M/F, Drama, rated PG.
We have it on the best authority (Camilla Scott herself) that if there had been a third TV season for due South, we would have seen a battle between Victoria Metcalf (the Dark Lady) and Meg Thatcher (the White Lady) for Fraser's soul. Perhaps it would have gone something like this....
The first indication that trouble was brewing was that Constable Fraser arrived two hours late for work. If it had been anyone else--her secretary, Arnold Ovitz, for example, or Constable Cooper, or even Constable Turnbull--Inspector Meg Thatcher, Liaison Officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, would have been displeased, but not worried. But Fraser--Fraser was never late.
He stood in front of her desk with eyes downcast, still holding the handwritten note she had taped to his office door. Again, unlike Fraser. Normally he was willing to look her or anyone else in the eye.
"At ease, Constable."
During the work week, Meg was careful to use the formal mode of address with Fraser to maintain the propriety of their professional relationship. In their private moments, however, her terms of address ranged from "Ben, my love," to "Fraser, you moron."
"Would you like to explain your tardiness this morning, Constable?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I have no excuse."
"But there must have been some reason." Meg felt a stirring of unease. Fraser would never commit a breach of discipline without good cause. What was he hiding?
"I'm sorry," he said again.
She waited another full minute in case he changed his mind, and then sighed. "Very well, Constable. Since you refuse to plead extenuating circumstances, I have no choice but to discipline you in accordance with regulations. Report for guard duty tomorrow morning-- the early shift."
"Yes, sir."
"And Constable, since you missed the briefing this morning because of your lateness, I'll have to fill you in now. A Canadian named Andrew McAllister is coming to Chicago to open an exhibition of Mesoamerican art at the Field Museum. He's very well known as a collector of pre-Columbian antiquities. Since Mr. McAllister will be traveling with part of his collection, we ll be coordinating with his security detail to provide extra security at the museum. I want you to be the liaison with McAllister's people--here's the telephone number to call. Dismissed."
Watching his retreating back as he left her office, Meg wondered how she could find out what had made him late this morning. Because of their work schedules, most of the time they spent together was on weekends. She couldn't call him at home tonight to ask what was going on, because he had no telephone. (Sometimes she wondered if Fraser, who could perfectly well have afforded a telephone, deliberately did without simply to avoid awkward conversations.) Although their romance was now of three months' standing, there was still a lot about Ben that she didn't know: areas of his past she feared to mention, because the look in his eyes said as clearly as words, "Don't ask. Don't even think of asking me about that."
The pressure of the day's work pushed the incident to the back of Meg's mind, but the next morning she was reminded of it forcibly when Constable Turnbull, looking aghast, came to report that Fraser had deserted his post outside the Consulate.
"What!" Meg almost dropped her coffee cup. "You must be mistaken."
"No, sir. He was standing guard, just as usual, then all of a sudden he took off running."
"How long ago?"
"Five minutes, sir. Shall I go look for him, sir?"
"No." Meg considered swiftly. "Constable Turnbull, stand in for Fraser until he comes back. And when he does, I want to see him right away."
Now she was really worried. Two breaches of discipline in two days! It had to be something truly out of the ordinary to cause Fraser to behave like this. Well, enough of this stonewalling business on his part. When he returned, she'd make him talk or she'd die in the attempt.
That Thursday he had taken Dief out for an early morning walk, as usual. They had stayed out for half an hour, enjoying the cool gray mist that would later melt into a warm September day. On returning to his apartment, Fraser noticed that the door was slightly ajar and at once his senses leaped to full alert. He hadn't left the door open.
Cautiously, still holding Dief's leash in his left hand, he pushed the door open with his right. Nothing appeared to be amiss...
...except that in the middle of the floor reposed a glass snowglobe. A snow scene, in fact, very like the one he had been forced to break open more than a year ago, in search of the key that Victoria had directed him to find.
Before he approached it, he looked hard at the floor, dropping down to squint at the floorboards in case footsteps were visible. He couldn't see any, so whoever had come into his apartment had managed to keep his or her shoes dry, despite the damp pavements outside.
Cautiously, Ben picked up the snowglobe and examined it closely. It appeared to be intact: no foreign object had been inserted into the snow scene. He turned the ball upside down to read the place of manufacture, but that was no particular help: it read "Made in Taiwan." He sniffed it: nothing. He ran his tongue over the metal base, but tasted only the metal itself. There was no dust, no residue of packing materials such as styrofoam or straw, nothing.
