by Jeff Lindsay
What mattered was what Delgado did know now. It mattered that he had found and followed Riley’s back trail, traced him to his roots, and learned more about him than anyone had known before. And more importantly—now he knew one truly significant new fact. And Delgado was sure it was the one that was going to bring Riley Wolfe down.
Riley Wolfe had a weakness.
And Frank Delgado had found it.
So he got out of his car smiling, and walked into the yard, and he looked at the Big House on the Hill.
It was no longer much to look at. Years of neglect had peeled the paint, nibbled away at the roof tiles, and weathered the trim to a sad grayish brown. Several of the windows were broken out, and a heap of rubbish had gathered on the porch, blown into the corners by winds that even now were tugging at the clumps of litter. But Delgado could see what this house had once been. It was not, by any means, a millionaire’s estate. It was really no more than an upper-middle-class Victorian-style house. Still, it was light-years away from a collapsing double-wide trailer—even now, after it had been abandoned for many years. And in the imagination of a young boy who had lost it, it would seem like a palace.
He was very glad he’d come to see it, unnecessary as the side trip might seem. To Special Agent Frank Delgado, it was not unnecessary at all. This house was an essential piece of the profile, a tangible picture of a vital part of what had turned J.R. Weimer into Riley Wolfe. Delgado knew now that it had not been a fantasy, a promised future goal for a boy who wanted something better than a moldering double-wide. It was real. And it had been taken away from J.R. when he was young and very vulnerable. Getting back to a social and financial level where he could take it back—or even surpass it—that was a big part of what had pushed Riley Wolfe so hard, hard enough to make him a true master at crime.
Delgado knew most of the story now. Arriving in Nashville, he’d been so anxious that he’d put aside his qualms about using official channels and gone to the local field office of the FBI. And to his great relief, the SAC was Bill Kellerman, a man he had gone to the Academy with, and as close to a friend as Delgado had in the FBI. Delgado hadn’t been in touch recently, didn’t know Bill had been posted here. But when they spoke, it was like no time had passed. Bill had been happy to help, and had called his predecessor, now retired, and they’d gotten the whole story: How J.R.’s father, Ron Weimer, had run a string of scams, finally settling on a Ponzi scheme. How he’d made it work for two and a half years, pulling all the cash out to buy the Big House on the Hill and other big-ticket items for his family and himself. Until, finally, a record producer, a man from a very wealthy family, grew suspicious. He called in the Feds, and they began to ask questions.
The mounting pressure no doubt contributed to Ron Weimer’s heart attack. Certainly his son would think so. And when everything J.R. owned was taken away, it would have been because the greedy, rich assholes took it—and so they became the group Riley Wolfe would forever blame. J.R. would vow to get back all that was rightfully his, and get it back illegally, like his much-loved father. But he would be smarter than Dad had been—he wouldn’t let them catch him the same way. He would be bolder, stronger, smarter.
He would become the Wolf . . .
At the same time, he felt a need just as strong to protect the one person who had suffered through it with him—the only one who had stood by him and helped him reach a point where he could begin to take it all back: his mother. And because she was now helpless, the victim of a series of strokes that left her in a near-vegetative state, he would need to keep her close, to watch over her, to make sure she was there, near at hand, so he could tell her of each one of his triumphs.
All the pieces fit. For the very first time, Delgado began to understand Riley Wolfe, what made him tick, why he did things the way he did, and even what he might do next. Delgado had the picture, and he was ready to use it. He was going to catch Riley Wolfe.
And so, like a pilgrim to a shrine, Delgado came to understand that this was the starting point, the symbol—for both Riley and his mother—of the Good Life that would someday come again. The Big House on the Hill.
Delgado took a couple of photos with his phone. Then he walked forward through the brown shin-high grass, trying to picture the place as it had been, guessing which window had been young J.R.’s room—that one, just below the cupola? Maybe so. That’s where he himself would have wanted a room when he’d been ten. He walked closer, moved by a strange desire to be near, actually touch the place, even breathe in the smell of it, just as J.R. had.
