by Brian Hodge
Why not a hotel, she had countered. He didn’t like American hotels, was Mullavey’s answer. Easier than saying that, given the circumstances of Faconde’s entry into the country, they wanted to house him where they could keep an eye on him. One public indiscretion — to which his ego was occasionally prone — and his lack of a visa could cause serious problems in a ripple effect.
The bedroom light winked out behind Mullavey as he paced down the hall. Evelyn turning in for the night; he could hear the gentle familiar sounds of her settling into her twin bed. He would often lie in his own, before drifting off, listen to her breathing slow into a deep, even rhythm. A comfort to him, much as when he’d been a small boy, forsaking his own room to curl asleep just outside his parents’ bedroom, listening to their slumbering breath to make sure nothing happened to one or the other.
Evelyn. He supposed he couldn’t have expected her not to view Faconde’s presence with eventual misgivings. She was a different woman than she’d been years ago, no longer accepting everything from him at face value. Such wistful nostalgia for those days, when a wife didn’t question her husband’s business or associates. A natural side effect of growing older, perhaps. In his estimation it was younger women for whom love was quite enough, and this was right and proper. The more years went by, the more prolonged examinations of your life a woman wanted. Demanded. It was tiring.
Hallways, dim corridor lamps, left and right turns that took him to the other wing. The door to Faconde’s guest room — the finest and largest, only for the most special guests — was closed, and Mullavey stood outside a moment. Listening.
He wasn’t alone in there, that quickly became obvious. A man of his bulk, the squeak of bedsprings could be quite prominent.
Well. Look at it another way. Certainly Luissant Faconde was entitled to a few indulgences under this roof. Mullavey was making an even million off him, as was Nathan. No small pittance going to Eel. And had he kept his head, Ty Larkin would have profited handsomely, as well.
When considering what it must be like having that kind of money to throw around, Mullavey sometimes wondered if he hadn’t been born to the wrong lifestyle. Oh, the corporate life was rich with rewards, but to have been part of a dictatorship, with all its privileges of skimming a national treasury, now there was power.
Luissant Faconde had left Haiti with millions from its treasury during the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s regime in February of 1986. He could do anything he wanted … except clap. That he was outlaying vast cash resources to finance a rather elaborate revenge was testament to the fact that his capacity to hold a grudge merited its legendary proportions.
It was a lot of trouble to go to, even for the loss of an arm.
Mullavey listened to the sounds from behind the door; the grunt, the sigh, the squeak … and there he was, a voyeur of the ear, with longings of his own.
He quietly retired to the end of the hallway, took the stairs down to the row of domestics, their rooms. Laughter from behind a couple doors, the wafting mutter of a television from one, music another, and he passed them by. Going for the far door, and there he stopped.
Mullavey opened it slowly, without knocking. Stood in the doorway, looking in upon the clean, humble little room. She kept it decorated with bright swatches of cloth. A plaster crucifix upon the wall above her bed, pictures of saints here and there. Candles burned, some tall and heavy, others mere stubs, and the room smelled pleasantly of warm wax. And beneath it, of her.
Clarisse LaBonté was already in her bed. Barefoot, and in a long bright dress of loose cotton. Her hair unbound and full, a wild torrent to the middle of her back. She glanced up from the magazine she was looking at. Clarisse liked glamour magazines, and he made sure she had a monthly supply. He’d had a daughter, he knew girls needed to dream.
She never looked surprised when he showed up. Never looked as if she’d been expecting him, either. She merely looked as if she knew him in the moment, completely. Hers was an exotic sensuality that he found both thrilling and terrifying. Clarisse was his conduit to a world he could never know, and a time he had missed.
He sat on the bed, touched her thigh.
“Mrs. Evelyn, she is asleep?”
Mullavey nodded. “Yes.” His trysts with Clarisse while Evelyn was at home were rare, and as such, invariably nocturnal. It was a large house, and Evelyn slept deeply. And he never had to worry about awakening her by leaving or slipping back into the same bed.
“And Mr. Andrew, he is awake. And he comes calling.”
