Blindfold Game Dana Stabenow

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.They would have wondered even more if theyd seen the two men turn and walk away, down Central Street, maintaining an even, unhurried pace, ignoring the wailing sirens and the flashing lights streaking past them toward the steadily mounting rumble of disbelief and horror.A middle-aged woman, plump and improbably blond, did see them go.She wiped at the trickle of blood on her forehead where a piece of the left taillight from the delivery boys car had sliced open her skin, replaced her digital camera in a capacious shoulder bag, and steadied her shaking legs to follow.The two men walked a little over half a mile and turned down a lane that led to the beach.Here all was peace and order, no storefronts destroyed, no blood pooling in the street, no ambulance doors slamming on the dead and the dying.A causeway led to an outdoor cafe on a plat form on pilings over the beach and a table in the shade of a large marquee.They ordered chai tea in North American English, but the waiter, an elderly French expatriate who had fled to Thailand after the fall of Saigon, didnt think they were American or Canadian.They looked too much at home, unlike the average Western tourist, who was apt to stare around incredulously as if hed never seen a third world country before.These men drank their chai tea without first scrutinizing the rim of the glass for germs.If they hadnt spoken such good English he would have thought they were Korean, the height and broadness of the cheekbones, perhaps.He also thought they might be brothers, but when questioned later he couldnt say why.Did they look alike? Not particularly.One seemed a little older than the other.It was just a feeling he had.One developed certain instincts after thirty years of serving patrons in a Pattaya bar, where sooner or later all the world came to drink.“A terrible thing, this bombing, he told the two men in a placid voice as he set their drinks on the table.“One lives and works ones whole life expecting these things to happen elsewhere, and then He shrugged.“No place is safe nowadays, what with all these terrorists fleeing the American invasion of the Middle East to set their bombs in poor countries like Thailand.“A terrible thing, the older man said without inflection.The waiter looked up to see a woman hovering in the doorway with a smear of blood on her forehead, and he bustled forward solicitously.Her weight alone was indication enough of her nationality, and when she ordered a Budweiser it was confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt, but her voice was low and pleasant, a relief.He seated her a table away from the two men, or no, the two had been joined by a third.He would have returned to take the third mans order but a group of German tourists chose that moment to arrive and push all the tables into one corner together so they wouldnt have to suffer the horror of sitting separately.They chattered excitedly about the bomb, exclaiming how lucky theyd been to have escaped, and peppered the waiter with questions about who could have done such a thing and was Thailand plagued with terrorists, too, and the waiter took innumerable orders for Oolong-Tea-nis and Monkey Faces.Nobody ordered scotch anymore.By the time he finished serving the Germans, the three men had been joined by a fourth, and he squared Gallic shoulders and marched back to take their orders.His murmured apology for the wait was waved away with a magnanimous hand by one of the newcomers, a younger man clearly of mixed eastern and western blood who carried himself with the assurance of one who had been born free in an Asian nation, which meant either Singapore or Hong Kong before the handover.There was some Norwegian or possibly some German mixed into his genetic pot, too.Something Teutonic, at any rate.He wore very good clothes, a loose-weave jacket over a T-shirt and casual slacks.The huaraches were hand-stitched leather and the bright red handkerchief peeping out of his jacket pocket was raw silk, probably also hand-stitched.The man smiled at him, a charming, slightly crooked smile, reminding the waiter of a photograph he had seen of a young Elvis Presley.He sighed a little.The fourth man was Chinese, older and there was nothing to sigh over about him.His skin was burned a dark reddish brown from years in the sun, his narrow eyes made narrower by folds of enveloping wrinkles, his hands calloused and hard, his arms roped with muscle.He looked like a street fighter, an impression underlined by the scar that bisected his left eyebrow and a nose that had been either so thoroughly or so repeatedly broken that its bridge was almost flat against his cheekbones.A puckered scar showed briefly beneath the short sleeve of his shirt.A puncture wound of some kind, a knife perhaps? A bullet, more likely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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