Josie threw up her hands. “Okay, have it your way. Keep it up, but you’re not hurting anyone but yourself. And Brett, of course, but it’s clear you don’t care about him.”
“He’s your best friend now, I suppose.”
“He’s your best friend, Angela, if only you would admit it.” Josie picked up the bottle of spray wax from the dresser and moved to one of the end tables. “I don’t know how I got into this anyway. I promised myself I was going to stay out of it and keep my mouth shut.”
“That would have been a first,” Angela teased, smiling slightly.
Josie didn’t reply and Angela hung the blouse back in the closet.
* * * *
Devlin rode the elevator up to the sixth floor of the Chrysler Building and got out when the doors slid open with soundless precision. He nodded to one of the secretaries sitting at a desk outside a glass cubicle. Her eyes followed him with interest but he didn’t notice. He had something on his mind.
“The Patria file come in yet?” Devlin said to the man inside the office as he opened the door.
The other man was about Devlin’s age. He was seated behind a desk, his feet up, sipping from a paper cup. He shook his head with exaggerated patience.
“Will you get off that, Dev?” he said. “You know how the lawyers procrastinate. It’ll be days yet, so relax.”
“I can’t relax,” Devlin said, pacing around the room.
“That’s nothing new,” his companion said dryly.
“I need a copy of the indictment, and I need the prosecutor’s evidence and arguments.”
“You’ll get them eventually.”
“Eventually is no good.”
Matt Hendley examined his friend with concern. Devlin was always itchy, but since he’d gotten involved in this Patria thing he was a bundle of raw nerves. More was going on than Devlin was willing to say, and until Devlin confided in him there was nothing he could do to help.
“I’m going to photostat the file when it comes in,” Devlin said.
Hendley sat up straighter. “You know you can’t do that, Dev. That stuff is strictly confidential. It can’t go out of this office until the trial is over and the verdict is final.”
“I want you to help me do it. There’s someone who has to see the case against Patria right now.”
“Would that someone be Patria’s niece?”
Devlin glanced at him quickly, then away. He said nothing.
“I thought so,” Hendley said. “I saw her picture in the papers. Very nice. And she was at the house the whole time you were there, right?”
Devlin met his eyes.
“She’s a lawyer too, or almost,” Hendley went on. “She would be able to understand that file and see how it stacks up against Frank. She’s the one you want to convince, huh Dev?”
Devlin nodded.
“She must be plenty mad at you right about now.”
“Plenty mad doesn’t quite describe it.”
“Let me guess. She’s convinced that good old Uncle Frankie is as pure as the driven snow.”
Devlin reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. “All she knows is how he treated her and by all reports he was very good to her. She can’t believe that he was, is, a criminal.”
Hendley snorted. “Why not? Didn’t she see The Godfather? All those guys bouncing babies and running to bakeries for their wives were also shooting people in the head when the occasion warranted it.”
“I don’t think she can apply that logic to her only living relative.”
“But you think she won’t be able to argue with the evidence in that file.”
“That’s right.” Devlin struck a match and put the cigarette he held into his mouth. He lit it and inhaled deeply.
“You’re smoking too much,” Hendley said.
“Thank you. I didn’t know that.”
Hendley drained his cup, crushed it, and tossed it into the trash. “All right,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”
Devlin met his gaze and smiled slowly.
“I’ll need a lookout while I’m copying the stuff. We’ll do it at night after everybody’s gone. Just in case security comes by or somebody else shows up I want another pair of eyes and ears.”
“It can’t wait until the trial?”
Devlin exhaled a stream of smoke.
“I’ll lose her if I wait,” he said simply.
Hendley shrugged. “Then consider it done.”
Devlin, never comfortable with emotion, put his hand on Hendley’s shoulder as he passed, squeezing it briefly. Then he walked out of the room.
The secretary who had seen him before looked up again as he strode by her desk. He fascinated her; he was always polite, courteous, but he gave nothing away. She wondered what his position was in the organization.
Then she shrugged philosophically and picked up the letter she was about to type. She was in the dark about a lot of things that went on in this office. But no more so than the public, who thought that the floor was rented to a company engaged in research for a new encyclopedia.
She fed the sheet of bond paper into the machine before her and began to type.
* * * *
Angela knocked on the door of Holly’s apartment, shivering in the chill salt wind that blew in off the bay. Holly lived in a bank of apartments that faced the water. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge loomed in the distance, tall and imposing, glinting in the sunset, rising above the gray river like a giant crane.
Holly answered the door eating an apple.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m glad you called. I could use a little help with T and E.”
“Trusts and Estates was never my strong point,” Angela said, walking inside and unbuttoning her coat. “You know that.”
Holly raised her brows. “Two heads are always better than one,” she said. “Unless one of the heads is occupied with something else,” she added pointedly. She took Angela’s coat and hung it in the entry closet. “You still look like a walking funeral.”
