Impulse (27 page)

“Merkel told me you wanted to call your mother from here.”

“That’s right. She was in an accident—perhaps Merkel told you—and she’s in the hospital, in a coma. There has been improvement, more EEG activity. I pray every day that she will just wake up one morning and smile and want to get on with her life.”

“It must be difficult for you to be so very far away from her.”

Rafaella looked down at her hands. She was holding her pencil very tightly.

“I assume you’re close to your mother? Although I don’t know why I should assume anything of the sort. My son isn’t at all close to his mother—in fact he hasn’t seen her for a goodly number of years now.”

“Goodness, why ever not?”

Dominick shrugged, nodded to Jiggs, and watched as he set the glasses and pitcher on the glass table between them. Dominick handed her a glass. “To our future together,” he said.

“Our future,” Rafaella said, and clicked her glass to his. She saw that he would begin again, and quietly pressed the play button.

“You asked me why DeLorio hasn’t seen his mother. It’s very simple, really. My wife is an alcoholic, has been for more years than I care to count. She didn’t want him, not really, except as a means to hurt me. So I simply removed him from her care. He asked me to, you know, begged me in fact. She lives on Long Island, has all the servants one could wish
for, all the money any ten women could spend in a single lifetime, and she sleeps with very young men.”

Rafaella felt her heart pounding, but her voice was steady, thoughtful. She shook her head. “I’ve never been able to understand that. The older women with the very young men and, of course, the older men with the young women. Just imagine how you’d feel if someone asked you how your son or daughter was doing. Nothing particular in common, no shared experiences or memories, no—”

“You’re forgetting sex, my dear, the most powerful and common of all things that bind. That and of course the illusion that even an older man, such as myself, is still attractive, still alluring, can still entice and please a much younger woman. Such as you, for example.”

“But it’s an illusion. It’s not real.”

“Isn’t it? Maybe not to the older man who’s living it, but it’s certainly real enough to all those who look upon it. Don’t be naive, Rafaella. Throughout the centuries wealthy men have used young women to prove their virility, their influence, their power, to their adversaries. And that, my dear, is real, as real as it gets.”

“Perhaps, but it’s also despicable. It’s people using each other for the most base of reasons.”

“You’re very young, Rafaella, and the young are more dogmatic than religious fanatics, more passionate in their beliefs, be they absurd or not.”

“Perhaps,” she said, then glanced down at her notepad. “Your wife, Dominick, you never divorced her?”

His face seemed to go stiff all over. “No, I’m not that kind of man. I made vows to her before God. I keep my word. No matter what she’s done—Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s my wife until she dies, and that’s the end of it. A pity she gave me only one son. Yes, a pity. And she was unfaithful to me. From the very beginning, she was unfaithful.”

He sounded sincere, hurt, yet stoic. She’d never before met a person who lied with such earnestness. He was good.
Just as her mother had said.
She looked down at her pad, fiddled with her pencil a moment, then said straightly, “And you weren’t ever unfaithful to her?”

“Not until she had broken her vows. I wanted sons, Rafaella, I wanted to found a dynasty, to show my father that he wasn’t the only one—I digress. But Sylvia wanted revenge on me, she wanted me to suffer—”

She listened to him enthusiastically ride what she was certain was one of his favorite hobbyhorses, his voice sounding more and more bitter, and she knew that her mother had been right. He was a man possessed. And he was a liar. He stopped suddenly and smiled.

“Are you ready for a break yet?” Rafaella asked quickly.

“Ah, Coco, come here, my dear. Of course we’re ready. Poor Rafaella has been listening to me carry on for longer than one should have to endure.”

“It’s all been fascinating,” Rafaella said, and it was true.

“We got twisted about in the chronology. Is this a problem for you, Rafaella?”

“Not at all. In fact, if you don’t mind, Dominick, I would prefer speaking about things in any order you wish, or in any lack of order. It makes for more spontaneity. If you would excuse me now, I think I’ll go listen to what we’ve got on the tape recorder and transcribe all the marvelous notes I’ve taken.”

“Oh, Rafaella, you never did tell me why you’re here while your mother is lying in a coma three thousand miles away.”

His voice was like silk and honey, but she wasn’t stupid. She must go carefully. She turned slowly and gave a very sad smile. It wasn’t difficult. Her eyes
blurred. “I was with her for nearly a week. There was nothing I could do. My stepfather encouraged me to come down here. You see, I’d already made the arrangements. He told me he’d send a jet for me if there was any change. I think it’s better. At least you, sir, are helping to keep my mind off it.”