Mr. Andrew. He had always liked that servile intimacy. It was only when he dropped pretense that he could see she had no fear of him, and regarded him with a faint dusting of humor in her eyes. Well, let her. She knew whose hand ruled this house.
“Mr. Andrew has seen his share of troubles today,” Clarisse said, and rose to sit cross-legged on the bed. Back so straight, and never once did she take her gaze from him. “I see it in your eyes.”
Transparent before her — he could no longer recall a time when he hadn’t been. She had arrived at Twin Oaks a child of gangly limbs, had grown into a woman of sublime beauty, languid grace. Her room had been a chamber of carnal escape for four years, ever since she was eighteen, and there had always been something about her gaze that made him feel naked long before he draped his clothes over the back of her chair.
He would never tell her so, but she could coax shame from him almost as easily as she coaxed his seed. Maybe she knew it anyway. Maybe it was the source of her amusement.
Or maybe the source of her pride.
And while Mullavey gently peeled away her dress, he knew it was surely the source of his need.
Chapter 19
Where Fools Dare to Tread
New Orleans again.
Despite its wealth of sultry atmosphere, its flavors and sounds, and its delightful naughtiness, Justin was really starting to dislike this city.
Friday afternoon, he was listening to the whining clatter of a fan perched on the file cabinet. Stirring up stuffy air in this small conference room with no relief. Had the police never heard of oil? He wanted to ask, dared not. Maybe in another time, had he been brought here as a result of his own legal transgressions. Play the smartass, maybe he could crawl under someone’s skin and they’d take a swing, and he could sue for police brutality.
Now? He had walked in of free will, trying to play the part of the good citizen. For all the good it was doing.
“You know how this sounds, don’t you?” the cop was saying. Detective Sergeant Crawford. Fortyish, give or take, and he looked as crisp as a fresh dollar bill. Even his tie looked as if it had been ironed.
“You think I haven’t thought about that?” Justin shifted in his chair. Wooden, and so far he’d been unable to find a single position that remained comfortable. All this squirming, he figured he looked guilty of something, and he’d not even jaywalked since coming to town with April this morning. He pitied the innocent suspect. “I either sound like a nut case, or someone with a grudge against Andrew Jackson Mullavey. Granted, you could find a few people who’d testify to the former, but do you think I’d bring this to you if I didn’t think there was a good reason? Mullavey Foods is one of the biggest clients my employer has. I wouldn’t be shitting in my own nest if I didn’t feel like I had to.”
Crawford steepled his fingers, elbows on the desk. “Look at things for a minute, from my viewpoint.” Ticking off facts one by one on his right hand. “We had a suspect who came from Granvier’s own staff. We got a confession. He still had most of the stuff from the same burglary where the cyanide was taken. He admitted both were lone acts.” Four fingers and counting, and Crawford switched to his left hand, boom, all fingers at once. “The integrity of A. J. Mullavey is beyond reproach. But just forget about him for a second, okay? Forget it’s him. What you’re bringing me is thin enough even if it was somebody I’d never heard of. But you go and point your finger at him with this kind of story? I’m sorry, Mr. Gray…”
<
br /> Justin was beginning to forget about the woes of the chair. More profound discomforts to suffer; he was making a fool of himself. “I didn’t come here empty-handed.” He pointed to the table; the copy he had made of the disk, and the printout. “Two files on that disk don’t belong there. Will you grant me that much?”
Crawford spread his hands, placating. This was like negotiating the price of a used car.
“Suppose I could produce someone who would testify that Mullavey called him and got him, under false pretenses, to search for that disk so he could return it.” Hoping it wouldn’t really come to that. Bring out Todd Whitley, and Mullavey’s lawyers would pick this apart as easily as dissecting a frog. Justin Gray, kidnapper, interrogator who wielded a mean cat. “Would that make a difference?”
Detective Crawford shook his head. “That disk could have been put together anytime, by anybody. It’s not even in Mullavey’s possession, it’s in yours.” He was back to his finger-by-finger tallying again. “You take this to a grand jury, you know what’d happen? You’d get thrown out of court, right on your ass, and you’d still have plenty of time to kill before lunch. And that’s the honest truth.”
