She sounded relieved when she answered.
“Oh, well then...so you’ll send it on?”
“Right away. Thank you so much. Sorry to have called so late. You have a great evening now.”
“We will. And you, as well.”
“I’ll try. Bye-bye.”
“Bye.”
* * *
She sat back for a while, thinking this through. Mary Alice Kearney was already very close to Matanzas Inlet. And Clete Redding wasn’t with her. Was this significant? Where was he, and why was his wife staying with relatives? Did it have to do with the time stream, or was it the mob war that was brewing between the Vizzinis and the Traficantes?
Or was it just a coincidence?
No, it wasn’t a coincidence.
It was a ripple in the time stream, perhaps the same ripple that had carried Mary Alice to a natural death the last time around. But this wasn’t enough to change Selena’s mind. There was too much at risk to be indecisive.
Another element to think about. Where would Clete and Jack Redding be right now? They certainly weren’t in the Alcazar Hotel. And the only person at his beach house seemed to be the maid.
Who would know where they were?
Tessio, or one of his people. They always knew where people were, especially cops they were bribing, or cops who were likely to be trouble, and Clete Redding was both of those things. She picked up the house phone, dialed a private number.
“Yes...Is Tony around?...Tell him Aurelia...No, I can hold...”
And she did, for about a minute.
Selena looked at herself in the mirror as she waited, but not for long, because there was something about mirrors, something she remembered from her childhood. Mirrors were dangerous and it was good to keep them covered, especially when death was coming around. And death was coming around tonight.
“Yes, hi, Tony...No, no I don’t need Tessio right now...Just a favor...It’s about Clete Redding...Yes...I heard...actually, I saw some of it...I was up in the balcony...not as long as Tessio is alive, Little Anthony...He protects Clete and Clete protects the Vizzinis...I can’t get caught up in that, Tony...No I don’t want to hear it...what I need now...No I can have that whenever I want...Do any of your people know where Clete Redding is?...He did?...New Orleans? When?...Okay...At the Monteleone...He’s there now? And the other one?...Yes, the big one, looks like a cowboy?...Both at the Monteleone?...Good, thank you, Tony...No, I’m alone...Thanks that’s very kind of you...but not tonight...”
Selena wanted to sound as if she were breaking off, but she very much wanted him on the line. And he wasn’t going anywhere but into a blind rage.
“Yes, I know... I know you want to pay Redding back for that thing at the bar, Tony, but you can’t go up against him without your father’s permission...yes?”
His voice was a strangled snarl, his pride even more wounded now that he knew that she had seen the whole humiliating confrontation. If she had seen it, so had everyone else in the hotel, and now his manhood was at stake.
“Yes, yes, I know...Actually, he’s only got one weak spot, Tony, that’s his wife, Mary Alice...Actually I do...She’s down the shore below Matanzas Inlet...Rattlesnake Island...I don’t know why...Maybe he sent her away in case this stupid war between you and the Traficantes actually starts...Yes with relatives, the Forrests I think is the name, Frank Forrest or something...Why are you asking?”
She knew why he was asking. It was what she wanted all along.
“No. No! Don’t you go near her, Tony...Your father won’t allow vendetta against wives and kids...Don’t be stupid, Tony. Don’t do anything stupid...”
She listened for a while longer as Tony wound himself up, vendetta and honor and all that manly dago crap, smiling to herself as he got closer to his redline—Tony was an undisciplined hothead and if he ever got control of the Vizzini operation the family would be wiped out in a year—then she said, “Look, I’m not hearing this. I’m not listening to this childish crap. If you have a problem with Clete, then go after Clete, not his poor wife...Yes hurting her would mark him up badly...Maybe you don’t have the balls to go after Clete directly...Oh, you’ll do him next, will you? No, this is horseshit, I’m hanging up...Now...No I don’t want you to come to my room...Goodbye, Tony!”
She put the receiver down harder than she had to, looked at herself in the mirror, smiled again, thinking that had gone just about perfectly, then she looked away again, because mirrors were dangerous.
So, Clete and Jack Redding were in New Orleans. There was only one reason why they would have gone to New Orleans, and sooner or later they would find out about her apartment at the Pontalba, and what her real name was, and everything that had happened there, including what that monstrous thing called Philomena had done, and that was something she could not allow to happen.
She got up and poured herself the last of the Chianti and looked out the window onto the central square. A bunch of kids were pretending to ride the old Spanish cannon in the middle of the park, and over by the old fort fireworks were lighting up the underside of a bank of clouds.
Music was coming from somewhere, a woman with a rough but haunting voice and a strong French accent, singing “Je Suis Seule Ce Soir” with a slow sad piano keeping her company.
I am alone tonight.
Yes, Selena was certainly alone.
She turned away and picked up the phone.
“Hello, this is Miss DiSantis...Yes, I’m fine thank you...No, not yet...But I do have request. I’m going to need a car tomorrow. Can you do that?...Yes. Good. Then done. I will be out front at noon. Have it at the gates...No, I will not need a driver.”
you’re not from around here are you
Walking back to the Monteleone, weaving through the chattering crowds, passing open bars and jazz clubs where the music flared out at them like blue flames, the steamy heat of the delta night and the scents and sounds of the Old Quarter all around them, Jack and Clete moved in a companionable silence.
