The Charlie Parker Collection 2

by John Connolly

  ‘What kind of interest are they showing?’

  ‘They seem to be delving into his property investments.’

  Milton withdrew a gloved hand from his pocket and waved it disdainfully in the air.

  ‘It’s all of this post-9/11 bullshit,’ he said. Gabriel was shocked to hear him swear. Milton rarely showed such depth of feeling. ‘They’re under instruction to follow paper trails: unusual business investments, financial dealings that seem suspicious, property and transport holdings that don’t add up. They are the bane of our lives.’

  ‘He’s not a terrorist.’

  ‘Most of them aren’t, but along the way useful information is sometimes unearthed and followed up. It probably got passed on to these agents, and now they’re curious.’

  ‘They’re more than curious. They seem to know something of his background.’

  ‘It’s hardly a state secret.’

  ‘Oh, but some of it is,’ said Gabriel.

  The two men stopped, squinting against the sunlight, their breaths mingling in the dry air.

  ‘He has a reputation,’ said Milton. ‘He’s been keeping bad company, if such a thing were humanly possible given his own nature.’

  ‘I assume you’re referring to the private investigator.’

  ‘Parker. And I believe he’s a former investigator. His license has been revoked.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s found some more peaceful ways of occupying his time.’

  ‘I doubt it. From what little I know of him, he feeds on trouble.’

  ‘Yet, if I did not know better, I might have said that Louis was almost fond of him.’

  ‘Fond enough to kill for him. If he has attracted attention, then he has brought it on himself. The only wonder is that it has taken the FBI so long to come knocking on his door.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Gabriel, ‘but there is as much that is unknown about him as known, and I’m certain you would prefer matters to remain this way.’

  ‘I hope that’s not a threat.’

  Gabriel placed a hand on the younger man’s arm, patting lightly the sleeve of his overcoat.

  ‘You know me better than that,’ he said. ‘What I mean is that any investigation will eventually come up against a brick wall, a brick wall constructed by you and your colleagues. But such barriers are not impregnable, and the right questions asked in the right places could produce information that would be inconvenient to both parties.’

  ‘We could always get rid of him,’ said Milton. He said it with a smile on his face, but the remark still drew a wary look from Gabriel.

  ‘If you were going to do that, you would have done it long ago,’ said Gabriel. ‘And would you have disposed of me too?’

  Milton began to walk again, Gabriel falling into step alongside him.

  ‘With regret,’ said Milton.

  ‘Somehow, I find that almost consoling,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Milton.

  ‘Call off the dogs.’

  ‘You think it’s that easy? The FBI doesn’t care much for other agencies interfering in its affairs.’

  ‘I thought you were all on the same side.’

  ‘We are: our own. Nevertheless, I’ll talk to some people and see what I can do.’

  ‘I would be most grateful. After all, you’d be protecting a valuable asset.’

  ‘A once-valuable asset,’ Milton corrected, ‘unless, of course, he’s in the market for some work.’

  ‘Unfortunately, he appears to have chosen another path.’

  ‘It’s a shame. He was good. One of the best.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ said Gabriel, as though it were a mere afterthought and not something that had been preying on his mind since he had learned of the death of Billy Boy. ‘What do you know of Bliss?’

  ‘I know Laphroaig and a good cigar,’ said Milton. ‘Or isn’t that what you meant?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘We lost contact with him many years ago. He was never on our Christmas card list to begin with. I found him distasteful. I shed no tears when he fell from grace.’

  ‘But you used him.’

  ‘Once or twice, and always through you. I learned to hold my breath, and I washed my hands afterward. As I understand it, you and your “friend” contrived to put an end to his career.’

  ‘We were moderately successful,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Moderately. You should have used more explosive.’

  ‘We only wanted him dead, not half the people who might have been standing nearby when it happened.’

  ‘In some circles, such humanity might be taken as a sign of weakness.’

  ‘Which is why I have devoted such time and energy to reducing the size of those circles. As, I think, have you.’

