If Nicko’d lost, they’d come looking for me. I reached, unscrewed each of the two connecting nuts until I could hear an ugly hissing sound from the valve. I wanted a long, slow leak. I went along the row of cylinders and did the same. It’s gambling people who are supposed to like fear. I’m not one. My arms were almost uncontrollable by the time I’d done the last. I stood there, legs trembling. Was this liquid gas fuel lighter than air once it vaporized? Did it just float up, to give some future astronaut a fright when he lit his fag in the stratosphere? Or did it sink low and lie on the ground like a marsh miasma? I’d vaguely heard that was what frightened our ancients, when marsh gases lit spontaneously, their sinister blue flames flickering along the roadside swamps and scaring travellers to death. If the latter, I was standing here being gassed, risking being blown to blazes. A stray spark from the kitchen window could set the gas ball off.
I returned the chef’s plate, said it was the best nosh I’d had since my wedding, and scarpered back to the salon.
To see a few men and women emerging for a smoke and a drink. They stayed clustered by the doors to the gallery, not to miss the call.
“It’s the last play,” a woman told me when I asked. “Nicko Aquilina’s on the line this time! Him and L.A. are left in.”
She was drooling, kept taking my arm. Everybody was thrilled, breathing fast, loving it.
“It’s thrilling, hon,” she told me huskily. “Know what I mean?”
“Sure do,” I said. I lit her cigarette for her. “I’m so excited I just can’t tell you. You here with somebody? I’m Lovejoy.”
“My husband.” She hid her scorn so only most of it showed. Her head inclined and her lips thinned. “I’m Elise Shepherd.” A suave man, cuffs glittering with diamond links. Ramon Navarro from some old black-and-whiter. Odd how many here were lookalikes of the famous. Something in the California air?
There was something else in the air.
“Pity,” I said quietly, squeezing her arm. “Elise, love. I’ve watched you since I arrived.” I made sure Ramon Navarro was making headway with a slender bird sequined in turquoise.
“You have?” She squeezed my arm, glancing, weighing opportunities. Somebody caught her rapid scan, waved. She hallooed, trilled fingers.
“Is there nowhere we could go for the last round and… ?”
“Yes?” Her tongue idled along her upper lip.
“And enjoy each other’s company?”
“God, no. I might be able to… No, that wouldn’t work. Bar-ney’d miss me, the bastard.”
An announcer called the restart. I kept hold of her, desperately needing camouflage. She interpreted my fright as passionate desire, which it was.
“There’s a corridor round the gallery,” she said quickly, as we all began to move and talk rose excitedly. Some silly old sod told me this was the most exciting time he’d ever experienced. I could have hit him.
“Where, for Christ’s sake?” I could have clouted her too.
A smile flitted across her mouth. “You’re a tiger, hon. Door to the right. We could hear the calls from out there, while…”
“See you there. Hurry, darling.”
The goon standing at the gallery entrance had seen me talking with the woman. I winked. He raised his eyebrows, knowing the score. I walked through the corridor door, leaving the gallery entrance.
The corridor was empty. Wide, dark maroon velvet walls, gilded statues with lamps simulating old torches in frosted glass. Pathetic. Twice the price of genuine antique lanterns. Designers are unbelievable. I walked slowly down the corridor, counting steps, hearing the faint hubbub inside. The corridor curved round the gallery. Windows, closed against the thick night’s slushy aromatic air, were serried round the curved walls. Ornate, with alcoves every ten yards, plush double seats trying to look Regency.
Except there was a goon, standing against an inner wall. And another beyond him. They’d thought of everything, our Malibu hosts. I walked, nodding as I passed the first. The second was twenty yards further on.
Hurry Elise, you lazy cow. Where the hell was she?
She was coming to meet me at a trot, somehow having escaped from her husband the other way. I grabbed her, nodded to the goon with a feeble smile. He turned away, walked deliberately back towards the door I’d come through. I crushed her close, squeezing the life out of her, pulling her along the corridor.
“Wait! Here —”
“No, er,” I gasped, trying to rush and reveal deep heartfelt passion. What the hell was her name? “We must have… I can’t wait, darling.”
“This one!”
She tried slowing into another alcove. Luckily it was occupied, a couple twisting sinuously to synchronized gasps. I hauled her, whisper-babbling. A goon turned aside, arms folded. God knows what they were used to.
“Last round, folks!” The announcer’s echo made me whimper.
“Here, darling?”
“Yes, yes!” I flung her down and clawed feverishly at her bodice. Why the hell are their clothes so complicated? You’d think they’d go for simplicity. You can get scarred for life. “I can’t wait, er…” Name? Esme, Ellen? “Darling.”
Directly below us, faint clashes of the kitchen. If I’d had any sense I’d have counted the windows along that side to make absolutely sure, but maybe the dog handlers would have stopped me.
We overtook passion on the outward run, me ripping at her, shoving the dress off her shoulders and scrabbling at her thighs. The more uncontrollable my sheer lust, the more authentic my presence out here in the corridor while the idiot of an announcer called for silence.
“Alhambra’s card, the jack of hearts!”
My mouth was everywhere on Esme, only occasionally meeting hers as we mangled and mauled.
“Don’t mark me, Lovejoy, for God’s sake, honey, no, no —”
“Darling,” I gasped, sprawling over Ella, almost forgetting why I was there in the storm of frenzy. There was no doubt she was gorgeous, a million times more wondrous than any woman I’d ever —
“Alhambra win…!”
Thanks, Heaven, I remembered to say as Emma and I sank into that mutual torment, giving hurt and receiving it, wrestling to deny and abuse. She was openly weeping with delight, mouthing crudities, emitting a guttural chugging cough as we —
“Alhambra lose… Alhambra win…”
Win, Nicko, I thought. At least, I would have thought that if I wasn’t sinking below consciousness as Elsa dragged me in and down and out into space and bliss was enveloping —
“Alhambra lose. Jack of hearts, and Alhambra lose…”
Eh? I slammed into Esta, listened to that reaching hum which followed me, calling desperately for my mind to realize, and do something. I dragged away from Elena with a long wail of deprivation, scrabbled for my jacket which some stupid pillock had cast aside, fumbled, yanked out the cigarette lighter which I’d stuck in the right-hand pocket after lighting the bird’s cigarette and hopped with my pants round my ankles across the corridor towards the window, whimpering with fright and seeing Elsa’s thunderstruck face gaping after.
You can’t open a window with your pants down, nor trying to pull them up. You can’t kick, either. I had my jacket. I wrapped it round my arm, averted my face and slammed the window glass, feeling something maybe give in my elbow. I felt the muggy night air wash in.