CHAPTER 36
T hey were just beginning to climb the upgrade into the hills above Ocho Rios after having stopped in town to get directions for Le Retour. Ceci rode shotgun, Deraille drove, and Reha assembled his assault rifle in the backseat. Their weapons had come over with their luggage in a crate with scuba gear. The rifle stocks were made of molded plastic to avoid detection on x-ray machines. But security wasn't a priority at Montego Bay, and they could have shipped them over assembled without problem.
“Remember,” Ceci warned, “take von Mansfeld alive. If you have to shoot him, aim for an arm or leg. Watch it, with that rifle, Reha. It'll blow his leg off. I don't care about anyone else. They're expendable.”
His companions were efficient and professional. His warning was only meant as a cautionary reminder for Reha, who took more pleasure in killing than was natural. Rifat needed Egon alive in order to have the prototypes delivered.
The fact that Le Retour was unstaffed struck Egon as unusual, but not unprecedented. From a quick survey of the kitchen and servants' rooms, he saw they hadn't been absent long, and on rare occasions they did go up mountain for overnight visits home. He hadn't been expected. Everyone would be back in the morning, he explained to Mariel. Taking a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator, he escorted her up the curved staircase to his suite of rooms facing the ocean.
The teakwood floors glistened warmly with the patina of time, and the simple four-poster bed crafted by the original plantation owner's slaves was an artisan's derivation of Queen Anne purity. Tall windows framed in sea island cotton opened onto a large balcony. White, hand-loomed cotton rugs were placed beside the bed, before two tall mahogany dressers and under the oversized cane armchairs situated so their occupants were afforded a view of the water.
“And flowers,” Mariel exclaimed, as though her silent survey of the room's beauty had been audible to Egon. Dropping his hand, she moved toward an enormous earthenware bowl of white roses and buried her face in the delightful fragrance. Turning back to Egon with a smile, she said, “They knew you were coming.”
“No, the flowers are changed daily. The freesia is my favorite,” Egon replied, kicking off his shoes and strolling over to the bed. He set the champagne on the bedside table, adorned with a tall majolica jug of bright yellow freesia and baby's breath.
“Baby's breath too. Does everything grow in Jamaica?”
“Everything. Even an English garden was nurtured for centuries by the previous owners, although the climate is so tropical.” He shrugged out of his sport coat and sprawled on the bed, his arms clasped comfortably behind his head. The crisp white linen bedcover felt cool against his body, and he peacefully watched Mariel walk from window to window exclaiming over the view of moonlight and sparkling sea.
“It's not hot up here.”
“A fact the early settlers discovered immediately.”
“How long have you owned Le Retour?” She turned from the moonlit windows, her small form silhouetted against the silvery brilliance.
“My great-grandfather bought it in the eighties as a retreat. He was an amateur naturalist, and he enlarged the gardens, bringing in trees and plants from all over the world. Am I boring you?” he asked politely. He wasn't generally a conversationalist with a woman who aroused him.
“Will you show me the gardens in the morning?”
“I'll show you every last botanical eccentricity, if you wish. Great-grandpapa brought over a gardener he'd stolen from the royal court and Herr Schramm oversaw an army of native gardeners whose descendants still practice his style of horticulture.”
“My great-grandpapa raised cattle, and my grandpapa and papa do the same.”
Her words were like a soothing tonic, as though all the tension in his body and mind, all the raw nerve endings he'd been calming with heroin were tranquilized. He could imagine a quiet childhood on a farm generations old. Not that his family's homes weren't venerable, but the frenzy of his mother's social life was too prevalent, as was the unspoken disapproval of their wealth. Their fortunes were fostered by death. “My family made money on wars,” he said. He'd had no control over his feelings, no defense to bear the censure. Unlike Sylvie, he was sensitive to the slurs. “Would you like some champagne?” he asked, wanting to dismiss the plaguing inequities. With Mariel near, he'd found a new ease in banishing the past.
She came to him with a smile and sat beside him on the large, linen-covered bed. Taking off her jacket, she watched as he poured champagne into the two glass tumblers which had been on the pottery tray beside the freesia. Everything was anticipated and ready at hand, Mariel noted, down to the last small detail. Danish biscuits, no doubt a favorite of Egon's, were arranged on the tray, as well, only an arm's reach away. New magazines lay on the tables beside the chairs. Even the cologne on the tallboy was unopened and new.
“Do you come here often? It's very beautiful.”
“Not lately,” he said, offering her a glass. “Although,” he went on with a boyish smile, “if you like, we can come more often.”
“Be careful what you say,” she replied, her eyes serious. “I'm a simple farm girl and my head can be easily turned.” Her smile was winsome. “And I don't care to be hurt,” she added very softly.
“I'd never hurt you,” Egon said, his eyes sober beneath the wave of blond hair falling across his forehead. “I'm an authority on the subject.”
“Because of this?” Mariel said, reaching over to touch the needle marks on his bare arms. His short-sleeved linen shirt exposed the tracks of heroin use, and he didn't stop her from stroking the vestiges of bruises.
He gazed at his arms as though they were detached somehow, a landscape of misadventure he'd overlooked. “I forget how they appear to other people,” he said, shrugging away the familiar sense of error. “It's not habitual. I go off and on.”
“Could I help?”
He nodded, covering her small hand with his. “I'd like that.”
“Tomorrow?”
“It's not very pleasant.”
“Only if you want to,” she quickly added, conscious of her overwhelming presumption. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be judgmental.”
He smiled. “A crusading female.”
“No!” Her small cry was instantly apologetic.
“Tomorrow's fine,” he softly said, stroking the back of her hand, wondering for a brief moment why he was agreeing with such pleasure to undergo the excruciating ordeal. But his feelings were inexplicable-not muddled or distorted, merely inexplicable. And he savored the feeling of bliss.
Reaching over, he set his glass on the bedside table and said, “This may sound off-the-wall, but have you ever experienced bliss?”
“Do I have to answer that?” she replied, uncertainty in her voice. She knew him too little to admit to the sensation she was experiencing, and was afraid somehow he was toying with her.
“No-no,” he quickly answered. “Are you through? Do you want more?” he asked. At her negative nod he set her glass next to his. “I'm sorry, I knew that was going to sound bizarre… and it's not the drugs talking. I've finally understood the sensation of bliss. That's all.”
“What's it like?” Mariel asked with a childlike inquisitiveness he found endearing.
“It's warm,” he said.
And she nodded in agreement, although he took it for understanding.
“Did you ever daydream as a child about something you wanted to happen and visualized how happy you'd be if everything worked out exactly like your dream?”
She nodded again, knowing how he felt, thinking he looked very strong, the muscles on his tanned arms powerful and taut.
“And it's like you've found the answer finally… and you wonder why you've never known it was there before.”
“But it wasn't,” she softly said.