One Way or Another: A Novel (36 page)

Angie stopped. “Sit here for a minute. Rest, next to me.” She pushed Lucy down onto the wet grass. It was cold, they might both die right there of exposure. She said, “Soon, though, we must go on. Your sister will be waiting for you.”

She saw Lucy’s blue eyes were blurred with tears. She was looking at a broken heart; she knew what it felt like. “I promise,” she said, holding Lucy’s hand more gently, “I promise you will be okay, but we first have to get out of here.”

Angie crossed her fingers and held a hand over her heart. She wasn’t sure if she could keep that promise, but if it was a lie, it was in a good cause. She had no idea where anyone was. Not only that, she was in the middle of the dangerous marsh. She had been through this before. She still didn’t know how to put one foot safely in front of the other.

*   *   *

Martha did not know how it happened, just that suddenly there was fire all around. Smoke, thick as dust, choked her. Luckily she’d had emergency services on standby for the party. But where was Lucy? She stood for a moment, panicked, cell phone clutched in her hand. She’d call Marco, he’d know what to do. Of course there was now no phone reception, everything was chaotic, fire trucks, police, suddenly a dog darted past her. Em running straight into the flames. The dog must know somebody was in there, and ever faithful, had gone to rescue. Oh God, it must be Lucy.

Martha took a look at the burning house, measured the distance between the French doors where the glass had blown out and the front door that now swung crazily on its hinges, and knew she’d never make it. Besides, that’s not where Lucy would have gone. She would have been in the kitchen. And of course, that’s where the dog must have gone.

The kitchen was at the back of the house. Another fire truck screeched past her, men already tumbling off it, attaching hoses, running into the blaze. Martha froze where she was, realizing there was nothing she could do. Absolutely nothing.

Marco spotted her, lit by the flames, her shoulders drooping, her head bent. He knew she was crying, knew it must be about Lucy.

He caught up to her, turned her to him, held her, speechless, in his arms. There seemed nothing to say, no words of comfort or promise … yet he knew they must have hope. Hope was what life was about, the future they would have together.

*   *   *

Lucy had not questioned the woman holding her hand as they ran. All her trust was in her. She had only this person, her replica in the black velvet dress, her red hair blowing in the hot wind coming off the fire. She looked at her properly, finally taking her in, the cheekbones sharp as blades under the pale skin, rail-thin in the velvet dress that hung on her frame; her large eyes soft with compassion.

“Who are you?” she asked when they stopped to rest.

“A friend.”

“You mean a friend of Ahmet.”

“That man has no friends. I’m here because he trapped me, imprisoned me. I started this fire to try to escape.…”

Lucy tried to take in what she had just heard; surely nobody imprisoned women, nobody started fires deliberately, where people might be killed. She remembered her sister. “Oh my God, Martha!”

She tried to get up but Angie held her. “Stay here. Do not move an inch.” She rose to her feet, smoothed out the folds of her dress, took off her shoes.

“But where are you going?” Terrified of being left alone, Lucy clutched at her.

“I’m going to get Martha for you,” Angie said. “Trust me.” And she was gone.

The night closed around Lucy. She could
feel
the darkness touching her, offset by the flames from the burning house, tamped down by the fire hoses. This woman with the red hair would get Martha back, she would get her and bring her here, and then Marco would surely come, and Em. Oh my God, the little dog.

65

Marco held Martha in his arms; she was quiet now but he felt her tremble. He wondered where Lucy might be and was afraid of the answer. The burning house sent off intense heat and he walked Martha away, out of range.

“Tell me what to do,” she said. “I have to find Lucy.”

“Of course we’ll find her.” He wished he was as sure of that as he sounded. He decided to leave Martha there and go back to the burning house, search around; Lucy might even be in the crowd of onlookers. Then he realized, of course she would not. Lucy would be looking for them, if she was still alive, that is. He wished he had not had that thought.

“I’m going back,” he said to Martha. “Wait here, do not move an inch.”

He jogged toward the house but was stopped by a couple of firemen. There were half a dozen trucks outside, plus several police cars. He went over to one, explained to the cop that he needed to get through, his young friend might be in there, but was told it was impossible.

“Can you help me?”