“Your stepfather is Charles Rutledge.”

“Yes, a very nice man and very good to my mother.” And he’s not like you. He’s loyal and honest and real.

“It’s curious, you know,” Dominick said in a faraway voice. “A man of your stepfather’s stature, his wealth, his obvious power, and yet he chose a woman not that much younger than he. Very curious.”

“Perhaps he is a man who prefers what is real, what is solid, what is honest, over the chimera, the illusion. Excuse me, Dominick, Coco.”

All the way to her room, Rafaella wanted to kick herself for baiting him. He was far from undiscerning. God help her if she had gone too far.

Marseilles, France
March 2001

Marcus had always liked the fog, at least in London, but not here in the south of France, in Marseilles. It had been raining steadily since he’d arrived six hours before. Now the rain had slowed to a light drizzle with a thick blanket of fog over the harbor. Periodically the horns rang out loud and ghostly. Men huddled together on the ship decks, along the pier, in doorways, talking low, their Gauloise cigarettes glowing red-tipped like spots of fire in the darkness. The long rotted docks were slimy with old rain and smelled of wet, dirty wool and moldy mackintoshes.

Marcus took another drink of his beer, Italian beer
that was god-awful, and was thankful that he was inside and not out there in the bone-chilling damp.

The bar, Le Poulet Rouge, was noisy, dank, filled with the raucous laughter that resulted from cheap booze. There were a half-dozen prostitutes lounging about, accepting drinks from the sailors, and avoiding the foul-breathed dockhands in dirty coveralls.

Marcus leaned back against the cracked, dirty vinyl booth. Cigarette smoke had turned the air blue and there were swirls of blue snaking up around the naked light bulbs hanging from the black ceiling. He felt anxious and wished for a moment that he smoked.

Where was Bertrand?

A very young girl, not more than sixteen, he guessed, made her way through the throng of men to his booth. He saw her wince when several men patted her bottom or fondled her bare leg. She was slightly built, pretty in a childish way, with long black hair hanging down her back, and a very white face that Marcus realized finally was the result of a thick layer of white powder.

“
Monsieur? Vous voulez quelque chose d’autre, peut-être?
”

He grinned up at her. “You know the beer’s undrinkable, do you?” Then he shook his head and switched to French. “
Non, mademoiselle, non, merci.
”

He watched her thread her way among the small crowded tables, accepting stoically as her punishment all those lewd comments, all those free feels. Poor little girl. He wondered if her father owned the bar. Probably so. Cheap labor. Maybe she smeared her face with all that white powder so no one would recognize her, so she wouldn’t recognize herself. Marcus shook his head. He thought of Rafaella and wondered what she’d think of this bar and its denizens. She’d be wide-eyed and shocked to her toes, but she’d try to act like it was as normal as attending Carnegie Hall. He grinned and wished she was here with him.

Where was Bertrand?

A prostitute eyed him, blew him a kiss, and arched an artistically drawn black eyebrow. He shook his head, smiling. She started to rise and he shook his head again, not smiling this time.

She shrugged, took her seat again, and leaned forward, her arms pressed inward, so that her breasts, full and sagging, nearly spilled out of her chemise top. A man laughed and plunged his hand down her top and fondled her breasts. She shrieked and slapped his hand, then shoved him off his chair, sending him sprawling to the floor. The room erupted with laughter.

A jukebox started up, a youth howling out some acid rock that smothered the bar noise. Marcus coughed, the smoke was so thick. He’d just about decided to leave the bar when Bertrand came through the door.

Marcus stared a moment, thinking: This is just like a 1940’s movie with Humphrey Bogart. Bertrand was wearing a slouch hat low over his left eye and a light brown raincoat belted at the waist. A Gauloise was dangling from between his thin lips.

He looked Marcus’s way, nodded very slightly, and slowly, as if the cameras were following his every move, made his way between the tables to the booth.

“You’re late,” Marcus said.

Bertrand sat down and raised a hand to the young waitress. “It was unavoidable,” he said, then added, looking at the girl, “She’s nice. Her name’s Blanchette, she’s only fifteen, and she wasn’t a virgin when she first had sex with me. I wondered who’d done the deflowering. Maybe it was one of these intellectual customers.” He was smiling at her all the while he spoke of her to Marcus.

