Page 10 of Kiwi Gold
I turned my head and did a quick sweep of the crowd. Automatic reaction, when you’ve worked in as many dodgy parts of the world as I have.
No threats in sight, though, other than to my hearing, and I was telling myself I was jumpy due to the snake and the shooting and all when I saw it.
At first, I thought it was some sort of weird sketch for the party. The two of them were standing bang under the enormous chandelier that hung from the center of the gilt-encrusted ceiling. A big bloke dressed too much like me, stupid sword and all, pulling at a long-haired dark girl in a nightdress while she resisted him. All of it posed like a scene.
I told myself that, and also,Hamlet and Ophelia, probably from some part of the play I don’t remember, which is most of it,even as I took the three steps over there and said, “Mate.” Because something about it wasn’t right.
He said, “Bugger off,” and I thought,Itwasa sketch, then.I shot a look at the girl, though, and thought,No.She couldn’t be that good an actress. She was also saying, her voice unsteady, “No, thank you. Not now,” and not, “Unhand me, sir.” Another clue.
I stepped straight into his space and said, again,“Mate.”And added, since subtlety wasn’t working, “Let go of her. Now.”
He did. Unfortunately, he also pulled his sword out of an elaborate leather scabbard with an elaborate flourish.
Not like my sword after all. One of those slim, pointed ones instead, the hilt decorated with gold. It looked like the real thing, and he must’ve been waiting for his chance to show it off.
I laughed. “You’re joking.”
He said, “Treachery!” Naff as you like, and a fair few drinks under his belt, from the sound of him. I laughed again, and he followed up with a few tricky moves with the sword, slashes and feints and all, like part of his personal show. “Draw, if you be a man,” was his next offering, and he did some more slashes, then started jabbing the thing in my direction while holding his other hand in the air and dancing about like a prat.
Wait. The point looked sharp. What the hell?
I didn’t spend time considering my options. I hit him in the side of the neck with my hand instead.
His eyes went wide, and then he folded and went down like a sandbag, his vagus nerve lit up like fireworks. The thin blade of the sword hit the carpet and stuck there, quivering, which answered any question I’d had about its sharpness, and half of the excited starling-chirp around us stopped.
The girl stared at me for a moment, her eyes wide behind her mask, and then she laughed. Startled. Excited. Something. After that,she finished the last of her wine with a quick gulp, glanced around her, set the glass down and grabbed my hand, and said,“Run.”
Why would I run? No reason to run.
What can I say? I ran.
Sucker for adventure, possibly. Not a sucker for women. I’d been on the spot, that’s all, and she’d needed help.
Anybody would have done the same.
5
SWOONWORTHY
Laila
I could hear shouts behind us over the still-pounding music. Somebody was bound to call the police, and this fella didn’t need that. Not when he’d only tried to help.
I started up the left side of the curving double staircase, and he said, “No egress from up there. This way.” Not sounding winded at all, and not sounding dramatic, either. Sounding like all of this was perfectly normal. I ran with him through the opened doors to the theater proper, populated by a few groups of chattering, gleaming people in gowns and crowns.Notslightly damp nightdresses.
We ran down the carpeted aisle and up the wooden stairs to the stage with its dusty black curtain, then around to where the caterers had based themselves in a sort of lounge area. Heads turned in surprise, but Not-Hamlet didn’t stop. Instead, he kept going, deeper into the dimly lit bowels of the place, following, I realized, the redExitsigns through the darkness until he finally stopped at a back door. Of course, it was marked, “Emergency Exit,” and warned you, “Alarm Will Sound,” but what did we care about that? We’d be gone. We wereoutlaws.
Yeh, I told myself that.Iwas breathing hard, anyway.Andfeeling dramatic. He’dhitthat bloke. More than that. He’d knocked him flat.
He looked down at me and said, “Maybe not out there, eh. Not just yet.”
“Because I’m looking … somewhat undressed?” I said, still panting. “Or because my purse is still in the … coat check?Withmy phone and keys?”
“Good point,” he said. “We’ll wait until people forget about that actually extremely minor incident, and then I’ll go for your things.” And slid down the wall to sit on the floor, still looking totally unruffled.
“Extremely minor incident?” I repeated, tucking my nightdress around me and then sliding down beside him, suppressing a shiver at the feeling of the cold cement against my almost-bare back. “It wasn’t. Going back in there would be such a bad idea. Youhurthim.”
“Nah,” he said, and pulled the black tunic over his head, revealing a black T-shirt and muscular arms. “Vagus nerve, that’s all. It won’t have been comfortable, but he earned it. And nobody’s going to recognize me without the tunic, in a mask. I was Hamlet, and now I’m not. Here.” He handed the thing over. “Not as cold, eh.”
