain rescue got him back an hour ago.”

  Max nodded, looking grim. “They didn’t catch her, so no concrete ID, but it sounds like this woman. She managed to outrun your guys, Rafa. We don’t know exactly what happened to your man. As I said, sorry.”

  “These things happen. I’m just concerned about her if we do this. She’ll be passing on what she’s learning about us. It’s a lot of risk.”

  Jean said, “She relies on surprise, and we know about her now. They won’t expect us to do this. We don’t go in until we know where she is. Then we watch the hell out of all of them with a few guns on show.”

  They talked it all through, Max saying how he would need a guy to watch the two men he was staying with, Jean saying the same for Robin, Rafa getting excited. At the end of it they had a roughed-out plan, without agreeing actually to do it.

  Max said, “I like this, basically. But the sniper rifles and the interface are very important to my business. Jean, you got me the knowledge about the goods I am selling. Rafa, you got the finance. I know this. But the buyer is mine. If I can’t make the deal tomorrow and we move on this kid soon, I might lose this.”

  Rafa sniffed and curled his lip. “If your deal goes wrong again, you want to reset, Max, get away from here and do it somewhere else. It’s not like the items you are selling him grow on trees. He’ll come back. It’s your first time with a deal at this level. Trust me.”

  “Don’t patronise me, Rafa. I’ve been around a lot of shit.”

  Jean said, “Max, this is your deal, and we’re here because of you. The Spanish situation is a good opportunity though, and we should think about it. Even with what I get from your deal, what lies over the hill there makes a big difference for me.”

  Max folded his arms across his big chest. “You want this woman, huh? You think money will get her. You take more risk, for her?”

  Jean spread his hands. “Max, the only question is whether the Spanish option is good for us. I like it, but I want to think some more.”

  Max leant forward, “Jean, I saw this woman in Paris. I understand your feelings for her even though, excuse me, I have only a physical impression to go on. But my cache has been raided this week, my suppliers know it, and I need to deliver this other deal here. People talk.”

  Jean was laughing. “It’s not for any woman, Max. Life’s short. I take what I can.”

  Max looked at Rafa. “What do you think?”

  “I saw her too. Beautiful woman. Obedient too. She lets Jean blindfold her when he wants privacy.” He winked at Jean, who instantly regretted putting the blindfold on Robin and thought of her telling him not to do that again. Standing behind him.

  Max and Rafa both laughed. Jean said, “That was just a game. The blindfold. What do you think of this job now we’ve gone through it?”

  “I like it,” Rafa said. “For me, it’s like a bonus. I think it’s too easy not to do.”

  Max said, “I want to see how my deal goes tomorrow morning. But it’s interesting, I agree.”

  A waiter came in and cleared the table. Another brought a roast lamb shoulder stuffed with shallots. Jean asked them to set aside some of the leftovers for a doggy bag and ordered a portion of rum baba for dessert.

  Rafa said, “That for her too? I hope she eats it off little Jean.”

  That wasn’t like Rafa. Maybe it was like Max. Maybe they had Robin on the brain, not him.

  Jean didn’t laugh with them this time. He held up his thumb and forefinger, a few centimetres apart. Closed the gap to one centimetre. Squinted at them through the gap. “Keep talking about her. You’re this close.”

  Rafa became serious quickly. He said, “What I meant was just bon appétit.”

  Jean raised his glass. “Sure.”

  Carolina was out for over an hour. She could hear a Eurosport discussion when she woke up. Berg was still there. The bath water had lost heat.

  She washed her hair in the shower, and her spirits lifted as the last of the mountain went down the drain. She applied antiseptic and anti-inflammatory creams to her nicks and scratches. She put on some of the underwear Eva had bought her, black cotton basics, and the shirt, which looked grown up on her. She noticed a specific stinging pain in the back of her leg then, and turned to the mirror, craning to see what it was. It was impossible. She reached around and winced when she got to it. A hard end, protruding like a pin. She checked the word she needed on Google Translate on the tablet the hotel provided in the bathroom, pushed her hair back with her fingers, and went to see Berg.

  She slid the bathroom door back and walked over. He was in an armchair watching Eurosport with a beer from the minibar.

  “I need help.”

  Berg was in a cruise state, off guard - beer and TV in a luxury hotel - and looked first at her thighs. This moment of vulnerability was not lost on Carolina before he went from cruise to masculine-serious.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I have a splinter in my leg.”

  Berg looked again.

  “The back of my leg.”

  Berg blew on his fingers.

  “Don’t be a dick.”

