Jake & Mimi (35 page)

I keep behind the heavy front door of the winery as it opens in with a rusted creak. A strip of moonlight falls across the
dark earth floor. Jake Teller steps inside. He is larger than I imagined, an athlete. I cannot afford to miss. He takes one,
two, three steps into the winery, and stops still. Straight ahead of him is the opening to the ring of barrels. Through it
he can see the rack, and on that rack, lit brilliantly, lies Miss Lessing. Stripped just as he strips them. Spread as he spreads
them.

“Jesus.”

I am only a step from him when he senses me. I pull the bottom of the mask open wide, and just as he starts to turn, I bring
it down over his head. He swings sharply, his elbow crashing into my temple, and I fall hard to the winery floor. But even
as I fall, I see him take, instinctively, the deep breath that dooms him. He falls to one knee, the chloroform flooding his
lungs, and now to both; as he reaches in slow motion for the mask, he painfully takes his last free breath of the night and
falls onto his side.

I put my hand to my mouth. I can taste blood, but I hurry to Jake Teller and press in on the nose of the mask. He jerks once
and is still. I pull the mask off him and fling it into the pile by the door. I rise slowly to one knee, coughing and struggling
to breathe, tears streaming from my burning eyes. I pull off my gloves and toss them onto the pile, too. I rise to my feet
and stand above him, breathing deeply for almost a full minute. And I kneel again. I turn him, and look for the first time
into the face of Miss Lessing’s corrupter.

His strong jaw is slack now, and one of his cheeks brown with earth. I stand, grasp him beneath his arms, and begin to pull.
I drag him ten feet at a time, stopping to rest on my knees. He is dead weight, exhausting, his heels catching again and again
in the dirt. Finally, I reach the first of the two huge stainless-steel tanks. I lean Jake Teller against it. His head slumps
onto his chest, and I rest for a few seconds, breathing heavily.

At the bottom of each steel tank is a small door through which the wine is transferred to the oak barrels. I unlock the steel
clasp and pull the door open. I turn my face away, gasping. From inside comes the acrid, hollow smell of death eternal. I
rest again and then, marshaling the last of my strength, grab Jake Teller behind the knees and lift his feet into the low
door, then ease his hips over its rim and, with a final shove, send him into the tank.

I close the door and seal the clasp. Inside, there is no handle of any kind. No break in the smooth steel. When he awakens,
to grope in darkness, he will find only the walls of his tomb. And he will have perhaps an hour of air.

I walk slowly back to the ring of barrels. I pull a handkerchief from my shirt pocket and press it to my mouth. A cut lip,
nothing more. I stop in the opening and look at Miss Lessing. She lies as before, still and silent in pure light. She can
see only straight above her, and a few feet to either side, so she listens anxiously to my footsteps as I walk toward her.
I step into her vision, and she closes her eyes in desolation.

I lean down and carefully turn the Heretic’s Fork to its side, easing her torment. She swallows, and breathes deeply again
and again. I take a cloth from the tray beside her and gently wipe the spots of blood from beneath her chin.

“Please,” she says, her voice hoarse.

I take a bottle of water from the tray and put it to her lips, tilting it gently, now wiping away the spill.

“Jake,” she says, her voice breaking for the first time. “Jake Teller. What —”

I press a finger into her taut biceps and she cries out in pain. I lift my finger away.

“We are alone again,” I say.

“Please,” she says, gasping, pain reducing her voice to a whisper. “Please.”

I press the cloth to her forehead and then lay it on the tray. Two metal instruments remain on the black felt cloth. From
a lower shelf of the tray I take two silver rulers and a deep ceramic bowl. Mounted on a spike in the bottom of the bowl is
a wide-mouthed candle. I light the candle, place the bowl beside the black felt cloth, and lay the rulers across the mouth
of it, one on either side of the flame.

She looks up into the darkness, then at me.

“Anne,” she whispers, her eyes pleading for an answer.

Yes. She knows the fate of all the others. Of Nina Torring, Elise Verren, and now of Jake Teller.

