Impulse (39 page)

But the woman who owned the boutique was frowning, frowning toward Sylvia. Then another look took over her face, a look of embarrassed uncertainty. She was coming toward Sylvia, and in that instant Sylvia knew what was wrong. She knew. She cried out, covering her mouth with her hand.

“No,” she said, and rose, staring toward the huge pile of clothing that should be hers but wasn’t because her credit card had been canceled. “No,” she said again, and grabbed her purse and ran out of the boutique. She heard the woman calling after her, but she didn’t turn back. She dashed out onto Rodeo Drive. The sun was hot and there were cars, so many convertibles, and they were honking at her, but she didn’t notice.

Then there was a dark blue sedan and it was right there and it hadn’t honked, nor had it slowed down. Sylvia saw Frank Lacy, saw him clearly, knew his intent, and she whimpered just before the car struck her and flung her back over the hood onto the sidewalk,
nearly at the feet of the woman who held Sylvia’s gold credit card in her hand.

The woman screamed and the credit card fell from her hand. It was ten minutes later that she was telling Sergeant Grimes about the woman. “Sylvia Carlucci Giovanni is what is printed on the credit card, as you can see, Sergeant. I went to ask her for I.D. since the credit card shows a New York address. She looked very strange and she cried out and turned quite pale and ran out of the store. I hurried after her and saw the car strike her. I didn’t see the driver. I think it was a man, but I can’t be sure. I guess it was an accident and the guy just panicked. It was awful.”

Sergeant Grimes didn’t know what to think. One of the older men on the force had mentioned that an ancient gangster, Carlo Carlucci, had just died in Chicago. Was this dead woman his daughter? If so, had it really been an accident?

“I don’t know what to do with all these clothes. Nearly thirty thousand dollars’ worth. Of course, she hadn’t signed for them yet. Oh, dear, oh, dear.” The woman sighed as Sergeant Grimes took himself off to question possible witnesses.

Reporters and TV cameras started arriving, but the coroner had already taken the body away.

Carlton Hotel, Miami, Florida
April 2001

Dominick heard the news in Miami from Frank Lacy. He had some business to conduct with a very old friend, Mario Calpas, and planned to return to the island in the morning. But that evening he would celebrate. Mario provided a lovely young woman for him, and Dominick treated her to a wonderful dinner and a diamond bracelet because he felt so good about Sylvia’s death and the future and what it would bring.

Rafaella. He would have her, despite her fling with Marcus. She was young and malleable and bright, he supposed, for a woman, which boded well for the intelligence of their children. Poor DeLorio hadn’t had a chance with Sylvia for a mother, much less with that old mobster Carlucci for a grandfather. But DeLorio had improved; he had. It was just the problem with all this money.

He stopped his thinking and his planning. Melinda was very talented, and at the moment she was on her knees in front of him. He was seated in a big armchair in his suite at the Carlton.

She was good. He sighed and closed his eyes. It was wonderful, and he felt his climax drawing close. But he didn’t want to come in her mouth. He wanted to come inside her. He gently tugged her hair and she raised her head, her eyes questioning. Her mouth glistened with her own saliva and him. He nodded toward the king-size bed. “Stand up,” he told her. “I want to really see you.”

Melinda was naked and she had the longest legs and a very nice rear end. Her breasts were small but Dominick didn’t mind. The bush of hair at her crotch was a rich deep brown, at odds with the platinum blond of her head. He quite liked the contrast. He told her to lie down on her back on the bed. She did as she was told, with no hesitation.

Dominick looked at her for a very long time, appreciating the newness of her body; then slowly he began unbuttoning his shirt. He was on the third button when he heard a key turning in the suite’s door. Such a soft sound, a whisper of sound that a man wouldn’t hear if he were plunging into a woman’s body.

Immediately he looked down at the young woman and saw it in her eyes—fear and knowledge. He grabbed her, hauling her off the bed and in front of him as the front door opened and a man jumped into the room, his gun up. He fired from reflex when he
saw Dominick, and the bullet struck the woman. Dominick felt the impact of it as her body jerked back against him. He dropped her and had his own pistol in his hand in an instant. The assassin saw what had happened, saw Giovanni’s pistol, and was out of the room, all within a second of time.