Where would a person buy something like this? And why had it been left for him to find?
It struck him with the force of a thunderbolt that Victoria must have left it there. So she was back, was she? Back in Chicago, ready to enter his life again, trailing disaster in her wake. She must have been watching to see when he left his apartment. Perhaps she'd been watching for several days, although he'd noticed no one unusual in the neighborhood. She might be watching even now.
He went across to the kitchen window to look into the building across the way. He could see nothing, however: the shades were drawn in the hallway where Victoria's ex-partner in crime, the late Jolly, had once waited and watched.
And why the snowglobe? Was it a message? Did it mean, "Remember the last time you had anything to do with one of these? Well, I'm back, and you'll be hearing more from me. We're not finished yet, Fraser."
Fingerprints on the glass surface would confirm whether or not it was Victoria who had left it there: certainly, hers were on record. However, Victoria was too smart to leave prints. She would have worn gloves while handling it.
There was one last thing left to try. Grasping the object in his hand, he held it under Dief's nose. Dief growled. "Victoria?" Ben asked.
"Gurrr.....UFFF! Wuff!"
"All right. She may not have left her fingerprints, but she did leave her scent. And it's not one you have reason to remember fondly, I admit."
It was time to prepare Dief's breakfast and get him settled for the day. But as he attended to his wolf and then dressed for work, Fraser's mind was busy running over the possibilities.
The obvious place to start was the stores. At this time of year, late September, they would already be putting out their Christmas goods. He'd take the snowglobe and compare it to the merchandise in the stores, question the clerks as to how many they'd sold in the past few days. Some of the clerks might actually remember the customers, and he'd be able to get a description. Fraser sighed. Too bad that Ray, now on that long-postponed vacation in Florida, would be out of town for another week. No doubt at this very moment he was doing an early morning jog along the beach, eyeing whatever female talent might be around. If Vecchio were here, he could have called on him for help. As it was, he knew he was going to be late for work and Meg would be annoyed or upset or both.
Why had Victoria come back? She must know that she could hardly show her face in Chicago without dire consequences: she was wanted for second-degree murder, grand theft, conspiracy, and assault with intent to kill. Any police officer who glimpsed her would instantly whip out the handcuffs and arrest her.
She was taking a huge risk, then, if she really were in the city. And why would she do such a thing?
There was only one possible answer to that question and as he considered it, his stomach tensed. No. No, that possibility was too appalling.
Breakfast was out of the question, he'd completely lost his appetite. Shutting the door carefully behind him--somehow he'd never got round to installing a new lock after the previous one had been stolen--he went down the stairs, carrying the snowglobe in a paper bag. Someone, somewhere, must remember selling such an object.
Two hours later, however, he had only found four stores that carried that particular style of snowglobe, and no promising leads. Only one sales clerk admitted to remembering any of the customers to whom she'd sold the objects. "It was an old lady who used a cane. I helped to put the snowglobe in her shopping bag."
Later, as he stood in the office of the woman who was his commanding officer during the work week and his lover in their private life, he found it hard to meet her eyes. How could he tell her what was going on? He knew that Meg was familiar with the outlines of the Victoria incident: it was all there in his personnel file, along with the medical and hospitalization reports that had followed his involvement in the case. But how could he explain to his new love that his old love had come back? And that there could be only one possible reason for her to take the risk of returning to Chicago?
He couldn't hurt Meg like that. No, it was better to keep it to himself until he could actually find Victoria and confront her. In the meantime, it was hard not to confide in Meg. He could tell by the look she gave him that she was troubled by his refusal to talk.
He was supposed to look on guard duty as a punishment, but perversely, he enjoyed it: he liked getting up early. As he took up his post outside the Consulate the next morning, he relished the prospect of silence and solitude. Well, comparative silence: Chicago was never completely quiet.
Standing in the semidarkness, he stared straight ahead as sunlight gilded the tops of the buildings across the street, then moved downwards to the pavement. A slight movement caught his eye as someone in a dark gray cape went past him: she turned momentarily to look him in the face.
He saw the tumble of dark ringlets, the wide dark eyes, the mouth that he had kissed so passionately in the three delirious days of that disastrous encounter more than a year ago. A stern voice inside his head reminded him that that mouth had lied to him; her kisses had been the prelude to a betrayal so monstrous that he had almost died because of it. Fraser hesitated only an instant; then the old madness took possession of him. He no longer cared that he was on duty, bound not to move until the clock chimed that his shift was over. He knew only that he had to find her, had to look once more into those eyes that seemed to know everything about him and had always known.
