Turning Angel

He passes something small to her. Pills, no doubt. “The rest of you go with her, okay?”

  As though materializing out of thin air, three more young men drop to the ground from other limbs and start walking up to the road. Alicia goes with them. The back of one boy’s T-shirt reads, “KA OLE MISS.”

  After they disappear, Marko swings down from his perch. He’s about an inch taller than I, with lanky, muscular arms and a scrawny chest. His mouth is smiling, but it seems separated from his eyes somehow, which are watching me like the eyes of an animal uncertain whether to fight or flee. Maybe it’s the drugs, I think.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Cage?”

  “Do you know about the Wilsons?”

  The smile disappears. “Sure. Terrible, yeah?”

  “Were you home when the killers got there?”

  Marko’s eyes narrow. “No way. I’d have killed them right back.”

  “I found the bodies.”

  “I read that in the newspaper.”

  I watch him for a while without speaking. The silence doesn’t seem to make him nervous. It’s making me nervous.

  “Why are you carrying a gun?” he asks. “You scared?”

  I guess in Sarajevo you learn to spot weapons pretty quick. “Things are a little crazy in town just now. I like to know I have options.”

  This earns a smile. “Options…I like that. I like options, too.”

  “Who killed the Wilsons, Marko? Who tried to hit you?”

  He shrugs. “Who knows, man? America’s a crazy country.”

  Marko’s accent combined with his lanky physique makes me think of Goran Ivanisevic, the Croatian tennis star. Marko is actually handsomer than Ivanisevic, but not quite as wholesome looking.

  “Listen, Marko,” I say in a friendly voice, “I’m not here to try to hurt you. In fact, if you let me, I can almost certainly help you. I know you’ve opened up some new drug markets with the white fraternities at Ole Miss and LSU. Some other places, too. But now that you’ve done that, you’re expendable.”

  “Cyrus seems to think so.”

  Honesty. A good start. “Was it Cyrus who hit the Wilsons?”

  “Don’t know, man.”

  “Or was it the Asians?”

  All the levity leaves Marko’s face. “You know a lot, Mr. Cage. Maybe too much, yeah?”

  “I’m not the only one who knows this stuff.” Low down on Marko’s belly is a mass of white scar tissue shot through with purple. Wade Anders told me Marko had been bayoneted as a child.

  Marko sniffs like a fox and looks up toward the road. “That cop with the mullet knew it. Look what happened to him.”

  “I saw the Asians kill him.”

  “Maybe the Asians think I’m expendable, too, eh? If they do, I’m dead. If I went back to Croatia, I might get away from them. But I don’t want to go back.”

  “Are you coming back to St. Stephen’s?”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “Don’t you want to graduate?”

  Tiny points of light dance in his eyes. “I want to live more.”

  “How can you stay in the U.S. if you don’t graduate and go to college?”

  He shrugs. “I can live anywhere. I’ll just become someone else.”

  “Is that how you want to spend your life? As someone else?”

  “Might be nice for a while.”

  I hold out empty hands and step closer to him. We’re no more than five feet apart. “I don’t care about the drugs, Marko. I’m here because I want to save my friend. You know who I’m talking about?”

  “The doctor. The guy who raped Kate.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Marko shrugs again. “That’s what everybody says. The doctor raped her and then he killed her.”

  “Drew wouldn’t do that. He was in love with her.”

  This seems to amuse Marko. “Men kill women they love all the time, no? And vice versa. What you call it here? Crime of passion?”

  “Yes. But that’s not what happened to Kate.”

  “No?” He looks confused. “What happened to her then?”

  “I’m trying to find out. I think somebody else raped and killed her. Someone who might not even have meant to kill her. He might only have been trying to keep her quiet. That happens a lot.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Before he died, Sonny Cross told me you thought Cyrus had murdered Kate.”

  Marko scowls. “I told that kopile whatever would get his gun out of my mouth. He was bad news, man.”

  I feel my hope deflating. “You lied to Cross?”

  “Some lies, some truth.”

