Five Scarpetta Novels (134 page)

“It's true I didn't want to be like my father. Princeton, crewing, marrying into the proper family, kids all proper, everything proper.”

We were side by side now, looking down at the street as if something interesting was going on in the world outside our window.

“I don't think you've bucked your father,” I said. “I think you fool yourself by being contraire. And certainly getting a badge and carrying a gun and piercing your ear is contraire if you went to Harvard and are a millionaire.”

“Why are you saying all this to me?”

He turned to look at me, and we were so close I could smell his cologne and feel his breath.

“Because I don't want to wake up tomorrow and realize
I'm part of some contraire script you've spun in your mind. I don't want to believe I've just broken the law and every oath I've ever sworn to because you just happen to be a spoiled rich boy whose idea of being contraire is to encourage someone like me to do something so contraire it could ruin my career. What's left of my career. And maybe land me in some fucking French prison.”

“I'd come visit you.”

“This isn't funny.”

“I'm not spoiled, Kay.”

I thought of the
do not disturb
sign, the chained door. I touched his neck and traced the angle of his strong jaw, lingering on the corner of his mouth. I had not felt a man's beard against my skin in more than a year. I reached up with both hands and pushed my fingers through his thick hair. It was warm from the sun, and his eyes were in mine, waiting to see what I might do with him.

I pulled him to me. I kissed and touched him aggressively, running my hands up and down his hard, perfect body as he fought with my clothes.

“God, you're so beautiful,” he said into my mouth. “Christ, you've been driving me insane . . . !” He tore off a button and bent hooks. “Sitting there in front of the fucking secretary-general and I'm trying not to stare at your breasts.”

He gathered them into his hands. I wanted it raw and without limits. I wanted the violence in me to make love to his violence, because I didn't want to be reminded of Benton, who had known how to slowly smooth me like a stone and skip me through erotic waters.

I pulled Talley into the bedroom, and he was no match for me because I had experience and skills he knew nothing of. I controlled him. I dominated. I helped myself to him until we were exhausted and slippery with sweat. Benton wasn't in that room. But had he somehow seen what I just did, he would have understood.

The afternoon moved on and we drank wine and watched shadows change on the ceiling as the sun got weary of the day. When the phone rang, I didn't answer it. When Marino thumped on the door and called out to me, I pretended no one was home. When the phone rang again, I shook my head.

“Marino, Marino,” I said.

“Your bodyguard.”

“He didn't do a very good job this time,” I said as Talley fit as much of me into his mouth as he could. “I suppose I'll have to fire him.”

“I wish you would.”

“Tell me I haven't committed yet another felony this day. And that your name, Agent Talley, has nothing to do with keeping score.”

“Okay. My name has nothing to do with keeping score. But I don't know about the felony part.”

It seemed that Marino gave up on me, and as it got dark, Talley and I took a shower together. He washed my hair and made a joke about the age difference between us. He said it was another example of his being contraire. I said we should go to dinner.

“What about the Café Runtz?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“What the French would call
chaleureux, ancien et familial—
warm, old, familiar. The Opéra-Comique is next door, so there are photographs of opera singers all over the walls.”

I thought of Marino. I needed to let him know I was not lost somewhere in Paris.

“It's a nice walk,” Talley was saying. “Maybe only fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most.”

“I need to find Marino first,” I said. “He's probably in the bar.”

“Would you like me to look for him and send him up?”

“I'm sure he would be most appreciative,” I said facetiously.

Marino found me before Talley found him. I was still drying my hair when Marino showed up at my door, and the look on his face told me he knew why he had not been able to reach me.

“Where the hell you been?” he asked as he walked in.

“The Institut Médico-Légal.”

“All day?”

“No, not all day,” I said.

Marino looked at the bed. Talley and I had made it, but it didn't look quite the way the housekeepers had left it this morning.

“I'm going out to . . .” I started to say.

