I’m used to people thinking I’m paranoid. I just tell them it doesn’t take any extra effort to walk around a corner properly, or sit with your back to walls in strange places, because it becomes automatic, like looking left then right then left again before crossing the road, and it could save your life. It’s saved mine more than once. I’m used to being the only one who believes that, the only one who takes these routine precautions. But that woman last night had also been taking the corner wide. And she had remembered to do it while she was in enough of a hurry to run.
There was no trace of the rain when I woke next morning. The tree outside my bedroom window was golden green with sunshine and birds were singing blithely. I stood under the shower a long time, letting the water quench lingering thoughts about that house burning like a hot lily.
I have a big kitchen; square, with a terra-cotta floor. French windows open onto the deck I built last year. In summer the whole thing is in shade but when the leaves are still small with spring, sunlight shivers lightly over the planking. I took my toast and tea outside and cut up an orange while a cardinal landed on the bird feeder. Someone burnt down a house practically under my nose. My curiosity was piqued, but it wasn’t my problem. My problem was to beat the morning traffic and get to the Spanish consulate in time for my nine o’clock appointment.
I ate my breakfast and thought about the second daughter of the Spanish Cabinet minister, who was coming to Atlanta for four days next week. I hoped she didn’t want conversation. I dislike clients who try to be my friend. The Spanish hadn’t told me, yet, the reason she was visiting. I hoped it was something boring, and safe. I like excitement but only in situations I have planned and can control. I don’t like to risk my life, or anyone else’s, to protect those I don’t know and care about even less.
I wiped my hands on a napkin, put the napkin on my plate, carried the plate and cup into the kitchen. Napkin in the laundry, dirty dishes in the dishwasher, butter in the fridge. Orderly house, orderly life. I dressed carefully. Although Philippe Cordova would have checked me out thoroughly before calling about the job and no doubt knew I didn’t need the money, it never did any harm to emphasize that fact. It saved time down the road. So I picked one of my handmade Kobayashi suits in soft grey, put gold at my ears and moussed my white-blonde hair behind my ears. Boxy European shoes. Pearl choker.
I felt sharp, rich, very good looking. It pleases me to wear silk couture and gold and pearls. I like the way it feels on my skin, the way it fits.
The jacket I wore last night was on a hanger in the bathroom, still drying. I transferred the leather fob of the car key to my pants pocket, the house keys to my jacket, dipped into the inside breast pocket…and found it empty. I checked again, then in all the other pockets. My wallet was gone.
I knew it wouldn’t be on the table by the door, or on the dresser, or on the floor or behind a cushion on the couch, but I checked anyway. I caught sight of myself in the long mirror in the hall. I looked utterly calm. I strode over to the phone, dialed Cordova’s private line at the consulate. While it rang I remembered the smell of the woman’s rain-wet hair, her wary face.
“Philippe? Aud Torvingen. How is your schedule? It looks as though I’ll be twenty or thirty minutes late.” I didn’t offer an explanation, he didn’t ask. People don’t, usually.
I put the phone down, breathed hard through my nose. Others hate the mess of crime, and the pain, the loss and bewilderment and anger, but what I resent is the inconvenience. Driver’s license, gun permit, insurance card…I looked at the phone again but didn’t pick it up. Something told me I wouldn’t have to make all those phone calls this time, and if I was wrong, well, two more hours wouldn’t hurt.
Whoever had my wallet had my address. When I left the house I set the alarm system.
Outside the birds still sang, the sun still shone. Trees shivered in a light breeze, dropping clouds of pollen. The screened porch was thick with it. My maroon Saab had turned greenish gold. It looked like a small furry hill in the driveway. I backed out into the road and left the motor running while I went back up the driveway and placed a few twigs and leaves in unobvious places. I memorized the pattern of footprints and car tires in the pollen.
The wallet was poking out from under a bush about four feet from the corner. I squatted down but didn’t touch it. It was clearly visible to anyone looking. The arson inspectors would have looked.
I touched the leather gently with a fingertip. Dry. I leafed through it. Nothing missing. I tucked it away in my inside breast pocket and stood.
I have a strange kind of face; people trust me. More than that, they see in my face what they want to be there. One old man I pulled from a car wreck said I had a face like a holy angel. Some think I’m the girl next door—the way she should have been if only she didn’t hang out with the wrong crowd, if she didn’t drink, if she hadn’t gotten pregnant when she was sixteen. Those I have killed have never expressed an opinion, though several did look surprised. My face is my most useful tool.
The uniformed officer standing by the tape around the burnt-out shell was young. He had no idea who I was. Wearing any other clothes I would have smiled and pretended to rubberneck, and he would have thought I was just like him and ended up telling me things he shouldn’t have. But I was dressed for the Spanish consulate. I walked up briskly and nodded at the figure in protective gear poking about in the ashes behind a wall thirty yards away. “Who’s the fire inspector?”
“Ma’am?”
I smiled pleasantly. “Bertolucci or Hammer?”
He slid his eyes sideways, unsure how to deal with this pushy civilian who was obviously more important than she seemed. Perhaps my impatience showed through. He stepped back uneasily.
“Never mind.” I stepped to one side. “Hoi!”
The figure in the hard hat jerked upright and scowled.
I knew that expression. “Bertolucci?”
“Yeah, who wants to…Torvingen?”
“The same.”
He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and stepped over the rubble towards me. “Been a while.”
“Yes.” Bertolucci had never liked me; he’d never disliked me, either. He was just cautious.
“Heard after you were kicked out you took a job in some podunk town north of here.” He waited, looked at my clothes. I said nothing. “Your name came up last night. Some woman told us you were walking around here just before show time.” He looked assessingly at the rubble. “You’d know how.”
A compliment. It had been a beautiful job. Fast and clean. Nothing touched but the target. “I watched it burn for a while. Did it reach the garage?”
“Funny you should ask that.” This time the assessing gaze was turned on me. He made up his mind. “Come and look at something. Mind your clothes.”
I stepped under the tape, past a late-model Camry that took up the driveway. “I’m thinking about getting one of these,” Bertolucci said. Too massive for my taste.
The garage was brick, unusual in Atlanta. The door was open. The walls were cluttered with the usual stuff: caked paint rollers; a rake and shovel, with red dirt still on the blade; a hose that had been badly coiled and was permanently kinked. Why were Americans so careless of things?