Blow Fly

81

SHAME AND FEAR overwhelm Lucy. She has told Berger in detail what happened in room 511 at the Radisson Hotel, but not who actually shot Rocco.

"Who pulled the trigger, Lucy?" Berger insists on knowing.

"It doesn't matter."

"Since you won't answer the question, I'll assume you did!"

Lucy says nothing.

Berger doesn't move as she looks out at dazzling city lights that give way to the darkness of the Hudson and become the flickering bright urban plains of New Jersey. The space between her and Lucy could not seem more impossible, as if Berger is on the other side of the expansive glass.

Lucy quietly steps closer, wanting to touch the curve of Berger's shoulder, terrified that should she dare, Berger might fall from reach forever, as if she is supported by nothing but air forty-five floors above the streets.

"Marino can't know. Not ever," Lucy says. "My aunt can't know. Not ever."

"I should hate you," Berger says.

She smells faintly of perfume, a strong scent, lightly applied, and it touches Lucy's thoughts that Berger didn't weat perfume for her husband. He isn't here.

"Call it what you want," Berger continues. "You and Rudy committed murder."

"Words," Lucy replies. "The casualties of war. Self-defense. Judicial homicide. Home protection. We have words, legal excuses for committing acts that should be inexcusable, Jaime. I promise you, there was no joy in it, no delicious flavor of revenge. He was a pitiful coward, blubbering and sorry about only one thing in his entire cruel, worthless life: that it was his turn to pay the price. How could Marino have a son like that? What markers in the human genome came together to spew out Rocco?"

"Who else knows?"

"Rudy. Now you…"

"Anyone else? Were you given instructions?" Berger presses on.

Lucy thinks about Benton's staged murder, about many events and conversations that she can never tell Berger. A tyrant of anguish and rage has ruled Lucy for years.

"There are others involved, indirectly involved. I can't talk about it. Really," Lucy says.

Berger doesn't know that Benton isn't dead.

"Oh, fuck. What others?

"I said indirectly. I can't tell you anything else. I won't."

"People who give secret orders tend to vanish in the light of exposure. Are these your others? People who have given secret orders?"

"Not directly about Rocco." She thinks about Senator Lord, about the Chandonne cartel. "Let me just say that there are people who wanted Rocco dead. I just never had enough information to do anything about it until now. When Chandonne wrote to me, he told me what I needed to know."

"I see. And Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is credible. Of course, all psychopaths are. Whoever else is indirectly involved has already vanished. You can count on that."

"I don't know. There are instructions about the Chandonne cartel. Oh, yes. There have been for a long time. Years. I did what I could while I was ATF, down in Miami. But it wasn't working. Rules."

"That's right. You and rules," Berger says coldly.

"Until Rocco, I have been ineffective."

"Well, you certainly were effective this time. Tell me something, Lucy. Do you think you'll get away with it?" Yes.

"You and Rudy made mistakes," Berger says. "You left your tactical baton and had to go back to get it, and you were seen by several people. Never good, never good. And you staged the death scene-quite expertly, quite cleverly. Maybe too expertly, too cleverly. I would wonder about a room, a gun, a champagne bottle, et cetera, so clean that only Rocco's fingerprints are on them. I would wonder about advanced decomposition that seems to conflict with time of death. And flies, so damn many flies. Blow flies aren't terribly fond of cool weather."

"In Europe, they are more accustomed to cooler weather. As low as forty-eight degrees. The common bluebottle variety, blow fly. Of course, warmer temperatures are better."

"You must have learned that from your aunt Kay. She would be proud of you."

"You would wonder." Lucy gets back to mistakes. "You wonder about everything. That's why you're who you are."

"Don't underestimate the Polish authorities and medical experts, Lucy. You may not have heard the last of this. And if anything points back to you, I can't help you. I have to consider this conversation privileged. Right now, I am your lawyer. Not a prosecutor. It's a lie. But I will somehow live with it.

"But whoever has given you directives, I don't care how long ago, will not return your secret phone calls now, won't even know your name, will frown and shrug in some cabinet meeting or over drinks at the Palm, or worse, laugh it off. The story of some overzealous private investigator."

"It won't happen like that."

Berger slowly turns around and grabs Lucy's wrists. "Are you so goddamn sure of yourself that you're stupid? How can anyone so smart be so stupid?"

The blood rises to Lucy's cheeks.

"The world is full of users. They'll seduce you into the most outrageous acts for the sake of liberty and justice for all, and then they dissolve like mist. Prove to be fantasies. You begin to wonder if they were ever real, and as you rot away in a federal prison somewhere or, God forbid, are extradited to a foreign country, you will slowly but surely believe it was all a delusion, because everybody else believes you are delusional, some nutcase who committed murder because she was on some secret mission for the CIA, the FBI, the fucking Pentagon, Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Easter Bunny."

"Stop it," Lucy exclaims. "It's not like that."

Berger's hands move up to Lucy's shoulders. "For the first time in your life, listen to someone!"

Lucy blinks back tears.

"Who?" Berger demands to know. "Who sent you on this goddamn horrific mission? Is it someone I know?"

"Please stop it! I can't and won't ever tell you! There's so much… Jaime, you're better off not knowing. Please trust me."

"Jesus!" Berger's grip lightens, but she doesn't let go of her. "Jesus, Lucy. Look at you. You're shaking like a leaf."

"You can't do this." Lucy angrily steps away. "I'm not a child. When you touch me…" She steps back some more. "When you touch me, it means something different. It still does. So don't. Don't."

"I know what it means," Berger says. "I'm sorry."