Lovers and Liars Trilogy (3 page)

To obtain those pictures he had donned camouflage clothing and crawled five hundred yards through the outlying scrub of a Provençal estate. He had carried with him a 1200mm telephoto lens that weighed more than twenty pounds, and a special low-level tripod made to his specifications. Together these insured that he could take clear, unblurred portraits at a range of three hundred yards from his unsuspecting quarry while lying on his belly like a snake. Once upon a time he had been a war photographer. The lessons and techniques learned then were now applied in other ways. What was he now, he wondered, still looking at the parcel. A paparazzo—not a man worth injuring anymore, not someone worth the damage a letter bomb could inflict. He felt a second of self-loathing, a familiar shame. Then with a quick movement he unfolded the brown wrapping paper and eased the lid from the box.

Inside the foldings and interleavings of tissue there was no note, no accompanying card or message, just a crumpled black shape that he took at first to be a scrap of material.

He drew it out, and found to his surprise that the material was leather, the finest, softest black kid, and the object was a woman’s glove.

A left-handed glove, and brand-new—unworn, he thought at first. Then he noticed the faint creases across the palm, as if a hand
had
worn this glove, if briefly, and that hand had been tightly clenched. He examined it more closely. It was narrowly cut, made to fit a delicate hand. An evening glove. Against a woman’s arm, he estimated, this glove would encase from elbow to fingertips.

He stared at it, trying to decipher its message. Was it meant to be seductive or threatening? Was it a clue or a prank? He was about to toss it back in its box, when a lingering curiosity made him examine it more closely. He pressed it against the back of his hand and felt it slip easily against his skin as if it had been oiled. Then he raised it to his face, and sniffed.

The glove had a pungent and disturbing scent. He could detect the odor of a woman’s perfume, and beneath that, imperfectly masked by ambergris, civet, and damask, another, earthier smell. Fish, blood—something like that. Suddenly the supple glove disgusted him.

He threw it down. Late, he thought, checking his watch one more time; that damned parcel had delayed him. He grabbed his briefcase, his camera cases, and the small battered valise of inexpertly packed clothes. As he opened the door, his daughter’s voice floated up to him. A week until the next visiting day. He felt a surge of love and protectiveness so painfully sharp that for an instant it immobilized him.

He stood on the landing, staring out unseeingly at a view of roofscapes, a pale, drab leaden sky. Rain today, rain yesterday, rain the day before that: endless winter. Spring, he thought with a sudden and passionate longing; and there, for a brief second, he glimpsed it, even sensed it on his skin, all the springtimes of his boyhood, the optimism and elation that accompanied them. He could see and smell the fields, the vineyards, the oak woods of his childhood. Across the endless gold of the long afternoon he heard his mother call to him, and watched the river coil through the valley below as the light paled to the silver of spring evenings.

Now that house was sold and his mother was dead. It was years since the coming of spring had brought him any sense of hope or renewal.

Nostalgia was weak. He slammed the door on it. From below, his daughter called to him. Shouldering his cases, Pascal turned and ran down the stairs.

T
HE BUILDING JOHNNY APPLEYARD
lived in lay on the southwest corner of Gramercy Park. It was tall, turreted, gothic. Julio Severas, the ICD courier for that area of New York, arrived there shortly before ten
A.M.
It was a clear, cold day, and had snowed during the night. The sidewalk outside Appleyard’s building was well swept; Julio paused to admire the building’s massive portico, its gleaming marble steps. Julio liked his job—it gave him the opportunity to see how the other half lived. He looked around him with interest as he entered the lobby: dark paneling, a stained-glass window—weird, he thought, like some kind of church.

The porter, a Greek, showed no inclination to talk. He escorted Julio into an elevator—more paneling, a little leather-covered seat. The elevator was hand operated. Julio stared in astonishment as the porter hauled expertly on a rope. There was the sound of machinery, of counterweights. With a surprising efficiency, the elevator glided up.

“Some system,” Julio said. “No electrics, right?”

The porter pointed to a brightly polished brass plate. It said
OTIS ELEVATORS
1908. “Original,” he said. “Hand operated. One hundred percent reliable. The only one in New York.”

“Regular antique, huh?” said Julio, and stored this piece of information away for his wife. She, too, was fascinated by details of how the rich chose to live. “Expensive building, I guess. Exclusive,” he ventured to say, as the Greek brought them to a halt.