  “Did you lie about Cyrus being obsessed with Kate?”

  “Ha! No way. That nigger wanted that girl bad.”

  Marko says “nigger” with such an unfamiliar pronunciation that I almost misunderstand the word. “How do you know that?”

  “Every time I saw him, he wanted to know every little thing about her. He tracked her cell phone. All he thought about was her coming to get those pills. It made him forget every other chick, you know? He’d wait the whole fucking month to see her. He thought she was some kind of goddess.”

  “And you? Didn’t you want to use the Lorcet to get into Kate’s pants?”

  “Sure.” He laughs. “Why not? Kate was hot, no doubt about it. No goddess, though. No woman is a goddess. They shit and fart just like we do, even the pretty ones. And they all want the same thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Same thing a man wants! Money and power. And a little sex—maybe.” He laughs again. “If sex gets them more money and power!”

  Now that I’m face-to-face with Marko, I wonder if he can really help me at all. “Do you know where Cyrus is now?”

  “Hiding out. Like me.”

  “What does Cyrus have to be afraid of?”

  Marko bares his teeth. “The yellow men.”

  “Do you think he’s close by?”

  “He can’t be too far. You can’t leave this business very long. Somebody else come along and take it from you.”

  “Did you ever sleep with Kate?”

  “I don’t sleep much.” A smirk.

  “Did you fuck her?”

  His teeth show again. “Now you’re into what I like.”

  I can see how Kate might be drawn to Marko Bakic. He’s the ultimate bad boy. She already had Drew, the ultimate “good guy,” but maybe she felt the need to privately balance the scales. Maybe Marko was the answer to that craving. “So? Did you screw Kate?”

  Marko shakes his head. “Never got the chance.”

  “Will you put your money where your mouth is?”

  “What you mean?”

  “Will you give me a hair off your head? One hair?”

  Instant suspicion. “What for?”

  “A DNA test. You know what that is?”

  “Sure. I watch TV.”

  “If your DNA doesn’t match the sperm that was found inside Kate, then a lot of your problems with the law will vanish.”

  “The cops think I killed Kate?”

  “The possibility has been raised,” I lie.

  “I was with Coach Anders, man. You tell them! I got enough problems without this bullshit.”

  “One hair from your head would solve this particular problem. If you’re innocent, what do you have to lose?”

  Marko shakes his head. “You just want to save your friend. You can make a test say anything you want.”

  I didn’t expect him to give me the hair. There’s no upside for him. I just wanted to read his reaction. He’s watching me with what looks like curiosity. Then suddenly he steps forward, sending my hand into my pocket.

  Marko’s pistol is out before I even touch mine, its barrel pointed straight at my chest. Fear turns my bowels liquid.

  “Careful,” he says, stepping closer. Then he pulls at his dark hair with his free hand and holds something out to me. “There you go. Get the police off my back, okay? At least on
that shit.”

  I take the hair and squeeze it tight in my fist.

  “Now, maybe you better go home, Mr. Cage.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  He puts his gun away. “I think this is the last time we’re going to see each other. Thank you for talking for me at the school board meeting a while back. That was a big help.”

  “No problem,” I say, wishing I’d joined the campaign to have him expelled three months ago. “Are you leaving town or something?”

  Marko sucks at his bottom lip, apparently weighing the issue. “I’ve got some moves to make first.”

  “Moves?”

  “Unfinished business.”

  “Cyrus?”

  An easy laugh. “Maybe. Or maybe the Asians. Maybe I decide they’re expendable, yeah?”

  “I can see that point of view. But where would you get your inventory then?”

  This buys the biggest laugh of all. “Afghanistan, man! Where else? It’s better than that Colombian shit, anyway.”

  “Ecstasy and LSD from Afghanistan?”