“With him,” Marino raised his voice. “I goddamn knew this would happen. I can't believe you fell for it. Je-sus Christ. I thought you was above . . .”

“Marino, this is none of your business,” I wearily said.

He blocked the door, hands on his hips like a stern nanny. He looked so ridiculous, I had to laugh.

“What's the matter with you?” he exclaimed. “One minute you're looking at Benton's autopsy report and the next you're screwing around with some playboy, snotty, stuck-on-himself kid! You couldn't even wait twenty-four hours, Doc! How could you do that to Benton?”

“Marino, for God's sake keep your voice down. There's been quite enough yelling in this room.”

“How could you?” He looked at me with disgust, as if I were a whore. “You just get his letter and have me and Lucy over and then last night you're sitting here crying. And what? None of it happened? You just start all over like nothing happened? With some womanizing
punk?”

“Please leave my room.” I'd had enough.

“Oh, no.” He began to pace, wagging his finger at me. “Oh, no. I ain't going nowhere. You want to fuck around with pretty boy, you can just do it in front of me. 'Cause guess why? I'm not gonna let it happen. Someone's got to do the right thing here, and looks like it's gonna be me.”

He paced and paced, getting more livid with each word.

“It's not about your letting or not letting something happen.” My fury was gathering. “Who the hell do you think you are, Marino? Stay out of my life.”

“Well, poor Benton. A damn good thing he's dead, huh? Shows how much you loved him, all right.”

He stopped pacing and jabbed his finger at my face.

“And I thought you was different! What was you doing when Benton wasn't looking? That's what I want to know! And all this time I'm feeling sorry for you!”

“Get out of my room now.” My self-control snapped. “You goddamn jealous son of a bitch! How dare you even allude to my relationship with Benton. What do you know? Nothing, Marino. He's dead, Marino. He's been dead for over a year, Marino. And I'm not dead and you're not dead.”

“Well, right now I wish you was.”

“You sound like Lucy when she was ten.”

He stalked out and slammed the door so hard paintings shifted on the wall and the chandelier shook. I picked up the phone and called the front desk.

“Is there a Jay Talley in the lobby?” I asked. “Tall, dark, young. Wearing a beige leather jacket, jeans?”

“Yes, I see him, madame.”

Seconds later Talley was on the phone.

“Marino just stormed out of here,” I said. “Don't let him see you, Jay. He's crazy.”

“Actually, he's just getting off the elevator now. And you're right. He looks a little crazy. Gotta go.”

I ran out of my room. I ran as fast as I could through the corridor and down the winding, carpeted steps, ignoring the odd stares I got from well-dressed, civilized people who walked at a leisurely pace and didn't get into fistfights in the Grand Hôtel in Paris. I slowed down when I reached the lobby, lungs burning and out of breath, and to my horror watched Marino taking swings at Talley while two
bell-men and a valet tried to intervene. A man at the registration desk frantically dialed the phone, probably calling the police.

“Marino, no!” I said loudly and with authority as I hurried over to him. “Marino,
no!”
I grabbed his arm.

He was glassy-eyed and sweating profusely, and thank God he had no gun because I was afraid he might have used it just then. I kept hold of his arm while Talley talked in French and gestured, assuring everyone there was no problem and not to call the police. I led Marino by the hand through the lobby like a mother about to discipline a very bad little boy. I escorted him past valets and expensive cars and out onto the sidewalk, where I stopped.

“Do you have any idea what you're doing?” I asked him.

He wiped his face on the back of his hand. He was breathing so hard he was wheezing. It occurred to me he might have a heart attack.

“Marino.” I shook his arm. “Listen to me. What you just did in there is unconscionable. Talley has done nothing to you. I've done nothing to you.”

“Maybe I'm sticking up for Benton 'cause he ain't here to do it himself,” Marino said in a flat, worn-out voice.

“No. You were throwing punches at Carrie Grethen, at Joyce. It's them you want to beat up, maim, kill.”

He took deep, defeated breaths.