Clete was a little ahead of Jack, a big broad bull of a man, threading his way through the crowds, moving and shifting, light and nimble, a man in the prime of his life, and Jack felt a strong rush of love for the man, and with it came the guilt, the panic, the fact that he had no idea what he was supposed to do, or not do, about Anson Freitag and Mary Alice Redding.
They passed a newsstand where the paper—the Times-Picayune—was shouting in bold black print above the fold about something President Eisenhower was doing, and then below the fold something more about the new Richard Diamond series, and then on the sidebar something about a new toy by Wham-O called a Frisbee and a column on Abdel Nasser—and all he could think about was “what do I say?”
They got to the hotel, and it wasn’t until they were riding up to their rooms that he decided to say this: “Look, Clete, I can’t say much—”
“Well, you been thinking it all along Royal, so what the hell is it?”
“You can tell?”
Clete shook his head, a bull shaking off the picadors.
“Yes of course. And you have something to tell me. About Mary Alice.”
Jack was silent.
Clete shook his head.
“No shutting up, kid. You know something. What is it?”
The elevator rose up, grinding and rattling. The air got colder. The music from the Carousel Bar grew faint. Clete was looking at Jack.
“Clete...”
“Look, ever since you got here, whenever I mention Mary Alice, you get a look on your face like a guy who just backed over his dog. You got something to say about her, and I want to hear it. So, for fuck’s sake, Jack. Tell me what it is.”
Jack sighed, hunted for the words.
“Don’t try to honeysuckle it, kid. What the fuck is it?”
“Okay. All right. On Friday, the thirtieth...”
“Don’t let Mary Alice drive.”
Clete took that in.
“Okay. She doesn’t drive. Drive when?”
“On Friday. On the thirtieth of August.”
Clete looked at his grandson.
“Something happens then?”
“Yes.”
“Something bad?”
“Yes.”
“What is it? It happens in a car? Like an accident or something?”
“Yes.”
“Jeez, kid. This is like talking to the Magic 8-Ball! Reply hazy. Ask again later.”
Clete turned on him, backed him into a corner.
“Jack, so help me fucking God if you know something about Mary Alice you had better goddamn tell me now because if she dies and you could have stopped it...”
He stepped back, releasing Jack’s space, his face changing into sorrow.
“She can’t die, Jack. If you know something, anything, you have to tell me. Fuck the Rules. FUCK the Rules. Tell me. If you don’t tell me and she dies, I swear I will...”
“What? Kill me?”
Clete backed away, seemed to shrink.
“No. Of course not. No, no, but, Jack, she’s the world to me. The world. What do you know? Tell me. What do you know?”
The elevator came to their floor, ground to a rusty halt. The doors opened with an asthmatic wheeze, ending in a grating clank. They stepped out into the hall, walked toward their rooms.
“I don’t really know anything. It’s all just a guess. But I think it would be a good idea to keep her out of a car from now until next Saturday. Don’t let her drive.”
Clete took that in.
And then he said something surprising.
“If you tell me this, and I act on it, what does it do to the future?”
“How do you mean that?”
“You lost your wife and kid.”
“Yes. I did.”
“But not yet, right? It happens in the future, right? Hasn’t happened yet? Right now, in this time, your wife isn’t born, your kid isn’t born. So if you save Mary Alice...”
“Yeah?”
“Do you pay a price?”
Jack wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want Clete to think about that.
“No. I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Why? What can you do about it here? Do you know how your wife dies?”
“Yes. I do.”
“And is there something you can do about that here, in this time?”
“Yes. There is.”
“What is it?”
Jack was quiet for a time.
“I know who kills her.”
“Who?”
“Friday. The kid at the bar in the Alcazar Hotel.”
“How does he kill her?”
“He grows up, gets to be a famous doctor, retires in his eighties, and on one Christmas Eve sixty fucking years from now, he loses control of his Benz and hits my wife and kid head-on in the middle of the Matanzas Bridge—”
“There’s no bridge over Matanzas Inlet—”
“There will be. And he hits her head-on and kills them both.”
Clete stood back, dropped his hands, went inward and was silent for a while. From down the hall came the sound of a song, something very French, a woman singing about her being alone this evening. “Fuck, kid. What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I know if I kill the kid now a whole lot of people whom he might have saved will die.”
“So the thing you’re worrying about is how many lives are your wife and kid worth? If you kill Friday and he never gets to be this famous doctor?”
“Yeah.”
“And the same thing goes for Mary Alice?”
“Clete. I don’t know. And if I do, so be it.”
Clete took that in.
They were at his door.
“Okay. I get that. I can’t do any other. I have to save her if I can. No matter what happens in the future. The cost to you. You understand that?”
“Yes. I do. And you’re right.”
“I am? You say that I am?”
“Yes, Clete. I say you are right.”
A long pause, while Clete looked into him and considered him.
