[ar: www.irlanguage.com]
[ti: Mystery Girl]
[by: NIMA]
[length: 11:25]
[00:05.45] GOODBYE, MR HOLLYWOOD
[00:07.96] By JOHN ESCOTT
[00:21.21] Chapter 1
[00:23.90]Mystery Girl
[00:27.49]It all began on a beautiful spring morning in a village called Whistler, in Canada
[00:35.65] a pretty little village in the mountains of British Columbia.
[00:43.00]There was a cafe in the village,
[00:45.12]with tables outside,
[00:47.46]and at one of these tables sat a young man.
[00:53.03]He finished his breakfast,
[00:55.90]drank his coffee,
[00:58.71]looked up into the blue sky,
[01:01.91]and felt the warm sun on his face.
[01:05.89]Nick Lortz was a happy man.
[01:09.85]The waiter came up to his table.
[01:14.58]‘More coffee?’ he asked.
[01:17.97]‘Yeah. Great,’ said Nick.
[01:22.40] He gave the waiter his coffee cup.
[01:25.84]The waiter looked at the camera on the table. 
[01:30.67]‘On vacation?’ he said.
[01:34.54]‘Where are you from?’
[01:37.85] ‘San Francisco,’ Nick said. 
[01:41.61]He laughed.‘But I'm not on vacation - I'm working.
[01:48.19]l’m a travel writer, and I'm doing a book on mountains in North America.
[01:54.89]l’ve got some great pictures of your mountain.’
[01:58.73]The two men looked up at Whistler Mountain behind the village.
[02:04.96]It looked very beautiful in the morning sun.
[02:09.10]‘Do you travel a lot, then?’ asked the waiter.
[02:15.29]‘All the time,’ Nick said.
[02:18.72]‘I write books, and I write for travel magazines.
[02:23.90]I write about everything 
[02:26.99]different countries, towns, villages, rivers, mountains, people . . .’
[02:36.32]The waiter looked over Nick's head.
[02:39.73]‘There’s a girl across the street,’ he said.
[02:44.59]‘Do you know her?’
[02:47.10]Nick turned his head and looked.
[02:50.93]‘No, I don’t.’
[02:54.03]‘Well, she knows you, I think,’ the waiter said.
[02:59.99]‘She’s watching you very carefully.’
[03:03.42]He gave Nick a smile.
[03:06.40]Have a nice day!’
[03:09.21]He went away, Back into the cafe.
[03:13.88]Nick looked at the girl across the street.
[03:19.15]She was about twenty-?ve,
[03:22.42]and she was very pretty.
[03:24.97]‘She is watching me,’ Nick thought.
[03:31.55]Then the girl tumed and looked in one of the shop windows.
[03:37.06]After a second or two, she looked back at Nick again. .
[03:42.64]Nick watched her.
[03:45.81]‘She looks worried,’ he thought.
[03:49.11]‘What’s she doing? ls she waiting for somebody?’
[03:55.00]Suddenly, the girl smiled.
[03:59.26]Then she walked across the street, came up to Nick's table, and sat down.
[04:06.50]She put her bag down on the table.
[04:11.21]The bag was half-open.
[04:14.79]‘Hi! I’m Jan,’ she said.
[04:18.67]‘Do you remember me? We met at a party in Toronto.’
[04:25.00]‘Hi, Jan,’ said Nick.
[04:29.00]He smiled.
[04:31.00]‘I'm Nick. But we didn't meet at a party in Toronto.
[04:36.84]I don’t go to parties very often. and never in Toronto.’
[04:43.00]‘Oh,’ the girl said.
[04:45.88]But she didn’t get up or move away.
[04:49.80]‘Have some coffee,’ said Nick.
[04:55.00]The story about the party in Toronto wasn’t true,
[04:58.80] but it was a beautiful morning.
[05:01.70]and she was a pretty girl.
[05:04.41]‘Maybe it was a party in Montreal. Or New York.’
[05:10.27]The girl laughed.
[05:13.34]‘OK. Maybe it was.
