Impulse (28 page)

“
Pas de femmes
,” he told her, and marched up the two flights to his room.

He heard her cackling below. “
Je puis vous aider, monsieur! Une jolie femme, eh? Très jeune, eh?
” At his bellowed “
Non!
” she just cackled again and retreated.

He couldn’t wait to leave here. This part of Marseilles was a pit, and had been for as long as he could remember. Was it more so now? The men and women who roamed through here seemed just as bereft of hope, just as hard and cruel as before. The endless rain and damp didn’t help. It made the dirt look filthier and everything else moldy and dingy. He didn’t undress, just lay down on the narrow bed.

What was Rafaella doing? Was she safe? Had she managed to keep her smart mouth shut? What would she have thought of Bertrand? Of Marcus’s derringer?

He missed her. It came as something of a shock. He hadn’t missed anyone in so very long. Sure, his
mother, and John, even Uncle Morty, but it wasn’t this same kind of bone-deep emptiness. It was unwelcome; it made him sad and even more frustrated at his situation. Savage was probably right. He should get out of this before he got himself killed.

The dream came that night, beginning with the seductive soft colors, romantic stage settings like in old movies, then speeding up, losing softness, gaining edges, sharp and hard, and there he was with his father, Ryan “Chomper” O’Sullivan, and his old man was helping him with math, and his mother, Molly, was there, laughing, teasing her husband, who was always too serious, and she nipped his earlobe with her sharp white teeth. Then there were loud noises, louder still, and the scenes tumbled out of sequence and there was the blood, red and redder still, and it flowed over everything, and his father was there, and the blood was flowing over him and it was everywhere, so much of it, and—

Marcus jerked awake on a moan. He was wet with his own sweat. His heart was pounding. He felt the terror very slowly begin to recede as his mind settled into the present again. Would it never end? He didn’t want to go back to sleep, but he did. This time it was dreamless.

In the dark of the night he awoke, fully alert, and knew something was very wrong. Someone was opening the door to his room. He’d locked that door. Slowly he turned onto his side, facing the door. He watched the knob turn slowly.

Hicksville, Long Island
March 2001

Charles sat quietly behind the wheel of the rented Ford Taurus and watched the two-story Tudor house through the black iron gates. He was stiff, and so tired
his eyes felt gritty. He reached for the carry-out coffee and pulled the plastic top off the Styrofoam cup. The coffee was cold, and awful, and he drank it down, all of it.

He continued to wait silently. He had to see the woman, the drunken woman, who’d run down Margaret. The coincidence of it, the outrageousness of it, still unnerved him, but B.J. Lewis, his private detective, had been certain. Perhaps it wasn’t so impossible. Margaret’s car had been in this vicinity when she’d been struck. Not more than two miles from here. But why? He hadn’t wondered before, but now he did. What was she doing around here? To his knowledge, she didn’t have any friends in Hicksville.

Sylvia Carlucci Giovanni.
His
wife.
His
familiar.

Charles just had to see her.

But how could he possibly know if she’d truly hit Margaret just by looking at her? And if she had, had it really been an accident? Charles shook his head; he was losing his mind.

Suddenly there was activity. He stiffened, hunching forward against the steering wheel to better see the entrance of the house. A man emerged from the front door. He was young, handsome in a male-model sort of way, and built like a sleek young bull. One of her lovers? Evidently so. He turned in the doorway and leaned back, as if he were embracing someone; then he straightened, smiling, and walked away. He was wearing a white T-shirt and tight faded jeans that clearly outlined the bulge of his cock. He was whistling.

Charles watched him flip a set of car keys into the air, then catch them with a jaunty move. He got into a white Porsche, revved the engine like a teenage boy with his father’s car, and gunned it, making gravel spew upward. He must have pressed a button inside the car, because the iron gates opened slowly. Charles could practically feel the young man’s impatience with those gates, feel his bubbling energy, his pleasure at
what he was and who he was and what he had. Charles wondered how long that would last. Then the Porsche roared down the road, headed west.

