La Ponte was disappointed to see the woman with the breasts leave with a smart young man who looked like a model. Corso was still watching the fat woman at the slot machine, who'd run out of coins again. She was standing with a disconcerted, blank look, her hands at her sides. Her place at the machine was taken by a tall, dark man. He had a thick black mustache and a scar on his face. For a fleeting moment Corso thought he looked familiar, but the impression vanished before he could grasp it. To the fat woman's despair, the machine was now spewing out a noisy stream of coins.
Makarova offered Corso one last beer on the house. La Ponte had to pay for his own this time.
II. THE DEAD MAN'S HAND
Milady smiled, and d'Artagnan felt that he would go to hell and back for that smile.
There are inconsolable widows, and then there are widows to whom any adult male would be delighted to provide the appropriate consolation. Liana Taillefer was undoubtedly the second kind. Tall and blond, with pale skin, she moved languorously. She was the type of woman who takes an age to light a cigarette and looks straight into a man's eyes as she does so. She had the cool composure that was a result of knowing that she looked a little like Kim Novak, with a full, almost overgenerous figure, and that she was the sole beneficiary of the late Enrique Taillefer, Publisher, Ltd., who had a bank account for which the term solvent was a pale euphemism. It's amazing how much dough a person can make, if you'll excuse the feeble pun, from publishing cookbooks, such as The Thousand Best Desserts of La Mancha or all fifteen bestselling editions of that classic, The Secrets of the Barbecue.
The Taillefers lived in part of what had once been the palace of the Marqués de Los Alumbres, now converted into luxury apartments. In matters of décor, the owners seemed to have more money than taste. This could be the only excuse for placing a vulgar Lladro porcelain figure—a little girl with a duck, noted Lucas Corso dispassionately—in the same glass cabinet with a group of little Meissen shepherds, for which the late Enrique Taillefer, or his wife, must have paid some sharp antique dealer a handsome sum. There was a Biedermeier desk, of course, and a Steinway piano standing on a luxurious oriental rug. And a comfortable-looking, white leather sofa on which Liana Taillefer was sitting at that moment, crossing her extraordinarily shapely legs. She was dressed, as befits a widow, in a black skirt. It came to just above the knee when she sat, but hinted at voluptuous curves higher up, curves hidden in mystery and shadow, as Lucas Corso later put it. I would add that Corso's comment should not be ignored. He looked like one of those dubious men you can easily imagine living with an elderly mother who knits and brings him cocoa in bed on a Sunday morning; the kind of son you see in films, a solitary figure walking behind the coffin in the rain, with reddened eyes and moaning "Mama" inconsolably, like a helpless orphan. But Corso had never been helpless in his life. And when you got to know him better, you began to wonder if he had ever had a mother.
"I'm sorry to bother you at a time like this," said Corso.
He sat facing the widow, still in his coat, his canvas bag on his knees. He held himself straight on the edge of the seat. Liana Taillefer's large ice-blue eyes studied him from top to toe, determined to pigeonhole him in some known category of the male species. He was sure she'd find it difficult. He submitted to her scrutiny, trying not to create any particular impression. He was familiar with the procedure, and he knew that at that moment he didn't rate very high in the estimation of Enrique Taillefer's widow. This limited the inspection to a kind of contemptuous curiosity. She'd kept him waiting for ten minutes, after he'd had a skirmish with a maid who'd taken him for a salesman and tried to slam the door in his face. But now the widow was glancing at the plastic folder that Corso had taken out of his bag, and the situation changed. As for him, he tried to hold Liana Taillefer's gaze through his crooked glasses, avoiding the roaring reefs—to the south her legs and to the north her bust (exuberant was the word, he decided, having pondered the matter for some time), which was molded to devastating effect by her black angora sweater.
"It would be a great help," he added at last, "if you could tell me whether you knew about this document."
He handed her the folder, and as he did so accidentally brushed her hand with its long blood-red fingernails. Or maybe it was her hand that brushed his. Whichever, this slight contact showed that Corso's prospects were looking more favorable. He adopted a suitably embarrassed expression, just enough to show her that bothering beautiful widows wasn't his specialty. Her ice-blue eyes weren't on the folder now, they were watching Corso with a flicker of interest.
"Why would I know about it?" asked the widow. Her voice was deep, slightly husky. The echo of a heavy night. She hadn't looked inside the folder yet and was still watching Corso, as if she expected something else before examining the document and satisfying her curiosity. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and assumed a serious expression. This was the formal introduction stage, so he kept his efficient "honest rabbit" smile for later.
"Until recently it belonged to your husband." He paused a moment. "May his soul rest in peace."
She nodded slowly, as if that explained it, and opened the folder. Corso was looking over her shoulder at the wall. There, between an adequate painting by Tapies and another with a signature he couldn't make out, was a framed piece of child's needlepoint depicting little colored flowers, signed and dated Liana Lasauca, school year 1970–71. Corso would have found it touching if flowers, embroidered birds, and little girls in bobby socks and blond pigtails had been the sort of thing that made his heart melt. But they weren't. So he turned to another, smaller picture in a silver frame. It showed the late Enrique Taillefer, publisher, with a gold wine-sampling ladle around his neck, wearing a leather apron that made him look like a Mason. He was smiling at the camera and preparing to cut into a roast suckling pig. He held a plate in one hand and one of his publishing successes in the other. He appeared placid, chubby, paunchy, and happy at the sight of the little animal laid out before him on the dish. Corso reflected that Taillefer's premature demise at least meant that he wouldn't have to worry about high cholesterol and gout. Corso also wondered, with cold technical curiosity how Liana Taillefer had managed while her husband was alive when she needed an orgasm. With that thought he cast another quick glance at the widow's bust and legs and decided he'd been right. She was too much a woman to be satisfied with suckling pig.
"This is that Dumas thing," she said, and Corso sat up slightly, alert and clearheaded. Liana Taillefer was tapping one of her red nails on the plastic that protected the pages. "The famous chapter. Of course I know about it." As she leaned her head forward, her hair fell over her face. Behind the blond curtain she observed her visitor suspiciously. "Why do you have it?"
"Your husband sold it. I'm trying to find out if it's authentic."
The widow shrugged. "As far as I know, it's not a forgery." She gave a long sigh and handed back the folder. "You say he sold it? That's strange." She thought a moment. "These papers meant a lot to Enrique."
"Perhaps you can recall where he might have bought them."
"I couldn't say. I think somebody gave them to him."
"Did he collect original manuscripts?"
"As far as I know, this was the only one he ever had."
"Did he ever mention that he intended to sell it?"