He ran down the street, but the woman in the long dark cape had disappeared. Frantically he peered into each passing vehicle, but the most likely prospect, a yellow cab, held only a woman passenger, a nurse, who looked at him disapprovingly through wire-rimmed glasses as she snapped shut the black bag she held on her lap.
He kept running: she couldn't have disappeared into thin air. If all matter occupied space, Victoria had to be somewhere and he was going to find her. And as he ran, searching the street in front of him, scanning the windows, the fire escapes, the passers-by, something nagged at him, something told him that he had overlooked a clue.
And there was the perfume. Not only had Victoria looked right at him, she had worn that familiar scent--Je Reviens.
Je Reviens....French for "I'm coming back".
Yes, she was coming back for him, to take him away with her. A thrill shot through him, although he tried to repress it. Sternly, he reminded himself that she was a criminal and that if he saw her he was duty-bound to arrest her immediately. But he could not help himself: the memories he had tried so valiantly to banish came flooding back, making him feel heavy-limbed with desire. He felt his heart constrict in a fierce, sweet ache--that almost-forgotten blend of pleasure mixed with pain, a feeling so intense that it was hard to tell where pleasure ended and pain began. If he were not careful, soon it would begin again: the old enchantment, the pain of a love that had nearly destroyed him.
"Constable Fraser, I cannot ignore this behavior. Give me one good reason why I should not suspend you from duty for a day without pay."
He stood to attention, outwardly respectful, but wearing the fathomless look that meant she wasn't going to get anything out of him. "Sir, I know you're required to act according to regulations. I'll comply with whatever disciplinary measures you see fit to impose."
"Damn!" Meg pushed back from her desk, got up, and went to shut her office door. Then she turned to face him, arms folded.
"All right. Let's stop being official for a moment. Ben, what the hell is wrong with you? I think I know you well enough to realize that something is seriously amiss. You don't behave like this!"
He looked at her, lips parted as if he were about to confide in her, but then he shook his head. "I'm sorry--although I know it's not enough simply to apologize. I couldn't help myself."
Meg considered. "Did you see something suspicious while you were on guard duty?"
He hesitated. "Yes."
"Something that indicated criminal behavior?"
"Ye-es, possibly. Well, almost certainly."
"And you can't tell me what it is."
"I'd rather not. It's an old case."
"Oh." Meg frowned, took a few steps around the room. "Did this case involve a Canadian citizen?"
She saw his eyes shift as if he didn't want to answer the question. Then he nodded. "Yes."
Meg stepped closer to him, so close she could see the faint sheen of perspiration on his face. He smelled of soap and well-oiled leather, as usual, and of something else that was not usual at all: the acrid odor of nervous perspiration. Fraser was clearly uneasy. She hated pushing him like this, but she had to know. "Fraser: are you the Canadian citizen who was involved?"
"Yes."
"I wish you'd trust me enough to tell me what the problem is. Since you don't, I have no choice but to suspend you without pay for the rest of the day. And I'm afraid you'll have to report for duty tomorrow and Sunday, Constable. We have work to do."
If he didn't find her soon, she would ruin his life for sure this time. She had almost destroyed him the last time they met, and yet he would have thrown everything away, his career, his friends, his good name, even Dief, his comrade--everything he was, just to be with her for the rest of his days.
He would give himself the rest of the day to find her; then, if he had found nothing, he would abandon the search and give his job the attention it deserved. And his commanding officer the cooperation she deserved.
For a moment he debated whether to tell Meg the whole story: what was keeping him from doing that, anyway? Was it for fear she would despise him for being so weak-willed as to fall under Victoria's spell in the first place? No, Meg was sophisticated enough to know that the passions of youth were not always wise. She couldn't hold him responsible for falling in love when he was in his early twenties.
No, the reason he didn't want to tell Meg anything was that he didn't want to hurt her. He didn't know how to explain the effect Victoria was still able to exercise on him, how she could still make him forget everything but the excitement of seeing her again, the unbearable joy of breathing the same air she breathed.
