“Markowitz knew you lied to him. I found his copy of the shooting schedule for that old movie and all the city location permits. It took me a while to work it out. The film location wasn’t between your apartment and the gallery. And that’s all the old man knew-that you lied. He never got to interview the family. He didn’t know Sabra was meeting your mother that night. But I did- after I talked to Aubry’s father. Then I noticed the shooting location was midway between your house and your mother’s. So you and your sister saw the movie crew on the way to your mother’s house. I even know you drove there in her car.”
“Sabra was never-”
She rushed him with long steps, a swing and a cut to the arm. His parry was too late. He looked down to the blood drops staining his sleeve. She had bloodied him, and yet he remained true to the brotherhood which refused to believe that the female could be the deadlier sex. The wound was hard evidence against her gender, and still he would only defend and retreat. His mind was coming apart; his code remained intact. He could finish her with one thrust, and yet he would not.
And she knew it.
“What’s the point of lying anymore?” She lowered her sword and stalked off to the far end of the strip. “You got the message at your mother’s house-you called the paper or they tracked you down. Then you and Sabra drove her car to the gallery. You were late, but not late enough to account for the delay in calling the police.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that.”
“Oh, no? Tell me what doesn’t fit. Sabra saw what they’d done to Aubry, and she went right over the screaming edge. You needed time to calm her down and get her safely away-time to plan. You had to keep the police and the media away from Sabra. You decided she couldn’t stand up to an interrogation-what a gentleman. You made up the subway story to explain why you were late calling the police, why there would be no record of a cab log. So they couldn’t follow the trail back to your mother’s house and Sabra. That was the first lie.”
She left the strip to walk around him, making side circles, slow and quiet. This was no maneuver learned at school-she was playing with him. His life had been lived within parameters of form, where all the moves were familiar, almost a ballet. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for what lay beyond the boundary lines. The sight of Aubry had ruptured his mind and not taught him a thing.
He turned to watch Mallory, moving as she moved, revolving to keep pace with her circles. All the aggression was hers, she picked the shots, began the dance and stopped it when she wished. She controlled the court, the game, himself.
She was so sure she was going to beat him-that much, but no more, was in her face. And worse, it was in his own mind as Mallory danced up to the mark to play, ignoring his blade, she thought so little of his chances.
His concentration was broken. He missed the parry and let her through to bloody his side. She backed away again to the center of the court. And now she broke with any pretense of form, running across the floor, her saber describing circles in the air. When she had closed the distance, she dropped to one knee and sliced low toward his unprotected thigh, a forbidden zone which no opponent ever aimed for.
He cursed himself for not anticipating her. He had heard the rip of material, but he would not look down. If she had cut him again, it would do him no good to see the blood. He parried the next rush, doing twice the brainwork to cover his body and his legs.
She broke off, stepping back, light as a cat, to the end of the strip. When she moved forward again, it was still on cat’s feet, an unhurried, stalking advance.
She began this bout in slow-action time, the cadence of casual conversation, as her blade met his in easy strikes and counters. The swordplay accelerated with more rapid strikes, but still no force, light touches only- You kiss my sword, and I kiss yours. Faster now, and faster-quick reports of steel sounded on steel. The tempo was more the breathless pace of something carnal, heart pounding-
Suddenly, Mallory broke with him and retreated to the edge of the strip.
Sweat blurred his eyes as she came dancing back to him with short steps and a rather ordinary gambit. He parried easily, and this should have made him suspicious. Instead of answering his parry with a riposte, she let her steel slide down his sword until she closed with him, hilt to hilt, swords pointing up, only a few inches between their bodies. She pressed closer until they stood corps-a-corps, in the forbidden contact of opponents.
Softly, she said, “I’m going to take you now.”
And he believed her. He was staring into the long slants of her green eyes. Her sword was disengaging, lowering. And this was the moment where he lost the match, even before he felt her metal slipping into the handle of his saber. With one elegant move, she backed away and ripped the steel from his hand with the pry bar of her own sword and sent his saber flying across the court, clanging to the floor.
He glimpsed the bright triumph of a child in her stance and in her eyes-and then the child was gone. Deadly serious now. “I won.”
Stone silence. She stepped forward, sword rising.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “It was my job to keep score, wasn’t it? Well, would you like me to tally up the bloodings?” He looked down at the cuts, thin lines of blood on his side, his arms and one leg. “There are a few tears in the material that didn’t get through to the skin, but of course they count too.”
“I want to collect my bet now.”
“Suppose I sign a confession to the murders of Dean Starr and Avril Koozeman. Would that be satisfactory payment?”
“No. You’re not the type. You won’t even make a strike to save yourself. And leaving your sister out in the rain-well, that doesn’t count as violence.”
“What was I supposed to do? Lock her up in a maximum-security ward for the rest of her life? She’d rather be dead.”
She moved in close to him. “I think you meant to say that she’d be better off dead.” Too late, he felt her leg hook around his own, unbalancing him as she pushed him to the floor. She stood over him with the sword to his throat. “Pay up! I want Sabra.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Liar!” She pulled the sword back only a little, slowly angling the point to his face. She thrust it into his mask again and again. “How many drives before I get your eyes? I won! Deliver what you promised.”
“Wait!” He raised one hand, and she stopped. He removed the mask and held it out to her. “This should make it easier for you.”
Her blade came closer. He no longer believed he understood her well enough to anticipate her. But he had well understood Louis Markowitz, and now he was betting his eyes on the man who had raised her.
She put up the sword. “You know, there’s stabbing, and then there’s stabbing.”
She backed away from him. “Aubry was never meant to die that night. I figured it out with the messages. You didn’t know about the message left at the ballet school, did you?”
He shook his head, and she continued. “I got that from my interview with Gregor Gilette. You figured they already had her when that message was left at your paper, right?”
He nodded and closed his eyes. Her next words came from behind him.
“According to her father, Aubry’s message was a long one. That’s what made me think she was being sent somewhere else-so you wouldn’t be able to reach her by phone when you got your own message. Aubry’s was garbled by the clerk, too many instructions to write down in a hurry. So she killed a lot of time trying to decipher the message, and then more time trying to locate you. Finally, she called your newspaper. By then, a message had been left for you. A receptionist probably checked your message box and confirmed the meeting at the gallery. It’s the only scenario that fits the two messages. Too bad you wouldn’t let Markowitz near the family. He could’ve worked it out twelve years ago. It only took me five minutes with Gregor Gilette.”