Saffron Nights (17 page)

J
ackson glanced at Sanj. On to plan two. Trying to get her to stay behind was of utmost importance. They should not fly together.

“Okay, Maeve. I just think it would be best if we went separately, you know? This will, perhaps, confuse these people. Divide and conquer and all that,” Jackson said, spreading orange marmalade on a piece of toast.

“What do we do with our package?”

Her hair was pulled into a floppy ponytail. Jackson liked that. He could imagine her as a spirited girl before the world kicked her around.

“We figure we have a few options,” Jackson said, after swallowing a piece of his toast.

“I hear that mailing it is less cumbersome than trying to go through customs. We make it look like it’s mail-order cosmetics or spices,” Sanj said. “We send it to your hotel.”

Maeve smiled. “It could work.”

Jackson’s heart fell into his stomach—or at least that’s what it felt like. Oh, her smile. Would he ever see it again as she laid her head back onto a pillow? He looked away from her. If he could just sleep with her without falling more in love with her. But as it was, he was in too deep. And yet he could not allow himself to linger in those feelings—she was a mess. So cool and composed, professionally, a wonderful writer, so sexy, but the other side of her—the punch in his face, the temper displayed yesterday, well, he just could not have it in his life. Been there, done that.

“And then, if it succeeds in getting to you,” Sanj said. “You leave it lying out in your room and simply let them take it.”

“Just like that? Let them get away with it?” she said, her brow knitting.

“Look Maeve, yesterday you wanted to flush it down the toilet. So you weren’t interested in avenging anything then.”

“Well, that’s true. But I’ve been thinking. Don’t you really want to know what’s going on? Were these people responsible for Paul’s death? Alice’s? For you almost getting killed?”

“Maeve, you have to understand that even if they are guilty, there’s nothing you can do. They are killers, and if they think you’re on to them, they will kill you,” Sanj said.

So that’s what it had come to. Sanj just came out and said what had been in all of their thoughts. Funny, Jackson turned his back on this lifestyle when he left home. Sure, his dad was a small-time thug, compared to these guys. Still, he had come so far in his life to be confronted with the same kind of stuff.
Just do what they ask and you won’t get hurt. Give them what they want.
It was the credo by which he’d lived most of his youth.

He admired Maeve’s inclination to seek justice. He felt that, too. He was tired of running away—and he sort of felt like he’d been doing this very thing his whole life. Always retreating to keep the peace. He smiled to himself—Maeve was just the opposite. She was a stirrer, a seeker, a fighter.

But here they were in India, heading for Morocco, and neither one of them was on any familiar turf. This is the way it had to be—they just needed to finish this book and get home safely to New York.

Sanj’s cell phone buzzed. “Excuse me.”

Maeve and Jackson busied themselves with finishing breakfast. It seemed she wouldn’t look at him. She was busy with the cinnamon rolls. Were they really that fascinating? He cleared his throat.

“Look—” Jackson started to say, wanting to clear the air between them.

But Sanj’s whistle caught them both off guard.

“You will not believe this, my friends,” he said and whistled again.

“What?”

“The woman you say has been following you is Sasha Barnes.”

“And?” Maeve said.

“She is perhaps the world’s most expensive call girl,” Sanj said.

For the first time since Jackson had known Maeve, she appeared to be speechless.

C
ocaine. Prostitution. Murder. What was her life coming to? All she had ever wanted to do was write. How did she get to this place?

She folded her jeans, placed them in her suitcase. Did she have all of her underwear? Hmmm. Yes. All accounted for. She looked at her nearly full suitcase and wished she were going home to Virginia, not New York, and certainly not Morocco, where God knows what was going to happen to them. It could all go very smoothly. Or the authorities could go through the mail more efficiently than Sanj’s sources claimed—and there would be trouble.

Home to Virginia. Well, at least where home used to be when she still had a mother and father. Now, it was more just a place of respite in her mind. A place to visit her brother and his family. Still, she felt homesick. What was she really missing?

She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Sometimes she felt so empty. Usually, she was fine. But if she could pick up the phone and call her mom ever again—well, what would she give for that sense of security, of belonging?

Paul had taken over some of that. He really had become like a second father to her. She could call him any time of the day or night and he was there for her. Once again, another “parent” figure gone, vanished.

She and her brother were closer than ever—but he was married. And even though his wife was okay, and never interfered in their relationship, things were different with him once he married, then even more so when he began to start a family. Which is as it should be, after all. She decided to check e-mail one more time.

An e-mail from Martin.

A knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said, not even wondering who it was.

When she looked up, it was straight into Jackson’s eyes.

“Maeve, I—” he said, then interrupting himself. “You’re crying.”

“Allergies,” she said, reaching for a tissue.

