Transgressions Page 16

Echo paused, stared, caught her breath, alarmed by something ominous hanging around behind his words. "Why do you say that? You didn't make her what she is. That must have happened long before you met her, where—?"

  "In Budapest."

  "Doing what, mugging tourists?"

  "When I first saw Taja," he said, his voice laboring, "she was drawing with chalk on the paving stones near the Karoly Kit gate. For what little money passersby were willing to throw her way." He raised his head slowly. "I don't know how old she was then; I don't know her age now. As I told you once, terrible things had been done to her. She was barefoot, her hair wild, her dress shabby." He smiled faintly at Echo.

  His lips were nearly bloodless. 'Yes, I should have walked on by. But I was astounded by her talent. She drew wonderful, suffering, religious faces. They burned with fevers, the hungers of martyrdom. All of the faces washing away each time it rained, or scuffed underfoot by the heedless. But every day she would draw them again. Her knees, her elbows were scabbed. For hours she barely paused to look up from her work. Yet she knew I was there. And after a while it was my face she sought, my approval. Then, late one afternoon when it didn't rain, I—I followed her. Sensing that she was dangerous. But I've never wanted a tame affair. It's immolation I always seem to be after."

  His smile showed a slightly crooked eye tooth Echo was more or less enamored with, a sly imperfection.

  "Just how dangerous she was at that time became a matter of no great importance. You see, we may all be dangerous, Mary Catherine, depending on what is done to us."

  "Oh, was the sex that good?" Echo said harshly, her face flaming.

  "Sometimes sex isn't the necessary thing, depending on the nature of one's obsession."

  Echo began, furiously, to sob. She turned again to the horizon, the darkening sea.

  After a couple of minutes he said, "Mary Catherine—"

  "You know I'm not going! I won't let you give up painting because of what Taja did! You're not going to send me away, John, you need me!"

  "It's not in your power to get me to paint again."

  "Oh, isn't it?" She wiped her leaky nose on the sleeve of her fisherman's sweater; hadn't done that in quite a few years. Then she pulled off the sweater, gave her head a shake, swirling her abundant hair.

  Ransome smiled cautiously when she looked at him again, began to stare him down. A look as old, as eter-nal as the sea below.

  "We have to complete what we've started," Echo said reasonably. She moved closer to him, the better for him to see the fierceness of eye, the high flame of her own obsession. She swept a hand in the direction of her portrait on his easel. "Look, John. And look again! I'm not just a face on a sidewalk. I matter!"

  She seized and kissed him, knowing that the pain in his sore head made it not particularly enjoyable; but that wasn't her reason just then for doing it.

  "Okay?" she said mildly and took a step back, clasping hands at her waist. The pupil. The teacher. Who was who awaited clarification, perhaps the tumult and desperation of an affair now investing the air they breathed with the power of a blood oath.

  "Oh, Mary Catherine—" he said despairingly.

  "I asked you, is it okay? Do we go on from here? Where? When? What do we do now, John?"

  He sighed, nodded slightly. That hurt too. He put a hand lightly to the bump on his head.

  "You're a tough, wonderful kid. Your heart... is just so different than mine. That's what makes you valuable to me, Mary Catherine." He gravely touched her shoulder, tapping it twice, dropped his hand.

  "And now you've been warned."

  She liked the touch, ignored his warning. "Shall I pick up the rest of those brushes that were spilled?"

  After a long silence Ransome said, "I've always found salvation in my work. As you must know. I wonder, could that be why your god sent you to me?"

  "We'll find out," Echo said.

  Peter heard one of the detectives ask, "How close did she come to his liver?"

  A woman, probably the ER doc who had been stitching him up, replied, "Too close to measure."

  The other detective on the team, who had the flattened Southie nasal tone, said, "Irish luck. Okay if we talk to him now?"

  "He's awake. The Demerol has him groggy."

  They came into Peter's cubicle. The older detective, probably nudging retirement, had a paunch and an archaic crook of a nose like an old Roman in marble. The young one, but not that young—close to forty, Peter guessed—had red hair in cheerful disarray and hard-ass good looks the women probably went for like a guilty pleasure. Cynicism was a fixture in his face, like the indentations from long-ago acne.