[05:18.00]And yes, I'd love some coffee.’
[05:22.83]When she had her coffee, Nick asked,
[05:26.74] ‘What are you doing in Whistler? Or do you live here?’
[05:32.01]‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I'm just, er, just travelling through.
[05:40.44]And what are you doing here?’
[05:43.55]‘l’m a travel writer,’ Nick said,
[05:48.29]‘and l’m writing a book about famous mountains.’
[05:52.41]‘That's interesting,’ she said.
[05:56.38]But her face was worried, not interested,
[06:01.50] and she looked across the road again.
[06:05.00]A man with very short, white hair walked across the road.
[06:12.41]He was about sixty years old,
[06:16.06]and he was tall and thin. The girl watched him.
[06:22.44]‘Are you waiting for someone?’ asked Nick.
[06:27.07]‘No,’ she said quickly.
[06:30.88]Then she asked, ‘Where are you going next, Nick?’
[06:37.44]‘To Vancouver, for three or four days,’ he said.
[06:43.58]‘When are you going?’ she asked.
[06:47.84]‘Later this morning,’ he said.
[06:51.63]There was a letter in the top of the girl’s half-open bag.
[06:57.22]Nick could see some of the writing, 
[07:00.15]and he read it because he saw the word‘Vancouver’ — . . .
[07:06.35]and we can meet at the Empress Hotel,Victoria, Vancouver Island, on Friday afternoon . . .
[07:17.35]‘So she’s going to Vancouver too,’ he thought.
[07:23.75]Suddenly the girl said, ‘Do you like movies?’
[07:30.00]‘Movies? Yes, I love movies,’ he said. ‘Why?’
[07:36.75]‘l know a man, and he - he loves movies, and going to the cinema,’ she said slowly. 
[07:49.57]People call him “Mr Hollywood”.‘ She smiled at Nick.
[07:57.04]‘Can I call you “Mr Hollywood" too?’
[08:02.33]Nick laughed. ‘OK,’ he said.
[08:07.21] ‘And what can I call you?’
[08:11.34]She smiled again. ‘Call me Mystery Girl,’ she said.
[08:18.90]‘That's a good name for you,‘ said Nick.
[08:24.02]just then, the man with white hair came into the cafe.
[08:31.09]He did not look at Nick or the girl,
[08:34.85]but he sat at a table near them. 
[08:38.76]He asked the waiter for some breakfast, then he began to read a magazine.
[08:46.20]The girl looked at the man, then quickly looked away again.
[08:52.87]‘Do you know him?’ Nick asked her.
[08:57.35]‘No,’ she said.
[09:00.07]She Finished her coffee quickly and got up.
[09:04.61]‘I must go now,’ she said.
[09:08.33]Nick stood up, too. ‘Nice to—’ he began.
[09:13.85]But the girl suddenly took his face between her hands,
[09:19.12]and kissed him on the mouth.
[09:22.29]‘Drive carefully, Mr Hollywood.
[09:27.46] Goodbye,’ she said, with a big, beautiful smile.
[09:33.52]Then she turned and walked quickly away.
[09:38.77]Nick sat down again and watched her.
[09:44.85]She walked down the road and into a big hotel.
[09:50.31]‘Now what,’ thought Nick, ‘was that all about?’
[10:01.28]The man with white hair watched Nick and waited.
[10:06.00]After four or five minutes, Nick finished his coffee, took his books and his camera, and left the cafe.
[10:18.10]His car was just outside the girl’s hotel,
[10:23.26]and he walked slowly along the street to it.
[10:27.38]The man with white hair waited a second, then quickly followed Nick.
[10:35.95]From a window high up in the hotel, the girl looked down into the road.
[10:45.82]She saw Nick, and the man with white hair about fifty yards behind him. 
[10:53.11]Nick got into his car, and the man with white hair walked quickly to a red car across the street.
[11:03.25]Five seconds later Nick drove away in his blue car, and the red car began to follow him.
[11:13.59]When the girl saw this, she smiled, then went to put some things in her travel bag.
[11:22.86] ---<< END >>---