“Not a peck on the cheek. A real kiss, like you mean it, causes palpitations to such a degree that the heart works harder in four seconds than it normally would in three minutes.”
“Really, now?”
“There was a study. Hell, Sam, there’s a study for everything. 480 kisses—again, like you mean it—will shorten a person’s life by one day. 2,300 will cost a week. 120,000? There goes a year.”
She inched closer.
He smiled. “And the point?”
“I can spare three minutes of my life, if you can.”
Malone 5 - The Paris Vendetta
FORTY-FIVE
LONDON
MALONE WATCHED AS STEPHANIE DISAPPEARED INTO THE night and another man immediately approached Graham Ashby, toting a Selfridges shopping bag. Malone had immersed himself among the walking tour, embracing the talkative crowd. His task was to cover Stephanie’s back, keep a close eye on things, but now they may have finally caught a break.
He noted the features of Ashby’s companion.
Reddish hair, thin nose, medium build, about 160 to 170 pounds, dressed like everybody else in a wool coat, scarf, and gloves. But something told him that this was not just anybody else.
Many in the tour were making their way into the Ten Bells pub, the rattle from a multitude of conversations spilling out into the night. Entrepreneurs were actively hawking Jack the Ripper T-shirts and commemorative mugs. Ashby and Red loitered on the sidewalk, and Malone crept to within thirty feet, a spate of boisterous people between them. Flashbulbs strobed the darkness as many in the group stole a picture before the pub’s colorful fa?ade.
He joined in the revelry and bought a T-shirt from one of the vendors.
ASHBY WAS CONCERNED.
“I thought it best we speak tonight,” Peter Lyon said to him.
“How did you know I was here?”
“The woman. Is she an acquaintance?”
He thought back to his conversation with Stephanie Nelle. They’d kept their voices low and had stood apart from the crowd. No one had been nearby. Had Lyon heard anything?
“I have many female acquaintances.”
Lyon chuckled. “I’m sure you do. Women provide the greatest of pleasures, the worst of problems.”
“How did you find me?” he asked again.
“Did you think for one moment that I wouldn’t discover what you are doing?”
His legs began to shake, and not from the cold.
Lyon motioned for them to drift across the street, away from the pub, where fewer people stood and no street lamps burned. Ashby walked with trepidation, but realized that Lyon wouldn’t do anything here, with so many witnesses.
Or would he?
“I’ve been aware of your contacts with the Americans from the beginning,” Lyon said to him, the voice low and controlled. “It’s amusing you think yourself so clever.”
No sense lying. “I had no choice.”
Lyon shrugged. “We all have choices, but it matters not to me. I want your money, and you want a service. I assume you still want it?”
“More than ever.”
Lyon pointed a finger at him. “Then it will cost triple my original fee. The first hundred percent for your treachery. The second for the trouble you’ve put me to.”
He was in no position to argue. Besides, he was using club money anyway. “That can be arranged.”
“She gave you a book. What is it?”
“Is that part of the new arrangement? You are to know all of my business?”
“You should know, Lord Ashby, that I’ve found it hard to resist the urge of placing a bullet between your eyes. I detest a man with no character and you, sir, have none.”
Interesting attitude for a mass murderer, but he kept his opinion to himself.
“If not for your money—” Lyon paused. “Please, don’t try my patience any further.”
He accepted the advice and answered the man’s question. “It’s a project I’ve been working on. A lost treasure. The Americans confiscated a vital clue to keep me compliant. She returned it to me.”
“A treasure? I learned that you were once an avid collector. Stealing objects already stolen. Keeping them for yourself. Quite the clever one, you are. But the police put a stop to that.”
“Temporarily.”
Lyon laughed. “All right, Lord Ashby, you go after your treasure. Just transfer my money. By dawn. I’ll be checking, before events start to happen.”
“It will be there.”
He heard the guide draw the crowd together, telling them it was time to move on.
“I think I’ll finish the tour,” Lyon said. “Quite interesting, Jack the Ripper.”
“What about tomorrow? You know the Americans are watching.”
“That I do. It will be quite the show.”
MALONE DISSOLVED INTO THE TOUR AS THE CROWD INCLUDING Red, drew into the guide’s wake and they all ambled off into the darkness. He kept Red just inside his peripheral vision, deciding he was far more interesting than Ashby.
The tour continued another twenty minutes down coal-black streets, ending at an Underground station. Inside, Red used a travel card to pass through the turnstile. Malone hurried over to a token machine and quickly purchased four, making his way past the gate to the escalator just as his quarry stepped off at the bottom. He did not like the bright lights and the sparse crowd, but had no choice.
He stepped off the escalator onto the platform.
Red was standing twenty feet away, still holding his shopping bag.
An electronic billboard indicated the train was 75 seconds away. He studied a schematic of the London subway hanging on the wall and saw that this station serviced the District Line, which paralleled the Thames and ran east to west the city’s full length. This platform was for a westbound train, the route taking them to Tower Hill, beneath Westminster, through Victoria Station, and eventually beyond Kensington.
More people filtered down from above as a train arrived.