“Couch or bed to sleep on?” I asked again, while Bax muttered on.
“Can’t we both take the bed? We can sleep head to foot or whatever.”
“I don’t want your feet in my face.”
He shot me a dirty look. “Guess you’d better rest your old bones, then, huh? You take the bed. I’m fine on the couch.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, and sat on the queen-sized bed, pillows behind my back, legs stretched out. It was late, but I wanted to read the so-called profile before sleeping.
“You’re really doing that now?” Bax asked, as I opened up my laptop.
“I really am.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, almost-but-not-quite in mocking imitation of my own voice. I raised an eyebrow. “I’mma get some sleep,” he said quickly, and stripped off his top. He hesitated, and I made sure it seemed my eyes were trained on the computer in my lap. But I watched him closely as he pulled off his shoes and jeans, enjoying the view until he lay down on the couch.
He sat up again. “Is there an extra blanket I can use?”
Good question. “No,” I said at last. “This place is meant for one person to lay low. There are extra sheets, but only one blanket.”
“Okay,” he said sadly, and lay down again.
“Put your clothes back on.”
“I hate sleeping in jeans,” his reply came floating over the back of the sofa. “I guess I can double the sheets over.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll freeze.”
“Sure, but so will you if you give me the blanket.”
“There is an obvious solution.” A heavy silence followed. I busied myself reading the profile. “This is wrong,” I said after a while. “I didn’t kill Tony DeAngelo. I didn’t kill any of these people, of course, but I definitely didn’t kill DeAngelo. If I were you, I’d look into Carmine Vicario for that one, God rest his soul.”
Over the back of the sofa, Bax’s ruffled head appeared. “Okay,” he said slowly. “But there’s a lot in the dossier that’s right. Isn’t there?”
Reading a criminal profile of oneself is a strange feeling. Bax had the basic biographical details down, had even discovered a firm date for my arrival in America, which I’d never seen recorded before, and that gave me pause. But his conclusions about my own psychological state seemed somehow both overblown and understated.
I did not, for example, have antisocial personality disorder, and said as much. “You want psychopaths, you should look into some of those Clemenzas.”
“How would you know?” Bax deadpanned. “Surely you didn’tknowany of them.”
“Any New Yorker knows about the Clemenzas.” I’d known more than few, alright, starting with Giorgio Benetti, an early high-profile kill of mine. The Clemenzas been our rivals and enemies for decades, and more recently their Boss had taken quite a dislike to Luca D’Amato. It hadn’t ended well for Louis Clemenza, who’d been brought to heel now.
“It was Villiers who suggested ASPD as a potential diagnosis for you. So…what did I get right?” Bax asked slowly. He was sitting up full on the couch now, rubbing his arms. I’d put the heating on when we entered, but it was running slow and the atmosphere was still cold.
I thought about telling the fool kid to put his clothes back on again, but he was never going to warm up without blankets. “Get over here,” I said instead.
“Why?”
“Because I need you well-rested. And I don’t want to be kept awake by your teeth chattering.”
“But…”
I looked at him over the top of the papers. “I’m not going to have my wicked way with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He flushed in a parody of warmth. “I didn’t—that’s not what I…Fine.” He scurried over to the bed, pulled up the covers, and got in. “Oh, wow,” he said, eyes wide. “This iscomfy.”
I’d indulged in a good bed. I knew anytime I was reduced to staying in this place I’d need all the rest I could get, and a comfortable bed was integral to that.
“Well. G’night,” Bax said awkwardly, and turned over in the bed away from me.
