Linnear 03 - White Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page A

fingernails speared into the flesh of chicken and corn. She ate quickly, economically and voraciously. She seemed to have forgotten his presence or the presence of anyone else, for that matter.
    When she was done she sucked the fat and juices off each slender finger in turn, her full lips distended outwards. It seemed such a blatantly sexual gesture that Branding was taken aback, until the innocence and unself-consciousness of her expression reassured him. Shisei wiped her mouth on a paper napkin, and her eyes met his.
    Branding reacted as if he were a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Then he reminded himself that she could not read his thoughts. He smiled that thoroughly synthetic smile politicians perfect that means nothing to them.
    'When you do that,' Shisei said, tossing the crumpled napkin aside, 'you look as stupid as a puppet.'
    For a moment, Branding was so stunned he could think of nothing to say. Then, angry, he flushed. He set his plate aside, and got up. 'You'll excuse me.'
    She reached out, took his hand in hers. 'Are you so easily driven away? I would have thought that a senator of the United States would be open to the truth.'
    Gently but firmly he unwound her fingers from his. 'Good night,' he said hi his frostiest tone.
    Now, the morning after, as he strolled down the beach, his feet already numbed by the Atlantic, Branding tried - and failed - to turn his thoughts away from Shisei. He wondered if he would ever see her again. He thought he recognized something dangerous, perhaps even destructive in her. But there was something delicious in that knowledge as well, like standing at the edge of an abyss or playing chicken in a souped-up hotrod. Coming closer than anyone else to disaster and dancing away unharmed was, after all, the object, the trophy of excitement he -and other teenagers hike him - had tried to hold on to for as long as possible. Like Peter Pan desperately trying to hold on to his reckless youth.
    Oh, Christ, Branding thought. What in God's name is happening to me?
    But he already knew that it was nothing in God's name.
    Justine, coming out on to the engawa, said, 'There's a letter for you. It's got a Marco Island, Florida, postmark. I think it's from Lew Croaker.'
    Nicholas looked up from the patch of ground where
    he had been watching the afternoon shadows creeping
    along the ground. He took the letter from her without
    any expression. v
    'Nick?' Justine sat beside him on the Japanese porch. She did not touch him. 'What is it?' Her eyes changed colour, from hazel to green, as they often did in times of emotional stress. The red motes in her left iris were fired by the sunlight. Her long legs were crossed at the knees, the dark mane of her hair was swept back across her shoulders. Her skin was creamy, as lightly freckled as a teenager's. Her nose, slightly too wide, gave her character, her plump lips adding a note of sensuality. The years had been kind to her; she looked very much as she had on the day Nicholas had met her ten years ago on the beach at West Bay Bridge on the East End of Long Island, when she had been a lost little girl. Now she was a woman, a wife, briefly, a mother.
    Nicholas passed the letter back to her, said, 'Read it,' with such a total lack of inflection that another flood of anxiety washed over her. Ever since he had come home from the operation at the hospital - nearly eight months now - he had seemed a different person. He did riot like the meals she prepared for him with what she knew were his favourite foods; his sleep patterns had changed. Always a sound sleeper, except after the baby had died, she often heard him up-and pacing the floor at three in the morning. Worst of all, he had not worked out, even minimally, since recovering from the operation. Instead, he came out on the engawa each day and sat, staring into the dust, or he drifted through the gardens with a blank expression on his face.
    At one point, she was so concerned that she phoned his