Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(31)
All the same, when Bev is out in the boat, she fantasizes about the Mississippi, about riverboat cruises and casinos, about fruity cocktails and beer in frozen glasses and maybe watching Mardi Gras from the window of a nice air-conditioned hotel. She wonders if good food would make her sick now that she's gone so long without it. A comfortable bed would probably stiffen her up and make her sore because she's so accustomed to a stinking, broken-down mattress that not even Jay will sleep on anymore.
She motors around a semi-submerged log, worried at first that it might move and prove to have teeth, and she begins to itch, especially beneath the tight waistband of her jeans.
"Shit!" She steers with one hand and digs the other under her clothes, clawing at her flesh as her welts get bigger. "Goddamnit! Oh, shit, what the f*ck's bit me now?"
Breathing hard and beginning to panic, she shoves the throttle lever into neutral, opens the hatch and rummages in her beach bag for the insect repellent, spraying herself all over, including under her clothes.
It's all in her head, Jay always says. The welts aren't bites, they're hives, because she has a nervous condition, because she's half-crazy. Well, I wasn't half-crazy until I met you, she answers him in her head. I never got hives in my life, nothing like that, not even poison ivy. Bev drifts in the creek for a minute or two, contemplating what she's about to do and imagining Jay's face when she brings him what he wants, then imagining his face if she doesn't.
She advances the throttle and trims out, speeding up to forty miles an hour, which is much too fast for this part of the Tickfaw and reckless in light of her fears of the dark water and what's beneath it. Sweeping left, she abruptly cuts back her speed and trims down, heeling into a turn that takes her into a narrow creek, where she runs slowly and quietly into marshland that smells like death. Reaching under the tarp, she slides out the shotgun and lays it across her lap.
23
SUNLIGHT ILLUMINATES A SLIVER of Benton's face as he stares out the window.
Silence reigns for a Jong, tense moment. The air seems to shimmer ominously, and Marino rubs his eyes.
"I don't get it." His mouth quivers. "You could be free, go home, be alive again." His voice cracks. "I thought you'd at least thank my ass for going to all the trouble to come here and tell you that maybe Lucy and me ain't ever given up on getting you back...."
"By offering her?" Benton turns around and looks at him. "By offering Kay as bait?"
At last he says her name, but he is so calm, it is as if he has no feelings, and Marino is shocked. He wipes his eyes.
"Bait? What... ?"
"Isn't it enough what the bastard has already done to her?" Benton goes on. "He tried to kill her once." He's not talking about Jean-Baptiste. He's talking about Jay Talley.
"He ain't gonna kill her when he's sitting behind bulletproof glass, chatting away on a phone inside a maximum-security prison," Marino says as they continue to talk about two different people.
"You're not listening to me," Benton tells him.
"That's because you're not listening to me," Marino childishly retorts.
Benton turns off the air conditioner and slides up the window. He closes his eyes as a breeze touches his hot cheeks like cool fingers. He smells the burgeoning Earth. For an instant, he remembers being alive with her, and he begins to bleed inside like a hemophiliac.
"Does she know?" he asks.
Marino rubs his face. "Jesus. I'm so sick and tired of my blood pressure shooting up like I'm a damn thermometer."
"Tell me." Benton presses his palms against the window frame, leaning into the fresh air. He turns around and meets Marino's eyes. "Does she know?"
Marino gets his meaning and sighs. "No, hell no. She don't know. She'll never know unless you're the one who tells her. I wouldn't do that to her. Lucy wouldn't do that to her. See"-he angrily pulls himself to his feet-"some of us care too much about her to hurt her like that. Imagine how she'd feel if she knew you're alive and don't care a shit about her anymore."
He walks to the door, shaking with rage and grief. "I thought you might thank me."
"I do thank you. I know you mean well." Benton walks over to him, his calm demeanor uncanny. "I know you don't understand, but maybe someday you will. Good-bye, Pete. I don't ever want to see or hear from you again. Please don't take it personally."
Marino grabs the doorknob and almost yanks it out of the wood. "Good riddance and go f*ck yourself. Don't take it personally."
They face each other like two men squaring off in a gun fight, neither wanting to be the first to move, neither really wanting the other to be gone from his life. Benton's hazel eyes are vacant, as if whoever lives behind them has vanished. Marino's pulse measures panic as he realizes that the Benton he knew is gone and nothing will ever bring him back.
And somehow Marino is going to have to tell Lucy. And somehow Marino will have to accept the fact that his dream of rescuing Benton and returning him to Scarpetta will always be a dream, only a dream.
"It don't make sense!" Marino shouts.
Benton touches an index finger to his lips. "Please go, Pete," he quietly says. "It doesn't have to make sense."
Marino hesitates in the dimly lit, stinking landing just beyond apartment 56. "Okay." He fumbles for his cigarettes and spills several on the filthy concrete. "Okay..." He starts to say Benton but catches himself as he squats to pick up the cigarettes, his thick fingers clumsily breaking two of them.