“No, I love the smell. Reformed but not a reformer.”
He lit up a Gauloises and stared at me through the smoke, saying nothing for a long time. Somehow espresso and a chocolate soufflé were brought to the table.
You ate seventy-five thousand bad Danishes in a bag, and now you’ve got the world’s most exquisite-looking soufflé and can’t eat a bite. Well, at least the eating spree seems to have abated.
He took a few bites himself, but I said, “It looks wonderful, but really, I can’t eat another bite.”
He smiled, put some euros on the table, and we got up to leave. Outside it was still raining and the temperature seemed to have dropped quite a bit. The sweater didn’t help at all.
I automatically reached for my scarf and realized that I had only the little evening bag and that the scarf was back in my room.
“Cold?” he asked, putting his arm around me and opening the umbrella.
“Yes. I forgot that I don’t have my scarf with me.” I stopped short, almost causing us both to tumble.
“My scarf!” I kicked off the Prada spikes and started running.
Pantera took off after me. I rushed into the hotel, not even holding the door for him. I went around the corner to the little lift and pressed the button over and over impatiently. “Hurry up, goddammit!”
I grabbed Pantera by the hand and ran up the stairs instead and sprinted back to my room. Fumbling with the key card, I swiped it. It kept coming up red. No access.
“Shit! If someone’s broken in … I didn’t put my scarf in the wall safe!”
“Stay calm. Why is the scarf suddenly so important?” he asked, trying repeatedly to get the key card to work. Red. Red. Red.
“Don’t you understand? I wiped my mouth after the kiss! Demiel’s kiss. The scarf’s got his DNA on it!”
Pantera stepped back, stunned. “Stercum!”
“Is that some magic word?”
“Latin. You don’t want to know. I’ll stand here. You go back down and get them to issue you a new card. Hopefully it just demagnetized by itself, and the scarf will be here. Don’t panic.”
I ran down the stairs, refusing to wait for the lift, and rushed to the front desk.
“My key card,” I practically screamed out at the two young women on duty. “It’s not working!” I realized that they’d seen me come in with Pantera, and God knows what the hell they were thinking.
“Yes, madame,” they managed to say without snarking. “It happens. Really, it is no problem.”
Whenever a foreigner says “no problem” it always means “huge problem.” Goddammit!
They handed me another key card, and I ran back up the stairs. I was shaking. Another break-in would mean there was no hope of getting the DNA. I’d already ruined one batch. This would be the end of it.
That’s why my apartment had been burglarized! The DNA!
The scarf with Demiel’s DNA was the only proof on earth that—what?—I didn’t know. But I did know it was only up to me to find out. Rooting out a story was in my DNA. Especially when my life was on the line.
I took the stairs two at a time, and when I ran down the hall I could see Pantera standing there, gun drawn. “It’s me,” I called out, fearing he’d shoot me by mistake. “Put it away!”
“I see that it is you; I’m not blind. Never tell me to put my gun away.”
“Jee-sus.”
Moron.
I fumbled with the new card key but couldn’t get it to work. Pantera took it from me and swiped it. His hands were not shaking as mine had been. Green!
We rushed into the suite, and I grabbed my red bag and started rummaging through it. The old scarf was still crushed up on the bottom, with bits of purse gunk, lint, and a few stray hairs on it, but otherwise intact.
“Banged up, but safe!”
He took it from me, handling it gently. “Do you have a cleaning bag in the room?”
I grabbed one from the closet, and he folded the scarf carefully inside the plastic bag and pulled the drawstring.
“You may have saved the world,” he said, almost seriously.
“Well, I don’t know about that.…”
“I do.” He put the bag down on a table and walked back toward me, stopping directly in front of me for a few seconds. We looked at each other and smiled.
“That was close,” I said as he put an arm around me and pulled me in to him, pressing his body against mine.
“Put your gun away,” I teased, and he threw his head back and laughed. “I hate it when a man tells me what I can’t say.”
“Shhh … Cala a boca,” he said softly, in what sounded like, well, I have no idea, and leaned back and placed the gun on the nightstand with his free hand. “Good?”