need upperclass twits with gambling and fast car habits who think that all problems can be solved at gunpoint and who go rogue at the drop of a mission abort code.'
'No, really?' She gives me an old-fashioned look.
'Right.' I find myself grinning. 'They go for quiet, bookish accountant-types, lots of attention to detail, no imagination, that kind of thing.'
'Quiet, bookish accountant-types who're on drinking terms with the head-bangers from Two-One SAS and are field-certified to Grade Four in occult combat technology'
I may have done a couple of training courses at Dunwich but that doesn't mean I've graduated to breathing seawater, much less inhaling vodka martinis. When I stop spluttering Ramona is looking away from me, whistling tunelessly and tapping her toes. I glare at her, and I'm about to give up on it as a bad job when I see who she's watching. 'Is that Billington?' I ask.
'Yep, that's him. Aged sixty-two, looks forty-five.'
Ellis Billington is rather hard to miss. Even if I didn't recognize his face from the cover of Computer Weekly, it'd be pretty obvious that he was a big cheese. There's a nasty facelift in a big frock hanging on his left arm, a briefcase-toting woman in wire-frame spectacles and a tailored suit that screams lawyer shadowing him, and a pair of thugs to either side, who wear their tuxedos like uniforms and have wires looped around their ears. A gaggle of Bright Young Things in cocktail dresses and tuxes bring up the rear, like courtiers basking in the reflected glory of a medieval monarch; the dubious doorman Ramona fingered for her midnight snack is oozing up to one of them. Billington himself has a distinguished silver-streaked hairdo that looks like he bought it at John De Lorean's yard sale and feeds it raw liver twice a day.
For all that, he looks trim and fit — almost unnaturally wellpreserved for his age.
'What now?' I ask her. I can see a guy who looks like the president of the casino threading his way across the floor towards Billington.
'We go say hello.' And before I can stop her she's off across the floor like a missile. I scramble along in her wake, dodging dowagers, trying not to spill my drink — but instead of homing in on Billington she makes a beeline towards the Face Lift That Walks Like a Lady. 'Eileen!' squeaks Ramona, coming over all blonde. 'Why, if this isn't a complete surprise!'
Eileen Billington — for it is she — turns on Ramona like a cornered rattlesnake, then suddenly smiles and switches on the sweetness and light: 'Why, it's Mona! Upon my word, I do declare!' They circle each other for a few seconds, sparring congenially and exchanging polite nothings while the courtier-yuppies home in on the baccarat table. I notice Billington's attorney exchanging words with her boss and then departing towards the casino office. Then I see Billington look at me. I take a deep breath and nod at him.
'You'rewith her.' He jerks his chin at Ramona. 'Do you know what she is?' He sounds dryly amused.
'Yes.' I blink. 'Ellis Billington, I presume'
He looks me in the eye and it feels like a punch in the gut. Up close he doesn't look human. His pupils are a muddy gray-brown and slotted vertically: I've seen that before in folks who've had an operation to correct nystagmus, but somehow on Billington it looks too natural to be the after-effect of surgery. 'Who are you?' he demands.
'Howard — Bob Howard. Capital Laundry Services, import/export division.'
I manage to make a dog-eared business card appear between my fingers. He raises an eyebrow and takes it. 'I didn't know you people traded over here.'
'Oh, we trade all over.' I force myself to smile. 'I sat through a most interesting presentation yesterday. My colleagues were absolutely mesmerized.'
'I have no idea what you're talking about.' I take half a step back but Ramona and Eileen are laughing loudly over some shared confidence behind me: there's no escape from his lizardlike stare. Then he seems to reach some decision, and lets me down gently: 'But that's not surprising, is it?
My companies have so many subsidiaries, doing so many things, that it's hard to keep track of them all.' He shrugs, an aw-shucks gesture quite at odds with the rest of his mannerisms, and produces a grin from wherever he keeps his spare faces when he isn't wearing them. 'Are you here for the sunshine and sea, Mr. Howard? Or are you here to play games'
'A bit of both.' I drain my cocktail glass. Behind him, his lawyer is approaching, the casino president at her elbow. 'I wouldn't want to keep you from business, so ...'
