“I’m sorry.”
“Forget about it.”
He stares at all the people on the dance floor, doing their thing. “You really think I look good in this suit? Wait, don’t answer that.”
As he moves his head, he sees something else: Claude Ameche, serious man in a polo shirt and chinos, with a burgundy jacket, is about to walk past them.
Simon touches Nomi’s shoulder in warning. “Ameche.”
She stills, angles to look just as Ameche’s path crosses with the cloakroom queue. Ameche catches sight of Nomi: There’s a flash of instant recognition. In the same moment, he sees her dress, her loose hair, her bare legs, and makes a lascivious grin.
Simon feels Nomi stiffen, and a kind of red film washes over his vision.
“Stay here,” he says, separating from her.
Nomi is having her jacket handed to her at the cloakroom window. “Noone. What are you doing?”
As Ameche reaches the entry door, Simon is already striding toward the first bar. The gods of violence are smiling on him: When he looks over the lip of the benchtop, someone has left a paring knife on a plastic cutting board next to a pile of limes. Simon snatches up the knife, ignores the bartender who calls out, spins into a jog to reach the door.
He yanks it open.
“Noone!Stop!”
But the slithering viper inside him isn’t listening. He strides out the door about ten steps behind Ameche. The man has jogged down the first set of stairs to the landing. By the time Simon catches up with him, they’re halfway down the second set of stairs.
Simon doesn’t see the point of announcing himself. He kicks Ameche in the back of the knee, leaving a heel print on the twilled cotton. Ameche stumbles forward onto the second landing, turns with a look of galled shock.
Simon surprises himself by punching Ameche right in the face.
“Noone!For fuck’s sake!” Nomi has reached the balcony corridor.
Ameche grunts and falls back to the top of the third staircase. Simon’s fist is smarting, but the cool alien blood in his veins is just getting started.
The older man, accustomed to swimming with sharks, reaches into the inside of his jacket. Simon discovers his own movements have become explosively fast, or maybe everything is happening in decelerated motion, like the Earth’s revolutions have slowed: Ameche drawing the pistol, Simon’s own hand slamming into Ameche’s wrist, the gun falling over the banister. Green light casts everything in a murky, underwater haze, like they’re brawling at the bottom of the Hudson.
But they’re on dry land, and people are present in some background shadow play, crying out, scurrying for safety as Simon backhands Ameche’s face, shoves him hard in the chest. Ameche tumbles ungracefully down the third set of stairs, sprawling on the final landing.Simon stalks down, hauling the man up by the lapels of his burgundy jacket. Blood leaks in a soft stream from Ameche’s nose as Simon slams him against the landing banister.
“You like beating up women?” Simon hardly recognizes the pitilessness of his own voice.
“You cocksucker,” Ameche spits. “Do you know who you’re dealing with here?”
Simon just laughs. Is this guy really going withDon’t you know who I am?
As Ameche gropes for leverage on the banister railing, Simon takes the paring knife out of his waistband, rams it hard through the back of Ameche’s left hand, into the wood. The paring knife is not as sharp as his work knives, but it stabs through meat and muscle just the same.
Ameche howls, fixed in place. Simon grips his throat.
“Simon, have you lost your fucking mind?” Nomi is on the stairs behind them.
“Go downstairs.” Simon speaks mechanically over his shoulder as he squeezes the soft structures of Ameche’s windpipe. The man thrashes. “Get outside.”
He senses more than sees it when Nomi squeaks past behind him and heads for the exit. Ameche is choking, cursing.
Simon twists the knife in the man’s hand, enunciates carefully. “So you know whoyou’redealing with—my name is Simon Noone. If you go near Nomi Pace again, next time we meet, I’ll cut out something important.”
He slams Ameche’s head against the railing, then releases his hold, spins and walks briskly down the final set of stairs. Behind him, Ameche is groaning. Other people are backing away to give Simon space as he exits the building.
Out in front of the entry area, in the cool dark of the street, a yellow cab with Nomi in the back seat. “Simon,get in the fucking car!”