He turned his head. He was looking at the red-haired girl he had painted so often. The girl from Fethiye, whose drowning eyes remained in his memory. The girl he had been searching for ever since. Back from the dead.

“They tried to kill me on the boat. They kept me alive to torture me, they meant to kill me, make sure this time. They kept me prisoner here, and I started this fire to escape. I was afraid no one would believe me but now I’ll tell it all to anyone who will listen. This man, this powerful billionaire, is evil and what I am now is testament to that.”

She swept off the red wig and stood, humbly, before him. “It was all a game with them,” she said.

Marco knew they had no time to waste, but first Angie insisted he round up the cops to help.

“The man is dangerous,” Angie said. “He’s angry, and he has a gun. And he has all this swamp in which to bury us without a trace. We need help.”

*   *   *

Lucy lay shivering on the wetlands; she was so cold her teeth could not chatter because her jaw seemed frozen. She could not have moved a foot, not even a finger had she wished.

Ahmet loomed out of the darkness. The burned house cast a rosy glow over him as he stopped and looked at her.

“Well,” he said, with something of the old power back in his voice. “Will you just look who we have here. The fine Miss Lucy. Paragon of virtue and fucker of pizza delivery guys. The girl who is too good for pearls. I guess diamonds are where you’re really at. Girls like you, who think themselves better than other people, always really want diamonds. They expect a fair return for their sexual services, because for sure they don’t get actual sexual gratification, that would be too demanding. Right, my little Lucy? I mean, it’s much more fun to fuck delivery guys and stable lads, that kind of thing, and hold yourself back, pretending virtue when a real man comes on to you, offers you the world.”

He sank to his knees beside her, took off his jacket. She shrank away as he put it round her shoulders. “Can’t say I’m not a gentleman.” He touched her arm as he put the jacket round her, felt how cold she was, the icy chill that comes from exposure, and that he knew meant death if she stayed out here any longer. He stared at her, taking in her exhausted face, the slow tears oozing from beneath her swollen eyelids, the faint tremor that shook the hands he took in his. He could not bear it, he could not lose his Lucy.

He rose to his feet, scooped her in his arms. She weighed nothing, less than any of the precious oil drums that had made him wealthy. Holding her, shivering, close to his chest, he set off back across the swamp, not knowing where it was safe to walk, hoping he’d make it. He had to save Lucy.

*   *   *

The dog appeared out of nowhere. A shrill bark, a quick flash as it ran past then circled back again. It leaped up at Lucy, licked her dangling arm, sniffed, yelped some more. Ahmet knew this was Marco’s dog. Marco was here. He would help Lucy.

Standing there holding her, Ahmet waited until he heard their voices. When he saw their approaching figures silhouetted against the red glow, he took a long last look at his beloved. Then he laid her on the ground, wrapped his jacket over her again, saw that the dog had run off toward the voices. The dog would bring them to her, they would find his girl. He would be gone. And there would be nothing they could do about it. All they’d have would be a story from a strange, crazy red-haired woman who nobody would ever believe. Lucy would not even remember. If she lived, that is.

He remembered the Beretta, removed it from his jacket pocket. He stood for a moment more. He did not kiss Lucy. He never had. He turned, and strode off into the night. He knew where he was heading.

It was Marco who found her, of course. And who glimpsed the man walking away. He knew who it was.

66

Ahmet was back on the MV
Lady Marina,
off the coast of Fethiye, alone on deck gazing out at the deep cobalt sea, lit every now and then by a flicker of phosphorescence. Nature was magical, he thought, and more powerful than man. No one knew that better than he, who had survived storms in the Mediterranean, typhoons off the coast of Japan, and hurricanes in the Pacific. One thing he had no control over was the weather, a fact which, complete narcissist that Ahmet was, annoyed him. He would have paid his fortune, well, a part of it, to any scientist who could give him that power. Meanwhile, what he did have power over was people. “Human beings,” as they liked to be called, though “human,” to him, was a relative term and he himself was of course above all that. He had power; he did what he pleased; took care of life and death any way he chose. Tonight it was Mehitabel’s turn.

