I pulled him to me. I kissed and touched him aggressively, running my hands up and down his hard, perfect body as he fought with my clothes.

"God, you're so beautiful," he said into my mouth. "Christ, you've been driving me insane…!" He tore'off a button and bent hooks. "Sitting there in front of the fucking secretary-general and I'm trying not to stare at your breasts."

He gathered them into his hands. I wanted it raw and without limits. I wanted the violence in me to make love to his violence, because I didn't want to be reminded of Benton, who had known how to slowly smooth me like a stone and skip me through erotic waters.

I pulled Talley into the bedroom, and he was no match for me because I had experience and skills he knew nothing of. I controlled him. I dominated. I helped myself to him until we were exhausted and slippery with sweat. Benton wasn't in that room. But had he somehow seen what I just did, he would have understood.

The afternoon moved on and we drank wine and watched shadows change on the ceiling as the sun got weary of the day. When the phone rang, I didn't answer it. When Marino thumped on the door and called out to me, I pretended no one was home. When the phone rang again, I shook my head.

"Marino, Marino," I said.

"Your bodyguard."

"He didn't do a very good job this time;" I said as Talley fit as much of me into his mouth as he could. "I suppose I'll have to fire him."

"I wish you would."

"Tell me I haven't committed yet another felony this day. And that your name, Agent Talley, has nothing to do with keeping score."

"Okay. My name has nothing to do with keeping score. But I don't know about the felony part."

It seemed that Marino gave up on me, and as it got dark, Talley and- I took a shower together. He washed my hair and made a joke about the age difference between us. He said it was another example of his being contraire. I said we should go to dinner.

"What about the Cafй Runtz?" he asked.

"What about it?"

"What the French would call chaleureux, ancien et familial-warm, old, familiar. The Opйra-Comique is next door, so there are photographs of opera singers all over the walls."

I thought of Marino. I needed to let him know I was not lost somewhere in Paris.

"It's a nice walk," Talley was saying. "Maybe only fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most."

"I need to find Marino first," I said. "He's probably in the bar."

"Would you like me to look for him and send him up?"

"I'm sure he would be most appreciative," I said facetiously.

Marino found me before Talley found him. I was still drying my hair when Marino showed up at my door, and the look on his face told me he knew why he had not been able to reach me.

"Where the hell you been?" he asked as he walked in.

"The Institut Mйdico-Lйgal."

"All day?"

"No, not all day," I said.

Marino looked at the bed. Talley and I had made it, but it didn't look quite the way the housekeepers had left it this morning.

"I'm going out to…" I started to say.

"With him," Marino raised his voice. "I goddamn knew this would happen. I can't believe you fell for it. Je-sus Christ. I thought you was above…"

"Marino, this is none of your business," I wearily said.

He blocked the door, hands on his hips like a stern nanny. He looked so ridiculous, I had to laugh.

"What's the matter with you?" he exclaimed. "One minute you're looking at Benton's autopsy report and the next you're screwing around with some playboy, snotty, stuck-on-himself kid! You couldn't even wait twenty-four hours, Doc! How could you do that to Benton?"

"Marino, for God's sake keep your voice down. There's been quite enough yelling in this room."

"How could you?" He looked at me with disgust, as if I were a whore. "You just get his letter and have me and Lucy over and then last night you're sitting here crying. And what? None of it happened? You just start all over like nothing happened? With some womanizing punk?"

"Please leave my room." I'd had enough.

"Oh, no." He began to pace, wagging his finger at me. "Oh, no. I ain't going nowhere. You want to fuck around with pretty boy, you can just do it in front of me. 'Cause guess why? I'm not gonna let it happen. Someone's got to do the right thing here, and looks like it's gonna be me."

He paced and paced, getting more livid with each word. "It's not about your letting or not letting something happen." My fury was gathering. "Who the hell do you think you are, Marino? Stay out of my life:"

"Well, poor Benton. A damn good thing he's dead, huh? Shows how much you loved him, all right."

He stopped pacing and jabbed his finger at my face.

"And I thought you was different! What was you doing when Benton wasn't looking? That's what I want to know! And all this time I'm feeling sorry for you!"

"Get out of my room now." My self-control snapped. "You goddamn jealous son of a bitch! How dare you even allude to my relationship with Benton. What do you know? Nothing, Marino. He's dead, Marino. He's been dead for over a year, Marino. And I'm not dead and you're not dead."

"Well, right now I wish you was."

"You sound like Lucy when she was ten."

He stalked out and slammed the door so hard paintings shifted on the wall and the chandelier shook. I picked up the phone and called the front desk.

"Is there a Jay Talley in the lobby?" I asked. "Tall, dark, young. Wearing a beige leather jacket, jeans?"

"Yes, I see him, madame."

Seconds later Talley was on the phone.

"Marino just stormed out of here," I said. "Don't let him see you, Jay. He's crazy."

"Actually, he's just getting off the elevator now. And you're right. He looks a little crazy. Gotta go."

I ran out of my room. I ran as fast as I could through the corridor and down the winding, carpeted steps, ignoring the odd stares I got from well-dressed, civilized people who walked at a leisurely pace and didn't get into fistfights in the Grand Hotel in Paris. I slowed down when I reached the lobby, lungs burning and out of breath, and to my horror watched Marino taking swings at Talley while two bellmen and a valet tried to intervene. A man at the registration desk frantically dialed the phone, probably calling the police.

"Marino, no!" I said loudly and with authority as I hurried over to him. "Marino, no!" I grabbed his arm.

He was glassy-eyed and sweating profusely, and thank God he had no gun because I was afraid he might have used it just then. I kept hold of his arm while Talley talked in French and gestured, assuring everyone there was no problem and not to call the police. I led Marino by the hand through the lobby like a mother about to discipline a very bad little boy. I escorted him past valets and expensive cars and out onto the sidewalk, where I stopped.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" I asked him.

He wiped his face on the back of his hand. He was breathing so hard he was wheezing. It occurred to me he might have a heart attack.

"Marino." I shook his arm. "Listen to me. What you just did in there is unconscionable. Talley has done nothing to you. I've done nothing to you."

"Maybe I'm sticking up for Benton 'cause he ain't here to do it himself," Marino said in a flat, worn-out voice.

"No. You were throwing punches at Carrie Grethen, at Joyce. It's them you want to beat up, maim, kill."

He took deep, defeated breaths.

"Don't you think I know what you're doing?" I -went on in an intense, quiet voice.

People were shadows drifting past us on the sidewalk. Light spilled out of brasseries and cafйs that were having busy nights, their small outdoor tables full.

"You have to take it out on someone," I went on. "That's the way it works. And who is there to go after? Carrie and Joyce are dead."