“It’s because I learned everything from you. You’ll always be the one person who knows exactly what I think. You’ll always outguess me.”
The ocean air should have started sobering him up, but it was having the opposite effect. Lassiter struggled to understand what Court was saying to him. The air was completely still, and there was no sound. Even the distant trucks moved past each other in silence. If his wife were here he knew she would appreciate the beauty of the night, but she was asleep in London. It was late and he was still wearing his business suit, and polished black shoes that pinched.
“You know the story of the Caliph of Jaipur?” asked Court, draining his glass and setting it down on the balcony table. “He hired the finest painter in the land to create a fresco of heavenly angels for the walls of his harem. When it was finished, he asked the artisan if it really was the best fresco in all the kingdom. The painter told him that there was no finer artwork to be found beneath the horizons, nor would there ever be again until someone else could afford his services. So the Sultan had him beheaded.”
Lassiter looked at him blearily. Only the whites of Court’s eyes showed in the jet night, and then they were gone. A streak of silver sparkled in the ocean like a flash of static electricity, the signature of the moon. He felt tired and looked for a place to sit, but Court was crouching beside him. When he rose, he was holding Lassiter’s right ankle. Court stood taller and taller, rising higher and higher, until Lassiter realized he could no longer remain upright. “You’re not drunk,” he said absurdly.
“I don’t drink whisky.” Court raised his old friend’s ankle higher, until pain shot through Lassiter’s thigh muscles.
“Vodka—”
“Because it looks like water. Sure you don’t want to sell?”
“Over my dead body.”
Court shrugged his shoulders. “That was the general idea.” With both his hands clasped beneath Lassiter’s foot Court leaned back suddenly, like a Scotsman tossing a caber, raising his arms smartly so that Lassiter lost his battle with gravity and found himself lifted cleanly into the air, over the barrier of the balcony. His mouth opened in shock, but only the smallest sound emerged. His fingers grasped at the air beyond the low rail, too late, and he tumbled silently down, past the empty dark floors. The first part of the fall seemed to last for ever, as if he were wheeling through the night in slow motion, like a firework that had failed to ignite, or a spaceman with a cut cord.
But then he hit his head on the concrete lip of the thirtieth balcony, and this sent him spinning madly out of orbit. His head turned from white to black, leaving a matching stain on the building wall. His leg hit another ledge, his arm another, his head again, his arm, his leg, until there was hardly a bone in his body left unbroken - and that was long before he hit the ground.
Court stepped back into the room. “You might want to come out now,” he called. “We’re alone.” He heard running water stop.
The bathroom door was padded crimson with gold studs. It opened cautiously. Vienna emerged with her make-up refreshed, like a meticulously restored painting. She took in the suite, three glasses, one occupant less, an open balcony door, and decided to say nothing. Had she an inkling of what had just happened? Her face was a mask. Court’s decision to act had been spontaneous. He knew she could not have seen anything, and Lassiter had made no noise. He doubted that she cared anyway. It was not her job to care. She worked in a service industry.
“My colleague had to leave. Thanks for coming up,” said Court, feeling inside his jacket. He unclipped her handbag and dropped in a roll of banknotes. “Maybe we’ll see each other again.”
“I’d like that.” Vienna’s smile was unreadable. She turned and walked to the door, seemingly aware of exactly how many steps it would take. “You know where to find me.”
And she was gone.
Court closed the window and rinsed the glasses, placing them back on the bar shelf. He had left no other mark in the suite. Letting himself out, he padded along the corridor and caught the elevator to his own room. He had paid the girl too much, but would not have been able to get Lassiter back to his suite without her. Everyone knew that even though the old man loved his wife, he still needed to prove himself with the ladies.
He would heed his mentor’s advice and not suggest the buyout immediately; that would be crass. There were plenty of other preparations he could be making while the company came to terms with Lassiter’s death. It would be interesting to see how long they could keep it out of the news.
Before the last day of the conference began, he took a stroll outside. The sky was a painful deep blue, sharper than knives. The pavements had been hosed down, and were already nearly dry. He circled the hotel but found no sign of any disturbance. Shielding his eyes, he squinted up at the balconies, trying to spot where Lassiter had hit the building, but realized that he was standing beneath the ledges, and would not be able to see anything.
The day dragged past in parades of PowerPoint bar charts, each more candy-coloured than the last, as if their radiance could make up for their dullness. At lunchtime he saw two men who looked like plainclothes police. They were standing motionless in the reception area, in mirror shades and shiny blue suits. By the time afternoon tea was served, even Lassiter’s reservation had disappeared from the records. Clearly, the hotel’s reputation was more important than its founder’s demise. The things we create outgrow us, thought Court, shutting down his laptop. One day you own the company, the next even your PA can’t remember you. I thought there would be repercussions. I guess Sean was right. It’s all part of the new business model.
