Odds On: A Novel

by Michael Crichton

She opened the door and looked out. “Straight.”

  He put the cigarette between his lips and bent over the pile of green marijuana. Inhaling, he sucked the substance into the tube, pausing occasionally to tamp it down with a matchstick. Soon, the cigarette was completely refilled; he twisted the end closed, and prepared a second.

  Cynthia came out of the bathroom wearing very tight black slacks and a tight black sweater. Her feet were still bare, and her long hair hung loose. She picked up one cigarette and pinched it gently. “You pack them like an expert,” she said. She looked at him and frowned. “What’s the matter? You seem unhappy. Don’t you like the way I look?”

  “You were better before,” Jean-Paul said.

  “You mean I was barer before,” she laughed. “But I wasn’t very bare, was I?”

  Her laugh was open and earthy. It reminded Jean-Paul of something, but he couldn’t remember what exactly.

  “Make up two more,” she said. “I’ll get some water. Kef always makes me thirsty.”

  She disappeared again into the bathroom, and he squeezed out another pair of cigarettes, filling them quickly. When she returned, he handed her one and took one himself, lighting both. Cynthia sat down on the bed, and he sat in a chair across from her. They puffed in silence, staring at each other.

  “We’ll have to do something interesting,” Cynthia said. “It would be a shame to waste it.”

  Jean-Paul smiled slightly. The room filled with acrid, sweet smoke, which reminded him of cinnamon burning, though that was foolish—he had never smelled cinnamon burning. Cynthia smiled her earthy smile once again, and he remembered where he had seen it. It was in a little village outside Madrid. As the marijuana began to take effect, he saw the scene again vividly.

  He had stopped for coffee at a roadside cafe, which faced out on a dusty square with a stone fountain where the townspeople came to draw water and wash clothes. As he drank his coffee, a girl came to the fountain, young but full bodied, wearing a faded light blue dress. She had dirty, tangled hair but an open, smiling face and eyes which promised the richness of her body. It was the eternal peasant, earthy and wonderful, and he had desired her for the few moments he had passed over his coffee. Then he had gone on to Madrid and forgotten her.

  Jean-Paul began to feel slightly dizzy and cold around his ankles even before he had finished his first cigarette. The stuff was damned strong, he thought. Cynthia was now lying on her back on the bed, gently massaging her stomach.

  He had not noticed her lie down. It was taking hold; the stuff was beginning to work through his lungs to his brain. He could almost feel it coursing through his bloodstream, up to his cars.

  “Nice,” Cynthia said, to nobody in particular.

  Jean-Paul closed his eyes and saw the world drift gently. He was in a warm, damp jungle surrounded by green ferns. The scene faded to one of a blizzard and a gray sky over the prairie, and then a forest, very chilly and still, and then a desert, where the sand blew endlessly. The visions passed, and he looked across at Cynthia.

  “Bonjour,” she said. “All the French I know.”

  “I know you,” he said, feeling very high indeed.

  “You want to watch me undress,” she replied, in a slow, heavy voice. She spoke interminably slowly, the words stretched and twisted like taffy in the air. Why taffy? He was off in his dream world again, tumbling like a yo-yo falling down the stairwell, spinning end over end, side over side.…

  Cynthia got off the bed and stood before him. It was all slow-motion. “You can undress me,” she said.

  “All right,” he agreed, thinking he was speaking so slowly, like a tape at half speed.

  “And I can undress you.”

  “All right.” It was a stupid answer, sluggish and uninterested, but he could not help it. He was concerned with himself, feeling his body drift and spin, slowly, pleasantly.

  She stood before him, guiding his hands to her buttons and snaps. The slacks burst open, slowly like a flower opening, and he pulled them down her legs; her groin was right before his eyes, and he could sense the heat and desire radiating from it. She turned around, and he reached up to unzip her sweater. It was so far to reach, it took hours for his hand to get up there.

  Cynthia stepped back and allowed him to look at her. She was lovely, beckoning, tensing the muscles in her thighs as she stood, hands on hips, smiling.

  For many hours, he did not say anything.

