Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 13

I.

Gus Keller was very conscious of the warmth of Michele’s body next to his. They sat in the rear seat of a Volkswagen Caravelle, a car similar to an SUV. Jan was driving, with Adams seated next to him.

He had been so impressed with her shooting skills, but of course he didn’t dare say so, with Janasz and Adams just a few feet away from them.

But he was also starting to feel a bit annoyed, Keller admitted to himself. After all, even though he’d been a rookie at the Special Crimes Bureau, and at all times intended for a desk job rather than one out in the field (he was an art expert, for god’s sake!) he’d had training in hand-to-hand combat and in firing pistols. Not only had he been trained in firing pistols, but he’d achieved marksman status, as well.

Keller grinned to himself. He probably couldn’t hit a moving target, but if someone were standing stationary between 20 feet and 40 feet away from him, he’d be able to blow them away.

The point was, he didn’t like the way he was being used. He may be Taran Tula’s hired assassin here, but it was ridiculous to keep him in the dark like this. Once they were alone…wherever it was they were going…he would have a little chat with her and find out exactly what the hell she wanted him to do for her. Time to assert himself.

II.

What was he thinking? Michele wondered, as she gazed out of the window of the Caravelle at the lights of Sydney passing by. The sun had set, and the streets had been awash in a neon glare as they’d driven through the downtown area of Sydney. Now it was dark with only the occasional street lamp as they had entered the residential area.

As she looked out of the window, part of it acted like a mirror, allowing her to see her reflection in the glass, and Keller’s reflection as well. She saw him smile to himself.

What was he thinking? Had she consolidated his belief that her skills as an assassin were non pareil? Once in a while, no matter how good your rumor and gossip machine, you had to show your skills, and she’d generally contrived to do it at a shooting range or on a trap or skeet shooting field.

And her audience had been duly impressed. Not only the actors Janasz and Adams, and Keller, but also a handful of people, mostly men, who’d been at the firing range to practice their own shooting. A couple of them had actually come up to her and expressed their approbation, as she and the rest of her group had been leaving the building.

Michele smiled to herself. She did so like approbation, she had to admit.

III.

Jan Janasz drove along, thinking to himself what a privilege it was to be working with Marguerite Zelle. He should have known that she’d be an expert markswoman, considering that it had been she who’d arranged for him to require her to prove herself in that regard, but it had been impressive to watch nevertheless.

What a woman! Actress, producer, markswoman… he wondered what else she was good at… that flowing dress she wore must hide a voluptuous body…a Ruebenesque body…he wondered if he’d ever get to see it.

IV.

Adams sat lost in his own thoughts. He had been cast in the role of Laurence Olivier in the play Orson's Shadow, and he had made the mistake of watching Zero Mostel's movie version of the play. He'd known better than to do that...why, why, why had he succumbed to curiousity? He'd never be able to get Mostel and Gene Wilder's performances out of his head.

Why, why, why had he done it?