"We'd better move." I wasn't sure anyone besides Oddsson knew I was here, but if someone had been looking for me, I would have been easy to find.
"Why? Where?" Alexandra said.
I told her about Mumby and the contact in Maduro's office. As she listened, the birthmark on her cheekbone darkened. It was an emotional reaction that either I hadn't noticed before or it had not occurred.
"You're afraid?" Fear, maybe was what it took to alter the hue of her nearly invisible flaw.
"For now, let's just say cautious. We can move to a hotel. It's only for a few days."
Alexandra closed her eyes. "Then what? What do I do after you leave?"
Reverse punch to the midsection. I felt the force of that question deep and hard. The truth was, I hadn't thought about it. Things had happened in ways that I couldn't have anticipated. Still, I should have had an answer. Alexandra opened her eyes as I stammered for time. "Once the strike date passes, I think it will all be over."
"Fini?" There was a hard cast to her eyes.
This time the punch landed below the belt. What was fini? The threat? The fear? Us? Her darkened birthmark was fading and the warm persona that had emerged over the last few days was reverting to the marble goddess. I opened a space in my mind for Grandmas Sanchez and Fitzgerald to show up. I needed their advice. They came, but all they had to offer was condolence.
"We need to survive until then." We packed light. I considered whether to take Sabine's car, call a taxi or walk to the nearest bus stop or train terminal. Sabine's car could be identified and followed. It could also be an escape vehicle, if we needed one. I decided to take the car and watch for a tail. After leaving the apartment, I drove through a maze of narrow streets, some scarcely wide enough for two cars to pass. No one followed that I could see, but if there was a "they" out there hunting us, they might be using more than one car.
I doubled back, found a main thoroughfare and made an illegal turn around a boulevard at an intersection. Once I was satisfied we were clear, I got a room in a three-star hotel on the fringe of the Opera district. It was tucked away, but had multiple escape routes and was a quick sprint from two subway entrances.
I had been focused on driving and watching for followers, so Alexandra and I had not spoken since we left Sabine's. The pressure of healthy paranoia is easy enough to handle with sardonic wit. The problem was I couldn't be sure paranoia, healthy or otherwise was the primary problem.
What to say? Nothing. As she looked out a window of the hotel, I ran my fingers along the back of her neck to her shoulders. Too tight.
"Lie down."
I sensed the release of tension in her shallow sigh as I pressed my thumbs into the center of her trapezoid muscles. I moved my hands slowly along the top of her shoulder blades, and then down along their interior and bottom edges. I located the eighth vertebra, placed my thumbs on either side and pressed. I continued lower, working deep into the tsubo pressure points that induce sleep. When I pressed just above her hip bone, her sigh was deep and long.
She pushed up and reached for the buttons of her blouse. Instinctively, she knew clothing inhibited the flow of ki.
I lifted her hip, unfastened her trousers and pulled them off. Her body lacked athletic tone, but still had the pliant firmness of youth. With only a wisp of nylon at her hips she lay still in surrender.
As I kneaded the back of her thigh I sensed her entering a dreamy limbo in the shadows of consciousness. It was a state that opened a visceral communication between receiver and giver that transcended the intellect. Alexandra was capable of trust, but I believed it was only because she felt in control, even when she submitted, whether to my thumbs or to silk scarves. "Fini?" That question echoed in my memory.
I would never understand the marble goddess who could become warm but still remain untouchable, by me or probably anyone else. I realized I knew why.
She laughed convincingly, but she never giggled. The child at the core of her being had not survived the transformation to adulthood. What a stunning force she would be with just a touch of playful mischief.
What had become of the little girl? I wasn't likely to find out, but I wondered what person or event had left a hollow in her soul.
I tucked Alexandra under the sheet, undressed and lay beside her. She draped her leg and arm across me and slept—in trust, but not in innocence.