But lots of business associates, you know. God, I’m not looking forward
to the chore.”
“I have my cellular phone in the car,” Ben said. “I can help you call
them. We’ll get it done fast.”
She smiled vaguely. “And just how would that lookthe wife’s boyfriend
helping her contact the bereaved?”
“They don’t have to know who I am. I’ll just say I’m a friend of the
family.”
“Since I’m all that’s left of the family,” Rachael said, “I guess that
wouldn’t be a lie. You’re my best friend in the world, Benny.”
“More than just a friend.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Much more, I hope” “I hope,” she said.
She kissed him lightly and, for a moment, rested her head upon his
shoulder.
They contacted all of Eric’s friends and business associates by
eight-thirty, at which time Rachael expressed surprise that she was
hungry. “After a day like this and everything that I saw.. . isn’t it
sort of hard-boiled of me to have an appetite?”
“Not at all,” Ben said gently. “Life goes on, babe. The living have
got to live. Fact is, I read somewhere that witnesses to sudden and
violent death usually experience a sharp increase in all their appetites
during the days and weeks that follow.”
“Proving to themselves that they’re alive.”
“Trumpeting it.”
She said, “I can’t offer much of a dinner, I’m afraid.
I have the makings of a salad. And we could cook up a pot of rigatoni,
open a jar of Ragu’ sauce.
“A veritable feast fit for a king.”
She brought the pistol with her to the kitchen and put it down on the
counter near the microwave oven.
She had closed the Levolor blinds. Tight. Ben liked the view from
those rear windows-the lushly planted backyard with its azalea beds and
leafy Indian laurels, the property wall that was completely covered by a
riotously bright tangle of red and yellow bougainvilleaand he reached
for the control rod to open the slats.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I want.. . the privacy.”
“No one can see in from the yard. It’s walled and gated.”
“Please.”
He left the blinds as she wanted them.
“What are you afraid of’ Rachael?”
“Afraid? But I’m not.”
“The gun?”
“I told you-l didn’t know who was at the door, and since it’s been such
an upsetting day..
“Now you know it was me at the door.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t need a gun to deal with me. Just the promise of another
kiss or two will keep me in line.”
She smiled. “I guess I should put it back in the bedroom where it
belongs. Does it make you nervous?”
“No. But I-” “I’ll put it away as soon as we’ve got dinner cooking,”
she said, but there was a tone in her voice that made her statement seem
less like a promise than a delaying tactic.
Intrigued and somewhat uneasy, he opted for diplomacy and said no more
for the moment.
She put a big pot of water on the stove to boil while he emptied the jar
of Ragti into a smaller pot. Together, they chopped lettuce, celery,
tomatoes, onions, and black olives for the salad.
They talked as they worked, primarily about Italian food. Their
conversation was not quite as fluid and natural as usual, perhaps
because they were trying too hard to be lighthearted and to put all
thoughts of death aside.
Rachael mostly kept her eyes on the vegetables as she prepared them,
bringing her characteristically effortless concentration to the task,
rendering each rib of celery into slices that were all precisely the
same width, as if symmetry were a vital element in a successful salad
and would enhance the taste.
Distracted by her beauty, Ben looked at her as much as at the culinary
work before him. She was almost thirty, appeared to be twenty, yet had
the elegance and poise of a grande dame who’d had a long lifetime in
which to learn the angles and aflitudes of perfect gracefulness.
He never grew tired of looking at her. It wasn’t just that she excited
him. By some magic that he could not understand, the sight of her also
relaxed him and made him feel that all was right with the world and that