One Way or Another: A Novel (31 page)

“I’ll call you about the ball” were his final words as Martha sped away, the remains of the gravel spurting as it always did from her tires.

“Jesus,” she said aloud, her heart still in her mouth, fear sending adrenaline pounding through her pulses. “I’ll never come back here alone. In fact I’m not coming back until that bloody ball, and then it will be with Marco.”

The crackle of Ahmet’s helicopter overhead broke the silence, sending the big white birds into a frenzy. They winged so low over the car, Martha had to stop and allow them to regroup, then fly back to their nests. She thought if she were one of those birds she would be telling the others to get out while the going was good; there were better places to live than Marshmallows, whose frivolous name belied its dark secretiveness.

She noticed again, as she drove away, a light on upstairs. She wondered who might be up there, a maid perhaps, or Ahmet’s valet? A human being, for God’s sake. The house surely needed one.

54

The small Italian family restaurant Martha and Marco had been going to for dinner at least once a month ever since they’d met offered exactly what you would expect, which made it easier for their customers who had other things on their minds than to decide whether to try the new sauce, or order the same “old faithful” Alfredo, or even the “spag bol” as Lucy called the spaghetti Bolognese, which was spicier than most and left you with a small gasp and a need for another glass of red wine. You knew exactly what you were getting, down to the underdressed green salad and the “grandmother’s recipe” chocolate mousse, which Marco could never resist.

“I swear you come here only for that,” Martha said. She was sitting beside him at the small table, rather than across, because she was still freaked from the experience earlier at Marshmallows, and needed to be close.

“I come here to be with you,” he said, scooping a spoonful of her untouched mousse, having already finished his own.

“Thank God,” she said, with more feeling than usual.

Marco stopped eating to look at her. He put down his spoon. “So what’s up?”

Martha wondered whether to tell him or not. Deciding that she should, anyway, she said, “It’s that house. I feel there’s something wrong there; it gives me the creeps. And today I heard this strange sound, oh, I can’t explain it exactly except when I thought about it later … well, maybe it was a scream.”

Marco saw traces of fear in her eyes. “Are you afraid of Ahmet?”

“Right
then,
I was afraid of him. It was something I caught, an expression.… I still can’t say exactly what, just that I’ve never seen a look like that in anyone’s eyes. It was as though he had switched off all feeling. God, Marco, right then I felt he was capable of anything. And that cry, a sort of …
scream.
He got me out of there fast, and believe me, I was glad to go, I would have run if I could.”

Marco had not told her about the call he’d received from Morris, about the upstairs room with the discarded food and clothing. It was, Morris had said, as though somebody had been imprisoned there and had departed in a hurry. It was so bad Morrie would never go back, though he would also never tell Martha about it because he knew Ghulbian’s was an important commission for her, and he would do nothing to jeopardize that.

“But I wanted to tell
you,
” he’d said to Marco. “I thought it important
you
know, because of Martha. After all, you’re painting the man’s portrait, you’ll see enough of him to know the truth. But me, well I’m fucking scared of that place, and of him. I want nothing more to do with any of it.”

The other call Marco was surprised to receive had been from Mehitabel.

He was alone in his studio, the light was fading and he was cleaning up, contemplating taking Em for a walk to the café on the corner where he always had a ham sandwich, no mustard, which he shared with the dog. He wasn’t too happy to answer the phone call, especially when he saw it was “caller unknown,” but he did, and immediately wished he had not.

“You remember me” was her opening gambit. “Mehitabel.”

“The woman with only one name,” he said. “And the wonderful emeralds.”

“Unfortunately the emeralds have gone back to Cartier. I had them only for the night.”

The mention of Cartier brought an image of the gold panther necklace and Angie. “What can I do for you?” He was curious despite his antipathy for Mehitabel, and besides he would still like to paint her. Like Ahmet, whose sketches and Polaroids he’d pinned to the studio walls in preparation for the portrait, she had an arresting quietude that hid all emotion. What you saw in Mehitabel was definitely not what you got. She was a cipher. An enigma. A question mark.

“I need to see you,” she said. “To talk to you. About Ahmet. There are things you don’t know.”

