Chapter Five
Dancy came around slowly, her awareness seeping up through a residue of fatigue and drugs. As she recalled her adventures before losing consciousness, she decided to take it all very deliberately, snoozing and recovering her strength before making any moves. By the time she was fully awake she had recovered her vitality and felt fine except for a very nasty stomach. You bastards don’t have good enough drugs to dent my hateful good health, she thought.
By the time she opened her eyes to scan, she had gotten accustomed to the swaddling of an expensive featherbed, the touch of expensive silk sheets on her bare skin, the soft murmur of piano concertos, and a distant hum of motor. She was obviously in a small stateroom on some sort of yacht. Elegant workmanship and fine materials had been lavished on creating the look of a pullman car from the twenties. The colors were ebony and silver, the style a sort of art deco/disco, and the tone all lush, plush and hushed. Enough black velvet to paint Elvis’ whole family, Dancy thought. Since she saw no sign of more drugs, guns or strange men, Dancy leaned over on one elbow and teased back the heavy drapes above the bed. She’d fully expected chromed portholes offering views of some freebooter’s harbor, but found herself staring down ten thousand feet at a unbroken arc of smooth blue ocean.
Well, she thought, I guess yachts are just pretty passé for the modern pirate. Maybe I’ll hail the stewardess or cabin boy for a couple of those tiny bottles of grog. Some honey-roasted cashews. With that thought, she glanced at the ceiling above the bed and saw that there actually was a call button. She pushed it firmly, then arranged her hair on the pillow and the sleek black comforter across her breasts. Captured heroines should look the part, she thought, or the extras might get out of hand.
It didn’t exactly amaze her when Armando Lios Leyva stepped through the cabin door wearing black slacks and blazer and carrying a tray with a crystal snifter and bottle of Armanac. Dancy gave him a nod and said, “Well, this is more like it. I much prefer the first class rape.”
Armando moved over beside the bed and pulled a jumpseat out of the wall. He sat down, handed her the snifter and splashed brandy in it for her, “It’s not a exactly a rape, Dancy.”
“You drug me, have me carried off, put me in bed naked, and fly me away from my husband. What would you call it…leaving the scene of an accident?”
Armando chuckled, then gave her serious look as she sipped the brandy. “I’d call it more of an opportunity for both of us. I get the chance to win you. You get the chance for an adventure.”
Dancy looked a little skeptical, “I’ve found when you guys start talking about adventure and winning me it’s time for a gal to start guarding her virtue.”
“I hear you guard what virtue you have very well,” Armando grinned, “But I’m not here to force you into anything. I’m not offering you some cheap affair, I’m offering you a chance to share my world with me. I think you’ll find it a very rich life.”
Dancy idly pulled back a strand of hair and said, “Actually, the life I had was fairly rich.”
Her response left Armando nonplussed. He was used to impressing women with his looks, physique, and wealth. To this one, that was all part of the daily drag. He had never met a woman that hadn’t been turned on by the plane itself. Dancy Russell didn’t even notice. In fact, she gave the impression that she was politely concealing the fact that everything about the set-up was hopelessly gauche or second-rate. He felt a hot spasm of visceral desire that went beyond her face and body: he would impress this bitch. He would impress her to death.
He leaned closer to look her right in the face, his voice dropping into a sonorous seriousness. “Dancy, we are two of a kind. I want to show you that we belong together. You’re a woman who demands the very best, I’m a man who can makes remarkable things happen. As you have seen. I can be more of a man to you than that clown of a husband. I can be more man to you than you’ve ever known.”
Dancy made a wishy-washy gesture with her free hand, “Well, you all keep saying that. And God knows I keep hoping, but…”
Armando slowly reached out to touch her wrist. He said, “Do you know what I think? I think it’s a long time since you’ve been surprised.” Dancy looked him over, thinking, Touché.
Armando caught the glance and held it, saying “I think I will surprise you.”
“You’re doing pretty good, so far.”
Armando found that the most gratifying thing he’d heard in some time. He allowed himself to drink in the vision of Dancy’s tawny face against the slick black pillows. The puffy comforter slid down her breasts a little as she leaned against her head against the window, hints of pinkish aureoles appearing. She craned her neck to look back behind the plane, as though trying to see what she was leaving behind. He was ready to calm her entreaties and protests when she turned back to face him; to reassure her kindly or refuse her implacably. What she said was, “Could you get him to fly lower? Like right over the tips of the waves?”
