Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(76)

"You're right. I apologize. You think about the one thing, except you do it two, three, a million times a day."

"And you, Mam-ouzelle Farinelli?"

"Oh, God, your French is bad."

She glances at her watch, this one a formidable titanium Breitling that includes an Emergency Locator Transmitter, or ELT.

"I thought you weren't supposed to wear that thing unless you're flying." Rudy taps her watch.

"Don't touch it. You'll set it off," she teases him.

He holds on to her arm, studying the watch, frowning at the bright blue face, tilting his head this way and that, pretending he's stupid. Lucy starts laughing.

"One of these days I'm gonna unscrew this big knob right here"-he taps her watch again, still holding on to her arm-"and pull the antenna all the way out. And then run like hell..."

Lucy's cell phone vibrates, and she slips it out of the case on her belt.

"And laugh my ass off when the Coast Guard, the F-15s come roaring in..."

"Yes," she bluntly answers the phone.

"You have such a sweet manner with people," Rudy whispers in her ear. "If I die, will you marry me?"

Static on the other end is bad. "Who is this?" she asks, loudly. "I can't hear you." The static gets worse. Lucy shrugs and ends the call. "Don't recognize the number, do you?"

She holds up her phone, showing Rudy the number that someone just used to call her.

"Nope. Nine-three-six... ? What area code is that?"

"Easy enough to find out."

It doesn't require special search engines or Interpol to type in a telephone number and find out whose it is. Lucy logs on to Google. The name that comes up on the computer screen is the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Polunsky Unit. Included is a map.

"You didn't answer my question," Rudy says, still flirting but completely cognizant of the importance of a call from Polunsky.

"Why would I marry you if you're dead?" she mutters, scarcely listening to him.

"Because you can't live without me."

"I can't believe this." She stares at the screen. "What the hell is going on? Get Zach to call my aunt, make sure she is safe. Have him tell her it's possible Chandonne might be out. Goddamn it! He's rucking with us!"

"Why don't you call her yourself?" Rudy puzzles. "That piece of shit is f*cking with us!" Her eyes blaze. "Why don't you call Scarpetta?" Rudy asks again. Lucy instantly becomes somber.

"I can't talk to her right now. I just can't." She looks at him. "How are you doing?"

"Awful," he says.

71

BENTON DID NOT CALL on a landline, because he did not want the inaudible conversation taped.

The technical tools that Lucy most likely has and can't live without would not include a cell phone that automatically tapes a live conversation, especially since very few people have her cell phone number, and those who do are not the sort she would secretly tape. This ploy was far simpler than the last one, and there is no risk that Lucy can try voice analysis to decipher what Jean-Baptiste s nonsensical taped voice had to say, which was nothing.

Benton simply spliced fragments of Jean-Baptiste's taped voice with static, to give the impression of an attempt to talk when one is in a very bad cell. Already she will have traced the call-just as she did the last one-to Polunsky. She will have no satellite capabilities, because the garbled call is gone, lost in space-again, because Benton did not call any of her office lines.

She will be angry. When she gets sufficiently irritated, nothing can stop her. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is f*cking with her. This is what she will think, and Benton knows Lucy well enough to be certain she has made the mistake of hating Chandonne. Hate interferes with clear thinking. She will wonder how Chandonne can be calling her from Polunsky and from New York, if her satellite technology is to be trusted.

In the end, Lucy always trusts her technology.

A second call from Polunsky, and now she will begin to believe, seriously believe, that Chandonne must have a phone with a Texas Department of Criminal Justice billing address. She is no more than a breath away from believing that Jean-Baptiste Chandonne has escaped.

Scarpetta will decide she must encounter him face-to-face, behind protective glass, inside the Polunsky Unit. Chandonne will refuse to see anybody else, and that is his right.

Yes, Kay, yes. It's for you, it's for you. Please. Face him before it's too late. Let him talk!

Benton is getting frantic.

Baton Rouge, Lucy!

Chandonne said Baton Rouge, Lucy!

Are you listening to me, Lucy?

72

A RADIO WITH A DIPOLE antenna is not required for Jean-Baptiste Chandonne to know the breaking news.

"Hey, Hair Ball!" Beast yells. "You heard? Guess not, since you don't got no f*cking radio, like I do. Guess what? Guess what I just heard? Your lawyer ate his gun in Poland."

Jean-Baptiste carefully moves his pen with the skilled hand of a surgeon, tracing over the words on death row and on the front row of life. He brushes his fingertips over the indentations on white paper as he composes a letter to Scarpetta that will be forwarded to her by his lawyer, who now Jean-Baptiste learns is supposedly dead. If Rocco is dead, Jean-Baptiste has no emotions about it, but he is curious to know whether the death is significant or simply a random suicidal whim that carried Rocco away.