  He grinned at Peter. "How you doin', you lucky baastud?"

  "Okay, I guess."

  "Frank Tillery, Cambridge PD. This here is my Fathah Superior, Sal Tranca."

  "Hiya."

  "Hiya."

  Peter wasn't taken in by their show of camaraderie. They didn't like what they had seen in the architect's apartment and they didn't like what they'd heard so far from Silkie. They didn't like him, either.

  "Find the perp yet?" he said, taking the initiative.

  Sal said, "Hasn't turned up. Found her blade in a can of paint. Seven inches, thin, what they call a stiletto in the old country."

  Tillery leaned against a wall with folded arms and a lemon twist of a grin and said, "Pete, you mind tellin' us why you was trackin' a homicidal maniac in our town without so much as a courtesy call to us?"

  "I'm not on the job. I was—looking for Silkie MacKenzie. Walked right into the play."

  "What did you want with MacKenzie? I mean, if I'm not bein' too subtle here."

  "Met her—in New York." His ribs were taped, and it was hard for him to breathe. "Like I told you at the scene, had some time off so I thought I'd look her up."

  "Apparently she was already shacked up with one guy, owns the apartment," Sal said. "Airline ticket in your coat pocket tells us you flew in from Houston yesterday morning."

  Peter said, "I got friends all over. On vacation, just hangin' out."

  "Hell of a note," Tillery said. "Lookin' to chill, relax with some good-lookin' pussy, next thing you know you're in Mass General with eighty-four stitches."

  "She was real good with that, what'a'ya call it, stiletto?"

  Sal said, "So, Pete. Want to do your statement now, or later we come around after your nap? As a courtesy to a fellow shield. Who seems to be goddamn well connected where he comes from." Sal looked around as if for a place to spit.

  "I'll come to you. How's Silkie?"

  "Plastic surgeon looked at her already.

  There's gonna be some scarring they can clean up easy."

  "She say she knew the perp?"

  Tillery and Tranca exchanged jaundiced glances. "About as well as you did," Sal said.

  "Well, you enjoy that dark meat," Tillery said. He was on the way out when something occurred to him to ask. He turned to Peter with his cynical grin.

  "How long you had your gold, Pete?"

  "Nine months."

  "Hey, congrats. Sal here, he's got twenty-one years on the job. Me, I got eleven."

  'Yeah?" Peter said, closing his eyes.

  "What Frank is gettin' at," Sal said dourly, "we can smell a crock of shit when it's right under our noses."

  FOURTEEN

  Echo was putting her clothes back on inside the privacy cubicle in John Ransome's studio when she heard the door close, heard him locking her in.

  "John!"

  The door was thick tempered glass. He looked back at her tiredly as she emerged holding the sweater to her bare breasts and tugged at the door handle, not believing this.

  "I'm sorry," he said. His voice was muffled by the thickness of the door. "When it's done—if it's done tonight—I'll be back for you."

  "No! Let me out now!"

  He shook his head slightly, then clattered down the iron staircase like a man in search of a nervous breakdown while Echo battled the door; still unwilling to bel
ieve that she was locked up until Ransome decided otherwise.

  She glanced at the nude study he had begun, only a free-flowing sketch at this point but unmistakably Echo. She then demonstrated, at the top of her voice, how many obscene street oaths she'd picked up over the years.

  But the harsh wind off a tumbled sea that caused her glass jail to shimmy on its high perch wailed louder than she could hope to.

  Peter woke up with a start when Silkie MacKenzie put a hand on his shoulder. He felt sharp pain, then nausea before he could focus on her.

  "Hello, Peter. It's Silkie."

  He swallowed his distress, attempted a smile. The right side of her face was neatly bandaged. "How you doin'?"

  "I'll be all right."

  "What time is it, Silkie?"

  She looked at her gold Piaget. "Twenty past three."

  "Oh, Jesus." He licked dry lips. There was an IV hookup in the back of his left hand for fluids and antibiotics. But his mouth was parched. With his heavily wrapped right hand—how many times had Taja cut him?—he motioned for Silkie to lean her face close to his. "Talk to you," he whispered. "Not here.