“Anne Keltner,” I say. “The Roosevelt Hotel. You were there, weren’t you?”

She closes her eyes.

“Anne Keltner escaped to Spain,” I tell her, and watch as she bites her lip in pained relief. “She returns tomorrow night
at ten-twelve, on United Airlines flight six-seventeen.”

“No,” she whispers, shaking her head.

I look back at the tray. One of the remaining instruments is a thin scalpel. The other was my last purchase in Cagaya, and
to look upon it is to feel in your bones the full, merciless, medieval weight of the Middle Ages. It is a single heavy piece
of metal, black as plague, built like a pair of tongs but ending in four curling, jagged points that curve in toward each
other but do not quite meet. Its purpose was to tear apart the breasts of women condemned of libidinous acts. I lift it from
the felt cloth and set it carefully atop the silver rulers, so that the tips of its curved claws lie directly over the strong
blue flame.

The
clink
of metal on steel breaks her anguished reverie, and she turns her face toward the tray. She begins to shake.

“God,” she whispers, looking up into the darkness again, then shutting her eyes tightly. “God, please.” I lay my hand on her
forehead. “Please,” she begs, her pained eyes opening and finding mine. “What have I done? Please tell me.”

I don’t answer.

“Please. Whatever —”

I lay a finger on the Heretic’s Fork, and she falls silent.

The smell of burning rust is in the air now, and she cannot keep from turning to look again at the black pincers. She stares
in mesmerized terror at the blue flame that heats the tips of their claws, then turns her face away into the white canvas.
Her forehead still burns with fever, but she shakes as though from frost; now her breathing quickens and quickens until she
is gasping for air. I press on her forehead to calm her, but her eyes are wild, unseeing, and she turns her face from side
to side. I take her chin and hold it still.

“The truth can still save you,” I say.

She fights, but I keep her still; now I meet her eyes. “It can save you,” I say, and watch my words sink in and light in the
back of her eyes the faintest spark of hope. I take my hand from her, and she remains still. I step back and see in her face
that she is summoning from inside the last of her will. My eyes drift to the scant lace that covers her. I close them. My
mind steadies, my concentration returns. I open my eyes and look into hers.

“I’ll punish the slightest lie,” I say.

She looks at the jagged pincers, then quickly away from them and up into the dark ceiling. I place my hands gently on the
canvas rack.

“Elise Verren’s pain,” I say. “Did it excite you?”

Perspiration streams down her cheeks. She is quiet for ten seconds. Fifteen.

“Yes,” she says.

She sees me close my eyes in disappointment.

“Please,” she says. “I didn’t know what would happen. What he would do.”

I turn and look away from her. I look out beyond the circle of light into the dark reaches of the crumbling winery.

“You went to the Century Motel,” I say.

She is quiet.

“Even your corrupter had limits. Even he turned back. You went to the Century. One week from marriage.”

“Please.” I hear the anguished catch in her breathing. I turn back to her. Her eyes look to the pincers, then back at me.

“On the bed at the Century, Mimi. When the second silk tie closed on your wrist and you were helpless. What did you feel?”

She closes her eyes and bites her trembling lip. I watch her temples pulse in concentration. This last year, as I listened,
I learned to read her so well that I could tell her mood by the pitch of her breathing. And now looking down at her, I read
her again, and though her eyes are shut tightly, I can see the lie forming behind them. She is searching for words, yes, but
not for the truth. She searches only for the words that might free her.

Her eyes open. She’s chosen them. But before she can speak, she sees me look at the pincers. The tips of their four claws
glow orange now. She looks at them, too, then back at me, and starts to shake. And now to cry quietly. I’ve broken her will
to lie.

“What did you feel?” I ask her.

The soft night wind stirs the rafters, and the receiving wheels creak quietly against the burden of the taut leather coils.

“Free,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

I
kill the engine.