55

Ahmet puzzled over Mehitabel’s behavior; about the way she avoided his eyes, her sudden secretiveness. Entering his office unexpectedly, he’d caught her mid–phone call, which she had immediately cut off. When he questioned it, she’d told him it was a jeweler interested in lending her a necklace for the ball.

“Of course they’re only after the publicity,” Ahmet said. “We’ll use Cartier, as usual, but get diamonds this time, not colored stones.” He looked at her, standing nervously in the doorway, obviously dying to get out.

“Mehitabel, come back in here.” It was not a request, it was an order and, as always, she obeyed.

She stood looking down at the papers arranged so neatly on his desk.

“I put everything about the ball there for you to approve,” she said.

The slightly higher pitch of her voice told Ahmet his suspicions were valid. “Better tell me what you’re up to,” he said, very cool, very calm. “Before I find out for myself.”

Mehitabel did not remove her eyes from the desk; obviously wondering what to say, how to avoid his suspicions, how not to let on that she was planning her attack on him, not of course in the physical way a man like him might anticipate. Her strike would be emotional, and it was Lucy she planned to use as her weapon.

“I’m simply trying to protect you,” she said. “You are my only concern, Ahmet. You look after me, I look out for you. I know where to find enemies, I know when you are being cheated on.”

He glanced sharply at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“Cheated on? Why, by little Lucy, of course. And her pizza delivery boy, the one that comes over to her apartment after he’s finished work, the one that stays the night with her. The one she’s probably fucking, of course, Ahmet.”

He was out of his chair, a powerful man, towering over her, his hands on her throat.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, terrified. “God, Ahmet, allow me to finish … it’s for your own good.”

He flung her away from him. She fell back against the desk, a hand to her throat where his fingers had almost prized the life out of her. She hated him so much at that moment she could have killed him too, with the sharp paper knife he used to open envelopes and that he played with, constantly toying with it in his fingers while staring absently into space, as though remembering times past, when, Mehitabel had no doubt, he had used it. How many men, she wondered, had Ahmet killed, or caused to be killed? More women than men, she guessed now, seeing the bitter anger on his face, noting the tremor in his hands as he took a seat behind his expensive desk, in his expensive leather chair, straightening his expensive jacket. She could almost see him reminding himself who he was. His eyes, when he finally looked back at her, told her exactly who he thought she was. And that he could not do without her.

“We are comrades in arms, you and I, Mehitabel,” he said. “You need me in order to exist, and I need you to take care of my very existence. To carry out my wishes, almost before I have thought of them myself.”

She nodded, her hand still at her throat where she knew his fingerprints stained her neck.

“You will not touch Lucy,” he said, in that cold, emotionless voice that held more threat than an angry shout ever could. “You will see that she is taken care of. You will become her friend, take her shopping for a dress to wear to the ball, make sure her hair is fixed properly, her makeup done professionally. I myself will choose the jewels she will wear. Please keep the dress simple, black, velvet, long sleeves; she is not to be made outrageous in any way. She will look like the well-brought-up young woman she is. The young woman,” he added with a sharp glance at Mehitabel, “who I intend will become my wife.”

“Hah!” Mehitabel threw back her head in a laugh. “And who is going to tell Lucy that she’s going to become your wife? She’s not one of your young sluts anxious for anything you throw their way. Believe me, Lucy Patron knows exactly who she is, and where she comes from, and even if she is thinking of fucking the pizza guy she’s still the kind of proper girl who’ll save herself for the marriage bed. And that bed will not be yours, Ahmet. How do I know that? Because Martha Patron will make sure it’s not. If you doubt me, ask Marco. He will tell you the truth and I promise you won’t like it.”

*   *   *

A few days later, Ahmet was sitting uneasily on his yacht, in the chair he’d chosen for his portrait. The usual opening chitchat had been gotten out of the way and Marco was concentrating on his work, a slight frown between his brows because there was something different about Ahmet today; a tension that crackled around him, stiffened his neck, tightened the gaze he directed not at Marco but into some kind of space inhabited only by himself. There was no penetrating Ahmet’s thoughts and no way Marco could work like this.