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” he said, coming toward her. “I’ve used the old allergy thing a time or two myself. “

She laughed, despite herself. “Okay. I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe I’m homesick. Maybe I am scared. Maybe I wonder how we got into this mess.”

“Or maybe it’s all of that, plus, you know,” he said. “Us.”

“Us?” she said and blew her nose. “A moment of weakness?”

He shrugged and looked away from her. “I think it was more than that. I mean, c’mon.”

“I’m not ready to get into this with you,” she said after a few moments of awkward silence.

“You know, Maeve, neither am I. I think we both need some time to sort this out,” he said. He scratched his dimpled chin. His blue eyes scanned her face.

Surprising. Caught her a good bit off guard. She’d figured he came in her room looking for sex, but obviously not. What the heck was going on here? Could it be Jackson was maturing a bit? Or was he just trying to move her along—just as she knew he’d done with so many others?

Her thoughts were rolling through her mind as he bent down to kiss her—at first just a peck, then sliding into a long languishing full kiss. Oh, what the hell, she thought, feeling the center of her sink in sweet submission.
We’ve already had sex, we might as well enjoy one another one more time.

“Mr. Dodds,” a voice interrupted. “A phone call for you, sir.”

He untangled himself from Maeve. She noted he was as excited as she was. But when he walked away, he said, very clearly, “Good night, Maeve.”

“T
he history of saffron cultivation reaches back more than three thousand years,” Maeve read out loud to Jackson. “How about that?”

They were free of India, at last. A dream trip turned into a nightmare—on so many different levels. Jackson was glad to shoot India, but so much had happened—from Maeve and her weird allergic reaction to durian to their weird cocaine-and-saffron-induced night of sex.

He grunted, not really interested in the history of it. He just wanted to take pictures of it in the fields, markets, and on the tables.

“I’m more interested in Sasha,” he said. “The practitioner of the world’s oldest trade.”

“What have you found out?” She leaned her head back on the plane seat. He glanced at her, remembering the way she had looked with her head on the pillow—then quickly looked back to his computer screen.

“She used to work for Everidge,” he said. “I’m guessing he was kind of her pimp. They are linked on websites and publications through the world. She is on his arm everywhere. Even royal and government functions.”

“Hmmm. But what does she have to do with Paul? How would she know about the book?”

“Maybe we should ask Yvette.”

“Oh, sure. How did your dead husband know this call girl? Nice.”

Jackson shrugged. “She seemed pretty cool with the whole open marriage thing. Might not matter.”

“True,” Maeve said, looking back over at her computer.

They both settled back into their computers and research. Everybody on the plane seemed quiet. There was very little movement to the bathroom or walking down the aisles.

“Here’s something interesting. In late Hellenistic Egypt, Cleopatra used saffron in her baths so lovemaking would be more pleasurable,” Maeve interrupted the quiet.

The word
lovemaking
caught his attention, swirled around in his mind for a moment. They had called a truce of a sort. But he couldn’t help but remember—it was just a few nights ago and she was sitting right next to him. Her lips parted, her head tilted, deep in thought. What was she thinking?

“Hmmm,” he said, though
lovemaking
was really the only word his ears had picked up on.

She opened Chef’s book and leafed through its now even more ragged pages. “Part of saffron’s magical property is the enhancement of ‘lust.’ Given that the medical findings show saffron as a substance capable of affecting the neurotransmitters, perhaps saffron may in fact be an aphrodisiac. Its ingestion is found to be a soothing relaxant capable of lowering blood pressure and stimulating the respiration. Perhaps it could also contain properties that stimulate the libido and the erogenous zones. Some attest to its sexual properties, which they believe is most effective when used by women. SB’s favorite. I assume SB was a woman.”

“I’m seeing a theme here, are you?” Jackson said.

“Yes, Chef was mostly interested in what the substances do to women,” she said and smiled.

“It does seem that way,” he managed to say, then went back to his computer screen. “Whoa,” he said. “Now this is interesting. The most a man paid to have Sasha for evening? Two and a half million dollars.”

“You are kidding!”

Jackson whistled. “I wonder what makes her worth that.”

“She is beautiful,” Maeve said.

“Not as beautiful as y—”

“Maybe she has a special trick,” she said, placing finger quotes in the air around “special trick.”

“More likely she fulfills a strange fetish or fantasy,” he said.

Maeve’s eyes caught his; she lifted her eyebrows. “What could that be? S & M? The world’s best blow job? What?”

Did she just say “blow job”? He had to concentrate not to cough up the water he just drank. He felt the heat rise to his face—and other parts of him.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I, ah, don’t want to talk about um, you know, blow jobs with you.”

She laughed. “Should I be insulted?”

