Patricia Cornwell - Black Notice

Several teenagers with body piercing and dyed hair bumped into us and laughed. A small crowd was staring and pointing at an almost life-size yellow biplane attached to the side of the Grand Marnier building advertising a Breiding watch show. Roasting chestnuts smelled burnt.

"I've not touched anyone since Benton died," I said. "That's where you are in my food chain, Jay."

"I wasn't trying to be cruel:.."

"I'll fly home in the morning."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"I have a mission, remember?" I said.

Anger slipped out of hiding, and when Talley tried to hold my hand again, I slipped my fingers away from him.

"Or should I say I'll sneak home in the morning," I said. "With a briefcase of illegal evidence that's also, by the way, a biological hazard. I'll follow my orders, trooper that I am, and get DNA from the swabs if possible. Compare it to the unidentified body's DNA. Eventually determine that he and the killer are brothers. Meanwhile, maybe the cops will luck out and find a werewolf wandering the streets and he'll tell you guys everything about the Chandonne cartel. And maybe only two or three other women will be savaged before all this happens."

"Please don't be so bitter," Jay said.

"Bitter? I shouldn't be bitter?"

We turned off the Boulevard des Italiens onto the Rue Favard.

"I shouldn't be bitter when I was sent here to solve problems-when I've been a pawn in some scheme I knew nothing about?"

"I'm sorry you look at it that way," he said.

"We're bad for each other," I said.

Cafй Runtz was small and quiet, with green checked cloths and green glassware. Red lamps glowed and the chandelier was red. Odette was making a drink at the bar when we walked in. Her way of greeting Talley was to throw her hands up in despair and chastise him.

"She's accusing me of staying away two months and then not calling before I come in," he translated for me.

He leaned over the bar and kissed her on both cheeks to make amends. Regardless of how crowded the cafй was, she managed to fit us into a choice corner table because Talley had that effect on people. He was used to getting what he wanted. He picked out a Santenay red burgundy since he remembered I'd told him how much I liked burgundies, although I didn't recall when I'd said that or if I really had. By now I wasn't sure what he already knew and what he'd gotten directly from me.

"Let's see," he said, scanning the menu. "I highly recommend the Alsacienne specialities. But to start? The salade de gruyйre-shaved gruyere that looks like pasta on lettuce and tomato. It's filling, though."

"Maybe that's all I'll get, then," I said, with no appetite.

He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small cigar and clipper.

"Helps me cut buck on cigarettes," he explained. "Would you like one?"

"Everybody in France smokes too much. It's time I quit again," I said.

"They're very good." He snipped off the tip. "Dipped in sugar. This one's vanilla, but I also have cinnamon and sambuca." He fired a match. "But I like the vanilla the best." He puffed. "You really should taste this."

He offered it to me.

"No, thank you," -I said.

"I order them from a wholesaler in Miami," he went on, flourishing his cigar and throwing his head back to blow out smoke. "Cojimars. Not to be confused with Cohibas, which are wonderful, but illegal if they're Cuban versus those made in the Dominican Republic. Illegal in the U.S., at any rate. And I know that because I'm ATF. Yes, ma'am, I know my alcohol, tobacco and firearms."

He had already finished his first glass of wine.

"The three R's. Running, Running and Running. Ever heard that? They teach it in the school of hard knocks"

He refilled'his glass and topped off mine.

"If I came back to the States, would you see me again? For the sake of argument, what would happen if I transferred… let's say, back to Washington?"

"I didn't mean to do this to you," I said.

Tears touched his eyes and he quickly looked away.

"I never meant to. It's my fault," I softly said.

"Fault?" he said. "Fault? I didn't realize there-was fault involved, as in something to be blamed. As in a mistake."

He leaned into the table and smiled smugly, as if he were a detective who'd just tripped me with a trick question.

"Fault. Hmmm," he pondered, blowing smoke.

"Jay, you're so young," I said. "Someday you'll understand-"

"I 'can't help my age." He interrupted me in a voice that caused glances.

"And you live in France, for God's sake."

"There are worse places to live."

"You can dance around words all you want, Jay," I said. "But reality always has its way with people."

"You're sorry, aren't you?" He leaned back. "I know so much about you, and then I go and do something as stupid as that."

"I never said it was stupid."

"It's because you aren't ready."

I was getting upset, too.

"You can't possibly know if I'm ready or not ready," I told him as the waiter appeared to take our' order and then discreetly moved on. "You spend far too much time in my mind and maybe not enough in your own."

"Okay. Don't worry. I won't ever try to anticipate your feelings or thoughts again."

"Ah. Petulance," I replied. "At last you're acting your age:'

His eyes flashed. I sipped my wine. He'd already finished another glass.

"I deserve respect, too," he said. "I'm not a child. What was this afternoon, Kay? Social work? Charity? Sex education? Foster care?"

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about this here," I suggested.

"Or maybe you just used me," he event on.

"I'm too old for you. Please lower your voice."

"Old is my mother, my aunt. The deaf widow who lives next door to me is old"

I realized I had no idea where Talley lived. I didn't even have his home telephone number.

"Old is the way you act when you're overbearing and condescending 'and a chicken," he said, raising his glass to me.

"A chicken? I've been called a lot of things, but never a chicken:' "You're an emotional chicken." He drank as if trying to put out a fire. "That's why you were with him. He was safe. I don't care how much you say youloved him. He was safe.,»

"Don't talk about something you know nothing about," I warned him as I began to tremble.

"Because you're afraid. You've been afraid ever since your father died, ever since you felt different from everyone because you are different from everyone and that's the price people like us pay. We're special. We're alone and we rarely think it's because we're special. We just think there's something wrong with us."

I placed my napkin on top of the table and pushed back my chair.

"That's the problem with you intelligence-gathering assholes;" I said in a low, calm voice. "You appropriate the secrets, the treasures and tragedies and ecstasies of someone as if they are your own. At least I have a life. At least I don't live voyeuristically through people I don't know. At least I'm not some kind of spy."

"I'm not a spy;" he said. "It was my job to find out as much as I could about you."

"And you did your job extraordinarily well," I said, stung. "Especially this afternoon."

"Please don't leave;" he quietly said as he reached across the table for my hand.

I pulled away from him. I walked out of the restaurant as other diners stared. Someone laughed and made a comment I didn't need to translate to understand. It was obvious that the handsome young man and his older lady friend were having a lover's spat. Or maybe he was her gigolo.

It was almost nine-thirty and I walked with determination toward the hotel while everyone else in the city, it seemed, continued to venture out. A woman police officer wearing white gloves whistled traffic through as I waited with a great crowd to cross the Boulevard des Capucines. The air was bright with voices and cold light from the moon. The aromas of crepes and beignets and chestnuts roasting in small grills made me heartsick and dizzy.