Part 6 (2/2)
”Why?”
She grimaced. ”The farmers say it collects in stagnant pools there, where mosquitoes and flies breed.”
Nick's last stop was the village garage, where she talked the owner into selling her the hand tools she needed. Once she told him that she would use them to work on her bike, he warmed to her and related his own story about the chateau.”The crazy Basque come to the village with three men in a big truck, stop here to buy petrol and cigarettes,” he said as he loaded the hand tools into a st.u.r.dy box. ”One of them ask where he find a brickyard. I say to him, 'Hey, you need that work done for you, you hire me and my sons. We fix wall, build new one, whatever he want. We build half the houses in the village.' ”
”But they didn't hire you,” Nick guessed.
The garage owner spit on the ground. ”He say it for le chateau. I tell him there are no enough brick in France, fix that. The crazy Basque, he start telling me shut up, you know? And him a priest! So I forget where the brickyard is. And when the truck come back, such a pity, but I have no more petrol to sell them.”
”Excellent payback.” Nick looked past him at the beautifully organized rack of tools hanging behind his counter and saw a telling s.p.a.ce. ”You lose an electric impact wrench kit?”
The shops had closed by the time Nick returned to the inn, and only the small cafe at the corner seemed to be doing any business. Young and old couples sat outside, watching the sky darken as they gossiped and enjoyed their wine and crudites.
Nick decided to check out the patrons at the cafe, and took the tools up to her room. She then walked down to the cafe and found an empty corner table where she could sit and observe.
The sound of hammering, Nick thought. The butcher's wife and her mysterious rash. Looking for a brickyard.
Someone had installed an old Wurlitzer jukebox at the back of the cafe, which played a polyglot of old French love songs and bopping tunes from the fifties. As Bill Haley and the Comets rocked around the clock, Nick noticed she had attracted some attention. An older teenager at the bar had turned around and was staring at her from behind a half-empty bottle of beer.
”His name is Bernard,” the waitress told her as she brought the gla.s.s of wine Nick had ordered. ”He likes foreign women.”
She studied the bold smile the boy gave her. ”Glad to hear it.” She dug a couple of bills out of her pocket, but the young woman shook her head.
”The wine is from him,” the waitress said, and giggled. ”I think he likes you.” She went to wait on the next table.
Bernard climbed down from the bar stool and sauntered over to Nick's table. ”Hey. American, right?”
”Right.” Nick watched him as he turned the chair across from hers around and sat down. ”Thanks for the drink.”
He acknowledged her grat.i.tude by scooting closer and lowering his voice to a seductive murmur. ”Anything for you, baby.”
Get away from me and forget you ever saw me. Nick smiled through her weary irritation. ”You live around here?”
”Here and in our country house,” Bernard advised her. ”My father is mayor of the village.”
That changed things. Nick noted the lack of razor stubble and the Silent Poets T-s.h.i.+rt. The mayor's son might be coming on to her like Valentino, but he was probably just a kid. ”How old are you?”
”Twenty-two. Older than you, cherie.” He waggled his eyebrows. ”Old enough, eh?”
Nick felt a thousand years old. Old and tired of boys on the make, tired of a world that most often looked through l.u.s.t-blind eyes. She hadn't slept in forty-eight hours. She was planning to do something that was at worst going to get her shot and at best killed. Bernard hitting on her, she didn't need.
I have to find the Madonna. Use him.
”Old enough,” she agreed. His eyes zeroed in on her fingers as she toyed with the stem of the winegla.s.s. ”You ever heard any stories about the Golden Madonna?””Lettice, the butcher's wife, she is wild for the Madonna. Statues in the shop, in the garden, in her windows...” He shrugged as if to say she was crazy but it couldn't be helped. ”Me, not so much. Why go to church when I can be getting down with the real ladies, you know?”
Nick doubted he'd gotten down much farther than first base yet, but she nodded agreeably. ”I like to take pictures of the Madonna. Do you know where Lettice lives?”
”In the flat above the butcher shop,” Bernard said. He caught the lapel of her jacket between his fingers and gave it a slow, suggestive stroke. ”But, hey, you're not going anywhere but here, right, baby?”
”Yeah, right.” Nick caught his hand and curled her fingers around it. ”You ever see Lettice out walking anywhere outside town?”
”Sure. She goes into the woods all the time.” Bernard licked his lips and s.h.i.+fted his legs, trying to disguise the erection straining at the crotch of his shorts. ”She picks les cepes, the wild mushrooms to sell in the shop. You want to go back to your room, baby?
I show you a good time.”
For a moment Nick imagined it. The beer on his breath didn't mask the smell of his skin, and his p.e.n.i.s was standing up and begging for her like a friendly puppy. He'd be rough and clumsy, or quick and clumsy, but that didn't matter. Boys like him were fast learners. Young and strong as he was, he'd last until dawn. She could show him a few tricks along the way.
His hand slid over hers where it rested on the table. ”Come on,” he urged. ”Let's go make the magic.”
His touch made the faint s.h.i.+mmer of desire in her belly flare. Why shouldn't she? Nick didn't have s.e.x that often, and she missed it, missed the skin-to-skin intimacy and the welcome burst of the release. He'd love it, and he'd be safer with her than with some s.k.a.n.ky backpacker busy s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her way through Europe and spreading STDs. He's as old as I was when- ”Not tonight.” Disgusted with herself, Nick drained her winegla.s.s and tucked some bills under the base. ”Thanks, Bernard.” She stood, and then bent and picked up the wallet on the floor next to his chair, and put it in his hand. ”You should go home now.
Rest up, you know, for the ladies.” Without looking back at him she strode out of the cafe.
Chapter 6.
Incense and peppermint, crimson and cloves... rings on her fingers and bells on her toes... she will have sunlight wherever she goes...
John Keller rolled over into soft cloth and coughed, his throat sore and his nose throbbing. The foul taste in his mouth told him that he'd been sick, but his stomach seemed all right now that he was...
Where?
He pushed himself up on his elbows to check the room. He didn't recognize the bed or the furnis.h.i.+ngs, but they weren't hotel quality. This was someone's room, someone's house.
He had been stripped of his clothes and dressed in some sort of oversize white s.h.i.+rt that hung to his knees. He reached up to rub the last of the sleep from his eyes and saw a deep scratch on the back of his hand.
Hey, daddy kins. Want to go for a ride?
The red-haired girl who had b.u.mped into him in the garage; somehow she'd managed to drug him. The man in the pale blue suit must have been a part of it. John remembered the strong smells of peppermint and cloves, and a.s.sumed the two had been Kyn.
But why defy Michael Cyprien and risk exposing themselves to abduct a washed-out human priest?
A heavy, cloying scent wafted around him. ”Good evening, John Patrick.”
He flipped over to face a pet.i.te blond woman dressed in what appeared to be a ball gown made of apricot-colored lace. She stood at the foot of the bed, her hands folded demurely in front of her full skirt. Thin coils of golden braid made gleaming circlets around a face that Botticelli might have loved painting.
”Who are you?”
”You may call me 'my lady.'” She walked around to the side of the bed, drawing the coverlet up over his bare legs. ”Your clothes are being cleaned-apparently you became very ill on the plane-but soon they will be returned to you.”
The floral scent came from her, and it was growing stronger. John tried to focus on what she'd said. ”You had me kidnapped and brought here? Why?”
”My lady,” she prompted.
<script>