Loose Cannon: The Tom Kelly Novels (14 page)

The two men began to walk back the way they had come—Rowe to a night in the darkroom . . . and Kelly to the Mustang that awaited him.

XIV

Kelly walked around the back of the car to get to Annamaria’s door. She had started to unlatch it as soon as she had parked, but she waited when she realized what her passenger was doing. “Madame,” the agent said, bowing low in self mockery after he had handed her out.

“You know,” said the black-haired woman, “I rather thought you might be the sort of man who insists on doing all the driving himself.” She arched an eyebrow. Annamaria wore the dress she had on when they toured the Casbah, but the effect was strikingly different now. Her shoes were straps with spike heels, comfortable for no more than the thirty yards they had yet to walk to the restaurant. Her hair was down in a black flood to her shoulders where it merged with the fur of her wrap—just as black, just as rich, just as clearly expensive. The perfume was the same, but it now was a part of the night.

“Is that what you wanted?” the agent asked, offering his right arm with the stiffness of unfamiliarity. When her hand rested lightly on the crook of his elbow, Kelly began to pick a way for them toward the orange neon sign of Le Carthage. There was a street light at the foot of the Chemin de la Glycines, but parked cars bled shadows that could hide a pothole in the street beside them.

At first, Kelly thought that the woman had not heard his question; but when they had almost reached the doorway of the restaurant she said, “I would have cancelled the table I reserved for tonight if you had been that way. Men with their balls on display every day, every minute—” Kelly opened the door. Annamaria’s grimace segued into a greeter’s smile as she stepped down into the entryway. Within, the lights were low and the music just loud enough to meld the scores of separate conversations into an unintelligible murmur. The tune was Western, a blurred version of “The Tennessee Waltz.”

“Gordon, please,” the black-haired woman said to the maitre d’. The Algerian bowed without checking his book. He led them to a table in a front corner. Neon through the square-paned window brightened the table more than did the squat candle in the middle of it. The two diners themselves were in darkness.

“Did you know,” Annamaria asked as a waiter took away the third place setting, “that young Foreign Service employees often have to grow beards if they’re stationed in Arab countries?”

Kelly raised his eyebrow. He flipped his palm up in question on the tablecloth when he realized that his hands were the only parts of him that were visible until Annamaria’s eyes adapted.

“Yes,” she said, reaching for the wine list, “if they don’t have any children. And especially if they aren’t married. Arabs are likely to misunderstand about beardless men, you see, unless they have some other proof of their virility. Italy, I’m afraid, isn’t a great deal better. I didn’t need to see more of that.”

Hanged if I know why you needed to see more of me, either, the agent thought. Aloud he said, “It was your car, not mine. You knew where we were going. For that matter, you’re a good driver. It scares the crap out of me to ride with anybody else, just about, but that’s not to say that you’re bad.”

“Since this is an experiment for you,” Annamaria said, staring toward the agent’s face, “I think we’ll have the Cous-Cous Royal and a plate of charcuterie between us.” She could see well enough now to tell that Kelly was grinning. She slapped the wine list shut between the fingers of one hand and said in a harder voice, “And for the wine, a bottle of Cuvee du Président. The Algerian reds are very good, strong but not raw.”

“Water for me, thank you,” Kelly said. “The meal sounds fine, though.”

“You don’t trust me to choose wine?” Annamaria demanded. “
That’s
a man’s job, then?”

“I remember killing a bottle of Juarez Straight American Bourbon one night,” Kelly said in a reminiscent tone, his eyes directed out the window. “Haven’t the faintest notion of how I got it. For flavor, I guess it was a toss-up between that and diesel fuel. But the stuff had enough kick to do what
I
was after.” He looked at the woman across the table. “I’m easy to order wine for, you see, I’m a juicer. Only for the next couple days I’m going to try to dry out, that’s all.”

Annamaria looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Your husband get on you that bad about climbing back onto your pedestal?” the agent asked.

The waiter appeared at Kelly’s elbow. Kelly smiled and gestured to Annamaria. “Two Cous-Cous Royal and a plate of charcuterie,” she said in a crisp French. “And a large bottle of Saida, please.” The waiter nodded and sidled off. “The local mineral water comes from Saida,” Annamaria explained.