Justin argued, and Crawford listened, and for every toehold of fact, or something that didn’t add up, something that at least circumstantially looked damning toward Mullavey, Crawford was right there with a rebuttal. And patience straining at the seams. The bottom line? The Caribe poisonings were a closed case, and there was no reason to reopen it.
Well, hell. He had been hoping to at least find one ear that would be sympathetically intrigued. Home of the deified Andrew Jackson Mullavey or not, wasn’t this New Orleans? Didn’t they love a juicy conspiracy here? Hadn’t Prosecutor Jim Garrison slogged a steep uphill trek for years trying to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald hadn’t been the lone shooter in Dallas?
Crawford thanked him, unfailingly polite. Took the disk and printout, said somebody could possibly do some discreet checking. Thanked him again, ushered him to the hall, and sent him on his way out of NOPD headquarters. Justin set his jaw firm and said little. The whole thing felt like one big brush-off. Patronize the wacko and get him out of your hair.
He was back on South Broad Street in the heart of the city that care supposedly forgot, and wishing he could enjoy it. He returned to the rental car they’d driven away from the airport this morning, consulted his map, then grimly set off for their hotel in the Quarter, on St. Peter.
Justin found the room empty, a note on the bed from April saying she’d gone to the Café du Monde, and to join her as soon as he was back. Brilliant plan, coffee and beignets, he could do with some indulgence about now.
He hoofed it along St. Peter, straight down the center of the Quarter, and the thought of April quickened his steps. She had offered to go with him to the police, but he’d declined, no, no, you’re not involved, in this aspect of it, at least. There was no reason for her to sit there and look like a nut case too. Though she’d have been willing to do it. Weird; she was being an awfully good sport about this lately. All her efforts to dredge up background on Mullavey. The fact that she hadn’t gone bonkers over his still wanting to come forward with this puny cache of evidence, and would not hear of staying behind in Tampa. No judgments over the way he’d logged two days of cramming at Segal/Goldberg, then told his creative director that he was taking a vacation day Friday. Private crisis.
A little agitation on April’s part earlier in the week, when he’d dragged Todd Whitley through their door, unconscious, though he couldn’t really fault her there. And ever since? April Kingston-Gray had been healthy and clear-headed and resolute. Just what the hell was she trying to prove, anyway?
He left St. Peter to cut through Jackson Square, in the shadow of the cathedral. The surrounding plaza was filled with artists and jugglers, musicians and mimes, and people who watched this cheapest show in town. Through the other side, onto Decatur, he passed a row of mule-drawn carriages queued up for tourist rides. If there was anything that looked sadder than a mule wearing a straw hat with flowers, Justin never wanted to see it.
He found April at one of the tables beneath the green-and-white canopy of the Café du Monde, half-empty cup of cafe au lait at her elbow, pencil in hand and sketchpad braced against one raised thigh. A plate with one remaining beignet. Her attention was locked across the street until he drew close.
“Uh oh,” she said. “That’s not a good look. That bad, huh?”
He rolled his eyes and slumped into the chair across from her. “I had more fun when I was arrested. At least then I got the feeling someone was interested in what I had to say.” He gave her a brief rundown on his talk with Detective Crawford. Feeling deflated, tired, very very small. “Nothing’ll happen. He’ll throw that printout away, erase the disk and use it for something else.”
He had brought more duplicates, just in case, and left them at the hotel, but for the life of him couldn’t figure out why.
Backups? Some misguided idealism that he could atone for his role in the success of Magnolia Blossom Coffee Bags and the death of Caribe? What a shallow, petty world for which he had sold his soul. Might as well order his own cup of coffee right now — pay for it out of thirty pieces of silver, let them keep the change.
“It’s nothing you didn’t expect,” April said. “Nothing we didn’t sit at home and think of, ourselves.”
He grunted reluctant agreement. True, they’d sat at their dining table and anticipated nearly every rebuttal Crawford had thrown at him.
