Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (10 page)

Next to me, he felt like a ghost.

While the reality of that absence bothered me in a different way, it at least allowed me the breathing space to sort through my own thoughts. Logic reasserted itself in that space he gave me...and ways of thinking about things, including him, that at least felt more or less familiar to how I’d thought about things for the last fifteen or so years.

Pushing thoughts of him aside as best I could––especially the fact that he looked damned good in the black suit jacket and pants he now wore, particularly with the bone-white dress shirt he wore open at the collar underneath––I focused on the scenery outside of the car and tried to decide why I’d come out here in the first place.

Whatever else he’d said and done, he was right about that much. I’d come when he asked. I’d also come with some thoughts of my own––admitted or not––about what might happen between us out here.

And yes, I’d been jealous when he’d casually mentioned sleeping with other people out here. I still was, if I was being totally honest with myself.

He’d been right about that, too.

The thought only brought my anger back though, even as it caused me to fold my arms more tightly across my chest. Remembering his exact wording didn’t help––even as some part of me tried to pick it apart all over again. Once I noticed what I was doing, I shoved it out of my mind, focusing back on the view out my window with an effort.

I still wanted to hit him, though.

We pulled into an even smaller set of alleys. A high archway covered in Thai writing led us into a narrow, one-lane street lined with more street vendors, right before we drove by what looked like a Buddhist temple. As we passed the entrance into the monastery, I found my guess confirmed as I glimpsed bare feet and bald heads, bodies wrapped in saffron robes. A colorful dragon statue stood watch over a high-peaked building, red and gold with ornate eaves done up like curved flames. A large statue of a sitting Buddha stood in the center of the courtyard, and I swear I saw animal cages on either side, holding animals big enough to be monkeys.

Not long after we’d passed that, I saw a giant white building looming overhead, surrounded by a small jungle of trees. That one definitely wasn’t a monastery. It looked distinctly European in style, but old, like something from the beginning of the Twentieth Century. A steeply sloped, curved driveway rose to meet us as the SUV turned. Vines twisted over white pillars at the front of the building, hanging down over tall windows making up the front-facing wall of a high-ceilinged room upstairs. I saw the sign then and a row of dark-uniformed attendants walking forward to take the car, waving at our driver to stop.
 

Another hotel.

This one looked significantly older than ours, and also significantly more high-end, if in a more conservative style than the modern and chic-seeming Hanu. The tall white columns and jungle-like grounds with their antique-looking statues hearkened back to the colonial era. Giant bronze elephants greeted us on either end of the glass revolving doors as we pulled up to the apex of the long driveway. Under the alcove on either side of the lobby’s entrance were two dragon boats jutting out of the sides of the building, just inside the row of white pillars. They also looked old, if well-preserved, and recently re-painted.

Old-style doormen in white gloves and military-style uniforms at either side walked briskly to the car doors and opened them for us.

I stepped out, feeling my nerves rise again as I remembered I had no idea what we were doing here, or who Black had brought me here to meet. Even so, when Black motioned with his jaw, I walked up to the hotel’s front entrance with purposeful strides, hoping my unease didn’t show on my face.

Black reached my side soon after I’d passed through those revolving glass doors. When I turned, he touched my elbow lightly, still wearing the sunglasses as he tilted his head a second time, motioning me towards a long bank of elevators.

I’d been staring around the lobby when he did it.

Truthfully, I’d been a little stunned by the opulence. Even compared to some of the expensive hotels in San Francisco, it struck me as almost exaggeratedly high-end.

The lobby itself was cavernous, with floor to ceiling windows facing out towards what I now realized must be the Chao Praya river and the park-like grounds of the hotel itself. Through those windows I saw a lagoon-style pool nestled inside a garden of palm trees and tropical plants, filled with snaking trails and foot bridges and blooming flowers. A bar blended seamlessly into all of the greenery and old teak. Part of that bar descended lower, I realized, so that some of the chairs appeared to be inside one end of the pool.
 

Women in sunglasses and hats perched there, laughing and sipping at straws stuck in tropical-looking drinks. In the distance I saw a row of sun lounges and umbrella-covered tables alongside the river itself.

On the inside, the lobby looked like a ballroom.

A bar stood in the shadowed part of the room to my right, done up in dark woods and animal skins and again looking like something from the earlier part of the last century. A grand piano lay in one corner near an old-style dance floor. Giant chandeliers hung from the ceiling, including one that filled the space over a gentle spiral staircase leading downstairs with white, curved bannisters. Cocktail tables and chaise lounges filled the main floor, which was also dotted with palm trees and giant sculptures that looked like real Thai antiques, possibly from old palaces or even shrines. A many-headed dragon sculpture and fountain took up a large part of the center of the room, made of marble-like stone and larger than a good-sized automobile.
 

Another fountain ran down the wall over the staircase––a depiction of a flying eagle-type god that had been done in green stone.

To my left, tucked in a fraction of all that space, I saw the registration desks.

It looked like something out of a movie, and the well-dressed patrons wandering around with martini glasses in their hands could have been from a different time period.

“Miriam,” Black said, his voice a touch sharp.

I turned, and realized I’d stopped following him again somewhere in all my staring.