T
he courtyard in the palace-turned-hotel Maeve and Jackson were staying in was the most tranquil place Maeve had ever been in her life. There weren’t many guests this time of year, so she sat in the courtyard, listened to the fountain, and found herself writing erotic and spiritual poetry—along with snippets of cookbook material. She didn’t know where it was coming from in her, but as she relaxed in this place, it seemed to flow. A poem about the dream of Sami. One about eating truffles with Giovanni. Her animal attraction to Ji. There was more to tap into—hiding beneath the surface somewhere.

Strange she should feel so tranquil when they were still waiting for someone to make connections with them about the illegal substance she was expecting. The few days’ respite they’d had from having the substance in their possession was like a dream. She also felt like she was getting some distance from the Jackson situation, which she definitely needed. She’d actually gotten a lot of the cookbook written and Jackson was off to the markets and restaurants and fields, taking pictures.

As she sat beside the fountain, she liked to watch the huge brass doors fling open every day and the crimson drapes pulled away into a kind of frame for the door. Mosaics were everywhere in Morocco, and there were colorful tiles of blue, white, and gold mosaics above the door that she feasted her eyes on each morning before she went to work.

She had already interviewed Fatima Shehab, one of the owners of the biggest saffron-producing fields in Morocco. Today, she and Jackson planned to tour the fields. Most of the harvest had taken place for the year, but there were a few fields of late blooms, now in late October.

The fields that were high in the mountains weren’t really like the fields in Virginia at all. They were more like mountainside orchards. She caught her breath when she saw the first hillside blooms in bright purple. Everywhere she looked she saw purple rolling mountains. Saffron, purple?

“Beautiful, yes?” Fatima said, proudly. “But aphrodisiac? I don’t know,” she said and laughed, picking one from the ground. Its golden stamen poked out. She fingered it. “It does look somewhat phallic here,” she said. “And this is the part we eat. Not the flower.”

Jackson changed lenses. “Can you hold that? The light is just perfect.”

“The flower kind of looks like something else, more feminine,” Maeve said and laughed.

Fatima giggled. “Maybe it is an aphrodisiac then. But tonight, you shall try it and let me know how you feel.”

Jackson awkwardly looked at Maeve. She noticed when they worked together on interviews, he was extremely quiet. She’d asked him about it before and he said he liked to be a “fly on the wall.” He was good at that. He took pictures of her that she’d never even realized he was taking.

“Why is saffron so expensive?” Maeve wondered aloud.

“It takes 70,000 crocus flowers to produce one pound of saffron,” Fatima said. “One acre will yield only ten pounds of saffron. Only three stigmas are produced by each crocus flower, plus the delicate stigmas can only be picked by hand.”

“Wow,” Maeve said.

“Wow, indeed.”

That night the three of them feasted on saffron bread, rice, mussels, turkey, pasta, paella, and bouillabaisse—and most exquisitely on the pigeon pie Morocco was so famous for. Maeve had had saffron plenty of times, especially with Mark, who seemed to have a taste for it. He loved Cornish saffron buns, which were really yeast cakes, flavored with saffron, currants, sugar, and spice. A fleeting thought entered her mind that she had not heard from him. And she liked it, she mused, while indulging in the saffron, so rich and sweet, reminding Maeve of honey, cinnamon, and orange blossom all at once.

“You like the saffron?” Fatima said.

“Yes, very much.”

“The saffron industry and traders are interesting,” she was saying. “Saffron traders are known to stick the red threads directly onto their tongues and can tell its potency as well as taste its flavor.”

“Fascinating,” Maeve said, feeling a little flushed, her stomach protruding over her skirt. She had probably gained fifteen pounds on this trip. “I’ve noticed the differences in the prices. That potency you’re speaking about?”

Fatima nodded.

Jackson grunted. “Oh man, I’m not sure I could eat another bite. All of sudden I’m so tired.”

“Maybe the trip is finally catching up with you. You’ve both been on quite an excursion,” Fatima said.

Maeve looked around the restaurant and saw an older man looking at her through the crowd. He winked. He looked a lot like Sami, the man she had dreamed about when she was in India.

Fatima grabbed her and said, “You should really have some dessert. It’s very delicious.”

Maeve nodded. “Of course.” She turned back around to look at the older man. He was gone.

“Ladies, I am going to have to get going,” Jackson said. “I’m sorry I can’t join you for dessert. Call me when you get back to the hotel.”

Maeve started to protest.

“It’s a good idea,” Fatima said. “Good night, then, Jackson.”

The wait staff brought dessert to their table in clear glass bowls lavishly painted in gold with blue spirals. There was a darker, then a lighter, yellowish layer with crumb and pistachios on top. She spooned it in her mouth.

“Saffron-flavored crème brûlée, with gingerbread on top,” Fatima told her.