  “Hell, no! Heroin, man. Black Pearl. You know what keeps these whitebread kids from doing heroin? The needle. That’s the line they won’t cross. They’re afraid of AIDS and hepatitis, or just plain scared of the fucking needle. But now the purity’s so high that you can snort and smoke heroin just like coke. You don’t need the needle. It’s the future, man. I’m going to give those frat boys the ride of their lives! And I’m going to be rich.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  An indifferent shrug. “Because it doesn’t matter. In a day or two, Marko Bakic will exist no more. I’m going to reinvent myself, like Madonna. You like Madonna?”

  This exchange has become surreal. All I want to know now is how to get back to Mia’s car without turning my back on Marko.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Cage,” he says, reading my thoughts. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  As I back away from him, one last question occurs to me. “Do you think Steve Sayers could have killed Kate?”

  “Steve? Sure, why not? He’s crazy guy.”

  “I thought he was pretty straight. A jock.”

  Marko snickers. “Those pickup trucks driving around scaring everybody to death?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Steve’s driving one of them. He’ll probably kill somebody before morning, and he won’t even know it. Just another bump in the grass.”

  “Steve’s semen didn’t match what they found in Kate’s corpse.”

  “So what? Maybe he wore a raincoat. Or maybe he pulled out, you know? In my country, ten Serbs rape a woman, maybe half of them come in her. Maybe that’s what happened to Kate, you know? Ten guys could have raped her. Why not?”

  “Gang rape?”

  “Who knows? America’s crazier than Bosnia when it comes to sex. It’s all they think about.”

  “What do you think about?”

  A broad grin. “Business!”

  “Is that why you blew five grand on fireworks the other night?”

  “Sure! Promotional expense. I’m an entrepreneur, like Bill Gates.”

  I stop backing away. I’ve dealt with a lot of criminals, but Marko Bakic is a new experience for me. He’s like a Russian mobster, convinced that he’s in the vanguard of capitalism even as he leaves a trail of carnage behind him. Of course, American capitalism left quite a wake of destruction during its infancy as well. Maybe Marko isn’t completely wrong about himself.

  “Will you give me your cell number?” I ask. “I may need to reach you.”

  He smiles lazily. “You know better than that, Mr. Cage. You give me yours. Maybe I’ll check in with you before I go.”

  Why not? Better to have some chance of talking to Marko again than none. I give him my number. As he punches it into his cell phone, I’m suddenly terrified that Mia will walk down the hill in search of me. I don’t want Marko to know it was she who brought me here.

  “Well, good luck,” I tell him, backing farther up the hill.

  Marko knows how scared I am; he sees it in my face. But I don’t care. Fear is infinitely more powerful than pride, and I have so much to lose. I hope I never see Marko Bakic again.

  When I reach the road, I cross it and sprint toward Mia’s car.

  “Go!” I shout as I jump into my seat. “Get out of here now!”

  “What happened?” she asks. “You were gone forever.”

  “I talked to Marko. Go! I don’t want him to know you brought me.”

  Mia throws the car into reverse, backs onto the road, and guns it for the gate.

  “Drive normally,” I tell her, digging in the glove box for an envelope.

  “Fuck that,” she says. “I want out of here.”

  Very carefully, I slip Marko’s hair into the envelope containing the title to Mia’s car.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “Everybody’s too wasted to remember anything.”

  Yeah, I think. Everybody but Marko.

  Chapter

  32

  Quentin Avery’s suite is empty. Lucien has apparently gone home, but from the dirty dishes littering the coffee table, he ate a full meal and several desserts before giving up on the Sony flash drive I took from Marko’s apartment. The flash drive itself is sitting on the keyboard in front of the flat-panel monitor on the desk. Though it’s long after midnight, Mia looks wide awake. The rave is forgotten. Her excitement at seeing what Kate kept hidden from the world is plain to see.

  “Why are you so excited about seeing what’s on Kate’s drives?” I ask, taking a seat before the computer and slipping the Sony drive into my pocket.

  Mia pulls up a chair and sits beside me. “I just want to understand where she really was in her head. Maybe then I’ll know why she died.”

