Last Call For Caviar (25 page)

The first brushstrokes of red were painting the sky to the west. The hours had fled, and I realized I had to head down. I sat on a patch of grass, Buddy’s head resting in my lap, while he snoozed in the last dying rays of the day. I stroked his head, and he seemed to smile as he let out a sigh. I leaned down and gave him a last kiss on the top of his head, like I had done for Blue before he closed his eyes for eternity. I eased his head off my leg and kneeled next to him. He snored gently, his eyes fluttering open, as I laid his head on the grass.

“I love you, my little buddy; you saved my life,” I whispered as I stood looking down at him for the last time. “I’ll never forget you. I promise.”

I turned and started down the path. It would be better if I didn’t look back. The tears were already blurring my eyes as I stumbled over a rock and fell to my knee. I got to my feet and disappeared around the bend.

I was about three hundred meters down the trail when I felt his head nudge my leg. He looked up at me, his dark eyes shining with love and trust. Buddy had never followed me home before. The first switchback below his rock perch was an invisible barrier he never crossed. Now, when it was too late and I was leaving these shores forever, he finally decided to follow me home.

I knelt down and took his head in my hands. “No, Buddy, you can’t come home with me. You have to go back. I’m leaving. It’s too late, Buddy. It’s all too late.”

But he just butted his head against me in response. I hugged him one last time.

“Go on now. Get lost. Shoooo… Go back to the center,” I said more forcibly this time and turned my back. I risked a glance. He stood there, head cocked to the side, confusion in his eyes. Then he lowered his head submissively and crept forward to my side.

The sky was turning violet, and it would still take me more than an hour and a half to get home. My heart was breaking, seeing him look so downcast and alone. But I had no choice. I was leaving for good in less than three hours. If Buddy followed me down to civilization, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t take him with me; he’d be lost.

Tears streamed down my face now, as I remembered what I did next. You have to be cruel to be kind. I hated myself.

“Go on. Get out of here. I don’t want you anymore, Buddy. You’re not my dog. Scat. Go away. I don’t want you to follow me.” I yelled and ran at him to chase him off. He ran back up the trail fifty meters and then slunk off into the underbrush.

I waited a couple of minutes to be sure he wasn’t following me. He’d vanished from sight. I needed to hurry now. I broke into a slow jog on the uneven path. I couldn’t risk a sprained ankle, but the boat wouldn’t wait all night for me if I were late. I was only a kilometer from the Moyen Corniche when I looked back, and he was padding down the trail a hundred meters behind me. Night would fall in another thirty minutes. If he tried to follow me across the wide four-lane highway in the dusk, with his light coat he would be invisible to the fast-driving traffic. He could be hit by a car. I had to chase him away, or he might be killed.

I sucked down all the fear and frustration of leaving my home into my lungs and then bellowed my anger and pain as I charged up the path at him. “Go away! I don’t want you anymore! Get out of here!”

He stood his ground, shocked by the sight of his friend attacking him. I bent down and picked up a rock and flung it to the right of him. He flinched as it skittered away into the brush. I grabbed a handful of stones now and tried to drive him off. The reproach and confusion in his eyes tore at my gut.

One of the rocks caught him on his flank, and with a yelp of pain, he retreated up the path. I pressed my advantage and chased after him, throwing stones to the right and left of his shaking form.

“I’m so sorry. I have to do this. Forgive me,” I cried as I finally saw him turn away and streak back up the path. I stood there for ten minutes to make sure he was really gone this time. He never looked back.

I poured another shot of whiskey in my tumbler and tossed it back.

I sat there surrounded by luxury. Escaping in style, all my needs—even my whims—would be satisfied. In a matter of hours, I would be on my way to a new life, all the uncertainty and coming terror left behind. I should be happy or at least feel relieved.

But it felt just like the day at the lake camp, when I ran from the tornado and left Julian to face the storm alone. The guilt gnawed at me. I couldn’t hide from the truth. I would be safe, but I’d abandoned the man I loved and now my dearest friend.