He reached the front porch and stopped, looking up at the house. THE house, he told himself again. The Big House on the Hill, with its cupola and wraparound porch—he could almost picture J.R.’s mother, Sheila Weimer, coming out onto that porch and calling her son in to dinner. Kellerman had helped him find Sheila, too. She was alive. Or she had been six months ago, when she’d been in an extended-care facility in Chicago. She’d recently been moved to some unknown new facility.
Delgado smiled again because he was sure he knew where. And also because it was the final piece, and it fit perfectly. Chicago had been the location of Riley’s last heist, and it had been six months ago. He still kept her near, and that meant Delgado knew where Sheila was now. If Riley was in New York, Sheila would be, too, in one of the eleven facilities in the New York area equipped to give her the care she needed. And Delgado thought he could find her easily enough. He now knew Sheila’s maiden name—Beaumont—and he had a list of all the medications she needed to take. That would narrow the search considerably, whatever name she might be using. He would find her. Finding her, he would find Riley Wolfe and close out a file that had been burning at him for years.
Delgado turned away from the porch and strolled aimlessly along the side of the house, just soaking it in. He put a hand out onto the wooden siding and caressed it—and got a splinter. It didn’t matter. Seeing the house, touching it, even getting the splinter, reinforced his sense of its reality, and its importance to Riley Wolfe. And he smiled as he worked the little shard of wood out of his hand.
He walked backward, still looking up at the house, still smiling. When he got to his car, he paused for a moment and turned to look out at the view from the hilltop. Very nice. Rolling hills, the Nashville skyline in the near distance—maybe it wasn’t quite the same as it had been twenty-some years ago. There were a lot more tall buildings, and closer to hand there were certainly more houses, and that large six-lane expressway was probably recent. But it was a good view, and Delgado lingered, looking at it, for several minutes. He had grown fond of Nashville. It was going to give him Riley Wolfe.
He turned back to look at the house one last time. Then he got in his car and began the long drive north.
CHAPTER
25
The week had been an endless buffet of manic activity. And even though her new boss was working as hard as she was, Angela Dunham had never been so busy before. The crew from Tiburon Security Systems had practically moved in, and they were, in Angela’s opinion, a frightening lot. Of course, they were all ex-SEALs, which meant trained killers, and that was rather intimidating. There was just something about them, an air of potential menace, that made her feel rather odd; her knees got weak, and her pulse would flutter strangely. Worse, she would even shiver when one of them looked at her directly.
And one of them did look at her rather a bit more than absolutely necessary. Or it seemed so to her. He was one of the larger Tiburons, with a shaved head, a Fu Manchu mustache, and a face marked by several large scars. Every time Angela passed the men at their work, he would look up, and she could feel his eyes on her. It made the goose bumps run straight up her spine, and she had to hold herself in tightly to keep from shivering as he stared at her.
He never actually threatened her in any way, of course. None of the Tiburon men did. For the most part they were brisk, efficient, and polite, and except for that
one large and frightening man, they ignored her and concentrated on their work.
Which was a very good thing since Angela had more than enough to worry about. And making things even more complicated, the Iranian advance team had also arrived. Most of them spoke very little English, but they were unfailingly polite—at least to Angela. Aside from that, they didn’t seem to share Angela’s feelings about the Tiburon team. In fact, there was a palpable feeling of hostile tension between the two groups. This situation was not improved by the habit the Tiburons had of muttering “raghead” whenever they were within hearing of one or more of the Iranians. Angela was quite certain there would be violence sooner or later—if not now, then almost certainly later in the week when the Revolutionary Guards arrived. From what she understood, they were rather like an Iranian equivalent to the SEALs: trained killers with itchy fingers. It was quite impossible to imagine the two groups coexisting peacefully. And to Angela’s mind, it could only get worse when the armed team from Black Hat arrived.