Angela hugged herself, glancing around the small chaotic apartment. It was furnished in a style Holly called “early marriage” and featured odds and ends of every description thrown together in eclectic disarray. Angela always felt more comfortable here than in her own house.
“I’m doing all right,” Angela answered shortly.
“Oh, I can see that,” Holly said dryly. She led the way into the living room where she had left a pot of tea on the coffee table. “We miss you at school. When do you think you’ll be able to come back?”
“I don’t know. As soon as this dies down. I won’t have to take exams until January.”
“Lucky girl.”
“I won’t think so in January.”
“That’s true.” They sat and Holly filled a cup, handing it to Angela. “I saw your uncle’s new lawyer on television last night.”
“Yeah. He’s really bringing in the big guns. That guy costs a fortune.”
“Well, your uncle has a fortune to pay him.”
“I offered to help prepare the case but Uncle Frank doesn’t want it. This whole thing is driving me crazy. I haven’t been able to see him and I haven’t a clue as to what’s been going on.”
“I’m sure everything is being done to help him.”
Angela didn’t answer, stirring milk into her tea.
“Chris went down to the fish market to get scrod for dinner. I know you like that.”
Angela nodded. “That was nice of him.”
Holly took a sip of her drink. “Have you heard from Brett?” she asked casually, as though the question merited little attention.
Angela raised her eyes to her friend’s. “You’d better improve your technique before you have to cross examine anybody in court, Holly. That wasn’t very subtle.”
“All right, maybe it wasn’t. Have you heard from him?”
“He came to the house the other night.”
Holly sat up, startled. She hadn’t known he’d been back.
“And?” Holly probed.
Angela put her cup down, pressing her lips together. “And I practically raped him. I was a monument to willpower, let me tell you. He touched me and I threw myself into his arms.”
Holly’s eyes grew sympathetic. “You love him, Angela. What did you expect?”
“I expected that I would be able to exert some self control. But no, one kiss and I was off to the races.” She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. “And this after I told him, in high dramatic fashion, that I never wanted to see him again.” She shook her head. “He must think I’m deranged.”
“But the two of you still haven’t worked it out, have you, in spite of the other night? I think you would be looking a lot happier if you had.”
“Oh, of course not. We wound up having another fight and he shot out of the house as if his clothes were on fire.”
“What was the fight about? As if I didn’t know.”
Angela shot her a bleak glance, then looked down at her hands which were clasped in her lap. “I can’t believe what he’s saying about my uncle, Holly. Frank is my father’s brother, and I can’t accept that he’s a . . . a . . . smuggler, a crime boss, whatever they’re calling him in the papers. There has to be another explanation.”
“And you think the other explanation is that tax case the government was never able to prove against him.”
“It has to be.”
“Don’t you think that might be a little farfetched?”
“I don’t know. All I can say is that I’d sooner believe my uncle, who has never lied to me, than Devlin, who was playing a role from the moment I first saw him.”
“Can you be sure that your uncle has never lied to you? If what the feds maintain is true, he’s been lying all your life about something very serious.”
Angela put her head in her hands. “I can’t be sure of anything. I don’t know what to think. I have never been this confused. It’s getting to the point where I can’t decide what to wear when I get up in the morning.”
“Angela?”
“What?” Angela looked up, blinking.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
Angela shook her head. “Not that we ever did anything to prevent it. Very irresponsible, I know, but with Brett everything was always so . . . sort of impulsive, spontaneous. ...” She trailed off and then started to cry.
Holly got up. “I’ll get some tissues.”
Angela wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry about this. All I seem to do is cry. Do you think I’m having a nervous breakdown? How can you tell?”
“I think that if you have the presence of mind to worry about it, you’re not.” Holly handed Angela a box of Kleenex.
“Thanks.” Angela wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I must look a fright.”
“You’ve looked better.”
Angela had to laugh. “I wish you weren’t quite so frank, Holly. This would be a good time to start sugar coating things for me, I could use a little finesse.”
“Sorry.”
Angela hiccuped and took another drink of tea. “That’s all right. Devlin didn’t have much use for glossing over the unpleasant either, so between the two of you I’m very used to it by now.”
The door opened and Chris blew in on a blast of cold air.
“Hi, ladies,” he greeted them. “Dinner is in the bag.”
Holly stood. “Let’s get to it, I’m starving.”
Angela got up and followed the two of them into the kitchen.
* * * *
Angela left Holly’s at ten in the evening and took a cab back to the town house. Devlin had made her feel uncomfortable about using the limousine, and she couldn’t ride in it now without feeling a subtle sense of guilt. Angela shifted impatiently on the seat and stared out at the late autumn night. Damn the man. He had invaded every corner of her life.
She dismissed the cab at the curb and climbed the steps wearily. She was rooting in her purse for her keys when she was grabbed violently from the rear, a hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled, unable to scream, as her arms were wrenched behind her back and bound together with a length of rope. She gasped as a gag replaced the hand in her mouth.