Maeve was swept away by its perfection. She didn’t think she could eat another bite—but she finished every bite of it, licking her spoon clean.

“You certainly are a woman who enjoys food,” Fatima said and laughed. “Me, too. You know, I hear American men like their women very thin. We don’t understand that here. At least the men in my generation know how to appreciate and love a woman of many healthy appetites.”

“Well, then, I fit right in,” Maeve said and smiled.

The women were then brought a decanter and two glasses for the saffron-infused wine. After one glass, Maeve felt woozy; after two, she told Fatima she had to call it a night. She felt as if as she had a whole bottle of wine. She was full of saffron and did not feel a bit horny—well, not any more than usual.

On her walk back to the palace where she was staying, Maeve noticed a street was still lit. So she wandered back on it. A bunch of women were standing outside a bar. Must be hookers, she thought, and kept walking by them. They glared at her. She stumbled a bit.

As she walked farther down the street, she felt as if someone were following her. A woman, whose heels now tapped on the sidewalk behind her. Her heart raced; was it Sasha? And damn, why had she drunk so much? And why didn’t she go back to the hotel with Jackson? The saffron had induced a warm safe feeling in her—and she reminded herself it was a false feeling.

She ducked in to the next shop, just to gather her composure. She glanced out the window—it was definitely a woman, tall, but her head was covered and it was so dark she couldn’t see anything else. Didn’t these people believe in streetlights? Someone said something to her in Arabic.

“Pardon,” she said. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes, madam, can I help you?” He gestured to the designs and jewelry on the wall.

She took it in—she had wandered into a tattoo and piercing parlor.

“I don’t know,” she stammered. “I am not interested in a tattoo. . .”

“How about a piercing?”

She looked at the gray-haired man—he didn’t look menacing, unlike the group of women who were just down the street.

“Any body part,” he said. “We are clean and discreet.”

She’d always wanted to get her nipples pierced. Could she? She grinned. Why not? She felt like she needed to kill some time while whoever was outside and following her might lose interest and go away.

“Well,” she finally said. “I’d like to get my nipples done.”

“Very good,” he said.

Was it her imagination or did he seem to take pleasure in the idea? Oh, how drunk was she? Was she going to hate herself in the morning?

The man led her into a back room, where she laid on a recliner. She was sober enough to be glad she wore a button-down shirt, which she unbuttoned, while waiting for the man to come back into the room. She was sure she didn’t want him eyeballing her breasts.

He brought in another man, younger, stockier, darker. He looked more black than brown. His eyes were light, maybe green.

“Hello,” he said to her. “I am Jamal. I do the piercings. Make yourself comfortable. Can we get you some tea?

“Oh, yes, that would be great. I am full of saffron and saffron wine. I think a little tea might perk me up,” she replied.

The older man scurried off to get the tea.

“So,” he said to her. “You need to unhook your bra and let me have a look at your nipples so I can see what we are doing . . .”

She unhooked her bra in the front, and let her breasts all out. He did not make her as nervous as the other man. He had an air of professionalism about him and he was nice looking.

He turned around and fiddled with needles and jewelry on his desk.

“I suggest rubies for you. Your breasts will show them off nicely—they are so white,” he said.

“Fine.”

He brought the piercing gun toward her. She gasped in surprise—it looked like what they used to pierce ears, only bigger.

“So, you’ve been eating so much saffron, why?” he asked, while reaching for her breast and gingerly holding it.

“I am researching for an aphrodisiac cookbook. I’ve met with Fatima Shehab and tonight we dined at her favorite restaurant,” she told him.

“Mmm,” he said. “The saffron they use is not good for those purposes.”

She looked at him, “Tell me more.”

“The wild saffron you find in the forests is much better for this purpose. Okay, first let’s get the job done, shall we? You may feel a little sting,” he said.

“Good,” she said before she realized it. He looked her in the eye and she closed her eyes.

“Ready?”

“Yes.” For Christ’s sake do it, she thought.

The pain came sharp and quick and Maeve let out a gasp. God, it was better, yet hurt more than she imagined. But it was on her nipple, such a dome of sensitive pleasure. The fine line between pain and pleasure held her there like a captive.

“Are you okay?” he asked, tenderly.

She nodded, closing her eyes. “Do the other one,” she told him.

He touched her other breast and held it more firmly, “Ready?” She nodded.

The clicking noise of the gun went off, once again, the needle sent an exquisite painful, sensation through her nipple, her breast and tingling through her whole body. She opened her eyes and looked at the red sparkling jewels in her nipples. She loved them.

“Beautiful,” she said.

“I agree,” said the piercer, looking at his handiwork.

Maeve leaned back in a bit of a saffron stupor and the first thought that occurred to her was:
Wonder what Jackson would think?
Then she closed her eyes.