Kiss Of Evil

42

They had entered through the second door on the left. The room is searingly white. The one splash of brilliance is the velvet wing chair in the center of the room, a deep purple in color. Across from it, against the far wall, is a white table holding a computer and a monitor. Against the wall to the right is a white ultramodern desk, very slender, no chair.

That’s it. No other furniture, no paintings nor posters on the walls, no books nor magazines nor ashtrays nor table lamps. Just… white. And a hell of a lot of track lights hanging from the ceiling. There had to be twenty of them. And every one of them is blazing.

“Do you have anywhere to be tomorrow, early evening?” he asks.

She sits on the velvet wing chair. Whatever she had smelled in the kitchen is stronger here. Spoiled beef, maybe. But this room is almost sterile, and she finds it hard to imagine that Jean Luc would have another room in such disarray as to have rotting food strewn around. Perhaps it is coming from the next apartment.

“No,” she answers. One of her part-time jobs is secretarial work for a small company that writes grants for charities and foundations. They had closed the offices for the week. Besides, if she had said yes, she had the distinct feeling it wouldn’t really matter that much.

“Good,” Jean Luc says. He crosses the room, opens the closet door. Inside hangs a solitary item, a black leather jacket. He removes it from the hanger and walks over to the velvet wing chair. Without a word, she stands and he slips the jacket on her. It feels warm. She does not question what he is doing. There is no longer any point to that.

There are other ways to win.

Jean Luc reaches into his pocket, then holds up a small card. On it is the address of an Italian specialty market on East Sixty-sixth Street. “He’ll be there at six-thirty P.M. tomorrow. He goes there like clockwork, every week.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asks, standing closer, looking deeply into his eyes. She unzips the jacket halfway.

“I want you to take him on a little voyage.” He walks over to the desk, opens a drawer, removes a soft cloth. She looks into the drawer. No photos. Jean Luc returns, gently buffs everywhere on the jacket he has touched. “A little cruise, if you will.”

“A cruise?” she asks. “What kind of cruise?”

Jean Luc smiles. “A cruise I’m certain he will enjoy. A cruise on the Mare di Amore.”