Rocco does not know Lucy, although he knows who she is. She knows him very well, although they have never met. At this moment, as she straps herself into her seat and the Concorde starts its Rolls Royce engines, she can't wait to see Rocco Caggiano, her anticipation fueled by intense anger that will evolve into a nervous dread by the time she finally gets to Eastern Europe.
7
"I SURE HOPE YOU'RE NOT FEELING as bad as I am," Nic says to Scarpetta.
They sit inside the living room of Scarpetta's suite at the Marriott, waiting for room service. It is nine a.m., and twice now Nic has inquired about Scarpetta's health, her banality partly due to her flattered disbelief that this woman she admires so intensely invited her to have breakfast.
Why me? The question bounces inside Nic's head like a bingo ball. Maybe she feels sorry for me.
"I've felt better," Scarpetta replies with a smile.
"Popeye and his wine. But he's brought worse poison than that."
"I don't know how anything could be worse," Scarpetta says as a knock sounds on the door. "Unless it really is poison. Excuse me."
She gets up from the couch. Room service has arrived on a table wheeled inside. Scarpetta signs the check and tips in cash. Nic notes that she is generous.
"Popeye's room-room one-oh-six-is the watering hole," Nic says. "Any night, just go on in with your six-pack and dump it in the bathtub. Starting around eight p.m., he does nothing but haul twenty-pound bags of ice to his room. Good thing he's on the first floor. I went once."
"Only once in ten weeks?" Scarpetta watches her closely, probing.
When Nic returns to Louisiana, she will face the worst homicide cases she may ever have in her life. So far, she hasn't said a word about them, and Scarpetta is concerned about her.