‘Clean yourself up. Get a shave, a haircut, some decent clothes. Buy some decent socks, for God’s sake. Friscoe wants a man for something he’s got working and you’re it. I don’t know what it is, I don’t care. But I want you to understand one thing. Do you understand the term low profile?’
‘Sure. Of course. Yes.’
‘Sir.’
‘Sir.’
‘Fine. Because from now on the first order of business for you is to maintain a very, very, very low profile. L-o- w. Clear?’
Sharky nodded.
‘Good. Now get out of here.’
Chapter Three
It was noon when Domino headed across the windy plaza towards Mirror Towers. The cathedral clock began tolling the hour and as it did she shuddered unconsciously, it wasn’t the wind. Or the cold. it was something else, the reflection in the building of the street behind her perhaps. Or the chimes solemnly striking twelve.
She shuddered again. What was it her mother used to say?
She shrugged off the feeling and entered the building, walking through its wide, stark lobby to the private elevator in the corner. The security guard stood at leisurely attention. He smiled and touched the bill of his cap.
‘Hi, Eddie,’ she said brightly.
‘Miss Domino,’ he said. ‘How’s it going today?
‘Just great,’ she said as she stepped into the glass-and- copper bullet attached to the side of the building. Eddie unlocked the up button with a key and pushed it. Then he picked up a wall phone and pressed a button. ‘Miss Domino’s on her way up,’ he said.
The doors of the elevator swished shut and it shot up the side of the building, stopping at the twentieth floor. Five miles away, the skyline of the city was a sparkling cluster in the haze.
The elevator opened on a reception room that was almost as stark as the lobby, except that the two-storey ceiling was supported by a dozen Plexiglas pillars. The interior of each pillar was lit by a single spotlight recessed overhead. Within each was a single toy, and each of the toys was unique. Electronic toys, stuffed toys, toys that moved, that sang, that walked and danced and spoke by means of tiny tape loops hidden deep inside them. Each was the prototype for a production model and each performed its eerie function silently within the towering glass rectangles that dwarfed the reception desk at the far end of the uncomfortably quiet room. To Domino, the collection of dolls, animals, trolls, and other creatures was almost too real. She walked past them without looking, her heels echoing on the tile floor.
At the reception desk a husky Oriental man, his ice-cube eyes concealed behind heavily tinted glasses, was operating the complex pushbutton switchboard. Music whispered from a tiny transistor radio at his elbow.
She made a pyramid of her hands and bowed low from the waist.
‘Jo sun,’ she said.
The guard-receptionist repeated the gesture.
‘Jo sun, dor-jeh,’ he said.
He pushed a button under the desk and a door slid soundlessly open nearby. ‘He awaits you,’ he said and she was gone.
She stepped into a lush botanical garden, a giant two storey terrarium filled with rare plants and shrubs from all over the world: dracaena sanderianas, maidenhair ferns, dwarf azaleas, Chinese fan palms and Amazon lilies, saffron pepper trees, butterfly gardenias, and six-foot ferns, all flourishing under an enormous sun dome. In one corner a circular stairway wound up through the foliage to the penthouse above.
She skirted the dense, moisture-laden foliage and peered past the greenery, through a heavy window into the office beyond. Pieces of Mayan and Chinese sculpture crouched under soft lights on Oriental rugs.
In the centre of the office a man sat behind a broad desk cluttered with curios, a large, heavyset man, bald as a crystal ball, with a full red beard that was turning grey. He wore gold-rimmed bifocals and his large hands lay flat on the desk in front of him. He was wearing one ring, on his left hand, a platinum and jade design that covered one entire joint of his little finger. His silk mandarin shirt had three entwined dragons brocaded in red and gold across the chest. He stared at her for several seconds and then smiled and pushed the button that opened the door between the greenhouse and his office.
She stopped several feet in front of his desk, stared down at him, turned slightly, raised her chin, and arched her back and glared at him over her shoulder.
Incredible, he thought.
She had high cheekbones and a full, almost arrogant mouth. Her thick black hair was bobbed at shoulder length and had been tousled just enough by the wind. Her neck was long and slender and the hollow place in her throat, between her collarbones, was as soft and delicate as the petal of a flower. She was slender, long-legged, narrow- waisted, and her breasts were as firm and as perfect as an artist’s sculptured fantasy.
She wore a Halston dress, its simple, straight lines flattering every curve, every line, its muted rose-grey accentuating the shades of colouring in her skin, her hair, and her eyes. She was young, Haughty. Superior. Elegant. Untouchable. And totally desirable.
‘Well?’ she said and raised an eyebrow.
He leaned back in his chair and, with a flourish of his hands, said, ‘Voce e bela.’