I tried to stand but staggered back against the lounge chair as a long swell lifted the boat. I’d drunk too much yet again. I needed to try and sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day, playing hide and seek from Slava’s thugs. We wouldn’t know if the bait and switch with the yachts had worked until we arrived safely in port at Santa Margarita Ligure.

Nevertheless, the whiskey had done its job. I stumbled downstairs to my stateroom, numbed and exhausted. I didn’t bother to undress, but only curled up against the pillows.

.

CHAPTER 28

B
ITTER
D
REGS

I felt his hands touching me, unbuttoning my shirt. The cool air as he bared my breasts, the sweet ache as he teased my nipple until it hardened and he took it in his mouth. The kisses, feather-soft, he trailed down my belly. His thumbs hooked the sides of my silk g-string, and he slowly drew it off. I arched my back and felt the warm skin of his chest against my breasts, pressing me back down into the softness of the bed. His hand slipped between us, and I felt the touch of his fingers opening me up. A bittersweet liquid ache inside me, compounded of love and regret. Longing and pain eased as he entered me. I unfolded around him: a thousand petals opening under his touch. His features were shadowed, but I’d memorized the shape of his lips, the hollow where my head fit perfectly against his neck. I knew the murmur of his voice in my ear, the words spoken so softly ran together like a sigh. He was so deep inside me, I would know it was him even if I was blind. There was no yesterday or tomorrow, just the two of us alone, wrapped in each other’s arms, as we plummeted like fallen angels through the dark.

Then, I stood high on a hill, looking down on a desolate plain. I could see in the distance a great city had fallen, mountains of concrete reduced to canyons of rubble. The sun burned red in an ochre sky. Julian and Buddy fled from the ruined city on a path that wound through smoking slag heaps towards me and sanctuary on the hill. Funnels of death swirled over the city, their winds raging, as a legion of riders cloaked in blood-red mist harried Julian and Buddy’ approach.

“Hurry,” I whispered, “you’re almost here. Run faster. You don’t have much time.”

They’d nearly reached the lower ramparts of the hill when Julian stumbled and fell. I saw him struggling to stand. He couldn’t get up. Buddy could have kept running; he was almost to safety. He could have escaped. But he returned to Julian’s side. The red tide was almost upon them as I saw Buddy nuzzle Julian, encouraging him to stand. Holding on to Buddy’s back for support, he tried to pull himself up, but his leg was shattered. I saw him look up one last time, felt his gaze searching for me, hiding from the horror unfolding below, high on my hill. Our eyes met, and I could feel pain well up from my soul. It burst from my lips in a wail of sorrow and regret. A lament of our lost love and shattered dreams.

They turned back to face the red death together. Buddy positioned himself in front of Julian to protect his injured leg, the hackles upright along his back, teeth bared, and the growl rising from deep in his throat as warning. Buddy threw back his head and let out a howl so bone-chilling it split the yellow sky.

Then, I was falling through the mists of a gray void. I could see green fires burning before me, flames dancing in the depths of a tiger’s eyes. I could hear Julian’s voice murmuring softly, like the susurrations of the sea on moonlit sand. I strained to hear; I knew the message was urgent, the only thing that mattered. I reached out to pull Julian closer, anxious to understand. But the words became fainter and fainter as he dissolved in my grasp, and they drifted away like a sigh on the wind.

I swam towards the surface. Darkness surrounded me. I didn’t know where I was. Then, I felt the gentle rocking of the yacht as it swung from its anchor. The luminous numbers on the clock on the bedside table showed four o’clock in the morning. It all came rushing back: the frantic dash along the quay to rendezvous with the
Carpe Diem
, stealing away through the fog to our anchorage in an adjacent bay.

I wondered if Anjuli was still on the dance floor at Buddha Bar, and if Abdul was there also, watching her sway to the music from the sidelines. They would make their move in the first hours of a new day, when most were sleeping off the excesses of the night before. If anyone interfered or objected, Abdul would have to neutralize them. I wondered if blood would be shed on the streets of Monaco this day. I imagined their headlong flight towards the frontier with Italy. It would be hours yet before we had word.