  Milton inclined his head in modest agreement.

  ‘Nevertheless, there are indications that Bliss may be back on the radar.’

  ‘Really?’ For the first time, Milton looked directly at Gabriel. ‘I wonder why.’

  Gabriel had learned to read faces and tones of voice, to balance words spoken against gestures made, to pick up on the slightest of inflections that might give the lie to what was being said. As he listened to Milton speak, he felt certain that he had not been told all that the other man knew of what was taking place.

  ‘Perhaps if you heard anything more, you might be inclined to give me a call.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Milton.

  Gabriel reached out his hand. Milton took it and, as they shook, Gabriel neatly slid a piece of paper beneath the cuff of Milton’s shirt.

  ‘A small token of gratitude,’ said Gabriel. ‘A container that you might be ill-advised to allow to leave the yard in question.’

  Milton nodded his thanks. ‘When you see the lost sheep, pass on my regards.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to do that. I know he thinks fondly of you.’

  Milton grimaced. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t find that very comforting at all.’

  Gabriel contacted Louis later that evening, again through their respective answering services. They spoke for only a few minutes in a cab taking Gabriel to the Performance Space on Broadway. The driver was absorbed in a lengthy and animated telephone conversation being conducted entirely in Urdu. Gabriel had amused himself earlier in the journey by attempting to follow what was being said.

  ‘I had a call,’ said Gabriel. ‘It came from a gentleman who works for Nicholas Hoyle.’

  ‘Hoyle? The millionaire?’

  ‘Millionaire, recluse, whatever.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘It appears that Mr Hoyle would like to meet you. He says he has information that could be useful to you, information concerning the events of recent days.’

  ‘Neutral territory?’

  Gabriel shifted in his seat. ‘No. Hoyle never leaves his penthouse. He is, by all accounts, a most peculiar man. You’ll have to go to him.’

  ‘That’s not the way things are done,’ said Louis.

  ‘He approached you through me. That is the way things are done. He would be aware of any consequences that might arise should he fail to observe the usual niceties.’

  ‘He could have sent those men to draw me out.’

  ‘If he was intent upon that, he could simply have hired better help and finished the job there and then. Anyway, he has no reason to move against you, or none of which I am aware, unless you have angered him in the course of some of your recent activities.’

  He arched a questioning eyebrow at Louis.

  ‘Doesn’t ring any bells,’ said Louis.

  ‘Then again,’ said Gabriel, ‘I can’t imagine that you and your friend from Maine leave many loose ends. Cancer offers a better survival rate than crossing you. Given that, I imagine Hoyle has some mutually beneficial arrangement in mind. The choice is yours, though. I am merely passing on the message.’

  ‘In my position, what would you do?’

  ‘I would speak to him. So fa
r, we’re no closer to finding out anything about the men involved or who was behind them.’

  Gabriel darted a look at Louis. The lie had passed him by. That was good. Gabriel would wait to hear from Louis what Hoyle had to say. In the meantime, he had begun to make inquiries about Arthur Leehagen. He was not yet ready to share with Louis what Milton had told him. In everything that he did, Gabriel protected himself first and foremost. Despite any affection he might have retained for Louis, he would feed him to wild dogs before he put himself at risk.

  ‘So they were amateurs, but their boss isn’t? Still makes no sense, unless we’re back to the possibility that someone wants to draw me into the open.’

  ‘You’re not as hard to find as you might like to believe, as recent events have proved. We’re missing something here, and Hoyle may be the one to enlighten us. He doesn’t issue invitations to his abode every day. Under other circumstances, it might be considered quite an honor.’

  Louis watched the city flash by the window. Everything – the cab, the people, the lights – seemed to be moving too fast. Louis was a man who liked to be in control, but that control was being ceded to others: Gabriel, his unseen contacts, and now Nicholas Hoyle.

  ‘All right, make the arrangements.’

