else.
“Buona sera Signora Delgado.”
She continues through the dining room. Earlier, when she was reserving a table that she ultimately canceled, she’d glanced at the reservation book. So she knows that the white-haired man had an eight o’clock, so he should be finishing soon. She’s confident that he’ll be facing the door, which means that at this very moment he’s watching her walk by.
What does he see? He sees her stumble, like a woman who’s had too much to drink. He sees her reach down to remove one heel, then the other. He watches her exit the dining room on the far side, no doubt heading to the terrace, a young woman traveling alone in a romantic hotel, maybe suffering from a recent heartbreak, tipsy and vulnerable…
The breakfast room is empty, dimly lit. She drops her shoes into her voluminous handbag, and removes a simple-looking little box, six sides of stainless steel, one facet of which features a single switch, On-Off. She turns the switch to On. As she walks past the long buffet table, she sets this cube behind a tall vase of flowers, ten feet from where the wireless camera is mounted on the wall. The range of the device is supposedly fifty feet, but with these things it’s always preferable to be closer, safer.
She uses her shoulder to push through the terrace door, and rushes around to the side gate, where she places a second small cube. Then she finds a seat, orders a bottle of house red from a waitress.
When the wine arrives she immediately dumps some of it into a potted plant, then a splash into her glass. She swirls the liquid, coating the glass, its rim. She takes a tiny sip, just enough to get the wine’s color on her lips, on the rim. She’s not drinking alcohol tonight.
She double-checks the view from the retaining wall. There’s nothing she can see down there now, pitch-black. She searches for lights, for signs of habitation that were invisible in daylight, hidden among the dense vegetation. There appears to be a house off to the west, but not close enough to be an issue.
Okay, she thinks. There’s nothing left to check, nothing left to plan. Nothing left to do but execute. She takes a deep, deep breath, and she waits.
MENDOZA
Will’s mouth is hanging open.
“Fancy,” she says, “meeting you here.”
“My God” is all he can manage.
“Well, God
dess,
if you want to be precise. And I know you do.”
They’re still standing in the dining room’s doorway. She leans toward him and he reciprocates, purses his lips into the air near her ear, as he would to thousands of other women. But he can feel her actual lips settle on his cheek, and rest on his skin for a second longer than they should.
“But who’m I to split hairs?” Looking him in the eye, clear and confident, holding him with a firmish fist encircling his arm, something of a caress with the side of her thumb.
He’d been working hard to pull his wife back into the forefront of his sexual consciousness. And he’d been succeeding, almost.
“In any case,” she says, “it
is
lovely to see you, Will Rhodes. I wasn’t sure I’d ever again have this particular pleasure. But why are you here?”
“Should I not be?”
“I thought you were European correspondent?”
“Well, Argentina is sort of European, isn’t it?”
She squints at him.
“Our Americas man isn’t terribly expert in wine, and that’s putting it diplomatically. And we’re looking for a wine story. So they sent me.”
“You’re a wine expert? You speak Spanish?”
“
Pfft
. This is Argentina. I’m getting by.”
“Yes,” Elle says, a mischievous grin sliding across her lips. “I’m quite sure you are.”
—
This night, in this hemisphere, it’s a much smaller table, just eight people. There’s a lot of Spanish being spoken, too much for Will and Elle to fully engage in the conversational flow, so they turn to each other by necessity as well as preference.
It becomes another of those nights, hard to keep track of
“Buona sera Signora Delgado.”
She continues through the dining room. Earlier, when she was reserving a table that she ultimately canceled, she’d glanced at the reservation book. So she knows that the white-haired man had an eight o’clock, so he should be finishing soon. She’s confident that he’ll be facing the door, which means that at this very moment he’s watching her walk by.
What does he see? He sees her stumble, like a woman who’s had too much to drink. He sees her reach down to remove one heel, then the other. He watches her exit the dining room on the far side, no doubt heading to the terrace, a young woman traveling alone in a romantic hotel, maybe suffering from a recent heartbreak, tipsy and vulnerable…
The breakfast room is empty, dimly lit. She drops her shoes into her voluminous handbag, and removes a simple-looking little box, six sides of stainless steel, one facet of which features a single switch, On-Off. She turns the switch to On. As she walks past the long buffet table, she sets this cube behind a tall vase of flowers, ten feet from where the wireless camera is mounted on the wall. The range of the device is supposedly fifty feet, but with these things it’s always preferable to be closer, safer.
She uses her shoulder to push through the terrace door, and rushes around to the side gate, where she places a second small cube. Then she finds a seat, orders a bottle of house red from a waitress.
When the wine arrives she immediately dumps some of it into a potted plant, then a splash into her glass. She swirls the liquid, coating the glass, its rim. She takes a tiny sip, just enough to get the wine’s color on her lips, on the rim. She’s not drinking alcohol tonight.
She double-checks the view from the retaining wall. There’s nothing she can see down there now, pitch-black. She searches for lights, for signs of habitation that were invisible in daylight, hidden among the dense vegetation. There appears to be a house off to the west, but not close enough to be an issue.
Okay, she thinks. There’s nothing left to check, nothing left to plan. Nothing left to do but execute. She takes a deep, deep breath, and she waits.
MENDOZA
Will’s mouth is hanging open.
“Fancy,” she says, “meeting you here.”
“My God” is all he can manage.
“Well, God
dess,
if you want to be precise. And I know you do.”
They’re still standing in the dining room’s doorway. She leans toward him and he reciprocates, purses his lips into the air near her ear, as he would to thousands of other women. But he can feel her actual lips settle on his cheek, and rest on his skin for a second longer than they should.
“But who’m I to split hairs?” Looking him in the eye, clear and confident, holding him with a firmish fist encircling his arm, something of a caress with the side of her thumb.
He’d been working hard to pull his wife back into the forefront of his sexual consciousness. And he’d been succeeding, almost.
“In any case,” she says, “it
is
lovely to see you, Will Rhodes. I wasn’t sure I’d ever again have this particular pleasure. But why are you here?”
“Should I not be?”
“I thought you were European correspondent?”
“Well, Argentina is sort of European, isn’t it?”
She squints at him.
“Our Americas man isn’t terribly expert in wine, and that’s putting it diplomatically. And we’re looking for a wine story. So they sent me.”
“You’re a wine expert? You speak Spanish?”
“
Pfft
. This is Argentina. I’m getting by.”
“Yes,” Elle says, a mischievous grin sliding across her lips. “I’m quite sure you are.”
—
This night, in this hemisphere, it’s a much smaller table, just eight people. There’s a lot of Spanish being spoken, too much for Will and Elle to fully engage in the conversational flow, so they turn to each other by necessity as well as preference.
It becomes another of those nights, hard to keep track of
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