“I have a feeling he knows you don’t have it,” he said. “Problem is, it doesn’t matter. Yes, he wants it. And he’ll get it eventually, has to unless it’s lost. He’s the executor of her estate.”
“That’s cozy,” I said.
“I just know he’s up to something.” He seemed to be talking to himself.
“Another one of his publicity schemes?” I offered a bit too breezily.
He sipped his wine.
“I can’t imagine what,” I went on. “Not anything involving me.”
“I can imagine it,” he said seriously.
“Then please spell it out,” I said.
He did. “Headline: ‘Chief Medical Examiner Refuses to Release Controversial Manuscript.’ ”
I laughed. “That’s ridiculous!”
He didn’t smile. “Think about it. A controversial autobiography written by a reclusive woman who ends up brutally murdered. Then the manuscript disappears and the medical examiner is accused of
stealing it. The damn thing’s disappeared from the morgue. Christ. When the book finally comes out, it will be a runaway bestseller and Hollywood will be fighting over the movie rights.”
“I’m not worried,” I said unconvincingly. “It’s all so farfetched, I can’t imagine it.”
“Sparacino’s a whiz at making something out of nothing, Kay,” he warned. “I just don’t want you ending up like Leon Jones.”
He looked around for the waiter, his eyes freezing in the direction of the front door. Quickly looking down at his half-eaten prime rib, he mumbled, “Oh, shit.”
It took every bit of my self-restraint not to turn around. I didn’t look up or act the least bit aware until the big man was at our table.
“Well, hello, Mark. Thought I might find you here.”
He was a soft-spoken man in his late fifties or early sixties, with a fleshy face made hard by small eyes as blue as they were lacking in warmth. Flushed, he was breathing hard, as if the exertion of merely carrying his formidable weight strained every cell in his body.
“On a whim, I decided to wander by and offer you a drink, old boy.”
Unbuttoning his cashmere coat, he turned to me, offering his hand and a smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Robert Sparacino.”
“Kay Scarpetta,” I said with surprising poise.
5
Somehow we had managed to drink liqueur with Sparacino for an hour. It was awful. He acted as if I were a stranger. But he knew who I was, and I was sure the encounter hadn’t been accidental. In a city the size of New York, how could it have been accidental?
“You sure there’s no way he knew I was coming?” I asked.
“I don’t see how,” Mark said.
I could feel the urgency in his fingertips as he steered me right on to Fifty-fifth Street. Carnegie Hall was empty, a few people strolling past on the sidewalk. It was getting close to one A.M., and my thoughts were floating in alcohol, nerves taut.
Sparacino had gotten more animated and obsequious with each Grand Marnier until he was finally slurring his words.
“He doesn’t miss a trick. You think he’s soused and won’t remember a thing in the morning. Hell, he’s on red alert even when he’s sound asleep.”
“You’re not making me feel any better,” I said.
We headed straight for the elevator, where we rode up in self-conscious silence, watching the floor light blink from number to number. Our feet were quiet on the carpeted hallway. Hoping my bag was there, I was relieved to see it on the bed when I stepped inside my room.
“Are you nearby?” I asked.
“A couple doors down.” His eyes were darting around. “You going to offer me a nightcap?”
“I didn’t bring anything …”
“There’s a bar fully stocked. Take my word for it,” he said.
We needed another drink like a hole in the head.
“What’s Sparacino going to do?” I asked.
The “bar” was a small refrigerator filled with beer, wine, and jigger-sized bottles.
“He sees us together,” I added. “What’s going to happen?”
“Depends on what I tell him,” Mark said.
I handed him a plastic cup of Scotch. “Let me ask it this way. What are you planning to tell him, Mark?”
“A lie.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed.