I Was Waiting For You (16 page)

Finally, she reappeared halfway through Carnevale.

She looked radiant. More beautiful than ever.

“You haven't shaved,” she remarked. “The stubble on your cheeks is so grey.”

“Couldn't bother,” he said. “So, you're back.”

“Not really,” Eleonora said. “I've just returned to pick up my stuff, my clothes and all that.”

“I'm sorry,” Jack said.

“It's the way things are,” Eleonora remarked. “After Carnevale ends, Master has promised me that the adventure will continue. He wants to take me to Mardi-Gras in New Orleans and also the Carnival in Rio one day …”

“How exciting,” he said bitterly in response.

“Don't be like that, please, Jack,” she protested. “You should be happy for me. Respect what I am doing, surely.”

“I find that difficult, Eleonora. I would have given you everything. Surely you realise that.”

“I know, but it would never have been enough. You know that. I'm young. I have a life to live. My life.”

Her skin shone in the pale light coming through the window, the curls in her hair like the gift of Medusa.

Jack closed his eyes. Promising himself he would not open them until she had left with her belongings.

Jack never saw Eleonora again. He stayed in Venice until the end of Carnevale. At dinner one evening, he met another woman, a legal interpreter from Arizona. They had a few drinks together and he was pleased to see that he could still chat a woman up, be reasonably witty and seductive. But when he took her back to the apartment and undressed her after some willing fumbling and a cascade of mutual kisses, he wasn't capable of fucking her. Just couldn't get hard enough, despite her assiduous ministrations. Lack of inspiration or wrong person, he wasn't sure.

The next day as he sat at an overpriced café by the Rialto bridge, he caught a glimpse of a small water cab racing down the Grand Canal. A woman was standing at its prow. For a brief moment, he thought he recognised Eleonora. Same skirt and T-shirt, but the cab was moving too fast for him to be positive it was actually her. At any rate, she was alone on the small boat, standing erect behind the driver, facing the breeze. And for a brief moment, the wind shimmered, the image in his eyes blurred and he thought it maybe was Giulia, not Eleonora any longer. And then his vision blurred and she looked like yet another woman. Unknown, though.

* * *

Shortly after, his friends returned from India and he promptly made his way back to London.

He left the two masks they had worn on that fateful evening behind. Not quite the sort of apparel you could wear for the Notting Hill Carnival.

Jack would never go back to Venice.

I
VAN NEVER RETURNED PHONE
calls. You had to ring three times at ten minute intervals and leave an identical message and a number where he could call you back. Never on a landline.

If he was otherwise detained and did not return the call within the hour, you had to repeat the process at the same time on the following day. Those were the rules.

Cornelia reached New York mid-afternoon and was home by four. It was the best time of day to fly in, when the traffic into the city was still sparse enough. First she showered and then, still dripping water, immediately rang Ivan on a spare cell phone she had acquired at the airport, for which she had picked up a spare SIM card from a small souvenir and touristy bric a brac store on Broadway South of Houston.

There was no answer, as she expected. She slipped on her dark blue silk kimono, stretched her long limbs, and adjusting a cushion at one end, lay down on the frayed leather sofa on which she liked to do most of her reading and thinking. She tried Ivan twice again, repeating the succinct message. And began her wait. Outside, the sun was setting over the park. She tried to concentrate on a new book she'd been waiting to read by some English crime writer she'd heard good things about. The opening pages grabbed her attention, but soon her tiredness got the better of her and she dozed off.

She awoke in the dead middle of night. Her kimono's thin, tenuous belt had come undone and the flimsy material had parted and the skin across her stomach and thighs was littered with goose bumps. Cornelia shivered and realised with disappointment that it would be at least a further day until matters could move on. Too much time to kill. She moved to the bedroom and slipped between the sheets, shedding the kimono in her stride. She always slept in the nude, no matter the weather.

It took another three days for Ivan to call back. Maybe he had been out of town.

“Cornelia?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't realise you were back.”

“I am. Reporting back like a good little soldier.”

“So, everything cleared up? I haven't heard back from my principals. Surprising. I'd assumed they would have told me the matter is at an end. In which case, I'm owed,” Ivan said.

“Lucky you.”

“Any problems?”

“Quite a few as a matter of fact.”

“Oh.”

“I think we should speak about it in the flesh. Meet.”

“That's quite irregular.”

“I know. But it's important, I assure you.”

“Something the client should know?”

“Not until you and I have spoken,” Cornelia said.

“This is most unusual, my dear Cornelia,” he continued.

“But necessary,” she added. “I insist on meeting.”

Ivan reluctantly agreed. She would have to come to him.

It took Cornelia just over an hour from Grand Central Station on the New Haven local train to reach Westport, Connecticut. By then, the sky was already darkening, sombre clouds floating menacingly over the surrounding woods. Ivan had sent a driver to the station to pick her up in a grey four-wheel drive Jeep.