  “You’re incredible,” he said finally. He felt his eyes, running and feeling like hands, look down her body, to the clean collarbone, to the firm, small, tense-nippled breasts, to the neat waist with the large navel, to the narrow hips, to the quivering thighs.

  He stood up, slowly, dreamily.

  She moved close to undo the buttons on his shirt. She slipped it off his shoulders and ran her hands slowly across his chest, while her almond eyes, wide and bright, pierced his face. He could smell her perfume, now; her whole body glowed with desire. Her fingers were at his belt, then his pants and zipper, and they dropped to the floor. Her hands moved to his shorts, caressing him lightly before pulling them down.

  She lay back on the bed and watched him standing before her. He did not move for a long time. “This will be perfect,” she said. “I can look at you, and you can look at me.” She gave a throaty laugh. “Because I want to look at you. I want to do a lot more than look.”

  “You can look later,” Jean-Paul said, and stretched out beside her. His hands ran over her breasts and stomach; her body glowed like coals, a blazing fire fanned. She drew him over to kiss him.

  He slid on top of her and felt her heart thump against his chest. He let himself into her with soft gentleness, savoring each exquisite instant of penetration. Her legs were wide for him, quivering and open. He pressed himself home to the hilt, and felt her thrust up her pelvis to meet him.

  “That’s good,” she said, kissing him and locking her arms around his neck. Below she felt him in her, plunging and withdrawing.

  “Slower, darling.” she whispered. Her voiced dragged. It took days to finish the sentence. “Keep it beautifully slow. Like a long, slow pendulum. Very long, swinging … swinging.”

  Jean-Paul heard her as if from a distance. She was speaking from the end of a dark tunnel, but some corner of his mind told him that she was high. Her voice told it all, even from a great distance.

  He slowed his stroke and felt her sex ripple and clutch at him. She had muscles in there, and she knew how to use them. It was a delicious, tightening, sensual feeling. Like a boa constrictor, like squeezing a rubber ball, like flexing a bicep. Her legs came around his, and she pressed her heels inside his knees, getting better leverage for her hips, which moved in slow sure time with him.

  Her breasts strained against his chest. Her legs tensed against his. “Oh, it’s going to be so good … so good. Yes, that’s it, very slow, oh yes that’s it.”

  In himself, he felt the coiling; the snake was preparing to strike, the spring was growing tense, until it would burst the mechanism.

  “That’s it, lovely. It’s lovely, yes.”

  So slow, so slow.

  Endless.

  Continuing.

  And then she was pressing herself to him tightly, straining as he pierced her. And soon Jean-Paul felt himself carried on a wave, then it was a tram railway up a mountainside, then a rocket, up and up, and she screamed slightly and pressed forward like a thirsty mouth to water, like a sucking clam.

  Time passed.

  She got up and walked around the bed, surveying him from all sides. Around and around she walked, his eyes following. He smiled.

  “That,” she said, in a drawn-out whisper, very hoarse, “that was the slow one. Are you ready for the fast one?”

  He did not understand, until she grinned wickedly and floated down beside him. She stroked him, lingering, gentle.

  “Surprise,” she said. “You seem ready to rise to the challenge again. Or is it just my exciting body and not your sense of manhood?�
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  It seemed to Jean-Paul that they had been in this room for years. Years and years, just the two of them, together.

  She was stopped in front of him now, running her hands up her sides, finally reaching her breasts, which she held out like fruit for sale. Her hand rotated them, and then she took her hands away. The breasts continued to rotate, slowly; they moved by themselves, beautifully, obscenely, excitingly. The nipples were tensed and firm.

  Cynthia’s face was calm, almost peaceful. Her hands were running up and down her thighs now, caressing her pubis. Her body was leaning slightly back, so that her loins were forward. He could smell her heat, the body smell of desire. He felt himself stiffen.

  For Cynthia, the world was a calm boat, rocking on a placid sea beneath milky clouds. She was moored solidly, but still rocking, lulled but happy, anticipating with pleasure the darkening of the clouds, and the final deluge of the storm. The air was warm and moist with the coming thunderbolt; it was still, fetid, waiting.

