Blow Fly

38

ANOTHER WESTERN is playing on the TV Mouths move out of sync as two cowboys dismount their horses, voices clubbed in Polish.

"One last chance," Rudy says to Rocco. "Where's Jay Talley? Don't lie. I promise I'll know."

"He took a statement analysis course at the FBI Academy," Lucy says drolly. "Was the star of the class."

Rocco slowly shakes his head. It is apparent by now that if he knew, he would tell them. He is a self-serving, sniveling coward, and right now he is more afraid of them than he is of Jay Talley.

"Here's the deal. We're not going to kill you, Rocco." Lucy tosses the pistol back to Rudy. "You're going to commit suicide."

"No." He shakes as if he has Parkinson's disease.

"You're history, Rocco," Rudy says. "A fugitive. A Red Notice. You can't go anywhere anyway. You'll be grabbed. If you're lucky, you'll end up in prison, probably in Sicily, and I hear that's not a holiday. But you know better. The Chandonnes will take you out. Instantly. And perhaps not as humanely as you can end your own miserable, stinking life. Right now."

Lucy goes to the bed and digs an envelope out of her shoulder bag's back pocket. Inside it is a folded sheet of paper. She opens it.

"Here." She offers it to Rocco.

He makes no effort to touch it.

"Take it. A hard copy of your Red Notice. Hot off the press. You must be curious."

Rocco doesn't respond. Even his eyeballs seem to be shaking.

"Take it," Lucy tells him.

Rocco does. The Red Notice shakes violently in his hands as he leaves his fingerprints on the paper, a detail he probably isn't thinking about.

"Now read it out loud. I think it's very important you see what it says. Because I'm confident you'll decide you have no choice but to kill yourself right here in this lovely hotel room," Lucy says.

The single page has Interpol's crest in the upper right corner, of course in bright red. Prominently displayed is Rocco's photograph, easily acquired. Egotist that he is, he has never ducked the camera when he's represented criminals in scandalous trials. The picture on the Red Notice is recent and a very good likeness.

"Read out loud," Lucy orders him again. "Story time, Rocco."

"Identity particulars." His voice wavers, and he continues to clear his throat. "Present family name, Rocco Caggiano. Name at birth, Peter Rocco Marino, Junior."

He pauses at this, and tears brighten his eyes. He bites his lower lip, then continues, reading on and on, all about himself. When he gets to the judicial information and reads that he is wanted for the murders of the Sicilian and French journalists, he rolls his eyes toward the ceiling.

"Jesus," he mutters, taking a deep breath.

"That's right," Lucy says. "Arrest warrant number seven-two-six-oh for poor Mr. Guarino. Arrest warrant number seven-two-six-one for poor Monsieur La Fleur. Issued April twenty-fourth, 2003. Two days ago."

"Jesus fucking Christ."

"Your faithful client, Jean-Baptiste," Lucy reminds him.

"The bastard," Rocco mutters. "After all I did for the ugly piece of shit."

"It's over, Rocco," Rudy says.

He drops the Red Notice on top of the table.

"I understand the Chandonnes can be pretty creative," Lucy says. "Torture. Remember how much Jay Talley liked to string people up with rope and eyebolts and burn them with heat guns? Burn them until their skin was charred black. While they were alive and conscious. Remember how he tried to do that to my aunt while his fucking accomplice Bev Kiffin tried to blow me away with a shotgun?"

Rocco stares off.

She steps closer to him, the thought of what almost happened to her aunt tempting her to whip open her tactical baton and beat Rocco to death. She glances at it on the bedside table, knows better.

"Drowning is another pet choice," she goes on.

Rocco jerks at this. "No," he begs.

"Remember Jean-Baptiste's cousin Thomas? Drowned. Not a nice way to die." She gives Rudy a look.

He carefully wipes off the Colt with a corner of the bedsheet as an extra precaution, his face hard, his eyes gleaming with a detachment and determination that makes it possible for him to block out the sudden wave of empathy he feels for Rocco, no matter how unworthy of life he is.

Rudy glances at Lucy and briefly their eyes touch like two sparks.

Sweat rolls down Lucy's face, wisps of hair plastered to her temples. She is pale, and Rudy knows that each of her attempts at dry humor and harshness are forced as she plays the most terrible role of her life.

He pulls back the slide, chambering a round, and approaches Rocco.

"Right-handed, you agree, partner?" Rudy calmly says to Lucy. 1 agree.

She doesn't take her eyes off Rocco. Her hands have begun to shake, and she wills herself to think of Jay Talley and his evil paramour Bev Kiffin.

Images.

Lucy envisions the grief on her aunt's face as she scattered what she believed were Benton Wesley's ashes over the water. Lucy's brain seems to slide inside her skull. She has never been seasick. It must feel something like this.

"Your choice," she says to Rocco. "I mean it. You can die now and feel no pain. No torture. No burns. No drowning. The Red Notice is found right where you dropped it, your suicide completely understandable. Or you can walk out of here, never knowing when you'll breathe your last breath and what nightmare you'll suffer when the Chandonnes get you. And they will."

He nods. Of course they will. It is a given.

"Put out your right hand," Rudy tells Rocco.

Rocco rolls his eyes toward the ceiling again.

"See? I'm holding the gun, I'm going to help you," Rudy goes on, lightly, indifferently, as sweat drips on the carpet.

"Make sure the barrel is pointed up," Lucy says, thinking of the decapitated Nazi s head.

"Come on, Rocco. Do what I say. It won't hurt. You won't even know it."

Rudy touches the barrel against Rocco's right temple.

"Up," Lucy reminds him again.

"Your hand goes around the grips, and my hand goes around yours."

Rocco closes his eyes, and his hand jumps up and down. He closes his pudgy, short fingers around the grips, and Rudy's big, strong hand immediately clamps over his.

"I have to help you because you can't hold the gun still," Rudy tells him. "You don't shoot straight, and that could be ugly. And I can't let you hold the gun all by yourself, now can I? That would make me stupid."

Rudy's voice is gentie now. "See, that's not so hard. Now press the barrel tight against your head."

Rocco gags, his chest heaving. He begins to hyperventilate.

"Pointed up," Lucy says it one more time, fixated on the decapitated Nazi's head, trying not to see Rocco's head.

He sways in his chair, grabbing shallow breaths, his face livid, his eyes squeezed shut. Rudy's gloved finger pulls the trigger.

The gun fires in a loud pop.

Rocco and his chair fall backward. His head lands on the British newspapers strewn over the carpet, his face turned toward the window. Blood gushing out of his head sounds like running water. Gunsmoke turns the air acrid.

Rudy squats to tuck Rocco's limp right arm and the pistol under his chest. Any prints or partial prints recovered on the blue steel Colt will be Rocco's.

Lucy opens a window a crack, no more than three inches, and yanks off her gloves as Rudy presses two fingers against Rocco Caggiano's carotid artery. His pulse beats faintly and stops. Rudy nods at Lucy and stands up. He digs inside a pocket of his jacket and pulls out a German mustard jar. Holes have been punched in the lid, and blow flies crawl along the inside of the glass, feeding on what is left of the rotting meat that yesterday baited them into captivity at a Dumpster crammed with garbage behind a Polish restaurant.

He opens the jar and shakes it. Several dozen flies lethargically lift off, buzzing to lamps and bouncing against illuminated shades. Sensing pheromones and the plume of an open wound, they greedily drone straight to Rocco's motionless body. Blow flies, the most common of carrion-feeding insects, alight on his bloody face. Several disappear inside his mouth.