It was a window on another time. Fur wraps were draped on the chairs of women who showed no fear of assault by political spittle. Illicit smoke curled upward from long cigarette holders, and bright jewels flashed sparks of light from bracelets and rings. Champagne corks were popping, and the music of another era swelled up and floated back across the divide of the hall. Two people were slow-dancing between the tables, and other outlaws were rising to join them in this unlicensed, untaxed pleasure.
And behind her, the December rain was drumming on the glass.
Malakhai emerged from the dining room and walked toward the lounge. He was happy to see her. Perhaps he misunderstood her visit, taking it as a graceful gesture of defeat.
She felt lighter in the body as he drew closer. And there was a quickening in her chest where the most vital organ should be, but none other than Dr. Slope had said she did not have a heart. An ache was rising in her throat. She knew what that was; it came with sorrow, but she could not understand it – not here, not now. And so she put it down to the frayed nerves of closing on endgame. She was here to call Malakhai out and finish him off.
„Mallory, I hope you’ll let me pay for wrecking your gun.“
„Don’t worry about it.“ She unbelted her trench coat. „I have lots of guns.“ She opened her blazer to display the.38 in her holster. „This one works just fine.“
He was standing very close to her. Her pulse was racing. And this excitement going on beneath her skin? Nerves, only that. Such a long night. Almost over.
„Come to the party?“ Malakhai glanced at the dining room for a moment. „Or were you planning to make an arrest for illegal dancing?“
Mallory looked into the other room. „I thought they might’ve canceled it – because of the accident.“
„Most of these people were at Carnegie Hall tonight,“ said Malakhai. „No one’s come in from Faustine’s yet. I may have forgotten to mention the incident.“
„But you remember killing a man. You know I’ll get you for that.“
„Ah, the arrest – that’s the main thing, isn’t it? Nick says there won’t be one. But I have more faith in you. Of course, by the time you make a case, I probably won’t remember why you’re arresting me. I hope that doesn’t spoil it. I hate disappointing you.“ Perversely, he seemed sincere in this. There was no sarcasm in his voice. He was moving closer.
Mallory did not back away, but she did warn him off with the slow shake of her head. „I think I can get a warrant before your brain turns to soup.“
He smiled as if this were a great joke. „The strokes are coming faster now. Years are disappearing. Entire decades are mostly smoke.“
„So I was right, wasn’t I? Louisa’s gone?“
„She’s been gone a long time.“
„But she was there when you took a shot at Futura. Louisa wouldn’t let you do it, would she?“
He shook his head in mild confusion.
So this was one more mystery she would never have the answer to – like the way he had worked a dead woman’s shadow. Curiously, Mallory had more faith in Malakhai’s wife than he did. If Louisa had not died a second time, Franny might have lived.
He put out one hand to touch her hair. „Right now, this moment – it’s just you and me.“ He bowed his head, bringing his face closer to hers. „I hope to die before I forget you, Kathy Mallory.“
She listened to the rain drumming on the windowpane behind her. One moment strung into the next. His arm moved around her shoulder, and he was leading her toward the dining room.
„So come to the party.“ His voice was stronger now. „We’ll break the law while I still remember how to dance.“
Mallory pulled back, shook him off, and still he was not seeing her as an opponent – a good time to slip in a knife. What would it take to convince him that he had murdered the wrong man? Nick Prado was standing on the other side of the narrow hall, and she knew the same idea was crossing his mind as he watched their conversation with great interest.
With just the right words, the right timing, she could aim Malakhai at Prado and commit a perfect murder with proxy hands.
Prado was a serial killer – three deaths. He was so good at this. She had underestimated him – another mistake. But now she could do the same thing better, quicker – and get clean away with it. Prado would die, and Malakhai would be effectively destroyed when he knew he had killed the wrong man. A little justice for everyone.
Her trench coat was parted. The holster was exposed as she casually drew the blazer material to one side. Malakhai had already had some practice in taking her gun tonight. She only had to point him toward the target standing just across the hall.
This is going to be so easy.
But now, slowly and with deep regret, she closed her coat, hiding the gun and cinching the leather with a hard tug on her belt. Justice had nothing to do with her job. She was only the law.
Prado drifted back into the party. Opportunity was walking away from her.
She turned her face to Malakhai, ready to begin his slow destruction. This would be done the long way, the right way – with lies upon lies.
He must have taken the cinched belt as a signal of goodbye. His eyes were full of disappointment as he stared at her across the gap of three steps. She was aware of every detail of the night, shimmers from a sea of sequins in the room behind him, wavering flames of candlelight. She heard the clink of glasses. A bottle crashed to the floor and freed bubbles of bright laughter floated up with the music.
His head tilted to one side, trying to understand her, as if he could. „I’ll never see you again, will I?“
„You’ll see me when I come to arrest you in the morning. The paperwork will hit my desk at nine,“ she lied.
„There’s no case for – “
„Because Prado said so? He thinks like an amateur, plots like one too.“
„You have no evidence.“
„I do – a very strong case for Louisa’s murder.“ A very weak case. „That’s your motive for the killing you did tonight.“
„But you can’t prove her death wasn’t an accident.“
„I can. I’ve got your testimony from the poker game and a postmortem interview conducted by a medical examiner, Dr. Slope. Expert testimony is admissible evidence.“ Not likely, but it had the ring of a true thing. „I have physical evidence – your cuff key from Faustine’s. I bet it was Nick’s idea to leave it near the body – stupid move. I ordered lab tests for DNA. It comes from the oil on your fingers.“ Heller would fall down laughing at that one.
She turned away from him. „You can plead insanity. You can trot out Louisa, have her do a few cheap tricks in open court. But then I get to tell them how Franny died.“
Malakhai reached out and gently turned her face back to his. „You called him by his first name. You don’t care about Franny’s crimes anymore, do you?“ His voice was incredulous. „It’s all changed now.“
She brushed his hand away.
Malakhai’s hand slowly dropped to his side. „Franny was that damn cat in the burning building, wasn’t he?“
What is he talking about?
He was reading this question on her face.
„That psychiatrist’s report,“ he said. „The one test question you got right – the one little piece of you that you’re really proud of. You wanted to carry your damn cat out of the fire – only because Franny was a living, breathing…“ His words tapered off to nothing. He stared at her, as if she had somehow betrayed him with this one small thing she had gotten right.
„I’m sorry, Mallory.“
„Sorry doesn’t get it. This is nothing to do with me. A man died tonight.“ The wrong man. „And you’re going to pay for that.“ All that blood.