But Angela had no time to worry about that except in passing. There were so many details to attend to, so many decisions to be made and so many different people trying to make them—and somehow it all ended up in her lap. It was so completely annoying that Angela was quite certain she would have gone stark bonkers if not for Mr. Miller, her new boss—Randall, as he insisted upon being called. She had resented him at first, of course. On top of the rumors about his sordid rise to “family” status, there was the fact that he’d been flung right into the job as curator, apparently without anyone considering Angela for the job—even after her years of experience at the museum in which she’d done virtually the entire job by herself while Benjy smoked pot on the roof.
She had expected Mr. Miller to be cut from the same cloth as his predecessor, and she’d been prepared to detest him. Instead, she discovered that he was very likeable, hardworking, and knowledgeable. He had an air of cheerful competence that Angela could not help thinking of as being rather British in nature—especially when she learned he had recently returned from a two-year stint in London.
And so, in very short order, Angela found that she could take many of these problems to Mr. Miller—Randall—with the expectation that he would actually solve them. In very short order, she realized that she not only liked Randall Miller; she respected him as well. She found herself leaning on his judgment and his quiet strength. Surprisingly, he was extremely well versed in the intricacies of the art world, and Angela learned to trust him. He was an island of calm and focused certainty in the midst of an ocean of chaos.
And as the week went on, to Angela’s great relief, the hostility between the men installing the security system and the Iranians seemed to dissipate. The SEALs of Tiburon Security stopped saying “raghead” altogether, and instead nodded civilly to the Iranians and exchanged with them what Angela took to be polite greetings in their own language—Farsi, wasn’t that it? The Iranians responded in kind, and Angela was pleased to think all sides were finally being diplomatically prudent. She was so happy with this apparent détente that she decided to participate. She listened carefully and learned a few of these Iranian greetings.
And so when Randall sent Angela to the supply room for a roll of blue bunting to decorate the lobby for the opening night gala, she was practicing one of her new Farsi phrases. As she walked into the restricted staff-only area at the back of the first floor, she was repeating “Kir tu kenet,” which she’d overheard and memorized this morning. She thought the phrase had a pleasant and musical ring to it. For no real reason, she decided it meant “good morning,” and in the privacy of the restricted area she practiced saying it with a loud and cheerful voice, turning the last corner before the hall leading to the supply room.
“Kir tu kenet! Kir tu—oh!” she said as rounded the corner and ran into a solid wall of man. He was tall enough that Angela’s face was in his chest, and for a moment she couldn’t see anything except the badge around his neck, which was pressing into her nose. She could just make out, printed across the top of the badge, “TIBURON,” at the point above the tip of her nose.
Powerful hands clamped onto her shoulders and moved her gently back. “The mouth on this girl,” the man rumbled in a deep bass voice. “Where’d you learn to say that?” Angela blinked up at the man, and for a moment she could not breathe.
It was him.
The large, rough-looking man with the shaved head and Fu Manchu mustache. The one who had been staring at her.
He was staring now, with a half smile that frightened her more than an angry glare would have done.
“Somebody teach you to say that?” the man asked.
It took a moment for Angela to recall that she’d been speaking her Farsi phrase. And then it took another moment for her to overcome the sheer terror of being in his grip, and then remember to breathe. “It, it was—I heard some of your, ah—friends saying it?” she said hesitatingly. “This morning? You know, to the Iranians? And so, ah—it was just—I thought it must mean ‘good morning’? Or something . . . ?”
The man snorted with amusement. “Or something,” he said.
“Oh,” Angela said, feeling oddly deflated—and still very frightened. In truth, her knees were wobbling just a bit. But she summoned her British spirit, took a step back, and soldiered on. “Then it—I had just thought it sounded so cheerful, and I do so want for everyone to get on nicely, so I thought that if I at least learned to say ‘good morning’—and in any case I, I—” Angela jerked to a halt as she heard herself going on and on. Stop babbling! she told herself. “May I ask, what does it mean, Mr.— Ah . . . ?”
