them.
She bumbled to the front of the house, let herself out, and locked the door behind her. When she turned around, she saw a dark figure move suddenly down in the shadows of the gallery. She dropped the equipment case with a clatter as the shape rose tall in front of her.
'Cree?' a voice said.
'Paul!'
'Didn't mean to startle you.' The shadow backed toward the edge of the gallery, where in the better light it resolved into Paul Fitzpatrick. I've been out here for hours. Couldn't reach you at the hotel, so I figured you'd be here. I came by and saw your car out front, but I knew you were probably into some… procedure… and didn't want to be disturbed, so I… I waited.' He chuckled humorlessly. 'I kind of fell asleep. You scared me as much as I must've scared you. Jesus! My pulse is racing!'
'What's going on? Is Lila all right?'
'I talked to her. She's fine. I assume. Nothing's going on. Nothing except I really wanted to see you. As I think must be evident. Man, I'd figured out something intelligent and hip to say, but I'll be goddamned if I can remember what it was!'
Relief flooded through Cree. She retrieved the equipment case and joined him at the edge of the gallery. Closer, she could see he was dressed in jeans and a gray sweatshirt. They stared at each other in the gray-blue streetlight glow. She was close enough to catch his scent, a clean sweaty smell only very slightly augmented with cologne, and she felt the magnetism stirring between them. He looked wide-eyed and unsettled, and Cree guessed she probably looked about the same. She'd had one of the longest, strangest, most difficult days she could remember, yet the prospect of being with Paul was attractive and energizing. The memory of her own cracked face in the mirror came back to her, and the determination to become something other than a ghost. The way he looked gave her a certain courage.
'One question,' she said finally.
'Anything.'
'Do you know anywhere to get something to eat this late? I'm absolutely starved.'
He paused for just a heartbeat. Then he said, 'I know just the place.'
23
Paul's apartment was on the third floor of a Creole-style town house on the far end of the French Quarter. Like the buildings adjoining it on either side, the tall, narrow building had a shabby-looking, flat facade that descended directly from roof to sidewalk, with wrought-iron balconies on the second and third floors. Paul opened a door on the right side and led Cree into a gangway that led straight back into the house. It ended at an interior courtyard, surrounded by high brick walls, open to the sky above and landscaped with flower beds and small trees. Exterior stairs led to galleries on the upper floors. A few scattered windows glowed and gently illuminated the greenery. It was lovely and strange, a tiny private oasis in the middle of the city.
'It's a condo,' Paul told her. 'Just bought the place about four months ago, and I'm doing some fixing up – you'll have to forgive the mess. But the kitchen is done, I can make you something good.'
They went up the wooden staircase. From the third-floor gallery, Cree could look down into Paul's courtyard and the others on either side. This was the face of the French Quarter invisible from the streets, where the real lives of residents were conducted.
Leaning over the railing, Cree noticed a statue at the center of Paul's courtyard, only vaguely visible – a woman's pale form, smooth bare limbs and draped cloth.
'That's Psyche,' Paul explained from behind her. 'When the Realtor first brought me here and I saw her, I knew I had to buy this place. Given that I make my living studying her domain.' She heard him unlock his apartment door.
Psyche, personification of the soul, Cree was thinking. Also the lover of Eros, god of sexual love.
The thought put her suddenly on edge as Paul switched on lights and stood aside to let her into the apartment.
'These old places were mostly left to rot for a long time,' Paul explained, 'and back in the fifties the city was going to tear down pretty much the entire district. But then a bunch of civic-minded people began a movement to restore and preserve them. And thank God. When you get them fixed up, they're like nothing else. Let's start in front.'
He led her through the kitchen to the front by means of a hallway that ran down one side of the apartment. The living room was gorgeous. Ceiling fans spun lazily high above. The streetside wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened to the balcony. Paul's taste in furniture and art was mostly modern, with a few Asian curios here and there, but it went well with the high ceilings, faux-finished moldings, battered but nicely refinished wooden floors, crackled plaster walls. It all came together in a style like nothing Cree had ever seen: not quite a Parisian apartment, or a Greenwich Village loft, or an antebellum Deep South parlor, but rather a little of each.
When Cree stopped to tap a knuckle on a xylophonelike instrument, Paul explained that it was from Bali, where he'd visited some years ago; the tarnished gong and parchment shadow puppets above the bookcase were also Balinese. They moved on into the hallway, where he opened a door to reveal a room under construction: bare split-lath walls, piles of broken plaster, sawhorses, plastic sheets, scattered tools. 'The once and future master bedroom,' he told her. 'And here's the bathroom. And this's my office – not where I meet patients, God forbid, I run my practice from a suite downtown, this is just where I do my homework. The couch is a convertible, that's where I've been sleeping while the bedroom's a mess. I know it's not Beauforte House, but my daddy was a humble physician and he had six kids to divide his inheritance. Let's head back to the kitchen so I can make you something to eat.'
The kitchen had new appliances but cabinets and counters that were apparently original. The track lighting, fine cutlery, and built-in wine rack showed that he'd lavished some money on the remodeling here. A photo above the sink showed Paul in a some tropical-looking place, naked but for a knee-length sarong. Cree gazed at the articulation of his chest and stomach muscles before realizing what she was doing and snapped her eyes away.
'I take it you're an accomplished cook?' she asked.
'Huh!' he snorted. 'No, it's something I keep thinking I'd like to do but never quite get around to. I'm afraid I don't have some great culinary genius to astound you with. Sorry. But I'm pretty sure I can whip up something reasonably palatable and nutritious. What're you in the mood for?'
'Whatever's easy.'
'Wine?'
'Wine, definitely.'
What was easy was an eclectic meal of a good baguette, pate, mustard, some leftover jamb alaya, Greek olives, several cheeses, a bunch of grapes, and a bottle of burgundy. Paul set it all out on a big tray, but instead of bringing it over to the dining area, he carried it to a door at the far corner of the kitchen. Balancing the tray on one knee, he opened it to reveal a steep staircase, almost a ladder, that led up into darkness. When Cree gave him a questioning look, he said, 'The other reason I bought this place. You go first, hold the upper door for me. This is a little tricky with a tray.'
She went up. At the top of the stairs she found herself in a slope-ceilinged attic, its dimensions invisible in the dark, still stuffy from the heat of the day. A faint square of light drew her, and approaching it she entered a narrow roof dormer with a small door at its end. When she opened it she found herself outside in the city night. The dormer gave to a wooden deck built over the roof, which Paul had set up with a makeshift trellis, several planters full of growing things, and a teak table and chairs covered by a Cinzano umbrella. There were no stars visible, but the city's glow lit the hazy sky in every direction, and rows of bright windows defined several of the tall buildings downtown. Though it was Monday midnight, Cree could still hear the distant sound of a blues band from the direction of Bourbon Street. The varied peaks of nearby rooftops stretched away into darkness. The air had cooled considerably, but the roof still gave off some of the day's heat, making it perfectly comfortable.
Paul moved past her in the dim light to set the tray down. It clattered, the wine almost toppling, and as they
