Going to the service bar, she poured the coffee from the silver coffeemaker provided by the hotel.
Deirdre had been frightened a little when he began to play games with her; it seemed unnatural; it seemed a little evil. Finally, she had decided it was all of that and that she desired him the more for it. Was she herself evil or unnatural?
She smiled. There was no secret too vile for the heart of a good girl, a good Catholic girl who went to Mass and wept at the Stations of the Cross and delighted in the ecstasy of sin.
She had small, round breasts and large, brown nipples and sometimes Slough would ask her to stand before him so that he could admire her. He would touch her then, touch her breasts, her vagina, reach into her womb, as though counting his pleasures.
Deirdre Monahan was thirty-one years old and looked younger even; her eyes were green and soft; she was born in the village of Innisbally, below the heights of the burren hills. Her mother was pious and her father was a drunk and her brother had gone away to live in America; Deirdre knew she was just an ordinary woman desired by a man.
Not that he loved her. In her wisdom, she even understood that he was fond of her.
He had come to her the first time at night, when Brianna was fourteen and she was twenty-five. He had come to her in her rooms at Clare House and made love so naturally that it seemed they must have made love before, at least in dreams.
He opened his silk dressing gown as she put down the coffee on the side table. Kneeling naked before him, she took his large penis into her mouth.
She loved him. She would not say that to him because it would have made him sad — to think she loved him.
He had been dressed for an hour: Black turtleneck shirt, black trousers, dark leather jacket. He wore a black beret. He sat by the door.
He looked again at the weapon in his black-gloved hand. Again, he removed the magazine from the pistol grip and reinserted it with a sharp click. Everything was going well.
Uzi, the name given to this ugly thing that appeared to be some sort of pistol. It was a small machine gun, made by the Israelis. Nine-millimeter, small recoil, very reliable. The barrel was contained so that its upward climb when firing — a common problem in all automatic weapons — was greatly reduced.
He knew the French criminal investigation division used it — it was also being made by a Belgian firm and distributed in France. He trusted the weapon as he trusted few things: forty-round magazine, SMG set to fire automatically. It was deadly at two hundred yards; devastating in a closed room.
In a hotel room.
He glanced at his watch and got up from the chair by the door. Eight A.M. Within the next fifteen minutes, the bellboy would bring up the morning papers to Lord Slough’s suite.
The bellboy would die. That bothered him. The boy did not deserve to die. He had nothing to do with what had to be done. But there was no way not to involve him.
Toolin shrugged. Perhaps he would die as well. It didn’t matter.
He entered the old, ornate corridor. He went to the elevator. The pistol — machine gun was under the leather jacket. He pressed the “up” button.
8:01.
The bell sounded. The doors clicked open.
My God, he thought, it was close.
The boy was on the elevator already.
“Up, sir,” he said. Politely. He had red cheeks and red hair and bright, clever eyes. Toolin felt pity. Walked on the elevator and turned away from the boy so as not to see him.
The boy glanced at the headlines on the front page of the New York Times he carried in his hand. He hummed to himself.
Click, click, click — the elevator glided up past the floors. The numbers flashed on the control panel.
Toolin held his hands folded together across the front of his jacket.
The bell rang, the elevator doors flashed open. The top floor.
Toolin felt sweat on his palms beneath the gloves. It had been quite simple, really; Lord Slough had dismissed the bodyguard for the night. His room was to the right, not part of the suite. Jeffries’ room was next to that. Lord Slough had wanted privacy for his tête-à-tête with the Irish bitch.
They had not expected it to be so easy. They were prepared to kill him in the dining room, but this was much better. Only the boy would be in the way.
The boy waited for him to step out. Politely.
Toolin nodded and went down the corridor. He heard the boy walk across the carpet to the door.
Knock.
“Your papers, sir,” he said.
Toolin reached for the machine pistol.
The voice on the other side of the door was muffled.
The boy said, “Very good, sir.” He placed the papers on the carpet of the hall next to the door. He turned back to the elevator bank. The door had closed. He pressed the “down” button.
Damn.
Toolin suddenly did not know what to do. He decided to walk the length of the hall, away from Lord Slough’s door and the boy waiting for the elevator. He walked slowly. He felt the weight of the Uzi inside his leather coat.
Ping. The door of the elevator opened.
He turned back. Saw the boy enter the elevator and turn at the last moment and look at him. The boy smiled. Toolin smiled in return.
Quietly. Back along the hall on the thick carpet. Now he stood opposite the door.
He unbuttoned his coat carefully. He took the machine gun from his coat, felt the folded stock, touched the bottom of the forty-round magazine wedged into the pistol grip chamber.
He held it straight out from his body, pointed to the door.
Moments of silence.
Toolin did not know what to do. When would they get the papers? Would the bodyguard come? How much time was there?
8:09 A.M.
Steps behind the door.
He heard his breath. It was too loud.
The click of the lock.
The door opened.
He saw her for a moment. She was bending to pick up the morning newspapers when she became aware of him. She looked up. She appeared amused. He never saw her eyes.
She was naked.
Because she was bent over, the bullets — which should have struck her in the belly — smashed into her face. She did not utter a sound.
Her body exploded back into the apartment. Her face was only blood and bone.
He ran forward, over her already-dead body, now sinking to the floor. Blood spattered his trouser cuffs.
Four steps in the little hall. He ran it.
Lord Slough turned at the window. The sputter of the machine gun had reached his consciousness only a moment before. Adrenalin pumped into his blood.
The bullets burst out, smashing to the line of windows. Glass shattered. Lord Slough fell.
Toolin turned now, the gun still firing, bullets ripping into the plaster walls, smashing the television set. The picture tube exploded with a savage pop.
Behind him.
Turning, firing. Harmon, in the hall, fired three times. The bullets surged heavily into Toolin. He could not stop the trigger. The machine gun bucked in his hand, spraying up and down, splitting Harmon’s face. He saw Harmon fall back, onto the dead, naked woman.
Toolin lurched forward, the magazine — incredibly — spent of its forty rounds. He fell onto the carpet. Smelled his own blood. Felt the damp warmth of the carpet against his face. Nuzzling his cheek.
The redness filled his eyes.
At least the boy did not have to die.
There was that.
At least—
9
Devereaux awoke thinking of Elizabeth at the end of his sleep. He had seen her in his dream and it had startled him and he had awakened. For a moment — as always — he did not know where he was. He lay still until he remembered. A gray light broke through the square of window beyond his bed. It made the dark room look sinister in the pale, dusty shadows. Yesterday, he had been with her, felt her warmth next to him. Now there was nothing but the gray light and the cold. And pain.