The Doll Brokers (28 page)

Ann dug past their damp towels and her top to find it at the bottom of the pile. “Local number,” she said, checking the ID window. She put it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Ann Lesage?” said Captain Tang's voice. “Is Mr. Morhardt with you?”

“Yes. Hold on.” She passed the phone quickly to Jonathan. “Tang,” she mouthed.

He took the phone in hand and said hello.

“Mr. Morhardt,” the policeman said with some satisfaction, “I promised to have news for you today and I do. Are you able to take notes?”

“Um—not quite at the moment. Is it possible for you to hold on for a few minutes?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you.” Jonathan motioned to Ann for her to follow.

Quickly, she gathered everything off the lounge and headed after him, into the elevator and disembarking on the lobby floor, where Jonathan proceeded to the front desk. “Do you have something I can write on?” he hurriedly asked the young female clerk. “And may I borrow a pen?”

“Are you still there?” he said into the phone once he was equipped.

“Yes, yes,” the Captain said, now sounding impatient. “Look—perhaps it would be best if I fax this to you. I could not find any trace of that company—Mae Sing—listed anywhere. But I do have a list of 21 Charles Lings. That's just those who reside on Kowloon side. There are another 30 on my side. I apologize but I do not have the manpower to investigate them all on my own. My thinking was that I could interview those on Hong Kong Island if you and your lady would do the same in Kowloon.”

My lady
, Jonathan thought. He liked the sound of that, especially after what had just transpired between them. “Fine,” Jonathan said, then he turned to the clerk at the front desk and asked for the hotel fax number, which he repeated into the phone.

“Good enough,” Captain Tang advised him. “Our fax machine is usually busy so this might take an hour, perhaps a little more. Watch for it then.”

“I will,” Jonathan said, already having forgotten that it was just a few hours ago that he was ready to ream the guy out. “I'm certain we can keep busy until it arrives.” He disconnected, then winked at Ann and turned back to the clerk. “I'll have a fax coming through in about an hour,” he said. “I'm in room 1014.”

“I'll send someone straight up with it, sir,” the clerk promised.

“No, don't do that. Just ring the room and let me know it's here. I'll pick it up on my way out.” Jonathan leaned close to Ann's ear.
“Cool moves,” he said in an undertone. Then his hands found her back and he turned her away from the desk.

Inside the elevator, the door no sooner closed then he was on her, pressing her against the wall of the car with his body. His hands cupped her head and this kiss was like the one in the hot tub, hard and insistent, demanding. Then one hand left her hair and his palm streaked up her midriff and closed over her breast, pulling the bathing suit top away.

Ann gasped and came off the wall, leaning into him as the car stopped on their floor. The doors slid open. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God.” She tried to find her top.

Jonathan flashed the bikini bra he was holding in his hand and stepped off the elevator. “Don't worry. No one's in the hall.”

“I'm a corporate executive,” she gasped, grabbing for the top.

“There's not a single person in this hotel who knows that.”

She scooted out and jogged to his door, holding one of the towels against her chest. He poked the key card into the lock and they went inside, laughing.

Jonathan pressed his palms against her shoulders, his fingers splayed, and gave her a little nudge until she dropped backward onto the bed. Ann threw her arms out in surprise and everything spilled to the mattress. Except the champagne. Somehow, she still held that. Then he was kneeling over her, straddling her. And he kissed her, hard and quickly.

“That wasn't a cool move,” she managed.

“Hold on. I'm getting to that part.”

He took the champagne from her hand. Then he snagged her bottoms down.

Ann giggled like a school girl.

Jonathan upended the bottle of champagne, splashing the last of the bubbles onto her breasts, her tummy, her crotch.

“Tasted pretty good the first time around,” he said.

He lowered his mouth to her skin … and she was lost.

A
nn was lying flat on the bed, face down, when the phone rang. She rolled over to see Jonathan pull himself up against the headboard to answer the call. He spoke briefly and hung up.

“Tang came through for us.” He sounded almost—but not quite—as hollowed-out as she felt.

“Better late than never,” Ann murmured, looking at her watch. “It's ten after five.”

“Do you want to try to do something about this list now?”

“Not if it involves standing or walking.”

He hesitated only a heartbeat. “I agree. First thing in the morning, then?”

“Okay.” She let her breath out as though they had just reached a momentous decision. Then she realized she was hungry.
Famished
, actually. For the first time in a long time, her stomach didn't burn. Ann sat up. “Are you hungry, Jon?”

“You betcha, ma'am.”

“Pasta.” She stood off the bed and stretched. “Could I have pasta?” She paused. “But first I'm going to take a shower.”

Jonathan watched her make her way to the bathroom. He wondered how he could possibly have any want left. But there it was, pushing at him.

Food first.

He spoke to room service, then called the desk to have them make two copies of the fax and send it up with their meal.

Ann returned from the shower and put on one of his T-shirts. Their food came and she studied her copy of the list while she ate. “Okay, here's what I think we should do,” she said finally, putting it down beside her plate.

“Go back to bed?”

She gave him just a glimmer of a smile. “You're insatiable.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

Ann finally grinned fully. She picked up the list and waved it at him. “Charles Ling?” she reminded him.

Jonathan reached for his burger. “Yeah. Him. You were saying?”

“There are twenty-one names here. I think we should divide the list in half. You take some, I'll take some. Calling them won't work for obvious reasons. It'll be difficult enough to make ourselves understood in person. By splitting up, we'll be able to see all of these people in half the time it would take us to do it together.”

Jonathan picked up his beer and thought about her suggestion. “The idea of you running around this city by yourself makes me nervous.”

She gave him a level look. “I've run around this city by myself for quite a few years.”

Maybe that was one of the first things that intrigued him about her, Jonathan thought. She definitely didn't cling. She wasn't needy. “I'll bet this city has some nasty areas.”

