Brothers to Dragons (16 page)

She listened gravely, sitting on the bed and drying her dark hair as he talked of the area where he had found her, about the meaning of her pickup at the airport, of what Daniello did for a living, and what Daniello and Matt had had in mind for her.

He explained slowly and carefully, as to a child. After ten minutes she hung the towel on the line, turned, and said, "You think I'm an idiot, don't you? I'm not. I may not be smart, but I'm not an idiot."

While Job stared, she went on, "I believe what you are telling me, even though I shouldn't, because you're nice and I
want
to believe you."

Job believed her, for the same bad reason.

"You are right about some things," she went on. "I
was
silly to believe Daniello, when he said he would go and bring my cousin for me. But where I live, there is no danger. I have never been in any danger, ever." She sat on the narrow bed again. "Are you going to feed me now? I have had nothing since the flight down this morning."

Was there ever such a place, where it could be safe to trust a complete stranger? Job could not imagine it. He went to his food cupboard and examined what he had stored away there. It was more than good enough for him, but not for her.

"Wait a minute." He went out, and returned with a long loaf of bread, a
bouillabaisse
that was his Brazilian landlord's masterpiece, and two bottles of wine. It had cost him more than he usually spent on food in a month.

Stella accepted it all casually, pulled a face at the wine, and drank it anyway. They had a long, leisurely meal, talking mainly about her home and her life-style. Airplanes, ocean cruises, a house with a hundred rooms. Dogs and horses—but as pets, and not to eat. Parties and waterskiing and powerboats and luxury cars. To Job it all had the unreality of elf-land; yet somehow he believed her. When they had finished eating she watched as Job cleared up, washed and dried the dishes, and put things away.

"Do you often do this
yourself
?" she said. She had made no offer to help.

He stared at her. She wasn't joking. "I do. Who does your work for
you
? When it's not me, I mean."

"People." She missed the irony, and waved her hand vaguely. "You know. There's always people around for that sort of thing."

In Job's mind the gulf between them widened still further. He put the last dish in the drawer and went across to feel the hanging coats. They were dry. "Come on."

"Come on where?"

"Home. Where you ought to have been hours ago. It's getting dark. Your cousin will be worried sick."

She put on her coat and hat while he stood and waited, and went with Job through the corridor and as far as the outside door. As he opened it, cold rain came blowing in. It was pelting down harder than ever. She grimaced and pulled back. "I'm not going out in
that.
Why don't we just call my cousin?"

"I don't have a phone." Calls from any telephone could be traced. He had decided long ago that he would never own one. But he was sure that he could get her to the Mall Compound in such a roundabout way that she would never find her way back here.

"Then my cousin can wait a while longer. This won't let up tonight." She closed the door and went back along the corridor toward Job's room. "I'll go in the morning."

He followed her, indecisive. She had to go, that was clear. But how was he supposed to make her? She sounded firm, while he was finding it harder and harder to summon the energy to do anything. He had drunk only one glass of wine, to keep Stella company, but it had followed a bad night, a painful tooth extraction, and plenty of stress and physical violence. His left cheek still ached, and so did his bruised elbow. All he really wanted to do was flop down somewhere and postpone worry about Stella's problems until tomorrow. And it was not as though she was in any danger. She was as safe with him as she could be anywhere in the city.

It did not occur to Job, then or ever, that there was another and simpler reason: he did not want her to leave.

He took off his coat without speaking and placed it again on its hook. For his trading expeditions into the countryside he took with him a roll mattress. Now he pulled it out from under his bed and spread it on the floor. It was frayed at the edges, with bits of dried grass still stuck to it.

Stella stared. "What's that for?"

"Sleeping on. Maybe you. More likely me."

She snorted at some secret joke. She was opening the second bottle of wine and pouring. Job took a glass and leaned back in his chair.

Stella was talking, to him or at him. He must have been answering, but his own words vanished from his mind a moment after he spoke them. At last she came over and touched his face, and then his neck and chest.

