One Way or Another: A Novel (35 page)

As though he had summoned her, Lucy came through the door on the arm of a blond young man so good-looking he might have been her brother. Anger flashed in Ahmet’s eyes as Lucy came up to him, holding the young man’s hand. Ahmet put his arms round her possessively, felt her draw back, turn her cheek as he went to kiss her on the mouth, breathed in the scent of her before she got free.

She introduced the young man. “My pizza guy,” she explained, her eyes laughing into the boy’s with the sexual understanding, the togetherness Ahmet recognized. She might be fucking him, he wasn’t sure, but still, right at that moment, he wanted to kill him.

“This is Phillip,” Lucy said. The young man held out his hand then took a quick step back when he caught Ahmet’s cold glance.

“Uh, great portrait, sir,” the nervous boy said. “Good to meet you in person. You’re famous, and all that.…” He retreated quickly, leaving Lucy still standing there, smiling uncertainly.

“You look beautiful,” Ahmet said. And she did, so young and slender in her black velvet dress. “I have something for you.”

He took the strand of pearls from his pocket, held them for her to see. “Now, bend your head.”

Lucy did so. He lifted her hair, slipped the necklace on. She put up a hand to touch the pearls. “They’re cold,” she said. Then, “I know they’re fake and all but still I can’t accept them.”

Ahmet laughed. “Why not, after all, they’re only fake. And they look so good with that black dress.”

Still uncertain, Lucy said thank you, as she reached back for the young man’s hand, then turned and walked away wearing a fortune in pearls she couldn’t even tell were real. But then, Ahmet thought, who could, except an expert like the jeweler he’d bought them from, or he himself, because he had paid too much for them. It took a seventeen-year-old girl to put him squarely in his place. It made him smile, a regretful kind of smile, but after all, she was still so young.

62

ANGIE

Burning silk has a particular odor, a frizzled almost metallic smell, like when you use the electric hair straightener too long, and your hair comes out all crisp. Smoke was already drifting from the window. Pieces of curtain broke off and flew after it, beacons of flame, attracting the attention of the visitors in the garden below.

“Fire!”

I heard the shout go up; help would soon be to hand. I hoped it wouldn’t be too late. I had not wanted to drown, I did not want to burn. What would Ahmet do now, I asked myself, crouched near the window where the remains of the curtains fluttered, ragged black strips of what had once been fine blue silk. A gun was what sprang to mind; first water, then fire, then a bullet. That would be Ahmet’s final move.

I’d started out as a personal sadism project for him, a sexual encounter, an unknowing messenger, carrying his illegal drug money. That finished, I had become merely a nuisance to be hidden away until I could be gotten rid of—silently—when the media had lost interest and were no longer asking whatever happened to that red-haired girl who disappeared. So many girls went missing every year. I wondered how many were ever found. And here I was, in my midnight-black velvet ball gown, the golden panther chain around my neck, wearing a wig as red as my own hair. Yet now, I saw a way out.

Sirens blared as fire trucks approached, blending with the shouts of terrified guests running from the house. I stuck my head out the window,

“Help!”
I yelled.
“Help!”

The firemen spotted me, a truck stopped beneath my window, a ladder was thrust upward, and climbing it came two men in yellow hard hats who, when they got to my too-small window and saw my terrified face, proceeded to hack out the glass and then the frame and haul me out through the gap.

“Good thing you’re not a heavyweight,” the one carrying me over his shoulder muttered as he descended the ladder and deposited me on the soggy ground. He looked at my smoke-blackened face, my wig tilted crazily to one side of my bald head, the golden jewelry, the black velvet gown, and the satin-and-feather mask I somehow still managed to clutch in one hand.

“Jesus,” he said. “What was going on here anyway?”

I spotted Ahmet in the crowd and shrank back into the dark. “There’s the owner, why not ask him what happened?”

“I have to see you’re okay first; you’ve inhaled smoke, you might need hospitalizing.”

I saw the emergency Red Cross station already set up, assured him I would go there immediately. Behind me the house was starting to burn room by room. Shadows and light danced across the wild, wet marshlands and rain clouds, even darker gray than the smoke, pressed down. The fumes choked us.

