Black notice (44 page)

"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 cafes 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.

The streets of Paris were waking up and getting lively as Talley and I walked to the Cafe 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 I'Opem 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 cafe," 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 detente. 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 Breiding 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.

Cafe 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 cafe 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 burgundies, 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 gruyere-shaved gruyere 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 buck 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 event 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 youloved 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.