The Greek gave him a look of contempt. He ushered him out onto polished parquet, facing a tall mahogany door. He rang the bell and stood there with Julio, shoulder to shoulder. From behind the door came the roar of rock music.

Julio sighed and tried again. “You get a lot of celebrities here, maybe? Rock stars? Actors? Art-world types?”

The porter gave him a withering look. “Listen,” he said. “I told you downstairs already. Mr. Appleyard, he’s not here. No reply, okay? Now, you want to leave that package with me?”

“No,” said Julio, getting his own back. “I don’t.”

The porter lifted his hand to try the bell again, but before he could ring, the door suddenly opened. A strong scent of rose bath oil eddied out. An exquisite girl stood in the doorway, swathed from shoulder to ankle in a white terry bathrobe. When she saw the two men, her face fell.

“Oh. I thought it was Johnny…” she began in a low, husky voice. The rest of the sentence trailed away.

Julio blinked. He looked more closely and realized his mistake. Not a young woman, a young man: a young man with clear olive skin, hyacinth-blue eyes, and long, thick, waving blond hair. The hair brushed his shoulders; one damp tendril clung to the damp skin of his throat. He was wearing a gold earring in his right earlobe, and a narrow gold bracelet on his right wrist He was about twenty years old, tall, slender, and devastating. Only the pitch of his voice declared his sex. If Julio had encountered him elsewhere, just passed him by on the sidewalk, he’d never have guessed.
Jesus;
Julio felt himself blushing. He averted his gaze and stared hard at the boy’s bare feet.

“Parcel for Mr. Appleyard,” the Greek announced in an insolent tone. He jerked a thumb at Julio. “I told him already. He’s out, right? Haven’t seen him in days.”

The remark sounded oddly like a jibe. The boy blushed. Looking up, Julio saw he was fighting back tears.

“He’s out
now
,” he replied in a defensive way. “But I expect him back real soon. This afternoon, maybe later this morning…” He held out one slender hand for the parcel. “I’ll take that. I’ll give it to Johnny the minute he gets back. You need me to sign?”

Julio handed the parcel across. The kid had a rural accent, slow, with a kind of hick twang. Out west someplace, Julio thought. The boy was examining the package in a childlike way, turning it this way and that. He gave it a little shake, frowned at the customs slip. “
Articles of clothing. Birthday gift
,” he read out. “Birthday gift?” The boy looked confused. “Johnny’s birthday’s in July. He’s a Leo, like me. Someone’s six months early. That’s weird.”

He gave the parcel another little shake. There was a faint rustle. Julio glanced at the porter.

“He lives here?”

“Sure he lives here. Stevey’s Mr. Appleyard’s roommate, right, Stevey?” He grinned. “Been here three years now, maybe four. Looks after Mr. Appleyard real nice. Looks after his apartment when he’s away.”

Julio felt sorry for the boy. The insinuation in the porter’s tone was obvious; insolence now veered toward the rude. The porter rocked on his heels, still grinning, looking the boy up and down. Julio waited for Stevey to come back at him, put him down. What was the guy, after all? Just hired help.

To his surprise, the boy made no comeback. He looked at the Greek in a wide-eyed, hesitant way, as if hoping the remark might be a compliment. Julio gave the Greek a glance of dislike. He proffered his clipboard and a pen; the boy hesitated, then signed an illegible scrawl.

“Have a nice day now,” Julio said, trying to make amends for the porter. The boy nodded, smiled shyly, and closed the door on a gust of rose-scented air.

“Fucking faggots,” said the Greek succinctly, then gave Julio a malicious grin. “Poor little Stevey. What’s he gonna do now that Mr. Appleyard’s not so keen anymore? The kid’s getting anxious. You saw? Jesus, he was nearly in tears. Mr. Appleyard, he ain’t set foot in the building in over a week. Got himself a new toy-boy, I guess. Still, who the fuck cares?”

Downstairs, he waddled out into the lobby. Julio followed, more slowly. He still felt a lingering sympathy for the boy. He was rehearsing in his mind how he’d relate all this to his wife later that evening, what he’d leave out, what he’d put in. This was the aspect of his job he liked best. It was like a movie: little clips from other people’s lives.

“So, this Appleyard guy¼” In the doorway now, he gave it one last try. “The name’s kind of familiar. I’ve heard of him, maybe? A singer? Musician?”

“Works for the newspapers. Hangs out with the stars. A tightwad. Likes pretty boys. Lots of them.”

