The Red Death

THE RED DEATH Bates and Briant Investigations Book Two Abraham Kawa Table of Contents ENTR’ACTE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 A NOTE TO THE READER ALSO BY ABRAHAM KAWA ENTR’ACTE Rome, 29 August, 1970 Night clung to him with silk and sweat, and Adolfo Donati got out of bed shedding one but not the other. He didn’t turn on the angel-shaped brass lamp on the table. As he stumbled down dark steps to the kitchen, somewhere behind him a delectable creature still slept, in night, in silk, in the act’s clammy aftermath. He paid no mind to the shift of breath or limb, if any did occur back there. Adolfo wasn’t thirsty for what the creature offered. For that, there’d be time again, in the morning. It was more trouble feeling for the switch than just reaching out for the refrigerator in moonlight that silvered all it touched. The bottle cooled his hand before the water in it cooled his thirst. Adolfo did not bother with a glass. He would have, were he at the villa instead of the house in Rome. In the villa, Adolfo was never alone. On those nights and weekends, the hilltop retreat hosted several others with their assorted creatures, its rooms and swimming pool occupied variably, its beds strained considerably — the place’s one inconvenience. Adolfo did not resent the parties, nor did he mind cooling off in the pool with the others before emerging to shower naked in front of blushing young things, or to watch films of other young things while touching these blushers. Indeed, there was much to commend all of the above. Still, some things were best done alone. The townhouse was his, single, exquisite yet discreet, for quieter nights of those edifying films with just the one delectable creature picked for the occasion. The playful confessions, the overcoming of bashfulness, the relaxing effects of the rosemary oil he would be massaged with all over. If he missed the country villa in August it was neither for the luxury nor the company, but for its coolness in this sweltering heat. Yet the villa was off limits now. He’d have to make do. His housecoat abandoned with silk sheets and luscious limbs, he stiffened visibly at the thought of rejoining them. And why not? Providence might as well provide a second act of ecstasy before the dawn. Adolfo believed in providence as a matter of course and, in truth, as part of his vocation. That he thought of himself in gratia during Mass as well as with his cock in a pretty young mouth presented him with no paradox where said belief was concerned — nor was his existence paradoxical otherwise. The altar’s state of grace and sex’s state of power were affiliate conditions, their elation comparable, their difference only in who did the kneeling. To the worthy, providence conferred grace; it conferred power; and both of these had meaning only when used to their limits. Of his worthiness, Adolfo was assured by way of his impunity. One could dwell in Sodom and ask the judge of all the earth does right — if one enjoyed impunity. Still, Adolfo was acutely, if not morally, aware of how this philosophy would appear to those who did not share it. He stood naked in the kitchen, relishing quietude along with the return of his erection. The house, a single apartment inside a palazzina, was glossy as a magazine spread, but no eyes would know that from its neighbourhood of rundown, identical palazzine or the nameless bell that declared this one unoccupied. Only the heat trespassed, oppressed, and judged. The price of privacy in August. Adolfo missed the villa’s two sprawled levels of grey-blue slate with insides of stained dark brown timber, ringed by two more levels of terrace, one shaded by a massive mulberry tree and another by a shed, with more mulberry and olive trees lining the narrow road that wound back down to the electric gate. He pictured in his mind the slope the villa was built on, its stunning vista of surrounding slopes descending all the way to the sea. If one added the high wall and steep incline of the lonely road up from the gate, the estate’s seclusion felt propitiously complete, the near-silence of creaking wood and cicadas making the quiet only more so. Somehow, the villa felt more real in absentia, gilded with the coolness of memory, more concrete than the walls he was encased in. He indulged in it, imagining himself and his companion there, with Frosinone an afterthought far from view and Rome itself a world away to the other side. The dry rattle of a laugh mocked him as he breathed in his dark fantasy. For a moment he thought the night had laughed at him, or the cicadas in his memory. The alternative was just enough to make him aware of his nakedness. It had not been the creature in his bed that had laughed — this cackle was the wrong sex. Adolfo almost covered himself before he thought of the reinforced door and its safety lock and all the other reasons there wouldn’t be someone else here. He did not go through the double doors that led into the living room. If he’d imagined the laugh, it would be silly. If he had not, that was the last place he should be. Instead, he went down the steps to the door he had locked after they’d come in like he always did. The key was not there now. When he tried the door, it was not locked. Adolfo blinked at this refutation of his memory. The pretty young creature could have unlocked it, he