Flash Point Read Online Free Page B

Vialli could sleep anywhere. Nothing troubled him. He was unflappable. Woods was pulling the bent chocolate box out of his pocket when something caught his eye by the door. A face. Someone had looked into the compartment and then moved away. There it was again. Woods watched the door, and suddenly it opened quickly. A woman stepped in and closed the door behind her.
    She glanced at Vialli, who appeared to be sleeping, and sat down in the corner, on Vialli’s side, placing her knit bag on the seat between them.
    Woods, his mouth slightly open, tried not to stare — she was shockingly pretty — and nodded an acknowledgment. She smiled at him but didn’t speak. Woods kicked Vialli’s shoe, rousing him. Vialli sat up, baffled, looking at his squadron mate. Woods glanced casually at the woman, and Vialli followed the direction of his friend’s eyes.
    “Hi,” Vialli said to her, no longer baffled and wasting no time. He brushed his hair back with his hand.
    She looked past him out the window at the gray Naples morning. The train had picked up speed and was rocking softly sideways. She sat quietly with her hands on the armrests at her side. She wore a dark blue, loose-fitting flowery cotton dress, and had long, brown curly hair. Her dazzling light brown eyes had streaks of green and yellow in them. An even tan accentuated her outdoor, fit look. Vialli thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
    “Are you Italian?” Vialli asked.
    She glanced at him momentarily, then turned her eyes back to the window. The door suddenly flew open and the conductor came into their compartment. The train rocked, and the conductor leaned against the door to steady himself and free both hands. Addressing the woman in Italian, he stuck out his hand for her ticket. She smiled, handing the conductor her ticket with her left hand and speaking to him so rapidly that Vialli couldn’t recognize any of the ten Italian words he knew.
    She had a lovely smile, and her eyes sparkled as she joked with the conductor. He took the rest of the tickets and left the compartment.
    Vialli shifted his gaze from the door to the woman, feeling his stomach tighten as he watched her. Woods studied Vialli and could tell his friend was about to do something rash. He tried to get his attention to discourage him. No luck.
    “Do you speak English?” Vialli asked her.
    Again, she didn’t respond, not even to acknowledge that he had spoken. “
Sprechen-sie Deutsch
?” he asked.
    Woods wondered what Vialli planned to do if she answered him, since Vialli didn’t speak German. He leaned forward and gave Vialli a raised-eyebrow look.
    Vialli gave him a look back, a “What?” look.
    The woman transferred her gaze from the tranquil Mediterranean to her fellow traveler. “
Nein
,” she replied coolly, finally.
    “I don’t speak Italian,” he said, happy to have gotten some response.
    She gave him a cool smile and crossed her legs. She reached into her bag, pulled out a paperback book, and began to read. Vialli sighed audibly and looked out the window at the scenery he had seen so many times from the other side, on the sea. Suddenly he turned his head back toward her and looked again at the book she was reading. Hemingway. In English.
    “You do speak English!” he said with a smile.
    “A little,” she replied without looking up as she found her place in the book.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said sitting up, energized.
    “Because you would have started talking to me and I wouldn’t have been able to read my book, which I have been looking forward to for a long time.” She returned to her book.
    “How did you know I’d start talking to you?”
    “Because you’re an American, and Americans always talk to strangers.”
    “How’d you know I was an American?” he wondered.
    She shook her head slowly, amazed. “Your haircut, your jacket, your shoes, your cord . . . what do you call them — corduroy pants. Your questions, and you’ve