Jason paused to accept, taste, and nod his approval of the martini. The Carl Gustaf was one of the few places in the French-speaking world that understood a martini required dry, rather than sweet, vermouth and that in minimal quantity. Jason was not in the mood for creative drinks.
“Who said I left?”
“Well, you are obviously not there.”
“But Pangloss and Robespierre are, as are my easel, paints, brushes, and unfinished paintings.”
“You are saying you will return to Sark?”
Jason took a long sip from the stem glass, giving him time to compose a truthful, if deceiving, answer. “I certainly don’t intend to abandon what you refer to as ‘the menagerie.’ ”
That seemed to mollify her. “You are returning when you finish whatever brought you to Saint Barts?”
“The sun and sand brought me here,” he said. “I thought getting away from the Channel winter for a few days might do me some good. This is a resort area, you know.”
Well, he had been on the beach this morning.
“And you are returning to Sark?” she persisted.
“Not just yet.”
Her raised eyebrows asked the question.
“I’ve got business on the continent,” he said.
She visibly relaxed. Several times a year, he visited one or more of the financial institutions where he had accounts, trips like the one to Liechtenstein. After accompanying him on one or two, she elected to stay home. After all, the most secure banks were not in the more exciting countries.
Her untouched drink in one hand, she was twirling a strand of hair with the other, an indication of thought process. “When I finish this expedition,” she said at last, “we need to have a talk, a serious talk about our future… if we have one.”
From Jason’s viewpoint, one of the great things about their relationship was that each had so far been willing to live it a day at a time, neither seeking nor offering commitment. Now the subject seemed to be lurking nearby as unbidden as Banquo’s ghost. Jason supposed he should have seen it coming.
Like Jason, Maria had been married once. Her husband had been a lying cheat she referred to as Casanova. The marriage had lasted little more than a year. In addition to repeated infidelities, the man had been a mammone one of those Italian men who suffer separation anxiety when away from the mother with whom they had lived their entire life before marriage. From their honeymoon, Casanova had called home twice a day. Upon their return, he took his laundry for his mother to do, returning with a week’s worth of her cooking. Maria couldn’t decide which of the women in Casanova’s life were worse: the meddling mother-in-law whom she could never please and who was always present in spirit, if not in body, or the unknowns whose cheap perfume clung to the shirts the man had his mother launder.
Jason had thought from Maria’s point of view, a second marriage seemed a triumph of optimism over reality.
But then, he wasn’t Maria.
He trolled a change of subject by her. “When do you think you’ll be finished in Indonesia?” Adding diplomatically, “We all miss you.”
The bait was rejected. “In a week, two at the most, once our equipment arrives. But don’t change the subject, Jason. When I get back, I want some answers.”
The questions were all the more ominous by not being asked.
A group of three couples came to Jason’s rescue. Babbling excitedly in French, they took the table nearest the bar before ordering a bottle of Perrier-Jouët. There was some discussion of vintages before the 2004 was reached as a compromise. Jason smiled. The Perrier-Jouët was expensive enough in France. Add shipping and the generous price boost given to anything consumed in Saint Barts’ eating establishments and the Champagne would be costly indeed.
“The 2002 Piper-Heidsieck would be a better value,” Maria offered. “Better Champagne, less expensive.”
Jason was about to ask when she had become a Champagne connoisseur when the conversation at the other table, or that part of it his limited French allowed him to understand, caught his attention.
“Were you downtown when the shooting took place?” a woman asked.
“Yes,” a man responded. “But we were in front of the post office, looking for a parking space. I understand it was some sort of turf war between some of the Russians.”
“A man was shot right in front of our car,” a second woman volunteered. “I’m almost certain the man who did it was one of the Russians at the next table at Le Wall House last night.”
She turned to the man next to her for confirmation. He nodded. “I’m sure it was. I never forget a face, particularly of someone causing a disturbance over dinner.”
The eighth deadly sin in France.
“There were four of them, two men, two women. The men were shouting at each other,” the second woman said. “I’m sure that argument was why someone got shot tonight.”
Jason managed not to grin. A dozen untrained observers would, more often than not, produce twelve different versions of the same event. Policemen lamented the fact; defense lawyers counted on it.
Maria had been listening, too. “You had nothing to do with the men with guns?”
Jason smiled and shrugged. “If I had told you so, would you have believed me?”
By the time they ordered dinner, he still had no answer.
36
Jason slowed the rented Ford to exit I-20. He had picked the car up at Midland International Airport, an hour and twenty-five minutes northeast. He had arrived there by an unremarkable and indistinguishable series of airports from San Juan to Miami to Dallas. A dawn-to-dark day of surly airline staff, tasteless airline food, and schedules far more hopeful than accurate. Contemporary air travel might be efficient, but it was anything but enjoyable.
He noted he was on South Cedar Street. The downtown could have been any one of thousands across the United States: one- and two-story storefronts with the usual tenants. Connie’s Cuts and Curls: If your hair doesn’t become you, you should be coming to us. Chat and Chew: Texas breakfast $5.95 starting at 5:30. Pecos Feed & Seed.
There was also the usual empty windows induced by the Walmart he had passed on the way into town.
Following the signs, he made his way to a two-story brick building, a former hotel and now the site of the West of the Pecos Museum. At this hour, the parking lot was empty except for a gritty Dodge Ram truck under the security lights. It could have been black, blue, or dark green. Hard to tell under its coat of dust.
Jason stopped just before the parking lot’s entrance and blinked his headlights once, counted to three and did it again. The truck came to life, its modified engine rumbling as headlights came on as though it were opening its eyes. Jason waited for it to pass him before pulling in behind.
Within a few minutes, the outskirts of Pecos were gone. Although darkness reigned outside the cones of their headlights, Jason got the impression there was no living soul within miles of the Ford and the truck, only the occasional ball of tumbleweed rolling across the road like an escaping child’s toy. More to keep awake than for entertainment, he turned on the radio. His first sound was a high decibel plea to come to Jesus and, on the way, send a few dollars to the Cornerstone Church of San Antonio. A twist of the dial filled the car with the adenoidal twang of a man wronged by his woman. Jason switched the radio off.
What had he expected in West Texas, the London Symphony Orchestra?