Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(42)
His captor looks about twenty-eight, maybe early thirties. His black hair is short and styled with gel in that spiked look that a lot of young men like these days. Rocco notices the square jaw, straight nose, dark blue eyes, stubble and the veins standing out in the man's biceps and hands. He probably doesn't need a weapon to crush someone. Women like him. They probably stare at him, hit on him. Rocco has never been attractive. As a teenager, he was already suffering from pattern baldness, and he couldn't stay away from pizza and beer, and looked it. Envy possesses him. It always has. Women sleep with him only because he has power and money. Hatred toward his captor flares.
"You don't know what you're messing with here," Rocco says.
The agent doesn't bother answering him, his eyes darting around the room. Rocco wipes his face with his greasy napkin, his attention wandering to the steak knife on his plate.
"Try it," the agent says, looking at the steak knife. "Go ahead. Please try it. Make my life a hell of a lot easier."
"I wasn't gonna do nothing. Just let me go and we'll forget this ever happened."
"I can't let you go. Truth is, this isn't my idea of fun. So I'm in a bad mood already. Don't piss me off. You want to help yourself? Well, you know what they say about coming clean at the end."
"No. What the hell do they say?"
"Where's Jay Talley, and don't tell me another f*cking lie, *."
"I don't know," Rocco whines. "I swear to God I don't. I'm scared of him, too. He's crazy. He don't play the game, and every one of us stay clear of him. He marches to his own beat, swear to God. Can't I please change my pants? You can watch me. I won't try nothing."
Rudy gets off the bed and opens the closet door, the Colt casually by his side, indicating to an increasingly defeated and terrified Rocco that this man is not afraid of anything. There are maybe half a dozen flashy suits hanging on the rod, and he pulls off a pair of pants and tosses them to Rocco.
"Go on." The agent opens the bathroom door and sits back down on the bed.
Rocco trembles as he walks inside the bathroom and peels off his pants and briefs. He tosses them into the tub, douses a towel with tap water and wipes himself.
"Jay Talley," the agent says again. "Real name, Jean-Paul Chandonne."
"Ask me something else." Rocco means it as he sits in a different chair.
"Okay. We'll get back to Talley later. You got plans to take out your father?" The agents stare is cold. "It's no secret you hate him."
"I don't claim him."
"Doesn't matter, Rocco. You ran away from home. You changed your name from Marino to Caggiano. What's the plan and who's involved?"
Rocco hesitates for the longest time, thoughts jumping behind his bloodshot eyes. The agent gets up, breathing through his mouth as if to avoid the stench. He presses the barrel of the Colt against Rocco's right temple.
"Who, what, when and where?" he says, tapping the barrel of the pistol against Rocco's head with each word. "Don't f*ck with me!"
"I was gonna do it. In a couple months when he goes fishing. He always goes fishing at Buggs Lake the first week of August. Nail him in his cabin, make it look like a burglary gone bad."
"So you would kill your own father when he's on a fishing trip. You know what you are, Rocco? You're the worst shit I ever met."
33
WHENEVER NIC ROBILLARD drives past the Sno Depot in downtown Zachary, she feels like crying.
Tonight, the stand, with its handpainted signs advertising snow cones, is dark and deserted. If Buddy were with her, he'd be staring out the window and begging, not caring that the Sno Depot is closed and it isn't possible for his mother to buy him a treat. That boy loves snow cones more than anybody Nic's ever heard of, and despite her efforts to steer him away from sweets, he demands a snow cone-cherry or grape-every time she takes him anywhere in the car.
Buddy is with his grandfather in Baton Rouge right now, where he always is when Nic has to work late, and ever since she returned from Knoxville, she works constantly. Scarpetta inspired her. The need to impress Scarpetta dominates Nic's life. She is determined to bring about the arrest of the serial killer. She is frantic about the abducted women, knowing it absolutely will happen again if the maniac isn't caught. She is tormented by grief and guilt because she is neglecting her son after she was away from him for two and a half months.
If Buddy ever stopped loving her or turned out wrong, Nic would want to die. Some nights when she finally returns to her tiny Victorian house around the corner from St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on Lee Street, she lies in bed, staring at dark shapes inside her small room, and listens to the silence as she imagines Buddy sound asleep at her fathers house in Baton Rouge. Thoughts about her son and ex-husband, Ricky, flit about like moths. She contemplates whether she would shoot herself in the heart or the head if she were to lose everything that matters.
Not one person has any idea that Nic gets depressed. Not one person would ever imagine that there are times when she entertains thoughts of suicide. What keeps her from the unthinkable is her belief that self-murder is one of the most selfish sins a person can commit, and she envisions the dire consequences of such an act, pushing the fatal fantasy far out of reach until the next time she dives into a dead man's spin of powerlessness, loneliness and despair.