“Yes, you mean it. Thank you. I will call Mary Alice tonight. She’s safe until Friday. She’s at the Forrests’ down at Rattlesnake Island. Declan is down there too. I’ll tell her to stay there.”
“And not get in a car.”
“Yes. I’ll call her right now.”
* * *
And he did.
But the line was busy.
So he lay down on the bed, in his suit, tired and troubled, closed his eyes and tried to calm his fevered mind.
He thought about Jack, and the strange events that had brought him to this place. He thought about Mary Alice, and how much he loved her.
He sat up, tried the number again.
This time it rang and rang and no one answered. He looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. The Forrests were nice people, but old and frail. He remembered that they sometimes turned the ringers down when they went to bed. And they went to bed damn early. He pressed the cradle hook, dialed again, got the same thing. They had definitely packed it in for the night.
He lay there, feeling the Dom Pérignon and the heavy meal, closed his eyes and listened to the music out on Royal Street...someone singing, “I went down to St. James Infirmary,” in a rasping pain-filled voice...and the scent of jasmine drifted in through his open windows...
A riverboat wheezed out a long foghorn farewell as it churned its way out into the Mississippi...and the night came down slow and deep and easy as it does in the delta...
...and the music floated in on the night wind off Lake Pontchartrain, and his eyes closed...opened...and closed...
And then, being a cop, five minutes later, he snapped awake, worried sick. If he couldn’t reach the Forrests, he could sure as hell have the Forrests reached. He sat up, got on the phones, dialed the duty desk back in Jacksonville.
“Yeah this is Detective Clete Redding, I’m with Jacksonville Robbery Homicide...Yeah, Shield Number 2355...Yeah well call Beau Short at the HQ—here’s his home number go wake him up...”
A silence...somebody got through to someone.
“Yes, we got that, what would you like us to do, Detective Redding?”
“I have an address under threat. It’s 77 Florala Parkway...Yes, Rattlesnake Island, one mile south of Matanzas Inlet... I’d like a unit there...No, not a County car. I want one of ours. This is a cop family matter...Yes, right now. As soon as possible...Yes...I’m good for the overtime okay...I’m Detective Clete Redding, Shield Number 2355—I’m with Robbery Homicide in Jacksonville...Yes thank you...I need a car on that driveway at 77 Florala Parkway...Frank and Helen Forrest...Yes...Yes as soon as you can get one there...No right now...Why the fuck not?”
He listened, with rapidly diminishing patience, to a lot of horseshit bureaucratic chatter, and then he cut back in:
“So fucking find one!...Roll one out of motor pool! Reassign a traffic car!...Okay, okay I get it. I fucking get it.”
He took a deep breath, getting his temper under control.
“Okay yes, yes, if tomorrow is the best you can do, which is fucking horseshit, by the way, then do that...Call the County sheriff guys then, and get them to get out to that address right now, get them to cover that address until you can get one of our own cars out there in the morning.”
He listened as the duty officer said he’d get right on to Flagler County and see that they got a sheriff’s car out there ASAP.
“Okay, good, thanks, and remember, when the County car gets there, nobody gets in...nobody gets out. Okay?...Yes. Badge 2355...Okay...Good. Make sure this happen
s. Make sure a Flagler County car gets there tonight, within the hour. Because it’s important, yes?...Yes...Life-and-death. Thank you.”
* * *
At a quarter past midnight, the knock Jack had been waiting for came, a gentle three-by-three, and he had the door open before it ended. Annabelle was there, in the same pale green sundress, but with a lace shawl to cover her, because the evening was cooling.
Jack stepped away, opening the room to her, and she came in, bringing the scent of bergamot with her. She stopped in the middle of the room—a very nice room, in blues and reds, with a Juliet balcony, framed by satin curtains in blue and gold, open to the square...the sound of “St. James Infirmary” drifting in on the evening wind... Jack stayed back, let her take in the room.
She turned to him, dropped the shawl and came to him, put a finger on his lips, looked up at him—she was Pandora at that moment and it made him dizzy as he took her in—opened herself to him with a delicate but searching kiss...her tongue flickering like pink fire... She moved into him and he lifted her... There was a bed, and they found it and there they opened each other, as lovers do.
* * *
On his back, watching the lights play on the ceiling, Jack turned to Annabelle, touched her naked belly, kissed her nipples, one and then the other, and then back again, as she rose up to his lips, and then he pulled her in close, as if she were the last flight out of Lisbon.
“So...”
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
Jack lifted up, reached for what was left of the champagne, held a glass before her. He had also ordered two chocolate parfaits, apparently her favorite dessert, which she had shared with him in several unique ways, and which she enjoyed with the same erotic intensity that she had shown at The Court of the Two Sisters.
She sat up, lifting the sheet to cover her breasts, as women will when they intend to be heard instead of desired, took the warm glass and sipped it, her eyes lowered, thinking what to say.
Jack, who was not a boy, knew when to be quiet, and he waited for what was coming.
* * *
“I need to know about the records,” she said, after a long silence.
The Shimmer Page 20