“Hey,” April said, and he looked up. “You did the right thing.”
And he smiled, had to. “I love you too.” Justin craned his neck for a peek at her sketchpad. “What are you drawing?”
She aimed a discreet fingernail toward the street, where some stout black guy wailed jazz for the afternoon caffeine crowd, his trumpet case open at his feet to accept contributions from passing patrons of the arts. On paper, April had captured most of him in quick strokes.
“Except sketching and beignets don’t mix,” she said. “This powdered sugar gets all over everything.” Grinning, then, “If we’re ever destitute, we can come someplace like this and I can always do street portraits.”
He smiled. Thought for a moment about home, about career. His failure at the police station aside, how liberating it felt to be away from the office on a workday, again, leaving its responsibilities at his desk like so many swollen leeches. How it would feel to him, walking back in Monday — like surrender, maybe? — and how long would he be able to sustain the charade before coming apart inside?
Justin squeezed her shoulder. “Better keep your pencils sharp.”
April looked him in the eye, free of recrimination. He could have told her anything then, confessed any fear or weakness, and she would have understood. Maybe, finally, they had each overcome the fear that the other would lapse into the old ruts of self-destruction. Maybe, finally, they’d cleared the last of the common ground on which they could build.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “if I’m not what you really wanted for your life.”
He’d worried about this, off and on, ever since the afternoon they had exchanged their vows. That April would someday wake up and see life differently, more clearly, see through him for all he was, all he wasn’t. As if he were an impostor with whom the long term would be impossible, and their feet were on divergent paths after all.
Now, though, more than ever, he felt he could allow the trust, risk the delicate open wounds of heart and soul. One more barrier of guards could fall.
“I wanted someone,” April said, “who wouldn’t let life get too routine for me, ever, but who’d still be there, for all of it. It’s not that complicated … but it is kind of rare.” Her hand slid across the table, locked into his. “I found you. I found what I wanted. I’m lucky.”
He drew the back of her hand up, touched it to his lips. “So you’re not going to be mad that I want to keep pressing this? About Mullavey?”
; “Where, you’ve got someplace else in mind?”
He nodded.
April rolled her eyes, a good-natured sort of apprehension, I’m game if you are. “I expected as much.”
Christophe Granvier lived in the Garden District, in a narrow town house on Chestnut, three stories tall and standing since the 1830s. Small balconies on the upper two floors, with intricate wrought iron railings, and a gabled dormer window set into the tile roof and peering out from the attic. Quiet here, where time was soft and reflective, and there was always a certain peace to be found within its walls.
At least he would still be keeping the house.
Financial ruin had been swift and devastating in its fall upon Carrefour Imports. Those who had sent Dorcilus Fonterelle against him had done their work well. In his personal finances, he had been more fortunate. Carrefour had been incorporated, a lifesaving decision: While the company may have succumbed to bankruptcy, at least his personal assets would remain untouched.
He had lost well over a million dollars in shelf stock from the pulling of Caribe from the stores. Insurance would not cover the loss, as it was considered a voluntary recall. Tens of thousands more had been lost in the produce imports frozen by the FDA, left to spoil in storage. He’d gotten a modicum of payoff out of that, a loss due to government regulation, but even then, the policy held at a ten-thousand-dollar limit.
Legally, he was in the clear regarding criminal liability. As his attorneys had explained, in employer/employee relations, employer liability extended more toward disastrous acts of negligence rather than intentional harm.
Civil liability was a different matter, one for the courts to decide. Already lawsuits in the tens of millions were mounting, filed by the surviving families, charging him with negligence as to safety precautions in the plant, that he had not exercised sufficient safeguards to prevent what happened. While alleging was one thing, proving was another, and this his lawyers felt they had a good chance of beating. Even if they didn’t, insurance would cover the judgments. But they were talking two, three years at minimum before reaching a verdict. The long, labored process of legalities, with hearings and denials, investigations of issues, and depositions, would eat up the months like candy, and all the while, the lawyers’ clocks would be ticking.
