RICHARD PIERCE SWIRLED THE martini in his glass and stared around the room. Question: could you concentrate on the alcohol while unspeakable things went on down below?
He sipped it tentatively. Tasted nothing.
Answer: no.
Dominique, kneeling at his feet, paused and laughed softly.
“You find something funny?”
“No,” she said. “Enchanting.”
“Carry on,” he said, and sipped the drink. Still nothing to taste. Sensation centered elsewhere. Natural enough. She was skilled, this one, the best they came.
So to speak.
Getting blotted, that was the trouble. Blasted and blotted. Five drinks at the airport, waiting for the plane from Paris. Immoderate. What the hell, everybody said so. Image to maintain.
But there was something else. He had planned it carefully; Charles was gone now, involved with Pet and her huge tits. Now was the time.
He moved away.
Dominique said, “Wait! Where are you going?”
“Change,” he said. “Put on a party dress. I’ll be back.”
“A party?”
“Yes,” he said, and walked off to the guest room. It took him only a few minutes to find the gun. His own gun. It was hidden—rather amateurishly—in the lowest drawer of the bureau, underneath some shirts. Hardly a clever place to hide it, if he said so himself. Old Raynaud not up to snuff.
He broke open the gun and counted the cartridges. Only five—that was odd. Very odd. He wondered what it meant. He sniffed the barrel, trying to determine if it had been fired recently, but it was impossible to tell. The gun smelled like a gun; it had a cold, metallic, oily smell, nothing more.
Ah well.
He shook out one of the cartridges and stared at it for a moment Then he touched the bullet head with his fingers, feeling the consistency. Must be careful in such things.
He sipped his martini and decided everything was all right. He returned the gun to its hiding place, then turned his attention to a rather more complex problem: the tape recorder lying next to the gun. What the hell was Raynaud doing with a tape recorder? It didn’t make sense at all. It was small, compact model, perfectly suited to carrying in your jacket pocket. From the worn edges, he determined that it bed seen lots of use.
Clever, Raynaud.
But what the hell was he using it for?
He sat down on the bed to think about it and to finish his martini. At that moment Dominique walked in, wearing a short yellow dress.
“How do you like?”
“Extremely,” he said.
She turned for him; he caught a glimpse of yellow panties.
“But you must take those off.”
“What?”
“The panties. Take them off.”
“Why?”
“They are forbidden,” Pierce said, “at the party we are going to.”