“There used to be a training depot there for—” Kelly began. He paused with his mouth open. The restaurant’s clientele seemed to be almost wholly foreign, and it was doubtful that even the nearest table could hear anything he said anyway. Still, it had been a long war. Kelly would not have discussed the SS in Tel Aviv, and he would not discuss the French Foreign Legion here. “For the troops headquartered at Sidi bel Abbes,” Kelly concluded. “Never occurred to me anything else happened there. Shows where my head is, I guess.”

“Rufus doesn’t smother me by trying to do everything for me,” said Annamaria, speaking toward her folded hands. The bead in her left earlobe, gold or silver, was washed orange by the neon. It winked as she moved her head. “Rufus likes to have other people do for him, you see. And that’s not a problem, generally, because he has plenty of people around. . . . But there are some things that only the Ambassador’s wife can do—not me, but my position. And then there’s friction sometimes, yes.” She raised her eyes to Kelly. He could now see the liquid gleam of her pupils catching the candle flame. “It makes me snappish when I think someone is reacting to what I am, not who I am. And so I’m sorry.”

“Christ, I’ve been snapped at by experts,” Kelly said with a laugh. “When everything gets straightened out, we’ll go off on a toot together. And I promise to drink anything you order.”

As they ate cauliflower and French bread, the couple talked about the Bay of Naples. It was a liberty port to Kelly and the site of a beach house owned by Annamaria’s family. The locations about which they talked were both as near and as far from one another as Eden and the Wilderness. Annamaria had a quick, bubbling laugh. Kelly brayed like a donkey and knew it, so he kept a straight face throughout most of the things he thought really funny. His control broke several times, however, during Annamaria’s description of the thirty-seven days she had spent as an infant-school aide at the American School in Algiers. Other diners glanced at them. Hell, when you were out with somebody as beautiful as Annamaria, you were going to get stares even if you sat on your hands all night.

The dark-haired woman combined the processes of eating and talking with more grace than the agent could remember complementing anyone of her verve. When Kelly blinked at his first forkful of cous-cous, asking if it were rice, he was treated to an expert cook’s description of how the dish was prepared. As Annamaria chewed, her hands demonstrated how the millet flour was rolled into beads even smaller than rice grains, each one coated with cooking oil wiped from the cook’s hands. Then the beads spent hours in a perforated steamer as the sauce simmered beneath it, cooking and imbibing the very essence of what other methods of preparation would have left as merely something to be poured over a completed dish. Finally the completed meal would be brought out to grace the low table of the husband and his honored guests—perhaps garnished, as here in the restaurant, with lamb chops; but first and foremost, the cous-cous itself.

“It’s no accident,” Annamaria concluded, “that the most stunning examples of Kabyle metalwork are the cous-cous sets. The great steamer, the serving bowls . . . the tray to carry it all in with, all chased and studded and sometimes inlaid. But that’s only the male reflection of the art the wives perform daily in the kitchen.”

“Craftsmanship’s never a bad thing,” Kelly said through a mouthful. The individual beads were crisp, not soggy as rice steamed without the coating of oil would have been. “Even for a bad reason, even in a bad cause.” After a moment he added, “I’ve always told myself that, anyway.”

They were getting up to leave when Kelly paused. His hand froze in the side pocket where he kept his paper money. His face wore a distant look. “Something’s wrong?” the woman asked in concern.

Kelly brought out his hand with the fat sheaf of dinars folded around a bill clip. “No, no,” he said with an odd smile. “Believe me, there are easier ways to make a living than to pick my pocket. Even when I’m bombed. . . . No, it’s the tune on the muzak.” He thumbed toward the ceiling, though the speakers there were not actually visible. “It just surprised me, that’s all. It’s an old ballad from the English side of the border. ‘The Three Ravens.’”

“I don’t think I know the words,” said Annamaria. She was studying her companion more carefully than she seemed to be as he helped her on with her furs.

“Oh, three ravens are complaining,” the agent said, leading the way to the door. “You learn the damnedest things from the BBC World Service. . . .” The maitre d’ and the cashier greeted them cheerfully. Kelly smiled back as he paid, adding his compliments on the meal.