“Everybody out of here!” the fireman yelled, marching back to his crew as the sound of more sirens crashed across the night. “Out, everybody out!”

Men in tuxedoes ran to help haul precious antiques and women in sparkly evening dresses carried stuff onto the lawn until it looked like a valuable bric-a-brac sale. A rock group kept on playing like it was the sinking of the
Titanic.
Candelabra, with their white tapers still lit, made the disaster festive.

People in evening finery, seeking a way out, pushed one another out of the way, piling onto the chartered buses that had brought them, or into limos, searching the sky for helicopters that, of course, could not land, some begging lifts from strangers.

I looked for Mehitabel, I knew she had to be here. She hated Ahmet, even though he was the man she wanted. But Ahmet did not want her, and very possibly he wanted someone else.

I ran for one of the elegant chartered buses just as the door was about to slide shut.

“We’re full, miss, overloaded already,” the driver yelled at me.

“You can’t just leave me here,” I said, but he crashed through the gears and took off down the driveway with its old stunted trees and the new ones alive with white fairy lights, leading from the mansion behind me that was burning in hell.

63

Earlier, Lucy had managed to lose Ahmet in the crowd, and unaware of the beginning fire in the front, was sitting at the table in the kitchen at the back of Marshmallows, the only room she liked. She was chatting to the Tunisian chef she also liked in a mixture of English and his language, French, of which she had thankfully managed to absorb a few words at school, as well as on those long holidays on the French coast. That holiday language had mostly consisted of how much did chocolate lollipops cost at the wooden snack shed at the top of the beach, or why wasn’t the outdoor shower working anyway because she had to get the sand off her feet before they would allow her into the car to go home. “Home” being the usual rented holiday villa, gradually being demolished under a pyramid of damp towels, wet bathing suits, grotty old sneakers, and single flip-flops for which never a match was to be found. Lucy had declared there was a flip-flop thief in the house and when they found him they would make him buy everybody new sandals, but no one ever owned up or got caught.

Now, she’d also lost Phillip, who’d probably had enough and decided to leave. Anyhow, kitchen tables were her favorite haunt; she could hitch up her black velvet, take off her smart new gold sandals, put her feet up on a chair, and sneak a taste of whatever the chef was bringing out next. Right now it was something called kofta, a tiny curried pastry which she loved. “I could eat the whole plate,” she said, sneaking a second, or was it her third?

“You do that and I’ll lose my job,” the chef said. He stopped in his tracks, looking puzzled. “Did I leave an oven on?” he said, sniffing. “Something is burning.”

And then they heard it, the shrill call,
“Fire!”

Lucy grabbed her shoes. She stood for a minute, not knowing where to go. Then, “Oh my God, where’s Martha?” And she slammed through the kitchen’s swing door into a swirl of gray smoke.

“Come back, miss!” the chef yelled as his staff came running from the various pantries and workrooms. “Everybody out, call the police, the fire brigade, get everyone out.” And he ran after Lucy.

He opened the door, stepped back. All he could see was smoke.

“Lucy?” he yelled. “Lucy, where are you?”

There was no answer. He stood for a few seconds, undecided whether to go after her. He’d heard her call her sister’s name but had no idea where Martha might be, did not even know if she was still there.

He ran back into the kitchen, did his duty organizing his staff, getting them out, every last one, ran outside, found the fire captain, told him about Lucy. The fire captain swore, waved a couple of men after him, and headed in through the flames. The chef sank to his knees and prayed.

Lucy was outside, running through the wet grass, looking for her sister. The pearls swung to and fro, tangling together, choking her. She yanked at them but they would not break. She gave a mighty pull and they sprinkled onto the grass, catching the light of the flames and the moon as they lay there. She stood for a second, gazing at them. Finally realizing. A robber’s fortune at her feet.

Ahmet sprang out of the darkness in front of her.

She screamed, stumbled backward, trying to get out of his way.

“Stop it, you stupid bitch,” he said, in a voice so soft Lucy found herself obeying.

“But your house is burning down,” she said.

“It was my home.”

