The Killer in My Eyes (13 page)

‘Meaning what?’

‘We have a donor who may be compatible. Professor Roscoe is able to use embryonic stem cells to inhibit the immune response to the donor’s corneas, in such a way as to avoid any possible rejection.’

‘The one condition is that we have to act fast,’ Carlo Martini said. ‘One of your mother’s biggest clients has put his private jet at our disposal. We can leave for America tomorrow and the operation can take place the day after. If you agree, of course – and if you feel up to it . . .’

‘Of course I feel up to it,’ she said.
I’d feel up to it even if I had to suffer the pains of hell
.

‘Good, very good,’ Professor Covini. ‘Now it’s better if we let her rest, Signor Martini. I think she’s had enough for today.’

‘All right, Professor.’

She felt her father’s lips on her cheek and heard his voice in her ear.

‘Goodbye, darling. I’ll see you soon.’

A thin hand she didn’t know rested on hers for a moment.

‘I wish you all the best, miss. And believe me, I’m not just saying that. Nobody should suffer what you’ve suffered.’

Maureen listened to their footsteps as they moved away from the bed. The noise of the door opening and closing left her alone in the silence of the room. The doctor must have put a sedative into the drip because she started to feel drowsy.

As she waited to drift into a few hours of non-thinking, she told herself she would do anything that was asked of her. Anything and more, for a single minute of sight.

That was all she needed.

Just one minute.

Long enough to see Arben Gallani’s mocking face blown away by a bullet at close range.

Let there be darkness.

Jordan drove the Ducati at moderate speed onto the access ramp that led to Brooklyn Bridge. The traffic was light at this time of day and, despite the powerful engine beneath him, he was content to join the orderly line of cars streaming across the bridge.

He had already passed Police Headquarters at One Police Plaza – the building where he had worked for years – and City Hall – that smaller-scale imitation of the White House where his brother exercised the power the city had granted him – without giving either a second glance. Right now, Water Street was just below him. If he had turned his head to the right, he would have seen the roof of the building where a young man named Gerald Marsalis had died bearing a name that wasn’t even his, but here, too, he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.

It wasn’t that he was indifferent, just that he didn’t need to look at these places to know they existed. Each was clear in his memory, along with the price each had cost him.

Jordan Marsalis had often made decisions, knowing, but not caring, that he would have a price to pay later. That was why, one night three years earlier, he had taken the blame for an accident that was nothing to do with him.

He understood now that the journey he had been planning to make, and had had to put off, had actually started a long time ago. New York had only been a stopping-off point, one where he’d had to stay in order to pay his dues, before setting off again.

And this strange old heart of mine now sets sail across the sea
. . .

Jordan drove off the bridge and along Adams Street until after the junction with Fulton Street, leaving Brooklyn Heights on his left. He passed Boerum Place and continued southward until he reached the area where Detective James Burroni lived.

He had phoned Burroni after yet another conversation with his brother at Gracie Mansion. Ever since Christopher had seen the corpse of his son sitting like a cartoon in the loft where he lived, he had been acting like a wild beast in a cage, and Jordan wasn’t sure if it was because of his anger as a father or because of his powerlessness as a Mayor.

After two weeks, the investigation into Gerald’s death had reached an impasse. The police had examined his life from every angle, revealing all kinds of unsavoury things, but not coming up with any usable leads. The media had had a field day – even, because of Jordan’s family connection with Jerry Ko, dredging up the old story of the automobile accident.

Then, when they could find nothing else to say, they had started making things up.

Luckily, LaFayette Johnson, although enjoying his sudden fame, had been prevented from causing any damage. Christopher had persuaded him not to talk to the media, thanks to the one incentive the man understood: money.

Jordan parked his bike across from Burroni’s house, the first in a row of houses with gardens that lined the dead-end street in a working-class neighbourhood. He switched off the engine and sat there for a moment, surprised by what he saw. He had imagined something different.

In front of the house was parked a white Cherokee, a fairly old model. All at once, the front door opened and a woman came out, holding a boy of about ten by the hand. She was a tall, blond, gentle-looking woman, with an expressive rather than pretty face. The boy, who was the spitting image of Burroni, had a metal brace on his right leg and limped slightly as he walked. Burroni emerged through the door behind them, carrying two suitcases.

When he looked up and saw Jordan, he stopped halfway along the garden path for a moment. Jordan realized he had recognized him in spite of the fact that he was still wearing his helmet. In the meantime, the woman and the boy had reached the car and opened the hatch at the rear.

Burroni put the two cases in the back. Jordan watched as he kissed his wife goodbye and bent to adjust a baseball cap on the boy’s head. He heard him say, ‘Bye, champ,’ as he hugged him.

Mother and son got in the car and the boy leaned out of the window for a last wave to his father, who was still standing on the sidewalk. Jordan watched until the car got to the intersection and turned right, then propped his bike on its kickstand, took off his helmet and crossed the street.

As he approached Burroni, he noticed that there was a slightly embarrassed look on his face, as if he had been caught in a moment of weakness.

‘Hello, Jordan. What do you want?’

His demeanour was cautious, his tone not hostile but not exactly cordial either. In spite of everything, Burroni still seemed to find it difficult to call him Jordan. Their relationship had neither improved nor deteriorated in the course of the investigation: it simply could not be called a relationship. They were still just two people forced to work together temporarily.

‘Hello, James. I wanted to talk to you – alone and in private. Do you have a moment?’