He sat for a while longer, contemplating the fact that he had lost out on Angie, that she of all people had been the one to have beaten him, come out the winner in their stupid battle. A battle which should never have started and would not have, if he had only used his fuckin’ head and not become entranced with her.

Was he entranced with Angie? Yes. But he was also entranced with Lucy. There was a difference, though. One was a woman of the world, the other a girl who needed to be taught the ways of the world.

He closed his eyes, sitting there on the deck of his yacht, recalling the feel of Lucy’s warm young neck as he’d clasped the pearls around it, breathing in the scent of her, the heat, the new sweat that layered her skin and a French perfume he knew but could not identify, and which she had sprayed on too lavishly, leaving a drift of it behind wherever she walked. It was a young girl’s mistake, no real woman would have been so unsubtle. Except maybe Angie, but that would have been for a different reason, which was because Angie didn’t know any better; she had not been to the same school of life as Lucy. Angie was from the streets. Like himself. That’s why he liked her. And why, like Mehitabel, she was a danger to him, and also like Mehitabel, had to die.

It had been so easy. He had been sitting here, just like he was now, when he’d heard the rustle of silk behind his chair, the soft tap-tap of Mehitabel’s heels. He turned his head, glanced up at her.

“Are you here to apologize for the disaster?”

“I don’t believe apologies are necessary. We are one, you and I, Ahmet. You know that. Whatever you do or say, I accept. And expect the same from you.”

She’d taken the chair next to him, silk rustling as she sat down. He’d taken her in, seeing the beauty, and the shallowness, her personal pain and her lack of feeling for others. She was right about the two of them being the same, of course.

He stood, reached out a hand, pulled her to her feet again.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he marched her onto the top deck where the white helicopter waited.

“To the airport to pick up my plane. It’s time to go home, Mehitabel.”

She stared, surprised, back at him; they both knew he had no “home” anymore. Marshmallows was gone.

“We’ll go check it out,” he explained, guiding her into the helicopter. “Talk about rebuilding. I know you’ll have some good thoughts on that, I can always trust you to come up with an answer.”

Momentarily pleased, Mehitabel fastened her seat belt. In a short while they were at the small airport, boarding the Cessna. Ahmet took the controls himself. He was a homing pigeon, heading for Marshmallows.

*   *   *

Viewed from the air, through the everlasting mist, the ruined house was merely a collection of broken walls, blackened stone, dangling steel girders. Not a tree. Not a flower. No sign people had ever lived here, partied here, imagined a future here. All there was were the marsh lights and the unexpected caw of a white heron, frightened from its new nest by the roar of the small plane’s engine.

Ahmet dropped into a landing, trundling slowly over the bumpy strip of grass, pulling up at the very end where grass became the deeper green of marsh. He leaned over and unbuckled Mehitabel’s seat belt, then got out and walked around to her side, opened the door, indicated she should also descend. When she did so, he took her hand, looked at her for a long moment, then held it to his lips. She stared back at him, nervous.

“Now, Mehitabel,” he said, “it’s time for a walk.” He took a step back, pulled the gun from his belt, the small Beretta. It fit his palm as though made for it. “Or do you prefer a bullet?”

Mehitabel froze. She had seen death many times, been the cause of it, the instrument. She had never expected it to face her.

“You must have known one day it would end like this,” Ahmet said. “People like us, you and I, we don’t live ordinary lives. And we die by extraordinary means. Now, I suggest you go for a walk. Take off your shoes, you’ll be more comfortable, and the marsh grass will be cool against your bare feet.”

Mehitabel slipped off her shoes. She stood barefoot, terrified, waiting.

“Please be so good as to walk away from me, my dear,” he said. “I would hate it to be any other way. And you’re a woman who knows, anyhow, when you’re beat.”

Mehitabel did. Turning, she began to walk very slowly away. The grass was cool. Wet. The mud clung to her ankles, sucked at her calves, until it was a struggle to move forward. It was very dark ahead of her. The darkness of forever.

She was to die in the swamp but Ahmet put a single bullet into her just to make sure. Then he stood for a long while, waiting, watching as the marshes took her over, and the river rose and then, the great wall of rushing tidal river. No one would ever find Mehitabel. Only her shoes had remained, forgotten where she had stepped out of them, such a short while ago.