Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(6)
"It's my bra," she casually says to the startled guard, who is far more unnerved than her suspect. "Damn it, I always forget to wear a bra without wire in it, maybe a sports bra, or no bra. I'm really sorry to inconvenience you, Officer Washington." She's already read her name tag. "Thank you for doing your job so well. What a world we live in. I understand the terrorist alert is orange again."
Lucy leaves the bewildered guard and plucks her watch and coins out of the tray and collects her briefcase, jacket and belt. Sitting on the cold, hard floor, out of the way of traffic, she puts on her running shoes, not bothering to lace them. She gets up, still polite and sweet to any police or British Air employees watching her. Reaching around to her back pocket, she slips out her ticket and passport, both of them issued to one of her many false names. She strolls nonchalantly, laces flopping, deep inside the winding carpeted gate 10, and ducks inside the small doorway of Concorde flight 01. A British Air attendant smiles at her as she checks Lucy's boarding pass.
"Seat one-C." She points the way to the first row, the bulkhead aisle seat, as if Lucy has never traveled on the Concorde before.
Last time she did, it was under yet another name, and she was wearing glasses and green contact lenses, her hair dyed funky blue and purple, easily washed out and matching the photograph on that particular passport. Her occupation was "musician." Although no one could possibly have been familiar with her nonexistent techno band, Yellow Hell, there were plenty of people who said, "Oh yes, I've heard of it! Cool!"
Lucy counts on the dismal observation skills of the general masses. She counts on their fear of showing ignorance, on their accepting lies as familiar truths. She counts on her enemies noticing all that goes on around them, and like them, she notices all that goes on around her, too. For example, when the customs agent studied her passport at great length, she recognized his behavior and understood why security is at a feverish pitch. Interpol has sent a Red Notice screaming over the Internet to approximately 182 countries, alerting them to look out for a fugitive named Rocco Caggiano, wanted in Italy and France for murder. Rocco has no idea he is a fugitive. He has no idea that Lucy sent information to Interpol's Central Bureau in Washington, D.C., her credible tip thoroughly checked out before it was relayed through cyberspace to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France, where the Red Notice was issued and rocketed to law enforcement all around the world. All this in a matter of hours.
Rocco does not know Lucy, although he knows who she is. She knows him very well, although they have never met. At this moment, as she straps herself into her seat and the Concorde starts its Rolls Royce engines, she can't wait to see Rocco Caggiano, her anticipation fueled by intense anger that will evolve into a nervous dread by the time she finally gets to Eastern Europe.
7
"I SURE HOPE YOU'RE NOT FEELING as bad as I am," Nic says to Scarpetta.
They sit inside the living room of Scarpetta's suite at the Marriott, waiting for room service. It is nine a.m., and twice now Nic has inquired about Scarpetta's health, her banality partly due to her flattered disbelief that this woman she admires so intensely invited her to have breakfast.
Why me? The question bounces inside Nic's head like a bingo ball. Maybe she feels sorry for me.
"I've felt better," Scarpetta replies with a smile.
"Popeye and his wine. But he's brought worse poison than that."
"I don't know how anything could be worse," Scarpetta says as a knock sounds on the door. "Unless it really is poison. Excuse me."
She gets up from the couch. Room service has arrived on a table wheeled inside. Scarpetta signs the check and tips in cash. Nic notes that she is generous.
"Popeye's room-room one-oh-six-is the watering hole," Nic says. "Any night, just go on in with your six-pack and dump it in the bathtub. Starting around eight p.m., he does nothing but haul twenty-pound bags of ice to his room. Good thing he's on the first floor. I went once."
"Only once in ten weeks?" Scarpetta watches her closely, probing.
When Nic returns to Louisiana, she will face the worst homicide cases she may ever have in her life. So far, she hasn't said a word about them, and Scarpetta is concerned about her.
"When I was in medical school at Johns Hopkins," Scarpetta offers as she pours coffee, "I was one of three women in my class. If there was a bathtub full of beer anywhere, I can assure you I was never told. What do you take?"
"Lots of cream and sugar. You shouldn't be serving me. Here I am, just sitting." She pops up from her wing chair.
"Sit down, sit down." Scarpetta sets Nic's coffee on a table. "There are croissants and rather inedible-looking bagels. I'll let you help yourself."
"But when you were in medical school, you weren't a small-town..." Nic catches herself before saying hick. "Miami's not exactly some little mud puddle in Louisiana. All these guys in my class are from big cities."
She fixes her attention on Scarpetta's coffee cup, on how perfectly steady it is as she lifts it to her lips. She drinks her coffee black and seems uninterested in food.
"When my chief told me the department was offered a fully funded slot at the Academy and would I go, I can't tell you what I felt like," Nic goes on, worrying that she's talking too much about herself. "I really couldn't believe it and had to go to a world of trouble to make it possible for me to leave home for close to three months. Then I got here to Knoxville and found myself with Reba as a roommate.