Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(47)

"From whom?"

"My former client. He has scores to settle."

"Jean-Baptiste," Lucy says. "So the two of you have remained close. That's touching, because he's the reason you're about to die."

"I don't believe you!" Rocco exclaims. "He'd never... He needs me."

"For what?" Rudy asks.

"Outside work," Rocco replies. "I'm still his attorney. He can send me anything he wants. Contact me anytime he wants."

"What does he send you?" Rudy asks.

"Anything. All he's got to do is mark it Legal Mail, and no one can open it. So if he wants letters or shit sent to somebody who obviously ain't a lawyer, he sends it through me."

"The letter I got from him that ratted you out, Rocco, did he send it through you?" Lucy asks.

"No. He's never sent me a letter with your name on it. I never open them. Too risky. If he ever found out." He pauses, his eyes glassy. "I don't believe he sent you a letter!"

"We're here, aren't we?" Rudy says. "So how did that happen if Chandonne didn't send a letter and tell us everything we need to know?"

Rocco has no answer.

"Why would he want you to kill your father?" Lucy isn't about to forget that subject. "Especially now. What scores to settle?"

"Maybe Jean-Baptiste don't like him. I guess you could consider it a parting shot." Rocco briefly looks smug.

"Mind if I see that for a minute?" Lucy holds out her hand for Rudy's pistol.

He drops out the magazine and clears the round from the chamber. The cartridge bounces on the bed. Lucy picks it up and Rudy gives her the Colt. She walks close to Rocco and pushes the loose cartridge into the magazine with her thumb.

"Your father taught me how to drive," she tells Rocco in a conversational tone. "You ever seen those huge pickup trucks of his? Well, that's what I learned in when I was so little I had to sit on a pillow, even with the seat raised."

She racks back the slide and aims the pistol between his eyes.

"He taught me how to shoot, too."

She squeezes the trigger.

Click.

Rocco jumps violently.

"Oops." Lucy smacks the magazine back inside the handle. "Forgot it wasn't loaded. Get up, Rocco."

"You're cops." His voice trembles in fear and disbelief. "Cops don't kill people. They don't do this!"

"I'm not a cop," Rudy says to Lucy. "Are you a cop?"

"No. I'm not a cop. I don't see a single cop in this room, do you?"

"Some CIA paramilitary operatives. Bet they sent you into Iraq, didn't they? To take out Saddam Hussein. I know what people like you do." "Never been to Iraq, have you?" Lucy says to Rudy. "Not recently."

38

ANOTHER WESTERN is playing on the TV Mouths move out of sync as two cowboys dismount their horses, voices clubbed in Polish.

"One last chance," Rudy says to Rocco. "Where's Jay Talley? Don't lie. I promise I'll know."

"He took a statement analysis course at the FBI Academy," Lucy says drolly. "Was the star of the class."

Rocco slowly shakes his head. It is apparent by now that if he knew, he would tell them. He is a self-serving, sniveling coward, and right now he is more afraid of them than he is of Jay Talley.

"Here's the deal. We're not going to kill you, Rocco." Lucy tosses the pistol back to Rudy. "You're going to commit suicide."

"No." He shakes as if he has Parkinson's disease.

"You're history, Rocco," Rudy says. "A fugitive. A Red Notice. You can't go anywhere anyway. You'll be grabbed. If you're lucky, you'll end up in prison, probably in Sicily, and I hear that's not a holiday. But you know better. The Chandonnes will take you out. Instantly. And perhaps not as humanely as you can end your own miserable, stinking life. Right now."

Lucy goes to the bed and digs an envelope out of her shoulder bag's back pocket. Inside it is a folded sheet of paper. She opens it.

"Here." She offers it to Rocco.

He makes no effort to touch it.

"Take it. A hard copy of your Red Notice. Hot off the press. You must be curious."

Rocco doesn't respond. Even his eyeballs seem to be shaking.

"Take it," Lucy tells him.

Rocco does. The Red Notice shakes violently in his hands as he leaves his fingerprints on the paper, a detail he probably isn't thinking about.

"Now read it out loud. I think it's very important you see what it says. Because I'm confident you'll decide you have no choice but to kill yourself right here in this lovely hotel room," Lucy says.

The single page has Interpol's crest in the upper right corner, of course in bright red. Prominently displayed is Rocco's photograph, easily acquired. Egotist that he is, he has never ducked the camera when he's represented criminals in scandalous trials. The picture on the Red Notice is recent and a very good likeness.

"Read out loud," Lucy orders him again. "Story time, Rocco."

"Identity particulars." His voice wavers, and he continues to clear his throat. "Present family name, Rocco Caggiano. Name at birth, Peter Rocco Marino, Junior."