“All this long hair he leaves.”
I wondered if his genitalia were stunted, and if this might have something to do with why he undressed his victims only from the waist up. Perhaps to see normal adult female genitalia was’to remind him of his own inadequacy as a male. I could only imagine his humiliation, his rage. It was typical for parents to shun a hypertrichotic infant at birth, especially if they were like the powerful, proud Chandonnes on the rich, exclusive he Saint-Louis.
I imagined this tormented son, this espéce de sale gorille, living in a dark space inside his family’s centuriesold home and going out only at night. Criminal cartel or not, a wealthy family with a respected name might not want the world to know he was their son.
“There’s always the hope record checks can be run in France to see if there have been any babies born with this condition,” I said. “That shouldn’t be hard to track, since hypertrichosis is so rare. Only one in a billion people, or something like that.”
“There will be no records,” Stvan matter-of-factly stated.
I believed her. His family would have made certain of that. Close to noon, I left Dr. Stvan with fear in my heart and ill-gotten-evidence in my briefcase. I went out through the back of the building, where vans with curtains in the windows waited for their next sad journey. A man and a woman in the drab clothing of sparrows waited on a black bench against the old brick wall. He held his hat in his hand, staring down at the ground. She looked up at me, her face pinched by grief.
I walked very fast on cobblestones along the Seine as terrible images came to me. I imagined his hideous face flashing out of the dark when a woman opened her door to him. I imagined him wandering like a nocturnal beast, selecting and stalking until he struck and savaged again and again. His revenge in life was to make his victims look at him. His power was their terror.
I stopped and scanned. Cars were relentless and fast. I felt dazed as traffic roared and kicked grit in my face, and I had no idea how I was going to get a taxi. There was no place for one to pull over. Side streets I passed were empty of traffic and I saw no hope of a taxi along any of them, either.
I began to get a panic attack. I fled back up stone steps, back into the park, and sat on a bench, catching my breath while the scent of death continued to drift through flowers and trees. I closed my eyes and turned my face up to the winter sun, waiting for my heart to run a little slower while beads of cold sweat slid under my clothes. My hands and feet were numb, my aluminum briefcase hard between my knees.
“You look like you could use a friend.” Jay Talley’s voice suddenly sounded above me.
I jumped and gasped.
“I’m sorry,” he softly said as he sat next to me. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked as thoughts madly clashed, muddy and bloody and slamming into one another like foot soldiers on a battlefield.
“Didn’t I tell you we’d look after you?”
He unbuttoned his tobacco-colored cashmere overcoat and slipped out a pack of cigarettes from an inside pocket. He lit one for each of us.
“You also said it was too dangerous for any of you to show up here,” I said accusatorially. “So I go in and do my dirty work, and here you are, sitting in the damn park right at the Institut’s damn front door.”
I angrily blew out smoke and got to my feet. I grabbed my briefcase.
“Just what kind of game are you playing with me?” I asked him.
He dipped into another pocket and pulled out a cellular phone.
“I thought you might need a ride,” he said. “I’m not playing a game. Let’s go.”
He pressed numbers on his phone and said something in French to whoever was at the other end.