Ghosts In the Heart. Michael J.D. Keller

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СКАЧАТЬ her dark auburn hair billowed in the air. It seemed that God himself had gasped at the sight of her. Her delicate white skin provided a pristine setting for the sparkling blue eyes that glistened in the sunlight. At that moment, she recognized someone on the vaparetto as it was about to pass under the bridge. She laughed and waved. Anticipation and a touch of tender vulnerability all combined to illuminate her face.

      Mckenzie pushed the pause button on the remote just as the credits displayed her name on the screen below her image, Mireille Marchand. Mckenzie took a sip of cognac and raised his glass toward the picture frozen on the television screen. “Bonsoir, ma coeur” he whispered.

      It was that image, that very moment in the film, when a grumpy seventeen year old Alexander Mckenzie, sitting in a darkened theatre, had felt his heart drop out of his body. He had been dragged unwillingly by the nubile cheerleader he was dating - he had actually forgotten her name - to see a romantic woman’s movie instead of Rocky that was showing down the street. He was giving the screen only half-hearted attention while sliding his hand across his date’s knee when Mireille appeared on the Rialto Bridge. He had stared transfixed at a manifestation of beauty more complete than anything his young mind had ever envisioned.

      Alex pushed the play button and the film resumed. He knew that he had hardly been the first teenaged boy to develop a crush on an unattainable female personality. From the beginning, however, he had been more than just another hormonal adolescent having wet dreams about his Farah Fawcett poster. From first sight, Mireille Marchand had awakened a longing ,a desire more searching, more demanding than anything he had ever experienced before or since. Thirty years later, she was still a void in his life that had never been filled.

      He had slipped off alone to see the movie six more times. He searched out everything he could find in print about this vision that he could not expel from his mind. Within a month, he could repeat details about her life with the same assurance, that the mature Alexander Mckenzie would display when testifying at trial about an extensive criminal investigation.

      He knew the hospital in Avignon where she was born. He knew the name of her father, her mother, her two sisters. He could recite the titles of the obscure French films where her acting career had begun in bit parts. He knew the place on the road in eastern France where she died.

      Holiday in Venice had been an unexpected success at the box office. To cash in, the producer rushed to release her second English language film, The Diamond Thief in late summer. A light-hearted crime caper, it was an even bigger hit. Mireille’s face began to pop up in print media of every type from serious film journals to glossy fashion magazines. The still camera loved those ethereally blue eyes as much as did the movies. The trade papers were rife with rumours of future projects for this young French phenomenon, including a report that she was being considered for a lead role in the latest historical epic being developed by the famous British producer, Colin Berkley.

      The newspapers later reported that it was the Berkley film that had put her on the road late that October night. She had been visiting friends in the small provincial village of St. Aubert when she abruptly decided to drive back to Avignon. Supposedly, she wanted to catch an early flight to Paris, and then on to London for a preproduction meeting with the director and her expected costar.

      The story had not made the front page in San Francisco. Two pages in and below the fold, the heading noted that “French Actress Dies in Single Car Accident.” Alex had been sitting at the breakfast table with Marcus and his soon to be ex-step mother, Brittaney. She had been poking, in a desultory fashion, at her egg white omlet while Marcus intently studied the file he had brought to the table. Except for the law, Marcus Mckenzie quickly became bored with most things. It was a trait that was already edging Brittaney out of his life - although she had not yet grasped that inexorable process. Stepmothers two and three would be smarter and more predatory. Alex hated participating in this strained tableaux of a happy family at breakfast but silent endurance was generally preferable to another of his increasingly bitter oral confrontations with his father. Concentrating on the newspaper was usually the best way of getting through the meal. Alex’s gasp at the moment he read the article was so sharp, so painfully audible, that it broke even Marcus’s fixed attention on billable hours.

      “What’s the matter?” he asked, more irritated by the interruption than from any genuine curiosity. When Alex’s voice, hoarse with emotion, started to recount the article, Marcus interrupted with a snort of contemptuous dismissal. “So there is one less French slut.” He chuckled at his own wittism. “An easily replaceable commodity.”

      Another teenaged boy might have shouted at his father, raging against his heartless insensitivity. He did not. Alexander Mckenzie was already the Iceman in training. He slowly rose to his feet and folded the newspaper under his arm. He looked at his father with the dispassionate expression of a scientist examining a failed experiment. Without another word he turned and left the room. Neither Marcus or Brittaney grasped the fatal escalation of the conflict between father and son that had just occurred.

      Another sip of the cognac warmed his throat as he watched the television screen intently. Mireille steeped out of a gondola and walked briskly across the wide expanse of St. Marks Square. The vast center of the city was filled with tourists and pigeons, but the throng could not hide her. She was wearing a deceptively simple white dress cut just above her knee and high heeled shoes that clicked on the pavement while accentuating her long beautiful legs. As she neared the Doge’s palace, a male voice called out her character’s name “Marie!” She turned to face the actor playing her lover and her already animated expression came alight with an ecstatic joy almost beyond the capacity of the screen to contain. There were times, many times, when the adult Alexander Mckenzie had concluded that he truly was demented. Boys had hopeless crushes, even grown men could entertain romantic fantasies, but eventually you put such things away. You grew up, you matured, you forgot about those imaginary loves. He had not. He could not. Every time he heard her voice, he felt his heart shake with a pain that would not heal.

      More than twenty years ago, Carrie, his ex-wife, had given up her attempt to fill the emptiness he carried with him. As she walked out the door for the last time, she had looked at him and sadly whispered “I won’t compete with a ghost, Alex. I can’t win that fight. But neither can you.”

      Mckenzie drained the last of the cognac from the glass. He pushed the mute button on the remote control and leaned has head back again closing his eyes. Over the years, he had made various attempts to study French with varying degrees of success. He had reluctantly concluded that he would never master the accent but he had a fair grasp of the vocabulary. Now with his eyes shut and his imagination supplying the images, he felt the need for only a brief expression “Je Taime, ma amour, Je Taime.”

      The sudden ringing of the telephone shattered his reverie.

      CHAPTER 2

      Mckenzie looked at the ringing telephone with a momentary spasm of surprise. The Department used his cell phone when it needed to contact him. The number for the landline was unlisted and he had given it to no one except. . .

      He picked up the receiver and brusquely snapped “Yes?”

      The voice at the other end was felicitous, polite, and empty of even a single note of genuine sincerity.

      “Good evening Mr. Mckenzie. This is William at the concierge desk. I am sorry to disturb you, but there is a lady and gentleman here who wish to see you. They are not, however, on your approved guest list.”

      “That is because I do not have an approved guest list.”

      “Just so, Mr. Mckenzie.”

      In a less exalted building, William’s role would have been filled by someone known as the СКАЧАТЬ