She ran from him, but the velvet folds caught between her legs and she stumbled. Still running, she plucked at the corset strings, ripping, tugging, felt it tear, struggled her arms free of the long sleeves, pulled the dress down over her chest, over her body, stepped out of it, left it lying there on the grass, an expensive black couture heap she hated but had finally agreed to wear under pressure from Mehitabel. And which left her in only the gray silk slip she’d worn underneath.

Barefoot, the slip plastered against her body by the rain, her long wet blond hair darkened, tears streaking down her face, she ran back to the house to look for Martha. She glanced round, saw Ahmet kneeling on the ground where she had left him, head bent, hands held out in front of him. She could have sworn he was holding the pearls.

*   *   *

She was behind the house, the grass felt like wet spinach under her bare feet, slippery, muddy … then she remembered. The marshes. She must be in them. Oh God.

She stood perfectly still. She was too far from the burning house for it to illuminate her way. In front was nothingness. Behind, not even a path to lead her back to Marshmallows.

She couldn’t just stand there, she had to get away from Ahmet, find Martha and Marco.
Oh God, how she wanted to go home.…

“Here, come with me.”

She lifted her head, looked at the vision in front of her; the black velvet dress exactly like the one she’d been wearing, the beautiful long red hair, the feather mask.

“Come, I know the way. All you have to do is follow me.”

Lucy thought it might be a ghost, yet ghosts costumed exactly the way she had been did not suddenly appear out of the night in the middle of the marshes, offering help.… But it had to be a ghost, an apparition, a forecast of what she herself would soon become, a dead presence left forever to haunt this place. Terrified, she screamed, but no sound came out.

The woman held out her hand. “My name is Angie. I was trying to get out of here when I saw you running.”

The realization that the woman was real made Lucy’s legs give way and she slumped to the ground. All remnants of her childhood security had left her. She was broken.

“It will be all right.”

“I need to find my sister.”

“We’ll find her together.”

Lucy suddenly needed the comfort of Marco, his masculine presence. She needed her family.

“Now come with me, you’re so cold, we must get you home,” Angie said.

“Home” to Lucy meant only Patrons, it meant her mother and father and her sisters, all the friends and cousins and the dogs and cats and ponies.… Suddenly, the desolation all around seemed even worse.

64

Stuck in the crawling traffic, Marco spotted a leafy path leading in the general direction of the house. It wasn’t too far away, couldn’t be more than five minutes, better than this fuckin’ slow parade of sightseers all wanting a view of the fire. Ghouls, all of them, probably asking if anyone was in there … and God knows there would be, and it might be Martha, most certainly Lucy.…

Heart racing, he jolted off the narrow road onto the leafy lane and slammed his foot to the metal. The car leapt forward then shuddered to a stop. Shit! Oh God. What the fuck now!

Sitting next to him, her head stuck out the window, Em suddenly jumped up, slid through the gap, and took off in the direction of the house.

Marco yelled after her, but the dog was gone. He tried to get out of the car but the door was jammed on the driver’s side. He slid over, tried the passenger door. Stuck. The sweat of fear trickled down his spine.

He climbed into the backseat, shoved at the door. It opened immediately; he’d never locked it. He climbed out, stood looking toward the house.

“Em,” he yelled. “Em, goddamn it, dog, get back here.” Shit, he hadn’t meant to call her a dog, she would never respond to that. “Em, you little bastard, get back here,” he rephrased it, knowing she responded to “little bastard” as a term of affection.

He was in the only group of trees around, birches with pale silvery trunks, fragile leaves aflutter in the hot wind coming from the fire. The whole scene was unreal; Marshmallows looked like a movie set, a TV show, the backround music for the fire engines.

Traffic clogged access for the fire trucks, a helicopter battled the thick smoke; the shriek of the fire engines, the crunch of heavy hoses, then a great burst as water surged out of them. Oh God, he was too late, he was too late.… He ran in the same direction the dog had gone.

*   *   *

Out on the marsh, Angie had Lucy’s hand grasped firmly in her own as they ran. She heard the girl’s sobbing breath, knew Lucy was coming to the end of her strength, that fear and terror were robbing her of the will to go on. Lucy did not even know who it was, dragging her away from the inferno where she believed her loved ones were trapped.