And always, there was the feeling of having known her before, in other lifetimes: the time when they both ranked as the top athletes on the bull-leaping team at the temple of Knossos in Crete, five thousand years before Christ was born; the lifetime when they were Celtic warriors, faces painted blue with the juice of the woad-plant that grew wild in the woods, riding hard into battle against the Roman legions in Britain in the first century A.D.; the time when they had died of plague in fourteenth-century Italy with arms entwined, lovers still, even as the Black Death took them....
Fraser shook the mists of memory from his brain. There were times when he was thankful for "the Sight," a gift from his Scottish forebears, and times when it was inconvenient. He couldn't afford to let his mind linger on what he and Victoria had been: he had to think of what they were now. In this lifetime they were on opposite sides of the law.
Now, walking from the Consulate to his apartment on West Racine, he planned his next move. Since he was off-duty, he would change into civilian clothes in the hope that he would look inconspicuous enough to melt into the neighborhood, make some inquiries.
At home, taking off his clothes and hanging them neatly in the closet, the thought that had nagged him since early that morning suddenly struck him like a blow.
The nurse...the nurse this morning in the yellow cab. She had been wearing a white nurse's uniform. But she had worn no nurse's cap on her short gray hair, just a pair of unattractive wire-rimmed glasses on her nose. And although she had the regulation white stockings on her legs, her shoes weren't white. They were black, as was the bag that sat on her lap, the bag she had been in the act of shutting when he looked into the cab.
The bag had been large enough to contain a bulky garment: for instance, a long, dark gray cloak with a hood and a dark curly wig. Victoria's only mistake had been the shoes: white shoes would have been too noticeable, even with the ankle-length cloak, and while she'd had time to enter the taxicab, whip off the cloak and stuff it into a bag and pop a pair of glasses on her nose, she'd evidently known she wouldn't have time to change her shoes.
And the old lady with the cane who'd bought the snowglobe? Ben's pulse began to race as he considered this new possibility. Victoria again? Why had she used a cane, something that would cause a sales clerk to remember her? It had added versimilitude, of course, but it was also a memory trigger.
Victoria was being very clever, but not clever enough. Or--was she doing this deliberately? Was she leaving clues to tantalize him? What was she working up to?
"Fraser, there's been a new development."
It was Saturday morning, and Meg had ordered coffee and pastries to be served in the small conference room adjoining her office.
Fraser set down his coffee cup and looked at her expectantly. She was pleased to notice that he seemed more himself this morning, less distrait than he had been the past couple of days.
"McAllister's security people contacted us yesterday evening. It seems that someone left a message in his hotel room about a private sale that could be arranged. He's known to collect art of the Pre-Columbian period and to be especially interested in Olmec art. You've heard of the Olmecs?"
"Certainly, ma'am. The Olmecs were a prehistoric civilization in Mexico that arose around 1200 B.C. Their culture is considered to be the one that set the stage for the Toltecs and the Aztecs who followed them, with regard to art, politics, and religion. In fact, they--"
"Quite, Constable. But what are the Olmecs noted for?"
"Well, their art, primarily, especially their sculpture. They created massive stone carvings of heads, some of which weighed as much as 20 tons. They also created ceramic figurines and carved beautiful objects from jadeite and serpentine--"
"Exactly. They were known for their artwork, which is thought to have been inspired by their religion. That's the whole point. Lately, there's been a thriving market of Olmec carvings stolen from excavation sites. Some of the smaller carvings were of jade and are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Three have been offered to Andrew McAllister for sale. That's why he contacted us this morning: we're going to set up a sting operation."
Fraser looked interested.
Encouraged, Meg went on. "A meeting has been arranged between McAllister's agent and this mysterious seller. The agent will examine the carvings, and if he determines they're authentic, he'll hand over the payment. The odd thing is that the seller insists on being paid in diamonds."
Fraser looked up sharply. "Diamonds? Why?"
"Cash has serial numbers. It can be traced easily. Diamonds are portable, easy to hide, and extremely salable." Meg laughed. "Supposedly, they're a girl's best friend."
Fraser was looking so pale that she wondered if he were ill. "Are you all right, Ben?"
"Ahh...ah, yes. Is the agent going to be wired for this meeting?"
"Yes. The first contact will take place in Grant Park, at the hot-dog concession. Of course we plan to videotape it all with a hidden camera."
"The seller is obviously full of self-confidence."
Meg smiled. "At the moment. But not for long. We'll get him, if we find out that what he's offering for sale is stolen property."
"Do we know anything about him? Anything at all?"
"Actually, Constable, we don't even know whether the agent is a 'he.' There was only one name on the note found in McAllister's suite: 'Snowbird.' Ben? Are you all right? Anyone would think you'd seen a ghost."