  ‘I will. You’ll have to go unarmed. Hoyle doesn’t allow weapons inside the penthouse.’

  ‘Gets better and better.’

  ‘I’m sure that you can handle anything that may arise. Incidentally, I raised the federal matter with some potentially interested parties. I believe it will be dealt with to your satisfaction.’

  ‘And who might those interested parties be?’

  ‘Oh, you know better than to ask that. Now, if you’d just let me out here, I’ll be on my way. And please pay the cab driver. It’s the least that you can do for me after all that I’ve done for you.’

  Bliss drove north, an anonymous figure on an anonymous highway, just another pair of headlights burning whitely in the dark. Soon he would leave the road and find a place to rest for the night. Rest, not sleep. He had not slept properly in many years, and he lived in constant pain. He desired peaceful oblivion more than almost anything else on earth, but he had learned to survive on a few hours of slumber brought on by the exhaustion that eventually overcame his residual agonies. The treatment of his injuries, and his efforts to stay ahead of his pursuers, had depleted him not only physically, but financially too. He had been forced to resurface, but he had chosen his paymaster carefully. In Leehagen, he had found someone who could satisfy both his financial and personal needs.

  The bottle containing Billy Boy’s blood lay in a padded box at the bottom of Bliss’s small suitcase. Leehagen had wanted him killed on his land, but Bliss had refused. It was too dangerous. But as the knife left his hand, and he saw the look of understanding on Billy Boy’s face before he died, Bliss knew that his gifts were still intact. It gave him confidence for what was to come.

  That night, as he lay on his bed in a modest, clean motel room, humming softly to himself, he thought of Louis with the ardor of a lover journeying to meet his betrothed.

  8

  The headquarters of Hoyle Enterprises stood a few blocks from the UN, so the surrounding streets were a Babel of diplomatic plates, creating uneasy relationships between bitter international enemies now forced to share valuable parking space. Hoyle’s building was unremarkable: it was older and smaller than most of the adjacent towers, and stood at the eastern extreme of a public area that extended partially into the vicinity of the neighboring blocks to the north, south, and west, creating a natural boundary between Hoyle and the edifices around him.

  In the twenty-four hours since the meeting with Gabriel, Louis and Angel had sourced the blueprints for Hoyle’s building and Angel, aided by a bored Willie Brew and a slightly less bored Arno, had watched it for an entire day. It was a precaution, an effort to establish some sense of the rhythms of the building, of how deliveries were dealt with, of shift changes and lunch breaks among the security guards. It wasn’t long enough to form any accurate determination of the risks involved in entering, but it was better than nothing.

  Actually, to Willie it was worse than doing nothing. He could have been doing nothing in the relative comfort of his own apartment, instead of doing something that he wasn’t enjoying far from any comfort at all. Arno had spent most of their watch reading, which seemed to Willie to defeat the purpose of keeping an eye on the building to begin with, but then Willie supposed that Arno was just killing time too. Louis was reluctant to have them return to the auto shop just yet, which meant that Willie could either sit in his apartment and watch TV that didn’t interest him, or sit in a car and watch a building that didn’t interest him either. One good thing had resulted from their efforts: Willie had decided that, Louis or no Louis, he and Arno were going back to work soon. Even after only a couple of days of lounging around, Willie felt as though something was dying inside him.

  Hoyle’s penthouse occupied the top three floors of the building. The remainder was given over to his offices. While Hoyle-owned companies were involved in mining, property, insurance, and pharmaceutical research, among other interests, the beating heart of his operation lay behind the modest façade of the Manhattan office. This was the parent company, and it was in this building that all power ultimately resided. A small but steady stream of people moved in and out of the lobby throughout the day, the flow increasing between twelve and two, and becoming almost entirely one-way traffic after five. Angel had spotted nothing untoward during his period of surveillance, and neither had Willie or Arno. There were no men carrying RPGs stationed behind the pillars, and he could see no heavy artillery hidden among the potted plants.

