"Look, you broke up a small party I had going here tonight. But now that you've ruined my evening, I damned sure don't plan to help you clean up."
"Michael, neither of us had anything to do with this unfortunate business. You or me. I wasn't even in Greece. It must have been some terrible misunderstanding among men of questionable livelihood. Tempers obviously flared. Who knows? Everybody is dead, so there can be no explanation beyond what appearances suggest." He shrugged and slipped his arms underneath the body. "Incidentally, they told me that Volodin was captured this morning. But he didn't talk. Instead he killed himself. So our situation is still secure."
"You must have a hearing problem. Maybe you ought to get it checked. I just told you it's Eva I'm going to help, not you. You can take the money and--"
"My friend, my friend, you are impetuous. Please. Everything is going as planned. But now we must move quickly." He smiled. "By the way, did you leave anything down below?"
"Just a broken bottle." Vance stared out into the rain.
"Then you might wish to make it disappear." He began dragging the body into the courtyard. "It will have prints. Glass preserves them perfectly."
He's right for once, Vance thought. Rubbing at his neck, a glimmer of pain intruding, he turned and retraced his steps into the dark, into the labyrinth.
As he descended, the chill of the palace enveloped him. He was bored with the place now, its ancient horrors and its modern ones. When the dark became too depressing, he extracted a folder of hotel matches and struck one. Its puny light flared and then expired, almost helpless against the blackness engulfing him.
The sound of crickets followed as he entered the bedroom of the queen once more. He paused a moment in the dark, then struck another match and walked over to the stone bed. There was the neck of the splintered bottle, covered with bloody fingerprints. Novosty was right about one thing: It would have opened a whole new area of inquiry. Nobody at Interpol had his prints on file, at least as far as he knew. But that wasn't good enough. Leave nothing to chance.
Carrying the fractured bottle, he began remounting the steps. This time he wanted the dark, needed it, to clear his mind, to mask the horrors of the palace. The confusion of the shootout swirled in his mind. Alex Novosty had killed three men as calmly as lighting a cigarette. Why? Was it just for the money?