~ * ~
Two weeks later, Court found himself at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow. He always seemed to be holding meetings in departure lounges. In the business-class bar he had bumped into an old English friend, a nervy, sticklike redhead called Amanda, and had invited her to join him. Watching snow fall on airfields from behind picture windows always had a calming effect on him. Amanda was a seasoned executive with half a dozen personal communication devices in her briefcase and no hint of a private life. She told him she was going to try internet dating when she finally settled in one city long enough to do so.
“I was wondering what you thought about Sean Lassiter,” she said, slowly emptying another miniature bottle of Tanqueray into her glass. “There’s a rumour going around that Elizabeth was about to leave him.”
Court had no idea. Suddenly the lack of publicity surrounding the death made sense. “I heard something to that effect,” he said.
“They hadn’t been sleeping together for years,” she told him knowledgeably. “I was reading an article in the Economist about the similarities between successful businessmen and serial killers. They share the same lack of compassion, the same selfishness and determination to succeed. They exploit the flaws of their opponents, and lose their ability to judge on moral grounds.”
For a crazy moment he wondered if she had heard another, darker rumour, but decided it was impossible. The buyout had only been discussed with a handful of board members. It would not be made public until after it was successful.
“I guess you’re going on to St Petersburg,” she said. “Where are you staying?”
“The Grand Sovetskaya. How about you?”
“Oh, nothing so fancy. That was one of Sean’s personal favourites, wasn’t it?”
‘“Well, it’s part of the chain.”
“I slept with him, you know. Our flights were cancelled and we were stuck at the Espacio Rojo Hotel in Barcelona. I was really sorry to hear he died. Or was it the Severine in Paris? They have this fabulous spa treatment where they wrap you in oil-soaked gauze and place hot stones down your spine...”
He listened without hearing. The image of the old man pumping away on top of poor bony Amanda while whispering sales figures in her ears was best left behind in the departure lounge.
The Grand Sovetskaya was an unashamedly old-world hotel in the Fr
ench style, with green copper gables and crouching gargoyles. In the domed reception area hung a crystal chandelier the size of a skip. The rooms were filled with dark wooden dressers, sideboards and wardrobes, and were locked with huge brass keys. There were twenty-one floors of corridors that smelled of furniture polish and boiled cabbage, all identical and gently curved, like those of an ocean liner. Thick floral carpets and heavily lined drapes deadened all sound.
Best of all was the bar, a paradise for the serious drinker. The shelves were stacked with dozens of flavoured vodkas and an immense range of mysterious liquors, vaguely medicinal in appearance. Court suspected that the elderly hatchet-faced bar staff had arrived with the first guests. Heavy marble ashtrays lined the counter. This was clearly no place for lightweights.
Court was there to conclude the discreet negotiations with Lassiter’s board, but if anyone asked, he was attending a forum staged by the Opportunities In New Business Development Commission. Discretion was second nature to him. He spent most of his life in hotels as quiet as libraries where the patrons were defined by the depth of their expense accounts. Lighting a cigar, he thought about Lassiter turning over and over in the warm night air, a tiny flailing puppet whose existence had been erased almost before he hit the concrete. How many Indian workers had been employed to scrub the blood from the stones before another harsh dawn flooded the hotel with sunlight? Had the manager posted Lassiter’s luggage back to his grieving wife? Had Elizabeth pored over the spreadsheets, graphs and overlays, hopelessly looking for answers?
He felt no guilt. Lassiter’s downward spiral had begun before Dubai. Court had saved him the incremental degradation a man feels when he realizes the company he has founded no longer needs or desires his advice. He waved aside the blue haze of cigar smoke and studied Vienna. She was seated in a red-leather horseshoe banquette between two short bald oligarchs. When she saw him looking, she momentarily forgot what she was saying. Her eyes lingered a moment too long.
Clearly, she was good at her job if she was travelling to international clients. For a second it crossed his mind that they might make an interesting team, but he knew that the best call-girls stayed at the peak of their trade by giving nothing of themselves to others. Even so...
It would have been unprofessional to send her any kind of message while she was working, so he smoked and waited, and treated himself to a golden Comte de Lauvia 1982 Armagnac. The Russians here were loud and unsophisticated, but Vienna never appeared bored. After an hour they were clearly drunk. Court had no idea what she said to them, but they suddenly fell into a sombre mood and rose together, bidding her goodnight.
She came over to him with her shoes in one hand, and he realized how much they added to her height. “However long your evening has been,” she told him, taking a sip of his brandy, “I promise you, mine was longer.” She licked her lips appreciatively and allowed her head to fall back against the red leather seat. “Mmm. Can I get one of those?”
The waiter appeared without being summoned, delivered and departed. She seemed content to drink and drift without making small talk. She wore another low-cut black dress, and a single strand of pearls. Her perfume had faded enough to allow a natural womanly odour, faint but arousing, to rise from her peach-coloured skin.