  Then again, as Gabriel had noted, Hoyle had approached Louis through the proper channels, a peculiarly Old World notion in this modern age, and one that depended for its force upon Gabriel’s reputation and the favors owed to him by others. If there were any breach of protocol, Hoyle would be aware of the possible repercussions. As far as Gabriel was concerned, therefore, Louis had no cause to be any warier than usual, which meant that Louis and Angel were very wary indeed as they entered the building shortly after eight that evening.

  There was one security guard behind the desk, and he merely nodded them through. Only one elevator was open in the lobby, and it had no buttons inside or out. The interior was mirrored. There was no visible camera. Angel figured that meant there were probably at least three: one behind each mirrored wall, and maybe a pinhole fourth behind the small video screen displaying the numbers of the passing floors. The elevator was also likely to be miked, so neither man spoke. They merely watched their reflections in the gleaming brass of the doors, one apparently contentedly, the other critically. Angel didn’t like mirrors. As Louis had once pointed out, mirrors didn’t like him either, remarking that ‘even your reflection probably leaves a stain.’

  When the display read ‘PH’, the elevator stopped and the doors opened silently. There were two men waiting for them in an otherwise empty foyer, with more mirrors on the walls and a vase of freshly cut flowers standing on a small marble plinth. Both men wore black suits and matching funeral ties, and both carried metal detector wands. They swept them over Angel and Louis, pausing to check belts, coins, and watches, then indicated that they should proceed. A pair of carved wood doors, Oriental in origin, and clearly old, opened to reveal a third man. He was dressed more casually than the others: black trousers and a black wool jacket over an open-collared white shirt. His hair was neither too long nor too short, and was pushed casually over his ears at the sides, as though he cared just enough to keep it tidy, and nothing more. His eyes were brown, and Angel detected in his features a mixture of amusement, frustration, and professional jealousy. He had the build of a swimmer: broad across the shoulders, but slender and muscular overall. The jacket hung loose enough to hide a gun, and was unbuttoned.

  Angel felt Louis relax slightly, but the response was the opposite of what it ap
peared to be. When Louis relaxed, it was an indication that a threat was at hand and he was preparing to act, as when an archer releases a breath simultaneously with the flight of the arrow, channeling all of the tension into the flighted missile itself. The two men regarded each other silently for a few moments, then the waiting man spoke.

  ‘My name is Simeon,’ he said. ‘I’m Mr Hoyle’s personal assistant. Thank you for joining us. Mr Hoyle will be with you presently.’

  Angel wasn’t sure what Simeon’s duties as an assistant entailed, but he was pretty certain that they didn’t involve typing or answering the phone. Neither was he simply a bodyguard, unlike the men who had searched them. No, Angel had met Simeon’s type before, and so had Louis. Here was a specialist, and Angel wondered why a businessman, albeit a wealthy, reclusive one like Nicholas Hoyle, might require someone with the abilities that Simeon undoubtedly possessed.

  Simeon’s gaze moved briefly to Angel, decided that there was nothing there worth lingering upon, then returned to Louis. He retreated into the room behind him, extending his right hand in a gesture of welcome. He did not turn his back on Louis. It came across as a sign of respect as well as of caution.

  They entered a large, open-plan living area, dimly lit, with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, occupied by a combination of books, sculptures, and ancient weaponry: blades and axes and daggers, all mounted on transparent glass supports. The room was so cold that Angel felt goose bumps rise. The floorboards were made of reclaimed wood, and the couches and chairs were dark and comfortable, giving the impression that here was the habitation of a man of arms and letters, a throwback to another era. The room itself might even have been from another century, were it not for a glass wall that looked down upon an enclosed swimming pool, the water rippling slightly and casting its patterns on the interior walls. Although the contrast was initially disconcerting, Angel decided that it complemented, rather than undermined, the decor. Unless one was close to the glass, the sunken pool was invisible, so all that remained were the ghosts of the ripples upon the walls. It was like being in the cabin of a great ship at sea.