“And I know where they are. But Hong Kong is safer than most other places in the world.”

“Says you. Look—I need you to humor me on this.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”

“Are we fighting again, Ann? After such a swell afternoon?”

“We're not fighting. I just hate the idea of wasting time.” She hesitated. “Jonathan, I want to finish up here and go home.”

Felicia.
He saw it in her eyes, a certain fear moving there. “Did she sound that bad?”

“Yes.”

“I should have talked to her.”

“I'm not sure I could have kept her on the phone any longer.”

“Damn it.” He threw his napkin down and stood.

Ann watched him restlessly move around the room. He'd pulled on a pair of boxers but that was as dressed as he'd gotten. He had an incredible body, and she'd managed to discover a great deal of it over the last several hours. She wanted more. How could she possibly want more? A moment ago, she had felt completely drained.

Jonathan stopped moving and looked back at her. “If we can find Ling we could be on a plane by tomorrow night.”

“That's what I was thinking.” Ann wondered if this new part of their relationship would continue at home. There would have to be some kind of shift, she decided. Things would change by necessity when they were back in the real world.

He returned to the table and plucked a French fry from his plate. “Okay, here's the only way I'll go for your idea.” He picked up his copy of the list and studied it. “We'll figure out which half of these are closest to our hotel and you'll take those. I'll do the rest.”

She could have argued with him—but she knew by the set of his jaw that she wouldn't win.

“And no matter what,” he continued, “we'll set a pre-appointed hour to meet back here in the hot tub room.”

“The hot tub room?” Ann laughed.

“Or the location of your choice.”

“I'm fine with that. We'll do the hot tub again.” The thought almost made her feverish.

He grinned fast. “Good. Anyway, as I was saying, we'll set a pre-appointed time to meet back here. Whether we're done by then or not, we'll come back and check in with each other. Got it?”

“And if we're not done with our respective lists?”

“Then we'll go back out together and finish it off.”

It was the best she could hope for. Ann twisted her fork into more fettuccini. “Sounds like a plan.”

“But for now, let's finish eating and go back to bed. What do you say?”

She blushed despite herself. “Okay.”

Ann managed three-quarters of her meal before yawning. Jonathan stood and held a hand out to her. She got to her feet and reached for him, permitting him to twine his fingers with hers.

He tugged her back toward the bed. When they landed there, he only tucked her head against his shoulder and reached for the TV remote. “Let's rest a little while,” he said.

Taking over, Ann thought. Again. Deciding for her. This would have to stop. It made her nervous. But she also liked it.

She had every intention of going back to her own room tonight. She could not—would not—sleep with him. Sleep was different from sex. It was … taboo. It was too close. It was something she just didn't do.

It was the last thought she had before dropping off into a deep, dark sleep. And for once, she didn't dream…

P
atrick walked his way through small lifetimes before he came upon a town that had pretty much rolled its sidewalks up for the night. His feet were in agony. The cold had gripped his bones with a unique pain all its own.

Then he saw a bar. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. The neon beer sign in the window winked at him like a dear old friend. He made a hoarse sound in his throat and stumbled forward, down a winter-dead street so silent he wondered again if he was dreaming. But when he came up against the planked door, it was real. He closed his hand over the knob; found it to be ice cold.

He twisted open the door and stepped into blessed warmth. The place was a dive, with black vinyl stools and a chipped green linoleum floor. He practically staggered to the bar.

Two men and a woman sat there. They all had the kind of bleary, dull eyes that said they had nothing to go home to. Not one of them seemed to notice that his feet were bare.

“Get you something?” the bartender asked. He was a small, skinny guy with greasy brown hair. A crop of acne dotted his chin.

Patrick thirsted for a taste of cognac. But first things first. “I need a phone.”

The guy stuck a thumb over his shoulder. “Back by the toilets.”

Pay phones, Patrick thought. “No, I—” He broke off. He would have to come up with a good lie to explain his predicament. The last thing he needed was for the bartender to become suspicious.

“I just … I had a fight.” Patrick said. “With my wife.”

The bartender chuckled. “She toss you out, buddy?”

“She … threw some of my clothes onto the lawn. But nothing else. I don't have any change on me for a phone call.”

The guy shrugged. “So reverse the charges.”

Patrick hadn't thought of that. He had not used a pay phone in years. He wondered if Verna would accept the call.

He went to the back of the bar, wincing with each step. He found the phone and dialed. Verna's line rang and rang. Voice mail did not pick up. Where was she in the middle of the night, Patrick wondered. He briefly entertained the thought that she might be seeing someone other than him.

He slammed the phone down and went back to the bar, trying to look pathetic. “No answer,” he said to the bartender. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” He sat and put his head in his hands. Then he looked up, feigning a brilliant new idea. “How would you like to earn an easy hundred dollars?”

The guy backed off and gave him a suspicious look. “You just said you don't have any money.”

“I don't. Not on me. But if you take me to where I need to go, I'll give you a hundred when we get there.”

“Where?”

“Queens.”

“You've got to be fucking kidding.” The kid shook his head. “You want me to drive you to the other side of
New York
?”

Well, Pat thought, he was definitely in Jersey. “Two hundred?”

“To drive you to Queens?” he wanted clarified.

“And for a shot of cognac while I wait for you to finish up here.”

“Now you're pushing your luck.”

“What's the cognac going to cost you?”

“Not much. We don't got any.”

“Brandy, then,” Pat said.

The kid paused to think about it. “Two hundred dollars?” He went for the brandy bottle and poured him a shot. Patrick almost wept with gratitude.

He'd meant to savor it, the sweet thickness of it on his tongue. Instead, he knocked it back and shuddered. Oh, God, he thought, oh, yes, that was good.