"Yes." Fraser buried his face in his coffee cup. When he looked up again he said, "Why a note? Why not a telephone call?"
"Perhaps the seller doesn't want the call traced. Or doesn't want McAllister to be able to deduce anything from an accent--"
"--or deduce which gender the seller is."
"Right. Now, these are the instructions: the appraiser and McAllister's secretary are to go to the concession stand and ask for a hot dog with a very special kind of German mustard. They'll be given instructions for getting to the next meeting place. They're to bring the diamonds with them for payment, and a large briefcase to put the statuettes in. They must be alone. They'll be watched all the way to the next meeting."
"I don't know about your disguise, Constable," the Inspector muttered as they approached Grant Park. "You're just too big and well-built--I mean, well-drilled in police habits--to be a convincing hippie."
Ben smiled involuntarily. He did feel rather silly in the long-haired blond wig that he'd carefully fashioned into a pony tail with a rubber band. "Surely I look shabby enough," he said, indicating the long Army surplus overcoat he wore. He adjusted the wire-rimmed round glasses on his nose and peered down at his commanding officer. "You, on the other hand, look very convincing as an art student."
Meg was wearing a brocade vest festooned with five or six strings of beads, a long black skirt of something that looked like crinkled silk, what appeared to be black combat boots, and on her head, a beret tilted at a jaunty angle.
"Why are you staring at me, Fraser?"
"Sorry, ma'am. Well, if we weren't on duty I would tell you why, but, as things are..."
He saw Meg bite her lip to repress the smile that was turning up the corners of her mouth. "Later, then."
Yes, he must remember to tell her when they were alone how enchanting she looked, how the shimmer of sunlight on her dark hair made her look like the carefree young student she undoubtedly had been in another autumn years ago, at the Sorbonne.
If they hadn't been on duty this would have been a perfect day for a walk in the park with Dief. Under the soft blue Sepember sky, sunlight cut long golden swathes across the grass; leaves drifted, as if in slow motion, from trees touched with flame-red and gold. As he and Meg walked toward the hot dog stand, he could smell leaf mold and damp earth, and from somewhere, a hint of woodsmoke on the cool air.
"Look, there they are," said Meg in a low voice.
Quickly, he glanced toward the concession stand, noting the man and woman who had made their way up to the counter. They stood out from the crowd because on a fine September Saturday in the park they were both wearing business suits; the woman carried a briefcase. He put his arm around Meg, giving her a fond look in case anyone was watching, and whispered in her ear. "Do you see our mystery man anywhere?"
"It's hard to say." Meg shook her head. "Look, they must have received more instructions. Now they're walking away. Let's follow them."
He and Meg loitered behind McAllister's secretary and the expert on Pre-Columbian art as they left the park and made their way to a sidewalk cafe across the street. Fraser glanced around him. The noises were standard: the drone of an airplane overhead, the cawing of the noisy blackbirds diving for scraps on the ground, the roar-whush of traffic going by on the street, the throbbing of a motorcycle engine. He looked around to see a lone biker, in a black helmet with a silver racing stripe, traveling beside them on the street.
"They're making for that open air cafe, that's a bit risky," Ben murmured into Meg's hair.
"Just watch. Oh, damn, what is this--a biker convention?"
Fully thirty motorcycles, each in the charge of a leather-jacketed driver, clustered in the street beside the cafe. They appeared to be in no hurry to go anywhere: their engines were off, and they were leaning back in their seats, talking. The biker who had been traveling beside Ben and Meg turned into the side street to join the other bikers.
Ben took Meg's hand in his as they crossed the street, hoping to convince whoever might be watching that the two of them were merely a pair of hippie lovers, not worth anyone's sustained interest. He saw that the couple they were following had sat down at one of the tables outside, under an umbrella.
Fortunately, there was a seat in full view of the two Suits. "Let's sit here."
A waiter wearing the cafe uniform approached the Suits. Ben could see by the agent's expression that he was asking a question. The waiter nodded and left. Very shortly he returned with a rectangular box bearing the name of a popular fried chicken chain, which he carefully placed before the man at the table.
The agent opened the box and lifted one of the objects inside. He adjusted his glasses and turned the object in his hands, carefully. Then he replaced it and lifted another object, examining it in the same way as the first. He did the same thing with a third object.