“
Ma chère, une bière, s’il te plaît.
” She nodded, smiling nervously at him. Bertrand waved her away.

“You’re late,” Marcus said again. “Why was it so
unavoidable? He hated Bertrand and all he stood for. Some thought him a comely man, in his early forties, fit, and with a dark brooding look that drew the women, and evidently the young girls as well. But Marcus thought his face showed his black soul. Bertrand was vicious, ruthless, amoral, and so unpredictable that both men and women had constantly to be on their guard.

“Business,” Bertrand said, and leaned back. He unbelted his raincoat, showing a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans beneath. “I had some more checking to do. My contact at the factory had screwed things up and I didn’t get all the mines I’d ordered.” He quickly raised his hand, seeing Marcus’s color heighten with anger. “I got it straightened out, don’t worry. Tomorrow morning, at six o’clock, on Pier Twenty-seven, you and I will oversee, along with one of the stupid bureaucratic Frenchmen, the loading of the mines aboard the
Ionia.
Bound for Nigeria, you know. Everything’s right and tight.”

“You’ll then travel aboard the ship?”

“That’s the plan, yes. Ah, my beer.
Merci, ma chère.
” Marcus watched the girl walk away slowly, looking back at Bertrand several times, and this time she was smiling shyly. Bertrand smiled back at her as he said to Marcus, “You want her, Devlin? She’s so very young, but I’ve taught her quite a bit in the last two weeks. She’d been savaged before, not taught how to please or be pleased.”

“No,” said Marcus, trying not to show his disgust, his revulsion. “She’s a child. She could be your daughter.”

“Yes, she could, but the point is, she isn’t, thank the good Lord. And I like them unspoiled. They’re spoiled by the time they’re twenty.”

“I want the money. I’ve got to start the transfers as soon as the banks open tomorrow.”

“You’ll get it, just after the loading of the mines on the ship.”

“Why then?”

“Because I’m not stupid. Everyone’s heard about the assassination attempt on Giovanni, and I can’t imagine that he’s filled with the milk of human trust right now. No, you’ll get the money tomorrow when I’m certain that everything is just as it should be. I don’t mind telling you that I was concerned about the screw-up at the factory. Giovanni should have had it all in order, you know. Yet someone slipped. On purpose? Because they thought Giovanni was weak?”

“It was your responsibility this time.”

Bertrand shrugged. “Is that what Giovanni told you?” He drank down his beer in one long gulp, the muscles in his throat working deeply. “Well, it
wasn’t
my responsibility. Giovanni’s on top of the dog heap right now, Devlin. Everyone’s watching, wondering what will happen, waiting. You really don’t want to join me with the little girl? I’ve always had a fancy to have another man around, watching, playing the way he’d like to play while I did the same. Ah, well, you’re a puritan, huh, Devlin?”

“No, I’m just not a degenerate.”

Bertrand’s left hand shot to his right sleeve. Marcus saw the glitter of a silver-handled knife.

“Don’t do it, Bertrand. I’ve got the sweetest little derringer here, palmed, aimed right at your crotch. I’ll blow your cock off, boyo, if you don’t just calm down. Now.”

Bertrand eyed Marcus’s right arm. The forearm and hand were under the table. “I don’t believe you, Devlin.”

“Try me.”

Bertrand became very still. His expression didn’t change. Then he shrugged. “I’ll leave now. Pay for my drink, like a good stooge.” And he rose, wended his
way between the tables, and was gone, blurred in a haze of blue smoke.

Marcus raised his arm from beneath the table. Gently he shoved the derringer back into place, lightly fastened to the strap around his wrist. He’d never blown a man’s cock off before. He wondered if he would have felt any remorse at removing Bertrand’s manhood. Probably not. He tossed francs on the table, grabbed his raincoat, and left Le Poulet Rouge.

He looked carefully both to his right and to his left. Bertrand had either really gone about his business or was hiding in an alley waiting to slit Marcus’s throat. No, Marcus thought, business was more important than insults.

He walked quickly back to his
pension
, a run-down excuse for a bed-and-breakfast three blocks from the harbor. A loudmouthed old harridan ran it. She was still up when he returned, and he was aware that she was searching for a woman, waiting in the shadows, to follow him up to his room.