Two men held her, one on either side of her, and escorted her back down the steps so swiftly that her feet barely touched the stone. The street was deserted, and even if there had been anyone in view, Angela was incapable of making a sound, a gesture, to draw attention to herself. Whoever had planned this abduction had done a very thorough job.
A car sped to a stop in front of her and she was thrown unceremoniously into the backseat. She sat up, tossing her head to get her hair out of her face, and looked into the terrified eyes of Philip Cronin.
Her abductors jumped into the front seat, and the driver took off on screeching tires as the car vanished into the night.
* * * *
“Are you sure there’s nobody here?” Matt Hendley said in a stage whisper as Devlin fitted the key into the lock.
“I told you, the guard will pass this way again on his rounds in fifteen minutes. Will you hold that flashlight closer? I can’t see what I’m doing,” Devlin replied.
Hendley complied. “I feel like I’m breaking into the principal’s office to steal the test questions before final exams,” he said.
“Yeah, well, if we get caught, they’ll do more than suspend us,” Devlin stated, pushing open the door to the office.
The two men crept inside, trying so hard to be quiet that they made more noise than usual.
“Shut up,” Devlin hissed.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Then what was that noise?”
They both stopped to listen and heard nothing.
“Where did you put it?” Devlin asked.
“It’s in the top drawer. I left it at the back where we couldn’t miss it.”
Devlin pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet.
“It isn’t here!” he said, alarmed.
Hendley pushed past him. “What do you mean it isn’t there?” He reached over Devlin’s arm and located the file, putting it in Devlin’s hand. “God, man, you are a wreck. If it were a snake it would have bitten you.”
“I have a lot riding on this,” Devlin said grimly, riffling through the pages. “Did you read it?”
“I sure did. Your girl won’t have to be F. Lee Bailey to figure out that Frank is guilty as sin.”
“Good. Now we have to get to the copy machine.”
They shut the door of the office, leaving it unlocked, and made their way down to the alcove near the secretarial pool where the duplicating equipment stood.
“Make it snappy,” Hendley warned. “That’s a thick file and we have only ten minutes left.”
Devlin bent over the machine, and then groaned.
“What is it?” Hendley hissed.
“This thing takes three minutes to warm up.” He plugged it in and pushed the “on” button. The machine hummed into life.
“It should be okay, it works really fast once it’s operating at peak capacity. It’s supposed to be the best one made,” Matt said.
“Skip the lecture and keep your eyes on the hall,” Devlin responded.
They both waited impatiently for the “PRINT” light to go on, and the second it did Devlin began to feed the pages in Patria’s file into the machine one by one. The copies slid out into a well at the side of the machine.
“Six minutes,” Hendley announced. “Maybe the guard will be late.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Can’t you do that any faster?”
“Do you want to try it?” Devlin grabbed a pile of the duplicated material and shoved it into his jacket. “I don’t know what the hell I’m copying, I’m just duplicating everything.”
“It’s all pretty damning. I was really tempted to risk copying it this afternoon, but you know how those secretaries are. They keep an eagle eye on every move you make. I couldn’t risk it.”
“You’re doing enough to help me. I appreciate it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind while I’m selling pencils on the street corner,” Hendley replied.
The machine mangled a copy and Devlin swore under his breath.
“I feel like just taking the damn file and sneaking it back in tomorrow morning,” he said.
“How can you be sure you’d get it back before somebody would miss it? You know what a hot item it is right now and full time security begins again at six a.m. How could you explain your presence back here at that hour?”
“All right, all right,” Devlin muttered.
“Knock it off, I see a light,” Hendley whispered.
Devlin hit the “OFF” button and crouched on the floor. Hendley squatted next to him. Devlin swore he could hear their hearts pounding in unison in the still room.
The beam of a powerful flashlight swept across the frosted windows of the office and a hand tried the outer door, which they’d been careful to relock. Devlin held his breath as sweat broke out on his brow and his mouth became as dry as the Gobi Desert.
After an eternity the guard moved on down the hall. Hendley slumped against Devlin, clutching his arm.
“That one took three years off my life,” Hendley said.
Devlin jumped up and punched the machine back into life.
“This woman better be worth it,” Hendley added.
“She is,” Devlin said, and grabbed another handful of pages from the file.
* * * *
Later that night Devlin sat in a coffee shop on Broadway, reading the file he’d just copied. He chain smoked and drank four cups of black coffee before he finished it, and then he sat back, relaxed for the first time in several months. He crushed the butt of his last cigarette in the glass ashtray on the counter before him.
Angela would have to believe him once she read this. She was a good law student and would soon be a fine lawyer. She knew how to interpret evidence and draw the logical conclusion. This would convince her in a way he never could, by appealing to her intellect.
Devlin stood and threw a couple of bills on the counter, signaling to the waitress to keep the change.
He went out into the street and caught a cab, giving the address of Angela’s house.
* * * *
Josie answered the door when Devlin rang the bell, and he knew something was wrong the minute he saw her face.
Men of Intrgue A Trilogy Page 68