Sam, who slalomed down with an easy grace, waited for Charlie at the bottom. The older man descended like Laurel and Hardy, a slapstick of tumbles and splayed legs that ended with an ignoble roll at the bottom. But when he stood, snow in his stubble, his cigarette was still clamped in his lips and he wasn’t at all embarrassed.
“Haven’t done this in a while,” he said. “I think I’ll watch from the bar.”
He nodded toward a big plate-glass window up high in the back. Everyone on the other side looked cozy, steaming drinks in hand, video fireplaces ablaze. A little like the Alps, as long as you didn’t glance to the right, where another big window faced out from the mall’s main concourse. A line of shoppers peered in, all in a row with their sunburns, their bags, and their ice cream cones.
“Did Mr. Hatcher meet anyone in the bar while you were skiing?” Assad asked. “Did anyone approach either of you?”
“No.”
Sam’s only conversation had been with Charlie, afterward in the Alpine bar:
“So how’d we end up traveling together, anyway, young Mr. Keller? Any insights you’d care to share?”
Obviously Charlie hadn’t bought Nanette’s rationale—the idea that Sam needed a chaperone. She had given him a cover story in case this subject came up—a lame one, but it was all he had.
“The travel office thought it would be a good way to save money.”
“Some sort of package deal, you mean?” Charlie snorted. “They obviously don’t know the way things work at the Shangri-La. But tell me something. You weren’t summoned to meet with the lovely Nanette by any chance, were you?”
He had a story for this, too.
“I was. She wanted to update my security status, seeing as how I might be stopping in Pakistan on the way back from Hong Kong.”
Charlie nodded, but didn’t seem convinced.
“Tell me,” he said. “This earlier departure of yours, the one that put you in sync with my schedule. Was that Nanette’s idea as well?”
“Uh, no.” He felt terrible lying. “The travel office handled everything.”
Charlie smiled.
“Whatever you say, boss. But I do kind of like the idea of making her squirm. And I don’t mean in the carnal sense.”
He must have noticed Sam redden, judging from what he said next.
“So even you think she’s kind of hot, huh?” He laughed. “Well, I guess we’re always doing it, aren’t we?”
“Doing what?”
“Sizing them up. Stripping them down in our heads, whether they’re our waitress, our boss, or our second cousin. Wondering what it would be like. Or, if they’re a little too old, what it might have been like ten years ago. Doesn’t take much to set us off, really. A curve of the hip. A certain look in the eye. But let me tell you something about our Nanette. Put together nicely, I’ll grant you, but she’s cut from solid granite. Cold, hard, and sharp at every edge. Probably a little bitter for her own good, but very effective at pretty much everything she does.”
“Why bitter?” Sam immediately wished he hadn’t asked. Better to have let the subject die a natural death.
“Passed over for bigger and better things one too many times, I suspect. That tends to happen when you blow the whistle and no one listens. And, yes, I know all about that poor veep for finance she busted in Africa. But he was an easy mark. The stronger ones with better protection always survive. And after that happens a few times maybe the inclination is to say, hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
Or maybe, Sam thought, the inclination was to take out your frustrations on smaller fry, like a quality control officer with a penchant for randy behavior. Assuming that what Charlie said was even true. Obviously there was no love lost between the two of them.
“Well, if you think she’s interested in me now,” Charlie said, “just wait ’til a week from Monday, on the fourteenth. She’ll get all of me she wants.”
“Monday? In Hong Kong?”
“That’s another thing. I won’t be going to Hong Kong. I’m staying here through the week. Go ahead and tell her if she happens to ask. But it’s strictly for business. Tell her that, too. The reckoning is coming, old son.”
Sam told none of this to Lieutenant Assad, of course. Too much to explain. Nor did he even consider revealing his role as Nanette’s spy, which would have raised unwarranted suspicion. But with Charlie now lying dead on the floor, the man’s earlier words took on a new significance. What was supposed to be happening on Monday the 14th, and what was Charlie’s “reckoning”? Or had he prematurely brought that on himself, tonight at the York?
“So, then,” Assad asked, “where did you go next?”
Dinner, drinks in a few places he now barely remembered, followed by a fairly early bedtime. Sam then showered and crashed into a dreamless sleep, with the whine of the Emirates jet still roaring in his ears as he drifted off.
“And this was what time?”
“Maybe ten. No, later. I was pretty beat.”
“So for all you know, Mr. Hatcher could have met someone downstairs. Or gone back out on the town.”
“I suppose.” The idea had occurred to him as he showered, but he had been too tired to stay out longer, and he had counted on Charlie’s age to keep him grounded as well.
“What about the next day?”
“I was up pretty early. Caught a cab to the beach at Jumeirah to take a walk. Charlie slept in ’til noon.”