The woman in the suit leaned forward. The man nodded. He opened the briefcase, placed the objects inside, and extracted a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. He put the parcel inside the fried chicken box, then carefully removed his glasses and put them on top of his head.
Ben noted the signal and nodded at Meg.
The man beckoned the waiter over to the table. Meg and Ben stood up. Ben pretended to look through his pockets.
The waiter picked up the box and disappeared into the back of the cafe.
"Now!"
Ben and Meg sprinted toward the back of the cafe. The waiter they'd been watching whirled around as they approached. "Sir! What's wrong? May I help you?"
"Yes, you may." Meg's tone was as crisp as pack ice. In an instant her police badge had appeared in her hand. "Who did you give the box of fried chicken to?"
"Him." The waiter pointed out the window at a biker who was just roaring off on his motorcycle. Ben noted the black helmet with the silver racing stripe, the tall, almost girlish form in the black leather jacket, and the speed of the motorbike. Victoria had outsmarted them.
Meg was speaking into the microphone hidden in the brocade vest under the necklaces. "We need backup--our man got away." While she described the biker, Ben interviewed the waiter.
"A woman? Could have been, I guess. I just thought he was young, a teenager. He offered me a twenty to bring the box to the table."
"Did you ask him what was inside the box?"
"Yeah, I asked. He said it was private and not to open it. I took the money and did what he said."
After they returned to the Consulate to change back into regular clothes, Inspector Thatcher sent Fraser home. "I can go through the paperwork with the Chicago police. We won't need you until we can bring in the biker. I'll send someone to get you if that happens--we've got a tail on him even as I speak."
He walked home lost in thought.
Victoria was clearly determined not to be caught in a situation in which she could be captured. Always, she would be careful to stay just out of range until it was time to leave. And now--if it was indeed she--she had part of what she presumably wanted. She had the diamonds. When would Victoria come for the other half of what she wanted--which he guessed to be himself?
She has to show her hand soon, he thought as he climbed the stairs. He could hear Dief's welcoming bark as he approached the door of his apartment. "I'm back, Dief," he called. As he stepped inside, he immediately noticed the one thing that was different in the room: something that hadn't been there when he left early this morning.
"Ah! At last."
Fraser picked up the videocassette that had been placed on the kitchen table. Carefully he slipped the cassette out of the cardboard box that held it. There was a thin piece of paper left in the box. He drew it out and read the note typed on it:
"Ben--
Take this videotape and play it immediately, away from any onlookers. Follow the instructions on it. And do this alone--if you have company I'll know immediately.
Snowbird."
He looked at the videocassette, looked at Dief. "I guess that means you, Diefenbaker. I'd better leave you here."
Dief growled.
"I know. But she tried to kill you once. I don't want to expose you to danger again. I don't think she'll kill me."
Meanwhile, how was he to play the videotape? He had no VCR, didn't even have a TV, and Victoria would know that. He tried to reason as she would reason: he obviously couldn't take the videotape to an electronics store and ask to have a VCR demonstrated on the pretext of buying it; so what would Victoria expect him to do? She surely wouldn't expect him to run out and actually buy a TV and VCR simply to play the tape. Even if he could afford to do that, it would still take time to set everything up, and the very terseness of the note spoke of urgency.
Obviously, he'd have to borrow someone's TV and VCR and ask the person to leave the room. But that was ridiculous. Fraser thought longingly of Ray's house. Ray would have let him use his equipment with no questions asked, and would have shooed the rest of the Vecchio family out of the room too, but with Ray away, that option was closed.
There was only one way...but he hated to take it. He had the key to Meg's apartment. She let him come and go as he pleased, asking only that he be as discreet as possible.
Well, there was no help for it. He would have to go to Meg's apartment, and fast, to watch the tape before she came home from work.
Half an hour later, when the taxi deposited him outside the apartment building where Meg lived, he checked the parking garage, noting with relief that her car was not there. Three minutes later he was unlocking the door to her apartment and in another sixty seconds he was watching the TV screen, fascinated, as Victoria held up that morning's newspaper so he could read the headline.
"As you can see, I'm alive and well and here in Chicago," she said. She smiled into the camera. "How are you, Ben? I've missed you. I want you to come away with me so we can start over. I know a place where we'll be safe, where they'll never find us. I know you were going to come with me when Ray shot you...come with me, Ben."
