Styx (25 page)

“If it were up to me, I'd at least try to restore the city—the Queen of the Seaside Resorts—to its former glory. Yes, the city government took over the Thermae Palace, but the renovations they promised haven't even begun. We have to remember that we were once the most important city in Belgium, and of Leopold II's empire.”

“Yeah, well, look what
he
accomplished.”

Leopold II had founded the laughably misnamed Congo Free State and conscripted its population as his own personal mercenary army.

Delvaux spun back to face him, enraged.

Delacroix had to force himself not to add coal to the fire. This elite snob was hot enough already.

“I don't know what that's supposed to mean,” Delvaux snapped. “But I'm telling you this city used to
matter
in the world. The sea, the beach, James Ensor's masks.”

“And now you think those masks should be ripped away, so the world can—”

“I'm not sure what you're implying.”

“I'm asking
you
what
you're
implying, sir.”

“I think we need to look back to the days of the old bourgeoisie,
when there was still a ruling class and we had some standing in the world. Would that be so bad? I don't think so. But I thought you wanted to talk about Surrealism.”

“Well, as long as we've moved away from that subject,” said Delacroix without a moment's hesitation, “where were you last night between ten
PM
and two
AM
?”

Paul Delvaux was too stunned to reply.

Could be a pose
, Delacroix thought. Actually, he'd surprised himself a bit with the boldness of the question. This was the first time he'd ever met Delvaux, and they were in the man's own home. Asking for an alibi was practically an accusation, and a step beyond the bounds of propriety. But he knew that Raphael Styx was racing to beat some supernatural deadline, and there was no time to waste on polite beating around the bush.

“I refuse to answer,” said Delvaux, “and I believe this conversation is at an end. If there's anything more you need to know about Surrealism, I recommend the public library. If you have questions about where I was last night, I'll give you the number of my attorney.”

“I'm just asking, sir, same as I could ask you where you were a week ago or—”

“And I'm telling you that it's time for you to go.”

“Fine. I'm not accusing you of anything, Mr. Delvaux, but this is a homicide investigation, and I'm going to need you to account for your whereabouts at the time of each of the murders.”

Delvaux sputtered, “This is—”

He seemed unable to find the word he was searching for, and Delacroix provided it: “Surreal?”

“Precisely!”

“I understand. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that you report to the station for further questioning.”

Delacroix couldn't really see the retired banker slashing the organs
from a dead body in his expensively casual haute couture blazer and €100 manicure, but that was just the point: anything was possible in the world of Surrealism.

And what he
could
see, as he allowed the man to usher him briskly through the living room toward the elevator, was a pair of dark-green Crocs shoved almost out of sight beneath the leather sofa. They didn't seem to fit Delvaux's idea of style. Delacroix only saw them for a second, but it looked like the soles were caked with dried sand.

“You'll get your answers.” Delvaux bit each word off individually. “All in good time. But now you need to be on your way, or I'll—”

“You'll what, sir? Lose your temper?”

“Quite.”

The elevator was halfway to the street when Delacroix realized there was something else of importance he'd seen, perhaps even more interesting than the Crocs.

The locations where the Stuffer's victims had been discovered were all visible from Delvaux's terrace.

The Mu.ZEE, where Reinhilde Debels had been posed in the sculpture garden like the original Delvaux's nude by the railroad tracks, lay to the southwest. The Kapellestraat, where Elisa Wouters was surrounded by early morning shoppers like Ensor's old woman ringed by masks, was directly below. The breakwater, where Madeleine Bohy had been planted on the beach like Magritte's limbless, headless torso, was to the north. And the art academy, where poor Heloise Pignot had, for reasons they had yet to discover, broken several of the Stuffer's patterns, could just be seen in the distance, to the south. Even the cabana where Raphael Styx's bullet-riddled corpse had reanimated was within sight.

You could stroll around that terrace
, Delacroix thought,
and have the whole city under your watchful eye.

Like a sniper.

Raphael Styx did something he should never have dared to do: under cover of darkness, he left his hiding place and returned to the land of the living, cloaked in the camouflage of Joachim Delacroix's ridiculous clothing.

Styx had never felt much need for human companionship. He'd always been satisfied with an inner circle of two: Isabelle and Victor.

Leaning heavily on his stick, he made his way haltingly in the direction of the dunes behind the Milho complex. From the dunes he could observe the back of his own apartment, where his wife and son still lived.

He'd tried to wait for news from Joachim Delacroix but had finally reached the limit of his patience. He needed his family. Just the sight of them would be as restorative as a blood transfusion. And he had to
know how they were dealing with his absence. Had Isabelle already found his note?

He thought back to the early days of their courtship, before they married, before Victor was born. How long had that romantic idyll lasted? Two years? Three? Afterward, all their passion drained gradually away.

From his vantage point in the dunes, he saw her pass before the apartment's back window.

“Isabelle,” he whispered.

Her face was made up, and she wore a black summer dress with an open collar. Was she in mourning? Was this how she would dress for his funeral? Had those arrangements been made?

“Isabelle.”

When was the last time he'd pronounced her name? He sat half-hidden behind a mound of grassy sand, a voyeur stalking his own family.

Victor wasn't in the living room. Where was he? Hiding from the world in the privacy of his bedroom? Or had he gone to a friend's house for the evening? Styx had lost track of what day it was. In death, every day was Sunday. Or Monday, or Tuesday—what difference did it make?