  They may have left a device. Couldn't watch both of them all the time."

  "Isn't that illegal?"

  "Wouldn't be admissable in a courtroom. But they don't trust either of us, so they could be fishing—for an angle to use during an interrogation. Walk me to the bathroom."

  She got him out of bed and supported him, rolling the IV pole with her other hand. He had Silkie come inside the bathroom with him. All the fluids they'd dripped into Peter had him desperate to pee. Silkie continued to hold his elbow for support and looked at a wall.

  "Today wasn't the first time Taja came after you," Pete said.

  "No. Five months ago I was in Los Angeles. I had a commercial, the first work my agent was able to get for me after I'd finished my assignment with John. But John didn't want me working, you see. My face all over telly. That would have destroyed the— the allure, the fascination, the mystery he works so hard to create and maintain."

  "So keep the paintings, destroy the model. I've seen Anne Van Lier and Eileen Wendkos."

  Silkie looked around at him; she was close enough for Peter to feel the tremor that ran through her body.

  "Then I had a glimpse of Taja, at a restaurant opposite Sunset Plaza. She pretended not to notice me.

  But I—all of my life I've had premonitions. There was suddenly the darkest, angriest cloud I'd ever seen pressing down on Sunset Boulevard. So I ran for my life. Later I hired private detectives. I was very curious to know what had happened to my—my predecessors? I found out, as you did. And once I talked to Valerie, I understood what my sixth sense had always told me about John. I believe he may be insane."

  "We have to get out of here. Now. 1 have a rental car if Cambridge PD didn't impound it. But I'm not sure how much driving I can do." He bumped her as he turned in their small space; weakness followed pain, and it worried him. "Silkie, help me pull this IV out of my hand, then bring the rest of my clothes to me."

  "Where are we going?"

  "The nearest airport to Kincairn Island is in Bangor, Maine."

  "I don't think the weather is good up there."

  "Then the sooner we leave, the better. Get my wallet and watch from the lockbox. Use my credit card to reserve two seats on the next flight Boston to Bangor."

  "I'm not so sure I want to do that. I mean, go back there. I'm afraid, Peter."

  "Please, Silkie! You gotta help me. My girl's on that island with that sick son of a bitch Ransome!"

  The owner and chief pilot of Lola's Flying Service at Bangor airport was going over accounts in her office when Peter and Silkie walked in at ten minutes to eight. Snow particles were flying outside the hangar, and they had felt sharp enough to etch glass.

  Lola was a large cockeyed jalopy of a woman, salty as Lot's wife. Peter explained his needs.

  "Chopper the two a ya's down to Kincairn in this freakin' weather? Not if I hope to achieve my average life expectancy."

  Peter produced his shield. Lola greeted that show of authority with a lopsided smile.

  "I'm Born Again, honeybunch; and I surely would hate to miss the Rapture. Otherwise what's Born Again good for?"

  Silkie said, "Please listen to me. We must get there. Something very bad is going to happen on the island tonight. I have a premonition."

  Lola, looking vastly amused, said, "Bullshit."

  "Her premonitions are very accurate," Peter said.

  Lola looked them over again. The bandages and bruises.

  "I had my tea leaves read once. They said I shouldn't get involved with people who show up looking like the losers in a domestic disturbance competition." She picked up the remains of a ham on whole wheat from a takeout carton and polished it off in two bites.

  Silkie patiently opened her tote and took out a very large roll of bills, half of which, she made it plain to Lola, were hundreds.

  "On the other hand," Lola said, "you have any premonitions about what this little jaunt is gonna cost you?"

  "Name your price," Silkie said calmly, and she began laying C-notes in the carton on top of a wilted lettuce leaf.

  Echo's immediate needs were met by a chemical toilet; a small refrigerator that contained milk, a wedge of Jarlsburg, bottled water and white wine; and an electric heater that dispelled the worst of the cold after sun-down. There was also a large sheepskin throw to wrap up in while she rocked herself in the only chair in John Ransome's studio. Physically she was fine. She had drunk the rest of an already-opened bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, ordinarily enough wine to put her soundly to sleep. But the wind that was hitting forty knots according to the gauge outside and her circumstances kept her alert and sober, with an aching heart and a sense of impending tragedy.

