The Last Maharajan (Romantic Thriller/Women's Fiction) (15 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

She wanted it.

He knew she wanted it.

She had egged him on like she did so many years before. He felt foolish to have fallen for her again.

Clive fumed as he stormed out of her hotel room. He pressed the elevator buttons in a rapid-fire motion as if he were knocking on a door. When the doors opened a Hispanic maid no more than twenty years old with a cart of cleaning supplies tried to push out. They nearly collided.

He rolled his eyes and motioned with his arm a little too hasty for her to go first. She said sorry, sorry in broken English and rushed to get out of his way. He pressed the buttons inside with the same rapid-fire action and when the door closed he heaved out a sigh but the elevator stopped at the fourth floor. He barked out in anger and slammed a fist onto the wall before the doors had a chance to open. When they did, three younger men wearing swim trunks and t-shirts who were talking and smiling, got on.

They talked about the evening before and about the girls at the bar. They stressed the word “bar” and, for Clive, he understood it to mean, an exotic dance bar. When the elevator stopped again on the second floor Clive became undone.

“Dammit!” He didn’t care there were other people inside the elevator.

The men stiffened and became quiet. He rubbed his head and neck.

“Hurry the hell up.” He pressed an older couple entering the elevator. A lead silence hung in the air as they all watched for the doors to close. One of the young men looked at another one and nudged him but the other guy shook his head at him as if to say, don’t say anything. When the doors opened Clive pushed between them before any had a chance to get out of his way.

“Nice.” The younger guy taunted. It was the one who’d been nudged by the other.

Clive’s gait slowed but then he decided to ignore him. He didn’t care. The guy was the least of his worries. He stomped hard against the tile as he walked until finally making it out the hotel’s doors.

The warm air hit him like an oven. It refreshed him.

He pulled his keys out of his pocket when he approached his 1984 Camaro. He had trouble getting his key into the lock. He was still feeling the booze. When he made it inside, he flipped over the engine. The sudden blast from the air conditioner blew out a parched dust into the air that made him breathe in a quick breath and cough.

He reached over to the glove compartment, opened it and pulled out a flask. He unscrewed the cap and took a gulp. Metal against metal made a familiar scraping noise and his mouth watered. He sat for a second against the hot leather of his chair and took a drink, then another.

As the air from the vents turned cool he nursed the flask once more before setting his head back onto the head rest. He screwed on the cap to the flask and dropped his arms into his lap.

He replayed what had happened with Euly – the slut. He felt used but she’d gotten the information she so desperately needed. He started to laugh and then faded into oblivion.

It was the siren woke him. With the flask still balanced between his legs and the car still running, he blurred awake. A string of drool snapped when he sat upright. He wiped his mouth and took one more slug of liquor then put the car into reverse and backed out.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

“I’ll tell her, Geoff. She’ll call you when she can.” Enaya slipped her cell phone back into her purse. She dropped the cigarette and smashed it out with her toe. The pavement where she stood was scattered with cigarette butts from others who had stood right there, like Enaya, possibly calling family.

It was getting close to dinner time. She looked high above the hospital wall to the sky but only saw a smattering of blue through a haze of smog.

She knew her sister would smell remnants of cigarette on her but she didn’t really care. She had good reason to smoke today.

The hospital’s entrance was surrounded with thick oversized concrete block. The block etched in cartoonish figures reminiscent of
Kokopelli
dancers with flutes some heads in the air some pointed downward. Enaya blew out the last remnants, puffs of white, evidence of the cigarette. Jimmy despised her smoking. She’d taken after her father and mother. Some shit just can’t be undone.

Nurses were still milling around Euly when she walked back into her room. They caught each other’s eyes, her sister’s with a look somewhere between fear and embarrassment.

The accidental overdose of oxycodone mistaken for aspirin, felt inadvertently intentional to Enaya. Looking at her sister there, in a hospital gown, with fluids draining into her arm, made her eyes burn. She tipped her head to the side and jutted out her bottom lip. Tears filled Enaya's eyes slowly.

Euly’s shoulders moved up then down and she sighed. Tears rushing out, brimming up and over her bottom lids.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes to check on her.” One of the nurses, the one in-charge, warned Enaya.

Enaya made a movement with her head that she understood and moved further into the heart of the room. The others finished their business and walked behind Enaya to leave them alone but left the door open. Euly tipped her head in a way that meant her sister was to do something.

“The door.”

Enaya closed it behind her then walked over to the bed. Standing, at first, Enaya grabbed her hand and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

“You had a cigarette.”