It was silent, dead silent. Nothing, not a sound. Melinda was on her side, dead, and there was a small pool of blood collecting on the carpet, dripping from the hole in her chest.

Dominick was on a privately chartered helicopter in less than an hour, headed back to Giovanni’s Island.

Long Island, New York
April 2001

She was so still and pale. Charles wanted to shout to her to wake up, to come back to him, but she didn’t move. She remained away, remote. On some deep level he could never reach, she was thinking about Giovanni. She’d come to so briefly, speaking of him—
to
him? Charles shook his head violently. He couldn’t bear to think about it.

Wake up, Margaret, wake up.

But nothing happened. Charles waited for the nurse to finish her checklist and leave the room, then turned on the TV. It was Dan Rather with the national news. Charles really didn’t pay much attention until he heard Rather say, “Sylvia Carlucci Giovanni, fifty-one-year-old daughter of crime boss Carlo Carlucci, who died on Monday in his bed, age seventy-five, was killed today by a hit-and-run driver not twenty-four hours after her father’s funeral. She was struck while crossing the famed Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. The identity of the driver is unknown.”

There was a bit more, but Charles wasn’t listening. Rather then turned to the Middle East.

Dead, that horrible drunken woman was dead. There was such a thing as divine justice. Sylvia had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, just as she’d hit Margaret and raced away. And her estranged husband,
Dominick Giovanni, had ordered her killed. No doubt about that. The cops probably knew, but were keeping it under wraps for the moment. They needed proof. Well, he, Charles, didn’t.

He looked over at his wife.
She’s dead, Margaret. Wake up, Margaret, she’s dead.
Margaret didn’t move.

Charles was too keyed up to sit there and talk to Margaret, as was his usual habit. Besides, how could she care about what he’d done when he’d been at Andover and all of sixteen years old? He’d already told her about it before, if he remembered aright. And she wouldn’t want to hear
his
voice anyway. No, Giovanni was there, deep in her mind, where Charles couldn’t get.

The Bennington Hotel, London,
England April 2001

Marcus locked the hotel-room door and fastened the chain. He turned to face Rafaella. She said without preamble, “I want to take a very long, very hot shower. I’m cold and I feel incredibly dirty.”

“Throw out the dress—that should help.”

She looked startled at that, then smiled at him. “It just might.”

He could only imagine how she felt. He nodded and she disappeared into the bathroom. He called room service and ordered up bottles of whiskey and soda. He stripped down to his shorts and sat in the chair by the window. There was a small park across the street, but he hadn’t noted its name. It would be nice, once spring had come to England and turned everything green again.

He thought of Coco, not Coco the woman he’d come to like and respect, but Coco, Dominick’s mistress, his property, his possession. It wasn’t right. Olivier had spoken as though Rafaella hadn’t been present, as if she
were a commodity. And as a mistress, that’s how he’d seen her. And that’s how Dominick viewed Coco as well. Marcus wondered what Coco thought about it, if she’d accepted it, or if, deep down, it was a wound that wouldn’t heal.

Marcus rose and began pacing the room. So Olivier wanted to be sporting about Giovanni, did he? Well, good thing he did. It just might give Marcus time to find this
Bathsheba
person or organization and neutralize it. Art, Olivier had said. Art? Marcus knew next to nothing about art. What did art have to do with this mess? And what did Olivier mean by “go south”? Marcus shook his head. He hoped Rafaella would have some ideas about that. He heard the shower turn on and imagined her stepping into the stall, naked and shivering and feeling dirty because of the way Olivier had looked at her and spoken of her.

He didn’t blame her a bit. Olivier scared him to death. Marcus wondered why this was so, and decided it was because the man felt deeply about absolutely nothing at all. He was devoid of humanity, and it showed. After room service left, Marcus quickly poured himself a whiskey, neat, and drank it down. He poured another and drank it. He felt the warmth curling in his belly. He began to relax. He heard the shower spray.

He rose and walked into the bathroom.

He kicked off his shorts and opened the shower door, quickly stepping inside. Rafaella was staring at him, her wet hair plastered to her head and face. “Come here,” he said, and pulled her against him. He buried his face against her throat.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Rafaella. So sorry, love. I didn’t realize it would be that bad.”

