The Taste of Fear (3 page)

Scarlett frowned. There was something she was missing here. Something about Sal coming back to LA, coming for—

“My birthday!” she said. “The party!”

“Don’t worry about that. Gloria’s taking care of it.”

Scarlett groaned. Her actual birthday was on December 13, nine days earlier. But because of filming she’d postponed the celebration to today. She usually didn’t make a big fuss over birthdays, but this one, number thirty, was big, up there in importance with sixteen and twenty-one. The last big fun one until you seriously began dreading them. Over two hundred invitations had gone out. Every actor who had made the headlines within the past six months would have been there—not to mention executives from HBO, Castle Rock, Warner, and all the other big studios. Sal had invited the mayor of LA and the former Vice President, both of whom were his close friends. On top of the Who’s Who guest list, a tabloid paper had paid her $2.5 million to photograph the event, the money of which was supposed to go to one of her charities.

“I’m such an idiot,” she said, shaking her head and instantly regretting doing so as pain flamed beneath the bandage. She put a hand to the sore spot. “I’ve ruined everything.”

The door to the room opened again. This time a fiftyish doctor with a graying beard and a ponytail entered. Scarlett had seen plenty of men sporting ponytails before, of course. Just never a doctor. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. It was like your doctor having tattoos—or worse, a bowtie.

“Hello, Bill,” Sal said, standing and shaking the doctor’s hand. “Scarlett, this is Dr. Blair, the neurologist who looked you over when you came in.”

“Welcome to Cedars-Sinai, Miss Cox,” he said, coming to stand before the bed.

“Cedars? I thought I was in the Beverly Hilton.”

“Not everyone gets a private room, Miss Cox. You can thank your husband for arranging that.” He shifted the clipboard from his left hand to the right one. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the bandage around your head. You hit it pretty hard in the accident—hard enough to have lost consciousness for several hours at any rate. Your forehead will likely be sore for a few days. But, as I’ve told your husband, the X-rays and CT scan came back clean. No fractures or hematoma, which is a very good thing. How do you feel?”

“A little groggy,” she said.

“Any dizziness or nausea?”

“Not now.”

“As opposed to?”

“Earlier this morning. I get migraines.”

He scratched some notes down on the clipboard. “How often do you get them?”

“A couple times a week.”

“How long have you been having them?”

“A few months.”

More notes. “Any change in diet? Change in sleeping habits?”

“No.”

“Are you drinking any more coffee or alcohol than usual?”

“No, no. It’s none of that. It’s just stress. From work—and other things. My life’s been a little hectic recently.”

Dr. Blair nodded but didn’t say anything right away. Scarlett found herself wondering whether he knew about her and Sal’s marital problems. God knows the affair had been played to death on all the television entertainment channels, including several respectable news outfits. Not that she cared if he did know. She’d long ago become desensitized to what the general public thought of her personal life. “Welcome to the jungle,” her agent had told her six years back when Scarlett was still starry-eyed after her first big feature film success.

Dr. Blair said, “Are you feeling any nausea now?”

“No.”

“Can you touch your nose?”

She did what he asked.

He held a finger in front of her face. “Follow my finger, please.” He moved his index finger left, then right. “Any blurred vision?”

She shook her head.

He straightened. “It doesn’t seem you have any post-concussion symptoms. But I’d like to keep you overnight for observation. I believe the police would also like to get a statement from you. After that, in the morning, you should be good to leave. However,” he added, “I want you to take it easy. That means nothing stressful for the next seven to ten days. Understood?

“Impossible,” she said. “I have too much to do.” Her mind was already fast-forwarding to the weekend. The calls and apologies she’d have to make. Rebooking the venue for the party. Sending out fresh invitations. Then there was the appearance Monday on
Good Morning America.

“Miss Cox,” Dr. Blair said. “You said so yourself. You believe stress has been triggering your recent spate of migraines. That sounds reasonable to me. On top of that, you’ve just been in a serious car accident. You’ve suffered a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury. True, you seem to be doing fine. But any sort of TBI should be taken very seriously. Just because you’re not currently exhibiting certain symptoms doesn’t mean they won’t emerge tomorrow, or the day after that. And the best prevention against that is to take a break, relax, slow down.”

“I really don’t think—”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Sal cut in.

“Make sure you do. Now, I have to continue my rounds. A nurse will be in shortly.”

They thanked Dr. Blair, and he left the room.

Scarlett looked skeptically at Sal. “You don’t really think I need to sit around the house for a week, do you?”

“You heard the man,
cara mia.
You need to relax. Whatever you have to do can wait.” He took her hand in his again and rubbed the top of it with his thumb. “It’s good to see you.”

She wanted to tell him the same, but she bit back the words. She didn’t want to confuse her gratitude at surviving the car accident with her still uncertain feelings for him. Unable to meet his eyes, she looked down at the hand holding hers. It was tanned and strong. Manicured nails. Platinum wedding band on his ring finger.

“Listen,” Sal said, clearing his throat. “What about we take a trip somewhere?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You mean, just you and me?”

“Sure,” he said, pushing up his bottom lip. If lips could shrug, that’s how they’d do it.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now, Sal.”

“I meant what I said about getting through this. I want this marriage to work.”

