Flashpoint

'Downstairs in the lobby.'

'Then come up right away.'

'Tell the doorman. He doesn't like my looks.'

I held out the phone toward the watching uniformed man. He walked toward it and took it from me, listened for no longer than it must have taken Talia to get out one sentence, then nodded to me. The self-service elevator whisked me to Talia's floor.

Her apartment door was open, and she was standing in the corridor. She took my arm eagerly as I approached her, smiling widely. She looked bright and alert. I wondered if she was on the same high she'd been riding when I left her, or if she'd loaded up again while I was coming up in the elevator.

I couldn't help but notice as she ushered me inside that she had on a long-sleeved nightgown and robe so sheer that the combined lacy material could have been pulled through a man's wedding ring. 'You have the envelope?' she asked anxiously when she closed and locked the door.

I took it out of my jacket pocket and showed it to her. She reached for it greedily, but I pulled it back. 'You can look, baby, but you can't touch. Not until I get paid.'

'It is intact?'

I turned it over and showed her the sealed back flap.

'Wonderful!' she repeated with a toss of her dark hair that settled it loosely on her shoulders. 'But how much do you expect to be paid?'

'I'll negotiate that with your boss.' I looked at the smooth, body curves within the semi-translucent material of her nightwear. 'Although I remember you said you'd do anything yourself to get it back.'

She appeared to have forgotten that. She glanced at the clock buried in the flank of the polished brass elephant. 'I must call Iskir at once,' she said, moving to the telephone.

'In English,' I said.

'In English,' she agreed, and dialed. 'Abdel? I must speak with Mr. Bayak.'

'Who's Mr. Bayak?' I asked.

'Iskir Bayak, my employer. He is an importer of Oriental rugs.'

For a second I wondered if she were telling the truth. If the proposed hijack concerned only a shipment of Oriental rugs, then Erikson, McLaren, and I were barking up the wrong dogwood. Then I visualized Chryssie's nude, contorted, crimson-streaked body. No, Iskir Bayak was something more than a larcenous importer of Oriental rugs.

'Iskir?' Talia said at last. 'I know it's late, but I have good-' She stopped as a tirade of abusive sounds reached my ear, even though she had the phone slightly shielded. 'It's not possible,' she said hurriedly when she could get a word in. 'He is here with me now. With the envelope.' She cut her eyes toward me. 'Yes. Sealed.' There was another torrent of sound from the phone. 'I have seen it, Iskir!' she wedged desperately into the waterfall. 'Yes. No. What?' She listened for a moment. 'Yes, I can.' She hung up the phone slowly. 'Mr. Bayak will see us in an hour,' she said without looking at me.

'An hour!' I barked. 'After working up a sweat convincing the guy who had the envelope that it had to be returned unopened to be worth anything, now your Mr. Bayak wants me to cool my heels for another hour?'

I wondered if Bayak had already learned of the knife-artist's demise. There wasn't much else that could explain his abusiveness on the phone. Unless he was getting nervous waiting for a report which was never going to come? I inspected Talia's beautiful face. The fear that I had seen before was back again.

She slithered in my direction and stopped so close to me I could feel her body heat. 'While we wait,' she said coaxingly, 'I will take care your needs.'

'Okay,' I agreed, knowing I had no choice but to wait to see Bayak on his terms. 'The first thing I need is a shower.' I took hold of her nightgown-and-robe covered arm. 'And you can join me.'

The smile she gave me was almost demure. 'You Americans,' she said archly. 'You want to begin where other couples arrive after a day and a half.'

I led her into the bathroom. All I'd really had in mind was removing her from the vicinity of the phone so she couldn't make any phone calls I couldn't hear, but I made no objection when she removed her robe and pulled her nightgown over her head. I really needed a shower after the exertion of dealing with the knife-artist, and I undressed quickly.

Talia pulled on a pink shower cap and tucked her dark hair beneath it, then came to me. She ran her fingertips curiously over the numerous scars on my chest and thighs from the skin transplants that had made me a new face, but she didn't say anything. I unfastened the tabs at my hairline and removed my wig. For an instant she looked startled at the unveiling of my hairless, serrated pate, but she recovered quickly. 'Even when I was a little girl in Ismir, Yul Brynner was my favorite actor,' she murmured with a smile.

There was a lot more to Talia's olive-skinned nudity than appeared possible in street clothes. Her breasts were large, slightly pendulous, and grape-nippled. I turned her around, and her silky-looking buttocks were almost chunky, with just a hint of the controlled, powerful action seen in a thoroughbred mare. Tattooed on one upstanding hind cheek was a fantastically realistic multicolored butterfly. Talia made no move to hide the needle punctures on her arm, evidently feeling that my eyes were busy elsewhere.

I turned on the water in the shower stall and adjusted it to lukewarm. I led her into the tiled enclosure, and when we were both wet I soaped her from neck to heels. The luxuriant female flesh was delightfully pliable under my palm.

Then she did the same for me, with embellishments. 'You must be a very strong man to have survived this,' she said quietly as her fingertips again traced my scars.

I'm not the easiest man in the world to arouse at any time, and the thought of Chryssie's end was still in the back of my mind; but Talia's skillful hands turned me on standing in that steamy enclave. I had to breathe shallowly to avoid spontaneous combustion.

We dried each other off with huge, fluffy towels, and Talia dusted us both liberally with perfumed talcum powder. 'It prevents friction except where it's wanted,' she assured me with a doe-eyed smile. I had suffered a diminishment during the drying-off process, and she dropped to her knees and restored me with a facile tongue.

We went into the bedroom. Talia stripped off the coverlet, disclosing black silk sheets. She dusted these with still another kind of powder. Attar-of-roses wafted itself to my nostrils as she put me on my back on the huge bed and for ten minutes indulged herself and me in exercises which convinced me I was a sexual amateur.

Considering my on-again, off-again track record with women, I hadn't really expected to make it with this girl, despite her good looks and manifest availability. When she finally turned me loose, though, I rolled over her and plowed her wheat field with no thought of failure. Her expert, quick-darting hands encouraged the harvest.

She patted my shoulder lightly when I slid off her. She rolled from the bed, and I raised my head to watch her lush, highlighted ivory nudity as she went to the dressing table, struck a match, and lighted two candles. The smell of a musky incense drifted through the room, pungently fragrant.

She returned to the bed and resumed her role of domestic stimulant. I started to tell her she was wasting her time, then quickly found out that she wasn't. To my surprise I found myself reaping a fresh crop and enjoying it.

'You're something better than an empty box stall,' I told her when I had back the breath lost during the second session.

I could see that she didn't know the meaning of the racetrack expression, but she didn't mistake my meaning. 'Americans are little boys,' she informed me gravely. 'They start too late. They should begin at the age of ten. With their sisters.'

'I'll see if I can peddle your idea to Good Housekeeping.' An arched eyebrow indicated that she didn't know what Good Housekeeping was, either. 'Never mind.'

She rolled away from me and looked at the bedside clock. 'We can leave now,' she said, and slid from the bed. Her manner was subdued. All her sexual sparkle had left her.

Her attitude reminded me that I was going to meet the man responsible for Chryssie's death, even if indirectly. I went into the bathroom, removed my Smith & Wesson from its shoulder holster, and taped it lightly to the back of the calf of my leg with two strips of adhesive taken from Talia's medicine cabinet. The classic frisk is a from-the-back job which concentrates on shoulders, armpits, chest cavity, rib cage, waist, buttocks, and thighs. It takes an unusually thorough searcher to proceed lower.