Flesh and Blood (38 page)

“We?” Frank said.

“Don't be stupid,” Riviera said. “Imalia Covallo is the sort of person who wants to make it.” He laughed derisively. “She thought Kincaid killed Hannah, and that if he weren't found, he'd kill her, too. That's why she hired you. To find Kincaid, so that I could kill him. It was a stupid thing to do, but she panicked.” His eyes grew dark. “But it was Hannah who really betrayed me. I set her up with Imalia. I gave her a job when no one else would touch her. Then she betrayed me, threatened to expose everything.” He smiled at the irony of her death. “It's like she suddenly went back to the way she was in the old days.”

In his mind, Frank saw Hannah once again at the meeting hall, her hand in the air as she cried out the ancient Jewish curse:
If I betray thee, 0 Jerusalem, may my right hand wither, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.

“So I killed her,” Riviera said flatly, “and tried to make it look like Kincaid, just in case he went to the police with what he knew, or, later, in case you ever found him.” He smiled. “But as it turned out, I didn't have to kill Kincaid.” He lifted the barrel slightly, his eyes narrowing slowly as he did so. “No more talk,” he said in a flat, stony voice. “Time to die.”

“You can only shoot one of us at a time,” Frank said.

“I only intend to shoot one of you,” Riviera said. He glanced at Farouk. “I presume that's all that will be necessary, Farouk?”

Farouk nodded. “Of course,” he said calmly.

Riviera smiled. “I heard you were realistic about things like this,” he said. “That's why I hired you. I'm glad it was true.”

Frank stared at Farouk. “You were working for him?”

“Yes,” Farouk said, his eyes suddenly very cold and distant, as if he were peering back at Frank from the other end of a long narrow tunnel.

Frank felt something at the very center of himself break achingly.

Farouk bowed his head slightly, then stepped away, moving far to the side, then around, until Frank could see his face watching him mercilessly from just over Riviera's shoulder.

“Goodbye, Mr. Clemons,” Riviera said.

Frank pressed his back against the hard brick wall, and it was as if he could feel every grain of its rough surface against his flesh. He could hear the wind as it twined softly along the deserted streets, and feel the dark eternal flow of the river. He glanced upward at the cloud-covered moon, and he imagined the vast intricacy of the stars, the black unending night, the dark hazards of the world, its most secret corners, and he realized with a sudden astonishing clarity that he did not want to leave these things behind, that, barren though they seemed, conscienceless and void, they were still held inseparably within the fabric of his life.

He heard Riviera say once again, as if it were a chant, “
Time to die
,” and he closed his eyes and waited.

“The
campesinos
,” he heard Farouk say suddenly, “they are still dying of this poison?”

Frank kept his eyes closed tightly, still waiting.

“Yes,” Riviera said.

Then he heard the pistol fire, and he felt his head slam against the brick, but he did not fall.

“
Bicho!
” he heard Farouk whisper vehemently.

Then he opened his eyes and saw Riviera stagger forward, a huge red plume of blood flooding over his chest, a look of inhuman astonishment on his large brown face.

“
Bicho
,” Farouk said again, as he watched Riviera fall forward, slamming face down onto the street.

Frank continued to stand rigidly in place, his back still pressed flat against the brick wall.

Farouk looked at him. “I did not know of this,” he said, “of the deaths.” He returned his pistol to its holster and stepped over to Frank, peeling him gently from the wall. “Come now, my friend,” he said softly. “It is not time to die.”

32

Farouk stopped at the little iron gate which led down to Frank's office.

“I will see you tomorrow, yes?” he asked.

Frank nodded quietly. “Sure.”

They had just walked the few blocks from the Midtown North headquarters to 49th Street, where they'd dropped off the two green canisters and told the whole story to Tannenbaum. Almost two hours of questioning had followed before they were finally released. Then they'd headed down Ninth Avenue, the icy wind off the Hudson pursuing them all the way.

Frank lifted his collar against it and took a step down toward his office. “Take it easy, Farouk,” he said.

