Hot Siberian by Gerald A Browne Page B

the bar he had spotted and considered this Czech right off and concluded there was no chance. That he’d misjudged multiplied the stir in him. He felt his entire sexual apparatus spasm once, as though separately it were signaling its approval. He smiled at the Czech, the insinuating smile that he’d perfected years ago and had rehearsed briefly in his hotel-room mirror when he was getting ready for this night. Within that smile he told the Czech that of course he would speak slowly in French, but they wouldn’t have to talk much. Talk was not the essential thing, was it?
    The killer nodded and did the sort of responsive smile that he knew was wanted from him, confirming the mutuality.
    Now they got to names. The victim said his first was François and his last did not matter.
    The killer lied his entire name and extended his hand.
    François pretended not to notice. He wanted to put off the pleasure of touching the Czech, and when he did touch him it would certainly not be his hand. He had long ago found that social niceties and drawn-out buildups were diluting. More could be felt from sudden physical candor. François summoned the waiter and asked for the check.
    The killer wanted another slivovitz and told the waiter so. While it was being brought, he took in this François seated diagonally opposite and saw again why him rather than one of the others. The man’s sexual preference had not entered into it. His homosexuality was obvious in his gestures and walk and speech, but to have chosen him for that reason would have been narrow-minded and unfair, the killer believed. No, the decisive thing, that which had swayed the choice, was the way this François presented himself. His immaculateness. He seemed to be asking to be chosen, standing out. The perfectly pinched Cardin suit, the pointed-toed, lightweight shoes that looked as though they would shriek at a scuff, and, above the fresh white shirt collar, a complexion pampered and lotioned and shaved at least twice a day. Both amusing and annoying to the killer was the possibility that François also shaved his legs, chest, and underarms, and probably tweezered his ass the same as he plucked his brows.
    The slivovitz arrived. François gave the killer hardly time to swallow it. They left the cafe at forty minutes past nine. Outside on the wide major street called Wenceslas, François said, “I’m staying at the Intercontinental,” assuming that would be their immediate destination.
    Before François could hail a taxi, the killer said, “I want to see the clock. When I come to Prague I always see the clock.”
    â€œTomorrow,” François said dismissively, not knowing or caring what clock the Czech had in mind.
    â€œIt is better at night,” the killer said, and without another word he made off up Wenceslas Street in the direction of the river. François mentally stomped his foot but wasn’t going to be left standing there. He caught up with the Czech at the corner. They crossed and entered Melantrichova Street. At once the quality of the atmosphere was changed. This was Old Town Prague with its mazed chasms of narrow, barely lighted passageways. The Gothic structures on each side loomed so close above the illusion was that they were precarious, about to tumble and crash with their stony tops.
    â€œYou know where you’re going, I hope,” François said, irritated. He loathed the feel of the cobblestones through his thin-soled shoes. Normally he avoided adventures such as this.
    Soon they arrived at a square and a large fourteenth-century building. It was Prague’s Old Town Hall. The killer stood before it, gazing up at its illuminated clock. François paced impatiently around him. A number of other persons, evidently tourists, were there to see the striking of the hour. From out of the ornate fretwork above the clock came the carved life-sized figures of Christ and his disciples. In