“I don’t think he likes it when another man pays attention to you.” –
I didn’t know how to answer that.
He slid the trays into a rack.
“Will you make the phone call?” Talley was relentless. “Please?”
He stood perfectly still in the middle of the cafeteria and touched my shoulder, almost boyishly, as he asked me again.
“I hope Dr. Stvan still speaks English,” I said.
35
When I got Dr. Stvan on the phone, she remembered me without hesitation, which reinforced what Talley had told me. She was expecting my call and wanted to see me.
“I teach at the university tomorrow afternoon,” she told me in English that sounded as if it had not been practiced in a while. “But you can come by in the morning. I get in at eight.”
“Will eight-fifteen give you enough time to get settled?”
“Of course. Is there something I can help you with while you’re in Paris?” she asked in a tone that made me suspect others could hear.
“I’m interested in how your medical examiner system works in France.” I followed her cue.
“Not very well some of the time,” she replied. “We’re near the Gare de Lyon, off the Quai de la Rapée. If you drive yourself, you can park in back where the bodies are received. Otherwise, come in to the front.”
Talley looked up from telephone messages he was sifting through.
“Thanks,” he said when I hung up.
“Where do you suppose Marino has wandered off to?” I asked.
I was getting anxious. I didn’t trust Marino on his own. No doubt he was offending someone.
“There are but so many places he can go,” Talley replied.
We found him downstairs in the lobby, sitting glumly by a potted palm. It seemed he had wandered through too many doors and had locked himself out of every floor. So he had taken the elevator down and hadn’t bothered to ask for assistance from security.
I hadn’t seen him this petulant in a while, and he was so surly on our way back to Paris that I finally moved to another seat and turned my back to him. I closed my eyes and dozed. I wandered to the dining car and bought a Pepsi without asking him if he wanted one. I bought my own pack of cigarettes and offered him nothing.
When we walked into the lobby of our hotel, I finally broke down.
“How about I buy you a drink?” I said.
“I gotta go to my room.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Maybe I should ask you that,” he retorted.
“Marino, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Let’s relax in the bar for a minute and figure out what to do next about this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
“Only thing I’m doing next is going to my room. And it ain’t me who’s gotten us into a mess.”
I let him step inside the elevator alone and watched his stubborn face disappear behind closing brass doors. I climbed the long, curved flights of carpeted stairs and was reminded how bad smoking was for my health. I unlocked my door and was not prepared for what I saw. Cold fear seized me as I walked over to the fax machine and stared at what the. chief medical examiner of Philadelphia, Dr. Harston, had sent. I sat down on the bed, paralyzed.
The lights of the city were bright, the sign for the Grand Marnier distillery was huge and high, and the Café de la Paix was busy below. I collected the paper off the fax machine, my hands shaking, my nerves jumping as if I had some awful disease. I got three Scotches from the minibar and poured all of them at once. I didn’t bother to get ice. I didn’t care if I felt like hell the next day because I knew I was going to anyway. There was a cover sheet from Dr. Harston.
Kay I was wondering when you’d ask. Knew you would when you were ready. Let me know if you have further questions. I’m here for you.
Vance.
Time numbly passed, as if I were catatonic, as I read the medical examiner’s report of initial investigation, the description of Benton’s body, what was left of it, in situ, in the gutted building where he died: Phrases floated past my eyes like ashes on the air. Charred body with bum fractures of the wrists and hands absent and skull shows laminar peeling burn fractures and charred down to muscle over the chest and abdomen.