  She handed him the tweezers, antiseptic cream, and tissues and lay face down on the bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Jean was looking forward to Robin’s reaction when she saw he’d bought her this top-level dinner, but after leaving the restaurant he had a new idea and started walking to Chalet Guy Koffmann.

  One good thing about ski t
owns was the headgear. You could wear a cap with side flaps that covered most of your face, and a scarf around your jaw, and that allowed you to go into places you otherwise wouldn’t. Not that the guests at Chalet Guy Koffmann would have recognized an escaped armed robber, even one as famous as Jean. He settled in at the bar, on the end near a wooden pillar that hid part of his face. He still had his cap on, warming up from the street, his elbow on the bar and his hand on the cheek on the other side from the pillar. He adjusted his glasses to look awkward and un-armed-robber-like.

  Jean took the place in using the tinted mirror behind the bar. Like everywhere in Morzine, it was all wood. But finer than the place last night, with the wood treated in some way. There was some kind of perfume in the air, from the dried flowers around the place. It suited Robin. He put a hand on the backpack he’d placed on the barstool next to him. It contained the things he’d got for her dinner. He smiled, thinking of her waiting for him now. He really liked her being there.

  He didn’t need places like this. But he thought it would be nice sometimes to go to them. They’d spoken about his childhood in the interview today, and he’d lied about it. It wasn’t the poverty. It was the other stuff, the true hell, that he’d omitted, making up the image of the mother he wished he’d had before he became fully able to take care of himself around the age of twelve.

  A man walked in. Robin’s guy. Tall, almost thin, good looking in a way though a bit weak-chinned. That blonde, floppy hair. He came to the bar.

  “Bottle of Mouton Rothschild ‘82 please, and some rillettes to be going on with. Room forty. Good evening.”

  Jean smiled at him. “You staying here?”

  “Yes. I’m working. Julian Farquar.” He was speaking English. Jean had heard him speak good French last night.

  “Thierry Ternier,” said Jean.

  “Skiing?”

  “A little, yes. Fixing my place up too.”

  “Is it the season for that?”

  “Bathroom, internal work, you know.”

  Julian nodded. “Fancy sharing some of this? I’m on my own, so…” he shrugged. “I’d appreciate the company.”

  They sat at one of the low bar tables. Jean had his back to the room.

  “I should pay my bill for the beer. I’m not a guest.”

  “I’ll put it on the room. Please. Are you meeting someone here?”

  “I was,” said Jean. “I think she may have given me some small bullshit, though.”

  Julian laughed. “Oh, how’s that?”

  Jean laughed. “I try the wine first, then I tell you a funny story.”

  The waiter poured the wine into two enormous glasses, at least fifteen centimetres tall, with a wide bowl and a narrower neck. Jean looked at the label on the base of the stem. Reidel. Nice word. He knew how to smell wine. A guy inside had shown him. But this glass, when you got it to your nose, the wine took your head off. He really breathed it in, filling his head with it. They touched glasses and drank.

  “It should have four hours breathing on the side, of course, but what the hell. It’s mind-blowing stuff,” said Julian. His voice was a little bit stuffed up, nasal. “So what’s your story?” he asked Jean.

  “Oh yes,” he laughed, like he wasn’t really bothered by it. “I met this woman today, out walking near my place. She was with some other people, and they seemed to hang back, you know, so I just spoke with her, and I am not kidding, she is so hot, you get burned...”

  Julian laughed, his aquiline nose stuck in the glass like he was taking some kind of drug.

  Jean gave a little sigh. “I talked to her, and it was nice, you know. Just about Morzine at first.”

  “Morzine?” said Julian. Jean wondered if he’d already been drinking.

  “Skiing, what she likes to do. Her work. Well, I was completely… how do you say… too complicated for me.”

  “Out of your depth?” Julian asked.

  “Yes, this. She’s a journalist. And as I say, completely hot. Knows about the economy, politics. You know, I had to repeat two years of school. So I like the hot, and I am afraid of her brain.”

  Julian refilled his own glass. Drinking this wine like fruit juice. Jean was savouring his. He felt Julian’s curiosity come alive.

  “But you got her to agree to meet you here?”

  Jean sighed. “Yes, I thought that. But she seemed worried by these guys she was with. Maybe not worried, exactly. Just conscious of them, you know, and she said she’d meet me here this evening. But I checked, and she isn’t a guest. I mean, Julian, I just met you, but you know how sometimes a woman when she walks away from you. And she wore a heavy jacket, ski pants. But still.” He bit his knuckles.

