He ran.
He had only twenty-five yards on them as he broke into the blind mews behind the club and banged loudly at the back door. The noise echoed through the brick cavern, but there was no response. From the dustbins and garbage cans that littered the alley, he found a champagne bottle, which he clutched by the neck, thankful for the weight of the dimpled bottom as he pressed back into a shadowy niche behind a projecting corner of damp brick. The three figures appeared, strung out across the entrance of the alley. Backlit by a streetlight, their long shadows falling before them on the wet cobblestones, they looked like extras from a Carol Reed film. Jonathan could see their featureless silhouettes, mat black in a nimbus of silver phosphorescent fog. He remained motionless, his heart beating in his temples from the effort of his run and from anger at being endangered by these bungling government serfs.
They stopped halfway down the alley and exchanged some muttered words. One seemed to want to go away, another thought they should enter the Cellar d'Or and investigate. After a moment of vacillation, they decided to enter the club. Jonathan pressed back against the wall as they neared. Getting all three was going to be difficult. As they came abreast him, he brought the bottle down on the head of one with a satisfyingly solid crack. The other two jumped away, then rushed at him with well-schooled reactions. Hands clutched at him, a fist hit him on the shoulder; a shoe cracked into his shin. He jerked away with a broad backhand sweep with the bottle that made them dodge back for an instant. One grabbed up a bottle from a dustbin and hurled it. He ducked as it exploded into fragments behind him.
A shaft of light fell upon the scene as the door behind Jonathan opened and the dominating bulk of P'tit Noel filled the frame.
'Thank God,' Jonathan said.
Together they waded into the hooligans, and it was over in five seconds. Jonathan used his bottle on one; P'tit Noel struck the other with the flat palms of his open hands, loud concussing blows that splatted against his head and slammed him against the wall.
One of the men was still conscious, sitting against the brick wall, blood streaming from his nose and mouth where P'tit Noel's palm had flattened them. Another was moaning in semiconsciousness. The last was a silent heap among the garbage cans.
P'tit Noel dragged each up in turn by his lapels and held him against the wall with one hand while he opened the man's eyelids with his fingers, professionally checking the set and dilation of the pupils. 'They'll live,' he said, as a matter of information.
'Pity.'
P'tit Noel wiped his palms on the shirt of one of the downed men. 'Why don't you step in and brush yourself off, sir,' he said over his shoulder. 'Mam'selle Grace will see you now.'
'What about these yahoos?'
'Oh, I think they will be gone by morning.'
P'tit Noel conducted Jonathan to his small living quarters behind the club and offered him the use of his bathroom to clean up. He wasn't really hurt. There was some stiffness in one shoulder, his trousers stuck to his shin where the kick had brought blood, and he was experiencing the mild nausea of adrenaline recession, but he would be fine. As he stepped from the bathroom, P'tit Noel greeted him with a glass of rum, hot and soothing going down.
'You took your time answering the door.'
'Actually, I did not hear you knock, sir.'
'Then how come you turned up? For which, by the way, much thanks.'
'Intuition. Premonition. As I told you, I am Haitian.'
'Voodoo and all?'
'You know voodoo, sir?'
'Not really. No.'
P'tit Noel smiled. 'It exists. I passed some time studying the legal implications of crime committed under its influence. Because of the limits of my British education, I was prone to scoff at first.'
'Which limitations are those?'
'The limitations of logic and evidence. Of European sequential thought.'
'You were a student in Jamaica?'
'No, I was a lawyer, sir.'
Jonathan admired the cool way he laid that on him. 'You know, P'tit Noel, you've developed a magnificent way of saying 'sir.' When you use the word, it sounds like an arrogant insult.'
'Yes, I know, sir.'
P'tit Noel led him up a narrow staircase to the first floor where the ambience was that of the well-appointed town house—totally alien to the gaudy glitter of the club. They passed down a hallway and stopped before a double door of dark oak. P'tit Noel tapped lightly.
'I shall leave you now, sir. You may go in.'
Jonathan thanked him again for his intervention, opened the door, and stepped into a lavishly furnished room of crimson damask and Italian marble.
Grace was indeed amazing.
She stood in the middle of the room, wearing a transparent peignoir of a white diaphanous material. Poised, her fine body was even more seductive when covered with a mist of fabric through which the circles of her brown nipples and the triangle of her ecu were a dim freehand geometry. But it was her stature that gave Jonathan pause. Little wonder the marble mantel in the photograph had seemed uncommonly high. Amazing Grace was only four feet six inches tall.
'Good evening, Grace,' he said, settling his smiling gaze on her large oriental eyes.
Her nose wrinkled up and she laughed hoarsely. 'Well, you handled that just fine, Dr. Hemlock.'
'I'm unflappable. Particularly when I'm stunned.'
'Is that so.' She turned away and walked over the thick red carpet toward a little grouping of furniture before the fireplace. The splayed toes of her bare feet seemed to grip the rug. 'Don't just stand there, boy. Come on over here and have a drink with me.' She lifted a decanter of clear liquid and filled two sherry glasses, then she arranged herself on a small chaise longue, taking up all the space in an unprovocative way that denied the possibility of his joining her on it.
He took his glass and sat across from her and near the crackling wood fire.
'Happy times,' she said, lifting her glass and draining it.
'Cheers.' He swallowed—then he swallowed again several times to get it down. His eyes were damp and his voice thin when he spoke. 'You drink neat Everclear?'
'Honey bun, I don't drink for flavor.'
'I see.' Jonathan had been surprised by her accent from the first. He had assumed that she, like her staff, was West Indian. But she was American.
'Omaha,' she explained.
'You're kidding.'
'Sweety, people don't kid about coming from Omaha. That's like bragging about having syphilis. Pour yourself another.'
'No. No—thank you. It's
She laughed again, a rich brawling sound that was infectious. 'Hey, tell me. No shit now. How can a swinging type like you be a doctor? You don't look like you'd waste time jamming nurses behind screens.'
'I'm not that kind of doctor. What about yourself? How did you end up in the flesh trade?'
'Oh, just answered an advertisement. 'Positions wanted.' ' She hooted a laugh. 'But seriously, I did a couple years in Vegas working at a joint that specialized in uncommon meat. My being tiny makes tiny men feel big. Then I decided that management was more fun than labor, so I saved up my money and...' She made an inclusive sweep of her hand.
'It looks like you're doing very well.'
'I'll probably make it through the winter.' Instantly the shine in her eyes dimmed. 'Is that enough?'
'Enough?'
