Silhouettes: A James Bond Story

Silhouettes Part 7

The hotel bar had a desperately cosmopolitan name that Bond forgot the moment he stepped inside. It was appropriately dimly-lit with violet lights deepening the color scheme, which was likely brighter and more welcoming during the daytime. Thievery Corporation's "Lebanese Blonde" played at an appropriately ambient volume, and Bond wondered if some secret compact had been hammered out in the 1990s amongst the major hotel chains to keep the song on regular rotation in their bars.

It took him a few minutes to notice the Americans-the bar was about a third full, and they'd done a reasonable enough job being inconspicuous by taking a booth opposite the bar. They wore polos and khakis, but their Merrill hiking shoes and their overall bulk-exaggerated physiques that were obviously as honed by injection needles as they were by exercise machines--gave them away. The beards and tattoos just made it that much easier.

Bond settled into a bar stool and ordered a martini from a woman so dark and lithe she might have been made of smoke, then put in Q's earbuds. There was an initial echoing bellow as the tiny directional mics searched for a source to lock on to, but after Bond opened the app Q had installed on his phone, the American-accented conversation came through with startling clarity.

"What'd he order?"

"A martini, looks like."

"Pussy. The fuck's everyone so spun up about? All this guy's done so far is order room service and go to the bar."

"We get to ask questions, all of a sudden? That how this works now?"

"I'm just saying."

"They wanna pay me to watch a guy drink in a bar, I'm happy to do it without asking questions. What do you want to bet he makes a run at that bartender, fuck was her name?"

"I didn't pay attention. This part of the world, if it's not white, I'm not touching it."

"It must be interesting." The voice coming around the conversation relayed through the earbuds was disorienting enough to give Bond a start. The speaker had insinuated herself into the seat next to him at bar as easily and silently as oxygen filling a vacuum, and Bond wondered how he could have failed to notice a woman as beautiful as this. He must be losing his edge.

"Not really," he said, recovering slightly. "A co-worker's podcast. It's...precisely what I expected it to be." He removed the earbuds and stowed them in his coat pocket. "Certainly no reason to be antisocial."

"Our devices give us access to the world and so we do not see what is right in front of us," the woman said with a faint South Asian accent and sharply rolled Rs.

"Or to the left of us, as the case may be," Bond said. The sylphin bartender brought the woman a cosmopolitan, the colors vivid through the glass, and her dark eyes flittered between Bond and the woman before she evaporated once again. "Really quite inexcusable of me, Ms...?"

"Fazura," she said, raising her glass. "Liyani Fazura."

"Bond, James Bond." They touched glasses, Liyani's eyes not leaving his. In the altered light of the bar they were light, almost blue. Contacts, perhaps, Bond thought. Everything else about Liyani Fazura was meticulously put together-the onyx cascade of her hair around and over her shoulder like spun, black glass; the impeccably applied makeup, blended seamlessly to give the illusion of her natural look; the cerulean blue of her evening dress complimenting the light brown swell of her cleavage. The woman seemed less like she had dressed to go out than she'd been engineered to be the woman every heterosexual man hopes to meet in a high-end bar and never does.

"And what brings you all the way to KL, Mister Bond? You didn't come all the way here just to look at your phone."

"Work, I'm afraid. A quick meeting with the regional team. Nothing terribly interesting."

"Ah," Liyani said airily. "What sort of business are you in? You have a nice suit, but you don't look like a banker."

"What does a banker look like?"

"Not like you."

Bond smiled wryly and produced a UnivEx business card he placed on the bar. It was one of the new line with an updated logo that Bond thought looked like an overripe orange, but everyone in Design thought was brilliant.

"Universal Exports?" Liyani picked up the card and looked at the front and back. "And what do you export from Malaysia?"

Bond shrugged. It was an old cover, and he could front a convincing cover story in his sleep. "Any number of things. Malaysia is wealthy with resources. You can't turn your head in this country without discovering something rare and lovely."

Liyani Fazura smiled and looked down at her drink, taken aback by his boldness. If seduction was a game of chess, he'd just castled and wiped out a layer of her king's defenses.

"I'm...I'm so pleased you're enjoying my country." She looked up from her drink. "I miss it when I travel."

"And what do you do?"

"I'm in the hospitality business."

"A field in which you must excel," Bond said. "I know I feel more at ease around you."

Liyani smirked, having been prepared for that one, and closed her eyes languidly, then met his gaze again. "I travel regionally and inspect our various venues."

Bond noticed the thin, ornate silver bracelet on her right wrist. "Did you bring that back from one of your travels?"

"I did," Liyani said, absently fingering the silver scallops and ridges. "Found it at a market in Labuan Bajo, where we're looking at sites for a new resort. Are you familiar with the area?"

"I'm afraid I've not been yet."

"You most definitely should. It's lovely."

"Your work must be interesting. Seeing all those places."

"Interesting, but lonely." She ran a finger around the rim of her glass contemplatively. "Always the one at the restaurant by myself. Always finishing the day in an empty hotel room. You understand, of course."

"Actually, I don't," Bond said. "I can't fathom why a woman such as you should ever find herself alone."

"You're very direct, Mister Bond. But as it happens, I put my work before everything else. I imagine that's why."

"More's the pity for everything else, then." Bond sipped his martini, felt the alcohol flare against the sexuality crackling between them.

"Speaking of work, how are your accommodations here? I trust they meet your expectations?"

"Deplorable," Bond said with a hint of smile. "Simply deplorable. I'd very much like to lodge a complaint."

"Well," Liyani said, the ambient light glittering in her eyes, "perhaps I should inspect your suite personally."

"I think that's a splendid idea." Bond killed his drink, and they sidled away from the bar. The surveillance team could be dealt with in the morning.