“Each to his own, right?” Julio said uneasily. The porter rolled his eyes. “And this Appleyard, he’s older, I guess?”

“Forty years old and a prize asshole. The prince of shits.” The Greek gave one last malevolent grin and slammed the door.

G
IOVANNI CARONA WAS THE
ICD courier in Venice. It was not a full-time job. Giovanni, newly married, living still with his parents and saving up for an apartment, fitted it in when the calls came. Come summer, come the tourists, he did well enough, ferrying Americans and Japanese up the Grand Canal and out onto the lagoon. Come winter, he took whatever work he could get.

The package was due in at the airport at nine o’clock. At eight on a bitterly cold morning, Giovanni was out on the tiny canal behind his father’s house, coaxing the engine of his father’s old launch into life. By eight-thirty he was easing his way through a maze of narrow waterways. A grayish mist lingered above the canals. The city was just coming to life.

Out past the cemetery isle of San Michele—Giovanni crossed himself as he passed—and into the channel that led to the airport. The boat chugged between the black piles that marked the route. The mist was denser there, clammy against the skin. Up ahead, where the industrial sector of Mestre was situated beyond the airport, the fog was yellowish, bunched like thunderclouds, dense.

Fog delayed the London flight by an hour. It was almost eleven by the time the formalities were completed, and Giovanni was making his way back. He took a different route this time, approaching the city by the Grand Canal, then turning into the snaking maze of waterways on its southern flank.

This was a part of Venice few tourists penetrated, but it was Giovanni’s home ground. He relaxed; he felt no sense of urgency. A thin sun was coming out, warming and dissipating the mist. By the time he drew alongside the Palazzo Ossorio, it was nearly noon. He tied up and surveyed the building, hands on hips. The place might once have been magnificent, but now it was a wreck.

Giovanni’s eyes scanned the palazzo’s sagging facade. Its lowest story had been abandoned long ago; the cracked ochre of its stucco was stained a seaweedy green. The palazzo’s windows—dark, closed, and unwelcoming—were twisted out of true by subsidence. Half its shutters were missing, and its graceful balconies and tall pilastered entrance gates were in a ruinous condition. The entire building looked unsafe.

Giovanni glanced down at his package.
McMullen:
a foreigner—English? Irish? American? In his experience, most foreigners avoided places such as this. McMullen must be eccentric, someone who found decay picturesque. Giovanni had no patience with such indulgences. He clambered ashore and made for the palazzo’s courtyard. As he entered it, he heard a scuttle of movement but did not glimpse the rat.

There was no sign of a concierge or porter, no sign of any inhabitants, come to that. All the windows overlooking this interior courtyard had their shutters clamped.

In the corner was a wide flight of stone stairs. Apartment Six, this McMullen’s apartment, would be on the top floor. A peeling painted arrow directed him up. Giovanni neither heard nor saw anyone on his ascent. Dead leaves rustled in the corners of stairs; the doors he passed looked long closed up. He began to think he must be in the wrong place—but no, this was the Palazzo Ossorio, and here, on the top floor, was a door clearly numbered six.

Giovanni peered at the door. The landing was ill lit; he could see no bell, no knocker. He hammered against the thick door panels, listened, then hammered again. No footsteps; no response.

There was a note, faded and fly-spotted, pinned to the door. Giovanni’s English was sufficient:
If I’m out, try later,
it read.

An English name on the parcel, an English note on the door—it was the right place. Giovanni hammered a third time. He called a few hellos through the panels. Then he drew back, wrinkling his nose in distaste. This place was not only dirty and decaying, it stank.

A musty and ammoniac smell, as if people used the stairway as a urinal—but beyond that scent, something even more unpleasant, like rotting meat. Giovanni felt a sense of irritation.

He heard a mewing sound. Glancing down, he saw a thin ginger cat sidling along the walls, inching its way warily toward him. It looked half starved. Giovanni bent toward it. The cat arched its back, bared its teeth, and spat.

Giovanni aimed a clumsy kick in its direction, which missed. He considered the package, and the note on the door. It was strictly against ICD rules to leave a parcel unsigned for. On the other hand, no one was likely to steal it from here. McMullen’s receipt signature could always be forged; no one ever checked¼Giovanni hesitated. He was tempted. It was past noon now, he was hungry, and he’d already wasted a whole morning. Coming to a decision, he bent, rested the package against the door, and left: the hell with this.