“‘Chief,’ not ‘mister,’ I work for a living,” he said, with a great deal more force than Angela thought was strictly necessary. But he held out a massive hand. “Walter Bledsoe,” he said.
Angela stared at the hand for a moment. It was covered with black hair, and the knuckles were enlarged and terribly scarred—and she realized he was holding it out in order to shake hands with her. “Oh! Yes, of course,” she said as her manners came back online. “Angela. Angela Dunham. I, ah—I’m the assistant curator?”
“Nice to meet you, Angela,” he said, with what was clearly meant to be a warm smile, but instead seemed to her like the sort of leer a jack-o’-lantern might wear.
“Likewise, I’m sure, Mr. Bledsoe,” she said.
“Walter, not ‘mister,’ that’s my old man,” he said. “Or just call me Chief, like everybody else.”
“Yes, of course—Chief,” Angela said. She realized he was still holding her hand and pulled it back. “Tell me then, ah, Chief,” she said, emboldened by his friendly attitude. “What does that phrase mean, if not ‘good morning’?”
“Kir tu kenet,” he said, with what seemed to Angela like a very authentic accent. His smile grew broader. “It means ‘My dick in your ass.’”
“Oh Lord,” she said, and she felt herself blushing.
“It’s really not something you oughta repeat. Not a pretty girl like you.”
Angela floundered for some reply, her blush growing deeper. As far as she knew, she had never before been considered “pretty,” even by boyfriends. She was, she knew, a prime example of British Plain: pale, with slightly pinched features, and a figure that tended toward the doughy. But this man said it with such sincerity, and it was tremendously flustering. “Well, that’s—thank you, but—and then what should I say?” she finally managed. “I mean, to the Iranian gentlemen?”
“Well, if you have to say something,” the chief said thoughtfully, “you could try ‘madar ghahbe.’ That means ‘motherfucker.’ Or ‘kirkhor,’ which is just plain old ‘dick sucker.’ Although my personal favorite is ‘kire asbe abi too koonet.’” He beamed. “That means ‘hippo’s cock in your ass.’”
In spite of herself, Angela laughed. She was not really fond of that sort of language, but the chief said it with such innocent joy that she co
uldn’t help it. “I was really looking for something more in the line of ‘good morning,’” Angela said.
“Waste of time with them,” he said. “Only way they ever respect you is if you got your foot on their neck.”
“Am I really to choose between a foot on the neck or a, ahem—a hippo’s cock?”
“That’s about the size of it,” the chief said with a solemn nod.
“Perhaps I should remain mute,” Angela said.
“Well,” he said seriously, “if you’re sure you don’t like the hippo’s cock?”
Angela opened her mouth, closed it again, and then, in spite of her shock—or perhaps because of it—she laughed. “I’m sure,” she said. And then with a bit of a smile—since he had thought her pretty—she said, “Certainly not in that context, any road.”
His smile broadened, which made Angela feel very uneasy—but also . . . What? She felt something else she couldn’t name, which increased her uneasiness. And so she hurried a smile onto her face and said, “Well. Thank you for setting me straight, Chief.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
And then Angela could not make herself turn away, although she quite clearly had to, and they lapsed into a rather awkward pause—or at least awkward to Angela. It didn’t seem to faze the chief at all. He just continued to regard with her with a fixed expression that reminded her of a large predator looking at its dinner. Angela felt her blush return and spread over her entire body, and she had no idea why. She really, truly wanted to leave, get on with her job, walk away from this man—and yet she did not, and she hadn’t a clue why. “Yes, well,” she said at last, determined to break away, “I’m afraid I have to get back to it. There’s a bit of bunting I need to get and, uh—in the supply room?”
The chief nodded. “Just where I was headed,” he said. “I’ll give you a hand.” And he did so quite literally, putting his large and powerful hand in the small of her back and shepherding her along the hallway to the supply room.