She hesitates before answering. “Actually, I’m downtown at the Jefferson.”
I try to make sense of this. The Jefferson is the grandest hotel in the city, and I don’t know why she would go to a hotel at all, much less an elegant, expensive one. Tears sting my
eyes and I force them back, clearing my throat, shoving down
hurt. “Oh,” is all I say. “Well, that’s good. I guess Jo’s with you at the hotel, then.”
“No, with her family. Look, I just checked in. I’ve got a room for you. Why don’t I come get you?”
“A hotel’s probably not a good idea right now.” She thought of me and wants me with her. I feel a little better. “Anna’s asked me to stay with her. In light of everything, I think it’s best for me to go on to her house. She’s invited you, too. But I guess you’re settled.”
“How did Anna know?” Lucy inquires. “She hear about it on the news?”
Since the attempt on my life happened at a very late hour, it won’t be in the newspapers until tomorrow morning. But I expect there has been a storm of news breaks over the radio and on television. I don’t know how Anna knew, now that I think about it. Lucy says she needs to stay put but will try to drop by later tonight. We hang up.
“The media finds out you’re in a hotel, that’s all you need. They’ll be behind every bush,” Marino says with a hard frown, looking like hell. “Where’s Lucy staying?”
I repeat what she told me and almost wish I hadn’t talked to her. All it did was make me feel worse. Trapped, I feel trapped, as if I am inside a diving bell a thousand feet under the sea, detached, light-headed, the world beyond me suddenly unrecognizable and surreal. I am numb yet every nerve is on fire.
“The Jefferson?” Marino is saying. “You gotta be kidding! She win the lottery or something? She not worried about the media finding her, too? What the shit’s gotten into her?”
I resume packing. I can’t answer his questions. I am so tired of questions.
“And she ain’t at Jo’s house. Huh,” he goes on, “that’s interesting. Huh. Never thought that would last.” He yawns loudly and rubs his thick-featured, stubbly face as he watches me drape suits over a chair, continuing to pick out clothes for the office. To give Marino credit, he has tried to be even-tempered, even considerate, since I got home from the hospital. Decent behavior is difficult for him given the best of
circumstances, which certainly are not the ones he finds himself in at present. He is strung out, sleep-deprived and fueled by caffeine and junk food, and I won’t allow him to smoke inside my house. It was simply a matter of time before his self-control began to erode and he stepped back into his rude, big-mouthed character. I witness the metamorphosis and am strangely relieved by it. I am desperate for things familiar, no matter how unpleasant. Marino starts talking about what Lucy did last night when she pulled up in front of the house and discovered Jean-Baptiste Chandonne and me in my snowy front yard.
“Hey, it’s not that I blame her for wanting to blow the squirrel’s brains out,” Marino gives me his commentary. “But that’s where your training’s got to come in. Don’t matter if it’s your aunt or your kid involved, you got to do what you’re trained to do, and she didn’t. She sure as hell didn’t. What she did was go ape-shit.”
“I’ve seen you go ape-shit a few times in your life,” I remind him.
“Well, it’s my personal opinion they never should have thrown her into that undercover work down there in Miami.” Lucy is assigned to the Miami field office and is here for the holidays, among other reasons. “Sometimes people get too close to the bad guys and start identifying with them. Lucy’s in a kill mode. She’s gotten trigger-happy, Doc.”
“That’s not fair.” I realize I have packed too many pairs of shoes. “Tell me what you would have done if you’d gotten to my house first instead of her.” I stop what I am doing and look at him.