Charles continued to wait. What else could he do? It was silent again, no sign of her, no sign of anyone. He thought of Margaret, lying there so still in her hospital bed. This morning he’d stayed while her private nurse had massaged her, keeping her muscles as firm and supple as possible. Muscle atrophy and bedsores were the worst enemies. Margaret was massaged three times a day. Her body was white, innocent of scars, her breasts still firm and high, and he’d wanted her very much, just as he’d wanted her since he’d met her on the beach at Montauk Point.

She’d looked so young lying there, her hair neatly brushed, her gown not hospital regulation but a pale blue satin Dior confection he’d bought her some months before for her birthday.

He held her hand, caressed her long fingers, noting that her nails needed trimming. Still holding her hand, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

And now he was sitting here in front of Sylvia Carlucci Giovanni’s two-story Tudor home, waiting. It would be dark in an hour. Then he would have to leave.

He cursed softly. He wanted to see her, had to see her. For a brief moment he pictured himself shooting her; then he laughed at himself.

First he had to just see her.

Shadows were lengthening over the road. He dozed, then awoke with a start. There she was, coming out the front door. He couldn’t make out her features clearly. Then she walked beneath a bright outdoor house light that had just come on, and he felt a stab of recognition.

Sylvia Carlucci Giovanni had his wife’s blond hair, her graceful walk, her slim figure and slightness of build. There was no resemblance he could see in their
facial features, but the general initial impression was that they looked to be related. Sisters perhaps.

That petite lovely woman was the drunk who’d struck Margaret? That was Sylvia Carlucci Giovanni?

Marseilles, France
March 2001

The knob kept turning, slowly.

Marcus eased up, silently cursing the squealing of the old bedsprings as his weight shifted.

There was little light in his room, merely a sliver of new moon coming in the narrow window, but it was enough. His eyes never left that door. The door was all the way to the left.

He watched the door ease open.

He was off the bed then, in a low crouch, his derringer in his right hand. He saw a hand on the doorknob, saw that hand continue to push the door open. Suddenly he grabbed the wrist and yanked forward.

He realized at once that it was a woman’s wrist he held and that she’d cried out in pain.

“Monsieur, non! C’est moi, Blanchette!”

He looked down at the pale-faced girl. Her mouth was working. She was terrified. “What are you doing here, creeping into my room in the middle of the—?” He paused and pulled his French together.
“Quest-ce que vous faites ici? Vous venez comme une voleuse.”

He shook her, not hard, but she’d frightened him, and now he was angry.

“Answer me.
Répondez-moi.”

She did, her voice a thin wail, a whisper, and he realized she was now as frightened as he’d been. He’d
sent her, her lover had, he’d told her to come here and pleasure Devlin, yes, yes, the man in the bar, Monsieur Bertrand, her lover, the man Devlin had spoken with.

“C’est tout, monsieur, je vous assure.”

He looked down at her pale face, dead white from all the face powder, her eyes still blank and wide from shock. What was he to do now?

Even as he weighed his options, sorted through possibilities, he felt something cold that was near, coming ever nearer, and it was like the dream—cold and hard and relentless. He whirled about, saw the glimmer of silver, the shadow of an arm raised, poised, and he hurled the girl to the floor, dropping on top of her, covering her as best he could, and as he plunged down, he felt the hiss of the knife as it went past his ear, felt the air split, and he saw it hit the headboard, embedding itself in the cheap pine.

He heard a curse, and saw the shadow of the arm rise again, and the glint of silver in the pale moonlight from the window, and slowly, calmly, Marcus raised the derringer, rolled off the terrified girl, and came to his feet, facing Jack Bertrand.

“You bastard! You should be in bed, screwing the little tart’s eyes out!”

Bertrand brought the knife up in a fluid motion and angled it for Marcus’s throat. It came slowly and deliberately, as in the dream, and Marcus saw himself, fast and urgent now, the dream speeding up in crazy spurts, pull up the derringer, distinct and deadly, and fire it once, and it struck the knife blade with a loud ping and ricocheted backward, tearing through Jack Bertrand’s throat. Venous blood poured out, so much blood, not spurting, just pouring out like water through a dam. Bertrand stared at Marcus, then at the girl, who was staring up at him from her crouch on the floor.