Rafaella burrowed against him. He was wet and warm and he was now very hard and pressing against her stomach, but his hold on her wasn’t the least bit sexual. It was comforting, soothing. He was offering
her consolation. She pressed closer. “It was horrible, Marcus, so horrible.”

“I know, he said, and kissed her forehead. “Let’s get bathed and go to bed, all right?”

He felt her nod against his shoulder. Marcus didn’t bathe her—he didn’t trust himself to. The last thing she needed was sex or any kind of reinforcement of the idea that sex was all she was good for.

Once in bed, Marcus arranged her against his side, her head on his shoulder. He said, his breath warm against her temple, “I like you there, Ms. Holland. Very much. It feels right.”

She was silent for a long moment, then just nodded again against his shoulder.

“It would help, you know, if you’d spit out how you’d like to roast Olivier on a barbecue. Righteous anger’s good, better than wallowing in this show of debasement.”

That got to her, as he’d guessed it would.

She reared up in his arms and stared down into his face. “What do you mean ‘debasement’? I have nothing to feel debased about!”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course. Olivier’s the one who’s debased; he’s a depraved monster, a—” She leaned down and bit his shoulder.

“Yes, he is, and was that a love bite?”

She just looked at him, saying nothing, just looked, and slowly she smiled. It was a sweet smile, one that held relief and comprehension and love.

“You really do belong here, you know,” he said, pressing her head back to his shoulder.

“Maybe.”

He reached over and turned off the lamp beside the bed. “Go to sleep.” Very soon her breathing evened and she relaxed against him.

He didn’t sleep. He was too wound up. There were too many unknowns, too many things happening he
didn’t understand. Anton Rosch hadn’t been much help either. He was here on Hurley’s order to keep an eye on Marcus, to try to keep him safe just in case Olivier tried anything nasty. Marcus liked and trusted Rosch, a man who knew the dens and denizens of England and Europe as well as Marcus knew Giovanni’s Island.

Marcus sighed and tried counting rabbits. That didn’t work either. He wasn’t really surprised when Rafaella said quietly, after about twenty minutes, “Are you asleep, Marcus Whatever-your-name-is?”

“Naw, I’m a real man. I don’t sleep, I don’t drink milk, and I don’t wash my own underwear.” He’d hoped for a chuckle, but wasn’t too disappointed when he got nothing. She was still too raw, but at least now she was talking.

“Tonight was awful. I’ve never felt so out of my depth before in my life, so on display. I thought it would be fun, amusing, to role-play a tart, but it wasn’t. It was disgusting, repellent. It was a killer for the soul, Marcus. Olivier—he’s a very creepy man.”

“True. Have you barbecued the bastard in your mind? You’re firmly off the debasement kick? You’re back to being superior and obnoxious?”

“Almost. I still don’t even have the slightest wish to throw you or stomp on you, though. I want to stay right here where it feels safe.”

“You feel safe with me?”

“Yes. She fell silent a moment, then added, her voice puzzled, “I’ve never even thought about that before. Being safe with someone. We’re still in a mess, Marcus.”

“Yeah. Now, are you feeling smart right now? Just nod, that’s right. Okay, what could he have meant about art? About going south? And the main thing: he knew that Tulp had gone to New York, which means it’s probable that
Bathsheba
is in New York. Does that make sense?”

Rafaella shivered; she couldn’t help it. She was still thinking about Olivier and feeling his eyes on her and hearing his voice, so soft and quiet and cultured. She realized she hadn’t been able to focus on anything else, except for the comfort Marcus gave her.

“Earth calling Rafaella Holland. Anyone home?” She scratched her fingernails over his belly. She felt the shudder go through him and drew back her hand. “No more of that. Now, I just remembered that real men don’t beg women to listen to them. Either you soak up my brilliant words or I’ll just shut up and go to sleep.”

She laughed and hugged her arm over his chest. “I like you, Marcus. That is, you’re okay when you’re not being a jerk. I fry divine fish. I’ll even make you hush puppies, southern-style, with lots of honey and butter oozing over the sides.”

“I like the thought of that. What do you know about art?”

“I took a couple of classes in school—some medieval courses and Renaissance—” Suddenly Rafaella jerked upright in bed. “Oh, my God,” she said, staring off into the darkness. “Dear heavens. No, no—I’ve got to be wrong, it couldn’t be—”