Her voice still had the power to bring his soul, figuratively speaking, to its knees. She was like the Sirens of old--he didn't want to be persuaded, but her voice, still the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard--ensnared him. She looked the same, more ethereal than ever: he could lose himself in those eyes, as once before he had almost lost himself in the darkness inside her...
"I want you to meet me at the Japanese Bath House. Go there--it's easy to find--and go into one of the rooms set aside for Shiatsu massage. Undress completely, so that you can actually get into the bath. You won't be able to have any hidden microphones or weapons if you're wearing nothing at all. If I see that you're alone and have no companions outside the building, I'll appear and tell you what to do next."
Victoria tossed back her long hair and smiled enigmatically into the camera. "I'll see you, Ben. We're meant to be together."
The image then gave way abruptly to a flickering gray screen. Ben whirled, yanked open the door, and raced down the stairs. To hell with waiting for an elevator.
The Japanese Baths were housed in a seedy-looking building in a deteriorating neighborhood. Victoria was running true to form, Ben mused as he paid off the taxi and surveyed the outside of the building. She was at home in the world of the dispossessed, the reckless--the strange twilight world of those who lived on the edge and sometimes went over it. The last words he had heard the doomed Jolly speak on the day he died suddenly echoed in his mind: You think you know her--you don't!
He drew a long breath, squared his shoulders, and went through the revolving door. Go into one of the rooms set aside for Shiatsu massage and undress, she'd said. He looked around. There was one attendant, a little gnome of a man with a bald head and half-glasses perched on his nose, sitting at a ticket window.
Ben handed over a twenty. "I'd like a ticket for the Shiatsu massage, please."
His heart was beating twice as fast as usual. Was she here already? When would he see her?
He followed the attendant's instructions to go through the door at the end of the hall, into a small private room with a tub enclosure in one corner. Judging from the small noises he could hear beyond his room, there were two or three other people in the rooms on both sides of the hallway. Ben stripped, wrapped a towel around his waist, and hung his clothes in the locker provided.
The plaintive twang of a samisen sounded through the intercom box high up in one corner of the ceiling; the scent of sandalwood that pervaded the air added to the unreality of the scene. Ben looked around, uncertain as to what to do next.
The hairs on his arms began to tingle as they suddenly stiffened. Something was not right. He scanned the ceiling, the walls, the doorway, the floor. Where would she appear?
"Ben...take off the towel and get into the tub."
He turned. The room was still empty. Where had her voice come from? The intercom box at the corner of the ceiling? He hesitated: she wanted him to prove that he carried neither wires nor weapons, but he still resisted the idea of complete nudity in these circumstances. From somewhere, a thought came: She wants you as naked as a newborn baby--and as helpless. He couldn't do it, he would feel too vulnerable.
The small, square tiled tub was only two feet high, and already filled with warm water. Still wearing the towel, he sat down in it. The tub was so small, he had to draw his knees up to his chin.
"Ah, Ben...you're disobeying orders."
The voice sounded as if it were in the room. As he looked around, suddenly, incredibly, Victoria came through the doorway, dressed as a bathhouse attendant. Her long curls tumbled past the collar of her white smock; in one hand she carried what looked like a backbrush with an electrical cord.
"Hello, Ben."
He nodded, unable to speak for the moment. Once again, her perfume drifted into his consciousness...Je Reviens. To give himself time to think, he nodded toward the object in her hand. "What's that?"
Victoria looked down at it. "Oh," she said, laughing a little. "It's a massager. I don't really know how to do shiatsu."
Moving away, she plugged the cord into the wall socket near the tub. Then she looked at him. "Well...you know why I'm back, don't you?"
"Yes, I know."
"And? Are you ready to leave with me?"
"No."
Victoria's eyes widened. "Ben...after all this time, you can't make up your mind? Come with me! You were ready to, before, in spite of everything!"
He began to rise, but she pushed him back down into a sitting position in the tub. Why? part of his mind wondered. Aloud, he said, "That's true. I was. But no longer, Victoria. I just...don't feel about you the way I used to."
"That's a lie, Fraser, and you know it! You love me. You always have. You always will."
"No more, Victoria, not in this life. To go away with you I'd have to commit psychic suicide. I loved you, but I can't live in your world and you can't live in mine."
Her eyes were enormous, glistening with tears. "So your answer is no."
He bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Victoria."
"I'm sorry too." Her voice was low, vindictive. "Because you leave me no choice but to kill you." She flicked the button on the massager she held in her hand, and the buzzing noise that meant the brush was activated began.