Armando was taken completely aback. He stood up to leave, then turned to stare at her chiseled profile and golden halo of hair against the window. Yeah, let’s fly down right on top of the waves, he thought, maybe we can make this interesting for her. A bit sharply, he said, “We’ll be arriving in Nayarit in about thirty minutes.”
Dancy peeked slyly under the sheets and said, “Oh dear. And me without a thing to wear.”
Armando controlled his irritation, but was fairly curt as he said, “I’m having clothes brought in, along with a light breakfast. You can freshen up in the washroom through that door.”
“You just think of everything, don’t you?”
“I generally have to. If you’ll allow me to give you some advice, I’d recommend that for the present you just put your life in my hands.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that when you were carrying me around unconscious?”
Armando found he’d lost much of his earlier pleasure in the conversation. “When you’re ready, please take that seat and fasten your seatbelt.”
Dancy said, “And thank you for flying Snatch Grab Airlines?” Armando turned quickly and stepped out of the cabin.
Almost immediately the door opened again and a lovely girl of around seventeen with cocoa colored skin and very wide black eyes entered carrying clothing Dancy recognized as her own. She smiled shyly, but never met Dancy’s eyes as she placed the clothes on the bed and folded a small snack table out of the wall. Then she opened the door again and somebody handed her a serving tray. Dancy thought the movement outside the door was familiar, but she only saw a quick glimpse. The tray held a stainless coffee carafe with a big black steel cup, a decanter of what turned out to be mango juice, and a selection of breads and bagels. The girl set it on the table and eased out of the room soft as smoke.
Dancy slipped out of the bed and did some stretching while sipping at the coffee and slipping into her underwear, simple khaki skirt, white work shirt and scuffed Dansports. The tight little head had everything from toothbrush to eyeliner, and an elaborate vanity mirror with track lights beside it. Clean, cool, and dressed for a casual kidnapping, she turned full attention to the bagels as the girl came back into the room and made it clear that she wanted to make up the bed. Dancy moved to the jump seat with her coffee while the girl folded away the bedclothes and converted the bed into a low black sofa under the window. Then she got a hairbrush from the tiny bath and gestured at Dancy’s hair. Charmed, Dancy turned aside so the girl could brush her hair with a very soft touch. In minutes she was feeling soothed, sassy and self-confident as she always did when her hair was brushed. Then the door opened and Santiamen stepped into the room.
Dancy recognized the big man immediately and realized it had been his bulk she’d seen through the door earlier. He held two carry-on bags of buttery ocher goatskin. His expression was a transparent blend of sheepishness, viewing pleasure, and real apprehension, but it dissolved into a beam of pleasure when Dancy gave him a comradely smile you’d share with somebody you’d beat in a friendly ball game. “Hey, it’s the Midnight Creeper,” she said, “How’s the cheek doing, pal?”
Santiamen grinned as if he’d understood her and placed the luggage on the sofa. Dancy moved near the big man to examine the iodine-painted gouges she’d left on his face. He glowed as she tisked over the wound, made an apologetic face, and punched him lightly in the bicep. She liked the big lug, feeling in him an agreeable physical and intellectual presence that reminded her of a young St. Bernard. She opened one of the bags and found it filled with her own clothing, neatly folded. She fingered the violet panties and was rewarded with a deep blush from Santiamen, who just knew she could see the tooth marks on them.
As she zipped the bag shut, Armando’s voice came through a small speaker in the ceiling. “I hope you are feeling refreshed and more properly dressed. The gorilla is Ramiro Santiamen, but you can call him Santo. You don’t have to be afraid of him at all. I hope you will treat him decently because he’s a big fan of yours. Please sit down and buckle up. You’ll notice that we’ve moved inland now. I think you’ll find the mountain terrain interesting.”
Dancy leaned close to the window, studying the landscape below with as much interest as Santiamen studied her. The sea had been replaced by precipitous hills covered with scrub jungle and granite crags. The place was flying low through canyons and gorges, hugging the ground as though for safety. She heard the engines starting to throttle down, fussing against the descent and stall. The flight got rougher as they hit pockets of turbulence and updraft. She spotted an occasional white shack sticking out of the sheer green cliffs and was admiring a river that laid out long, jade green pools between its tumbles through huge black boulders.
She had noticed a highway tracing the course of the river below and saw it suddenly straighten out on a flat plateau between the cliffs. The plane banked sharply to parallel the blacktop, dropping into the valley. They were skimming in dangerously close to the ground and she tensed to realize that they were too low and slow to clear the hills ahead of them, that they were going in.