He relit his cigar and watched her, wondering how much she remembered of their last meeting. The bar was almost empty. It was 2.15 in the morning. “How long are you staying here?” he asked.
“Two nights. I’m entertaining those guys.”
“They must be important.”
“To someone. Not to me. It’s a job.”
“They left without you.”
“I sent them away.” She took the cigar from his fingers and smoked it for a minute.
“I’m here for— “
“I don’t want to know why you’re here.” She studied the glowing tip of the cigar. “I’m sure you get tired of talking shop. I do.”
“So, Vienna, what would you rather do?”
She turned her eyes to his. Her pupils were violet, the lashes long and black. “Shall I tell you what I would really like to do?”
He gave no response, but waited with a small catch in his breath.
“I would like to fall asleep in a great big soft bed with my head on your chest.”
“We can do that.” Then he remembered. “Wait, they screwed up my reservation. I have two singles. We can push them together.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Well, where are you staying?”
She held up the key. It was the first time he had seen a genuine smile on her lips. “I have the royal suite.”
Now he was impressed. “How did you get that?”
“How do you think?”
They made their way to the twenty-first floor. As they followed the curve of the passage, Vienna entwined her fingers in his. I don’t have to tell this woman anything, he thought, she and I are the same kind.
When she unlocked the door at the end of the corridor and turned on the lights, he was disappointed to see that except for an extra pair of curtains covering the end wall, the room was almost identical to his. It was unbearably hot. He removed his suit jacket, threw it on the couch and loosened his tie.
“Make me a drink,” she told him, “I’ll be back.” She headed for the bathroom. Something made him uncomfortable. He heard the bathroom door shut, then silence. He poured two whiskies at the wet bar and thought for a moment. It was exactly what she had done in Dubai.
No, it wasn’t.
Then she had waited until she had seen her own drink poured. Call-girls always did that, just to be careful.
She wasn’t going to drink anything. Then why had she asked him to make her a drink?
“Vienna?” He knocked on the bathroom door, but there was silence beyond. He placed his ear against the wood and listened. Nothing.
The room was spectacularly hot. Vienna was obviously missing Dubai. There didn’t seem to be a thermostat anywhere. Then he remembered; his was in the bathroom. “Vienna,” he called, “turn the heat down, will you?”
The floor tipped, just a little, but enough for him to realize what had happened. He headed back to the bar and examined his drained whisky tumbler. There was some kind of white residue in the bottom of it. Sweat was starting to pour between his shoulder blades. The front of his shirt was darkening around his armpits and in the middle of his chest.
The carpet seemed to be pulling away beneath his feet. He needed cold air, fast. He reached the end window and pulled back the curtains, but there was just more wall behind them.
The big French windows were in the same place as the ones in his room. He lurched across to them and tried the right handle. It turned easily. He pulled the glass door towards him and a blast of sub-zero air filled the room. It was snowing hard. Almost instantly he began to sober up. He tried to think.
Stepping on to the balcony, he breathed in the stinging winter air, filling his lungs with ice. Fat white flakes settled on his eyelids, in his ears. His head was clearing fast but his reactions were still slow.
Too slow to stop the door from being shut behind him. Vienna was standing beyond the glass. She studied him blankly, as if watching an animal at the zoo. Her right arm was raised, her hand against the wall. She was pressing something. She wiggled the fingers of her left hand slightly, waving goodbye.
The steel shutter that fitted tightly over the windows was swiftly closing. He tried to seize its edge with his fingers, to push it back up, but it was so cold that the flesh of his fingertips, still wet from his whisky glass, stuck to the metal, pulling him down.
And then it was shut. He tore his fingers free, leaving behind four small scarlet patches of skin. The sweat on his back was already turning to ice. He hammered on the steel shutter, but was shocked by its thickness. It barely rattled. Old French-style hotels always sported European shutters. He moved around the edges of the metre-wide balcony. A sheer drop down, no
lights on anywhere. The rooms on either side had bricked-up windows.
The bitter wind had risen to a howl. He was in his shirtsleeves, and knew he had but a short time to live. He had been drinking all evening; his blood was thin. He fell to the floor of the balcony and pushed himself into the wall, but the ice and snow still blew through the balustrade, settling over him.
His first instinct was to assume he had been subjected to a woman’s revenge. Then he remembered she was merely an employee.
He tried to laugh when he understood what had happened, but the saliva was freezing in his mouth. Even his eyes were becoming hard to move. He fancied he could hear the ice forming beneath his skin. Tiny crackles like rustling cellophane filled his ears.
Staring out into the night beyond the balcony, the darkness was sprinkled with swirling white flakes that looked like stars. He could have been anywhere in the world.
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10 Page 6