'Perhaps later.' His smile turns almost sincere for a split second as he turns aside: 'Now, if you'll excuse me'
I find myself staring at his retreating back. Seconds later Ramona takes hold of my elbow and twists it, gently steering me through the crowd towards the open glass doors leading onto the balcony at the back of the casino floor. 'Come on'
she says quietly. The courtiers have formed an attentive wall around the fourth Mrs. Billington, who is getting ready to recycle some of her husband's money through his bank. I let Ramona lead me outside.
'You know her!' I accuse.
'Of course I damn well know her!' Ramona leans against the stone railing that overhangs the beach, staring at me from arm's length. My heart's pounding and I feel dizzy with relief over having escaped Billington's scrutiny. He was perfectly polite but when he looked at me I felt like a bug on a microscope slide, pinned down by brilliant searchlights for scrutiny by a vast, unsympathetic intellect: trapped with nowhere to hide. 'My department spent sixty thousand bucks setting up the first introduction at a congressman's fund-raiser two weeks ago, just so she'd recognize me tonight. You didn't think we'd come here without doing the groundwork first'
'Nobody tells me these things,' I complain. 'I'm flailing around in the dark!'
'Don't sweat it.' Suddenly she goes all apologetic on me, as if I'm a puppy who doesn't know any better than to widdle on the living room carpet: 'It's all part of the process.'
'What process?' I stare her in the eyes, trying to ignore the effects of the glamour that tells me she's the most amazingly beautiful woman I've ever met.
'The process that I'm not allowed to tell you about.' Is that genuine regret in her eyes? 'I'm sorry.' She lowers her eyelashes. I track down instinctively, and find myself staring into the depths of her cleavage.
'Great,' I say bitterly. 'I've got a station chief who's as mad as a fish, an incomplete briefing, and a gamblingobsessed billionaire to out-bluff. And you can't fucking tell me what I'm supposed to be doing'
'No,' she says, in a thin, hopeless tone. And to my complete surprise she leans forwards, wraps her arms around me, props her chin on my shoulder, and begins to weep silently.
This is the final straw. I have been clawed at by zombies condescended to by Brains, shipped off to the Caribbean and lectured in my sleep by Angleton, introduced to an executive with the eyes of a poisonous reptile, and ranted at by an oldschool spook who's fallen in the bottle — but those are all part of the job. This isn't. There's no briefing sheet on what to do when a supernatural soul-sucking horror disguised as a beautiful woman starts crying on your shoulder. Ramona sobs silently while I stand there, paralyzed by indecision, selfdoubt, and jet lag. Finally I do the only thing I can think of and wrap my arms round her shoulders. 'There, there,' I mutter, utterly unsure what I'm saying: 'It's going to be all right. Whatever it is.'
'No, it isn't,' she sniffles quietly. 'It's never going to be all right.' Then she straightens up. 'I need to blow my nose.'
I can take a hint: I let go and take a step back. 'Do you want to talk'
She pulls a hand-sized pack of tissues out of her bag and dabs at her eyes carefully.
'Do I want to talk?' She sniffs, then chuckles. Evidently something I said amused her. 'No, Bob, I don't want to talk.' She blows her nose. 'You're far too nice for this. Go to bed.'
'Too nice for what?' These dark hints of hers are getting really annoying, but I'm upset and concerned now that she's pulling herself together; I feel like I've just sat some kind of exam and failed it, without even knowing what subject I'm being tested on.
'Go to bed,' she repeats, a trifle more forcefully. 'I haven't eaten yet. Don't tempt me.'
I beat a hasty retreat back through the casino. On my way out, I go through the side room where they keep the slot machines. I pass Pinky — at least, I'm half-sure it's Pinky — creating a near riot among the blue-rinse set by playing an entire row of one-armed bandits in sequence and winning big on each one. I don't think he notices me. Just as well: I'm not in the mood for small talk right now.
Damn it, I know it's just the effects of a class three glamour, but I can't stop thinking about Ramona — and
