The Ilium Obligation (A Matt Savage Adventure) Chapter 15

[seymoure]

Dancing 

“Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity
in art and life alike”
-Margot Fonteyn

 

There was a moment of silence. Then she held out a magnanimous hand.

“Wait,” she broadcast to all nearby, “perhaps he is not a complete fool.”

“No,” I corrected, “complete fool pretty much covers it.”

They would have killed me already if they had any other lead. I was pretty sure they still needed me.

She turned to look away from me. Her body was positioned just perfectly to highlight her breast size and the perfection of her features. Then her head craned back toward me with an assumed air of majesty and dismissal.

She held that haughty profile for a moment longer, looking at me as if I was nothing and she was the Queen of Sheba. She was tall, and her legs were amazingly long. Her gown was more appropriate for a cocktail party that these surroundings. It was black and had a slit up the side that run so high on her that I thought she would soon pull it off and show herself to be a trapeze artist, ready to climb the ladder above Ringling Brother’s crowd’s heads.

Now she waited. Seconds passed. After the expected effect didn’t come, she changed entirely.

She came over and sat in the chair they had set beside the one I had been dropped into. Her eyes grew three or four sizes as she leaned in to me. Her perfume was evilly pervasive. As was her cleavage.

“Why do you treat me this way?” her smooth as silk voice slid into my ear like bourbon to a dry drunk. “If I don’t get that thing for my boss, he’ll kill me. I’m not a bad person; I just made some mistakes, and he’s using them against me.”

She ran her hand up to my cheek and touched me softly. “You don’t seem like a bad guy,” the kitten purred. “I think I could like you. I’m a sucker for tough guys. Maybe I set myself up for trouble, but it’s just the way I am. I’m sure you can understand how a woman alone in this world is at the mercy of strong men.”

She looked deep in my eyes with those vibrant blue eyes. “You’re a strong man, aren’t you?”

The laugh erupted from my lips, totally without my control. She pulled back like I had evacuated on her hat.

“You don’t have to clutch at all, do you?” I said as I tried to contain myself. “You go from ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ to ‘Hey, mister, I’m so helpless. Can you save me?’ without a break. I’ve never seen anybody shift like that this side of La Mans.”

“You’ve been to La Mans?” There was venom in her voice.

“I saw a movie,” I snapped back.

Then, the payoff that I expected and didn’t expect.

I thought she might slap me.

Instead the muzzle of a gun appeared in my face. I saw those long fingers wrapped around the trigger of a gun that should have been too heavy for them to hold.

Now that was what I didn’t expect.

© C. Wayne Owens
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