I step out of the Grand Am and look up the hill at the winery. It is an old stone building standing in a moonlit clearing.
Also in the clearing is a black car; beside the car is a pickup truck. Even from here, in the moon’s light I can see, painted
on the back gate of the pickup, a huge, grinning red skull. Pardo. I should have known. If he’d waited for me to get to his
place, we might’ve missed out on half an hour of drinking.

I lean against the warm hood of the Grand Am. The gravel road in front of me leads up to the clearing but winds back and around
the property. It would be a noisy drive. If I climb the hill in front of me, it’s no more than a hundred yards. And no one
would hear me.

Listen to me. Who’s going to hear me? Pardo is up there drinking longnecks with a buddy. I shake my head and step back to
the car door. I pause, my hand on the handle. The quiet out here is eerie, absolute. I listen for their voices, for the clink
of a bottle. Nothing. I step away from the car to gain a better sight line, and look up to the clearing again. I can see the
black car better now. On its hood, glinting in the moonlight, is the familiar silver orb. A Mercedes. I walk slowly back to
the Grand Am. I squat on my heels in front of it, scooping up a handful of gravel and letting some fall through my fingers.
The governor makes all his staffers buy American. Pardo told me that once. And I know Pardo’s taste in late-night drinking
buddies, and I can’t picture any of them driving a Benz. I look up at the clearing again.

I toss the rocks to the ground, stand, and start up the hill. The night air is cold and bracing. There’s enough of a moon
that I can see my way, but it’s slow going through high grass. Thick brush grabs at my legs as I climb. I jump at a sound
in front of me, looking up to see the wide eyes of an owl in the branches of a tree. Christ. Give me the city and its terrors
any night.

I keep climbing, using my hands for the last, steep ten yards, and then squeeze between two bushes and step out into the clearing.
I wipe my hands on my slacks. I don’t see Pardo, or anyone else. Twenty yards in front of me is the stone winery. The ground
is gravel again, so I walk carefully to Pardo’s pickup. There’s no sign of him. A six-pack of Coors lies untouched on the
front seat.

I walk to the black Mercedes. A strange smell seems to come from inside it, or beneath it. Some strong chemical. I look through
the window. The front seats are bare. I peer into the back. Nothing. A sprawled blanket. Wait. I look again. I walk to the
other side of the car, getting the moonlight behind me. I cup my hands against the glass. Jesus. I look quickly around me,
then back into the window, my mouth as dry as the gravel beneath me.

The blanket in the back doesn’t quite reach all the way across the seat. Sticking out beneath it, just barely visible, are
the ends of two pieces of cloth. Two white pieces of cloth.

Ties.

•     •     •

Her brassiere shines like white fire. I look hard at it now. Beneath it her breasts are the same tone as the rest of her —
a soft cream, between milk and caramel. I see the edge of a rose nipple. I reach down and lay a finger on the strap of her
brassiere. She gasps in pain, but I keep it there, then run it down the strap to the curved lace of the cup.

I listened for a full year, dreaming of a true communion between us. She has only ever had one form of communion to offer.

I slide my finger under the strap and ease it up a fraction of an inch, until I see her full red nipple.

“Please,” she says.

My eyes move down to her hips. Viewed from above, the triangle of lace covers her completely, but from the side I can see
the shadow of her hidden beauty. I take my hand away from her brassiere and touch with the tips of my fingers the quarter
inch of taut lace that guards the skin of her hip. It is damp and hot. I run my finger along it.

“The key to you is in here, is it?”

“Please.”

I turn to the tray, pass my hand over the pincers, and lift from the black felt cloth the thin, shining scalpel.

•     •     •

I can see light through the front door of the winery.

I couldn’t see it from across the clearing, but I am moving along the winery wall now and can see that the heavy front door
is open. It is open a few feet, and from beyond it comes a strange, muted light. It might be moonlight, streaming through
a gap in the roof. I’ll know in seconds. I reach the door and pause beside it, standing with my back against the stone wall,
feeling its cold through my jacket and shirt. I let out a quiet breath and look inside.