He moved closer to where Gina sat. Leaning in, he grabbed the blanket and threw it aside. Helpless old woman or not, he wasn’t taking any chances. But there was no weapon hidden there; no knife, no gun. He knew these people were dangerous, unpredictable, like scorpions. The sting was in the tail, and the tail would strike when you least expected it.
Max stepped back again, watching her like a hawk. She looked bewildered, but it could be an act; he didn’t trust it. He put himself out of kicking distance, and placed himself so that he could watch her and at the same time not block his back-up’s view from the open doorway.
‘Tell me your name,’ he said.
‘My name…?’ she echoed faintly. Gina stiffened. A shot of pain, a bolt of white heat, went through her chest and she put a shaking hand there.
‘Yeah. I want to hear you say it.’
‘My name…’ For another of those frustrating, maddening moments she couldn’t remember. It would come to her. Be calm, be calm… but how could she be calm when this man, this stranger and these other men were here, pointing guns at her head? And this pain! Worse than any she’d had before, it was nagging, growing, spreading.
But was the man a stranger, really? She seemed to know his face, his manner. And the name. She felt she knew that, too. But she could be wrong. She was wrong about so much, these days.
The name.
Her name.
All at once, she had it. ‘I am Gina Barolli,’ she said, grimacing. The pain was increasing. Her left arm was beginning to tingle.
Max was nodding. ‘You may not remember me, Miss Barolli, but I remember you.’
‘Do you?’ For a moment she looked pathetically hopeful. Then she winced.
Is she ill? wondered Max. Or just bluffing?
‘Yeah, I do. You’re Constantine Barolli’s sister.’
Up in the kitchen over the Shalimar, all was quiet except for the radio playing; the girls weren’t in yet to get ready for the evening’s trade.
‘Chris is down the wholesaler’s,’ said Ellie, taking the teapot off the dresser, which was loaded, as always, with her ‘crystals’ as she called them; gemstones and glassware fashioned into dainty swans, penguins, dragons. She made the tea and put the pot and two bone-china cups on the table. ‘Take the weight off, Annie,’ she said, and Annie sat down and watched as Ellie took a seat opposite and poured the tea out.
‘This is awful,’ Annie said, voicing what they were both thinking. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Midway through pouring the tea, Ellie slapped the pot down on the table and put her head in her hands. ‘Shit,’ she muttered, and groped for a hankie, found it. Red-faced, eyes wet, she blew her nose hard, tucked the hankie back in her pocket and looked at Annie.
