Or was she doing precisely what Abu Qasim had told her to do, which was tell this tale to Grafton, via Carmellini?
I had been hanging around Grafton too long — I was even beginning to think like him.
If she was merely obeying orders, what did Qasim expect Grafton to do with the information? What was it Qasim wanted Grafton to do?
The problem, I decided, was that I didn’t know which side Marisa was really on.
Of course, maybe she didn’t know, either.
Khadr walked up behind the car sitting outside the Petrou mansion and raised the pistol as he came alongside. The window was up. He fired through it, hitting the driver in the head. The driver slumped forward onto the steering wheel.
Khadr walked on, up the walk, up the steps, across the stoop, and rang the doorbell. He waited.
If Marisa was acting, I thought she should have been on Broadway. She sat on the edge of her chair, her feet under her, and sucked on her weed. Inhaled deeply and blew smoke all over. She repeatedly pushed her bangs back out of her face, over and over, unconsciously.
“Will he try to kill Isolde?” I asked gently.
“I don’t know.”
“You?”
She eyed me. “I don’t know.” She looked down and sucked some more on her cigarette. After a moment she said, “If they knew I was talking to you and Grafton, they would.”
“They?”
“You don’t think he’s working alone, do you?”
“I guess not.”
When the door opened, Khadr shot the butler once, right in the face. He stepped into the foyer. The maid was there, carrying a tray with a silver pot. She started to scream. Khadr shot her, too. The first bullet hit her in the body and she fell, dropping the tray. Dark liquid splattered all over the floor.
Khadr walked into the room and shot the maid in the head as she lay on the floor. Then he turned and walked out of the chateau.
Down the steps, past the car with the dead driver, and down the winding driveway to where Abu Qasim was waiting.
Marisa finished her cigarette in silence, stubbed it out and took a deep breath. She looked calmer, more herself.
I rose from my chair. “I’ll go call Grafton, see what he says.”
“Au revoir” she said automatically.
“I’ll be right back.”
She looked up at me, pinned me with those dark brown eyes and said, “Every time I see you it’s as if I’m seeing a ghost. They want to kill you so badly … you’re a dead man walking, Tommy Carmellini. So au revoir, in case we never meet again.”
I walked the hallways to the main staircase and started down. About halfway down I saw the butler, who was sprawled near the front door. The door was wide open.
I stopped — frozen — looking and listening. The Springfield seemed to find my hand automatically. I looked down and left… and saw the maid, lying on the floor with her legs akimbo. Spilled chocolate all over the floor, a lake of it. The platter had broken. Why hadn’t I heard it break?
I guess my brain locked up about then. In my mind’s eye I could see Speedo behind the wheel of our rental car, parked outside. Speedo Harris, MI-6. Good God!
My legs carried me the rest of the way down the staircase, across the foyer and out the door without any thought on my part. The rental car was parked out there on the brick pavement. I could see Speedo’s head slumped over the wheel.
No one else in sight. No cars, no people, no dogs, no airplanes going over, only a deathly silence.
I walked around the front of the sedan to the driver’s door. The window was up… and had a hole in it. The steering wheel was holding Speedo up. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.
Amazing the things you think about at a moment like that. I stared at Speedo’s head and saw the entry hole for the bullet that killed him. Just a little spot of red, right above his left ear. His paperback novel was on his lap.
Well, at least Marisa didn’t kill him; she had been with me ever since the butler showed me to the upstairs sitting room.
But somebody shot him, sure as hell. Hanging around with Carmellini was the equivalent of a death sentence. Jake Grafton oughta be locked up for sending me to guard anyone.
I felt a yell coming on. If the shooter was upstairs doing Isolde and Marisa …
I charged for the porch, took the steps three at a time. I was yelling then — I couldn’t help myself. Howling. I jerked the damn door open and ran inside, ready to shoot the first person I saw.
I saw no one alive. The butler and maid were lying just as I had first seen them.
I charged for the stairs and went up three at a time, still yelling. Raced along the hallway and jerked open the sitting room door. There sat Marisa, staring at me as if I had lost my mind. Maybe I had.
“Where’s Isolde?” I roared. I was waving the pistol around, looking to make sure she was the only one in the room.
She didn’t come fast enough to suit me. I grabbed her arm and threw her toward the door.
“Quick, goddamnit!” I was trying to speak normally, but it wasn’t working. The words came out as a shout. “Someone shot the guy I came with and the butler and maid. He may be in the house. Where is she?”
Marisa gathered herself and ran. I followed, twd doors down, through a hallway that led to a corner room suite. The old woman was sitting there at her desk working on something.
I looked around the room, in the bath, in the closet. God, I was so ready to shoot somebody. I don’t recall ever being so frustrated or keyed up.
“Get your passports and your purses and any medication you have to have. Quickly, now. We’re leaving.”
“Where—?” Marisa asked.
“London. A safe house. That’s the only place I know that killers can’t get to you.”
Marisa said something in French to the old lady, and by gum, she jumped up and ran into the bathroom. In thirty seconds she had her purse and her passport from the desk and was ready to go. I wondered if her late husband knew what a jewel she was.
It took about the same amount of time to collect Marisa’s stuff, and then I was leading them down the stairs.
When we saw the butler and maid sprawled out, Isolde stopped dead. She began spewing French at Marisa. She bent down, gently touched the butler’s white hair.
I thought this wasn’t the time and place for long good-byes, and reached for her. Marisa put a hand on my arm.
Isolde Petrou got down on her knees beside the butler and seized his hand. Tears were running down her cheeks and she was biting her lip. “No, no, no,” she muttered. After a moment she hoisted herself up and went over to the maid, who was lying on her back with her eyes open, staring at infinity. Isolde got down on her knees again, closed her eyes, touched her cheek, said her name, said good-bye.
Marisa reached for the older woman’s arm, helped her to her feet, nodded at me. Together, they followed me.
We went out through the kitchen toward the garage, taking our time, looking for anyone at all. Didn’t see hide nor hair of the cook or gardener or wine cellar dude. I wondered if they were all asleep … with bullets in their heads. No time to look — they were alive and well or they weren’t. I was going to keep these two women alive or die trying.
I put Marisa in the front seat of the Mercedes limo and Madame Petrou in back, then hunted through the chauffeur’s quarters over the garage for the keys. It was like an anxiety dream. Lurking around somewhere, maybe, was an assassin, and I couldn’t find the damned keys. I kept expecting to wake up any second in a cold sweat.
Just when I was ready to admit defeat, I found the keys hanging on a nail at the head of the stairs. Don’t
