“Mrs. Wilde?”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“I'm looking for Kirsten Fitzroy.”
“Never heard of her.”
Looking past her I see a narrow entrance hall and dimly lit sitting room. She tries to shut the door but my shoulder strikes it first, forcing her backward into a phone table that topples over.
“I don't want to cause any trouble. Just hear me out.” I help her right the table and pick up the phone books.
A greasy stain of lipstick smears her mouth and she reeks of damp ash and perfume. Her breasts are squeezed into a satin dressing gown, creating a cleavage that brings to mind honeydew melons. Daj always told me that you could tell if a honeydew melon was ripe if they were whitish in color. See how my memory works?
In the sitting room almost every piece of furniture is covered in sheets except for a wicker chair by the fireplace and an ornate lamp on a trestle table. The table also carries an open book, a cigarette box, a full ashtray and a lighter in the shape of the Venus de Milo.
“Have you heard from Kirsten?”
“I told you I never heard of her.”
“Tell her I have her diamonds.”
“What diamonds?”
I've sparked her curiosity. “The ones she almost died for.”
Mrs. Wilde hasn't offered me a seat but I take one anyway, pulling the sheet from an armchair. Her skin is taut and almost translucent except for her neck and the backs of her hands. She reaches for a cigarette and watches me through the flame of the lighter.
“Kirsten is in a lot of trouble,” I explain. “I'm trying to help her. I know she's a friend of yours. I thought she might come looking for you if she needed somewhere to hole up for a while.”
Smoke curls in ribbons from her lips. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
I glance around the room at the deep velvet wallpaper and baroque furnishings. If there's one place more depressing than a brothel it's a former brothel. It's like they soak up the loathing and disappointment until they feel as tired and worn out as the sexual organs of the employees.
“A long while ago Kirsten told me that she would never cross Aleksei Kuznet or if she did she'd be catching the first plane to Patagonia. She missed her flight.”
Aleksei's name has shaken her calmness.
“Didn't Kirsten tell you? She tried to rip him off. You must realize how much danger she's in . . .” I pause, “. . . how much danger you're both in.”
“I haven't done anything.”
“I'm sure Aleksei will understand. He's a reasonable man. I saw him only yesterday. I offered him a deal—two million pounds' worth of diamonds if he left Kirsten alone. He didn't take it. He sees himself as a man of honor. Money doesn't matter and neither do excuses. But if you haven't seen Kirsten, that's fine. I'll let him know.”
Ash falls from her cigarette and smudges her dress. “I might be able to ask around. You mentioned money.”
“I mentioned diamonds.”
“It might help me find her.”
“And I had you pegged as a humanitarian.”
Her top lip curls. “You see a limousine parked outside?”
Her eyelids seem to work on wires attached to the top of her forehead. I've heard it called a Croydon face-lift—pulling back your hair so tightly that everything else lifts.
Drawing out my wallet, I peel off three twenties. She counts with her eyes.
“There's a clinic in Tottenham. It patched her up. Expensive. But discreet.”
I put another two twenties on the stack. She has the money in her hand and it vanishes down her cleavage as if part of a conjuring trick. She tilts her head as though listening to the rain.
“I know all about you. You're a Gypsy.” My surprise pleases her. “They used to say your mother had a gift.”
“How do you know her?”
“Don't you recognize a kindred spirit?” She cackles hoarsely, claiming to be a Gypsy. “Your mother told my fortune once. She said I would always be a great beauty and could have any man I wanted.”
(Somehow I don't think she was talking quantity.)
Daj had a gift all right—a gift for doing cold readings and predicting the bleeding obvious. She took people's money and tapped their spring of eternal hope. And afterward, having ushered them out of the door, she ran to the liquor store and bought her vodka.
There's a sound from upstairs: something falling. Mrs. Wilde looks up quickly.
“It's just one of my old girls. She stays sometimes.”
Her milky blue eyes betray her and her hand shoots out to stop me from rising. “Let me tell you the address of the clinic. They might know where she is.”
I brush her hand aside and move up the stairs, leaning out to peer between the banisters above me. On the first landing there are three doors, two open and one closed. I knock gently and turn the handle. Locked.
“Don't touch me! Leave me alone!”
It sounds like the voice of a child—the same one I heard on the phone during the ransom drop. I step away, bracing my back against the wall, with only my hand protruding past the door frame.
The first bullet hits six inches to the right of the handle at stomach height. I sit heavily letting my feet hit the opposite wall, letting out a low groan.
Mrs. Wilde yells up the stairs, “Is that my door? If that's my bloody door you'll be paying for it.”
A second bullet rips through the wood a foot above the floor.
Mrs. Wilde again: “Right, that's it! From now on I'm taking a fucking deposit.”
I sit quietly, listening to my own breathing.
“Hey, you out there,” says the voice, just above a whisper. “Are you dead?”
“No.”
“Are you wounded?”
“No.”
She curses.
“It's me, Vincent Ruiz. I'm here to help you.”
A long silence follows.
“Please let me come in. I'm here alone.”
“Stay away. Please go.” I recognize Kirsten's voice, thick with phlegm and fear.
“I can't do that.”
After another long pause: “How's your leg?”
“Half an inch shorter.”
Mrs. Wilde calls up the stairs. “I'm calling the police unless someone pays for my door!”
Sighing heavily, I tell Kirsten, “You can keep the gun if you shoot your landlady.”
Her laugh is cut short by a hacking cough.
“I'm coming in.”
“Then I'll have to shoot you.”
“No, you won't.”
I ease myself up and face the door. “Are you going to unlock it for me?”
After a long wait there are two metallic clicks. Turning the handle, I push the door open.
Heavy drapes are drawn and the bedroom is in semidarkness. The room has high ceilings and mirrors on two walls. A large iron bed occupies the center and Kirsten is marooned amid the covers, with her legs drawn up and the gun resting on her knees. She has cut her hair and dyed it blond. It falls in sweaty ringlets down her forehead.
“I thought you were dead,” she says.
“I could say the same about you.”
She lowers her chin onto the barrel of the gun, staring forlornly into the shadows. The cheap chandelier above her head catches the light leaking from the curtains and the mirrors reflect the same scene, each from a slightly different angle.
I lean against the windowsill letting the curtains sag against my back. I can hear the raindrops hitting the panes of glass.
Kirsten shifts slightly and grimaces in pain. Boxes of painkillers and torn silver foil litter the floor around her bed.
“Can I have a look?”
Without acknowledging me, she raises her shirt high enough to show me the yellowing bandage, crusty with blood and sweat.
“You need to get to a hospital.”