Robin Masters:It was the Paris of Hemingway and Fitzgerald that Mark sought, even though he knew it only existed on celluloid and in the yellowing pages of books. A Paris of absinthe and rainy afternoons and warm women. He concentrated on those images when the pain from the....
(short while later) A laser beam cut through the night like the singing sword, lighting the black with Merlin-like pyrotechnics. It was at that precise moment that Mark realized Madonna had tried to kill him. It was absurd, but all Mark could think was that the sound of the laser shattering the window was precisely like the tinkle of ice against crystal....
(short while later) He tried to remember that she had sold the laser chips to Vladimir and because of that he could die, but he couldn't resist her. The soft silk of her gown clinging suggestively to her body seemed to Mark like the label on the bottle of a Lafite Rothschild, which could only hint at the pleasures that lay within.
- narrated passages from the Robin Masters novel The Golden Spike