sitting with customers, encouraging them to run up bar bills of cosmic proportions, but there were several lined up at the bar and Ash surveyed them casually as he took out a pack of thin cheroots and lit one, dropping the empty book of matches into the ashtray.
They were a fairly cosmopolitan mix, he thought. All of them young and most of them pretty.
He spotted a couple of North Americans and a few Europeans, as well as the local chicas who’d strayed into port from farms and plantations of looking for an alternative to early marriage and endless childbirth. Well, they’d found that all right, he thought cynically, stifling a brief pang of regret. Because he wasn’t there to feel compassion. He couldn’t afford it.
‘You see something you like, señor?’ Manuel was back with his beer, his smile knowing.
‘Not yet,’ Ash returned coolly, tapping the ash from his cheroot. ‘When I do, I’ll let you know.’
Manuel shrugged. ‘As you wish, señor. You have only to speak.’ He nodded towards an archway with a beaded curtain behind the stage. ‘We have rooms—very private rooms—where the girls would dance for you alone,’ he added with blatant insinuation. ‘I can arrange. At a price, naturalemente.’
‘You amaze me,’ said Ash. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
The beer was surprisingly good, and wonderfully cold, and he took several long deep swallows, turning his attention away from the flashing smiles of the hopeful girls and focussing instead on the piano player who was still doggedly persisting with a range of old standards in spite of the indifference of his audience.
I hope the old witch at the door pays you well, brother, Ash told him silently as he stubbed out the cheroot. You deserve it.
The pianist reached the end of his set and half-rose to acknowledge the non-existent applause. He seated himself again, and struck a chord loudly.
The bead curtain shivered and admitted a girl.
At her entrance a strange sound like a low growl went through the room. The predators scenting their prey, Ash thought with distaste, then paused, eyes narrowing as he saw her properly.
She was blonde, and slightly less than medium height in spite of her high heels, her slim, taut body complemented by the fluid lines of the brief black dress she was wearing. The strapless bodice was cut straight across the swell of her high rounded breasts, making her skin glow like ivory. The silky fabric clung to her slender hips, ending just below mid-thigh, giving the troubling impression that beneath it she was naked.
But she did not climb up on the stage and begin her routine. Instead, head slightly bent, looking at no one and ignoring the whistles and ribald shouts, she skirted the edge of the platform until she reached the piano. She leaned back against it, as if glad of its support, while the pianist played the introduction to ‘Killing Me Softly’.
She had an incredible face, Ash thought frowningly, his attention completely caught. In contrast to the tumble of fair hair on her shoulders her brows and lashes were startlingly dark, fringing eyes as green and wary as a cat’s. She had exquisite cheekbones, and her mouth was painted a hot, sexy pink.
And she was scared witless.
He’d known it from the moment of her entrance. Even across the crowd of waiting men he’d felt the force of her fear like a cold hand laid on his shoulder. Now he noticed the small hands balled into fists among the folds of her skirt, the blank, tense smile on her lips.
She was like a small animal, he thought, caught in the headlights of a car and powerless to move.
But there was no problem with her voice when she began to sing. It was low-pitched, powerful and faintly husky. The kind of voice a man would want to hear moaning his name at the moment of climax, Ash thought, his mouth curving in self-contempt.
Her audience was listening while she sang, but with a faint restiveness. However appealing her voice might be, it was the promise offered by the skimpy dress that mattered to them. They couldn’t believe it was just a song that was on offer. All the other girls took off their clothes, so why shouldn’t she?
She moved effortlessly into the next song—‘Someone to Watch Over Me’. She was no longer staring at the floor. Her head was up, and she seemed to be looking far beyond the confines of the club with a wistfulness and undisguised yearning that matched the words of the song.
And in that moment, as her voice trembled into silence, Ash’s gaze met hers over the heads of the crowd. Met—and held it for one endless, breathless moment.
Now, he thought, I know why I came here tonight.
The number over, she ducked her head swiftly and shyly in response to the sprinkling of applause, and went back the way she had come. Ash waited to see if she would glance back at him, but she did not, simply vanishing behind the curtain, followed by catcalls and shouts of disappointment.
Ash drained his beer and got to his feet. Mama Rita looked up at his approach, her eyes sharp and shrewd.
‘You want something, querido?’
‘I want the songbird,’ Ash said levelly.
She considered that. ‘To sit with you—have a few drinks—be nice?’
‘Nice, yes,’ Ash told her. ‘But in one of your private rooms, Mama. I want her to dance for me. Alone.’
Her brows lifted and she began to laugh, the sequins shaking and flashing. ‘She’s my newest girl. She still learning, mi corazón. And maybe I’m saving her for a rich customer, anyway. You couldn’t afford her.’
He said softly, ‘Try me.’
‘Crazy man,’ she said. ‘Why spend all your money? Choose another girl. One who dances good.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘The songbird. I’ll pay the price for her.’
She looked him over. ‘You got that sort of money?’ There was frank disbelief in her voice.
‘You know that I have.’ Ash took a billfold from his back pocket, peeled off some notes, and tossed them on to the table in front of her. ‘And I know what I want.’
She picked them up swiftly. ‘That for me,’ she said. ‘Commission. You pay her too. Whatever she worth. Whatever you get her to do. Should be easy,’ she added. ‘Beautiful man like you, querido.’ She chuckled again. ‘Teach her some lessons, Sí?’
‘Sí,’ Ash said softly. ‘The lessons of a lifetime.’ He paused. ‘Does she have a name?’
She tucked the money he’d given her into her cleavage and surged to her feet. ‘She called Micaela.’ She leered triumphantly at him. ‘You have another beer—on the house. I go tell your songbird that she’s lucky girl.’
I only hope, Ash said silently, watching Mama Rita’s departure, that she thinks so too.
But that, he thought as he went back to his table, was in the lap of the gods—like so much else. And he ordered his beer and settled down to wait.
Chellie sank on to the stool in front of the mirror, gripping the edge of