  Dimly, she saw Jean-Paul, lying naked on the bed watching her. His eyes were bright, and in a few moments his member began to rise. She watched with unabashed interest; it was always such a marvelous thing to see, this strengthening which would bring her appeasement. She wanted to reach forward and touch him, to feel his hardness. Her own body was ready to receive it. Her thighs were already flexing rhythmically, as she would if he were already there.

  She put her hands to her breasts once again, and stretched. Then she felt Jean-Paul’s hands reaching for her. She was aware of every sensation, each individual fingertip. She began to see colors, passing one after another … indigo blue … fire red … a blazing orange … a hot yellow.…

  Her boat was rocking hard now, and the sky was the color of smudged chalk. The first white-hot bolt of lightning cracked across the heavens. Soft drops of rain pelted her face, soaking her hair. It was still a warm rain. Lightning cracked again, and the sky split in a jagged crease, then folded shut. It was like a clam shell which had been pried open for a brief glimpse before clamping down. Clam clamping. Clamped down on a clam. Clammy hands and feet.

  Alternate waves of heat and cold blew across her. Jean-Paul was driving her, pushing her, splitting her with loud smacks. Exquisite pain began, a nugget at first, then suddenly exploding like a single kernel of popcorn. She saw white light, and her boat was lifted on a tidal wave. She was being carried toward the shore, where she would be dashed to pieces against jagged rocks, white in this lightning glare. She was coming down now, off the wave, up to the shore.

  With a small scream, her storm broke, and she was safe.

  “You look bored, dear fellow,” Miss Shaw said.

  “I am,” Georges Dumas said. “Very.” He was here at the hotel alone, having been deserted by his mistress a week ago for—he shuddered at the thought—a circus tumbler. And while it was true that Louisa had cabled she was coming down from Paris to meet him here, he put no faith in her. Louisa was always cabling something. He sighed. Very, very bored.

  “You need something to cheer you up.”

  “You are right.” A horrible thought occurred to him. Was this desiccated old thing offering her services?

  “Something unusual,” Miss Shaw continued. “Unconventional. Out of the ordinary.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly.

  “Daring.”

  He nodded.

  “Exciting.”

  Georges Dumas looked at her. “What do you have in mind?”

  “A draught of pleasure,” Miss Shaw said airily, waving her pale white hand. “A potion of dreams.”

  “You have this?”

  She smiled slightly, and sat back in her chair. “Are you interested?”

  “LSD?” He had tried it once, in Stockholm. Marvelous stuff—heady, but exhausting. He remembered the experience with pleasure.

  “I’m sorry,” Miss Shaw said. “I did have some, but I’m out at the moment. How about some nice marijuana?”

  He stopped and looked at her quizzically. Was it possible that this sweet powdery old thing was selling kef? “Well,” he said, “as a friend I would be happy to relieve you of—”

  “I’m most dreadfully sorry,” Miss Shaw said, “but I do have an overhead to look after, that sort of thing. It is painful to be a businesswoman at my age, but one must try, mustn’t one?”

  “How much?” Georges Dumas said, his mouth tightening.

  “Well, I look upon myself as a sort of doctor,” Miss Shaw said. “I take care of people, relieve their depressions. Naturally, my fees are scaled.”

  “How much?”

  “Oh, you men can be so nasty about business.” She patted his hand reassuringly. “Six thousand pesetas.”

  Six thousand pesetas was five hundred francs, one hundred dollars. “I do not want much,” he protested.

  “I assume so.”

  “All right,” he said, “I’ll give you a check.”

  “As a superstitious old lady, I must tell you that I’ve never put much faith in anything but plain money. You understand, of course. The whims of a senile mind.”

  “As you wish.”

  He got up to leave.

  “I’ll stop by your room later,” Miss Shaw said. “Around six?”

  “Fine.”

  “A pleasure, Mr. Dumas. By the way, are you any relation to the author?”

  “None,” Georges Dumas said. “None at all.”

  As he left, he heard her giggling softly.

