The fluted champagne glass stood empty, looking bereft, a few bubbles clinging to its smudgy sides. That’s how I felt, smudgy. I needed action. I needed to find my aunt and get back to the good, old U.S. of A.
“Shall we?” I stood and walked back inside. “Will you be going like that or will you wear a shirt tonight?”
He laughed and followed me in, grabbed my arm, turned me around, and tried to kiss me. Attraction, repulsion. This was a deadly game. I pushed him away, scooped up my purse and walked out the door. I had stuffed the cute, little black dress in my big purse, just in case we didn’t make it back. Leaving clothes behind was getting to be a bad habit, and I liked that dress.
He caught up with me in the lobby. I didn’t have one second to look for the phones. We edged around the Amathus grand lobby, keeping to the shadows behind the potted plants like little cockroaches. How had my nice, safe life in Boston running my nice, successful mutual fund turned into this?
We stood outside in the semi-circular drive while the valet motioned to a taxi, an old black Mercedes with a few dents in the fender. Zach gave the driver the address, and we headed out. We hadn’t gone a kilometer before Zach asked the man something in Greek. The driver shrugged his shoulders and pointed his hand in from of him, repeating loudly the word for correct way in Greek.
Zach settled back into the seat, put his arm around my shoulder and started a neck nuzzling routine. Between nuzzles he whispered in my ear, “I think we just got kidnapped. The taxi driver is heading in the opposite direction of the address I gave him. I don’t want to spook him, so play along and try to stay calm.”
My shoulders clenched immediately.
“Relax,” he said. “Pretend you don’t suspect anything. How about we make out for a while to throw him off?”
He continued with the neck nuzzle routine, opening the buttons on my blouse and trailing kisses down my neck. What a way to relax. Was this man insane? We were being kidnapped, and he was getting amorous. The guy in the front was going to watch us. This was voyeurism at its finest.
The light bulb blinked on. Zach wanted to distract the driver. I gave it my all and started moaning away. Zach had a slow, mind frying way of attending to a lady’s needs. I gasped and moaned louder and added a little verbal encouragement to the show. “Oh, yes, do it, oh, like that. Umm, that’s so good.” Trouble was I meant it. It did add to the excitement, knowing someone was watching. What I had to do to save my hide.
The taxi driver stretched his neck to see into the rear view mirror better. This was insane but the actress in me kicked in again. I should have tried out for porn movies.
“Oh, darling,” I said and slipped lower on the seat. “Oh yes, oh yes.” I panted and squirmed. “Do it.” Zach obliged and by gum he was up for it. The man was amazing.
The taxi swerved, and Zach whispered in my ear, “Great job, keep it up.”
The driver slowed down. I could see his neck stretch harder to see what we were doing. He tried to turn around to see. Brakes squealed as he wrestled the car to the side of the road and stopped. Traffic on the two lane highway zoomed past us, headlights catching portions of our writhing bodies, oblivious to the show going on in the taxi.
Zach, the incredible man, let out a few impressive baritone moans then flipped around and shoved a gun in the driver’s drooling face.
“Hold it right there. If you move one muscle, you’re dead. You understand, Bruno?”
The gun was pressed up into the guy’s nose. The car was still running. Bruno gulped and blinked.
“You know this guy?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Yeah.” Zack ripped off the baseball cap the guy wore. “He normally doesn’t wear a mustache, but I won’t rip that off. He’s one of the guys in the Maruti.”
“Now,” Zach said to Bruno, “real slow like, you turn off the ignition. Don’t try anything, or I pull the trigger. You understand?” He pressed the gun barrel further into the driver’s face.
Bruno blinked in reply. He reached behind him and felt for the ignition.
“Let me move,” he said in accented English.
“Don’t try anything funny. Hurry.” Zach pressed him back toward the wheel with the tip of the gun.
The engine died.
“Claudie, get your clothes back on,” Zach said, addressing me but never taking his eyes from Bruno.
“Right.” I sprung into action, buttoning up my blouse and fixing my pants.
“Ready,” I said.
“Okay. Claudie, you drive. Bruno comes into the back seat with me. We’re going to continue on to Mr. Bellomo’s. Everybody understand?”
“Sure,” I said and jumped out of the car. I didn’t hear Bruno’s reply, but I bet he was with us.
Zack sat back in the seat. “Now easy, Bruno, you climb over that seat and come sit back here with me.” He patted the seat beside him.
“Move,” he said, when Bruno hesitated.
He lumbered over the seat, being a bit on the bulky side. I slid into the driver’s seat.
It occurred to me that I was now in control. I wondered if Zach would shoot me, if I didn’t do what he said. Damnation. I forgot I would be driving on the wrong side of the road. I never drove on Cyprus.
“Zach?”
“Yes, Princess.”
I loved when he called me by my pet name.
“I can’t drive on the wrong side of the road. You sure you want me to drive?”
“You want to hold a gun on this man?”
I considered for two seconds. “I’ll drive.”
The car started with the simple turn of the ignition key. So far so good. I put it in gear.
“Where to?” I looked in the rear view mirror. You could see a lot of the back seat in this mirror, when the lights from the traffic weren’t blinding.
Zach spoke to Bruno in Greek, and they seemed to get into a tight argument. Zach positioned the gun against Bruno’s jaw and growled at him. Bruno spit out a raft of Greek and Zach translated that to, “Turn around.”
“Sure.” I inched out into a hole in traffic and crept away. On the wrong side of the road for me. The right side of the road for Cypriots.
“Claudie, you can go faster than a crawl,” Zack said from the back. He sat on the opposite side of the seat from me, and I could see him in the mirror.
“Sure, okay.” I pressed on the gas, and we hit ten kilometers per hour.
I found a crossover street and swung a wide U-turn. Horns blared. An oncoming car barely missed us. I ducked my head in reflex and kept turning, praying no one would mow us down.
Zach kept doling out directions. We meandered through the city, me white knuckled on the wheel. We took a right turn and drove into an upscale neighborhood. After several streets of large homes and flowering trees, we pulled up to the gate of a walled house. From what I could see through the bars, it was a palace.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“I’d say in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Limasol,” said Zach. “Stop here and cut the engine. Get out, Bruno.”
I jumped out and opened the door for Bruno. Zach shoved him out, but Bruno, being the lumbering, quick-witted oaf that he was, plowed into me, knocking me onto the pavement and out cold.
Twelve
I didn’t realize what Bruno had done until I came to.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Bruno knocked you down and ran off before I could get out of the car,” Zach said. “I didn’t even get a good shot at him. Besides, I couldn’t shoot because I might have hit you in the scuffle and didn’t want to attract the police.”
I was lying on some sort of divan, my eyes closed, my head killing me. But I recognized that voice. I didn’t want to open my eyes because I was afraid what I’d see.