Suddenly, his demands became once a month, twice a month, and each time she returned with cases of beer and was amazed by how much more he was drinking. Until lately, she had never seen him drunk. When he is drunk, he doesn't resist her advances, and she wipes him down with a wet towel as he sinks into unconsciousness. The next morning, he has no memory of what she did, of how she satisfied her own pleasure in creative ways, since he couldn't perform and wouldn't have, were he sober.

She watches him fumble with the radio, searching through static for the latest news updates, well on his way to being drunk again. As long as she's known him, he's had no body fat, his perfectly defined body a constant source of envy and humiliation for her. This will change quickly. It is inevitable. He'll get fat around his waist, and his pride will suffocate beneath puffiness and flab no matter how many push-ups and sit-ups and crunches he does. Maybe his perfect face won't look so good, either. Wouldn't that be something if he got so ugly-as ugly as he thinks she is-that she didn't want him anymore.

What was that story in the Bible? Samson-the mighty, beautiful Samson-gave in to what's-her-name, and she cut off his magical hair, or something. He lost all his strength.

"You stupid bitch!" Jay calls out. "Why are you just standing here, staring? My brother's on his way here if he isn't already here. He'd figure out where I'd be. He always has."

"I hear twins think like that, are real tuned-in to each other." The word twin is a deliberate scorpion sting. "He won't hurt you. He won't hurt me. You forget I've met him before. Why, I think he likes me because I can get beyond his looks."

"He doesn't like anybody." Jay gives up on the radio and angrily turns it off. "You don't live in the real world. I've got to find him first before he does something stupid, sees some woman and does her, leaving his damn bite marks all over her and smashing her head."

"You ever watched him do it?" she casually asks.

"Go get the boat ready, Bev."

She can't remember the last time he said her name. It is rich, like melted butter.

Then he spoils the moment by adding, "It's your goddamn fault about the arm. Wouldn't have happened if you'd brought me some pups."

Since she returned from her errand-running on the mainland, all he's done is complain that she didn't bring gator bait, not the least bit grateful for what she did bring him.

She stares at the empty mattress by the wall.

"You got plenty of gator bait," she said the other day. "More than you know what to do with these days."

She convinced him that baiting a gator hook with human flesh would work just fine, maybe even better. Jay could have his fun with a reptile that was longer than he was tall. He'd watch it thrashing until he got bored, then shoot it in the head. Outlaw hunter that he is, he never keeps what he catches. He'd cut the nylon rope and watch the reptile slide into the water. Then he'd motor back to the shack.

This time it didn't work that way. All he vaguely remembers is baiting the hook and stringing it up over the thick branch of a cypress tree, and then hearing another boat not far away, someone else hunting gators or maybe gigging frogs. Jay got the hell out of there, the hook still baited and dangling from the yellow nylon line. He should have cut it down. He made a big mistake but won't admit it. She suspects there was no other hunter out there. Jay was hearing things and he didn't think straight. Had he, it would have entered his mind that when another hunter found the caught gator, the bait either would have been found hanging out of its jaws or discovered in its guts when the gator was field-dressed.

"Do what I say, damn it. Get the boat ready," he orders her. "So I can deal with him."

"And how do you think you'll do that?" Bev asks calmly, placated and pleased by the craziness in front of her.

"I already told you. He'll find me," Jay says, his head beginning to throb. "He can't live without me. He can't even die without me."

103

LATE AFTERNOON, SCARPETTA SITS fifteen rows back, her legs cramped.

On her left, a young boy, blond and cute, with braces on his teeth, despondently draws Yu-Gi-Oh! cards from a stack on his tray. On her right, an obese man, probably in his fifties, drinks screwdrivers next to the window. He is constantly pushing up wire-rimmed glasses, the oversized curved frames that remind Scarpetta of Elvis. The obese man noisily flips through the Wall Street Journal and periodically glances at Scarpetta, obviously hoping to engage her in conversation. She continues to ignore him.

The boy draws another Yu-Gi-Oh! card and places it faceup on the tray.

"Who's winning?" Scarpetta asks him with a smile.

"I don't have anybody to duel with," the boy replies without looking up.

He is probably ten and is dressed in jeans, a faded Spiderman shirt and tennis shoes. "You have to have at least forty cards to play," he adds.

"I'm afraid I'm disqualified, then."

He picks up a card, a colorful one with a menacing ax on it. "See," he says, "this one's my favorite. The Axe of Despair. It's a good weapon for a monster to have, worth a thousand points." He picks another card, this one called the Axe Raider. "A very strong monster with the ax," he explains.

She studies the cards and shakes her head. "Sorry. Too complicated for me."

"You want to learn how to play?"

"I couldn't possibly," she replies. "What's your name?"

"Albert." He draws more cards from the deck. "Not Al," he lets her know. "Everybody thinks they can call me Al. But it's Albert."

"Nice to meet you, Albert." She does not offer her name.

Scarpetta's seatmate next to the window shifts around to face her, his shoulder pressing against her upper arm. "You don't sound like you're from Louisiana," he says.

"I'm not," she replies, leaning away from him, her sinuses assaulted by the overpowering cologne he must have splashed on when he uprooted her to go to the restroom.

"Don't have to tell me that. One or two spoken words and I know." He sips his vodka and orange juice. "Let me guess. Not Texas, either. You don't exactly look Mexican." He grins.

She resumes reading a structural biology article in Science magazine and wonders when the man will get the not-so-subtle message to leave her alone.

Rarely is Scarpetta accessible to strangers. If she is, then usually within two minutes they ask where she's going and why and wander into the restricted airspace of her profession. Telling them she's a doctor doesn't stop the quizzing, nor does saying that she's a lawyer, and should she let on that she is both, the consequences are bad enough. But to go on and explain that she is a forensic pathologist will mean the ruination of her trip.

Next, JonBenet Ramsey, O. J. Simpson and other mysterious cases and miscarriages of justice bubble up, and Scarpetta is trapped, buckled in her seat at an altitude of some thirty thousand feet. Then there are those strangers who don't care if she works but would rather see her later for dinner, or preferably for a drink in a hotel bar that might lead to a hotel room. They, like the tipsy slob sitting to her right, would rather stare at her body than hear about her rйsumй.

"Looks like a mighty complicated article you're reading," he says. "I'm guessing you're some sort of schoolteacher."

She doesn't respond.

"You see, I'm good at this." He squints his eyes and snaps his thick fingers, pointing at her face. "A biology teacher. Kids are worthless these days." He lifts his drink from his tray and rattles the ice in the plastic cup. "I don't know how you stand being around them, to tell the truth," he goes on, apparently having decided she is a teacher. "Plus, they don't think twice about bringing a gun to school."