He unfolded himself, rising to escape from the tub even as he saw her raise her arm to throw the massager into the bathwater. "If you believe in God, say your prayers, Fraser, because you're about to die!"
He flung himself at her, trying to get his whole body out of the tub, trying to deflect her throwing arm, when suddenly the lights went out.
"Ben! Let me go! I'm going to kill you!"
"I think not, Ms. Metcalf."
If Meg's voice had been pack ice when she spoke to the waiter at the cafe, it was permafrost now. The light of a powerful electric lantern shattered the darkness, showing Ben that Meg was accompanied by several Chicago police officers. He held the struggling Victoria until one of the officers brought Victoria's hands behind her back and snapped on the handcuffs. The lights flicked back on again, as suddenly as they had gone off.
Meg nodded to the police officers. "Take her out to the car." And then, to Victoria: "Ben isn't going to die any time soon. But you may well end up on Death Row."
Victoria's eyes were as feral as those of a tigress. She looked from Ben to Meg. Then a slow, triumphant smile spread across her face. "You'll never have him the way I had him. He'll never love you the way he loved me!"
Meg said nothing, but Ben noticed that she allowed an expression of pity to come into her eyes. He knew that nothing would infuriate Victoria more than to think Meg regarded her with contempt tinged with pity.
Looking at her now, he decided that Victoria was like a tigress: beautiful, solitary, and deadly. She took what she wanted, unmindful of anyone else's needs. She killed as casually as if she lived in the wild. And although she prided herself on her ability to live without the company of others, she did feel the need, occasionally, to mate. Ben shuddered inwardly. If he had gone away with her, how long would he have remained alive after Victoria tired of him?
For the last time, he spoke to his first love. "Goodbye, Victoria."
She spat at him, then turned her back, tossing her hair behind her.
Sickness stirred in him, the bile rising even into his mouth. He turned away, unable to look at Meg.
"You'd better get dressed, Constable. I'll see you outside the building, in my car."
She was giving him a chance to collect himself. Still with his back to her, he nodded, then waited for her to leave the room.
Three hours later, as the windows in Meg's office glowed gold with the light of the setting sun, things were beginning to return to normal. At the police station,Victoria was undergoing interrogation; she would remain in custody until her arraignment the following day. Her motel room had been searched, the diamonds recovered and returned to Mr. McAllister. He had sent his agent to the Consulate with the statuettes, which--once they left the Canadian soil represented by the Consulate--would once more belong to the Government of Mexico.
"They're amazing. No wonder they're so valuable--they'd be almost impossible to duplicate." Meg pushed the wooden box across her desk to Ben.
"I've never seen anything quite this fine, even among the Tsimchian."
Fraser leaned forward to pick up one of the jade carvings. It represented a shaman in the process of magically transforming himself into a jaguar. Whose hands had carved this, three thousand years ago? Who had mined the jade, polished it, carved it into the clever shape he was holding now? Was that someone a man who had suffered as he himself had? Someone who had been as torn by love and betrayal, as lacerated by regret and longing, as he was?
Meg eyed the carving and shivered a little. "H'm...frightening. I hope I don't dream about it tonight."
Carefully, Ben put the statuette back in the case that held the other two. Then he looked up to meet the steady gaze of his superior officer.
"Meg...thank you for saving my life."
"Fraser, you moron. Did you think I'd let anything happen to you?"
"You knew what she was planning?"
"I've known all along that Victoria was back. I've had you tailed ever since the day you went AWOL from guard duty."
"You have? How did you know she was back, then?"
"For one thing, your uncharacteristic behavior. For another, the expression on your face: it was the same one you have when I've done something in bed that you weren't expecting. That bemused look, as if you're doing a million mental calculations, readjusting your previous concept of the universe."
"That's how I look?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know you kept your eyes open when we--"
"We can explore that later, Fraser. The point is, it required only average police skills to deduce that it was a someone, rather than a something, that was making you look like that and behave uncharacteristically. Add to that the fact that all of a sudden, someone was in town wanting payment in diamonds...the fact that you wouldn't tell me anything...I didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out, you know."
"I'm glad you did."
"So am I, my love. So am I."
*Copyright September 1996 by Diana Read on all original story content. Not meant to infringe on copyrights held by Alliance Communications, or any other copyright holders for DUE SOUTH. Please do not reproduce for anything other than personal reading use without written consent of the author. Comments welcome at scribe@his.com.