The Golden Hour. Beatriz Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ the pink facade, lit by the windows behind him. “Yes, sir?” he said, staring straight ahead.

      “You’ve seen me leave the premises in the company of Mrs. Randolph, correct?”

      “Indeed, sir.”

      “If something untoward occurs, you’re prepared to swear to that effect in a court of law?”

      “Without hesitation, sir.”

      Thorpe turned back to me. “You see? Nothing to fear. Intentions entirely honorable.”

      I resumed walking toward the stairs. The air had cooled no more than a few degrees with the coming of night, but at least the brutal sun had sunk away. The atmosphere was hazy, the stars blurred in the sky above the nearby ocean. I didn’t need to look over my shoulder; I knew Thorpe had joined me. “That doesn’t prove a thing,” I said. “For all I know, you’re in collusion.”

      “You’re a damned suspicious woman, Mrs. Randolph.”

      “Women need to be suspicious, Thorpe, suspicious of everyone and everything. A woman on her own, especially. It’s a matter of survival.”

      “Not all men are beasts, you know.”

      “Enough of them are. Even one’s enough. Once you encounter your first wolf, why, you start to notice them everywhere.”

      “I see,” he said. “Are we speaking of Mr. Randolph, perhaps?”

      We were tripping down the endless flight of stairs, had already passed the statue of Columbus. Below us, the street was dark and quiet. I stopped midstep and waited for Thorpe to halt, to turn, two stairs below, so that his face sat at last on the same level as mine.

      “There was a girl back at college,” I said. “Went off with a boy after a party, just like a little lamb. It didn’t end well.”

      “I see.”

      “No, you don’t. You don’t have the smallest idea. You’ve never been anybody’s prey.”

      “Not true.”

      I lifted my eyebrows and stared at his large, earnest face, his eyes behind the spectacles. I thought he was going to say more, tell me some story, even if it wasn’t real. But the lips didn’t move. Just those two words, Not true, a pair of words that covered a vast territory.

      “All right,” I said. “But I’ll bet you were evenly matched, weren’t you? A big cat like you. You could fight back.”

      “Fair point. But I might say the same of you.”

      “Me?”

      “You might not be so big, of course. But you seem to me like the sort of woman who fights back.”

      The streetlamps cast a soft yellow heat on his face. He stood with one foot braced on the step above; his hand rested on his thigh. I was conscious of my daring neckline, my exposed skin, my scarcity of sleeves, my breath trapped in my lungs, my thundering heart. The goose bumps prickling my arms, which could not possibly have sprung from the tropical air.

      “That man on the airplane,” I said. “What did you do to him?”

      “Nothing at all.”

      “No, that was something, all right. Something I wouldn’t mind learning how to do, should another wolf come bounding into my life, for example.”

      Thorpe rubbed his fist on his knee and looked to the side, at an upward angle, as if considering the sky above the ocean. His nose was robust, almost Roman, and yet there was something vulnerable about his profile or else the way he presented it to me. “By college,” he said, “do you mean you were at university?”

      “Yes.”

      “And this girl. She was a friend of yours?”

      I stared at his cheekbone. “We were inseparable.”

      “I see.” He turned back to me. “I found myself at the bar at the Prince George a week or two ago. Happened to catch a glimpse of a girl sitting all by herself. She was drinking a Scotch whiskey, I believe, no ice, reading a book, and her hair kept falling over her forehead, and she kept pushing it back. Eventually she looked up and glanced my way—I imagine she must have sensed me watching—and I recognized her at once. The girl from the airplane.”

      I held out my hand. “Leonora Randolph. But you can call me Lulu.”

      “Lulu. I’m Benedict.”

      “Benedict?”

      “I was named after my father. His middle name.”

      “I can’t call you Benedict.”

      He shrugged. “Then call me whatever you want.”

      HE WALKED ME DOWN GEORGE Street to the hotel. We didn’t touch, nor did we speak until we turned the corner of Bay Street and stopped. Thorpe stuck his hands in his pockets and looked toward the harbor. “Still the Prince George?” he said.

      “Still the Prince George.”

      “Sounds rather temporary.”

      “I might be looking for something a little more permanent.”

      He turned his head. “Really?”

      “Seems I’m about to enter paid employment. If all goes well.”

      “Congratulations. Splendid news.”

      “You don’t seem surprised.”

      “I might have made a few inquiries regarding your intentions here,” he said.

      I snapped my fingers. “Jack! That old so-and-so. I might’ve known.”

      “I’m afraid I can’t reveal my sources.”

      “There’s no need. I can practically smell him on you. Say …”

      Thorpe lifted an eyebrow and stared at me patiently. Behind him, the street was empty, except for the British Colonial rising brilliantly against the sky. The air smelled stickily of night blossom, of the nearby ocean, of the lingering afternoon ether of automobile exhaust. There’s a particular odor to a Nassau evening, a perfume I’ve never encountered since. I wrapped my hands around my pocketbook and said, “I’ll bet that was you, wasn’t it? That drink the other night.”

      “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”

      “Jack said you were a shy kind of fellow.”

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