Kay Scarpet - The Last Precinct Part 16

"Yes."

"Do you still have that watch?"

"No. My life got worse because of them" He spits the word them. Saliva sprays through the air every time he says "them" with a loathing that seems genuine. "I no longer had money. I p.a.w.ned the watch maybe a year ago."

"Them? These same people you keep referring to? Law enforcement agents?"

"American federal agents."

"Back to Susan," Berger directs him.

"I am a shy person. I don't know how much detail you will want me to go into at this point." He lifts his Pepsi and his lips curl around the straw like grayish worms.

I can't imagine anyone wanting to kiss those lips. I can't imagine anyone wanting to touch this man.

"I want you to tell me everything you remember," Berger says to him. "The truth, sir."

Chandonne sets down the Pepsi and I am slightly jarred when Talley's sleeved arm enters the picture again. He lights another Camel for Chandonne. I wonder if it occurs to Chandonne that Talley is a federal agent, that he is one of the very people who Chandonne says have been following him and ruining his life. "Yes then, I will tell you. I don't want to, but I'm trying to be cooperative." Chandonne blows out smoke.

"Please go on. In as much detail as you can remember."

"We kissed for a while and it quickly progressed." He says nothing more.

"What do you mean, it quickly progressed!"

Ordinarily, it is enough for someone to say he had s.e.x and leave it at that. Ordinarily, the officer or attorney conducting the interview or the direct or cross-examination doesn't find it relevant to ask for explicit details. But the s.e.xual violence done to Susan and to all of the women we believe Chandonne murdered makes it important to know the details, all the details of what his idea of s.e.x might be.

"I am reluctant," Chandonne says, playing with Berger again. He wants coaxing.

"Why?" Berger asks him.

"I don't talk about such things, certainly not with a woman present."

"It would be better for all of us if you would think of me as a prosecutor and not a woman," Berger tells him.

"I can't talk to you and not think woman," he says softly. He smiles a little. "You are very pretty."

"You can see me?"

"I can barely see, not really. But I can tell you are pretty. I've heard you are."

"Sir, I'll ask you to make no further personal references to me. Are we clear on that?"

He stares at her and nods.

"Sir, what exactly did you do after you began kissing Susan? What next? You touched her, fondled her, undressed her? Did she touch you, fondle you, undress you? What? Do you remember what she was wearing that night?"

"Brown leather pants. I would describe them as the color of Belgian chocolate. They were tight but not in a way that was cheap. She had on boots, brown leather half boots. She had on a black top, sort of a leotard. Long-sleeved." He looks up at the ceiling. "A scoop neck, rather low scooped neck. The kind of top that snaps between the legs." He makes a snapping motion. His fingers with their short, pale hair remind me of cacti, of bottle brushes.

"A bodysuit," Berger helps him out.

"Yes. I was a bit confused at first when I tried to touch her and couldn't pull out her top."

"You were trying to put your hands under her top but couldn't because it was a bodysuit that snapped between her legs?"

"Yes, that's it."

"And what was her response when you tried to untuck her top?"

"She laughed at my confusion and made fun of me."

"She made fun of you?"

"Oh, not in a mean way. She thought I was funny. She made a joke. She said something about Frenchmen. We are supposed to be such skilled lovers, you know."

"Then she knew you're from France."

"But of course," Chandonne blandly answers.

"Did she speak French?"

"No."

"She told you that or did you just a.s.sume it?"

"I asked her at dinner if she knew French."

"So she teased you, then, about her bodysuit."

"Yes. Teased. She slid my hand down her pants and helped me undo the snaps. I remember she was aroused and I was a little surprised that she had gotten aroused so quickly."

"And you know she was aroused because ... ?"

"Wet," Chandonne says. "She was very wet. I really don't like saying all this." His face is animated. He loves saying all this. "Is it really necessary for me to continue in such detail?"

"Please, sir. Everything you can remember." Berger is firm and unemotional. Chandonne may as well be telling her about a clock he took apart.

"I begin to touch her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and unhook her bra."

"Do you remember what her bra looked like?"

"It was black."

"Were the lights on?"

"No. But the bra was a dark color, I think black. I could be mistaken. But it wasn't a light color."

"How did you unhook it?"

Chandonne pauses, his dark gla.s.ses boring into the camera. "I just unhooked it in back." He makes an unhooking motion with his fingers.

"You didn't rip her bra off?"

"Of course not."

"Sir, her bra was ripped in front. Ripped off from the front. Literally torn in half."

"I didn't. Someone else must have done that after I left."

