Death in the Face

by Craig McDonald

  He gestured she should slink into the seat opposite him. She did that, rather obediently, placing her arms on the tabletop and drawing them together at the elbows, deepening the enticing valley of tawny flesh between her generous breasts, so very much on display in a low-cut, black cocktail dress with gold trim that traced its dramatic, quite revealing neckline.

  In New York or Paris the dress would have been plenty daring. Barreling toward Islamic Istanbul, it was positively scandalous.

  Cutting off all the usual potential feints and opening lines, Hector rolled the dice and presumed he was already known to this middle-aged vixen.

  He said, “I’m Hector Lassiter, author and screenwriter. I’m on my way to meet up with an old friend to observe some location work on the filming of one of his books and to lend a little quiet, off-the-books dialogue help for the script. I’m wagering you’re here, not because you love my books, or have any real particular interest in me, but because somebody directed you my way. Is that so? There’ll be no hard feelings for telling me I’m right about any of that, I swear.” He gave her what he hoped would be regarded as a charming smile and searched her brown eyes.

  Hector paused, holding up a hand to ensure her silence, and said, “A moment.” He signaled to the waiter to refresh his drink and to bring one for his company.

  Not even waiting for her to voice an order, Hector gave her another long, appraising look, then ordered her a glass of 1959 Barbaresco. He raised an eyebrow and was granted a sexy and bemused smile.

  She spoke English with an Italian accent: “An excellent start, Mr. Lassiter. And, yes, I have been sent to, er. . .to meet you.”

  “Right, and now that much is out of the way,” Hector said. “Or we have met in a way. I need to know your name, darlin’.” He smiled, then added. “Parenthetically, that dress is really quite something. Your choice, or. . .?”

  “All mine,” she said. “As for my name, that is Vannina Anna Maria Bello. I’m an actress, though not a particularly popular one. Not yet, anyway. Do you speak Italian?”

  “Not so much,” Hector lied. “And I’ll confess now I don’t recognize your name or know your work.” A sad smile. “I’m sorry for that.”

  “I, of course, know of your film background. It was frankly one of the appeals of being asked to approach you like this.” She blushed. “I don’t do this kind of thing as a sort of career, you know. If you were any other man, with any other background, we wouldn’t even be talking now.”

  Hector nodded his understanding. “I’m sure we can do something to find you film work in the States if you get over there if that’s your personal aim here in meeting me. I’m pretty confident I can make that happen. And you don’t have to do anything more than you’ve already done to achieve that. I want you to be clear on that point—no strings.”

  She smiled politely at their waiter and accepted her glass. She sipped and said, “It’s sublime. You certainly know wines.”

  Hector decided this one time to highlight his age. “I’ve had a long time to practice, to research.”

  She sipped more of her wine then said, “I really don’t know who I’m working for—if you can even call it that—nor what they want, exactly. This was a kind of coincidence, I suppose. A happenstance. I happened to be on the train, and I happened to be approached to approach you. There was nothing more asked of me than that. There were no. . .” she struggled, looking for the right word. She bit her lush lip, then settled on, “There was nothing untoward asked of me. I’d have said no if that was an expectation. I’m no prostitute, Mr. Lassiter.”

  Hector smiled and said, “I’m so glad. And, frankly, I’m a little afraid for you now, darling. A lot of bad people are interested in me and my little trip to Istanbul. They are the most insidious kind of people. The sort that would have no hesitation about using a fetching beauty like yourself as a sort of disposable tool. You should know that up front.”

  He lit a cigarette and looked around the dining car. He didn’t see anyone who seemed to be watching them. He said, “Well, for better or worse, you’ve made contact now, my darling Vannina. So now the next step will soon be asked of you, somehow, some way, I’d wager.”

  “Why would so many people care about your trip to Istanbul, Mr. Lassiter?”