My dream was still vivid in my mind. The weight of it paralyzed me. I thought of what I had done to drive Buddy away so I could make my rendezvous to escape. I remembered the tornado at the lake camp and fleeing in fear before its wrath. I thought of Giovanni staying to fight for what he believed in, no matter the odds against him or regard for the outcome. I thought of them all facing the coming storm, and I burned with shame that I was fleeing for safety and leaving them behind.

I thought of Graciella and Madeleine, vain silly women, sleeping somewhere in their staterooms on
Carpe Diem
; of Anjuli trading secrets to save her skin; Abdul’s strong arms and the web of his caresses, which would protect me until he became bored and set me aside for a new paramour. I told myself none of it mattered; I would do what I had to do, pay whatever price, to find my way back to my family. This was who I’d become.

I thought of Leah, so wise and brave as she defended the last of our tribe. Then, there was Mama, gun hand steady, protecting Sloan from rape in the diner in the backwoods. Again, of Mama, so young, but with her head held high, as she boarded that bus to find a new life in New York, leaving the broken promises and betrayed dreams behind her. Their blood flowed in my veins, though lately I’d watered mine down with whiskey. I burned with shame, but at the same time, I longed for a drink. I could almost taste it on my tongue and feel the first warm glow of forgetfulness spreading outward from my core.

I groped for the flashlight on the nightstand and searched the stateroom for my purse. There were sleeping pills in the bag. I had to escape all these memories and the guilt they stirred inside. I would swallow a couple of pills and find oblivion. “Everything will be all right once I’m reunited with my family in Oregon. Just get through these next days and weeks,” I told myself. “Eventually the memories and nightmares will fade.

My hands were shaking as I tried to open the zipper on my bag. It was stuck. I finally jerked it open, and the bag fell from my hands, scattering contents across the carpet. I scrabbled on hands and knees in the dim cabin, searching for the bottle of pills in the faint beam of the flashlight. I found my house keys and passport, and then finally found the pills wedged in a corner by the bed. As my hand closed around the smooth bottle of pills, I brushed something cold and plastic; the screen shone with a faint luminous light. My iPhone; I’d forgotten it was in the bottom of my bag. I hadn’t been able to get a signal in a week. I laid the flashlight and pill bottle on the nightstand and sat back against the wall with the cell phone in hand.

I knew I’d turned it off to save the battery the last time I checked for a signal a couple of days ago. Somehow, the “on” button must have been pressed when the phone bounced across the floor.

The battery was still charged, and there was a new text message; the date was yesterday. I tried to open it up, but there was no signal here on the lower decks of the
Carpe Diem
. I would have to go up to see who it was from. My head throbbed from the after-effects of the whiskey. I looked at the bed with longing. I was tired down to my very bones. I would deal with the message later on, when I woke up. I grabbed the bottle of oblivion and went into the bathroom.

I stuffed a towel into the porthole, assuming its thickness would be enough to block out any tell-tale beams leaking into the night from the yacht, and turned on the lights around the mirror. I almost didn’t recognize myself; I had lost weight these last weeks. Dark circles bloomed under my eyes, and my hair looked as if a couple of cats had been cage fighting in the wild mess of tangled knots and curls.

I shook a pill into the palm of my hand and then added another one. If I could sleep the next twenty-four hours or until we reached port in Santa Margarita, that would be just fine. I filled a glass with water and popped the first pill in my mouth. I could feel it start to dissolve on my tongue. I knew the sweet tides would claim me soon.

A vision of Buddy, teeth bared, protecting Julian, flashed before my eyes; then Mama, standing tall and putting two shots in the shoulder and thigh of the backwoods rapist. I spat the pill out in the sink and splashed cold water on my face, trying to scrub away the visions.

I’d ascend to the upper deck and see who the damned message was from. If nothing else, I could grab the decanter of whiskey on my way back. The pills and the whiskey should be enough to knock me out and keep the dreams at bay. Just the thought of sinking down into the sweet bliss of forgetfulness made me hurry.