He saw her again. She held something in her hands. A dish? A tray? Christ, he could almost reach out and touch her, she was so close. And so very familiar.

His house. His family. Everything he'd worked for. Tears welled in his eyes, and he wondered how that was even possible in his state.

It was torture to see her. His heart no longer beat, yet he seemed to feel it pounding in his chest.

He lay on his belly to ease the ache in his hip and reached out his four-fingered hand toward her. If he closed one eye—the goatish eye he could barely see out of, anyway—her body fit neatly between his thumb and middle finger, and he could pretend to hold her.

But then a second figure entered the living room.

A man.

Did she have a
date
? So soon? He wasn't even cold and buried, and she had another man in the house? He could barely believe it. The unexpected visitor had his back to the window, but Styx knew at once who it was.

“Delacroix?”

The flashy pink suit, the light-blue cuffs and collar, the nonchalant strut of the sapeur . . .

Perhaps there was something he'd forgotten to ask? Or, no, wait: Perhaps Isabelle had invited him over to show him the mysterious note she'd found? Sure, that was it. He could appreciate her need for a confidant, since the message he'd written was cryptic at best:

My darling, some day you'll realize that death does not exist. I won't just live on figuratively in your memories. Sometimes love can reach across the raging river. I'll be waiting for the moment when I will see you again, in all your . . .

And so on. He couldn't remember it all verbatim. He'd told Delacroix that he'd borrowed some of the language from Lord Byron, but he'd only said that in case the dandy read the letter and wound up thinking Styx had gone soft in his old age. In fact, he'd written every word himself. Maybe he
had
gone soft. The hard-boiled Raphael Styx, reborn as a romantic poet.

Apparently Isabelle had invited the sapeur to dinner. Styx crept around the dune and inched closer to the window. He couldn't see any sign of his note.

“You fucking hypocrite,” he muttered.

They were sitting at the dining table. At
his
table. And they were eating—no, not just eating. They were
dining
. Isabelle had outdone
herself. This wasn't police business. Isabelle was doing most of the talking, and Delacroix listened attentively, nodding at whatever it was she was saying.

Something inside his body stirred. He still had feelings. He was not entirely dead.

He waited until Isabelle carried their empty appetizer plates into the kitchen, then dialed Delacroix's cell.

“Come on, you fuck, pick up!”

From his hiding place, he saw Delacroix take his phone from his pocket and check the screen, saw him turn toward the kitchen and call something out to Isabelle.

“Answer the phone, you cocksucker!”

Delacroix stood up and walked over to the plateglass window. He punched a button.

“Yes?”

“It's me, Styx.”

“I know who it is. What's up?”

Styx swallowed uncomfortably. “Where are you?”

“What difference does it make?”

Just answer the question
, Styx thought.

“At the office?”

“No,” said Delacroix, “it's late.”

“I thought you were coming by.”

“I was going to, but something came up. Maybe I can still make it. Probably not till midnight.”

“I might be asleep by then.”

“Bullshit.” He saw Delacroix cup his free hand around the phone and heard him lower his voice. “You don't sleep, Styx, remember? Listen, I'm hanging up. I'm with people.”

People
, Styx thought. He watched the sapeur stand there at the window.

“I just wanted to know if you got to see Paul Delvaux,” he said quickly.

“Yeah, I was there this afternoon. He's a remarkable man. You could be right. We'll have to keep an eye on him.”

“What happened?”

“He's got some pretty strong ideas,” Delacroix said. “He thinks we all ought to go back in time to when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.”

“Get rid of the social-welfare state, that sort of thing?”

“Well, he didn't say it in so many words, but he came off as pretty radical.”

“What else?”

“Nothing,” said Delacroix. “I'll see you later. Or else tomorrow.”

Isabelle came back from the kitchen, and Delacroix turned to face her. She was carrying a covered serving platter and wearing a pair of matching oven mitts, the last gift Raphael Styx had ever given her—and that was years ago. It was typical of the old Styx: those mitts were like handcuffs, intended to chain her to the stove, though he'd wound up being the one who used them the most, since she rarely cooked.

“I have to go,” said Delacroix.

“No other news?”

“No.”

“What about my note?”

There was a pause.

“I'm working on it,” Delacroix said flatly.

Right, I can see that.
“It's just,” he said, and watched Delacroix return to his place at the table as Isabelle took the lid from the platter. It was obvious he wanted to get off the phone so he could help her. “It's just—”

“Just what?”

“I really miss her,” Styx admitted. “I never thought I'd say something like that, but I do, I miss her. Weird, isn't it? When I was still
alive, I wouldn't give her the time of day, and now that I'm dead, she's all I can think about.”

“I know,” said Delacroix, and Styx saw him as his own mirror image, the living man taking the place of the dead one, at his table, in his house, with his wife, with his son. “Try to think of something else. The case. The Stuffer.”

“I'm not having a lot of luck,” said Styx.
Unlike some people
, he stopped himself from adding.

Truth be told, part of him was glad to see Isabelle freed of him at last. In life, he'd been a ball and chain, dragging her down. Now that he was gone, she would have a chance to float back to the surface.

And she deserved it. Why should she go on being miserable when she had a right to so much more?

“I'll see you,” Delacroix said.