He grabbed at his throat, and the blood poured
through his fingers like rivulets as he fell heavily to the floor. Marcus came down to his knees beside him. He lifted him. “Why? Why, damn you?”

“You’re a fool, Devlin,” Bertrand whispered, his voice as liquid as blood. “If you weren’t so isolated on that island, you’d know that the king is dead, or very nearly. Olivier will take over. I should have been with him, all the way, and I should have killed you. When they found your body, everyone would believe
Bathsheba
had done it.”

Marcus just stared down at him.

“I thought I had you. I failed—failed—” There was a soft hissing sound and Jack Bertrand’s head fell to the side. His blood-covered fingers slid away from his throat.

There was so much blood. Marcus heard Blanchette sobbing from behind him, turned and saw that her hands were covering her face, her long black hair curtaining her profile.

“Shush,” Marcus said automatically, his brain racing. The bullet hadn’t been all that loud, but one never knew. The last thing he wanted to do was to become embroiled with the French police. They’d probably throw him in jail and let him rot there. The neighborhood was on his side—derelicts, petty criminals, but mostly empty warehouses.

Marcus quickly pulled Jack’s body into his room and closed the door as quietly as possible. He locked the door but knew it wouldn’t keep anyone out who wanted to come in. He could just picture that old harridan climbing up here, demanding to know what was going on in her respectable
pension.

He came down on his haunches next to Blanchette. He shook her shoulders, gathered his French together, and spoke softly, firmly. He told her to leave quickly by the window and go home
vite, vite!
He told her to keep her mouth closed or she would find herself in grave trouble with the police. He would take care of
things. She had to trust him. She had to leave now.
“Ne parlez pas aux gendarmes,”
he told her over and over.
“Vous comprenez?”

She stared at him, mouth open, eyes vacant. Had she lost her wits?

“Vous comprenez, Blanchette? Répondez-moi!”

Finally she nodded, words still beyond her. He helped her to her feet and out the window. She didn’t look once at Jack’s body, sprawled by the bed, his eyes staring toward her from his bloodless face.

Marcus didn’t move until she’d disappeared from his view. He walked quickly to the window, watched her climb down the fire escape and disappear into the misting dank fog and the filth of the alley.

He turned back to Jack Bertrand. “I wish you hadn’t tried that,” he said, and got to work.

Giovanni’s Island
March 2001

Rafaella didn’t trust him. She wasn’t afraid, but she knew that if he tried to seduce her, the jig would be up, as her mother used to say. She’d been relieved when the phone call came through. Dominick dismissed her for the afternoon. She heard Lacy say that the call was from Marcus.

Was Marcus in trouble? She didn’t want to think about him, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to worry about him, but she couldn’t help that either. He was insidious, that man, and in weak moments she admitted he was there, in her mind, always there, a permanent resident. Could he be in trouble? She didn’t want anyone else hurting him, just her, and only when he deserved it, which was, admittedly, quite often.

Rafaella dismissed the idea of swimming in the pool. There were too many guards about and she didn’t feel
like being stared at. Nor did she like the notion of Dominick seeing her in a bikini. She changed quickly, pulling shorts and a baggy top over her suit. She grabbed several books from the mantel, including one of her mother’s journals, and headed for the beach.

The day was clear, warm, and saved from misery by the breeze from the Caribbean. Beautiful, beautiful Eden, but she was already growing tired of its perfection. A little Boston rain wouldn’t have been horrible. A lot of Boston rain was another matter.

She nodded to Merkel, told him where she was going, and kept on her way. She saw Frank Lacy, looking as gaunt as he had the other night, waved to him, and tried to ignore the half-dozen men, all of them armed, who strolled around the grounds. Their movements looked unrehearsed, their direction unplanned, which she knew wasn’t true at all. They all appeared to be excellent at their jobs, and Rafaella, for one, even knowing a martial art, never wanted to face any of them.

She strolled through the lush jungle that separated the compound from the beach. About fifty yards of thick vegetation, now damp from a thirty-minute rainfall, made it almost difficult to breathe. She began to feel closed in, despite the cleanliness of the path. She imagined that the encroaching growth had to be cut back every day of the year.