"All right, let's get back to your taking her bra off. Are her pants undone at this time?"

"Undone but still on. I pull up her top. I am very oral, you see. She liked that quite a bit. It was difficult to slow her down.'"

"Please explain what you mean by, 'It was difficult to slow her down.'"

"She began to grab for me. Between my legs, trying to get my pants off, and I wasn't ready. I still had much to do."

"Much to do? What else did you have to do, sir?"

"I wasn't ready for it to end."

"What do you mean by end? For s.e.x to end? For what to end?"

For her life to end, I think.

"For making love to end," he replies.

I hate this. I can't stomach listening to his fantasies, especially when I consider that he might know I am listening to them, that he is subjecting me to them just as he is subjecting Berger to them, and that Talley is listening, sitting right there, watching. Talley isn't so different from Chandonne. Both of them secretly hate women, no matter how much they l.u.s.t for them. I didn't realize the truth about Talley until it was too late, until he was in my bed in my hotel room in Paris. I imagine him close to Berger in the small interview room at the hospital. I can almost see what is in his mind as Chandonne gives us an account of an erotic night he has probably never lived even once in his entire existence.

"She had a very lovely body and I wanted to enjoy it for a while, but she was most insistent. She couldn't wait." Chandonne relishes each Word. "So we went back to the bedroom. We got on her bed and took our clothes off and made love."

"Did she take her own clothes off or did you do all of it?

Beyond helping with the snaps?" she asks with a hint of her underlying and overwhelming disbelief of his veracity.

"I took all her clothes off. And she took mine off," he says.

"Did she make any comment about your body?" Berger asks. "Had you shaved your entire body?"

"Yes."

"And she didn't notice?"

"I was very smooth. She didn't notice. You must understand, a lot has happened to me since then, because of them?

"What has happened?"

"I have been pursued and persecuted and beaten. I was jumped by some men months after the night with Susan. They beat my face very badly. Split my lip, crushed bones in my face here." He touches his gla.s.ses, indicating his...o...b..ts. "I had many dental problems as a child because of my condition and had much work done as a result. Crowns on my front teeth so they would look more normal."

"This couple you say you stayed with paid for cosmetic dental work?"

"My family helped them with money."

"Did you shave before you went to the dentist?"

"I would shave those areas that would show. Such as my face. Always, if I was going out during the day. When I was beaten, my front teeth were broken, my crowns were broken, and eventually, well, you can see what my teeth look like now."

"Where did this beating occur?"

"I was still in New York."

"Did you receive medical treatment or report this a.s.sault to the police?" Berger asks him.

"Oh, that would have been impossible. The top law enforcement people are all in this together, of course. They are the ones who did it to me. I could report nothing. I received no medical treatment. I became a nomad, always hiding. Ruined."

"What about the name of your dentist?"

"Oh, that was very long ago. I doubt he's still alive. His name was Corps. Maurice Corps. His office was on rue Caba-nis, I believe."

"Corps as in corpse?" I comment to Berger. "And is Caba-nis a play on cannabis, or marijuana?" I am shaking my head in disgust and amazement.

"So you and Susan had s.e.x in her bedroom." Berger gets back to that on the tape. "Please continue. How long were the two of you in bed?"

"I would say until three o'clock in the morning. Then she told me I had to leave because she needed to get ready for work. So I got dressed and we made arrangements to see each other that night again. We said we would meet at seven at L'Absinthe, a nice French bistro in the neighborhood."

"You say you got dressed. What about her? Was she dressed when you left her?"

"She had a pair of black satin pajamas. She put those on and kissed me at the door."

"So you went downstairs? Did you see anyone?"

"Juan, the doorman. I went out and walked for a while. I found a cafe and had breakfast. I was very hungry." He pauses. "Neil's. That's the name. It is right across the street from Lumi."

"Do you remember what you ate?"

"Espresso."

"You were very hungry but all you had was espresso?" Berger lets him know she picks up on the word "hunger" and realizes he is mocking her, jerking her around, f.u.c.king with her. Chandonne's hunger wasn't for breakfast. He was enjoying the afterglow of violence, of destroying flesh and blood because he had just left behind a woman he had beaten to death and bitten. No matter what he says, that is what he did. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The G.o.dd.a.m.n lying b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"Sir, when did you first learn that Susan was murdered?" Berger asks him.

"She didn't show up for dinner that night."

"Well, I guess not."

"Then the next day ..."

"Would this be December fifth or the sixth?" Berger asks, and she is stepping up the tempo, indicating to him that she's had it with his games.