Sighing, he put down the knife he had been dragging over the ochre oil paint that was the background of the portrait; he couldn’t even get that right, couldn’t catch any magic anywhere today. Was it him? Or was it Ahmet? He glanced at the black rubber watch he always wore on his right wrist, then at Em, sprawled full length, legs straight out, front and back. She rolled an eye hopefully his way but knew better than to jump up and get excited. First, Marco had to give her the signal. When he did not she gave a noisy sigh and pushed her nose back into her paws.

Time crawled but it was finally five thirty. Marco was to meet Mehitabel at six. “Better wrap it up for today, sir,” he told Ahmet, wondering again why he always fell into calling Ahmet “sir.” It wasn’t that he was showing undue respect; more like he did not want the intimacy of using the man’s first name, and it was too late to be calling him Mr. Ghulbian.

Ahmet got to his feet. He straightened his jacket, came over to take a look at his picture, sketched out first in charcoal, now overlaid with touches of color. Getting the first impressions down, Marco called it. Truthfully, Ahmet did not think much of it. It wasn’t strong enough, did not show him in the purposeful manner he’d expected. “I think perhaps more force,” he said, putting a finger out to touch the still-wet canvas.

“Wait until the next stage, sir,” Marco suggested, hiding his annoyance. He was not used to sitters getting up to offer suggestions on what he might do. “Oils will give more definition.”

Ahmet threw him a disbelieving glance. “Let’s hope so,” he said, making no bones of the fact that he was not satisfied.

Ahmet was already on his phone as Marco left. Time certainly did not wait for Ahmet and neither did it for Marco. He was due to meet Mehitabel in ten minutes.

Em jumped up and down as he grabbed her lead, then led him triumphantly down the street. He stopped at a stall to buy a treat, gave Em half, then walked on. The café was a smart one; “posh” he would have called it, not a place he would normally have frequented, but he guessed for women like Mehitabel it was where they could show off their latest outfits, exchange the latest gossip. The bar was softly lit, the seating sumptuous, the martinis ice cold. He knew because Mehitabel was drinking one and the glass was still frosted white.

“Can I order you one?” she asked, not bothering to say hello how are you?

“Thanks, I’ll have a Diet Coke.” He was there on business, though he did not yet know what that business was, but he certainly wasn’t about to drink with the enemy.

He sank into the softness of the chair, reminded himself to sit alertly upright, and leaned forward again, his hands between his knees, looking at her. She busied herself ordering the Coke, and did not look back at him. Soon, though, he knew she would be forced to, and then she would have to tell him what was so important that they had to meet without Ghulbian around.

With nothing left to fuss over she finally sat quietly, facing him.

“So,” he said, “better let me have it, Mehitabel. What’s so important you needed to see me right away? And alone?”

“It’s about Ahmet.”

“Of course.”

“There are things you don’t know about him.” She put a hand to her throat, fiddling with the pearl choker, under which his observant painter’s eyes noted the red blotches her makeup had failed to completely conceal. There had been violence. Shocked, he sat back, took a sip of his Diet Coke, waited for her to tell him what she obviously needed to tell him.

“Ahmet is a killer.” Her voice was as calm as if she were talking about the weather. “He has killed many times, mostly women. He is a sadist. He does it to please himself.”

She stopped and took a gulp of the chilled martini. Marco’s blood ran cold. The dog’s head rested, as always, on his foot. He felt glad of the reality of that when he listened to Mehitabel talking about Ahmet. He did not know whether she spoke the truth or was simply a woman out for revenge, out to destroy the man who had probably made her, who’d given her everything but himself. Mehitabel would never be Mrs. Ghulbian.

He held up his hand, stopped her. “How do I know this is true? Why are you telling me? What happens between you and Ghulbian is none of my business, I’m simply painting the man’s portrait.”

“Yes, and Martha is decorating his house, and
Lucy
is helping because he wants
Lucy
there, in his clutches,
Mr. Mahoney.
” She used Marco’s full name with vicious emphasis and Lucy’s with such venom, he was shocked. Mehitabel was not simply angry, she intended to have her revenge on whoever got in her way. Meaning whoever came between her and Ahmet.