The cool air outside the restaurant was a shock. Annamaria held Kelly’s arm more closely than she had when they walked toward Le Carthage. “There’s a knight lying dead, you see,” Kelly went on. “The ravens can’t get at him, though, because his hawks and his hounds are guarding the body. And then his girlfriend, his leman, comes along and buries him before she dies of a broken heart.”

In a strong and surprisingly melodious baritone, Kelly sang:

“God send every gentleman

“Such hawks, such hounds, and such a leman.”

They paused beside the Mustang as Annamaria fished the keys from her tiny lamé reticule. “There’s a Scots version, too,” Kelly said, looking back toward the restaurant. “‘The Twa Corbies.’ Things don’t come out so well for the poor bastard in the ditch in that version. But he was dead, so I don’t guess it really mattered to him.”

“Think you can find the way back if you drive?” Annamaria asked. She held the keychain out on the tip of her index finger. The chrome and her short, polished fingernail caught the street light.

“With a little help,” said the agent, taking the keys carefully. “I guess I can do most things with a little help.”

As Kelly pulled from the parking place into a tight, smooth U-turn, Annamaria said to him, “I suppose it’s the Scottish version that you believe in?”

“Don’t know that I do,” said the agent, shifting without haste as they climbed the hill, then shifting again. “Sometimes seems that way, I guess. But there were a lot of guys I knew back in Nam who made pretty good hawks . . . not the sort of thing you can really tell till it happens. I made a pretty good hawk myself, when it had to be done.”

Two Fiats were parked at the Residence entrance, close enough to narrow the gateway still further. Kelly blipped his horn for the guard. Nothing happened except that a car barreling down the hill locked all four wheels before coming to a stop behind them. Kelly laid on the button and the gate swung back at last. When he slid the Mustang into the grounds, the agent understood the problem. The guest house to the right of the entrance was lighted up. The windows were open and through the curtains bellowed reggae music. It was no wonder that the first beep had been lost in the background.

“I was going to have a discussion about keeping awake on the job with your guard,” Kelly said as he pulled up beside the main building where he had first seen the Mustang parked, “but I guess he’s got enough problems right now.” There was no sign of the Chrysler. It was still a few minutes till ten, however.

“It’s easier to be an individual with somebody who’s—an individual himself,” Annamaria said as she let the agent hand her out of the car. “It’s been a delightful evening”—her teeth winked in a wide grin, lighted by the lamp at the side door—“Angelo. I hope there’ll be—wait a minute! Do you like jazz?”

“Well enough, I guess,” Kelly said, eyes narrowing a fraction at the woman’s change of subject.

“Wait here,” she called, already darting to the unlocked door. “It’ll just be a moment.” The latch clicked behind her.

Kelly grimaced, but he realized that he was still holding the car keys. There was no practical way he could leave even if he wanted to . . . and a good deal of him did not want to, anyway. In the event, Annamaria was back in little more than the moment she had promised, holding what seemed at a glance to be a note card. “Here,” she said, handing the card to Kelly.

Christ, it was an invitation with a US Seal embossed at the top.

The Ambassador of the United States of America

and Mrs. Rufus J. Gordon

Request the pleasure of the company of

Mr. Angelo Ceriani

at a
buffet with American Jazz

on
April 19

from
8 pm to 10 pm

R.S.V.P.

“Mr. Angelo Ceriani” was hand written; the other blanks in the printed form had been filled in on a typewriter.

“Anna,” Kelly said. He touched his lips with his tongue. “I’ve got—I don’t know what I’ll be doing day after tomorrow. It, it’s apt to be pretty fluid.” He felt that he was stuttering, though he knew he was not.

“Come if you can,” the woman said simply. “And—wait.” She stepped back and reopened the door. Kelly strode forward with the car keys. Instead of entering the house, Annamaria only reached inside. The light clicked off. She took the keys in the sudden darkness. Kelly heard them clink in her purse. Then she was in his arms, her waist softer than her furs, her lips softer yet on his.

“Jesus God,” Kelly whispered as Annamaria stepped back from him.

“Come if you can,” she repeated. “It’s more pleasure than I can tell you to—speak Italian again.”

Kelly still stood with a bewildered look on his face when the door closed behind her. “Jesus
God
, Mrs. Gordon,” he whispered to the panel.