"You're a sweet man, you are. What's your name, sweet man?"

"Job Salk. Job
Napoleon
Salk." Eight years of self-discipline, dissolving into the night.

"Well, then." Her face was an inch away from his. "Where are we, Job Salk? Not
there
, for sure."

She was laughing at him as he failed to remove clothing, either hers or his own. She had to do it for both of them. He felt huge satisfaction when he saw her body naked. He had been quite right; the clothes she wore had been designed to conceal beauty, but beauty was there in abundance.

He forgot his aching arms and face. He felt wonderful.
She
felt wonderful.

And as she lay down beside him and took him in her arms, everything felt wonderful.

* * *

From their languorous awakening the next morning until almost midday, it was a contest with lovemaking as the prize: Who could think of the best new reason why Stella should not leave yet, or contact her cousin?

After noon neither mentioned it. Job watched Stella, touched her, and listened to her, and was watched and fondled in return.

Everything about her pleased him. She yawned, and he admired the strong and regular white teeth. She scratched her thigh, and he watched an after-blush of pink blooming on her fair skin. She ate, with an appetite three times Job's, and he touched her face, feeling the contraction of strong muscles in her upper jaw as she bit and chewed and swallowed.

In the late afternoon Job began to wonder what they would eat for dinner. Stella had exhausted the best of his own and his Brazilian landlady's food supplies, and he wanted to give her something special.

He took his jacket. There was a street market a mile away, and a liquor store in the same direction.

"Wait here."

"But I want to come with you."

"I'd like you to. But they're bound to be looking for you. Once you're seen, they won't let you stay any longer. I'll only be a couple of hours. Maybe less."

"But there's nothing to
do
here."

"Read a book." Job glanced at the shelved walls of his room as he left. Books were like thoughts, they crept up on you. When he looked with a stranger's eye, he saw a room where books were as numerous as in Professor Buckler's study.

"Read!" Stella grimaced at him and flopped down in a chair. "Who reads?"

"I'll be back as soon as I can. Less than two hours."

But it was closer to four. The nearest food market was already closed. After grocery shopping, and a long wait at a beer and wine store, he had continued to the magazine shop. He wanted to buy the government daily broadsheet, and see if it said anything about Stella. And she had been complaining about the awful quality of the soap he gave her (the very best he had), so he needed to buy something out of his usual interest or price range. After the second food market that meant another long walk.

It was almost dark by the time he reached home. He was loaded with groceries and supplies, enough to eat for a week without ever going out. It was a struggle to open the door while balancing bags, and then to turn and close it the same way.

Stella had not come out to help him, although she must have heard him fumbling around in the doorway. She had not even thought to put the light on, even though the room was now dark. That no longer surprised him. She was used to having things done for her. It never occurred to her that others might need help.

But she was wonderful, all the same. He turned around, arms still full ofbags and boxes. "I'm back, love."

"So you are, love," said a man's voice in the darkness. "And not before time. You said two hours. What kept you, Job Salk?"

Chapter Eleven

"So twice ten miles of sterile ground,
With walls and towers were girdled round."

Matt and Daniello. Hunting him down and looking for revenge.

Before that thought was fully formed, Job was hit by another. His name! The man, whoever he was,
knew his name.
So it couldn't be Daniello and friends.

The light went on as Job flattened against the wall. The intruder was sitting at ease in Job's only good chair, hands folded in his lap. Before Job could move, one hand lifted to show the tiny gun it was holding. There was a soft popping sound and the wall a couple of feet from Job's head began to smoke and crumble.

"That is to discourage action, not to suggest it." The man let his hands fold again into his lap. "Before you are tempted to folly, let me assure you that whether or not I could kill you before you reached me—and I would bet heavily in my favor—there are men guarding each exit. You would never make it out of this building."

"Stella," said Job, glaring around the room.

