‘You could be, whatever turns you on. I could pay you if that’s what you want.’
‘I’m not a hooker.’
‘So you’re up here for kicks.’
‘That’s what I thought when I came here.’
‘So come on over here and get some.’
‘I’m not so sure. You really don’t try very hard.’
The Minstrel Boy shrugged.
‘What would you like me to do?’
‘You could ask me my name.’
‘Okay. What’s your name?’
‘Liza.’
‘Liza, hey? Liza from Litz.’
‘Don’t be cute. Do something else.’
‘What?’
‘You choose. Think for yourself.’
The Minstrel Boy suddenly sat up in his chair. He grabbed the phone. The girl came and stood beside his chair looking puzzled.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You’ll see. Hello, room service? Listen, send up a couple of bottles of champagne - how the hell should I know what kind? The best kind, and a couple of pounds of strawberries, right, oh - and a large cut glass bowl. Yeah, right.’
He hung up. Liza looked disappointed.
‘Is that the best you can do? Just start drinking again?’
The Minstrel Boy smiled at her crookedly.
‘Who said anything about drinking?’
‘But I thought …’
‘You want to use your imagination.’
He mimicked the girl’s Litz accent. She looked annoyed.
‘So what else can you do with champagne?’
The Minstrel Boy grinned broadly.
‘First of all you take the glass bowl, you put the strawberries in it. Then you pour in the champagne, and mush it all together, until you’ve got this bowlful of expensive goo.’
‘And what do you do with it?’
The Minstrel Boy’s grin broadened.
‘We take off our clothes, spread the mush all over each other’s bodies, and then we lick it off again.’
Liza smiled.
‘Sounds delicious, if messy.’
The Minstrel Boy shrugged.
‘The hotel takes care of the mess.’
She began to drift round the room, looking at the things that the Minstrel Boy had left strewn about. Before getting drunk, he had been on a buying spree. She picked up a hand-carved guitar.
‘Do you play this?’
The Minstrel Boy shook his head.
‘Uh-uh, I just drop them from great heights and watch them break.’
‘You’re a funny bastard.’
She picked up his belt of knives.
‘What are these?’
A hard edge came into his voice.
‘Put those down.’
Liza dropped them. She said nothing. She wandered around for a little while longer, and then walked slowly and slightly dramatically towards the Minstrel Boy. He sensed it might be the start of a display. He liked displays. He thought of himself as something of a connoisseur.
‘I’m glad you can be obscene.’
The Minstrel Boy frowned.
‘Obscene?’
‘The strawberries and champagne.’
‘Aah.’
Liza put both her hands to the back of her neck.
‘We could start being obscene right now.’
The dress undid itself and dropped to the floor. Liza stood in front of him, naked except for her boots.
‘Do you like what you see?’
The Minstrel Boy nodded.
‘Sure, love it.’
The girl looked a little put out. She squatted crosslegged at his feet.
‘Aren’t you going to take your clothes off?’
‘In a moment.’
‘What do I have to do?’
‘Use your imagination.’
The girl slowly stretched out her legs on either side of the Minstrel Boy’s feet. Slowly she lay back on the ground. The Minstrel Boy raised one of his boots and covered her pubic hair with it. He noticed that she had it dyed the same blue as the hair on her head. He moved his foot with a circular motion, gradually increasing the pressure. Liza gave a soft laugh.
‘You’ve got an odd imagination.’
The Minstrel Boy raised an eyebrow.
‘Who, me?’
He was just stretching out a hand to touch her when there was a knock on the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Room service.’
He didn’t bother to look round. He just went on teasing the girl with his foot. He ignored the sound of the door opening. Then hands grabbed him roughly round the neck.
‘What the hell …?’
It all seemed to happen at once. The Minstrel Boy was struck hard across the face. The chair toppled over on its side and he fell with it. He saw three men standing over him. Liza screamed and jumped to her feet. One of the men grabbed her by the wrist. Another kicked at the Minstrel Boy. As he rolled over he saw a fourth man dragging an unconscious bellhop into the room. Liza went on screaming. The man holding her, a thickset individual in a grey fedora, slapped her hard across the face.
‘Shut your mouth, honey.’
Liza continued to struggle.
‘Take your goddamn hands off me.’
She found a heavy, vicious needle gun pressed beneath her chin. The man hissed at her from between clenched teeth.
‘Make another sound and I’ll rip your face off.’
Liza stood very still. One of the other men was systematically kicking the Minstrel Boy. He glanced at the one in the fedora.
‘Do we kill him now, Monk?’
Monk shook his head.
‘No, I want to see if he knows where his partner is. That’s the one that scores the prize.’
The chair was set back on its feet. The Minstrel Boy was hauled into it. One of the men, a small sallow one with a livid scar on his cheek, ripped the cord out of the phone, The Minstrel Boy’s arms were dragged back behind the chair, and his thumbs were tied together with a length of wire. Liza was also tied up. Another length of flex secured her wrists, and a third strapped her ankles together. Still naked, she was left in a corner as the four hoods directed all their attention towards the Minstrel Boy.
A sense of something almost like calm settled over him. There was nothing he could do except sit there and take it. All he could hope for was to come up with what they wanted as quickly as possible. That was the only way he could see to avoid getting hurt. He watched the four hoods as they gathered round him. The one called Monk leaned forward and breathed into his face.
‘Okay, where’s your partner?’
‘What partner?’
Smash! The one called Monk punched him hard in the face. They all stood round and waited while his head cleared. Monk grinned down at him.
‘Okay. Let’s try it again. Where’s your partner?’
The Minstrel Boy shook his head.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Smash! The Minstrel Boy was aware of a warm sensation, a trickle of blood running down from the side of his mouth. The telephone cord had cut off all feeling from his thumbs.
‘Your partner?’
‘Listen …’
Smash!
As the Minstrel Boy’s senses came back to him, he decided to try another tack.
‘If you told me what partner you were talking about, I might be able to help you.’
‘Jeb Stuart Ho. You know Jeb Stuart Ho?’
‘He’s not my partner.’
Smash!
The Minstrel Boy’s head reeled. There had to be some way out of this.
‘He wasn’t my partner.’
Monk drew back his fist. The Minstrel Boy thought quickly.
‘He wasn’t my partner. I was just working for him.’
Monk sneered.
‘Working as what?’
‘A guide.’
‘A guide?’
The Minstrel Boy took a deep breath.
‘I’m one of the ones who know where they are.’
The four men fell silent. Two of them took a step back. The legend of the guides seemed to stop them in their tracks. Monk was the first to recover.
‘You worked for Jeb Stuart Ho?’