  “Yeah, I know a woman like that,” Julian said.

  Jean juggled the keys in his jacket pocket as he shifted his weight, and sent the message from Robin’s phone that he’d asked Rafa to prepare earlier. It was on a delay and would arrive in fifteen minutes’ time. Rafa could write very good English. “C’est la vie, I guess.” He shook his head and raised the glass to his lips. “But this wine is some compensation.”

  “Well, don’t give up. Maybe she’s just late. What’s her name, this girl?”

  “Robin.”

  “Bite the pillow if it hurts,” said Berg.

  Carolina, who was anyway gripping both sides of the pillow, sniggered. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Your ribs are bad too?”

  “No my…” She gasped as Berg slid a fourth splinter out of the back of her left thigh. He pressed a tissue to it for a minute.

  “All done.”

  She collapsed. That hadn’t been easy. The splinters were over a centimetre in length, shards of pine.

  Berg was running his phone torch over the rest of her leg. There was no heat. He wasn’t touching her. But she knew what he was doing. She turned her head so she could see the bedside clock. There was time.

  “The calf is tight there,” she said.

  The big glasses could hold a lot of wine. Julian was drinking more every time he poured. Jean also thought Julian seemed worried about Robin but was trying to hide it, like he didn’t want Jean becoming curious about what he knew. “So, look, are you sure she was alright?” he asked.

  “What can I say? I thought she might not want them to hear what she was saying, OK. And I thought maybe she was with one of them but interested in me, the way she said meet here, at her hotel. To be honest, I was hoping maybe to have some fun. A little joy of life, you understand?”

  Julian smiled. “Right, right, right.”

  “But, you know, she said she was leaving soon as well. Not staying in Morzine.”

  “What else?” His voice had become more urgent.

  Jean shrugged. “Just that, what she said.”

  “Oh, bollocks, she sent me a message.” Julian looked up at Jean then back at his phone as he read the text Jean had sent him fifteen minutes ago. “She wants to meet me. She’s coming back.”

  “What? Oh shit. You know her? Are you her husband? I’m sorry, man.” Jean held up his hands.

  Julian shrugged. “Boyfriend, mate. Don’t worry, it’s casual.”

  You could see the relief in Julian’s face. Another big swallow of wine went down. “And you’re right about the hot thing, by the way. She’s a dirty bitch in bed.” He smirked. “In the nicest possible way. Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t. But it’s been a few days and, well, I miss her.”

  Jean reached a final decision about what the evening held in store for Julian Farquar. “Sure. Sure.” He laughed nervously, blew air in his cheeks and let it ripple through his lips under staring eyes.

  “I’ve got to go and meet her,” said Julian.

  “Well, my friend,” said Jean, “Maybe not drink much more, eh? Both for driving and if you want to welcome her properly.” He winked.

  “Sure. Good point. I’d better get some water in. It’s a few miles out of town, that place.”

  Jean asked a waiter for some water and more rillettes, an
d two more bottles of Mouton, unopened. He put them in his backpack. Julian didn’t seem to notice him ask for the treats, and signed for everything.

  He made sure Julian drank more water and get a few mouthfuls of rillettes down. He helped him with the map, wished Julian and Robin a happy future, then left Julian to gather himself before going to meet her.

  The roads were OK, though there were a few ice warnings, but the snowplows were busy already. He called Max.

  “I need an apartment in Montpellier. The place is going to be busted, so nowhere too sensitive.”

  “Piece of piss.”

  “And I need one of Rafa’s guys to meet me at this little bridge over the Dranse, you see that on the map? He needs to take what I give him to the apartment. It’s Robin’s phone.”

  Max grunted. “Then she will be lost to the world, huh? Leave it with me.”

  Berg pressed his thumb into Carolina’s left calf, just below the knee, and in doing so, confirmed that he was a bastard. He must have known he could do this before he agreed to her request to unlock her right calf. How much more could she take?

  OK, so she’d wanted the attention to carry on. And there was a good chance that him massaging her legs - which had been her idea - would result in something physical between them. But Carolina had envisaged herself in control, in particular at the moment when she would turn, reach around and kiss him. If that was where it went. What she had not envisioned was the desire he triggered by doing what he was doing, which was releasing great waves of...something….up her spine and through her muscles. Stopping this was not an option. She focused her entire being on not screaming what she wanted him to do into the headboard.

  His hand moved up her thigh, his thumb pressing into her hamstring, his fingertips in the main adductor muscle.

  “If this is too much, bite the pillow.”