"He's your son," Benton quietly reminds him. "I suggest you get yourself ready for how it will feel if you have anything at all to do with whatever might happen to him. I'm not aware that your pursuit of him or any other Chandonne operatives is your legal jurisdictional right. Or are you now working undercover for the feds?"

A pause. Marino hates the feds. "I won't feel nothing." He tries to keep his demeanor flat, but his nerves have begun to fizz with fury and fear. "Besides, I don't even know where the hell he is. Someone else out there will catch him, and he'll be extradited to Italy if he lives that long. I got no doubt the Chandonnes will take him out before he has a chance to open his mouth."

"Who else?" Benton moves on. "Who else is on the list?"

"A couple reporters. Never heard of 'em, and for all I know, they don't exist. Oh yeah, and here's a good one. Wolfman's pretty-boy brother, Jean-Paul Chandonne, aka Jay Talley. Wish the bastard would drop by the prison for a visit so we could arrest his ass and he could join his ugly-ass twin on death row."

Benton stops writing, a fleeting emotion passing through his eyes at the mention of Jay Talley's name. "You're assuming he's still alive. Do you know that?"

"Got no reason to think otherwise. My guess is his family's protecting him and he's living the good life somewhere while he carries on with the family business."

It occurs to Marino as he says all this that Benton probably knows Talley is a Chandonne who passed himself off as an American, became an ATF agent and managed to get himself assigned as a liaison to Interpol's headquarters in France. Marino mentally scans everything that has been made public about the Jean-Baptiste case. He's not sure if there was any mention of Scarpetta's relationship with Talley when she and half the world believed he was the handsome big-shot agent who spoke dozens of languages and had gone to Harvard. Benton doesn't need to know what went on between Scarpetta and Talley. Marino hopes like hell Benton never finds out.

"I've read about Jay Talley," Benton says. "He's very smart, very smooth, extremely sadistic and dangerous. I seriously doubt he's dead." "Uhhhh…" Marino's thoughts scatter like startled birds. "Like what have you read?"

"It's no secret that he's Jean-Baptiste's twin brother. Fraternal twin." Benton's face is impassive.

"Weirdest thing I ever heard of." Marino shakes his head. "Imagine.

He and Wolfman born a few minutes apart. Talk about one brother getting the bad luck of the draw, while the other, Talley, gets dealt all aces."

"He is a violent psychopath," Benton replies. "I wouldn't exactly call that aces."

"Their DNA's so much alike," Marino goes on, "you've got to use a lot of probes to figure out you're looking at the DNA of two different people." Marino pauses, slightly exasperated, as he continues picking at his beer label. "Don't ask me to explain probes and DNA shit. The Doc figured it all…"

"Who else is on the list?" Benton interrupts him.

Marino's face goes blank.

"The visitors list."

"The list is garbage. I'm sure no one on it has ever come to see John the Baptist except his lawyer."

"Your son, Rocco Caggiano." He won't let Marino evade that fact. "Anyone else?" Benton persists, taking notes.

"Turns out I am. Isn't that sweet? And then my new pen pal Wolfman sends me mail. A letter for me, and the one for the Doc that I didn't give to her."

Marino gets up to help himself to another beer.

"Need one?"

Benton tells him, "No."

Retrieving his jacket, Marino digs in one pocket, then another, finding folded pieces of paper.

"I just happen to have them with me. Photocopies, including the envelopes."

"The list." Benton won't stray from that subject. "Certainly you brought a copy of the list with you."

"I don't need a copy of that goddamn list." Marino's annoyance shows. "What is it about you and that fucking list? I can tell you exactly who's on it. The people I've already mentioned, plus two reporters. Carlos Guarino and Emmanuelle La Fleur."

His pronunciation is unintelligible and Benton asks him to spell the names.

"Supposedly, they live in Sicily and Paris."

"Real people?"

"No sign of their bylines on the Internet, and Lucy's looked."

"If Lucy can't find them, they don't exist," Benton decides.

"Also on Wolfman's guest list," Marino adds, "is none other than Jaime Berger, who would have prosecuted his ass had he gone to trial in New York for the newslady he mauled up there. Berger's a piece of work, has a history with the Doc. They're friends."

Benton knows all this and doesn't react. He takes notes.

"And last and probably least, some guy named Robert Lee."

"His name sounds real enough. By chance is his middle initial E?" Benton wryly comments. "Any correspondence between Jean-Baptiste and this Robert Lee, on the outside chance Mr. Lee didn't die a hundred-some years ago?"

"All I can tell you is he's on the visitors list. Any mail that's privileged, the prison won't talk about, so I got no idea who else Wolfman writes to or gets love notes from."

18

MARINO SMOOTHS OPEN his letter from Jean-Baptiste and begins to read: " 'Bonjour, mon cher ami, Pete…' "

He interrupts himself and looks up, scowling. "Can you believe he calls me Pete? Now that really pisses me off."

"More than being called mon cher ami?" Benton asks dryly.

"I don't like dirtbags calling me by my first name. It's just one of my things."

"Please read," Benton says with a touch of impatience, "and I hope there is nothing more in French for you to mangle. What's the date of this letter?"

"Not even a week ago. I arranged things to get here as quick as I could. To see you… oh, for shit's sake, I'm gonna call you Benton."

"Actually, you're not. Please read."

Marino lights another cigarette, inhales deeply and continues:

Just a note to tell you I am growing my hair. Why? But of course it is because they have given me my date to die. It is May seventh at ten p.m. Not a minute later, so I hope you will be there as my special guest. Before then, mon ami, I have business to conclude, so I make you an offer you can't refuse (as they say in the movies).

You will never catch them without me, Jean-Baptiste. It would be like catching a thousand fish without a very big net. I am the net. There are two conditions. They are simple.

I will admit nothing except to Madame Scarpetta, who has asked my permission to see her and tell her what I know.

No one else can be present.

I have yet another condition that she does not know. She must be the doctor who administers my lethal cocktail, as they say. Madame Scarpetta must kill me. I fully trust if she agrees, she will not break her promise to me. You see how well I know her.

A bientфt,

Jean-Baptiste Chandonne

"And the letter to her?" Benton abruptly asks, unwilling to say Scarpetta's name.

"The same thing. More or less." Marino does not want to read it to him.

"You have it in your hand. Read it."

Marino taps an ash into the water glass, squinting an eye as he blows out smoke. "I'll give you the upshot."

"Don't protect me, Pete," Benton softly says.

"Sure. If you want to hear it, I'll read it. But I don't think it's necessary, and maybe you ought…"

"Please read it." Now Benton sounds weary. His eyes are not as intense, and he leans back in the chair.

Marino clears his throat as he unfolds another plain white sheet of paper. He begins:

Mon chйri amour, Kay…

He glances up at Benton's expressionless face. The color has drained from it, his complexion sallow beneath his tan.

My heart is in great pain because you have not made an appointment to come to see me yet. I do not understand. Of course, you feel as I do. I am your thief in the night, the great lover who came to steal you away, yet you refused. You shunned me and wounded me. Now you must be empty, so bored, languishing for me, Madame Scarpetta.