Farouk looked at him sadly. “I did not mean for it to be so close,” he said for the third time since Riviera's death, “but I did not know the whole story.”

Frank looked at him pointedly. “When did he hire you?”

“The day before I introduced myself at Toby's,” Farouk told him. “He said that Miss Covallo had hired an investigator, and that he wanted to make sure that this person could be trusted.”

“And you believed him?”

“I had no reason not to,” Farouk said. “As you know, investigators are not always reliable. They pad their accounts, charge for time they do not spend on a case.” He shrugged helplessly. “You might have been such a person.”

“I understand,” Frank told him.

“Riviera asked only that I follow you,” Farouk added. “But he told many lies, and they began to rise around him. After that, I wanted to stay with you.”

“To protect me.”

Farouk nodded slowly. “To do good to the good,” he said. Then his eyes swept down toward Frank's office. “This is not a place for a man to live for too long a time.”

“No, not for long,” Frank assured him.

“Perhaps, tonight, you might wish to stay at my place,” Farouk added.

Frank shook his head. “I don't think so.”

Farouk took a step away, then turned back toward Frank. “Tomorrow, they will deal with Covallo.”

“Yes.”

Farouk looked at him a moment, then offered his hand. “Tomorrow we shall go on to other things.”

Frank nodded gently, but did not answer. Instead, he simply waved half-heartedly, then walked down the stairs and into his office.

For a while he tried to sleep, tossing fitfully on the sofa, until his anxiousness overtook him and he stepped over to his desk and lit a cigarette. Its billowing smoke enveloped him, and he thought of the people of San Jorge, of Hannah as she had watched their bodies grow weak and trembling, their smooth brown skins erupt in boils, of Gilda and Kincaid, sacrifice and vengeance, and as he thought of these things, he could still hear Hannah's voice ringing over the bare wintry trees, and it struck him that deep in his own soul he had heard her at that moment in her life, heard her like the others who'd gathered in the cold and pressed their faces into the wind and listened as she spoke, watched as her hand lifted like a torch into the air.

He finished his cigarette, then lit another, pulled on his old brown overcoat and walked out into the street.

The first winter snow had begun to fall, already outlining the naked steel girders of the unfinished building across the way in a silvery lace. It swept along the avenues in bitterly piercing sheets, but he walked on through it determinedly, his eyes staring straight ahead as it swirled around him, then fell to earth in gentle slopes along the curbs and beside the buildings.

It was almost an inch deep by the time he made it over to Fifth Avenue, then turned north. The great manicured forest of Central Park was white and gleaming in the street lights which dotted it, but in his mind, Frank could see only the green river lined with brown bodies, and as he walked steadily northward through the deepening snow, he could hear the gentle, gurgling sound the bodies made as the still surviving villagers slid them mournfully into the water.

The snow lay in a thick white blanket over everything by the time he reached the doors of the museum.

“Excuse me, sir,” the doorman said as Frank stepped up to the entrance. “The museum is closed for a private function.” He smiled sweetly. “It will be open to the public tomorrow morning.”

“I'm here to see Imalia Covallo,” Frank told him.

“Is she expecting you?”

“No,” Frank said. He took out his identification. “Just tell her I'm here.”

The doorman looked at the card, then glanced back anxiously toward the crowd behind him. “Look, I suppose you can go in,” he said after a moment. “I really can't leave my post.” Then he stepped back and opened the door.

The building's large, spacious rotunda was filled with well-dressed patrons, and as Frank edged his way through them, he thought again of Hannah, and wondered how often she had come to such places, mingled with such people, observed the astonishing sheen in a dress worn by someone across the room and thought of San Jorge, of Gilda, and then, later, in one sudden cruel realization, of the long lines of people who had already been moved facelessly through the lethal triangle that Riviera had established for Imalia Covallo. Once again, he saw her in her youth, a young woman bent over a sewing machine, her fingers dancing around the glinting needle, her feet pumping incessantly at the pedal on the floor, and it seemed to him that all her hope for mercy still lay bound up in those days, closed within their noble grip like something still held within the grasp of her severed hand.