The metal gates to the property slowly peeled open from the centre as the chauffeur operated a remote electronic switch on the car's dashboard, drove in, and the gates behind them closed in their wake. The man at the wheel, a short black guy in a green woollen cardigan and heavy brown cord trousers had not spoken a word during the short fifteen-minute journey across the bridge and then through the forest roads and a labyrinth of left-hand turnings which Cornelia memorised carefully. Nor had he even glanced at her in his rear view mirror. She was wearing black from head to toe, a thin cashmere sweater which felt soft against her skin, tailored Armani slacks and flat ballerina slippers.

The car pulled up along the side of a large, architect-designed single-storey country house. The driver parked on the gravel path, at a right angle to a closed garage door.

Just as the chauffeur was about to pull the car keys from the ignition, Cornelia swiftly pulled out the small Beretta she had brought along in her slim handbag and pressed it in a single movement against the back of the man's head. She'd screwed on a silencer before leaving Manhattan. The detonation barely echoed within the car's interior, a hushed, repressed sound that no one inside the main building could possibly have heard.

The man slumped against the wheel just as the engine died.

Cornelia checked his pulse.

He was dead. A single bullet was generally sufficient.

She experienced a clear sense of relief. She had not used the weapon for ages. Always avoided having to utilise her own gun. Normally, each new job was supplied with its own, which was either disposed of following the hit or returned, depending on the arrangements concluded beforehand.

She hoisted herself off the backseat, gave the dark house a rapid glance. There was no movement at any of the visible windows on this particular side of the building. She opened the door and stepped out.

There was a soft breeze billowing between the building and the nearby stream that lay at bottom of the house's small lawn.

She could feel the uneven gravel under her feet through the thin leather sole of her flat ballet shoes. On this particular surface, it felt almost like walking barefoot.

She reached the front door. It wasn't locked. Cornelia walked in.

The corridor beyond was lined with bookshelves. Cornelia couldn't help herself giving the spines a rapid glance. But she couldn't afford to be distracted. Maybe afterwards she would have some time to give the books a closer look, although at first glance they were mostly art books, not the sort of titles she collected.

The entrance passage led to a large open-planned space with a high latticed wooden ceiling, bordered on one side by wide bay windows which overlooked the garden and the stream, and on the other by a massive stone fireplace. A couple of deep and lush leather sofas were scattered at a right angle around a low glass table. Someone was sitting in one of them, with the back of his head to her, smoking, a newspaper – the
Wall Street Journal –
spread in front of him, held up between his two hands.

Cornelia coughed.

The man turned round. Looked at her. Set the newspaper down next to him on the sofa.

“Cornelia, I presume?”

“Indeed,” she said.

He kept on gazing at her.

“Mmmm … Even prettier than I was unreliably told.”

“Ivan?”

“Yes. And you are my sweet angel of death? So we finally meet …”

Cornelia smiled. In the flesh there was nothing particularly impressive about the man. The master of ceremonies she had been put in touch with nearly five years ago, the man who had assigned the jobs to her, paid her fast, no questions asked, made the arrangements, set the targets.

He was in his mid-fifties, a tad overweight, thin grey hair just that little bit too long for social conformity, wore horn-rimmed glasses and, she noticed, had terribly thin lips. He was dressed in nondescript dull pastel colours.

“You're on your own?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied. “I assumed that what you wanted to discuss was of a private nature. It's only me. No stray ears.”

“Good.”

“And, as you know, I've asked the driver to remain outside, in the car.”

“Perfect,” Cornelia said.

“Anyways, I am being a bad host; can I offer you a drink?”

“A coffee would be nice,” she said.

He rose from the couch and walked over to the kitchen section, separated from the main space by a thin wooden partition.

“The Paris job?”

“Yes,” Ivan queried.

“What was it about?” Cornelia asked him.

“You know I can't reveal who my customers are, Cornelia. That would be quite unbecoming and disloyal and you should know better. I think we've had this conversation before, no? Why are you asking?”

“Because …”

“You did clean up, on your second trip? The witness – was it a young woman with dark curling hair, I was told?– has been eliminated, has she?”

“No, she hasn't, Ivan. First of all, she was a totally innocent bystander who just happened to have come across a bad man and, in all likelihood, knew nothing about his other activities. Furthermore, I just couldn't find her. She's just faded away into thin air, presumably returned to her own, quite ordinary life.”

“But she saw you, didn't she? There's a link. The trail could lead back here.”

“Yes, she saw me kill him. But I know she will do nothing about it.”

“That's just not the way it works, Cornelia. You're making me angry. So what the hell have you been doing all this time?”

“Uncovering a whole hornet's nest.”

“You should leave it undisturbed, you know that.”

“It's too late.”

“And what does that mean exactly?”

“It means that we are both in agreement that the whole affair must come to an end. We both want it dead and buried.”

