Streaking Read Online Free PDF Page A

natural, even when it shifted restlessly as he passed by.
    The night-manager was waiting at the desk to see if Canny needed anything further, and Canny explained the change of plan.
    â€œI’ll just pack the essentials in a single bag, if that’s okay,” Canny said. “Could you have the rest packed up properly in the morning and send them on? I’ll send Bentley to pick them up at Leeds airport.”
    â€œOf course, Monsieur.”
    â€œThanks. Can you get the stuff from the safe and have my bill ready in twenty minutes?”
    â€œYes, Monsieur.”
    Canny went up the stairs two at a time rather than waiting for the elevator. He only had to go up to the first floor.
    Because it looked out on to the elevated rear garden—the monks’ garden, it was called, although Canny doubted that the hotel had ever been a convent—the room didn’t have the feel of a first-floor room. One could easily jump from the balcony to the lawn without serious risk of injury. The balcony doors were closed, of course, and the curtains were drawn, but the first thing Canny did was to draw them open and open the door to let the breeze in so that the stuffiness did not become too oppressive as he packed. He switched on a bedside lamp and then switched off the strip light, so that he wouldn’t be displaying such an obvious beacon to every moth in Monaco.
    He pulled out the smallest of his suitcases and placed the leather-bound bag from the casino in it before going to his drawers. He’d been on the move for more than two weeks, so he had a fairly extensive survival kit, but he had a reserve wardrobe at home so he didn’t need to worry too much about the possibility that his luggage might not follow him as quickly as it ought. He stripped off the clothes he was wearing, though, and put those in the case. Before getting dressed again he went to the bathroom to use the facilities and collect his shaver and toothbrush.
    When he came back again there was a black-clad figure in a ski-mask standing by the bed, pointing a gun at him.
    Canny’s first thought was that he had been an utter fool to let the intruder in, given the serpentine quality of the shadows that had pestered him on his approach—whose real symbolism now seemed far more obvious than he had carelessly assumed. Even by the muted light of the bedside lamp, though, the shadows that were actually congregated in the room didn’t seem panic-stricken. His unfocused fear hadn’t amplified itself into alarm, let alone panic. The gun-toter didn’t seem to have any immediate intention of shooting him—and probably wouldn’t form any such intention, unless he did something stupid.
    Canny tried hard to judge the expression in the bandit’s eyes, but it wasn’t possible. There was uncertainty, of course—but in a situation like theirs, there would always be uncertainty. In a situation like theirs, there would always be scope for chance to take a hand, for action to be inhibited or encouraged by a wayward whim.
    â€œDon’t move,” was all that the intruder said, in a voice so neutral in its quality that Canny couldn’t be certain whether it was male or female. Canny knew that the thief had already spotted the leather-bound bag in the suitcase, imperfectly obscured by a crumpled shirt. Now’s the moment , he thought, as the other moved to take the bag containing the forty-seven thousand Euros—but he didn’t move a muscle. He felt safe, as long as he didn’t precipitate another streak, and safety seemed enough, for the moment. He had already won one gamble at long odds—even if the highly-colored streak had contained some bad omens as well as bright ones—and it would undoubtedly be pushing his luck to conjure up another. He was five or six inches taller than the thief, and just as athletically built, and he had the Kilcannon luck on his side, but a gun was a gun and money was only