Hot Ice by Gregg Loomis Read Free Book Online Page B

on the easel before turning down the sound system, reducing the joyous can-can of Offenbach’s Orpheus in Hades to little more than a tinkle.
    He turned, his puzzlement turning into pleasure. “Well, hello there! I thought you were still sleeping, fighting jet lag.”
    “Sleep? With the whole chorus line of Moulin Rouge prancing through the house?”
    He gave her an admiring look. Maria Bergenghetti. Dark skin, sun-streaked hair so black it had blue highlights like a crow’s wing. When she smiled, as she was doing now, she displayed a Chaucerian Wife of Bath gap between her front teeth that, if not saying she’d had it in her time, said she could have the world if she so desired. The shift she wore almost concealed a figure that women half her age would envy.
    “Perhaps you’d rather hear Tchaikovsky.”
    She put her hands to her ears. “Those damn cannons are worse than the dancers, and the church bells give me a headache.”
    Maria preferred Kenny Rogers to Rachmaninoff, Hank Williams to Wagner. Although born Italian, she had gone to college and grad school in the United States, absorbing odd pieces of American pop culture as well as Americanized English with a Western twang. Her interest and passion, though, were volcanoes. She had returned to work for the government of her native land. After all, few volcanoes were privately owned.
    Truthfully, Jason enjoyed American country music too; he simply couldn’t paint and listen at the same time. The tragedies of deserted lovers, broken trucks, runaway trains, and the other subjects the singers lamented were distracting.
    And Pangloss insisted on accompanying each with the most doleful of howls.
    Jason changed the subject. “So, what time is your body on now? What time is it in Hawaii?”
    She shook her head. “Two days ago, a week from now. Who knows? I’m tired of being tired. Think I’ll go into town, see what’s new.”
    “Nothing since the Normans left about four hundred years ago.”
    “OK, so I’ll see the same old stuff. But I haven’t seen it in a month. Want to come along?”
    He gave the invitation some thought. “Why not? Maybe I can find a Herald Tribune , see how Washington’s doing.”
    “First in war, first in peace, and last in the National League East.”
    He smiled at the hoary joke. The Washington baseball team had arrived from Montreal long after Jason had left the town house in Georgetown that he had shared with Laurin; but, like so many expats, following a sports team was a trace of a homeland he both missed and to which he had no intent of returning. The English-language paper also featured Calvin and Hobbes , a favorite comic strip long since absent from American papers.
    “Suzuki or Suzuki?”
    Motorcycle or car.
    Upon arrival on the island, Jason had purchased a well-worn Suzuki Samurai, a small jeeplike vehicle with an underpowered engine but a clutch and four-wheel drive that were equal to the surrounding hills. Its two rear seats were almost large enough for two adults and served as carrying space for his canvasses, groceries and, when Maria was with him, Pangloss. The quality of the car had induced him to buy a used 250 cc motorcycle by the same manufacturer, a machine for which Maria did not share his enthusiasm.
    “Does it matter?”
    “Try wearing a skirt on the back of a bike and ask that question.”
    “A zillion Italian women don’t ask it; they just do it.”
    “The cause of large families.”
    Robespierre appeared from nowhere and began to rub against Maria’s leg. Pangloss eyed the cat with canine caution.
    “If we take the car, we can include Pangloss,” Maria said helpfully.
    Jason was already wiping his brushes clean. “The car it is, then.”
    The road to the causeway consisted of more potholes than pavement, each of which produced a grunt of discomfort from Pangloss in the rear. Before Maria could begin her normal complaints about the speed at which Jason insisted on driving, he initiated a