“Don't you think I know what you're doing?” I went on in an intense, quiet voice.

People were shadows drifting past us on the sidewalk. Light spilled out of brasseries and cafés that were having busy nights, their small outdoor tables full.

“You have to take it out on someone,” I went on. “That's the way it works. And who is there to go after? Carrie and Joyce are dead.”

“At least you and Lucy got to kill the motherfuckers. Shoot their goddamn asses out of the air.” Marino began to sob.

“Come on,” I said.

I took his arm in mine and we started walking.

“I had nothing to do with killing them,” I said. “Not that I would have hesitated, Marino. But Lucy pulled the trigger. And you know what? She doesn't feel the better for it. She still hates and simmers and beats and shoots her way through life. She'll have her day of reckoning, too. And this is yours. Let it go.”

“Why did'ya have to go and do that with him?” he asked in a small, pained voice as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “How come, Doc? Why him?”

“There's no one good enough for me, is that it?” I said.

He had to think about that.

“And there's no one good enough for you. No one as good as Doris. When she divorced you, that was hard, wasn't it? And I've never thought any woman you've been with since is even close to what she was. But we have to try, Marino. We have to live.”

“Yeah, and they all dumped me, too. Those women who ain't good enough for me.”

“They dumped you because they're bowling-alley bimbos.”

He smiled in the dark.

T
he streets of Paris were waking up and getting lively as Talley and I walked to the Café Runtz. The air was cool and felt good on my face, but I was anxious and full of doubt again. I wished I'd never come to France. When we crossed the Place de l'Opéra and he reached for my hand, I wished I had never met Jay Talley.

His fingers were warm and strong and slender, and I never expected that such a gentle form of affection would jolt and revulse me when what we'd done in my room hours earlier had not. I felt ashamed of myself.

“I want you to know this matters to me,” he said. “I don't have flings, Kay. I'm not into one-night stands. It's important you know that.”

“Don't fall in love with me, Jay.” I looked up at him.

His silence said everything about how those words made him feel.

“Jay, I'm not saying I don't care.”

“You'll really like this café,” he said. “It's a secret. You'll see. No one in here speaks anything but French and if you don't speak French, you have to point on the menu or get out your little dictionary, and the owner will be amused by you. Odette is very no-nonsense but very nice.”

I was scarcely hearing a word.

“She and I have a détente. If she's pleasant, I patronize her establishment. If I'm pleasant, she lets me patronize her establishment.”

“I want you to listen to me,” I said, slipping my hand up his arm and leaning against it. “The last thing I ever want to do is hurt anyone. I didn't want to hurt you. And I already have.”

“How could I feel hurt? This afternoon was incredible.”

“Yes, it was,” I said. “But . . .”

He stopped on the sidewalk and looked into my eyes as people flowed around us and light from shops unevenly shoved back the night. I was raw and alive where he had touched me.

“I didn't ask you to love me,” he said.

“That's not something you should have to ask.”

We started walking again.

“I know it's not something you freely offer, Kay,” he said. “Love is your
loup-garou.
The monster you fear. And I can see why. It's tracked you down and hurt you all your life.”

“Don't try to psychoanalyze me. Don't try to change me, Jay.”

People bumped us as they jostled past.

Several teenagers with body piercing and dyed hair bumped into us and laughed. A small crowd was staring and pointing at an almost life-size yellow biplane attached to the side of the Grand Marnier building advertising a Breitling watch show. Roasting chestnuts smelled burnt.

“I've not touched anyone since Benton died,” I said. “That's where you are in my food chain, Jay.”

“I wasn't trying to be cruel . . .”

“I'll fly home in the morning.”

“I wish you wouldn't.”

“I have a mission, remember?” I said.

Anger slipped out of hiding, and when Talley tried to hold my hand again, I slipped my fingers away from him.

