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“All right…” she said with slow caution, perhaps sensing that I was testing her. “I’ll give you the address.” She dug into her handbag again. I reached for her wrist to stop her. Her skin was warm and soft, her fingers long and delicate; the fingers of a piano player or an artist.
“I know where you live, Leticia. I’ve had one of my people find that information out long before you came here today.”
Leticia froze, like maybe she couldn’t make up her mind whether to be outraged or impressed with my attention to such detail. She looked up into my face with a silent speculation in her eyes. In the end, she merely nodded.
“Seven o’clock?”
She thought for just a second. “I have an interview with a tugboat skipper tomorrow. I won’t be home until six at least. If you are expecting to be fed for your story, we will have to make it eight. I’m a slow cooker, and not a very good one.”
“Let’s make it seven,” I said. “I’ll take care of the catering arrangements.”
She raised an eyebrow, and then smiled. “Seven it is.” When she smiled, her whole face lit up. Her features smoothed out and she seemed to glow with health and vital energy. I liked her smile a lot.
I led her to the front door and in the foyer she turned quickly back to face me. She was blushing and she lowered her eyes and then lifted her face to mine.
“You were wondering about something earlier tonight, Mr. Noble. The answer is, ‘Yes. Every day’.”
She spun away, danced lightly down the steps, her handbag bobbing against her side. I watched her all the way to her car and then closed the front door quietly.
‘Yes’ and ‘Every day’?
I frowned, stared off into space for a moment, and then suddenly smiled.
Lingerie!
* * *
“Will you be back late?” Trigg asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. I lathered my jaw and glanced at myself in the bathroom mirror. The face reflected back at me was tanned, with dark hair that curled at the collar of my shirt. Hazel eyes and a mouth that was unaccustomed to smiling.
“Will you be contactable?”
I shook my head, tilted my face to one side and drew the razor down my cheek, leaving the skin smooth and brown. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the scrape of razor against stubble. Trigg glanced at me in the mirror and I caught her sulking expression in the reflection.
I said nothing more. Finally she left the room, taking crisp business-like steps, seeming to bristle with silent tension.
I smiled.
* * *
I turned my wrist to catch the light and checked my watch. It was 5:30 pm. The car was just pulling into the curb in front of the apartment complex. I leaned forward and gave my driver a tap on the shoulder.
“Good timing, Tiny,” I said. He flashed a huge white smile at me in the rear-vision mirror. He was a big man with massively muscled arms. “Finalize the dinner arrangements for seven – exactly as I planned, okay?”
He nodded. “You got it, Mr. Noble.”
The doorman outside the apartment building crossed the pavement to open my door.
“Good evening, Mr. Noble,” the elderly man bobbed his head, his tone polite and respectful. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Hello, Hector. How have things been?”
“Quiet, sir,” he smiled. “Just the way I like them.”
Hector led the way into the lobby at a dignified pace, and a security guard was there to meet me. He was wearing a tan uniform shirt and black pants. He waited for me with legs braced, thumbs tucked in behind the thick leather band of his belt.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Noble.”
I nodded. “Has she arrived home yet?”
“No sir.”
“Very good.”
We rode up in the elevator to the third floor and I followed the guard along a tastefully decorated passageway. There were framed prints on the walls, and discreet lighting built into the ceiling. The carpeting was thick: not luxurious, but not cheap either. The guard stopped outside apartment number 312 and unhooked a large brass ring from his belt, thick with clusters of jangling keys in every size and shape. He thumbed through the keys until he had the right one, opened the door for me, and then stepped aside.
I paused in the darkened apartment doorway for a moment, and then turned back to him. “You have my cell number?”
“Yes sir.”
“Call me when she arrives downstairs.”
“Yes sir.”
* * *
Leticia Fall’s apartment was gloomy. The last of the sun’s rays had disappe
ared behind the distant hills, leaving the world in twilight.
I went into her living room and saw two straight-backed chairs nested around a small table. I carried one of the chairs through to the bedroom.
The drapes were open, the room filled with eerie half-light. Her bedroom smelled of incense and lavender. Just inside the door was a wide built-in closet, and across the room was a double bed with a small chest of drawers beside the headboard. I set the chair in front of the chest of drawers, facing the open bedroom door, and sat down.
I didn’t think I would have long to wait.
My cell phone rang a few minutes later. It was the security guard’s voice. He was whispering, as though he was part of some covert secret mission. I smiled. I should have given him a code name like Red Fox or White Eagle. I thanked him and hung up. Moments later I heard the front door of the apartment open, and then slam closed.
I heard Leticia come down the hallway in a flurry of muttered oaths and muffled sounds like a mini whirlwind. Something bumped against a wall – I think she was kicking off her shoes – and then she gasped. “Damn it!”
She burst into the bedroom and flung the sliding door of the closet wide open.
I sat silently.
Leticia hunted through the long rack of clothes. She swung her head from side to side, setting the blonde cascade of her hair swaying, and then tugged at the buttons of her blouse. She had her back to me. The soft silk slid down over her shoulders and I could see the lustrous skin of her back and the stark white straps of her bra.
She reached behind her and the sound of a zipper being drawn down was surprising loud in the silence. She squirmed and wiggled her hips like a dancer, and the skirt she had been wearing slid down around her ankles.
She stood on her tiptoes, staring into the dark recesses of her closet. I could see the firm toned planes of her narrow waist, the womanly swell of her hips, and the clench of her bottom. I could see the outline of her long sculpted legs and the tantalizing lace pattern of sheer white panties.