“I want it to work too, I really do, but I don’t think the next step is us vacationing together.”

“But it is,” he insisted. “It’s exactly what we need.”

She searched his eyes. “What about the hotel?” she said cautiously. “The opening?”

“I’ll have my phone. I’ll keep in touch with the office.”

“I don’t know—”

“It’ll be good for you.”

“Humor me then. What do you have in mind?”

He shrugged. “Something private, away from the crowd.”

“The Caribbean?”

“And lie around on a beach?”

“Well?”

“What about a safari?” he suggested.

She was surprised. “As in Africa?”

“Dubai’s on the same clock as Kenya, or Tanzania. If there’s an emergency, and I have to get back for whatever reason, it’s only a couple hours flight. You could come. Check out the hotel. The movers and decorators are finishing up this week.”

Scarlett considered it. In her head she saw an acacia tree silhouetted against a sapphire sunset. Giraffes and zebras and elephants gathered at a watering hole. Antelope grazing on the savanna. Elegant game resorts and tented camps. It sounded nice. She could almost hear Elton John singing
Circle of Life.

“All right,” she said, warming to the idea. “I’m game.”

Monday, December 23, 11:11 p.m.
London, England

Like the devil, the
fugu
was known by many names—blowfish, puffer fish, globefish, balloon fish, toadfish, more. The second most poisonous vertebrate in the world, it was a nasty piece of work, its neurotoxin ten thousand times more deadly than cyanide. If ingested, the poison numbed the lips and tongue, induced vomiting and muscle paralysis, and eventually caused death from suffocation. If you somehow survived, chances were good you’d end up in a prolonged coma, cruelly conscious of everything happening around you, a kind of hell on earth.

The Irishman Damien Fitzgerald had one such
fugu
on the cutting board in the kitchen, cold and dead. He picked up what the Japanese called a
fugu hiki
—a thin, single-edged carbon blade—and removed the eyes. He sliced a circle around the mouth, stuck his fingers into the incision, and peeled back the skin. It came off cleanly, like the shell off a hardboiled egg. A jelly-like substance coated the denuded meat. He scrubbed it away with water and salt. Gutting the sucker was the tricky part. Most of the neurotoxin was contained in the liver and ovaries. If he ruptured either, the poison would seep through his skin and into his flesh. Very slowly, with the precision and dexterity of a surgeon, he removed the internal organs and filleted what remained of the meat into thin strips, cutting upward against the bone. Afterward he placed the
sashimi
onto a plate and poured himself a glass of a ’96 Domaine Laroche Chablis. Before he could sit down and enjoy his dinner, however, his computer beeped.

Fitzgerald popped a piece of the fish into his mouth—it was gelatinous but not fishy tasting—and entered the study, where the floor-to-ceiling bookcases were filled with thousands of books on the history of warfare. He was going through the centuries in chronological order, a hobby he’d begun shortly after his wife and eight-year-old daughter were brutally murdered nine years ago. He’d started with the Battle of Megiddo in 1469 BC—or BCE if you cared to be politically correct—and was currently up to the Battle of Talasa in 751 AD, a conflict between the Arabs and the Chinese for control of a major river in Central Asia. The Chinese lost, which was a shame for them. Had they won, Central Asia today might have been Chinese, not Muslim.

The computer, a MacBook, was on the desk in the corner. He sat down in front of it and logged into specially encrypted software. One new email message:

“How’s my favorite assassin, Redstone? If you’re not keeping up, the FBI is still holding its collective dick over the last job. All they’ve got is the killer wears size-12 loafers. Next time don’t step in the fucking blood, yes? See the attachment, per usual. There’s good news and bad news. Bad news—the first guy we used fucked up, so you’re cleanup on this one. The good news—the mark’s going to Africa for a few days, which, if you’re quick, should make things a little easier than usual. Shit happens in Africa, right?

“Good luck, God bless. M.”

Fitzgerald spent the next several hours going over the information he’d been sent. Then he booked the first flight leaving for Tanzania the following morning.

She started down what a street sign announced was Sokoine Road, storing the name away in case she got lost. She passed tailor shops filled with row after row of sewing machines and kiosks selling candies and phone cards. Women with perfect postures balanced fruit or baskets on their heads while men led their cattle and other livestock. Children played in the alleyways with toys fashioned out of string and empty bottles. She even spotted a couple native Masai warriors dressed in their checkered regalia and holding long spears. From somewhere in the distance came the toxic smell of burning garbage.

All in all, Scarlett’s first impression of Arusha was that of a tourist-hungry frontier town—Africa’s twenty-first century equivalent of the Wild West. It was fascinating and exotic and a little intimidating all at the same time.

On the next block she came to what appeared to be the central marketplace. A few hundred cages containing squawking chickens and roosters surrounded the entranceway. Beyond them, inside the tented structure, the maze of stalls was filled with everything imaginable. Sandals soled with tire tread grips, colorful cotton
kangas
, traditional medicines, vividly colored vegetables, you name it. Some people were sucking
baobab
seeds and tamarind like sweets. Others offered to guide her around for a private tour, probably looking for a tip. Scarlett politely declined each offer. If she started doling out money, she’d never leave the place in one piece.