  When I insert the first Lexar flash drive, Windows offers to open a folder to view the files. “Thank you, Lucien.” I click the mouse, and a group of folders and individual files pops up. Some are .jpeg image files, others are WordPerfect documents, and still others appear to be hypertext documents saved from the Worldwide Web.

  “What do we look at first?” Mia asks.

  “The pictures, I guess. I have a feeling some of this stuff is going to be explicit.”

  She gives me a look that says, Give me a break.

  I click a .jpeg file, and a picture of two men having sex fills the screen.

  “Whoa,” I say, feeling my face color.

  I try to click the image away, but Mia grabs my hand. “That’s no big deal,” she says. “This isn’t 1980, okay? I’ve seen women doing it with horses on the Internet. Everybody in my class has.”

  It’s not her revelation about bestiality that shocks me, but the way she refers to 1980 as if it’s the Dark Ages. I was twenty years old in 1980. For me, 1984 still carries the dread of an Orwellian future; for Mia it’s the name of a bad Van Halen album released two years before she was born.

  “It’s just gay sex,” she says. “And the guys are hot.”

  “Do you think that’s why Kate has this?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Open some more files.”

  More images of gay sexual action appear.

  “I think Kate was into anal,” Mia says in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “That’s what Drew told me. That’s why they found his semen in her…in…”

  “Her butt?” Mia finishes, looking at me like I’m being ridiculous.

  “Yeah. Shad’s going to use that fact to make it look like Drew raped Kate. He’s relying on the jury being unwilling to believe a girl that young would do that voluntarily.”

  “He might be right, if the jury’s old enough. But you never know. They might surprise you.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being surprised like that.”

  Mia is still watching the screen. “Keep clicking.”

  I open some more files, moving quickly down the directory. A few heterosexual images appear, but the collection is still heavily weighted toward gay p
orn. As the images flash up and vanish, I realize that I’m simply not young enough to judge how normal or abnormal it is for a girl to possess this kind of material today.

  “Mia, I don’t want to embarrass you, but I need to know something.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have stuff like this on your computer? I don’t mean gay porn, but…you know.”

  At last Mia blushes. “Do you?”

  “Well…some. But I’m a guy.”

  She laughs nervously. “Yeah, I’ve got a few pictures.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that.”

  She gives me a strange smile. “Am I ruining your perfect image of me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Everybody’s human, Penn. Even girls like me.”

  “I guess I keep hoping that’s not true.”

  She points at the screen. “Try this folder at the bottom. It has a D and a K in the file name.”

  Her instinct is dead-on. When I click the folder she’s pointing to, a host of file icons appears, all coded “DK” with a number. And when I click the first icon, an image of Kate and Drew having intercourse fills the screen.

  “Jesus,” I whisper.

  Mia whistles softly.

  Drew and Kate are in the missionary position, but there’s no hokey mugging for the camera or anything like that. It looks as though someone hiding in the bedroom caught them in the act of tenderly making love. Not many people look good having sex, but Drew seems frozen above Kate like a statue by Michelangelo, his muscles flexed in stark relief. He’s looking down into Kate’s eyes, and she appears awestruck, her mouth partly open, her eyes filled with indescribable emotion. This single image brings home the reality of their relationship in a more visceral way than all Drew’s explanations of it, or even my imagined reality. They don’t look like two porn actors, but two people deeply in love.

  “It’s so sad,” Mia says. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open another one.”

  I sigh, then move to the next file. When this image fills the screen, Mia gasps. It takes me a minute to process what I’m seeing. Drew stands facing the camera, holding Kate against him as they make love. But she is not facing him; she’s facing the camera, her long legs bowed at the knee, her feet hooked behind Drew’s powerful legs. Drew’s hands are clutching Kate’s inner thighs, while her lithe arms disappear beneath his muscular ones, presumably to grip his lower back. Somehow these few points of contact manage to support Kate’s full weight. The position spreads her chest to the limit, pushing her modest but shapely breasts up and outward through her long blond hair. And though her eyes are closed, her face communicates utter bliss. Drew’s jaw is clenched with effort, but he looks as though he could hold Kate suspended for eternity.