Stone Cold by Norman Moss Read Free Book Online Page B

version.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. She didn’t burst into tears. And I didn’t threaten to spank her bottom, that was somebody’s libidinous imagination.”
    “So you took Sylvie down a peg. Good for you.”
    “Maggie, look, I didn’t tell you about that episode. But what I did with Sylvia hardly ingratiated me with the Stakis family. If I’m really a cunning rogue, I’m not very good at it.”
    She considered this, staring into her plate. “Did you know who she was?”
    “No. I had no idea.”
    She was silent for a while, and then she changed the subject. “Tell me, why did you decide to live in England?”
    All thought of the evening ending in my bedroom had now gone out of the window, but I was glad we could talk normally, and, by the time we had finished our coffee, we were more relaxed, and exchanging stories about our undergraduate days.
    I signed for the bill – let it go on expenses – and we walked down to the car park at the back of the hotel. It was chilly in the night-time, and she pulled her coat around her shoulders. I pointed out that the snow on the mountain peaks reflected the crescent moon and glistened. “It’s lovely,” she agreed, and we stopped to enjoy the sight for a few moments.
    When we got to the car I started to help her in when she turned and suddenly kissed me firmly on the lips, lingering for a while. “That’s in case I was wrong about you,” she said. “Call me again if you stay in the neighbourhood.” She pressed a business card into my hand, got into the car quickly and drove away,
    It was a nice end to the evening, and I stood there for a moment after she drove away, enjoying the feeling, remembering the kiss, hearing her car fade away into the distance, looking at the moon again.
    As I turned to go back to the hotel, a voice came from the shadows behind me. “Very touching,” it jeered.
    I turned and Mario, Sylvie’s escort of the evening before, stepped out into the moonlight. He was not dressed as he had been the evening before but in jeans and a t-shirt. After a moment two other figures stepped out of the darkness, both young men with muscular arms and nasty looks, the looks of bullies expecting some enjoyment.
    “You tried to teach me a lesson in manners last night,” Mario said. “Now I think it’s time I taught you one.” He and the man next to him both stepped forward with fists clenched.
    I sized them up. I was about to be beaten badly. A withdrawal under fire is one of the most difficult military manoeuvres – the British Army Infantry Manual again. It is best to break off contact and pull back as fast as possible,
    I feinted in the direction of the one on the left so that he stepped back and threw up his fists, which probably gained me a second, then turned and ran into the hotel’s grounds, and then out across a road. I could hear them running after me. I ran across a field into some trees and jumped over a ditch, and they followed. They stopped and gave up the chase.
    “Yankee coward!” one of them called out.
    “Look at him, running like a frightened rabbit,” another yelled.
    It was playground stuff and it should not have worried a grown man. Running away from those louts was the sensible thing to do. It was no more cowardly that running away from a lynch mob, or an angry dog. But there is something of the little boy in most of us, and I hated hearing that. I was grinding my teeth with anger at the same time as I was telling myself that it was stupid to care.
    After a while I stopped running, out of breath, taking care that they were not nearby. I started to walk back towards the hotel, looking out constantly to see whether they were about, pushing aside some underbrush. My shoes were muddy now. I tried to recover my morale by looking at the moon reflected on the mountain tops and recalling how Maggie and I had enjoyed the sight together.
    As I got close to the car park I heard a car drive up, and then I heard Sylvie’s voice. I wondered