“Frank?”

He turned and saw Imalia moving toward him, her eyes watching his questioningly. She was dressed in a long black gown, and wrapped within its folds, her body seemed strangely pale and fleshless, hardly there at all.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she stepped up beside him.

“I came to make a last report,” Frank said, his voice barely louder than the hum of the crowd.

Her eyes widened. “Last report? I thought it was all settled.”

“Not quite,” Frank said.

She smiled sweetly. “I'm sorry I couldn't invite both you and Karen to this party. I really am. But I had heard that …” She glanced about, her eyes darting from the bar at her left to the table of hors d'oeuvres which rested a few yards beyond it. “There's Karen.”

She was dressed in the shimmering black gown Imalia had given her, and as Frank looked at her, he could hear Etta Polansky once again:
If you knew how a coat got to Bloomingdale's, it would break your heart.

“Anyway,” Imalia said brightly. “I'd heard that you and Karen, that you were …”

Frank stared at her.

“Of course,” Imalia added nervously, “I'm happy to have you here.”

Frank looked at her closely, his eyes sweeping over her dress, taking in its lustrous sheen. “Nice dress,” he said.

“Thank you,” Imalia said. “I didn't expect you to notice.”

“Nice color,” Frank added. “It seems to glow.”

Imalia watched him intently, her eyes narrowing. “I'm glad you like it,” she said, her voice now strangely lifeless.

“A color like that …” Frank began.

She seized his arm. “Frank,” she said, “we should talk, don't you think?” She nodded to the left. “Let's talk, Frank. Really.” She stepped to his side and tugged him toward her. “Please, Frank,” she said in a fearful whisper.

“No.”

She stepped back around to face him. “This is not the place for any more discussion.”

Frank shrugged. “It's as good as any.” He glanced around for a moment, taking in the other people. Then his eyes drove into her. “Do they know?”

Imalia's face paled. “Please, Frank. We can work something out.”

“Do they know what they're wearing?” Frank repeated, his voice now hard, insistent.

Imalia said nothing. Her lower lip began to tremble.

“Do they know?” Frank demanded, his voice now loud enough to draw a few quick glances from the people crowded around him.

Imalia's body shuddered. “Frank, for God's sake.” She grasped his arm. “Please.”

He pulled it free and shoved her backward toward the door. “Do they know?”

Imalia stumbled into the crowd around her, breaking a heel, then slumping awkwardly to the left. “Please, Frank,” she pleaded. “Please, don't.”

He pushed her backward once again.

The people parted around them, staring wildly as Frank shoved her again, this time driving her through the glass door and out into the snowy air.

“No, Frank,” Imalia cried. She stood in the snow, her dress blowing in the winter wind, her long thin arms gathering around her against the cold. “Please, Frank,” she pleaded as she sank down in the gray slush of the sidewalk, “please.” She leaned forward, her head drooping toward her splayed legs, her hair hanging in a tangle at her shoulders.

Frank stood over her, staring down mercilessly. He could feel people gathering around him, hear voices crying for the police, but he did not move, and after a while he heard the first peal of the siren as it came toward him through the snow, felt the arm of the officer as he was led away, glimpsed the steady silver light that shone toward him from the badge.

It was almost dawn before he heard footsteps coming down the corridor, looked up, and saw Farouk staring at him from behind the bars of the holding cell.

“Our names are connected,” he said quietly.

“Somebody called you?” Frank asked.

“Tannenbaum,” Farouk told him. “He said that you had been arrested for disturbing the peace, and that I might want to make myself available.” He smiled. “Come. There are things to be signed. But I have paid your bail.”

Within a few minutes, they were on the street together, strolling slowly down Ninth Avenue, the snow now deep and lovely along the deserted boulevard, silent in its impossible innocence.

“She did not deny it,” Farouk said after a moment.

“Imalia?”

Farouk nodded.

“I didn't think she would,” Frank said.

“Everything has been discovered,” Farouk added.