“It’s already in your Swiss bank. I don’t cheat with money, though you cheated with your job. Now, go.”
The Russian went. As fast as he could get his numbed legs to move, he went, telling himself he had to keep on going, get away from here, away from that crazy bastard who he’d swear to God would kill his own mother, if he’d ever had one. He had looked into the devil’s eyes and he was afraid. It occurred to him to wonder why the Boss was letting him go. Wasn’t he dangerous? Couldn’t he go to the cops? Or simply the TV stations? Tell his tale to the world. Denounce the Boss.
Then he realized, understood more like it, you did not simply denounce a man with that kind of power. The Boss held all the cards. You would get nowhere. He wasn’t even significant enough for the Boss to have killed, which he could easily have done, right there and then.
Relieved, he picked up his pace, walking across the grassy cliff toward the lights of the Villa Romantica.
The dog got him from behind. One of those police canines, they said later, though nobody seemed sure which one it was or why it had attacked him, other than he was a man walking alone in the dark in a place he wasn’t supposed to be. And after all, that was what the cops had been on the alert for.
It did not kill him, though. They pried its teeth open, got it off him, but it had mauled his face badly, simply taken his entire head into its mouth. That’s what it felt like, to the Russian anyway.
Later, in the hospital, his head completely wrapped in bandages so he looked like something from Ghostbusters, they told him he’d been lucky that Dr. Chad Prescott was around.
“One of the best neuro-cranial surgeons in the world,” they said. “It’s Dr. Chad you can thank that you not only have two eyes but you’ve still got some gray matter. Brains. If you ever had any to begin with.”
The Russian wondered, over the next painful days, whether in fact he had.
47
Verity
I had never felt like a princess before, but I was rapidly sure I was becoming one. The Boss’s guesthouse was small but perfect, a white villa with a coral tile roof. Double glass doors were flanked by pink oleander bushes. The whole area was surrounded by fields of lavender and the scent took my breath away. Inside, though, an almost-familiar perfume hung in the air. It was from another era, but still I recognized it. Evening in Paris. I remembered the cobalt-blue bottle from my girlhood, behind the drugstore counter along with lipsticks in bright pink, and nail polish in sparkly white. Drugstores had everything in those days, which after all were not so long ago. Now they seem more commercialized, with so few specialty brands a teenager can afford and feel she is “special” too.
Still, no need for a “princess” like me to worry about drugstore lipstick; the bathroom vanity had everything any woman could possibly need, or even think of, from Estée Lauder night cream to nail polish remover. Looking at my chipped fingernails I decided I’d better use it.
What was I thinking? Had my brain gone into complete denial? Gradually last night’s events floated back through whatever brain cells I might have left. I remember recognizing I was dying, wondering if this was what happened. Closing my eyes, I felt again the sensation of the waves washing over me, the icy chill of the water that was so pleasant in the daytime when swimming. But I had not been swimming. I could not move. And then I was plucked from that sea like some forgotten mermaid by a man whose kindness of heart, whose bravery I admired. And who I was now falling in love with. The Boss.
I lay back against the pile of sumptuous pillows, softer surely than any I had known before. If riches meant you could have pillows like these then I would like to be rich.
Of course, it also meant you could own a guesthouse like this, a small villa in its own right, and far larger than most New York or London apartments. At the windows, thin white curtains swayed in the breeze, and the pale travertine floors were scattered with rugs of modern design. A white sofa and a huge chair were in front of the stone fireplace already set with kindling and a couple of small logs, in case, I guessed, I felt the need. Or simply wanted that comforting glow.
I was lying dead center in a bed so large it must have been made for giants. Perhaps for the Boss himself, who was a bit of a giant, with his great height and his broad shoulders, though I could not imagine him liking the silken sheets in a pale peach color. I scrunched them in my fingers. Were they really silk? I had never known anyone in my life who had silk sheets. Never would again either, I guessed.
I wanted to move, to get up, walk around but that weight seemed still on my chest and there was a definite buzz in my ears. Or was it in my head?
I also wanted badly to cry but my eyes were so dry I could not. There was a knock on the door. I was afraid to speak, to say, “come in,” because I had no idea who might be out there.