Blown by Mark Haskell Smith

Author:Mark Haskell Smith [Smith, Mark Haskell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802165756
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2018-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

A light drizzle was falling, not really rain, but enough that you might want an umbrella if you were going to be out in it for long. Seo-yun declined the umbrella. She let the rain fall on her face. Droplets dotted her glasses and refracted the light. Neal stood under an umbrella emblazoned with the Ritz-Carlton logo and watched her get wet.

“You want to get under here?”

She shook her head. “It feels good.” Nothing in her day-to-day existence felt as good as this warm tropical precipitation; her job, her apartment, her clothes, her stupid fiancé—none of it compared to this sensation. Was it all those dry years of being in classrooms and offices, working toward whatever goal she’d been convinced she needed to achieve? Well, she’d achieved it all and it didn’t feel nearly as good as this. Simple, sensual pleasure. That’s what was missing. It made her wonder if something was wrong with her, like some kind of neurological problem or vitamin deficiency that hadn’t, until this moment, allowed her to take pleasure in simple things. What if she’d been dehydrated for decades? She made a vow to drink lots of water and take a dip in the hotel pool. She was going to be a sponge and absorb as much tropical moisture as she could.

Atlantic Starr began crooning from her cell phone. She sent the call to voice mail. Whatever her fiancé needed, well, he’d just have to wait.

“We should get inside.”

She closed her eyes and felt the drizzle splatter her face.

“C’mon.” Neal gently took her arm and led her through the glass door into the air-conditioned lobby of the First-Caribbean International Bank. Seo-yun shivered in the cold air. They’d called ahead and made an appointment with one of the private banking managers.

She had been expecting to be taken into an office, offered a cup of tea or a glass of water, and reassured by the manager that he would help in any way he could. But that’s not what happened. Instead a young woman appeared and told them that the manager handling the account hadn’t showed up for work. She didn’t know where he was. She hadn’t been involved in managing the account and there wasn’t much she could tell them; there was no name on it, just an account number and they already knew that. She reminded them that the bank was a signatory to the US Patriot Act and all suspicious transactions would have been reported. She handed them the account manager’s business card. That way they could call him directly.

“He should be in tomorrow,” she concluded.

Seo-yun felt a shiver run through her body, and her skin dimpled with goose bumps.

Neal looked at the card and turned to Seo-yun: “Let’s go find Leighton Stewart.” Neal hooked his arm in hers and led her out of the building and back into the rain. “I’m sure they’ll have a phone book at the library.”

He popped the umbrella open as they crossed a little plaza called Heroes Square, although who the heroes were was unclear, and headed into the George Town library.

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