Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable Read Free Page A

kind of plane you want. However, for this trip, Bobby wanted our arrival to be obvious so we were flying commercial. First class, of course.
    A petite brunette wearing a blue and white scarf around her neck stepped behind the desk marking the gate and picked up the phone to announce the boarding of our flight. First class passengers were invited to join the elderly and disabled on deck. Blane kept his hand on my lower back as the three of us headed down the gangway. He carried a light brown attaché case made of a very soft leather and I noticed a gold watch peek out from under his French cuffs. This close to him, I smelled a mix of clean soap and light aftershave.
    I ordered champagne because, why not? It did more to ease my anxiety than Blue’s hot breath on my shoulder. The champagne helped me fall asleep, and though restless (I kept waking up realizing my jaw was hanging open), it was better than spending the flight analyzing whether each noise the plane made was normal or the last sound I’d hear before plummeting to my death.
    When I woke it was dawn and we were descending into the Mexican capital. Blane leaned over me to look out the window as we crossed the mountains and were suddenly above the city. It filled the valley, buildings pressed together, a regular bowl of humanity. Communities of shacks spread like tendrils out of the mass of urbanity up the hillside. None of them crested the top. There are some things Mother Nature will not allow.
    As the plane lowered I could make out individual streets lined with bright purple flowering trees. The traffic moved quickly on the highways we cruised over. As the plane bumped down on the runway I held my breath and squeezed the armrest. An image of the wind picking up, the plane tipping until its wing scraped the tarmac in a shower of sparks then tumbling wing over wing and finally exploding in a mushroom cloud of orange and black raced across my brain. A round of applause broke out as the plane taxied safely toward our gate. I joined in. Blane shot me a look. Melanie would never clap at being alive.
    A man wearing a driver’s cap and holding a sign with ‘Franks’ printed on it was waiting for us. He smiled when Blane nodded to him and immediately took our luggage. Blane started to speak in very quick Spanish as we moved through the crowd. I struggled to understand. My Spanish, never great, spent the last two and a half years being forgotten. Blane on the other hand conversed easily.
    My experience with Mexico was limited to less than a year spent on the Sea of Cortez. And most of that time was wasted drinking and feeling sorry for myself. That is until Mulberry came and offered me a new life, a new identity. Another couple of months of training and one murderous blood bath later, I was shipped to London where Mulberry hoped the only blood baths I’d be involved in would be at his direction.
    Our driver, a man named Tito, led us to a limo that was blocking traffic. He had a quick, heated discussion with a parking cop. A couple of crumpled bills and a minute later we were on our way. The tinted windows shielded us from the bright sun as we headed into the heart of the city. I leaned back against the black leather seat and watched the city pass underneath the elevated highway. It’s hard to grasp the size of this place from within it. I tried to equate the image I’d seen from the sky with the sprawl outside my window.
    Graffitied walls and crumbling structures gave way to meticulously maintained parks and soaring skyrises as we entered the center of the city. I pictured it as the center of the valley with the rest of the city radiating out toward the mountains. The beauty of it surprised me.
    Puerto Penasco, the town I’d lived near, was a dusty place with broken bottles lining the sandy streets. There was nothing of Mexico City’s aesthetic there. This city was thoughtful. Everywhere I looked was a detail to be admired. Complicated topiaries lined the boulevard and