— Holly!
Holly was dead, of course. He knew that better than anyone else alive, but this was Bali and anything was possible. He began to run after her, his legs and heart pumping. He ran between two trees and then something slammed the back of his head. He pitched forward into blackness.
Who knew her better, said a voice in his head, — you or me?
Perlis opened his eyes and, through the pain dizzying him, saw Jason Bourne.
— You! How did you know I‘d be here?
Bourne smiled. -This is your last stop, Noah. The end of the line.
Perlis glanced around. -That girl-I saw a girl.
— Holly Marie Moreau.
Perlis saw his gun lying on the ground and lunged for it.
Bourne kicked him so hard, the crack of two ribs echoed off the tree branches. Perlis groaned.
— Tell me about Holly.
Perlis stared up at Bourne. He could not keep the grimace of pain off his face, but at least he didn‘t cry out. Then a thought occurred to him.
— You don‘t remember her, do you? Perlis tried to laugh. -Oh, this is too good!
Bourne knelt down beside him. -Whatever I can‘t remember you‘re going to tell me.
— Fuck you!
Now Perlis did cry out as Bourne‘s thumbs pressed hard into his eyeballs.
— Now look! he commanded.
Perlis blinked through eyes streaming with tears and saw the girlshadow climbing down from one of the trees.
— Look at her! Bourne said. -Look what you‘ve made of her.
— Holly? Perlis couldn‘t believe it. Through watering eyes he saw a lithe shape, Holly‘s shape. -That isn‘t Holly. But who else could it be? His heart hammered in his chest.
— What happened? Bourne said. -Tell me about you and Holly.
— I found her wandering around Venice. She was lost, but not in the geographic sense. Perlis heard his own voice thin and attenuated, as if it were being transmitted through a poor cell connection. What was he doing?
That switch had been thrown, the energy flowing out of him, just like these words he‘d kept inside himself for years. -I asked her if she wanted to make some quick money and she said, Why not? She had no idea what she was getting into, but she didn‘t seem to care. She was bored, she needed something new, something different. She wanted her blood to flow again.
— So you‘re saying all you did was give her what she wanted.
— That‘s right! Perlis said. -That‘s all I ever gave anybody.
— You gave Veronica Hart what she wanted?
— She was a Black River operative, she belonged to me.
— Like a head of cattle.
Perlis turned his head away. He was staring at the girlshadow, who stood watching him, as if in judgment of his life. Why should he care? he wondered. He had nothing to be ashamed of. And yet he couldn‘t look away, he couldn‘t rid himself of the notion that the girlshadow was Holly Marie Moreau, that she knew every secret he had chained in the prison of his heart.
— Like Holly.
— What?
— Did Holly belong to you, too?
— She took my money, didn‘t she?
— What did you pay her to do?
— I needed to get close to someone, and I knew I couldn‘t do it myself.
— A man, Bourne said. -A young man.
Perlis nodded. Now that he‘d embarked on this path he seemed to need to keep going. -Jaime Hererra.
— Wait a minute. Don Fernando Hererra‘s son?
— I sent her to London. In those days, he wasn‘t yet working in his father‘s firm. He frequented a club- gambling was a weakness he couldn‘t yet fight. Even though he was underage, he didn‘t look it, and no one challenged his fake ID. Perlis paused for a moment, struggling to breathe. His left arm, underneath his body, moved slightly as he tried to ease his suffering.
— Funny thing, Holly looked so innocent, but she was damn good at what I‘d sent her to do. Within a week she and Jaime were lovers, ten days after that she moved into his flat.
— And then?
Perlis appeared to be having an increasingly difficult time catching his breath. He continued to stare, not at Bourne, but at the girlshadow, which seemed to him all that was left of the world.
