The Reflecting Pool

by Otho Eskin

  Inside Le Zink there are only a few customers. A couple of bored waiters stand at the entrance to the dining room. Edith Piaf is back on the sound system. A woman sits alone at the bar watching me as I approach, her eyes blazing with fury.

  “You killed my Cloud,” Mariana says.

  “I didn’t kill him. Lamont killed him.”

  “You set him up. You might as well have pulled the trigger on him yourself. You shouldn’t have killed Cloud.”

  “I was trying to save you.” That sounds pretty lame, even to me. “Cloud was my man. I loved him. He loved me.”

  “He was going to kill you.”

  “That was between me and Cloud. You should have stayed out of it. You had no business interfering.”

  “My friend was killed last night. The man there to protect you and he was murdered.” I don’t know why I’m talking to Mariana. This is not a real conversation. She doesn’t register a thing I say. Instead she looks away from me.

  “Did you open the door to your apartment to Cloud?” I demand. I’m losing it. The anger boiling up inside me. “Was your story just an invention to get me to your apartment so Cloud could get to me?”

  It’s as if she doesn’t hear me. She hears only the angry voices shouting in her head, drowning out everything.

  “There’s nothing here for me,” she whispers. “I’m going home. Your police are after me. Thanks to you, I’m a fugitive.”

  I press the leather satchel Otis gave me into her hands. “This will get you as far as Buenos Aires.” Her face shows no expression.

  Why am I doing this? Why should I help this woman? Part of me hates her for what she did to Talbot, for her betrayal of me. And there’s another part of me that wants her. It mystifies me why I do what I do.

  “I imagine this is money.” She slips off the barstool and stands facing me. “This is supposed to make you feel better? You think your money makes any difference to me? You killed my baby. It should have been you killed last night.”

  She walks to the door. “Burn in hell, Marko.”

  “You look like crap,” Roberta says to me as I sit at the bar. She goes off to pour me an extra-large Van Winkle bourbon.

  I’m on my second glass when Arora Lovelace takes the seat next to me.

  “You get your report into Carla on time?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you include everything?”

  Arora reflects a moment. “Certainly not.”

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m catching a seven thirty flight out of Reagan National tomorrow morning. I just came to say goodbye.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Carla has given me a special assignment. To find the FBI mole—the person who told the Brotherhood about my informant in Denver and had him and one of our agents killed.”

  “Where will you be stationed?”

  “Somewhere far from here. Carla wants me away from Washington. She thinks you’re a bad influence.”

  “She’s probably right.”

  Arora fiddles with a paper napkin. “Have you closed the Sandra Wilcox case?”

  “I’m at a dead end.”

  “Carla tells me you know who the killer is.”

  I nod.

  “She also told me not to ask you who it was.” She pauses. “You must be angry that you can’t close the case.”

  “These things happen.”

  Arora turns in her seat and looks directly at me. “Who are you, Marko? Who the fuck are you?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Never mind. I wouldn’t believe you even if you told me.”

  She stands up. “We could have made a great team.”

  And she’s gone.