Pulling my purse strap back up over my shoulder and now feeling under-dressed despite the high-heeled shoes and the calf-length, form-fitting dress I wore, I nodded right before I began to follow him.

Ignoring his proffered hand, I walked past him instead, aiming my feet for the elevator bank behind him. We didn’t stand next to one another again until we were waiting for the elevator.

I felt his eyes on me though.

I also felt a seething pulse off him that had to be anger.

Frustration, anyway. Maybe annoyance.

So he wasn’t enjoying this standoff with me any more than I was with him, it seemed.

“I’m not,” he said gruffly.

Before I could answer, a ping came from the elevator doors behind us. He turned at once, then stepped out of my way as the doors opened so I could enter in front of him.

We’d just walked into the elevator when he spoke again.

“Don’t call me Black here,” he said. “And you’re not Miriam.”

“What do I call you?” I murmured, watching as he bent swiftly to punch in a floor button. I noticed he hit the button for “PH” which had to be the penthouse.

“Bouros,” he said, giving me a look through the sunglasses, which he still wore, even inside the elevator. “...Jake, if you prefer,” he added. “You’re Alice. That work for you?”

“Alice what?”

“Alice whatever-the-fuck-you-want,” he said.

When I glanced at him, he was arranging his shirt under the jacket, tugging on his sleeves.

“So are you going to tell me why we’re here?” I said softly, glancing around the small space. I must have been hanging around Black for too long since it crossed my mind that we might be overheard. “...Or am I just supposed to wing it?”

He gave me a flat look, again through the sunglasses, but his expression didn’t move. “Just do your thing, doc. You can tell me what you see later...after we leave.”

I fought back another wave of frustration.

“It doesn’t work that way, Black...Jake. I need to have some idea of what I’m even looking for. Why do you want me to look at this person?”

“Persons,” he clarified.

“Persons...okay. So tell me what I’m looking for.”

He shook his head, once. “No,” he said.

“No?”

He gave me another of those expressionless looks. “Think of this as a test, doc. This is me finding out just how good you are.” His voice grew openly warning. “Just don’t use your sight. Not even a little, doc. Don’t even
think
about the fact that you can do it. Not here.”

“Don’t think about the fact that I’m psychic?”

“Exactly.” His voice grew harder, more uncompromising. “Get it out of your head, doc. I mean it. And follow my lead in there...don’t get weird on me.”

I blinked, staring at him. I was about to try again, when another low ping interrupted my train of thought, right before the doors slid open in front of us.

He didn’t wait but walked directly out of the car, only waiting for me once he stood on the plush patterned carpet in front of the row of doors. He didn’t offer me a hand or his arm that time, but simply began to walk as if expecting me to follow.

I did, but found myself fighting not to try and read him again.

“Not in here...Alice.” Turning, he gave me a heated look, lowering his sunglasses to stare at me with his gold eyes. His voice shifted to a warning murmur. “Don’t make me regret bringing you here. If you don’t think you can follow those simple instructions, I’ll need you to go back downstairs and wait for me in the car. I’m not kidding.”

Something about the way he said it made me not want to argue.

I nodded instead, glancing around us only then. I don’t know what I expected to see exactly, but I got the implication behind his words.

There were more like him here...somewhere.

Or there might be, at least.

If Black heard me thinking about that, he didn’t react. Regardless, I found myself strengthening that wall in my mind, keeping everything about me and Black and other races on the furthest side of that block. I made my surface thoughts light, and mainly about the place itself––meaning what I could actually see with my physical eyes.

I followed him into another expensive-looking room, if one with a significantly lower ceiling and a much more exclusive and closed-in feel than the lobby downstairs. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling here too, and while they were significantly smaller, they also looked even older and more ornate. Made of a dense hardwood that wasn’t teak, the bar looked like an antique as well, with a beveled mirror in the back and stuffed animal heads across the top that reminded me of old hunting lodges. The lustrous shine of the espresso-colored grain appeared more South American than Asian to me, reminding me of a furniture exhibit I’d once seen at the San Francisco MOMA, depicting European styles from the thirties and forties.

Tables covered in clean white cloths with full silverware sets and expensive-looking lamps lived in all of the alcoves, with the center of the room punctuated by various art pieces and more––if smaller––stone fountains that looked European rather than Thai.

I didn’t see many people, but the people I saw were all well-dressed.

Not only formally dressed, but expensively so.

Most wore clothes that looked tailored, not off-the-rack. Most appeared to be either Chinese or of European descent––I only saw a few who looked Thai apart from the hired help.

Everyone spoke in low voices and a lot of them appeared to be smoking cigars.

Again, something about the whole scene reminded me more of a movie than reality.

I saw Black nod to a few of them and a few of them smile back at him, looking me over with raised eyebrows and faintly knowing looks.

This place definitely had a “boy’s club” feel to it, too.

Even as I thought it, Black’s hand closed around my upper arm in an unmistakably possessive gesture. He didn’t grip me hard, or pull me towards him, but I felt the implication there clearly enough. For some reason I wasn’t offended by it, maybe because of what he’d said before we left the elevators.
 

Some part of me assumed it to be part of his Bouros/Alice act.