  Jencks walked into the bar shortly before six. Brady was there, hunched over his drink. Jencks sat down next to him.

  “Well, hello there,” Jencks said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Brady looked up. For a brief moment, there was surprise, almost shock, on his features. It quickly disappeared, replaced by mindless cheer.

  “Damnation!” he said, slamming his palm down on Jencks’ knee. “If it isn’t my Detroit friend. How’s Spain treating you?”

  “Can’t kick. Buy you a drink?”

  “You twisted my arm,” Brady said, laughing. “What brings you to the Reina?”

  “Curiosity,” Jencks said. “I heard it was a spectacular place.”

  “And isn’t it? I think it’s downright fabulous. Have a good time in Barcelona?”

  “Very fine.”

  “Meet your girl okay?”

  Jencks allowed himself to appear uncomfortable. “I didn’t, actually. She was supposed to fly over from Munich, but—”

  “Little German number, eh?”

  “That’s right, and—”

  “Little heine, as we say.” He roared with laughter.

  “Yes,” Jencks said, looking still more uncomfortable. “But you see, she found out—”

  “Hmmm?” Brady stopped laughing.

  “I’m married.”

  “Say no more,” Brady said, raising a beefy hand as if taking an oath. “Say no more. I understand just how the hell you feel. Goddamned shame—all these modern communications backfiring. Problem of the modern age.”

  Their drinks came. Brady lit a cigarette, and raised his glass in a toast. “Well, here’s to better hunting.”

  They drank. Jencks was drinking vermouth, Brady, bourbon. He finished quickly, and they had another round, then another. Jencks played a troubled man, Brady the fountain of bubbling encouragement and cheer. After half an hour, the liquor was beginning to show. His hand lingered when he slapped Jencks’ knee or shoulder. His words slurred slightly. His eyes had a wandering, mildly vacant look. It could be an act, of course—he was a big man—but Jencks decided to take a chance.

  “You know, Al,” he said, “I have a small confession to make. You see, when I was coming over on the plane, I didn’t want word to get back to my wife, so—”

  “I know,” Brady said, in a tut-tut voice. “I know just how it is.”

  “So I made up this little story.”

  “Sure, baby. I know just how you feel.”

  “About being an automobile designer, and all.” />
  “Of course,” Brady said sympathetically.

  “And actually I’m not. I’m in industrial counterespionage.”

  “A cop?” Brady did not seem surprised, though he pretended it.

  “Yes,” Jencks said sadly. “A cop.”

  “Detroit?”

  “Yes. I have to make sure nobody steals design drawings, all that sort of thing. It’s security.”

  Brady nodded slowly, sluggishly. He seemed to be thinking this over. Finally he sat straighter, and said, “This calls for another round.”

  “Really? Why?”

  Brady motioned for the bartender. “Because we’re in the same business.”

  “Is that right?” Jencks said, astonished.

  “Damn straight. I have to tell you, I thought you might be a cop, when I met you on the plane. I had that little feeling, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you’re pretty good, Steve boy, but you can’t fool an old pro like me. How long you been doing this work?”

  “Five years. I began low down, cleaning out the locking wastebaskets, doing night duty. Now I’m running security at the test track.”

  “Which one?” Brady asked, casually.

  “Near Flagstaff, Arizona. We have five, you know. Different climates.”

  “Then you must be used to this weather,” Brady said.

  Another round arrived. They pushed their empty glasses aside.

  “I’ll tell you,” Brady said, “a little confession of my own. On the plane, I did something kind of bad.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I fingered your passport and had a look at it.”

  “You did?”

  “Ummm. Sorry, really. I had to do it, though. I also had you followed in Barcelona.”

  “Followed?” Jencks hesitated here. An industrial security man wouldn’t have much experience with tails. On the other hand, he wouldn’t want to admit it “Oh sure—you mean that tall guy with the moustache.”

  “That’s the one,” Brady said, not batting an eye. “I can see you’re a sharp operator.”

  “Well now, tell me,” Jencks said, sipping his drink. “What’s your game?”

  Brady looked furtively around the room, then leaned over and whispered, “CIA.”