“Or should I say I'll
sneak
home in the morning,” I said. “With a briefcase of illegal evidence that's also, by the way, a biological hazard. I'll follow my orders, trooper that I am, and get DNA from the swabs if possible. Compare it to the unidentified body's DNA. Eventually determine that he and the killer are brothers. Meanwhile, maybe the cops will luck out and find a werewolf wandering the streets and he'll tell you guys everything about the Chandonne cartel. And maybe only two or three other women will be savaged before all this happens.”

“Please don't be so bitter,” Jay said.

“Bitter? I shouldn't be bitter?”

We turned off the Boulevard des Italiens onto the Rue Favard.

“I shouldn't be bitter when I was
sent
here to solve problems—when I've been a pawn in some scheme I knew nothing about?”

“I'm sorry you look at it that way,” he said.

“We're bad for each other,” I said.

Café Runtz was small and quiet, with green checked cloths and green glassware. Red lamps glowed and the chandelier was red. Odette was making a drink at the bar when we walked in. Her way of greeting Talley was to throw her hands up in despair and chastise him.

“She's accusing me of staying away two months and then not calling before I come in,” he translated for me.

He leaned over the bar and kissed her on both cheeks to make amends. Regardless of how crowded the café was, she managed to fit us into a choice corner table because Talley had that effect on people. He was used to getting what he wanted. He picked out a Santenay red burgundy since he remembered I'd told him how much I liked bur-gundies, although I didn't recall when I'd said that or if I really had. By now I wasn't sure what he already knew and what he'd gotten directly from me.

“Let's see,” he said, scanning the menu. “I highly
recommend the Alsacienne specialities. But to start? The
salade de gruyère—
shaved gruyère that looks like pasta on lettuce and tomato. It's filling, though.”

“Maybe that's all I'll get, then,” I said, with no appetite.

He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small cigar and clipper.

“Helps me cut back on cigarettes,” he explained. “Would you like one?”

“Everybody in France smokes too much. It's time I quit again,” I said.

“They're very good.” He snipped off the tip. “Dipped in sugar. This one's vanilla, but I also have cinnamon and sambuca.” He fired a match. “But I like the vanilla the best.” He puffed. “You really should taste this.”

He offered it to me.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“I order them from a wholesaler in Miami,” he went on, flourishing his cigar and throwing his head back to blow out smoke. “Cojimars. Not to be confused with Cohibas, which are wonderful, but illegal if they're Cuban versus those made in the Dominican Republic. Illegal in the U.S., at any rate. And I know that because I'm ATF. Yes, ma'am, I know my alcohol, tobacco and firearms.”

He had already finished his first glass of wine.

“The three R's. Running, Running and Running. Ever heard that? They teach it in the school of hard knocks.”

He refilled his glass and topped off mine.

“If I came back to the States, would you see me again? For the sake of argument, what would happen if I transferred . . . let's say, back to Washington?”

“I didn't mean to do this to you,” I said.

Tears touched his eyes and he quickly looked away.

“I never meant to. It's my fault,” I softly said.

“Fault?” he said.
“Fault?
I didn't realize there was
fault
involved, as in something to be blamed. As in a mistake.”

He leaned into the table and smiled smugly, as if he were a detective who'd just tripped me with a trick question.

“Fault. Hmmm,” he pondered, blowing smoke.

“Jay, you're so young,” I said. “Someday you'll understand—”

“I can't help my age.” He interrupted me in a voice that caused glances.

“And you live in France, for God's sake.”

“There are worse places to live.”

“You can dance around words all you want, Jay,” I said. “But reality always has its way with people.”

“You're sorry, aren't you?” He leaned back. “I know so much about you, and then I go and do something as stupid as that.”

“I never said it was stupid.”

“It's because you aren't ready.”

I was getting upset, too.

“You can't possibly know if I'm ready or not ready,” I told him as the waiter appeared to take our order and then discreetly moved on. “You spend far too much time in my mind and maybe not enough in your own.”

“Okay. Don't worry. I won't ever try to anticipate your feelings or thoughts again.”