  “Hector. And that’s a very long and sordid story that wouldn’t reward you with insight or anything that might help your mysterious employer who isn’t an employer in your eyes. If there is any such thing in this kind of mess, just know I’m on the side of whatever passes for angels. Anyone who isn’t on my side is on that of the Devil. That’s simply my point of view, of course, but it’s not open for debate. Tell me now, how was this approach to approach me engineered, exactly? Who hired you just to say hello?”

  “A woman at the station, just before we boarded. I was told I would be paid five-hundred dollars, American, simply to strike up a conversation with you. Anything after that was strictly to remain my business. I took the money, very confused, but frankly very excited to meet a man with your film connections. You know—not to have to go the casting couch way. I took the offered compensation and I didn’t look back. It’s kind of found money, you might say.”

  “That’s all very strange,” Hector said. “We need to talk more, of course. This woman, was there anything remarkable about her? Anything worth remarking upon?”

  “No. She was tall. A little overweight, maybe. She wore a long black coat and a black hat with a veil. I never saw her face. She didn’t offer a name and I didn’t ask.”

  God, Hector thought. She was clearly daft to take the strange deal. And, she was also likely utterly disposable in whoever’s eyes, just as he’d said.

  And a slightly portly woman handler? That made no particular sense—certainly it couldn’t have anything official at its back.

  Hector supposed that just because Béla Herczog was baked bones in the sour gut of the world by now it didn’t mean the surviving Black Dragons might not press on without their Hungarian demon’s head.

  But could even that bunch really know his reason for coming to Istanbul? He’d been left alone, after all, between Japan and now.

  Of course, it could simply be the fact he was reuniting with Ian that might reignite fresh interest. That proximity might give certain obsessed types freshly hopeful and foul ideas, he supposed.

  What was Ian’s turn of phrase for that very variety of phenomenon? Oh, yes: “Nothing propinques like propinquity.”

  Hector said, “I’m not tired, and in fact I’m more than a bit hungry, again. So I’m going to presume to order us a light dinner. Over the course of that meal, I really need you to think hard about your next steps, Vannina. You need to think about that as if your life depends upon it, because I suspect it very well might. The fact you have no clue whom you’re working for just now indicates to me it has to be someone malignant—intent on covering tracks.”

  She shivered a little as that last sunk in.

  Hector got out another cigarette. She reached across and presumed to take one for herself. Hector lit hers and his own. He said, “Whatever is to come, it’s something that bodes nastily for both of us, pretty Vannina. Of that much, I’m all but certain. Oh, and I’ll confess now that I do know more than a bit of Italian.”

  He smiled and raised his glass. “I’ll make this simple pitch now that you’re best to throw in with me and to put all your trust in me, tonight. When dinner is over, if you’re convinced otherwise, we’ll shake hands and then retire to respective corners.” He smiled, took her hand and leaned across the table to kiss it. “And, after that, well, let the Devil take the hindmost, yes?”

  “And my alternative?”

  “Wait and see what otherwise develops,” he said gravely. A shrug, then, “A mali estremi, estremi rimedi.”

  ***

  Vannina gradually seemed to warm to a still unresolved alternative.

  More wine, some small talk of Italy. . . . A lot of back-and-fourth about Hollywood and screenwriting.
At least that chit-chat left him with the strong sense she was exactly what she claimed—an aspiring actress.

  She also really knew his novels—but in translation.

  The train was slowing as it rolled into some in-between–bigger-places station. Being so far from his destination, Hector simply wasn’t paying much attention to the train’s pace and progress up to this point. This stop was just another bygone place he’d never see or know; one where some would get off, while others got on the train.

  But somewhere already on this train, Hector had decided, was this fetching and unfortunate creature’s would-be “controller,” to resort to the sordid language of the spy trade.

  But now, if Vannina was known to have made contact with him, perhaps others would be boarding the Express along the way.

