The Death Trust

EIGHTEEN

Jesus, are you okay?” she asked when she joined us.

“I’m a bit rare on one side. My butt could probably do with another minute or so,” I said.

Masters ignored me and concentrated on Varvara. “Do you need treatment for burns?”

“No, we’re okay,” I said.

“I’m asking Varvara.”

Masters took a break from attending Varvara and gave me a cursory inspection. “You’ve lost an eyebrow. Singed clean away.”

I glanced at my forearms. They were black with soot and sweat and the hair on them was also gone.

“When you said there’d been a bit of a fire,” she said, gesturing at the fire trucks and emergency vehicles, “I didn’t take your call seriously. I could have got here quicker.”

“Forget it,” I said. I wondered how long it would take Special Agent Masters’s concern to be replaced with the question undoubtedly on her mind: namely, what I happened to be doing at Varvara’s apartment at three in the morning. And then I remembered seeing Masters’s Mercedes parked outside the Pensione Freedom just before Varvara made her spectacular entrance there. If she’d seen the Latvian arrive, Masters probably believed she already had the answer to that one. I gave a mental shrug. She was a grown-up, wasn’t she? Nevertheless, I made a lame attempt to throw her off course. “Varvara came by my hotel earlier this evening to let me know that she could prove the letter was a forgery. She brought me back here and we found her apartment on fire. Ms. Kadyrov believes the fire was started to prevent us using other samples of General Scott’s handwriting she had to compare them with the suicide note.” This, of course, was at odds with what Varvara had told the fireman.

“Then why didn’t she just bring some of this evidence to your apartment in the first place?” asked Masters.

There it was. Masters was on the hunt.

“I was not sure I could trust him,” Varvara said, apparently playing along.

Masters again. “What changed your mind?”

Why did I feel like a trap had been set and my foot was poised above its steel jaws? I was about to open my mouth and say something defensive — I have no idea what — when Varvara sprang those jaws shut: “Because we fucked and a woman knows afterwards if she can trust a man, no?”

Thanks a bunch, Varvara.

Special Agent Masters fixed me with a look of pure ice and said, “Yes, trust is in short supply these days. Almost as much as professionalism.”

“We managed to save an example of the general’s handwriting,” I said, pushing on. Were Masters and I married? No. Was the case officially closed? Yes. Did I feel like I’d let Masters down? Yes. Did I have to be tucked up in bed by eight P.M. with a Dr. Seuss? No. A score of justifications ran through my head, but, the fact was, I felt guilty. “Varvara, you want to show the Special Agent?”

She nodded and led Masters under the streetlight. The major’s reaction was swift, if not a little more animated than my own. “Are you fucking kidding me, Cooper?” she said, looking up.

“Can I speak with you a moment, Special Agent?” I said, walking into the shadows.

Masters followed. “What?” she asked. “And it had better be good.”

“Whether you or I think that note helps build a case for murder, the fact is someone thought the apartment was worthwhile torching. And what if Ms. Kadyrov had been home when whoever turned up with a can of kerosene and a Zippo? The timing of this is what’s so wrong.”

“Get to the point,” she said.

“You know Scott was murdered and so do I. And it’s not just murder: There’s something going on here, something very big — Peyton, the two autopsies, Philippe, Veitch, the journalist…Either we can work together and get to the bottom of it, or you can let the people who did it walk. And, if you do, it’s because the scale of it has you scared. Or maybe you’re just jealous that I got laid.”

“What?” Masters’s hands went to her hips and a sardonic smile twisted her lips. A storm was building, the proverbial quiet before all hell breaks loose. And then it burst. “I have never met anyone as arrogant as you in my life. You are so sure of your own righteousness it makes me sick! I thought I could work with you. I really tried, but I can’t. You are not a team player. And now this!” she jabbed a finger in the direction of Varvara.

“So it’s jealousy, then,” I said.

“You are so out on your own on this, Cooper,” Masters said, shaking her head.

“I mean it, the green-eyed monster has you.”

“Get over yourself, Cooper.”

“Then tell me what you were doing outside my apartment earlier this evening. Were you spying on me — waiting to see whether I went out for a cheeseburger, or something equally heinous?”

Masters’s arms were folded tight, protecting her. “What makes you think I was there?” she demanded.

“Because that purple Mercedes of yours sticks out like a mandrill’s butt.”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“You’re wrong. It’s all that matters. Why were you there?”

“You’re never going to find out now, are you?”

“Was it business or pleasure? And if it was business, whose business were you on?”

“You are an asshole, you know that?” said Masters.

“Look…I saw your car, and then I heard a knock on the door. I thought it was going to be you standing there when I opened it, but it wasn’t. How long were you sitting out there, asking yourself whether you’d come up or not, working up the courage?”

“The courage to what? And stop trying to make your completely unprofessional evening’s intercourse with Ms. Va-va-va-voom out to be my fault.”

“That’s not my intention. I’m just saying it could have turned out differently, is all.”

Masters glared at me. “Oh, lucky me.”

“Look, I apologize if I disappointed you, okay?”

“Go to hell. You know what your problem is, Cooper?”

“I have only one?”

“You’re dishonest. You think one thing but you say something else entirely.”

Busted. “That’s a bunch of crap,” I said defensively. Brenda, the ex, had accused me of much the same crime over the years.

“I’m sick of playing games with you, Cooper,” said Masters. “We’re either on the same team — honest and open — or you’re on your own. Why are you so…so…closed down? You’ve been married, haven’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Did she cheat on you? Is that what happened?”

If Masters was expecting me to break down and start sucking my thumb, she was going to be disappointed. “Our relationship counselor convinced me it was never going to work,” I said.

Masters nodded smugly. It was clear she now believed she knew what made me tick. “I have one other question for you, Cooper.”

My turn to nod.

“What the hell is a mandrill?”

Varvara had three blankets wrapped around her by the time Masters and I had settled on a workable cease-fire. Her teeth had stopped chattering, and she appeared dazed. Masters put an arm around her shoulders.

“Varvara,” I said, “you have to leave here.”

“I know,” she said.

“No, I mean you have to leave here — Germany; Europe. Go where no one will look to find you. Use that passport. We don’t even want to know where you’re going. And this is important: When you get there, you must not use a credit card, for a while at least. Use cash only. It’s too dangerous for you here. The fire proves that, if nothing else.”

“You’re going to arrest that woman, yes?” she asked.

“If you mean Mrs. Scott, no. She hasn’t committed a crime, not one I’m aware of.”

“You are wrong.”

“There are too many questions left unanswered, Varvara. Do you have money?”

“Yes.”

“You can stay with me till the morning,” said Masters with that protective arm still around her shoulders, glaring at me.

“What?” I mimed.

“Where are you going?” Varvara asked, directing the question at me.

“I’m off to the fun capital of the world,” I said. “Otherwise known as Baghdad.”