Verses for the Dead

23

You can let me off here,” Misty Carpenter said, leaning forward slightly and touching the headrest of the front seat. As the Uber pulled over, she noticed — in the rearview mirror — the driver’s nostrils flare slightly as he caught her perfume.

She got out and stepped onto the sidewalk, slipping her phone back into the Miu Miu clutch that hung from her shoulder. The black car slid away from the curb and merged with the southbound traffic on Collins Avenue. She paused a moment, breathing in the pleasant night air. To her left, across the wide avenue, ran a procession of luxury hotels and high-rise condos, bathed in gentle pastel lights. To her right, beyond a dark ribbon of grass, lay Indian Creek, with its display of yachts and superyachts, motionless on the still water. Just another perfect evening in Miami Beach.

Misty began walking along the pavement, aware of the sleek tightness of her black cocktail dress, the faint click of her Louboutin sandals on the concrete. Harry, she knew, liked this dress best of all.

“Harry” was J. Harold Lawrence III, chairman emeritus of the largest privately held bank in Palm Beach County and owner of the 120-foot cruising yacht Liquidity. Even today, when he no longer ran the executive suite, everyone called him “sir” or “Mr. Lawrence.” Everyone, that is, except Misty. Misty always called her clients by their first names.

Not that she would ever call them “clients” to their faces. That would imply there was more than one. Misty wanted each of her special friends to think they were her only special friend. It was almost true: she confined her attention to a select group of less than a dozen refined and wealthy people, most but not all elderly. The thing they all had in common was an appreciation for Misty’s rare combination of beauty, elegance, empathy, and youthful erudition.

She slowed for a moment, looking toward Indian Creek, her perfectly plucked eyebrows knitting in a frown. She’d gotten out of the Uber too early. This was the low-rent district: the yachts here were all berthed together, stern in, tucked into their slips like so many floating brownstones. The larger vessels like Liquidity lay just beyond, moored parallel to the waterfront.

She glanced at her watch: quarter past nine. Harry would be waiting for her by now, sitting in the salon, the bottle of his favorite vintage champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. They would probably dine on board — he preferred that this time of year — and he might be a trifle melancholy. Almost a decade ago to the day, his wife had succumbed to cancer. It was Misty’s job to help him forget this, of course; to make him smile with her sparkling wit, to engage him in conversation on the topics he enjoyed most. For three or four hours, she would ensure he forgot his cares and his loneliness. And then she would leave — and five thousand dollars would be wired into her bank account by morning.

Misty — actually, Louisa May Abernathy from Point of Rocks, Montana, both parents deceased — had what she believed to be a unique vocation. It did not involve sex — at least not anymore, now that her select list of special friends had been established. It was safe: since she did not take on new clients, there was no need for verification, references, or screening agencies like P411. She provided a laudable and worthy service. It paid extremely well. It was probably even legal.

She moved on, heels clicking in the dark pools between the streetlights. Knots of traffic would come and go as the signals changed: busy one minute, quiet the next. The lights of the hotels threw dim, multicolored shadows over the palm trees, Indian Creek itself, and — on the far side — Pinetree Park. She had passed the regular boat slips now; she would see the sleek lines of Liquidity not far ahead.

It always surprised her how many of the yachts were dark and seemingly uninhabited, even by crew, as if they were just extravagant art meant only for display. The scene, its darkness softened by the tapestry of light filtering down from the east, reminded her irresistibly of Magritte’s series of paintings L’empire des lumières.

Growing up, Misty had always been smarter and better looking than her classmates, and as a result she’d endured a childhood of resentment and isolation. This all changed when she went to Wellesley, and her hungry intellect suddenly found full flower. There, she learned the art of conversation and the ways to use her good looks as an asset — or, if necessary, a weapon. She ultimately graduated with a triple major in art history, classical languages, and music: a fascinating stockpile of arcane knowledge that, she realized upon receiving her diploma, she had absolutely no idea what to do with.

She had money from a part-time college job, and — with no other plans — decided to blow it on a grand tour before taking her next step. She found she enjoyed sneaking into casinos and private parties, mingling with the highest European circles she could bluff her way into. Nine months later, she ended up in Key Biscayne, where a Jaguar XK nearly ran her over as she was crossing Crandon Boulevard.

