Yeah, thought Tris, you could put it that way. He'd used the handle of that brush to activate the nerve. She'd seen him putting it back into its holder when she came awake at the edge of the road.
"I've grown you some clothes," Luca said quickly.
Tris glanced at the padded blue jacket, wafer-thin silk trousers and rope sandals. "Thanks," she said. "I think."
Somehow Luca looked even younger when he slept, his face was less strained and his mouth had relaxed into a child-like smile. Even his eyes rested easy under their lids.
"Sweet dreams," she said.
The man stank of vaginal secretions and of things Tris hadn't even realized people did to each other in bed and she stank of the same. What Tris didn't stink of was Luca because he had no scent. At least, no scent that she could detect.
Tris leant closer, just to make sure.
"Whatever."
Rolling out of bed, Tris landed lightly and grinned, tucking the single silk sheet tightly around Luca's sleeping body. In part this was because she didn't want the man to get cold, but mostly it was because Tris intended to search his room and wrapping sleeping punters in a sheet to make them feel secure was an old trick. One she'd learnt as a child from listening in on the whores at Schwarzschilds.
"Tuck them in," Bella had been saying, "so they're safe and tight." Then she'd glanced round and seen the kid standing by the wall, nursing a frosted glass of something purple and sighed. "Don't just stand there," she said. "If you want to learn, come over here and learn."
Tris did what she was told.
"There's this five minutes, honey," Bella said. "When men's heads go walkabout and that's the time to tuck 'em in and strip their wallets of anything worth taking."
Only the sex was hours behind her and Tris had no intention of searching Luca's pockets, she just wanted to look around. Most of the drawers in the attic refused to open for her, being owner specific. So in the end all Tris found to open was a long sandalwood chest full of clean sheets. Glancing at what she could see of the filthy mattress visible beneath Luca's sleeping head, Tris shrugged and filed the query away to unpuzzle later.
Under the last of the sheets was a full court dress, Mandarin Third Class, although the jade buckle looked rather grander than this. Tris knew about court grades from the feeds because everybody on Rip knew about stuff like that.
Beneath the court dress she found a sword with an ivory grip, ruby pommel and sharkskin sheath. The blade was oiled but felt blunt to her touch. Since Tris had no way of sharpening the blade and the obvious value of the sword frightened her a little, she placed it carefully on the floor and kept digging.
Another court dress, much smaller this time and more suited to a child. And a second sword, only this one was so tiny that it was barely more than a long dagger. The kind of thing an ambassador's son might carry if he was expected to be presented at court.
Tris felt no guilt at stealing the weapon. What was a small boy's sword compared to a racing yacht? And, besides, she needed a weapon. Of course, she could pretend she was taking it to protect herself against wild animals, or that it was needed to fight off imperial guards. But those would be lies and Tris never lied to herself. At least not more than was required to stay human or sane. Lying to others was different. That was what people like her did if they wanted to remain alive.
She intended to use the small sword to cut out Chuang Tzu's heart. That was all. Any other reason Tris gave would have been untrue.
At the bottom of the chest was a map, a scroll and a jewellery box made from mottled shell. Inside the box nestled a jade necklace so fabulous it had to be real. The map was of Rapture and the scroll contained Ambassador Pacioli's credentials. No one had even broken the seal.
Shutting the jewellery box on its necklace, Tris carefully repacked the scroll, both sets of court dress, the larger of the two swords and the sheets; then she dressed herself in the padded blue jacket, thin trousers and rope sandals that Luca had grown for her.
As payment to Luca for the little sword she left the yacht's memory, sitting on top of the chest looking blue and lonely in the daylight.
CHAPTER 41
Marrakech, Summer 1977 [Then]
Celia, the woman who once sacked a Glaswegian punk band mid-tour while facing down a drunk roadie on a twenty-four-hour, amphetamine-enhanced rampage, was scared. And the man who scared her was a balding and badly dressed French official who stank of death and carried himself like a man entering hospital for the last time.
Jake, however, was angry.
There might have been some fear in Jake's anger. A level of self-protection that displayed itself in a snarl and an upturned, arrogant set to his chin, but it was real fury, of the kind which took no prisoners and expected no mercy in return. The object of his anger was Claude de Greuze and the fact that Major Abbas also stood in the courtyard of Riad al-Razor was a barely noticed irrelevance.
That Jake had decided his real argument was with de Greuze and not the Major was accurate; it also spoke volumes about Jake's background and cultural limitations, not to mention a mind-set he affected to despise.
"Look at him," Jake demanded, hands clenched into fists. They were talking about Moz, in particular about Moz's split lip and the camouflage pattern of bruises that mottled the boy's temples and cheeks. "Is this how you treat children?"
It was, Moz had to admit, one of the stupidest things he'd ever heard Jake say, among a whole list of stupid things. Everyone knew that compared to the old days, those now advising the government were as children themselves, casually cruel but not coruscated by decades of hate.
"I don't think," said de Greuze, "you realize how serious this is."
"No," said Jake, his fists still balled but now almost grinding into his hips, his pose unconscious but still taken straight from the cover of his second LP, Anemone of the State. "You don't realize how serious this is. You kidnap a child, torture him, only bring him back after I telephone the US consul and police HQ to report the boy missing."
Jake had called the Hotel de Police?
Moz was shocked. No one involved themselves in the affairs of the police unless they had little alternative and, even then, most Marrakchi would find an alternative.
"Go to Celia." Jake's voice was sharp.
Moz glanced from the Major to the woman with the blonde bob. She sat, still scared but now more openly defiant, on a wicker divan which Jake and Moz had painted pink for a joke one morning a couple of weeks earlier.
"Sit here," Celia said. "You're safe now." And it sounded as if she half believed what she said, that somehow the purple-painted walls of the riad's courtyard, the pink wicker and the sheer fury in Jake's face could save Moz even from this.
Celia looked as if she'd spent the morning in tears. Dark landslides of mascara deepened her pale blue eyes. Moz wanted to say It's okay, although obviously it wasn't and probably never would be.
Having mentally discounted Major Abbas, Jake was now concentrating his vitriol on Claude de Greuze, each word accompanied by a stab of his finger that never quite touched the old man's chest. "The boy's with me," he said. "Have you got that?"
"With you?" Major Abbas said suddenly. "How, exactly, ‘with you’?"
Too angry to be careful, Jake flicked his attention from de Greuze to the small police officer. "Ah yes," he said, "you... The man from the station. The one who was so helpful when Celia's watch was stolen. How could I forget?" Contempt practically dripped from Jake's lips while his eyes racked up and down the policeman, finding him wanting.