“Hush.”

Euly wanted to explain for a second time but began to cry. Enaya grabbed the box of generic tissue available on every table in every hospital room and handed it to her.

“It’s okay. Don’t get upset again.” She sat down. “Look you’ve had quite a day, huh. Want some water?”

"I think I've had enough!” She chuckled nervously.

But, she took the water and drank it in one go, gulping loudly. When she finished, she breathed in and out in shallow gasps.

“I couldn’t move, breathe. It was terrifying.”

Her face contorted and her chin began to quiver. “You’re okay. You’re okay, now. Don’t think about it all right? You shouldn’t get excited again.

Have they given you anything? For your nerves?” She shook her head 'no' and rubbed her arm.

“Oh, Enaya. I’m such a fool.” She gulped in a pocket of air and held it so she wouldn’t start crying again and instead moaned. The humming of it resonated against her closed lips.

“Hey. Settle down. Just breathe. And, don’t say that. I’m the only one allowed to call you a fool.” Enaya smiled trying to take her mind off whatever was troubling her.

She shook her head quickly in agreement and tried to smile. “Does Geoff know?” She choked out the words.

“That you’re in the hospital?” Euly nodded.

“Well, yes! He’s worried. He said you didn’t call him yesterday or today.”

“Oh, shit.” She turned her head from Enaya and brought fingertips to her mouth.

Enaya reached over, tapping her hands lightly. “Don’t. Your fingernails look like hell as it is.”

Euly dropped them from her lips and turned her head away.

Enaya opened her bag and raised an emery board. “Ta da!”

Euly turned to see and smiled. Enaya grabbed her left hand. “Hold still.” It was a sweet and gentle order. The filing relaxed Euly.

“I don’t know anything anymore, you know?”

“Ah, the great unknown. What do we really know, Eu? If we’re lucky we might, at some point, feel like we know ourselves but I’m telling you, even that’s sketchy.” Her sister continued to file and finished with her pinky nail. She patted her hand and made a gesture, asking for the other one. Enaya enjoyed playing the older sister role.

The residual effect of the drugs, softened Euly's face. "Tired?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not going anywhere. Why don't you rest?"

"How boring."

"Darling. You're nothing like boring." Enaya chuckled. "Get some sleep. We're in this one together."

Enaya continued to file her sister's hands. And, as Euly drifted off, Enaya tears flowed freely.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

When she woke, Enaya was still there, as promised, sitting next to the bed and reading a book. Enaya hadn't noticed Euly awaken.

The sky had turned into violet. Through the window, Euly could see the sun bouncing off the tip of a distant office building. It yellowed the walls and sparked off its windows.

“What time is it?” Her words startled Enaya away from reading.

“You’re awake. Uh, it’s close to seven p.m. How do you feel?”

“Sleepy.”

“Yeah, you crashed pretty fast.”

“Enaya. I want to tell you what happened.” She closed the book and held it on her lap. “Do you remember Clive and Sandy?”

“That’s who that was!”

“What?”

“I saw him leaving the hotel.”

“Oh God.”

“What was he doing there?”

Euly paused. Her face changed.

“What did you do?” Enaya’s question darkened.

“Oh, Enaya. I’m so ashamed.”

“Did you have sex with him?” Her voice arced with accusation.

Euly needed more time, to think, to recover.

She pressed the button to lift the head of the bed. She adjusted her body into a sitting position and rearranged her sheets. She grabbed her water cup and sipped.

“Look, I’m not going to lie to you. What I did was wrong…”

Her sister expelled a long breath of air and scolded her with her eyes.

“What I did was wrong but I didn’t sleep with Clive. Christ Enaya. Will you give me some credit here?”

“Okay, then, tell me what happened?” Euly explained why she met Clive that first time at Benny’s. She explained her reasoning for the follow-up meeting. Then, she continued to tell Enaya how she let him believe she might sleep with him, as she put it, for the information she needed to get out of him.

“But, I didn’t, sleep with him, that is. You have to believe me, Enaya.”

“So, what happened when you got to your room?” It wasn’t a question but more a command.

“He was stalling. He wanted to, you know… do it first."

Euly made a face as if she'd swallowed a fly. "God." She shuddered. "I told him I needed the information first. It went back and forth like that a few times and then he asked me for a drink, you know, from the mini-bar. I poured us a couple drinks and, I’ll tell you Enaya, he was already half in the bag. I mean, even if we had tried to, you know, I don’t think he could’ve gotten it up.”