The car was driven by sixty-year-old Carmen Held, distracted and distraught from the death of her husband four months earlier. The woman, horrified by what she’d almost done, insisted on helping Misty into the nearest building: as it turned out, an upscale restaurant. Over a long lunch, the two women bonded. Ms. Held — Carmen — unburdened herself to Misty. She was lonely, and sad, and most of all resentful: finally, she had money and time to truly explore life, but no longer anyone to explore it with.

Misty very much enjoyed her lunch. She already knew she appreciated, even preferred, the company of older people. In turn, they clearly relished her ability to talk intelligently about many subjects; the way she made it so easy to confide in her. Students were perpetually hard up, and it was always nice to dine out as a guest of someone who didn’t care how much money they spent. Carmen was sixty, but she’d taken very good care of herself and — if you looked past the incipient wrinkles — was actually attractive. Quite attractive.

A strange and yet perfectly reasonable idea began to take form in Misty’s mind.

She really had no plans for the evening, and when Carmen said she was driving back to Miami Beach and offered Misty a ride, she accepted. In short order, Carmen became her first special friend — and the strange yet reasonable idea of hers soon became a career.

A temporary career, Misty reminded herself as she left the sidewalk and began wending her way beneath the dark palms toward Harry’s yacht. It was fulfilling, it kept her well fed and well dressed, but it wasn’t something you could do forever. Recently, she’d been thinking about applying to law school. She’d saved up two hundred thousand already; that was more than enough. Another six months, and she’d get serious about those applications.

She slowed, frowning again. The yacht whose mooring lights gleamed out of the velvety darkness was unfamiliar. The Liquidity must be moored just beyond it. Harry would be setting out the champagne glasses; she’d better hurry. She quickened her pace, annoyed at how her heels sank into the damp grass. Maybe six months was too soon. She couldn’t just abandon her special friends — certainly not out of the blue. The applications could wait another year. She wasn’t quite ready to give up drinking cru classé Bordeaux, and...

From out of the insect-heavy darkness of the palms, a sharp rustling sound intruded on Misty’s thoughts. She turned toward it, but even as she did so something flashed deep across her neck with horrifying speed but a strange lack of pain. There was a brief involuntary sound and then it was almost like going to sleep.

On the expansive balcony of his presidential suite in the Fontainebleau’s Versailles Tower, Pendergast gingerly took a sip of the tea his waiter had brought him, then nodded his approval. True first-flush Darjeeling, harvested from one of the high-altitude plantations in West Bengal: the grassy notes of its delicate, aromatic bouquet were unmistakable. He watched as the waiter left; took another sip; then replaced the cup beside the teapot, sat back on the padded lounge chair, and closed his eyes.

The chair was flanked by two piles of case folders, each held in place from stray ocean breezes by makeshift paperweights: his Les Baer 1911 on one, and his backup weapon, a Glock 27 Gen4, atop the other. He had read through the folders with minute care; they had nothing further to offer him.

Slowly, he wove the various strands of the recent murders and distant suicides together in his mind: those that fit and, more interestingly, the one that did not. As he did so, the sounds and sensations of the South Florida night gradually receded: the faint smell of the ocean; the murmur of conversations from the bars and alfresco restaurants far below; the delightfully warm, humid atmosphere that mirrored his own skin temperature so exactly.

Now he set the mental weaving aside. He knew what he must do next. The key was to accomplish it while breaking the least amount of crockery in the process.

“If it were done, when ’tis done,” he murmured to himself, “then ’twere well it were done quickly.” And with that he opened his eyes, sat up, and picked up his cup of tea.

As he did so, his keen ears picked up a sound, faint yet discernible — an abrupt, gargling shriek, not at all like the laughter from below, instantly cut off.

Pendergast froze, cup halfway to his lips. He waited, but the sound was not repeated. With the bulk of the hotel curving around him, it was impossible to tell precisely where it had come from. Nevertheless, Pendergast raised the cup to his lips — took a sip, this time regretfully, knowing the tea would be tepid or worse by the time he returned — then replaced the cup, stood, swept up both firearms, and exited.