One Way or Another(92)

“You’re not leaving anything to anyone yet,” Marco said.

Ahmet sighed as he took another swig of the tequila, motioned again for a refill.

“What would you say if I told you that I’ve never had an emotional relationship?”

Marco thought the question did not demand an answer. He took a sip of the beer. It was ice cold. His hand was freezing just from holding it.

“Because of that,” Ahmet went on, “I have decided to leave my fortune, such as it is, to my newly created project. It’s called the New Souls Foundation and every penny will go to support it. Its work will be to help young people, especially young men, the lost souls we see on the streets of the world, to attain a better, more meaningful life.”

Marco did not believe what he was saying and was wondering what exactly he was up to; what he wanted to gain from it. Again, he said nothing.

“So, there you have it.” Ahmet got to his feet. He stood over Marco, staring down at him. “You have no idea how I envy you,” he said.

He put the glass of tequila he had been clutching on the small table, turned and looked up at the sky, moonless, cloudless, an infinity of sky.

Marco watched as he walked to the stern, stood staring down into the blue-black sea that seemed to be part of the night, and the cool froth of the white wake, at the endless sameness of it all. And then Ahmet stepped off the deck into the water.

“My God!” Marco yelled out.

The guards came running, the yacht slowed down, swung around, returned to the spot where he had jumped. They circled for hours, joined by the coast guard helicopters, uniformed men in powerful boats, a diving crew. Nothing.

It was as though Ahmet had never lived. He had certainly never belonged.





68

Six months later, Lucy was sitting on an uncomfortable little faux-wicker chair in a corner café in Paris’s St. Germain, sipping, not so delicately because after all she was still Lucy, a large café crème piled with whipped cream while at the same time devouring a pretty pastel-colored macaron that tasted of raspberries.

Martha sat opposite, with a more sedate espresso into which, unable to resist temptation, she dipped a macaron. Em slumped under the table, having already devoured her own macaron, “for being a good dog,” Lucy, who had given it to her, explained. Truth to tell, Martha could not quite believe all this was real. They had almost lost Lucy, had gone through the hell of fire and devastation, and, before he died, the attacks of the expensive lawyers sent by Ahmet Ghulbian, denying any connection to the events of that night at Marshmallows, or anything else that might have been said to have taken place.

There was, after all, no evidence linking him with Angie Morse. And Mehitabel, the woman who might have been able to tell the truth of the matter, had disappeared, without, as the police said, a trace. It was assumed she had perished in the flames as Marshmallows burned, though no remains were ever found.

Looking at her sister, sitting opposite, so fair, so young, so … unwounded by all that had happened, Martha thanked heaven Lucy was so basically strong, and thanked the parents who had made her that way.

She and Marco were living together in Paris now, and Lucy had come to stay before beginning a chef’s course. Miraculously, considering all that had happened and Lucy’s talent for escaping responsibility, she had suddenly found a way in life. It was what she needed, and “chef” loomed as a possibility on the horizon. The Tunisian had become a friend who also gave her lessons on the side while he was working.

Marco had a new Paris studio. He had moved on from portraits into what he called his own heart, a new direction of creativity. A freedom, he called it.

And Martha was working on a house in the south of France, near Villefranche-sur-Mer, an old farm she had been commissioned to refurbish. She was in love with it, and in love with life, and grateful for everything because she had come so close to having it all taken away from her. But life had moved on. They were free now, and always would be.





69





ANGIE


Sometimes, though not as often now as time passes and the memories recede, I ask myself, Why me? Why was I picked out to be Ahmet’s victim? I am sure there were others, though nothing has been said, formally, and no investigations made, because of course a “disappearance” does not constitute a crime; you need a body for that and fortunately I did not become “a body” as I’d feared when I was pushed off that yacht into the deep cobalt and azure Aegean Sea. It’s then I wonder what happened to Mehitabel, what Ahmet did to her, how he got rid of her. Her shoes were found, of course, by the side of the tidal river, and it was thought she might have been trapped.

I’m changing my thoughts now, my behavior, my life. I’m on my way to becoming that person my mother wanted me to be. In a coffee shop, I still haven’t gone up in the world, yet, anyway, working sometimes ’til midnight, but this time it is to earn money for college, which hopefully looms in my future.

I thank God I have a future. I even have an apartment on a nice quiet street in Greenwich Village, owned by a friend of Marco’s, but which I have permanent designs on for myself.

Once I finish college, of course, and eventually become a teacher. Not little kids, it’s the big ones I want, the tough teens in the tough neighborhoods. I reckon I can teach them a thing or two, with my experience.