  Freshly assessing their company in the dining car—he dismissed the pregnant woman with her back facing him as well as two of the three presumed businessmen, instead settling on the possibility of one gray-haired, solitary man who seemed very much alone—Hector said softly, “There must have been some kind of protocol for the next step once you met me. What was that? A particular compartment you were to call on, or. . .?”

  She nodded emphatically, dark hair brushing her bare shoulders. “Not at all,” she said. “I suppose they meant to watch and then contact me. Maybe they’re watching even now.”

  To her credit, she didn’t look around to confirm that fact. Indeed, Vannina seemed properly wary and so she instinctively played it just as cool as Hector would have counseled her to under the circumstances.

  Ian had once written in his one of the Bond books—was it the Russian one?—there’s always something exciting going on aboard the Orient Express.

  Vannina gave him a long, hard look, then said, “There’s fear in yours eyes—fear for me, I think. I should never have gotten on this train, and I certainly never should have agreed to sit down with you, should I? You’re weren’t kidding about any of that, were you?”

  “No,” Hector said. “You certainly shouldn’t have done either of those things.” A sad smile. “But how could you really know?” He reached over and closed a hand over hers. “That’s just spilt milk now. Acqua passata non macina più. And hell, hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, isn’t that right? You know the old American cliché? What would it be in Italian? Col senno di poi è venti venti, yes?”

  Her pretty face took on a grave expression. “I really am in danger now, aren’t I? The more you joke and try to talk around it, the more I begin to fear it’s even worse than I can imagine.”

  Hector weighted responses and settled on, “You have a compartment of your own?”

  “Couldn’t afford it.”

  “Then I’m going to be bold. Let’s collect your things, and get you moved into my cabin. I have a private compartment with a spare bunk. Again, this carries no strings. The bed will be yours and at least you’ll be safe behind locked doors.” He smiled again and added, “And I swear I don’t snore.” The smile took on a certain edge. “Or so I’ve always been told.”

  “And then. . .? It’s a long way to Istanbul, which is where I’m going.” A funny smile. “More luck, good or bad, I suppose—as you say it’s your destination, too. But my hope was to go there to try and get some work on the new Bond film. Again, it seems my meeting you is a kind of kismet in the parlance of the place we’re headed.”

  “Then I simply insist that we’re going to remain inseparable, at least until Istanbul,” Hector said, taking her hand. “You’re just going to have to put up with my constant companionship. We’ll keep it room service going forward. My strategy is this: If we can get you to Istanbul, and if we eventually part ways there, well, then your agreement or pact with these people, whoever they are, is likely voided because I think whatever interest they have in me is firmly tied to that city. It makes tactical sense to me to do what I’ve proposed to you.”

  There were other tactics involved, of course, at least from Hector’s end. Someone wanted the two of them to meet, only that much was clear. Hector decided it best just to facilitate all that and force whatever crisis might lay in wait.

  Vannina thought about it and said, “Yes, it makes sense, to me, too.” To her credit, she said it with an uncertain smile.

  On their way back to Hector’s compartment, they stopped to collect Vannina’s things. As he hefted her suitcase—really more of a footlocker—and remarked on its weight, she wrinkled her nose and shot him a look. “Surely it’s not that heavy,” she said.

  Hector would beg to differ but lugged the thing down the narrow common aisle. With a last look around to make certain nobody saw, he opened the door to his compartment and stowed her big suitcase in a corner. The bulky thing took up precious real estate in the compartment.

  Before they’d left the dining car, under the guise of settling their bill, Hector had arranged for caviar and a bottle of chilled champagne to await them in his compartment.

  Smiling at the surprise and holding one finger up, Vannina said, “Can we abandon at least one pretense now?”

  Hector smiled back and set to work on the cork. “Oh, I’m forever and always in favor of all abandoned pretenses,” he said, wondering what she was getting at. “It’s practically my religion.” He smiled and said, “Of what, precisely, are we letting go in this case?”

  The cork gave with a loud pop that sounded a little like a gunshot and gave her a start.