  If it's done tonight, Ransome had said forebodingly. What did he know about Taja, and what was he planning?

  Every few minutes, between decades of the rosary that went everywhere with her, Echo jumped up restlessly to pace the inner circumference of the studio, then stopped to peer through the shutters in the direction of the stone house three hundred yards away. She could make out only blurred lights through horizontal lashings of snow. She'd seen nothing of Ransome since his head had disappeared down the circular lighthouse stairs. She hadn't seen anyone except Ciera, who had left the house early, perhaps dismissed by Ransome. In twilight, on her way across the island, Ciera's path had brought her within two hundred feet of the Kincairn light. Echo had pounded on the glass, screamed at her, but Ciera never looked up.

  She'd turned off the studio lights. After the wine she had a lingering headache, more from stress than from drinking. The light hurt her eyes and made it more difficult to see anything outside. At full dark she relied on the glow from the heater and the red warning strobe atop the studio for illumination.

  When she tired of walking in circles and trying to see through the fulminating storm, she slumped in the rocking chair with her feet tucked under her. She was past sulking, brooding, and prayer. It was time to get tough with herself. You have a little problem, Mary C. ? Solve it.

  That was when the pulse of the strobe overhead gave her an idea of how to begin.

  On the way down from Bangor in the three-passenger Eurocopter that had become surplus when Manuel Noriega fell out of favor with the CIA, Peter had plenty of time to reflect on the reasons why he'd never taken up flying as a hobby.

  It was a strange night, clearing up in places on the coast but still with force eight winds. The sea from twelve hundred feet was visible to the horizon; beneath them it was a scumble of whitecaps going every which way. The sky overhead was tarnished silver in the light from the moon. Lola, dealing with the complexities of flying through the gauntlet of a gale that had the chopper rattling and vibrating, looked unperturbed, confident of her skills, although she was having a hard chew on the wad of grape-flavored gum in her right cheek.

  "Should've calmed down some by now," she gr
oused. "That's why we waited."

  Silkie had become sick to her stomach two minutes after they lifted off at twelve-thirty in the morning, and she'd stayed sick and moaning all the way. Peter, whose father and uncles had always owned boats, was a competent sailor himself and used to rough weather, although this was something special even for him. The knife wounds Taja had inflicted were throbbing; at each jolt they took he hoped the stitches would hold.

  Lola and Peter wore headphones. Silkie had taken hers off to get a better grip on her head with both hands.

  "Where are we now?" Peter asked Lola.

  "Over Blue Hill Bay. See that light down to our left?"

  "Uh-huh," he said, his teeth clicking together.

  "That's Bass Harbor head. Uh-oh. That's a Coast Guard cutter down there, steaming southwest.

  Somebody's got trouble. Take a dip in those waters tonight, you've got about twelve minutes. Okay, southwest is where we're heading now; right two-four-zero and closer to the deck. It's gonna get rougher, kids."

  Peter checked the action of the old Colt Pocket Nine he'd borrowed from his Uncle Charlie in Brookline before heading up to Maine. Then he looked at islands appearing below. A lot of islands, some just specks on the IR.

  "How are you going to find—"

  "I know Kincairn by its light. Problem is, I don't think anyone's tried to land a helicopter there. Not a level spot on the island. Wind shear around a rock pile like Kincairn, conditions are just about perfect for an SOL funeral."

  "SOL?" Silkie said. She'd put her headphones back on.

  "Shit outa luck," Lola said, and laughed uproariously.

  From a window of his study John Ransome observed through binoculars the lights in the studio flashing. A familiar sequence. Morse code distress signal. Mary Catherine's ingenuity made him smile. Of course he wouldn't have expected less of her. She was the last and the best of the Ransome women.

  When he looked at the base of the Kincairn light, then down the road to the town, he saw one of the two Land Rovers he kept on the island coming up from the cove. When it stopped near the lighthouse, he wasn't surprised to see Taja get out.