"Is not here. Obviously." The man smiled. He had a fair-skinned and cherubic face, and was almost totally bald. With his short stubby arms and legs, and a belly that protruded far out over his belt, he gave the impression of a huge and good-natured dwarf. "You don't know our Stella very well, do you? Telling her to sit down and read a book! Might as well ask her to grow wings and fly. You hadn't been gone more than fifteen minutes before she got bored and decided to take a look around outside. We had five hundred people searching for her. She was spotted in half an hour."

"You're her cousin, Reginald Brook?"

"Good lord, no." The fat man laughed. "My name is Wilfred Dell. Reginald Brook would be truly appalled at the idea that I might be mistaken for him. But don't just stand there—take a seat."

The tone was joking, but it was an order. Job sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Before we begin," went on Dell, "let me tell you some ground rules. I don't want you to have the wrong idea about your own situation. Stella Michelson belongs to a very old and wealthy family. Should a street
basura
like you even try to touch her hand, the men of the family would want him castrated or executed. What they want, they usually get."

Job was making his automatic assessment of the man's voice. It was standard English, with the open vowels and clipped consonants that he had noticed in Stella. But there was a subtle difference, a suggestion that this was not Wilfred Dell's first language.

"What makes you think that I would ever try to touch her hand?" Job threw the question in rapid
chachara-calle.

Dell pursed rosebud lips. "Mmm. Very good." He replied in the same argot of the central city. "And quick. It's nice to know that not everything in the data banks is rubbish. We'll get to that later. How do I know about you and Stella? I don't
know
, in the sense of absolute proof. I cannot ask her, and if I could she would not tell me. But I do my homework, and I make good guesses. When Stella arrived at the Mall Compound she went to the bathroom. By that time the central data bank had turned up some interesting material about you, so I made sure that we obtained a urine sample as the toilet she used was flushed. And what do you know? There was semen in it. Now, I've known Stella for a long time, and I'd be the first to admit that if you put her lovers in line, you'd have enough men to fight a fair-sized war . . ."

Wilfred Dell shook his head at Job's expression. "I'm sorry if I'm upsetting you. But I must go on. If I were to take a specimen of
your
semen and do a DNA mapping, I
might
find that it was nothing like the sperm sample we took from Stella's wee-wee. Or I just might find that you and Stella have been playing rub-the-rhubarb. That's my guess. Stella's not above plucking a wildflower, even if it happens to be growing in a dung-heap.

"So let's take the next step. Reginald Brook is delighted that Stella has been found. He knows that she has no idea of danger. He's not surprised to learn that she wandered off through the city and stayed away overnight; it's just the sort of thing she would do. End of episode. The matter goes no further.
Unless
someone were to put the evidence of what
really
happened right under poor Reggie's nose. Now, it's not my job to cause Reginald pain or discomfort. I wouldn't dream of showing him what you did . . . if your name was not Job Napoleon Salk, and if I did not have other needs."

"How do you know my name?"

"From Stella. No, don't have any silly thoughts that she 'betrayed' you. If you don't want something passed on to others, you don't tell it. You know that rule as well as I do. But once I had your name, I thought I'd run it through the data banks, just for the fun of it. From your address I didn't expect much. Maybe a little petty theft, or an addiction or two. But instead I got this."

Wilfred Dell reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of paper. " 'Job Napoleon Salk, aged eighteen. Born in the
Aeterna Lux
charity ward of the L Street hospital. Should have been stillborn, and nearly was. Birth report shows numerous physical problems." Dell looked up. "You seem to be managing them pretty well, but they'll cause trouble later. If you have a later. Let's continue: Raised in Cloak House until age ten. One of just a handful of children who did not die in a contaminated food incident there." Dell raised his fair eyebrows. "Smart?"

"Lucky. They wanted to starve me, not poison me."

"We all need luck. But then you escaped, and the record is blank for a month or so until you were caught running drugs to the Mall Compound. Taking a bit of a chance, weren't you?"