  Collecting herself, she nodded at the bottom bunk. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, taking charge. Briefly pulling away, panting, she said, “I’ve always hated sleeping alone.”

  ***

  They actually made love in the upper berth—it rode far smoother than the lower, where they had fleetingly started out tangled in one another’s arms.

  In the afterglow, over champagne and caviar on toast, Hector pushed for more answers:

  Again, how exactly were you approached to approach me?

  Please try hard and provide to me every detail or remembered scrap about that mysterious woman who made the pitch for you to introduce yourself.

  Vannina’s reflections and efforts didn’t provide any new data to chew on. So they shared some more champagne, then made love again.

  After, feeling a bit crowded—her generous breasts were a happy problem in the narrow bunk—Vannina migrated to the lower berth.

  Hector was vaguely aware of her doing that. He was at last properly exhausted from making love to a flesh and blood woman after too many weeks—hell, call it for what it really was, too many months—of Brinke taking him in his increasingly troubled dreams. This one time, he thought he might really sleep in peace.

  Hector rolled over toward the wall and the soothing welcome of the greater darkness to be found there. He’d have preferred a proper bed—king or queen size that would have allowed him to at least reasonably spoon up against a warm, nude Vannina, pushing further away Brinke’s randy ghost, if she still somehow proved persistent on this increasingly rare real-world carnal night.

  As sleep was at last claiming him, Hector thought he heard the soft squeak of hinges.

  He didn’t think much about that as he remembered locking and twice checking the compartment door, but now, fully roused, he felt impelled to roll over onto his left side.

  Jostling around, trying to be quiet, Hector turned in his narrow cot, tucking his right arm under his pillow—an ancient habit. Usually, he kept his gun under there, but of course his weapon presumably awaited him in Istanbul. For now, all he had was a trick lighter and a watch and they were not on his very naked person.

  Hector gradually started to drop off again, then the squeak of hinges again pricked up his ears. The cabin door was securely bolted as he’d already assured himself—of exactly that much Hector was certain.

  The window was certainly no option for entry.

  Another soft but steady squeak. What the hell was it?

  Hector opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the dark. In the
light through the window—the moon casting its light over the silent countryside—Hector realized that Vannina’s big, heavy suitcase was now partly open.

  Maybe Vannina had gotten up, taken some things from the case and gone to the compartment’s little lavatory?

  But then Hector realized the suitcase was actually still creaking open.

  In a cold, dawning realization fired by the terrible implication of the suitcase’s undeniable movement, Hector wished he had a gun. His armpits were damp with tension.

  Stingy moonlight on metal emerging from the suitcase—light glancing off of some kind of gun, Hector supposed, characteristically leaping to the worst-case scenario.

  The suitcase wasn’t that large—it could only house a monkey, or a child, surely.

  Then it clicked:

  Or a dwarf.

  Guns were the great equalizer, regardless of one’s size, of course.

  Even a little man would be lethal if he brought a firearm into play in such cramped space as Hector’s train compartment, this tight little space heavily scented with sex, caviar and champagne.

  His mind racing, Hector understood it all too clearly—the idea was never to use Vannina in any significant sense beyond simple sex. Her role had simply been to gain access to Hector’s compartment in pretty much the manner that had unfolded.

  They—whoever they were this time—were again using Hector’s reputation as a womanizer against him.

  Impulsively, Hector hurled himself off the bunk and slammed squarely atop the nearly wide-open suitcase. It was a kind of calculated risk in that he had no way of knowing in which direction the gun might end up pointing upon the moment of impact. It struck Hector as a fifty-fifty proposition: he’d be shot, or he would not.

  Six-foot-two, one-hundred-ninety-pound Hector landed squarely atop the suitcase, slamming the lid down with a terrific thump that fleetingly stirred Vannina. Possibly she would have awakened at that moment—probably she would have—but the train plunged into a tunnel at the very moment Hector thudded atop the case.