Burroni gestured in the direction in which the Cherokee had disappeared. ‘My wife and son have gone on vacation to my sister-in-law, on the coast, near Port Chester. I don’t have a moment, I have two weeks.’

Jordan shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think we have two weeks, either of us.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Yes.’

Only then did Burroni seem to remember that they were standing in the middle of the sidewalk. ‘Want to come in for a drink?’

Without waiting for a reply from Jordan, he turned and led him into the house. Once inside, Jordan took a look around. It was a normal American house, redolent of friendly neighbours, inflatable swimming pools in the back garden, barbecues, cans of beer on Sundays.

On a low cabinet next to the door was a photograph of Burroni with his son. The boy was waving a baseball bat at the camera.

Bye, champ
. . .

Burroni noticed what he was looking at. ‘My son’s crazy about baseball,’ he said, with a slight crack in his voice.

‘The Yankees?’

‘Who else?’ Burroni pointed to a couch. ‘Take a seat. What would you like to drink?’

‘A Coke would be fine.’

‘OK.’

Burroni walked off and came back soon afterwards with a tray containing two cans of Diet Coke and two glasses. He placed it on the little table in front of Jordan and sat down on a slightly worn but comfortable-looking leather armchair to his left.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Any news?’

Burroni shook his head as he opened his can. ‘None at all. We’ve questioned everyone who ever knew your nephew without turning up a single useful thing. The post-mortem results you already know. And there’s still nothing from the Crime Scene team. You know how it is. Too many clues, too few leads.’

‘Well,’ Jordan said, ‘I’ve been thinking over and over about the
Peanuts
connection, trying to figure out what link there could possibly be between my nephew and Linus, and the person we think may turn out to be Lucy. But I don’t seem to have gotten anywhere. And I’m wondering how long we can keep the journalists away from all the things we’ve managed to keep secret so far. Including my involvement.’

‘What does your brother say?’

‘He can’t say anything, because he was the one who wanted me in on this thing, however unofficially. But I think he’s under a lot of pressure. Apart from personal feelings, his position isn’t very good. You can understand what people are thinking: how can he protect our children if he can’t protect his own? Politics is a nasty business.’

Jordan took a sip of his drink, searching for the words to express what he had to say.

‘I want to tell you something, James. Whatever the outcome of this case, I’ll make sure the promises that were made to you will be kept.’

Burroni said nothing for a moment, staring down at his can. ‘Those things I said the other evening in the diner across from your apartment, I—’

‘Don’t worry. I made a meal of it, too. It happens. We all say things we regret.’

Burroni’s gaze shifted for a fraction of a second to the photograph showing him with his son, ready to receive a ball that would never arrive.

Bye, champ
. . .

‘You know, life sometimes isn’t as easy as it seems,’ he said.

‘I told you it’s fine. You don’t need to explain.’

They looked at each other.

‘It must have been hard for you too, Jordan.’

Jordan shrugged. ‘It’s hard for everyone.’

He picked up his helmet and got to his feet. Burroni did the same. He was shorter than Jordan but sturdier. All the same, without his perennial black hat on his head, he seemed strangely exposed and fragile.

‘So long, James.’

A few minutes later, as he got on his bike and looked through his visor at the figure of James Burroni standing in the doorway of his house, Jordan told himself that coming here had been the right thing to do.

What he had said was true.

It
had
been hard. It was hard for everyone. For Burroni, for Christopher, for him.

But if they didn’t work fast, it would be even harder for a woman they didn’t know but who was out there somewhere, a target for a man who thought of her as Lucy.

Chandelle Stuart leaped to her feet, her face distorted with anger, her smooth black hair moving to partly hide it. The elegant dark Versace dress she was wearing rode up her long, thin legs, showing the two men sitting on the couch a strip of bare skin above her stockings.

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

The tone of voice held all the arrogance of one accustomed to command without having earned the right. She stood facing the two men for a moment, then turned and snatched up a pack of cigarettes from a shelf behind her, lighting one as if she was hoping to set fire to the world. She then marched to the large window that led to a balcony overlooking Central Park and stood there with her back to them, puffing greedily at her cigarette.

In the sky above the city, summer stormclouds were massing.

Jason McIvory turned to Robert Orlik, the other 50 per cent of McIvory, Orlik & Partners, a law firm specializing in managing estates, based in an elegant building downtown. The two men exchanged a knowing glance. For too long, they had been exposed to this woman’s whims, not to mention her coarse language.

And they were tired of putting up with it.

But for the moment they simply made themselves more comfortable on the couch and waited for this umpteenth fit of rage to subside.

McIvory crossed his legs. If Chandelle Stuart had turned at that moment, she would have caught a slight smile on his face with its slicked-back white hair and well-tended moustache. When he considered he had given the woman enough time to recover, he continued the speech this hysterical attack had interrupted.

‘I think you know precisely what we’re talking about, Miss Stuart. You don’t have any money left. Or hardly any.’

Again Chandelle turned like a fury, and again her black hair whipped around her head like a pirate flag in the wind. ‘How’s that even possible, you dickheads?’

McIvory pointed to the leather briefcase on the floor by his feet, propped against a low glass table that had cost several hundred dollars an inch. ‘The accounts are all here. All the papers were signed by you. In some cases, if you remember, we even requested a waiver of responsibility for certain investments of yours that weren’t – how shall I put this? – entirely orthodox from a financial point of view.’