“So?”

“So, Ivan, you will identify the client for me, and I will take over from there,” Cornelia suggested.

“That is quite ridiculous. I can't. How many times must I remind you of that? Our sort of business has its rules of conduct and they cannot be modified just because an innocent bystander was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyway, even if you were to make contact with the primary client, what would you do then: plead on your knees and with your eyes wide open for the girl to be spared?”

“No,” Cornelia said enigmatically.

Ivan shrugged his shoulders in exasperation. “Oh Cornelia, what's happened to you? You were one of the best. I don't understand what's come over you.” He took a final sip of coffee from his cup, weighing his thoughts. Cornelia remained silent.

“Tell me, Cornelia dear, in the hypothetical case where you were to discover the client's name and location, what were you proposing to do, to say to make him change his mind?” Ivan asked again.

Face impassive, Cornelia said “Kill him.”

“You must be joking,” Ivan said.

“That would certainly put an end to the whole matter. Clean up the mess once and for all,” she added.

Ivan frowned. This was getting beyond a joke. “You're not serious, are you?” he asked her.

“Deadly serious, if you will excuse the inappropriate vocabulary.”

Ivan looked at her. There was the hint of a smile on her lips and her eyes appeared ice-cold. And it dawned on him how efficient and utterly ruthless she had been in the past on the many occasions she had been assigned a hit. His frown grew deeper.

The woman was dangerous. And, right now, unbalanced.

He slowly began to rise from his seat.

Cornelia gave him a darting glance.

“I think I need another coffee,” Ivan explained.

“I don't think you do, Ivan.” He looked down and saw the gun she was holding in her right hand, pointing straight at his stomach. It had appeared out of nowhere. He frantically looked at the large bay window.

“Your driver won't be coming to help,” Cornelia said. “No cavalryto the rescue.”

“Bitch,” Ivan muttered under his breath.

“No need for profanity, Ivan. It's just business, isn't it?” Cornelia pointed out, getting to her feet, the Beretta still aimed steadily at Ivan's midriff.

He was about to swear again, but thought the better of it.

“What now?” he asked.

“You tell me who ordered the Paris hit and where I can find him or her.”

“And if I don't?”

“You know the cliché: we can do it the easy way or the painful way. It's up to you. Your call.”

Cornelia now stood facing him. He could even smell her perfume and the heat her body was generating. She towered above him, his black-clad angel of death, her blonde hair spreading like a halo against the recessed lighting in the room's ceiling. Even with the rivulets of fear now rushing through his system, Ivan could not avoid finding her beautiful. And strangely serene.

“You wouldn't …” he protested.

But deep inside, he knew she would.

“Get up,” she ordered him.

He meekly obeyed. There were no alternatives, he realised, his thoughts scrambling in every possible direction.

She was a full head taller than him. The line of the gun did not deviate a single inch.

“Undress,” she enjoined him.

He expressed puzzlement, but Cornelia's gaze stood firm and he began to strip.

Once he was down to his smalls, she insisted he continue until he was fully naked. He became painfully aware of how out of shape his body was, the love handles he had always meant to exercise away, the round overhang of his stomach, the pasty texture of his thick thighs. Cornelia insisted he get rid of his socks too.

“There is nothing more ridiculous than a naked man wearing socks,” she remarked. “That's what was always wrong with so much sixties porn,” she even chuckled.

His cock had shrivelled – cold or fear?– and partly retreated into his ball sack.

Cornelia looked him up and down, quite unjudgmental in her gaze.

She raised the gun and Ivan's throat tightened. But all she was doing was pointing it in the direction of the bathroom.

Cornelia marched him there, the muzzle of the Beretta forced into the small of his naked back, metal hard, his bare feet brushing the stone floor as he wearily lifted himself up the two small steps that separated the living space from the corridor.

“You don't know what you're doing,” Ivan protested.

“I do. Absolutely.”

It took Cornelia just over one hour to break Ivan's resistance down. She had hoped it might take less time and not prove as messy.

The Beretta wasn't enough of a threat. Its use was too final, and her handler knew that.

His hands tied high above his head to the shower rail, Ivan stood inside the bathtub in a distorted parody of crucifixion. Cornelia had kicked his legs apart and his genitals hung limply between his legs. She had switched the shower on and the increasingly hot water poured down across his stretched shoulders. Ivan grimaced and squirmed. Cornelia ignored him and explored his medicine cabinet. There was a small container of old razor blades, some rusting across the edges. She took hold of a couple and taped them with surgical tape to the end of a toothbrush. Improvised but a worthy instrument of persuasion, Cornelia knew. She turned back towards the bath tub and the immobilised man and sat herself on the edge and faced Ivan. Switched the water off. His pasty body was all now blotchy in all shades of pink. When Ivan saw what she was now holding in her hand, he shuddered briefly.