“Ah. Petulance,” I replied. “At last you're acting your age.”

His eyes flashed. I sipped my wine. He'd already finished another glass.

“I deserve respect, too,” he said. “I'm not a child. What was this afternoon, Kay? Social work? Charity? Sex education? Foster care?”

“Maybe we shouldn't talk about this here,” I suggested.

“Or maybe you just used me,” he went on.

“I'm too old for you. Please lower your voice.”

“Old
is my mother, my aunt. The deaf widow who lives next door to me is old.”

I realized I had no idea where Talley lived. I didn't even have his home telephone number.

“Old
is the way
you
act when you're overbearing and condescending and a chicken,” he said, raising his glass to me.

“A
chicken?
I've been called a lot of things, but never a chicken.”

“You're an emotional chicken.” He drank as if trying to put out a fire. “That's why you were with him. He was safe. I don't care how much you say you loved him. He was safe.”

“Don't talk about something you know nothing about,” I warned him as I began to tremble.

“Because you're afraid. You've been afraid ever since your father died, ever since you felt different from everyone because you
are
different from everyone and that's the price people like us pay. We're special. We're alone and we rarely think it's because we're special. We just think there's something wrong with us.”

I placed my napkin on top of the table and pushed back my chair.

“That's the problem with you intelligence-gathering assholes,” I said in a low, calm voice. “You appropriate the secrets, the treasures and tragedies and ecstasies of someone as if they are your own. At least I have a life. At least I don't live voyeuristically through people I don't know. At least I'm not some kind of spy.”

“I'm not a spy,” he said. “It was my job to find out as much as I could about you.”

“And you did your job extraordinarily well,” I said, stung. “Especially this afternoon.”

“Please don't leave,” he quietly said as he reached across the table for my hand.

I pulled away from him. I walked out of the restaurant as other diners stared. Someone laughed and made a comment I didn't need to translate to understand. It was
obvious that the handsome young man and his older lady friend were having a lover's spat. Or maybe he was her gigolo.

It was almost nine-thirty and I walked with determination toward the hotel while everyone else in the city, it seemed, continued to venture out. A woman police officer wearing white gloves whistled traffic through as I waited with a great crowd to cross the Boulevard des Capucines. The air was bright with voices and cold light from the moon. The aromas of crepes and beignets and chestnuts roasting in small grills made me heartsick and dizzy.

I hurried like a fugitive evading apprehension, and yet I lingered at street corners because I wanted to be caught. Talley did not come after me. When I reached my hotel, breathless and upset, I couldn't bear the thought of seeing Marino or returning to my room.

I got a taxi because I had one more thing to do. I would do it alone and at night because I felt reckless and desperate.

“Yes?” the driver said, turning around to look at me. “Madame?”

I felt pieces of me had been rearranged and I didn't know where to put them because I couldn't remember where they'd been before.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know much about the city? Could you tell me about what I'm seeing?”

“Seeing? You mean now?”

“Seeing as we drive,” I said.

“Am I tour guide?” He thought I was very funny. “No, but I live here. Where would you like to go?”

“Do you know where the morgue is? On the Seine near the Gare de Lyon?”

“You want to go there?” He turned around again and frowned at me as he waited to insert himself in traffic.

“I
will
want to go there. But first I want to go to the Île
Saint-Louis,” I said, scanning, looking for Talley as hope got dark like the street.

“What?” My driver laughed as if I were the premier crazy. “You want to go to the morgue and Île Saint-Louis? What connection is that? Someone rich die?”

I was getting annoyed with him.

“Please,” I said. “Let's go.”

“Okay, sure. If that's what you want.”

Tires over cobblestone sounded like kettle drums, and lamplight flashing off the Seine looked like schools of silver fish. I rubbed fog off my window and opened it enough so I could see better as we crossed the Pont Louis-Philippe and entered the island. I instantly recognized the seventeenth-century homes that once had been the private hotels of the noblesse. I had been here before with Benton.